In this episode of The Mobile Alabama Business Podcast, we sit down with Lacey Evans with Dropout Bakery. Listen in as we discuss how she got started in baking, and what she is doing to increase his monthly cash flow!

Produced by Blue Fish

Transcript:

Lacey Evans: I'm Lacey Evans, and I own Dropout Bakery & Company. So exciting.

Marcus Neto: That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming, I know short notice. We literally I think made plans for this either this morning, or yesterday, or something.

Lacey Evans: Yeah, we did last night really.

Marcus Neto: Yeah, so thank you for coming on. I really do appreciate it. And as I was telling you before, you come highly recommended. Todd Greer, when I saw him last at Innovation Portal had nothing but good things to say about you, and the goods that you're selling and everybody that I've talked to has said that your stuff is phenomenal.

Lacey Evans: And it blows me away still to this day. I just do it with the passion and I guess that kind of translate into the baked goods. So it's really exciting to give somebody something yummy to eat.

Marcus Neto: For sure. It's a very Southern thing to say.

Lacey Evans: It makes people happy. I know right, we just want to feed you.

Marcus Neto: [inaudible 00:00:49]. Do you want some tea, a crumpet, or croissant, or something?

Lacey Evans: That's the funny thing, is because it is a Southern thing. And that's what I did out, and we'll get to it, in LA. And everybody's like, "She's offering me desserts." They were just blown away. It's hilarious.

Marcus Neto: It is, and I mentioned to you too that I started... And I don't know that it was my first job. No, my first job wasn't in a bakery, although it was really close to it. And so I've decorated cakes, I've been a baker, I've been a mixer, I've done all kinds of stuff.

Lacey Evans: Well I'm looking for one now I know who to come recruit.

Marcus Neto: I'm okay.

Lacey Evans: He said, "I'm okay."

Marcus Neto: My fiance worked at... There's a bakery down here on Dauphin Street near the CVS and I can't remember the name of it, but we won't mention, but she worked there for a number of years, and is a way better cake decorator than I am.

Lacey Evans: Oh, well yeah. You going to have to give me her number.

Marcus Neto: There you go. Well to get started, why don't you tell us the story of Lacey? Where are you from? Where'd you go to high school? Did you go to college?

Lacey Evans: Yeah, this is great. This the story pretty much of how I even came about with Dropout. So I am originally from here, grew up here, going to St. Paul's and right after I graduated, I was like, "You know what? I got to get out. I got to go do something interesting." And so right away after high school, I moved to Los Angeles and the heart of downtown.

Marcus Neto: That's a culture shock.

Lacey Evans: It's it is. It definitely is. But it did give me a lot to learn and pick up on, but I attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise. So I went for fashion kind of realized that it really wasn't for me, so I dropped out and right before the pandemic hit, I moved back home. Thank goodness.

Marcus Neto: Oh, well, okay. I was going to say, yeah.

Lacey Evans: I didn't even know that was coming and we just got out. So that was really nice. That's where I got the name Dropout from.

Marcus Neto: Oh, very good.

Lacey Evans: 'Cause I dropped out of college, but you can still make something of yourself even without-

Marcus Neto: If there's one thing, and I think I've mentioned this on a number of podcasts, if there's one thing that I've recognized by doing this, cause we've done over 250 episodes over the course of five years. We've had all kinds of people on from the mayor down. There's no correlation between education and success.

Lacey Evans: No.

Marcus Neto: And so it's something internal that drives a person to achieve those things.

Lacey Evans: And as a high school student, it's kind of funny, I've always been an entrepreneur. Junior year I built websites for people, for myself being one and I got really into drop shipping from LA Express and then it straight from the warehouse to the customer. So I never touched any product, it was just all revenue. And so I kind started off with that. That was my very first opening to entrepreneurialship and just owning a business and knowing what it takes to make it run and work. So that's really where I started with the whole business. And once I came back here, I've always been into baking ever since Rachel Ray was a hot commodity, which is really funny. I was probably like seven years old and into the food network, which is really weird for a seven year old.

Marcus Neto: Not watching Nickelodeon.

Lacey Evans: No. No, I was watching Cutthroat Kitchen.

Marcus Neto: There you go.

Lacey Evans: So I've always been interested and then once I moved back from college, I would be always be baking for myself and my boyfriend and just posting it on my social media, that being Instagram mostly. And I would always get DM's from people being like, "How can I buy a birthday cake from you? Is that even possible?" And I was like, "You know what, let me learn how to do that real quick and then I got you." So I would just pull up YouTube. I hate to say it, but you really can learn anything on YouTube.

Marcus Neto: Nothing wrong with that. I tell people-

Lacey Evans: It's modern day school.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. You mentioned learning how to do websites and stuff. I tell people, I hire people all the time. I don't care whether they've got an education or not. I just want them to have the skills.

Lacey Evans: Yes, exactly.

Marcus Neto: You can learn that from anywhere.

Lacey Evans: Right, exactly. So that's what I did. Practice, practice, practice, that helps me. And then I was like, "You know what? People are loving it, might as well use my social media background and expertise to start a little bakery page." And so I came up with the name Dropout because I was like, "That's kind of catchy, it might get people's attention. And I might be able to relate to other people that are in the same type community as a little dropout." Because the south, it really isn't as accepted as-

Marcus Neto: I get that.

Lacey Evans: -somewhere else. So I just wanted to show this is possible and it also shows the power of social media, which is really important for Alabama, I think to realize like social media, these days really carries.

Marcus Neto: Can you say that louder please?

Lacey Evans: Yeah. Right. This is really important.

Marcus Neto: This episode is sponsored by Bluefish. Yeah. Go.

Lacey Evans: I love that. So I was just creating and people were loving it, so I came up with the Instagram and that was our main source of marketing and selling. That's where we sold just through DM, "Send me a DM, what cake flavor you want and you got it. Come pick it up."

Marcus Neto: That is so wild.

Lacey Evans: So that's how we started.

Marcus Neto: That just gives the show there really is... And sometimes you just walk into something like that. Right?

Lacey Evans: Absolutely. I said, last night, "What did I get myself into? I'm still baking out of my loft kitchen."

Marcus Neto: Oh gosh.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. It really is. It's a hoot. It is a hoot.

Marcus Neto: Well, go back for me to your first job.

Lacey Evans: Yeah.

Marcus Neto: Were there any lessons that you still remember from that? And I don't mean your first job as in like your first job at a bakery or something. I'm saying like, literally your first job.

Lacey Evans: I have to say, I don't, I never really worked for someone else because I always knew that's not what I want to do. And I don't say that to sound arrogant or like, I don't like being told what to do because I can always learn and grow. But just the weirdest thing, as a kid, I was just like, "I'm just going to do my own thing and do something I love."

Marcus Neto: Well, if you know, you know.

Lacey Evans: But yeah. I know if you know, you know, and I guess everybody chose this career for me kind of. I love it though. I really wouldn't change it.

Marcus Neto: We'll go back to the first job that you created then.

Lacey Evans: Yeah.

Marcus Neto: Are there any lessons that you still remember from that?

Lacey Evans: Definitely there are definite lessons and one of them being persistence. Just consistency and waking up, just getting up and getting out of bed and making yourself do the work, that really doesn't seem fun, but you got to do it to get in front of people and persuade them.

Marcus Neto: I was telling somebody earlier today it was somebody here on staff and we were talking about a conference that they had just been, actually, it was Rick. We were talking about a conference that he just got back from and I said, "I went to a conference, there was a lot of motivational type stuff. But the one thing that I took away from that conference was that you can't do anything if you don't get started."

Lacey Evans: Oh, absolutely.

Marcus Neto: And so oftentimes I think people are like, they're worried about steps that are going to happen in the middle and the end of their journey, but they don't realize like, "Hey, I just got to get out of bed and make the donuts."

Lacey Evans: Right.

Marcus Neto: You know, I mean, like-

Lacey Evans: It just starts with...

Marcus Neto: Just getting out of bed.

Lacey Evans: The motivation, I guess.

Marcus Neto: Exactly.

Lacey Evans: And I'm 22. So I have a lot to learn with business.

Marcus Neto: Well if you're 22 and you're getting the reviews that I'm hearing then you're going to have a very good career ahead of you-

Lacey Evans: Thank you.

Marcus Neto: -in the banking business.

Lacey Evans: I appreciate that.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. Well, you talked to us about how you got the name and how you got started, but is there anything else that you would like to add to how you started?

Lacey Evans: We kind of got sidetracked. So once I came back here, I built a website along with doing the Instagram and the Facebook, which was a huge thing for me, because once you can direct things straight from a link tab or a QR code, it makes it easy for people to just kind of go through and add to cart. It's that simple. So what really hit and made us in the public eye is when king cake season rolled around and Mardi Gras was here. We made viral king cakes that everybody was just clawing over to get. The craziest thing, I had never made a king cake in my life before. I made the first king cake that somebody just died over.

Marcus Neto: How many did you end up making these houses?

Lacey Evans: Oh, that's a amazing question, because we definitely put out more than 500 king cakes.

Marcus Neto: Holy cow.

Lacey Evans: That is-

Marcus Neto: Did your oven ever go off?

Lacey Evans: My oven is a trooper. She hadn't stopped. She is the hardest little worker.

Marcus Neto: That's insane.

Lacey Evans: My power bill went up though, I will say.

Marcus Neto: Yeah, I can imagine. No, that's a lot of king cakes.

Lacey Evans: It's a lot of king cakes. We had a little mini six inch so people could try. And we had a bunch of different flavors too, which really made it interesting. We didn't just have the basic cream cheese. We had brown butter cream cheese to elevate that.

Marcus Neto: I don't, that's insane. Like I don't even want hearing ant more because it's going to make me hungry. And you brought me a little goody bag, but I know you didn't bring me any brown butter king cakes.

Lacey Evans: I know. And we had brown butter cream cheese cinnamon rolls today that sold out an under an hour, which was crazy. Those are kind of like a spin off of our king cakes that we do, but everybody loved them and it was a hot commodity here.

Marcus Neto: Yeah, that's really cool.

Lacey Evans: So that really also catapulted us to where we are now, which once everybody started hearing about the hot new king cake in town, the news contacted me and when that happened, my mouth was on the ground. I was like, "You've got to be kidding me, this is going somewhere. This is crazy." So we took that on and once we took that on right when that segment ended, I got 30 calls in that 30 minutes. I mean a call a minute. It was crazy.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. Well one of my questions is, do you remember the first blank and in this case it could have been any product, king cake, macaroons, whatever. Cinnamon rolls that you made, that you said, "There might be something to this," and you just had an aha moment with the king cake and the news coming and all that stuff. But is there, is there a moment that early on, as you were getting started where somebody asked you to make something and you made it and you were like, "Hey, like, okay, this might be something. I might be onto something here."

Lacey Evans: Let's see. I will say I got so many just birthday cake orders. And you can get a birthday cake anywhere, but I will say it's not a specific product that we made, it's really the products that we used that I was like, "Okay, this is making what we're making to be memorable and something different where you can't get it around." We use really high quality products, ingredients. I source my eggs from a local farmer and they literally come to me with feathers on them. And it is just the cutest. I'm like, "Okay, so this is fun." So we're kind of doing a farm to bakery style.

Marcus Neto: That is so cool. Cause-

Lacey Evans: I make it fresh.

Marcus Neto: -farm to table.

Lacey Evans: Farm to table.

Marcus Neto: But they would never have thought to apply that to a bakery.

Lacey Evans: Right exactly. And so that's what we're doing. And we're using just really high quality, like Irish butter and fresh edible flowers, just putting our own twist on things and once somebody sees something they're like, "That could be from Dropout bakery," cause you see the gold foil or the edible flowers, just things that set us apart is what we're going for.

Marcus Neto: Chrissy, my fiance makes a buttermilk pie, that's just absolutely amazing. And it was delicious to begin with, but then we're building a house and the neighbor behind us, Blair, gave us some eggs from her chickens. And it's amazing to me the difference between a yard egg versus just something that you buy at the store, but we all have-

Lacey Evans: Huge difference and I'll get into that in a second.

Marcus Neto: Oh absolutely. So. She made a buttermilk pie with that and we use Irish butter and [crosstalk 00:14:58] yeah, exactly. It's it is amazing to me the difference that those eggs make.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. And most people don't realize, and this is probably TMI for a lot of people that chickens contain worms, most of them contain worms. So the eggs that people are getting from the stores are a source from worms, chickens, which is not healthy in the least bit. So most people, even people who do own farms, don't realize that you have to deworm the chickens because there's not even a product on the market that will do a deworming of a chicken.

Marcus Neto: Really?

Lacey Evans: Yeah. 'Cause nobody really realizes that. And the guy that I get my eggs from has told me this and teaching me about it. So he deworms his chicken. So our eggs are completely a hundred percent organic, amazing eggs.

Marcus Neto: There's also something very much to be said about a chicken that gets to roam freely a little bit, eating bugs and other things they find. Which is what they would normally eat instead of some sort of grain or something like that they would find.

Lacey Evans: Right. Right.

Marcus Neto: Commercial setting.

Lacey Evans: As natural as possible, that's what we like.

Marcus Neto: Well, if you were talking to someone that wanted to get started in running their own business, what's the one bit of wisdom that you would impart to them.

Lacey Evans: I would just encourage them to use social media as a platform. If they have a platform already, use that and push your business out there through social media, through the internet. Oh, another very, very essential part of growing a business is collaborating, not trying to get there by yourself. Network is net worth. And so I just really do believe that people around you are very key part of your growth.

Marcus Neto: Absolutely.

Lacey Evans: In business.

Marcus Neto: No, very much so. And it's interesting to me, the internet has brought about this mentality of freely sharing information. And so for us when we build a website and we've done something cool, oftentimes we'll write a blog post and we'll explain how that was done and most people from business would say, "Well, that's silly. Why would you do that? You should hold all those secrets going in," but the thing is that when you put it on the internet, you're showing people that you know what you're doing, you are showing your peers that you have solved a problem. It's forcing you to learn something new because once you've learned that and you've shared it with anybody, well, you're no longer special anymore. So you know something new, but I don't know. There's just all these things that happen when you start freely sharing that information and none of it's bad.

Lacey Evans: No, people admire that.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. Very much so.

Lacey Evans: I think they do.

Marcus Neto: Well. Are there any books, podcasts, people, or organizations that have been helpful in moving you forward?

Lacey Evans: Let's see. I go through Instagram, my Instagram feed is a bunch of motivational speakers. I took a David Ramsey/Chris Hogan class, which I thought was pretty helpful. They motivated me a lot. But Gary, what's his name?

Marcus Neto: Vaynerchuk

Lacey Evans: Oh yes.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. Gary Vee

Lacey Evans: Oh Gary Vee is my answer to that.

Marcus Neto: Very much so.

Lacey Evans: Period after that.

Marcus Neto: Very much so. Yeah. He's-

Lacey Evans: I just love him.

Marcus Neto: What is it that strikes you about Gary that you-

Lacey Evans: He's just very like powerful and assertive, knows what he's talking about. And he's got a lot of great stories and a lot of great wisdom that I really can relate with.

Marcus Neto: Yeah for sure.

Lacey Evans: Helps me.

Marcus Neto: Most people will know his story, we've talked about him a number of times. But it's interesting how his message has changed. And I still really like him even after having listen, because sometimes when you listen to people like that, it's like, it's the same old shit. Come on.

Lacey Evans: Right.

Marcus Neto: Come up with something new and he was king of the hustle and I think he's learned that he needs to be more balanced in his life.

Lacey Evans: Good. Good. Yeah.

Marcus Neto: And so now he's talking a lot about finding the work that's important to you much like what you have, and pouring yourself into that and that success comes from that, but don't expect success. If you're starting a bakery, well, you may not be President of the United States kind of thing, but you may have a amazing bakery with number locations and all that other stuff. So I don't know. He's got a very good message for people today and he used to be all about social media and all the things that you do on it and he still talks about that, but he's just a really powerful person when it comes to just like-

Lacey Evans: I agree.

Marcus Neto: -what do you want to do with your life.

Lacey Evans: Oh, I agree. Yeah. He also humors me.

Marcus Neto: Very much so. Like you said-

Lacey Evans: His YouTube videos. He's just harsh on people and it just humors me, just think he's a crack up.

Marcus Neto: He doesn't cut people any slack if I don't need it.

Lacey Evans: No, he doesn't.

Marcus Neto: Well, what's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business?

Lacey Evans: The most important thing is definitely, with my business in particular, customer service and having the ability to keep relationships with your customers and making things personal and special for people.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. Very much so.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. I think they all love an experience too. Giving people an experience and something to remember rather than just handing them a cake, just more of an experience type, a good vibe is really what I've learned.

Marcus Neto: Very much so. Now you said that there was a story about LA or [inaudible 00:21:40] or something along those lines and we went in a different direction and you said you were going to come back to that, but I don't remember what it was exactly.

Lacey Evans: Oh, heavens listen to us we done lost track.

Marcus Neto: There was something about-

Lacey Evans: Oh, the cooking for people.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. In LA.

Lacey Evans: Is that what it was?

Marcus Neto: That was.

Lacey Evans: So yeah, when I was there, like you said, it was a huge culture shock, which is not a bad thing. It might have been more culture shock for people around me than the locals to have me right there. But my boyfriend Will, he is my croissant king and he makes an amazing croissant and he's from Connecticut. So we met in LA and he had more friends than I did at the moment, cause he had lived there a bit longer than me. He had maybe two years under his belt there. And so he would bring all his guy friends and I would bring my girlfriends over and every time somebody would come over, I would have brownies cooked or a lemon pie and people would just get cracked up. That's not a normal thing that people would think of to do for others.

Marcus Neto: They might throw some chips out or something along.

Lacey Evans: Yeah, yeah. Like a dip or something, but baking that takes time and thought. So people would just get cracked up. And I guess I get it from my great-grandmother who just adored, baking and being in the kitchen. And so it's a very endearing thing for people to run across.

Marcus Neto: So is that where this really starts is this time spent with family and-

Lacey Evans: Absolutely.

Marcus Neto: - your grandmother in the kitchen and stuff like that?

Lacey Evans: Absolutely. Every Sunday after church, we would go to her place and always have an amazing meal. She baked amazing lemon ice box pies, banana pudding. And honestly my recipes, some of them are her recipes.

Marcus Neto: Oh very cool.

Lacey Evans: And so it's actually really cool because the strawberry tart that I served last week in our popup, it was her recipe and the people who came in and tried it would put it on their story and the caption was, "This gives me an amazing memory of when I was in childhood eating something very similar to this." It brings back memories, which is also very cool to hear is because when you can associate just eating something one day randomly with a memory that's powerful.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. It's funny how that'll do-

Lacey Evans: It's really powerful.

Marcus Neto: It's funny how smells and taste in particular-

Lacey Evans: All the senses are just-

Marcus Neto: -can take you back in a second.

Lacey Evans: Absolutely. And that is another thing is the smells, it gives people rememberings and memories and the smell we have in the bakery, we use a little diffuser in there and it's a specific memory of mine actually. I love to travel and Miami is a place that I love to go, even as a kid, we would go there. And I would just remember walking into this one hotel called the One Hotel. And just the scent was just so amazing and I actually found the exact scent that they use and it's pumping in the bakery and one person knew exactly what it was. I was like, "That's cool." My fellow One Hotel lover.

Marcus Neto: I was going to say, yeah, because well Miami's, I would imagine people here get to Miami occasionally, because it's a hub, especially for international travel.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. Right.

Marcus Neto: But at the same time, I've probably only been to Miami a couple of times. I've never been to the One.

Lacey Evans: Really a cool hotel.

Marcus Neto: A person that knew that scent.

Lacey Evans: Isn't that cool?

Marcus Neto: Yeah. That is pretty-

Lacey Evans: Just the thought that goes into every aspect of things is what's important to people.

Marcus Neto: 1000000% that I couldn't agree more, but it's everything it is from your logo and we talk about a brand or it's not really just a logo it's someone's experience with all of the various facets of your business. Right?

Lacey Evans: Right.

Marcus Neto: So it's how you answer the phone, it's the taste of your product, it's the sense of what they smell when they walk in.

Lacey Evans: Different colors and yeah.

Marcus Neto: Exactly. And it's the paper that you wrap it in.

Lacey Evans: Yeah.

Marcus Neto: It's all that stuff. And oftentimes people, I think really just focus on the baked goods.

You know?

Lacey Evans: Yeah.

That is really what people just pour all of their attention into.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. And you talked about the experience factor of that. And I know you said you were only 22, but you're talking to me like somebody's been running your business for 10 or 20 years and-

Lacey Evans: Oh that's sweet.

Marcus Neto: It's like if you can do something in the experience because you said it, "I can get a cake anywhere. It may not be as good, but I can get a cake anywhere." But what are the other things that set you apart from all those others that makes them want to pay a little bit more or maybe not, I don't know what your prices are, but I'm sorry.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. I was about to say you could probably go to the store and get half the price of a cake. But it is just the experience that people are wanting. But the things that set us apart really are, I would say the taste for one. It's just very high quality and we don't skimp on the type of ingredients we use like I talked about. Being able to come into the space, which is different for us now since we were mainly online, but being able to come into a space and enjoy half of a day there, sit there or bring your friends by, just the experience. And then I would also say making the desserts into a modern twist, putting that gold foil on or the flaky salt. Just little things like that people appreciate and they don't even realize that.

Marcus Neto: Well, that's really cool. I don't even know what to say. It's the attention to detail that is really going to elevate any business. It's very cool that you figured that out.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. I appreciate that.

Marcus Neto: Have I asked you the what's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business? I think we did. Did we do that? I'm pretty sure we did that.

Lacey Evans: I feel like we could have.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. How do you like to unwind?

Lacey Evans: How? That's a great question.

Marcus Neto: I told you this was the hardest question. Everybody always stumbles on this one.

Lacey Evans: I know. Well, like I said, to you before we started, I really don't have much of a personal life. I don't have time to unwind, but when I do, I like to go over the bay. I have a little mini golden doodle. Gosh, I feel bad for her sometimes. She's a trooper. She sticks with me while I bake six hours a day, well I bake way longer than that, I say six hours because she's bored stiff for six hours probably. But I like to take her over the bay and like into Fair Hope area and I just go bring a blanket or like a picnic type vibe and sit on the beach and just get some fresh air. Fresh air is how I unwind. I love fresh air.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. It's funny. Because recently what I've found is if I'm stressed or I need to just clear my mind, we're further down Dolphin Street and so I used to just go out the front door and go for a walk. Well I can't really do that here. I don't know whatever reason it feels a little bit different even though we're just on the other side of Broad Street, but I have the electric bike in the super 73 and so what I find now is that I just get on and I go for a ride for 10 or 15 minutes. Couple of loops on Dolphin Street or something like that and come back and I'm like, okay, I'm-

Lacey Evans: Ready to go back.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. I'm ready to go back.

Lacey Evans: Ready to work?

Marcus Neto: Got to get some sun, some air.

Lacey Evans: Definitely. Hear the birds chirp a few times.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. Maybe say hi to somebody. It always happens if you go down Dolphin Street, you're going to run into somebody.

Lacey Evans: Oh it happens every time. Which is lovely. That's what I love about living downtown too.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. It is cool.

Lacey Evans: Being able to walk around and chit chat, seeing familiar faces.

Marcus Neto: That's too funny. Well tell people where they can find you.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. So we are located inside the innovation portal building, which is 358 St. Louis street and we are functioning on a popup type schedule just to keep things fresh and new and people wanting more. We're open Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from 8:00 AM till sold out and that varies when we sell out.

Marcus Neto: 3.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. Right.

Marcus Neto: [inaudible 00:31:15] That you've been selling out quickly?

Lacey Evans: Yeah. 8 to 8:30. Just kidding. No, but we usually sell out around noon to one just depending on the day, but we also have pre-orders online, just if people don't feel like being an early bird and getting out too early. You can find our website through Instagram or our Facebook.

Marcus Neto: Very cool.

Lacey Evans: And yeah, we hope to do some more fun stuff. Our menu changes each week too, which is fun.

Marcus Neto: Do you have any plans for a location and you don't have to say if you do, I'm assuming that you do.

Lacey Evans: Well, I do. I absolutely do. I love being in that innovation portal building, it's a great area for foot traffic. We don't have a kitchen in there quite yet, but we are in the process of talking to the people we need to talk to, mobile official wise, to be able to put a kitchen in there. I think it would be cool to stay in that spot. I don't really see myself moving out of downtown area. I love downtown. So I really would like to make it possible to stay in the innovation portal building, with just adding a kitchen. But there may could be a possibility that we'll be on Dolphin Street sometime soon in the new Outsiders.

Marcus Neto: I was going to say-

Lacey Evans: Location.

Marcus Neto: -the family connection to Insider Outsider, which is for those of you that don't know. Jake and Luke PV, as well as Matt Lamont joined forces a couple of years ago, we did the [inaudible 00:33:01] video interview with them about that joining of forces. I think it may still be on the website. If not contact me, I'll send it to you, whatever. So they just started a new restaurant called the Insider Collective. The outsider is, I guess the bar portion. It's also connected to Cedar Street. I eat there today, it's unbelievable.

Lacey Evans: Oh, fire food spots.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. The insider is like a food court kind of feed to it. But instead of McDonald's and Burger King and Taco Bell, you've got PS tacos and you've got Smashburger and you've got District Chicken and some other stuff in there. So it's an incredible spot too, right on Dolphin. And today it was slammed for lunch.

Lacey Evans: Oh, I'm sure.

Marcus Neto: They're not going to have any problems to keep the place busy.

Lacey Evans: No problem. They said that they could use a little dessert spot. So hopefully that'll be soon.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. That is one thing I did not... I didn't see anybody that was serving dessert, with the exception of the burger place serves a milkshake if I remember correctly. And I was-

Lacey Evans: Yeah, a milkshake.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. I was having-

Lacey Evans: Hey, I love me a milkshake.

Marcus Neto: Yeah.

Lacey Evans: I do. You can't you really, now that I think about it, you can't get a good milkshake around.

Marcus Neto: Well there's no-

Lacey Evans: Maybe you can, but I just don't... Nothing sticks out.

Marcus Neto: Yeah. No-

Lacey Evans: And I'm not talking about drive through milkshakes.

Marcus Neto: What was the place down on Royal Street that had ice cream? It was right there across from Battle House. I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, they had ice cream and milkshakes and stuff like that. I can't remember the name of it, but anyway, I was remarking earlier that there's no place to go and get like an ice cream cone or something like that downtown.

Lacey Evans: Right. Right.

Marcus Neto: And so yeah, they need an ice cream and a-

Lacey Evans: Definitely

Marcus Neto: -and a baked goods spot inside there.

Lacey Evans: Yeah. So hopefully we can provide that demand.

Marcus Neto: Well, you'll need to start planning for your second and third spots too, because that one's going to be very, very successful. Well, I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast, to wrap up any final thoughts or comments you'd like to share.

Lacey Evans: Oh, I appreciate you having me. I just feel so just blessed to be here.

Marcus Neto: Well thank you for coming. Yeah. It was a delight to get to know you. Thank you for the treats that you brought, I'm sure they're going to be delicious.

Lacey Evans: Got to let me know.

Marcus Neto: I'm not going to eat them until I get home so that I don't eat them all exactly. I'll share them with Chrissy, but-

Lacey Evans: Oh that's sweet.

Marcus Neto: But yeah, I think having talked to you, I think you're going to be very successful.

Lacey Evans: Well, thank you. I appreciate that coming from you.

Marcus Neto: Well, thank you.

Lacey Evans: Especially.

Marcus Neto: Yeah.

Well Lacey, appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner and entrepreneur. It's been great talking with you.