For 18 years, Lori has built a space where people feel seen, heard, safe, and welcomed. But behind the warm atmosphere is a journey filled with risk, creativity, grief, reinvention, motherhood, community-building, and resilience.

We talk about:
• How Scorpion Hearts Club came to be (and its past as Stray Dog Café & Sparrow’s)
• Creating a genuinely safe space for staff and patrons
• What it means to listen well and build community intentionally
• The emotional + business reality of selling a brand
• Balancing business ownership with parenting
• Navigating grief after losing her husband, David Wenzel
• Why love, honesty, and stubborn hope still matter
• And how being “a little salty, a little loving” can build a powerful creative culture

This episode is thoughtful, deeply human, funny, vulnerable, and full of wisdom for entrepreneurs, creatives, parents, and anyone who believes community still matters.