It's New Orleans: Out to Lunch

In the course of childhood, we have innumerable experiences.

We spend a portion of our adult lives trying to recover from the ones that scar us. But there are also positive experiences. Joyful times and meaningful relationships stay with us. They come to define happiness.

For Brittney Hawkins Dobard, one of her happy-place emotional touchstones was with her grandmother in her kitchen, baking cookies.

As a kid, Brittney called her grandmother, “MoMo Gerald.” As an adult, Brittney was in car sales.

When you’re a car salesperson, your customer spends a bunch of time waiting around. To make the wait less painful, Brittney started bringing her customers homemade cookies. Like MoMo Gerald used to bake.

In 2019, Brittney realized her cookies were so popular - and she enjoyed making them so much - that she quit selling cars and started up NOLA Cookie Co.

Today NOLA Cookie Co cranks out up to 800 cookies a week. They sell them from their website, ship them across the country, and supply the Virgin Hotel with 300 cookies a month.

Margie Tillman Ayres called her grandmother, “Granny.”  But she started out following her in grandfather’s footsteps, as a jewelry designer.

It was only when Margie was struggling and out of necessity took a job in the art department at Jazz Fest that she discovered how much she enjoyed recreating her childhood days with Granny, painting, making sculptures and puppets.

In 2014 Margie made it official – she become an artist, muralist and illustrator, starting up her own company, Margie and The Moon.

You’ll see Margie’s work all over New Orleans – from murals at places like the restaurant Mr. Mao and music venue The Broadside – to her scenic work in movies and TV shows that are shot here. You’ve probably also seen her commercial work as an illustrator and her graphic designs for companies as diverse as Pyrex and Trader Joe’s.

Margie’s style is immediately recognizable. It’s a unique whimsicality executed with realist perfection. Margie is currently committing this style to canvases as she moves away from illustration and toward selling her pieces as fine art.

When you’re a parent or grandparent, you know that your kids or grandkids are constantly observing you. And absorbing everything. At least until they’re teenagers, when that totally flips. But when they’re young kids you never know what seemingly inconsequential thing you say or do is going to stick with them and resonate through their lives. And maybe even form the basis of an entire career.

Brittney and Margie's grandmothers, MoMo Gerald and Granny, might be  surprised at the influence they’ve had on their grandaughter's lives and careers, but they’d certainly be proud. 

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No matter which side of the political fence you’re on, there’s probably one thing you and your friends on the other side agree on. And that is, you can’t believe anything you see, read, or hear in the news anymore.

At least, you don’t believe anything on the channels they subscribe to. And they don’t believe anything anyone says on your side.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was an organization that researched issues and published unbiased facts, without ideological partisanship or a devotion to page-views or ratings?

Well, guess what? There is! And it’s right here in New Orleans. It’s the Bureau of Governmental Research. The name might not have the zing of an exciting-sounding operation, but BGR’s reporting has a multi-million dollar impact, in New Orleans and beyond.

BGR’s President, CEO, and current Samuel Zemurray Chair in Research Leadership, is Rebecca Mowbray.

It’s hard to overstate the amount of time each of us spends doing research these days. We’ve shortened the term “research” to simply “search” and, if you’re like most people, you search e-commerce sites; you search restaurants to go out to eat, or delivery services to order in; you search for a plumber, you search the news, the weather, and the list scrolls on…

This is mostly time you spend alone. But when you look up from your computer or your phone, maybe you’d like to discuss your opinions with another person. Or, maybe you’d like to learn from an expert – an actual human - whose knowledge comes from education and experience, beyond the internet.

If you’re a woman in New Orleans, there’s a place where you can do all of this. It’s called Salon22. Salon 22 is a professional women’s club and idea hub, co-founded by 4 women - one of whom is Salon 22’s CEO, Fay Kimbrell.

Because in our regular lives most of us tell the truth most of the time, we tend to believe other people are telling us the truth most of the time, too. But, when it comes to news or information sources, it’s a different story. According to Pew Research, 86% of Americans get at least some of their news online. But only 7% of us trust that what we’re seeing is true. So, the cliché complaint, “Nobody believes anything anymore,” is actually pretty accurate.

Here’s another interesting statistic. Do you know what the most trusted online news site is? The Weather Channel.

So, if you want trusted, reliable information, other than the weather, where do you go? One answer is, the Bureau of Governmental Research. And if you’re looking for a place to sit and absorb this information, or people to network with, to learn from and discuss things with, you can go to Salon 22.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before the advent of e-commerce, the only way you could buy something was to go to a store. 

Manufacturers wholesaled products to retailers, and retailers added a profit margin, which became the price consumers paid.

When e-commerce came along, some manufacturers realized they could cut out the middleman - and the term “direct to consumer” was born.

Because consumers are used to paying retail, manufacturers who sell direct-to-consumer charge retail prices - substantially increasing their profit margin. If this model works for furniture, electronics, and sports shoes, why couldn’t it work for art?

Artists typically get paid nothing at all for their work, until their artwork sells, at which time they give the retailer – typically a gallery owner – 50% of the sale price.

New Orleans artist Amanda Stone Talley is rewriting that business model. She cuts out the retail middleman by having her own gallery. And she’s built a website with an e-commerce function that offers a direct-to-consumer experience that’s as easy as shopping on Amazon.

 If you don’t like business as usual, start your own business, and do it your own way. That was Michael Newcomer’s response to moving to New Orleans. He was planning on working as an actor in what he thought was going to be a thriving, well-paid theater scene.

When he got here - after being an actor in Los Angeles and New York - Michael found the New Orleans theater scene was neither thriving nor well-paid. So, in 2022 he co-founded, and today is Executive Director of, Crescent City Stage.

The company bills itself as Louisiana’s first fully professional regional theater, offering paid Theatrical Union jobs.

In the early days of the mostly tech-driven entrepreneurial renaissance of the early two-thousands, we heard a lot about “disruption.” Ride-sharing disrupted the taxi industry. Streaming disrupted the music industry. Food delivery services disrupted the restaurant industry.

When entrepreneurs went looking for financial backing back then, if investors didn’t see a potential for disruption, they didn’t see potential for success. Today we don’t hear much about disruption. Not so much because everything has been disrupted already, but because this kind of up-ending, innovative business thinking has become normalized.

So, when people like Amanda set about disrupting the commerce of art, or Michael set sabout disrupting the landscape of local theater, we no longer look at it as revolutionary. But, actually, it is revolutionary. And it takes the same level of vision and courage as it always has to forge a new path.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you start a business that sells a product, the first thing you have to do is resolve a contradiction. On the one hand, you want to sell a product everybody needs. On the other hand, if it’s so vital that everybody needs it, they’ve probably already got it.

What you have to do is convince a consumer that when they need to replace whatever-it-is, they need to try your product. Because your product is different. This difference is what’s called “differentiation.” Pretty simple. And obvious. It’s what differentiates your hopefully ubiquitous product from everybody else’s.

When it came to Jacob Lawson’s flooring company, he decided that what makes his, mostly industrial, polished concrete flooring different from everybody else’s is, his floors are extraordinary.

That’s why he changed the name of his company from Big Jake Affordable Flooring, to Extraordinary Flooring.

That was in the early two-thousands. If I was to read the names of companies Extraordinary Flooring has made floors for, it would take up half of this show.

Suffice to say, if you live in New Orleans, or even visit here, you’ve almost certainly walked on an Extraordinary Floor. Here are just a few examples: The Superdome. The Convention Center. The World War II Museum. Hilton Hotels. Ochsner Hospital. Touro Hospital. Rouse’s Supermarkets. French Truck Coffee. New Orleans Original Daiquiris. Southern University. Lockheed Martin Stennis Space Center… You get the idea.

Jacob Lawson is also the author of the how-I-did-it book, “Make It Extraordinary: 27 Life Changing Lessons That Will Elevate You Beyond The Ordinary."

Now we’re going to apply this same differentiator principle to women’s underwear.

I’m not going to presume to be an authority on this statistic, but I’d hazard an educated guess that most women wear underwear. So, that seems like a good place to start if, like Mindy Christie, you’re going to start up a new lingerie business.

Mindy launched her lingerie business in New Orleans in 2020 under the brand name, Furious Viola. In 2023 she re-branded, as undergoodies. (The all-lower-case spelling is a marketing decision.)

The undergoodies differentiator is, these undergarments don’t look like anything you see at Victoria’s Secret. They’re not skimpy thongs - nor are they designed to necessarily disappear and be invisible under clothes. They’re not in traditional white, neutral or black - they’re brightly colored.

A generation-or-two ago these styles of lingerie were known as pettipants and pettislips. Undergoodies are retro, with updated designs that make them current fashion. People are buying them in stores in 11 states and online at the undergoodies website.

Mindy and Jacob are at very different points on the timelines of their businesses. Jacob is able to talk - and write - about the extraordinary successes he's had with Extraordinary Flooring. Mindy is in the building phase of undergoodies, but extraordinary success doesn’t seem to be too far away.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In New Orleans we pride ourselves on our extensive array of live entertainment.

According to music media company, Off Beat, and tourist authority New Orleans & Company, on any given night we have, on average, 100 places to hear live music. If New York City had the same per capita number of live music venues, they’d have 800. In fact, they have 1,100.

Ok, so we’re not beating New York, but we’re in the same ballpark, and that’s impressive for a medium-size city.

How about live theater? If, per capita, we had as many options to go see a play in New Orleans as they do in New York, we’d have 142 live theater stages. In fact, we have fewer than 20.

So, what’s up with that? In a city whose Mardi Gras parades are among the biggest live street theater events in the world, why do we have so little traditional theater? Rob DeViney might be able to shed some light on that question. Rob is Executive Director of Jefferson Performing Arts.

In New Orleans there’s a long-running intersection of theater and business – in the person of larger-than-life characters who own or represent businesses. Folks like, Al Scramuzza from Seafood City. The Special Man from Frankie & Johnnie’s Furniture. Restaurateurs Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse. Ronnie Lamarque the crooning car salesman. Al Copeland. Chris Owens. Morris Bart.

The list goes on. The newest addition to it, is Bougie Man Bourgeois. The Bougie Man is an import from Cajun country where he developed his meat product, Bougie Bologna.

Unlike other bologna, which is apparently made from the cuts of meat discarded from traditional butchering, Bougie Bologna is made from 100% pork shoulder. The slogan summarizing this differentiation was originally, “Butthole free.” Apparently, the USDA frowned on that, so now Bougie Bologna is described somewhat more prosaically as, “no mystery meat or byproducts.”

The Bougie Man is the alter ego of Ross Brown, who is also the creator of Bougie Bologna.

In New Orleans business, like the rest of New Orleans, we’re no strangers to contradiction. The same local companies will sponsor the health-driven Crescent City Classic road race, and the Red Dress Run, an athletic event that’s also an alcohol-fueled celebration of cross-dressing.

We don’t think it’s unusual for a CEO of a serious business to also be an active member of a seriously fun-centric Mardi Gras krewe.

A great deal of our city’s revenue comes from tourists who come here to party. But we’re also on reputable entrepreneurial lists as one of the best cities to start a business.

In this New Orleans tradition of occupational antithesis, Rob and Ross are great representatives of both the business of theater, and the theater of business.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are a number of ways of becoming a New Orleanian. You can be born here. You can marry someone from here. You can go to high school here – that’s a uniquely New Orleans badge of belonging - and then there’s a phenomenon called Magnetic Migration. That’s a term I coined to describe how certain people are inexplicably drawn here.

You know these folks when you meet them. They’re so obviously New Orleanian, you can’t imagine them living anywhere else. Like Brent Houzenga and Jensen Reyes.

Pop Art

Brent moved here from Des Moines, Iowa. He was such a larger-than-life character there, they made a documentary about him. Although to be fair to Des Moines, he’d make a good subject for a documentary anywhere, even here.

Brent is best described as a pop artist. You may have seen his work driving around. And by that, I don’t mean his murals or street art – although you can see those too - I mean you’ll see his art, literally, driving around. On cars. All kinds of cars. Painted with layers of colored squiggles, straight lines, polka dots, and stenciled faces.

At first glance these cars look like they’ve been randomly graffiti-ed. But when you look more closely, you see there’s definitely an artist’s hand at work. It's this kind of sly intelligence hiding in a punk rock aesthetic that runs through a lot of Brent Houzenga’s work.

Yarn

Jensen Reyes was living in Seattle. She worked as a hair colorist. And took up knitting as a hobby. When she moved to New Orleans in 2020, Jensen was able to combine both those skills. She started a business called Sugarplum Circus.

Jensen called it that so it would be a vague enough umbrella to cover any kind of creative output. Sugarplum Circus has turned out to be a micro-dyer. The company makes dyed-to-order fine yarns. You can buy their hand-dyed yarn at their website, and exclusively at a store in the French Quarter called The Quarter Stitch.

The Quarter Stitch is a destination for people from across the country looking for fashion yarn. And online there’s a population of millions of yarn users – many of them are young women who make their own clothes and congregate around #MeMade. In this universe, Jensen and Sugarplum Circus are stars.

You might remember, back in 2015 there was an online viral phenomenon called “The Dress.”

It was an image of a dress, and there was a massive debate as to whether this dress was white and gold, or blue and black.

What we learned from that was – if you’ll pardon the expression – color is not black and white. It’s not objective. It’s subjective. And can be uniquely personal.

Whether it’s the color of a piece of clothing made from yarn Jensen has dyed, or the colors of a painted car or piece of artwork Brent created, our responses to color, and to works of art, can shape our day, our mood, and even our sense of well-being. And they and their businesses certainly brighten up our city. 

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Drew Brees was The Saints’ quarterback he was regularly out and about in New Orleans. If you ran into him, you couldn’t help noticing that for a guy who had such a dominating presence on a football field, there didn’t seem to be anything physically exceptional about him. But when he played the game, Drew had an ability to size up what was happening, and he could see opportunities that other players couldn’t. 

There are similar types of people in business. Seemingly regular guys who are looking at the same business landscape we’re all looking at, but somehow, they see multiple opportunities most of us don’t. And they create multiple successful businesses in a way most business-people can’t.

For example, Jayson Seidman and Alex Pomes. 

Jayson Seidman is founder and Principal Managing Partner of a company called Sandstone. With offices in the Texas hill country and New Orleans, Sandstone principally develops boutique hotels and commercial mixed-use properties. They have hotels in Texas, New York, New Orleans, Costa Rica, and Australia.

Here in New Orleans, their properties include The Drifter, The Hotel Saint Vincent, The Frenchmen, and Columns – till recently known as The Columns Hotel – which is where Peter, Alex, and Jayson had lunch while recording this podcast. 

Jayson’s mother is from New Orleans. His dad went to Tulane. Jayson grew up in Houston, where he was a child actor at Theater Under The Stars, which calls itself “Houston’s home for musical theater.”

Alex Pomes is also a one-time musical theater actor turned entrepreneur. Alex is a New Orleans native who graduated from NOCCA in musical theater.

His first taste of business was cinnamon. In 2010, Alex was hired as website manager, social media point person and Brand Ambassador for a then small whisky company, called Fireball. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the marketing of Fireball Whisky is one of the most successful alcohol marketing campaigns, ever. In 2011 Fireball had under $2m in sales. By 2014, sales were $800m.

That experience gave Alex the confidence to launch his own alcohol label, Ghost Tequila. It’s tequila that’s actually made in Tequila Mexico, infused with Ghost Peppers.

Alex is also the founder of a local marketing company, RAPJAB, that specializes in creative campaigns for breweries, bars and events.

And Alex is the co-founder of NOLA Underground Pickleball, the no-frills community-driven pickleball league whose sponsors range from White Claw to Walmart.

If there’s one thing we’re not short of in New Orleans, it’s people with a story to tell. Whether you’re at a music festival, waiting for a parade to roll by, or just in line at the supermarket, the New Orleanian next to you is happy to talk to you. And - often without much encouragement - they’ll more-than-likely tell you something fascinating. But, even in this city of storytellers and stories, it’s hard to beat the variety of tales and business ventures from Jayson and Alex. 

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you walk into just about any interior space in the US – from the biggest office building to the smallest apartment – you’re almost certain to find art hanging on the walls. And not just one piece. From your doctor’s waiting room to your sister’s bedroom, you’ll typically find multiple works of art. Sure, they’re not all paintings, some of them are posters or prints, but at some point, each one had to be created by an artist.

Only around 1% of the US workforce are artists. So, with limited availability and high demand you’d expect artists to be highly paid. Most of them, though, are not. The reason might be something to do with the business model by which visual artists get paid.

In the film business, actors, directors, and writers pay agents a commission of 10% of their income. Musicians pay booking agents 10% of their income. Directors of commercials pay their business representatives 18% commission. If you’re a visual artist, you’ll pay your business representative – typically a gallery owner – a commission of 50% of the sale price of your artwork.

How does an artist survive in this kind of financial setup? That's what we're asking Anastasia Pelias.

Anastasia is a New Orleans born-and-raised visual artist whose paintings and sculptures are in museums and in private and public collections across the country and around the world. In New Orleans you can see Anastasia’s paintings in the permanent collections of The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art and The Newcomb Art Museum. You can see her sculptures in St. John Park in Lake Terrace, and on Poydras Street as part of the Helis Foundation’s Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition.

In case you’re thinking all 50% commission art gallery owners must be hard-hearted blood-sucking mercenaries, meet Marguerite Oestreicher. Marguerite owned an art gallery in the heart of New Orleans’ art district on Julia Street, until Hurricane Katrina closed it down.

In part, Marguerite credits the skills she picked up running her art gallery with her ability to perform her current job as Executive Director of New Orleans Area Habitat For Humanity.

NOAHH, as it’s commonly known, has 65 full-time employees and builds around 25 homes a year. Their stated mission is, “To responsibly build communities where families can thrive in homes they can afford.”

For whatever reason – maybe because it helps bring order to a chaotic world - human beings like to divide by 2. We like to put things in one category, or another. Republican or Democrat. Employed or unemployed. Artist or Businessperson. Renter or Homeowner.

Marguerite's mission at Habitat For Humanity is defined by categories: moving people from one to another. From renter to homeowner. To survive as an artist, like Anastasia, you have to defy the categories of art versus business – you need to keep one foot in each world.

Across all these categories, the one thing most of us have in common is, we like to live in an affordable home where we can hang our art on the walls.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Blake Langlinais at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When somebody suggests going out for a beer, you know what that means. Or, rather, you know what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean meeting up for a single beer.

And after you’ve had a few beers at whichever place you decided to meet, at some point somebody will suggest moving on and going to get another beer – or two – at someplace else.

The problem with this plan is, nobody should be driving a car at this point. And ride-sharing isn’t as cheap as it used to be. That’s why Elizabeth Bates launched her business, Beer Bus.

Beer Bus is a hop-on-hop-off bus line that serves New Orleans craft breweries on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. It’s been running since the end of 2023 and when you pay your $10 – or $30 for unlimited rides – you can check the Beer Bus website to see where the bus is and when it will be by if you want to hop on and try another brewery.

Elizabeth Bates is not just the founder of Beer Bus, she’s also the bus driver.

If you’ve spent any time in the UK or around British people, you’ll be familiar with the sentence, “What you need is a nice cup of tea.”

Whether there’s been a death in the family, your car broke down, or maybe you’ve gotten a giant bill you don’t know how you’re going to pay… Whatever the calamity that’s befallen you, the default old-fashioned British remedy is, “a nice cup of tea.”

Well, it turns out, like many pieces of folk wisdom, there’s actually some truth to the healing power of tea. That’s the basis of Portia Cooper’s business, NOLA Botanical Tea.

Portia makes specific concoctions of various strains of tea to treat particular physical ailments. There’s ginger root, elderberry, chamomile, hibiscus, and others that Portia says will remedy stress, reduce inflammation, boost your immune system, boost your energy, and much more.

Normally if we say we’re going around in circles, we’re implying we’re doing the same thing over and over again and getting nowhere. But when going around in a circle is a ride on the Beer Bus - taking us from one New Orleans craft Brewery to another - we may physically end up where we started, but the ride has been anything but unproductive.

On the other hand, if you have a recurring medical complaint that’s not life threatening but never seems to totally go away, you really do feel like you’re going around in circles. Maybe adding medicinal tea to your treatment would help.

Whether you’re drinking New Orleans beer or New Orleans tea, it’s a triple bottom line – good for the mind, body and local business.  

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Blake Langlinais at itsneworleans.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the conundrums about being human is, we strive for happiness, but when something makes us happy we grow accustomed to it and, usually sooner than later, we’re looking for something else to make us happy.

Whether it’s your income, your appearance, your career, or anything else in your life that can be improved, we’re trapped on what social scientists call The Hedonic Treadmill.  It’s why we buy new clothes, try new diets, take up new hobbies, why we travel, drink, take drugs… and you can list a bunch of other things that make you happy. Until they don’t.

Well, what if you could get off the hedonic treadmill? What if you could find something you liked so much – say, a piece of jewelry – that makes you feel so good that you can commit to wearing it forever.

That’s the concept behind a jewelry business on Magazine Street called Love Weld.  They sell what they describe as “permanent jewelry.”

In the store, a customer designs a bracelet, necklace, anklet, ring, or charms, and the people at Love Weld fit it and weld it, so it’s on forever.

The Sudio Lead at Love Weld is Sarah Sylve.

If permanent happiness sounds ambitious, a little further down from Love Weld on Magazine Street you can make yourself feel better for an hour - and for days after - at NOLA Massage.

NOLA Massage specializes in therapeutic massage, and you can also get a bunch of other treatments including detoxifying body wraps, a salt scrub, cryo treatments, and cupping.

The owner - and one of 4 massage therapists at NOLA Massage - is Amy Nicole Stewart.

Like a lot of things in New Orleans, it’s hard to put your finger on exactly what’s so special about Magazine Street. Basically, it’s nothing more than a relatively narrow street, not especially well landscaped, lined with stores. But, somehow, the street has a unique energy and a charismatic charm. It’s a street where locals shop, and tourists get a genuine taste of New Orleans and New Orleanians.

Anyone can open a store on Magazine Street. But not just anyone does. The street seems to attract store owners who manage to combine individual flair with general functionality. Amy's and Sarah's businesses, NOLA Massage and Love Weld, are two of the most recent to have opened on Magazine Street. They both make a unique contribution to the street’s rich retail mosaic.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

Check out Amy's children's book about Shotgun Kitties, a bunch of musical New Orleans cats, in their debut outing, Bill Bailey Please Come Home.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.