Townrootz

#040 - Today we visit with Chef Daphani Hightower, the owner and operator of The Cake & Sugar Company.  Chef Daphani has an incredible story and continues to persevere in the face of adversity.  She lost her son’s father to COVID and was diagnosed with stage 3 stomach cancer in 2022.  The cancer diagnosis has inspired her to forge ahead to create a legacy for her children.

She started cooking for her then husband, an ex football player, to help him lose 300 pounds over 10 months.  While cooking one day, she decided to try to make her own candy and cupcakes.  She found a love for baking and decided to go to culinary school.  She found that most Bay Area bakers were making the same tired desserts.  Dissatisfied with the status quo, she decided to experiment with flavors and that is where she found her niche.

“Everybody's making a banana pudding, but we here at the Cake and Sugar Company, we have 30 flavors of banana pudding. So you're not running up on us with just a regular flavor. We have Red Velvet, Carrot Cake, German Chocolate, Peach Cobbler, Banana Pudding. You know, we have so many different flavors. I just want it to be different. And so we've made, cinnamon roll peach cobbler”.

Peach Cobbler cupcakes are her top seller so she includes them in her $50 box, which includes a half dozen cupcakes and a host of cookies she sells via social media.  She posts and within an hour - she’s sold out.  It’s not a subscription so you have to be ready when she posts.

Chef Daphani started in Oakland, then moved to Hayward for lower rent.  She recently found a larger space in Oakland so she is coming back to expand her business.  Being an Oakland based business is very important to her:

“...you can't be in Oakland without being about community.  You will fail. You have to be here, you have to show up. Whether it's you showing up for Oakland kids, whether you showing up for your school, your kids' school, after school program. However it looks, if you live here, you work here, you're here, you need to participate . So that is what is definitely important to me”.

Be sure to listen to the whole interview to hear how he delivered cupcakes to Damon Wayans backstage after one of his shows.

#039 - Today, David Benton joins us.  David is an Oakland Baker and the owner and operator of Sugar Sweet Bakery.  David started cooking as a child.  As an adult, he hosted dinner parties where friends came over - they really liked the food.  At the constant urging of one of those friends he decided to give culinary school a chance.  He went in thinking he would be chef, but he fell in love with the art of baking and never looked back.

“I allowed my imagination to go a little more further than say if I were to just making croissants or something.  I started playing with those kind of things. I started doing them, I started getting more bold with what I was trying to do things that were a little more eye-catching and stuff.  And so that's kind of like how that started. It started just from those little bit of classes, but in those classes I excelled and people noticed and they liked it. And I really liked it. And then by the end of the school year came, I knew I didn't want to be a chef.”

Baking tasty cakes and cookies is one thing, getting a business open is something entirely different.  David admits that he struggles to call himself a business person. He is a creative person, but he’s had to learn how to run a business.

After getting a bank loan, he thought he'd be open in 3 months, but 3 months turned into 2 years.  Every step of the way, something else would come up.  And before he knew it, he was broke - he ran through all of his money.  The bank called and asked him to account for the money.  After producing all the receipts, bank statements, and tax returns, they offered him another loan, which is what allowed him to finally open.

Berekleyside wrote an article about his troubles and that led to even more publicity.  His phone was ringing off the hook.  He wasn’t ready for it - he only had 1 employee and all of a sudden the lines were out the door.

David’s secret to success is he bakes “old fashioned” items that remind people of their past - things their grandmother’s used to make.  He doesn’t use anything out of a box or out of a can.  One of the best compliments came from a customer during a wedding cake tasting.

“He was about to get married and he wanted a coconut cake. And so I made the coconut cake for him. And our coconut cake has coconut milk in it and his coconut extract and you know, I love to flavor it up. Well, believe it or not, this man started crying because he said the coconut cake tasted like something his grandmother made when he was a little boy.”

Be sure to listen to the whole interview to hear how his business doubled during COVID

#038 - Today we visit with Charles Farrier, the owner and operator of Crumble & Whisk, an Oakland Patisserie, specializing in cheesecakes.  Charles’ love for baking was inspired by his father.  As a young boy he was drawn to the kitchen to watch his father work.

Though he went to culinary school he was working in an office job in 2013.  There, a co-worker challenged him to a cheesecake bake-off.  Oddly rough, the co-worker knew he went ot culinary school.  The office loved it and one of them even offered to help him with the business aspects of launching his dream.

He soon joined La Cocina, a nonprofit that helps food entrepreneurs of color and women cultivate their food business by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market opportunities.

"La Cocina is an organization that helps people of color - people that don't know how to run a business, don't have any knowledge. And so they helped me, gave me the groundwork of basically figuring out what kind of license you need, how to do a patent and trademark, what kind name, what kind of name that really fits for the brand that you're doing for.”

Charles really hustled to get his business off the ground.  He started by walking up and down MacArthur Blvd, selling to barber and beauty shop customers.  At first they did not know what to make of him, but once they tried it, they were hooked. He later graduated to selling at farmers markets and during the pandemic, he added to-go meals to accompany his desserts.

On being an Oakland based business, Charles says…

“For me to be a Black-owned business - well, first of all, I'm giving back to my community. I'm also starting where I started from, for me, as a Black-owned business. I feel like I give inspiration to all the young black boys to show them that they can do it, they can.”

Charles’ secret power is he offers unique flavors - flavors you can’t find anywhere else. Be sure to listen to the whole interview to hear about his best seller - Beet & Berry Cheesecake!

#037 - Today we visit with Melissa Myers, the owner and operator of The Good Hop, a craft beer and bottle shop.  The Good Hop features 16 California focused beers on draft and more than 450 beers from independent breweries.  Melissa was a professional brewmaster in Philadelphia when she decided to move west.

“I wanted to get out here. California was the innovative area, was creating these styles, taking twists on styles.”

After working at a few breweries in the East Bay, Melissa decided it was time to break out on her own.  She pitched her idea to investors and lined up a very sizable amount of committed money, but it was 2008 and the economy crashed and every one of those investors filed for bankruptcy.  She took this time to immerse herself in a business course - she knew how to brew, but knew nothing about business.

Over this time, the number of breweries exploded from 1,800 to 4,000 so Melissa changed course and decided to open the bar and bottle shop instead.

“so it was just super, super saturated. Maybe it wasn't the best time to try and push that, to try and open a brewery. It's still in my heart though. Now it's my retirement plan."

After 8 ½ years, the Good Hop has become a pillar of the East Bay craft beer community - she is very proud of her staff.  She has become an integral part of the neighborhood, including engaging with the unhoused.  Melissa loves being an Oakland based business.

" I love Oakland, I opened it here in Oakland because I love the soul of Oakland. It's very different and diverse."

Be sure to listen to until the end to hear her talk about the most popular type of beer purchased at the bottle shop.

#036 - Today we speak with Liam O’Donoghue, the host and producer of the East Bay Yesterday Podcast.  Liam explores the stories of culture, politics and nature from Oakland, Berkeley and other towns throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  It was named the “The Best Podcast about the East Bay” in 2017 by the East Bay Express.  Liam says he started the podcast to share the great untold stories he heard from residents.

“every time I talked to people who lived around Oakland or lived around the East Bay for a long time, I realized they had really good stories - stories that I hadn't known about before. They told me, and I felt like stories that most people probably weren't aware of and I felt like someone needed to collect those stories and share them and celebrate them”.

Liam is a trained journalist and his work has appeared in outlets such as KQED, Oaklandside, Berkeleyside, Mother Jones, Salon, East Bay Express, 99% Invisible, The Kitchen Sisters, and the syndicated NPR program Snap Judgement.  He intentionally decided to go with audio vs print medium to share these stories because the show is really about the guests and he wanted their voices to be the main thing driving the narrative.

The podcast got picked up by KPFA and Liam now writes a monthly column for SF Gate.  Liam has given many presentations on local history at libraries, schools and bookstores and throughout the Bay Area, but he is most proud of the inclusion of his content by schools.

“one of the things I'm most proud of is that it's actually being used in a lot of curriculums now by local teachers everywhere from the middle school level, up through the grad school level.  People who are looking for ways to get their students excited about local history are using the podcast and the radio show to get the kids excited about that. So that's been really rewarding to see that happen”.

Be sure to listen to until the end to hear how the podcast has led to sold out boat tours on the bay.

#035 - Today we are speaking with Natalie Brown from Natty Cakes - a locally sourced bakery.  Natalie specializes in buttercream cakes perfect for all milestone events.  Weddings are her entry point, but then she becomes entrenched in her clients' lives.

“So it's amazing. I get to be a part of people's lives, usually starting at the wedding, which is so cool and so grand.  And typically there's a bond that's formed over that. And then I get to celebrate when it's their partner's birthday, when they have a baby. And so it's definitely a lot more personal than I would've ever imagined running a business would be”.

Natalie always wanted to be a baker - her first job was at a bakery. Instead of going to culinary school, she studied business at SF State and baked wedding cakes on the side.  She started Natty Cakes fresh out of college 10 years ago though she did not envision what it would become.

She thought she wanted a regular local corporate clientele and she was on her way to doing just that, but then the pandemic hit.  She was pregnant and she needed to scale back a little bit and she started to see a different vision for the business.  Now, she runs the business out of a live/work space in Emeryville with a certified kitchen.  Her husband works a 9-5, but dives into the business on nights and weekends.

“…so moving the business into my home kind of changed a lot. It really allowed me to focus back on the aspects that I have a lot of passion for.”

“There is something really special about re-centering myself around the business and making sure that it's headed in the direction that I want versus a direction that it's just being pulled.”

Be sure to listen to the whole interview to hear about Natalie’s appearance on a TV baking competition show.

#033- Today we are speaking with Erin Coburn from Minimo Wine Bar and Shop in Jack London.  Minimo focuses on small production, natural wines and ciders. You may have the same questions we had - what is natural wine?

“And natural wine for us means that the farming side has to be organic or biodynamically farmed, so no chemicals in the vineyards at all. And then on the winemaking side, no unnecessary additions or subtraction and the key component there is the fermentation has to be native or wild fermentation. There can't be cultured yeast and there is minimal amounts of sulfur or none at all. Whereas just by comparison, most conventional wines can have probably up to 40 to 50 different things that you can put in the winemaking process.”

The wines you find at Minimo are not your usual suspects. In fact, Erin thinks there is not a single Merlot or a Zinfandel in the shop.  It’s a lot of off the beaten path vineyards and regions and grapes and varietals.  There are wines from Morocco, the Canary Islands, Slovenia and Serbia. The California wines come from Contra Costa, Lodi, and Mendocino.

“if you came to us looking for a Napa Valley Chardonnay, you would probably walk out with a ferment from Hungary. So it's really to get people to explore new things.”

There is no signage on purpose.  You have to start a conversation, which allows them to find out what you like or what you don't like, and then they make recommendations.

Since Minimo is classified as a grocery business, it did not have to shut down during the pandemic.  The business survived by delivering wine and hosting virtual events.  Erin loves being an Oakland business and is grateful for the support from the local community.

“My gratitude goes to the tremendous support, not only of our customers, but of Oakland and other small businesses. I mean, it's an amazing network of people who champion one another and share resources freely and are really about making sure that we all succeed together.”

Be sure to listen to the whole interview to find out why Minimo sells cider and NOT beer.

#033- Today we speak with Thomas Lee from First Place For Youth.  First Place For Youth, headquartered in downtown Oakland, serves transition age foster youth - ages 16-25 in five Bay Area Counties, plus Los Angeles County.  First Place for Youth provides vocational and life skills so these youth can problem solve and live through the seasons of life.  The organization’s goal is to….

“change the child welfare system into a child well being system where we are making sure in the most simplest terms that every young person who is aging out of foster care has a fighting chance to be able to go out and achieve their own hopes and dreams.” 

The organization was founded in 1993 by Amy Lemley and Deanne Pearn, 2 graduate students attending Cal’s Goldman School of Public Policy.  They were struck by how many foster youth found themselves in poverty and homeless after aging out. Each youth receives a team of 3 dedicated professionals that wrap themselves around them.

Thomas tells us there are 3 things we miss when it comes to foster youth:
#1 Foster youth experience foster care through no fault of their own;
#2 Majority of youth who experience foster care do so because of neglect,
not abuse; AND
#3 California has the most foster youth in the country

On the importance of First Place For Youth in Oakland, Thomas says…

"Our office is right there on 17th and Broadway.  Oakland is the hub for all of our work…”

“….as we continue to be one of the most innovative cutting edge organizations, there is no better place than in Oakland.  That is alway where some of the best innovative ideas that come out of California start, they begin there.  This helps us stay really connected to the heartbeat and essence of what California is and how to make change in a substantive way across, so it benefits everyone throughout the state.”

Be sure to stick around ‘til the end to hear Thomas discuss how social and support networks lower the need for social systems.

#032- Today we speak with Ari Takata-Vasquez with Viscera Studio.  Viscera Studio is an Oakland based full service design and photography studio.  Ari works with entrepreneurs to create all the visual things they might need - branding and identity to website and strategy to product photography to videography.

Viscera Studio started by accident - it sprung out of Ari’s brick and mortar shop (Viscera), launched 2014.  Viscera designs 3D printed jewelry and curates a collection of USA-made clothing, accessories, and home goods.

People kept complimenting her creative work and inquired who did it.  The answer was always “ME”!  So, she started doing freelance work in 2017.  What started as a part time hustle for her full time hustle became its own thriving business.

I asked Ari why it is important for her to be an Oakland based business:

“I love Oakland.  It is a place that is rich with creativity.  We are a relationship first business.  That is my personality and partly the way things work in Oakland.  It is The Town, right?  You know a lot of other people.  Your ability to move in the city is really based on relationships and people vouching for you.  It is such a tightly networked place.  It is such a great fit for the way we do business.”

Once the pandemic hit, more people decided they wanted and needed to start their own business. Plus, people who already had their own business decided they needed more of an online presence.  Her business took off.

Be sure to stick around ‘til the end to hear Ari’s advice on assembling a great team!

#031- Today we speak with Kathryn Tomajan and Robin Sloan from Fat Gold Olive Oil.  Launched in 2017, Fat Gold is an Oakland based small batch producer of California Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  They source really interesting olives from all over the state, turning them into unique special olive oils.

“We like to think of it as an urban olive oil company, tying agriculture to the cities was a really important part of our origin story”.

After working in the food industry for a while, Kathryn went to Italy to attend a masters program focused on food production in 2011 - she calls it the “Hogwarts of Food”.  That is where she fell in love and obsessed with olive oil.

“I remember very vividly tasting olive oil with a very well known high end and fancy producer in Tuscany Italy and he was teaching my masters degree class about olive oil and the first one he had us try - we all kind of shook our heads and said - yeah that tastes like the olive oil I know.  He’s like ‘that’s rancid.  It’s completely spoiled.  Let’s teach you about olive oil.’  I thought of myself as a Foodie.  I thought I knew my stuff.  I learned I knew absolutely nothing about this product.”

They remain inspired by the food production in West Oakland, Emeryville, and West Berkeley.  Instead of pretending to be in Italy or Napa, Robin says they embrace the industrial, practical and straightforward sensibilities of Oakland and the East Bay.  They like to invite people in and remain accessible.

Be sure to listen to the whole interview - Kathryn and Robin tell us how to identify real extra virgin olive oil that is grown, harvested, and produced in California on our grocery shelves.