Building Business w/ the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
The Building Business podcast provides compelling stories of the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce's journey, its steadfast commitment to the local community, and its forward-thinking approach to addressing the needs of businesses in an ever-changing landscape. It stands as an invitation to listeners to become part of a movement that values growth, connection, and the collective progress of the Mount Pleasant, South Carolina community.
Be prepared to be inspired, informed, and motivated, as we provide a rich tapestry of stories that celebrate the dynamic interplay of business and personal growth right here, in our own backyard.
Building Business w/ the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
From Kitchen to Empire: Carrie Bailey Morey's Hot Biscuit Journey
What if you could transform a simple love for cooking into a thriving multi-faceted business empire? Tune in as Carrie Bailey Morey, founder of Callie's Hot Little Biscuit, takes us on an incredible journey from her mother Callie's kitchen to becoming a culinary powerhouse. Carrie shares how she navigated the early challenges of launching a mail-order biscuit business in 2005, long before the convenience of today's digital age. Her story of resilience, innovation, and unwavering passion for food has led to an impressive array of achievements, including multiple restaurants, an extensive e-commerce platform, wholesale distribution, a TV show, and even cookbooks.
In this episode, Carrie recounts the serendipitous success of her first store in Charleston, where the local appetite for hot biscuits led to long lines and sold-out days. Her PBS show "How She Rolls," acclaimed for its authentic storytelling and Peabody award recognition, is another testament to her hard work and dedication. Carrie also opens up about the personal challenges she's faced, such as her youngest daughter's illness, and how these experiences have shaped her approach to balancing a booming business with family life. Her story is a compelling mix of entrepreneurial spirit and heartfelt commitment to both her craft and her loved ones.
Listeners will discover how Carrie has kept the essence of Callie's alive with innovative products, like biscuit crackers, and a company culture rooted in 10 core values. From the unexpected growth of her catering business to the invaluable advice she offers budding entrepreneurs about starting small and pacing business growth, Carrie provides a wealth of insights. She emphasizes the importance of customer service and preserving the rich heritage of biscuit making, making this episode a must-listen for anyone passionate about food and entrepreneurship. Join us for a heartfelt and inspiring conversation that showcases the powerful connection between food, family, and business.
UPDATE** Callie's biscuit crackers are now in all Whole Foods and The Fresh Markets**
Presenting Sponsor: Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
Studio Sponsor: Charleston Radio Group
Production Sponsor: rūmbo advertising
Committee:
Kathleen Herrmann | Host | MPCC President
Michael Cochran | Co-host | Foundation Chair
John Carroll | Co-host | Member at Large
Mike Compton | Co-host | Marketing Chair
Rebecca Imholz | Co-host | MPCC Director
Amanda Bunting Comen | Co-host | Social ABCs
Scott Labarowski | Co-host | Membership Chair
Jennifer Maxwell | Co-host | Immediate Past President
Darius Kelly | Creative Director | DK Design
I'm just kidding. All right, you ready everybody, very exciting. Well, hello and welcome to the Building Business Podcast powered by the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. We're here in our favorite recording studio with Charleston Radio Group and Brian Cleary, both huge supporters of the chamber. Thanks to you both, uh, kathy herman, here I am the current president of the chamber of commerce. I am also the marketing director at mount pleasant town center. Uh, so thank you all for joining us listeners. Um, I'm here today with my guest co-host, michael cochran. Michael is our current mount pleasant chamber of commerce foundation chair. Michael, introduce yourself yep, so mich.
Speaker 2:So, michael Cochran, I'm a local Mount Pleasant resident. I'm past president of the Chamber of Commerce and sit as the chairman of the foundation now and glad to serve, happy to serve, love our chamber, love our business community, but more importantly, I love the people in our community and so it's just fun to be here and do these conversations that we have.
Speaker 1:Well, we have a good one for you today, michael, and everybody else that's listening out here today, if you love our community so much, I'm just going to read just a little bit of this, okay, before I introduce her. Touted by Oprah Wow, food and Wine, Southern Living, the New York Times, bake from Scratch and Good Morning America. That's all in one sentence, okay, among others, our guest has established herself as an authority on entrepreneurship and is committed to helping women build their own empires in ways that feel most authentic and most in alignment with who they aspire to be. I mean, how amazing is that? And when we're talking about this, we are talking about biscuits. Everybody, the most delicious thing in the world biscuits. So we are so excited and honored to have Kari Mori, founder of Kali's Hot Little Biscuit, with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank, you Welcome Welcome.
Speaker 1:Thanks for asking me and of course, Kari was smart and showed up with a hot thing of biscuits for all of us. We haven't eaten them yet.
Speaker 3:Two are missing, maybe a couple missing. Two are missing.
Speaker 1:Two are missing already. That was pretty fast, guys. That was pretty fast, guys. Carrie, thank you again so much for being here. It's such an interesting story, such an interesting person. I think this is the first time you and I have ever met. I think so, which is a shame, but I have had your biscuits. Well, I'm glad to hear that I have had your biscuits, so tell us a little bit about how you started, where the inspiration for Cowleys came from.
Speaker 3:Sure, well, I'm a native of Charleston, grew up almost all my life in Mount Pleasant, in the old village, and I have always had a strong passion for cooking and entertaining, and from a very young age, and my mother, callie, for whom the business is named.
Speaker 1:Okay, scratch that question off. Scratch that question off.
Speaker 3:Had a small catering business and I was always the one serving her delicious food and the number one product that was always asked to be served at any party was her hand biscuits. So you know, starting doing that in early teens all the way through college, then graduating from college, going to New York, living in New York, just falling in love with the food scene, I worked for an Internet company and kind of putting all those things together unintentionally, as I went along and grew up and came home, got married, had our first daughter. I just wanted to figure out a way to work within my passion but also have the lifestyle that I wanted to have, which was to really be a really present mom and and not have a nine to five job where I was working all the time. So I created Callie's biscuits as a mail order only biscuit company, which most people don't know because in 2005, there was no internet, really there's no social media, and so we were just selling online and absolutely nobody was buying them.
Speaker 3:We really did, and I, you know, of course. I think this is a testament to any entrepreneurial passion that you have is that it never occurred to me that I would have problems selling them, because I grew up with them. I watched people's reactions, I knew how great they were and I wanted it to fit into my lifestyle. I wanted to be in the food business but I didn't want to own a restaurant. Now I have two. See how things change.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't that I didn't want to have a restaurant. It was that I was really trying to have that balance, and I think for women it's so hard to find the balance. In the last 15 years it's become a lot easier because just careers have come up that are different than in 2005 and before that. Traditional careers were go to the office nine to five. It's very different now, which is great. But so I created this idea to sell her ham biscuits, which I didn't bring you today I'm sorry, but think about that. For a second an internet business, a mail order internet business, only in 2005, created with one product country ham biscuits which not many people even know what country ham is we do in the south. But it was a horrible business plan, you know. It wasn't about me building and scaling this business and I knew that biscuits were going to be in favor. I felt that charleston was on this, on the cusp of something which those were just lucky guesses they were really good guesses, they were good guesses uh
Speaker 3:and I think our timing was great and and we had a lot of luck on our side. But what has happened in the last 10 years I never dreamt about until you know. You just go through and you're like, well, what if we did this? Well, what if we did this? And you don't even realize that you've. You know, at one point before COVID, we had 80 something employees for restaurants in three states, ecommerce, wholesale distribution, a TV show, cookbooks, I mean and it's a little bit more calm now, but it's still insane and growing a business is incredibly difficult and we're just weathering the storm and trying to solve the daily problems.
Speaker 1:So what was the first after your initial startup and mail order in 2005,? What was the next step?
Speaker 3:that you did. So. Every step of the business that has been created after that was a reaction to well, how do I grow the business? And so, because there was no social media and no way to get the word out, I started looking for ways to broaden the horizon. So I started with Ted's Butcher Block downtown Charleston and I said, okay, well, maybe I can just create this little wholesale program where I go in and I sell them biscuits and then they put them in their freezer and sell them to their customers. And so that started. Very simply, six stores in Charleston. And then, when I got that down pat, I was like, well, let's go to Somerville, let's go to Columbia.
Speaker 2:Let's go.
Speaker 3:And then it just kind of grew. Piggly Wiggly called Isn't that nice to think about Piggly Wiggly. They called put us in all their stores when Piggly Wiggly transferred to Harris Teeter. Then Harris Teeter took us on and it just kind of slowly, organically grew and then we have a mail order and a wholesale program. And then we got into a 165-store chain, the Fresh Market, and they called and said we're going to order nine pallets and I said, awesome, what's a pallet? I had no idea right. Thank goodness by then google was underway and I could google what is a pallet then you had to figure out how to bake.
Speaker 1:I had to figure out how to bake it?
Speaker 3:how to ship it. I didn't have a. I hadn't had one walk-in freezer that carried all of our products. So I went across the street at the time all of our products. So I went across the street At the time we were on Meeting Street. I went across the street to the Piggly Wiggly, talked to my friend, the manager there, and I said hey, I just got a nine-pallet order for biscuits. I have no idea how to get it there. And he said Just bring them over to our warehouse. We'll keep them in our freezer and tell your truck driver to come pick them up. Them in our freezer and tell your truck driver to come pick them up. Well, I didn't know what a pallet count was going to be. So I took all the car seats out of my Suburban, laid them down flat and I could fit 63 boxes, which created our first pallet.
Speaker 3:So, you know, I think that I'm not very good at business, but I'm really good at figuring out problems on the fly. So that was our first pallet, and that was that was in 2006 and where'd you bake them all?
Speaker 1:and I mean well, we had.
Speaker 3:We rented a space in 2006 downtown on meeting street, right next to church's fried chicken, because we were renting kitchens. We were renting catering kitchen space from. I'm gonna really remind y'all of the old days on Coleman Boulevard. Oh, my gosh, what's the name of the old restaurant that's now Cantina? Oh, I'll remember it. I'll remember it. Are y'all from Charleston? Yeah, okay, I'll remember it in a minute, anyway, jb Stroh, jb Stroh.
Speaker 2:JB.
Speaker 3:Stroh had a catering kitchen, which is now the surf shop, and that was where we would bake the biscuits. We'd bake them once a month. Department of agriculture came in they said okay, if you bake them and package them here, you can keep them in a freezer in your house. I had babies like not even crawling, so I would fill the one or two orders a week that were that were going out and take them to the fedex center.
Speaker 3:So we did have a commercial kitchen but it was small and it used to be an office and nobody would initially give me a lease because they had never heard of what is a biscuit business. You know nobody, right? I mean, they think about Pillsbury. Pop the can on the counter.
Speaker 1:Okay, these are not Pillsbury pop. The can biscuits let me tell you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So question for you on the timing. So you started in 05. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:End of 05.
Speaker 2:End of 05. 05 was good financially in the country and then the fourth quarter kind of took a dip.
Speaker 1:So 06 was good. Then we have 08.
Speaker 2:Yes. So you got a new business, not even five years old. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:That was a long time ago. I do remember being very worried about. These are very expensive biscuits and at the time we only sold them by the dozen. So we're talking $ 15 to $19 for a dozen biscuits. How is this going to work? And at that time we didn't have full-time employees. It was myself. My mom had actually left. She started the business with me.
Speaker 3:That was a disaster on both sides. We couldn't even be in the same room. So we decided it was best for our relationship to part ways. But you know, at that time I was able to really keep things lean and say, okay, guys, I need you two days this week and they would fill the freezer and I'd say I'll call you when I need you again. So it was all about keeping your costs really low and because our product has such a long shelf life, you know that really benefited us that we were able to, you know, have not regular and I was doing all the delivering, the, the. You know every part of the business I was doing.
Speaker 3:And my best friend, amy, who has been with me since the very beginning, was, you know, we were both, our kids were in preschool and we were both like working two to three hours a week and I was paying her hourly. I wasn't paying myself, but you know we made it, we made it through. We also were really blessed with having great press and that was something from the beginning that we hired LeapFrog, who has been with me since the beginning, and they were able to send biscuits to the Today Show, to Bon Appetit magazine, to all the magazines, and that was how we kind of started getting a following of people on our email list and you know. So then you can email people and say do you want to buy? You know, this is everybody knows this now, but back in the day there was no template for this and we were just kind of flying by the seat of our pants and I felt bad emailing people every week saying, hi, buy my ham biscuits, sure.
Speaker 3:And a friend said well, you cook all the time, why don't you give them a recipe? It gives you a reason to reach out to them and you're giving them something and not just always asking to buy. And I said, okay, I'll do that. And so I think I wrote, you know, a chicken salad recipe. I just wrote about what I was cooking. And then we got on the today show in 2008 and Hoda. This is back in Hoda and Kathy Lee days and we showed them how to make the biscuits and we brought a warm crab dip to eat with the biscuits and they took the bite of the biscuit and put a little crab dip and they went oh my gosh, that is the best crab dip I've ever had.
Speaker 1:And we were like, oh no, where's that biscuit?
Speaker 3:we had, we did. We were very blessed with hundreds and hundreds of orders. We also got over 400 phone calls and emails for the crab dip recipe right so then I created a blog on the website, and so then that started a ton of recipes, because I would have to write a recipe every week or once a month, I can't even remember now. And then that was how I got a cookbook deal.
Speaker 1:Did you ever expect to be on the Today Show by baking biscuits?
Speaker 3:Absolutely not.
Speaker 1:No, I had no. What a journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been an amazing journey it is. And it's been an amazing journey it is, and you know, as an entrepreneur, you don't really sit around and think about oh wow.
Speaker 3:Somebody asked me just last night what is the coolest thing you've ever done? I couldn't even begin to tell you that Sure, and I hate that I haven't done a better job of chronicling chronicling is that the right word the journey I? I mean, I have a journal that I write in. But you know, just like top 10 things that were, you know, being on top chef definitely a top 10 thing. Meeting martha stewart being named as one of her finalists for uh dreamers and the doers being on the today show those are all things that are pinch me moments, right, having our own television show on pbs so I guess I could name them if I really sat down and thought about it, but I'm always too busy thinking about what's the next thing. Stop and write all those down and then send them to Carrie. Okay, can you send them to me please? Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you mentioned earlier that at the time when you started, you didn't want restaurants. Yes, so what changed that?
Speaker 3:Okay, so we started the wholesale program, still really small but got into some grocery stores so we had mail order and wholesale.
Speaker 3:Then I wrote a cookbook and I went on a cookbook tour and the four or five people during the cookbook tour that came to see me would say when we come to Charleston, where can we get your biscuits hot? And I didn't have an answer. So I'm like how do I, how do, where do they get the hot little biscuits? This is the question that I'm internally asking myself. So I went back to all my friends in in the culinary community, knocked on doors at High Cotton and, like, met with all my old bosses in in Charleston. I said and and you're going to not believe this, but at the time nobody had biscuits on on their menus in Charleston. Now everybody. There are biscuit restaurants everywhere. There were no biscuits. And I said you need to put these biscuits on your, on your menu and people will pay for them. Like a basket of Callie's biscuits for $5. And I showed them the price list and they're like absolutely not, that's ridiculous. And I said but you could charge for them. No, so I couldn't get the biscuits to be hot and be able to tell people where to go.
Speaker 3:And then I went to listen to a seminar I don't even know where, maybe at the Fancy Food Show in New York, and the executive VP for Stonewall Kitchens, which is a big CPG brand in Maine, spoke and they said well, everybody knows our stores, just like William Sonoma's, don't make money. And I thought, what, and who knows if that's really true? But his point was these are this is the way we market our business and this is because we have a brick and mortar. Then people will then go and try to search and find us online. And I thought, oh, I need to have a store and it's going to be called the Hot Little, hot little biscuit. And then a restaurant was born and I'm like, but I said I didn't want to be in a restaurant business.
Speaker 3:And at this time I had three daughters under the age of. They were six, five and four. I mean really close together. And when the youngest, sarah, went into kindergarten, I all of a sudden had, from seven 3030 in the morning to 2 pm, where I could work for the first time, a full block of working hours. And I said, okay, I'm going to open this store and it's going to be open from 8 to 2 because I can drop off and pick up if I'm the only one in the store. And I never wrote a formal business plan, but I did write down all of my expenses and how many transactions I would need to have in order just to break even, because I wasn't interested. I just wanted to market the business and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Speaker 3:This space is an alley. It's 8 feet wide and 80 feet long and we have a galley kitchen that is 36 inches wide and we are cooking, cooking frying eggs to order on a hot plate and we're you know. I mean it's. It's calmed down now, but in the height of the craziness, I mean we would have people wait in line for an hour and a half and that's a wonderful thing, but also like talk about a stress creator, looking at all these people standing in 100-degree rain heat waiting for biscuits to get to the front of the line. We're sold out. It was a wonderful thing, but there was also an enormous amount of stress associated with that, which we're obviously very grateful for. Every experience it's been a wild ride. This July we'll celebrate 10 years on King King Street, which is crazy to think that we've been open a decade that's fantastic
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, tell us a little bit about the show. I think it's called how she Rolls. Tell us a little bit about that, because you're in season two now, correct?
Speaker 3:we have filmed season two and it is out there and, as of right now, we're not doing a season three. Okay, it has. It was a wonderful. We were approached by a producer and I honestly, even at the premiere of season one, I thought this isn't really happening.
Speaker 3:Like it's not going to really air and it aired in 96% of the country. I just I went through the motions and I love the concept and I love that I was able to feel safe with PBS and I was able to be my authentic self and not make things up and there wasn't this dramatic play to it like a lot of reality television shows and it was my true story and hopefully not only did it put eyes on the business but hopefully it also inspired other women and people to do their dream. So we started filming in September of 19 and really got into the meat of filming right as COVID hit and it just takes you through the whole year and we won a Peabody for the season one, which I didn't know what a Peabody was, but apparently that's a cool thing and TV just add that to your list of accomplishments that's right.
Speaker 3:And uh, then we did a season two and then our our youngest daughter got really sick and it was just something had to give. And you know we were still in COVID and we just said, you know, we need to probably take a little bit of a break and focus on making sure everybody's COVID. And we just said, you know, we need to probably take a little bit of a break and focus on making sure everybody's healthy. And we ended up closing two hot little biscuits that we had opened, one in Atlanta and one in Charlotte, which was sad but also really great from a perspective of if you're going to grow the business, you probably need to not be so wide and be a little bit more focused on what areas. And you know I learned that the hard way. I had no business experience, so we're kind of on that track now.
Speaker 1:Well, I think off the top of my head. I would think that Atlanta and Charlotte are two pretty good places. They were great, but they are far from here.
Speaker 3:They were great and it was just what I have learned the hard way is that it is really hard. Even if you have I had an amazing team it's really hard to make restaurants work outside of you touching them every day, and so it gave us great visibility as a brand and so many people, so many new eyes on us, and we were open in Atlanta for seven years and it was amazing, Charlotte, we opened two weeks before COVID, so it never got off the ground but, there were great lessons to learn, expensive lessons, but that's how you learn right.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:It was funny this morning, as I'm preparing and I'm having my coffee. My wife and I are chatting about our days. She said so what are you doing today? And I told her, and she said well, who are you going to?
Speaker 2:have a conversation with who's going to be interviewed. And I told her and she left the room very quickly and she came back and, for those of you that are listening, I'm holding up a bag of hot little biscuit cheese crisps and she holds this up and they're empty. Yes, it's empty, an empty bag. And she holds it up and she points it at me and she goes you tell, carrie that I am a God-fearing woman, but I am sinning because I'm coveting what is in this bag.
Speaker 3:Well, you tell her that I had two handfuls of those today before I came here, because that's what they were baking today. And it is the death of me. These are my weakness, because I'm a snacky kind of person and they're so good, so we were on vacation last year and we went to Freshfields for breakfast and all of a sudden I look back and I see my wife coming with this bag.
Speaker 2:I'm like she's got pimento cheese and she's got these. It was just absolutely fantastic. So she actually has in her cart to buy for our vacation this year. She has biscuits for that. Oh, tell her, thank you. So as I was doing my research, I see this big following that you have, that you've created this huge following of folks with stories like that. Do you have any fun stories like that that you can share with us?
Speaker 3:I don't know if I can pull off a specific story, but I will tell you that one of my greatest joys is working down at our Hot Little Biscuit shop, specifically at the register, because I meet so many people that have followed us, have watched the show and have come specifically to eat our food, which is such an incredible compliment, knowing all the amazing restaurants we have here in Charleston. And when somebody tells me and this happens often that they've come to eat breakfast with us every day of their vacation, I am completely blown away.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Because I love food and I travel just to eat and even if it's the best meal I've ever had, I don't think I've ever been back twice in the same vacation, just because you're trying to experience everything. So that is just such an amazing compliment.
Speaker 1:That's more than a compliment, karen.
Speaker 3:That's more than a compliment, it's not even enough to say it's a compliment.
Speaker 1:So I do love when that happens. That's a badge of honor, yeah, and so, speaking of the crisps, we know you're known for your biscuits. What are your other favorite foods that you're either serving at the restaurant and or have available for customers?
Speaker 3:Well, other than the biscuits, we serve slow-cooked overnight grits so you can get them in a biscuit bowl or a regular cup and you can have any toppings, like roasted tomatoes, avocados, green onions, cheddar cheese, chopped bacon, all the things. And that is a nod to like my growing up and being in my grandmother's house on Johns Island. There was always grits on the stove and you just kind of rummaged through to put whatever was in there, fold in a little egg, just comfort food, right Sausage gravy, which has been super popular. And then we package the cheese crisps, which have just gone through a new packaging change and we now call them cheese wafers and people seem to understand them more. The cheese crisps. People think there's no flour in them because you know the parmesan crisps. So cheese wafers.
Speaker 3:And then we just created this new product along with our pimento cheese that we've had for years. We just created biscuit crackers. So there was this always leftover dough, because you know we make all the biscuits by hand and so once you get to the second rollout there's always like a ball of dough and we were throwing it away for years and years and I said what it's crazy to throw this away. It's too tough to make into a biscuit. What can we do with it? And so we started rolling it really thin, cutting it, poking holes in it and using it on our catering platters to serve as a cracker. And people would say what is that? So it's a biscuit cracker. Like what is a biscuit cracker? Well, we were creating a new product and we had no idea.
Speaker 2:Like not just a new product for Callie's.
Speaker 3:No idea like not just a new product for Callie's, but it's like the pretzel chip. It didn't exist before. The pretzel chip exists now, and so we just came out in February with a line of three flavors of crackers biscuit crackers, and they're going into Whole Foods in a month and the fresh market and we're working on more distribution. But they come in sea salt, sharp cheddar and everything well, apparently they're going to go into Michael's wife's shopping cart and hopefully they'll go into your shopping cart.
Speaker 1:That goes along with the biscuits and everything else that she's going to buy.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right, absolutely that's right.
Speaker 2:So during my search through your website a lot of great information I saw the 10 ingredients that you have listed.
Speaker 3:And they're really amazing.
Speaker 2:You, you have listed and they're really amazing. You know hard work, listen better, community, artisan, and the list goes on all through the 10 of them. But I love the way you've put in here, like for hard work. It says a pinch of motivation. Um, can you talk a little bit about those 10 ingredients? Because what I'm seeing and what we've, we've seen in your, your growth as a business owner, as an entrepreneur now it's a leadership role to teach into, far more than just a great biscuit. Can you talk to us a little bit about this recipe, these 10 ingredients?
Speaker 3:So that is our manifesto that we came up with as a company years ago, and it started by interviewing our current staff and saying you know, what does this mean to you? What does Callie's mean to you? Why do you do this? For whom do we do it? And as a result of that audit and you know whatever you want to call it poll we came up with.
Speaker 3:These are the things that are important to us and how do they relate to what we're doing and just trying to create a culture within our company which, as a leader, has been such an unexpected surprise that I didn't know I needed to do that until I did, and then I did it and I really love it.
Speaker 3:I mean, it is one of my favorite things about being a business owner is being able to work with people and try to motivate them and build them up and push them to do better and take initiative, and there needed to be kind of like this standard of this is how we do it, this is why we do it, this is for whom we do it, and these signs are hanging up in all of our eateries to remind our team. We have shirts that say it. To remind our team, we have shirts that say it that the whole goal is to be kind to everyone, from the mailman to the delivery driver, to the garbage man, to ourselves. Don't just be nice to customers. Be nice to your coworkers, be nice to your boss, everything. Because you spend so much time at work, you might as well enjoy it, that's right.
Speaker 3:And it is not easy that creating the culture and creating the culture is easier than keeping the culture, because as you grow, you have more people come and go, and not everybody subscribes to that, and that's okay. And not everybody stays with you for more than a season, and some people stay for a lot longer and you know, somebody described it to me one time as a tree. So you have your roots. Those are your people that are going to be with you forever. You've got your base and those are your strong people that you know are really there. Then you've got your limbs. They come and go and your leaves are seasoned, and that made so much sense to me. But to try to create a culture when you have a growing company is a daily challenge, and so this kind of just grounds us.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:And you still work in the day-to-day operations of the company, correct? I do you haven't just passed that off yet.
Speaker 3:There was a time that I did, and what I have learned is that it's better to stay really close to it.
Speaker 1:Well, especially when it's grandma's biscuits, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, mom's biscuits, mom's biscuits, I apologize. They all had a part in it. I'm sure they all had a hand in it.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's a little bit of all the women in your family in that biscuit recipe. And then Mount Pleasant are you ever going to come here? No, I can't ask that. Can I ask that question? You can ask that question.
Speaker 3:You know we have looked at many spaces, but after COVID I made a conscious decision to not, at this time, open any more Hot Little Biscuit Bake Shops, because it gets really exciting to go oh, I want to be here. I want exciting to go. Oh, I want to be here. I want to be here, I want to be here and that's the fun part and putting it together and opening day, but then at the end of the day, like there's only so many hours in the day and I have to go back to my shining beacon light and my goal in life is to have a lifestyle with my family, but also be in the food world, and so that's hard because you have to put your blinders on and we have our hands full with king street and market. We're still in a staffing crisis. It has not gotten better, no matter what, anybody says it's not any better in mount pleasant either yeah, and I want to be.
Speaker 3:I actually want to be everywhere. I think that hot little biscuit is the best franchisable concept. But I'm not going to do that on my own. I'm going to wait until I find the perfect partner, and that may happen tomorrow, it may happen next year, it may not happen. But if it's going to happen, it's not going to be just me, because I have to focus on making sure that I don't get distracted with, as my husband says, the shiny things. She's like you're such an entrepreneur. You're like, oh, let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. And yeah, because you get bored, like once something is underway, you're like, okay, what's next?
Speaker 2:And you have to.
Speaker 3:I have to learn how to just enjoy not being in chaos at all times.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like your husband's the perfect partner, then he your husband's the perfect partner, then he's the one who keeps yeah, I don't always listen to him. Well, I don't think I listen to mine very often either, but it sounds like he's got some really great advice for you know, making sure that you keep your focus straight, because, of course, it is your family first.
Speaker 1:That's right um and when I said about muslin I just wanted to tell everybody the ride downtown is worth it for the biscuits. So you know, do not let that bridge stand in the way of the best biscuit you're ever going to have.
Speaker 3:Do not, and if you don't like to come downtown, you can Uber eats the biscuits to your house. Can you make it any?
Speaker 1:easier for us to get biscuits. Does your wife know that she does not?
Speaker 3:Okay, she's learning something new today we have a whole catering division. We will cater and bring to you drop off staff. Give me something new today. We have a whole catering division. We will cater and bring to you drop off staff, whatever you like. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So fun fact, fun question If your biscuits could tell a story.
Speaker 3:What would it be? Any story?
Speaker 1:Any story.
Speaker 3:Well, I hope that if the biscuits could tell a story, they would talk about the 19 years and the wild ride in which we've been on. I mean, we've got some crazy stories and I've always said, if somebody asked me to write a book about my journey, the title would be you Cannot Make this Beep Up Because they're so. You know, I think especially we all know that social media makes it look like it's this booming empire and everything's going great. And it's not like that at all. It is. It's an S show on the inside.
Speaker 3:You know, we are happy and working easier, but it actually just keeps getting harder, because as you grow, the problems continue to mount and the problems are harder to solve and you can't just throw people at it, because then you get further away from it and then you're not really knowing exactly what the problems are, because you're trying to let your people handle the problems, but if they don't handle them the right way, then you find out about it after the fact. So it's a struggle and that's part of why I wanted to downsize a little bit and then focus on growing one area, because it is. It's difficult and this economy that we're in has made it with staffing and then just inflation, making it very hard to make money. Before a pandemic it was a lot easier. It's very hard to make money right now.
Speaker 1:And then you mentioned earlier your catering business. Not many people know that you have a catering business. You do everything. I know I've been to a couple of events where you've been, and it was the pimento cheese. What was on that, Amanda? It was the pimento cheese biscuit. I just ate like 14 of them, oh.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 1:I just couldn't stop. I believe it was almost when I first moved here too, so I was still getting my taste of this delicious southern food. You've certainly embraced that, for sure, but tell us a little about the catering business though.
Speaker 3:It was not our intention to have a catering business, but people kept calling the restaurants and saying I want to order 10 bakers, dozens and you know grits for 20. And then the restaurants couldn't support that and support the line they had. So we moved the catering out to our production facility which is in the Navy base. And it's been great because our team of bakers that make for our wholesale, we can pull one or two off and they can make the catering orders like this happened this morning and they can prep it and then it doesn't affect the service in the restaurants.
Speaker 3:But you know there's delivering issues, like just last week one of the girls locked her keys in her car and she can't get the food to the person. You know there's always a problem, there's always a hurdle to get over and it's very small. But I don't like to tell people no, and when they call and say we need this and that and that, I'm like okay, let's make it happen. You know that's just my way. So, yeah, it's not a big part of our business, but I think that it helps elevate and spread the word about the brand and a lot of the caterings that we're doing are Saturday morning, bridal luncheons, bachelorette parties, that kind of thing. So those are usually people from, not from Charleston, and so every chance I get to get a biscuit into somebody's mouth that's never had them, that to me is the best advertising, because I believe that once you taste them you'll realize that this is not just your average biscuit and hopefully they'll remember that.
Speaker 3:I feel very strongly that most people associate food with comfort and memories and you know, going back to your question, what's the best compliment I've ever received is when somebody takes a bite of one of our biscuits and they say that reminds me of my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, who used to make biscuits by hand and we don't have the recipe anymore. And that, again, is another incredible compliment of my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, who used to make biscuits by hand and we don't have the recipe anymore.
Speaker 1:That again is another incredible compliment.
Speaker 3:I guarantee you that bride's going to go back to where they came from and then start ordering Hopefully order online or go to Whole Foods and get them in the freezer.
Speaker 1:You always talk about your time here in Charleston, right? So let's add ordering biscuits to the get-home-to-do list, for sure.
Speaker 3:That's the goal.
Speaker 1:Another fun question for you. All right, so if you could have a biscuit party and invite any three people who are still here or gone, who would you invite?
Speaker 3:Oh, what a great question. Okay, if I could have a biscuit party, I would probably invite both of my grandmothers who have passed, because they both made biscuits, and I would invite Natalie Dupree, who is still alive, and I would probably invite someone like Edna Lewis, who I've always looked up to and read her books and she was a Southern, amazing Southern cook, but an icon, and I don't know. I think that would be my four.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a fun party yeah.
Speaker 3:Doesn't it.
Speaker 1:We'll have fantastic and you'll have biscuits.
Speaker 3:And we will have biscuits. We'll have a biscuit bar, a biscuit board, biscuit making classes, all the things that's perfect, perfect.
Speaker 2:So quick question on your husband's side has he been active in the business or has he just been like an advisor?
Speaker 3:He is the official martini maker.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a very important job. Very nice yes.
Speaker 3:And he is the official complaint register. He listens to me complain.
Speaker 3:Got it, which is a horrible job, but he's really good at it and he always is quick to remind me. I don't feel sorry for you. You keep going and you know he's really good about. Uh, no, he's not officially in the business, but I think we. He has his own business, so we're constantly talking about either our children or our businesses and the problems and how do we solve that and what should we do about that. So I'm very grateful to have somebody that is always willing to help me solve the problems, but also it's fun to know that you're supported equally by your partner and vice versa, and I don't know.
Speaker 3:it just makes life fun. It makes life fun to have an entrepreneurial family.
Speaker 1:So you obviously done business in the Charleston area for a while and we are a business organization, the Chamber, so can you give our listeners, who are perhaps just starting out or thinking of starting out, some advice about doing business in the area?
Speaker 3:Well, one thing that I'm really bad about is networking, so I think that that is super important.
Speaker 1:And that's what we do good. I know the Chamber does some very good networking things.
Speaker 3:You do that very well, and that is definitely something I should work on. I'm not sure I will take that on in this stage of my life, but I love doing things like this because I can talk about my business without having to. I don't like to ask people for things, and so that's where I have a weird thing about networking.
Speaker 3:But anyway you should network. You should get out into the community and talk to as many people as you can. If you have a product-based business, you should give out your product and try and get the word out. But I think the one thing that has helped me in the beginning was starting out small and being okay with being small and not spending money until you make it. That gets a little bit harder to do as you grow, but just taking it slow.
Speaker 3:You know, I get a lot of phone calls from people that want to start this ranch salad dressing business or a cookie company and I say you know there's no rush. I know that you're excited and that's a hard thing because you have all that momentum, but go to the farmer's market, sell it there, like, don't kill yourself. There's plenty of business and room for everybody and there's plenty of time, unless you're just trying to scale it and sell it. So take it easy, take it slow, enjoy your life. I am a huge believer in building a business around your lifestyle, not building your lifestyle around your business, and I think it's easy as an entrepreneur to get caught up in doing the other.
Speaker 1:No, that's some great advice there. We obviously have a lot of small businesses in our chamber and of course we are here to help support them. But I see what you mean.
Speaker 1:I've talked to some of our members who have opened a location that's doing great, which of course, we all want, and I hear little whisperings about maybe do a second one. I'm like you know, let's be open a day and see how it goes, and I'm only saying this because I actually care about you and your business and your family. So I think that's a really great piece of advice. And so, before we let you go, because I really want to eat that platter of biscuits that's sitting in front of me, if you could eat only one of your biscuits for the rest of your life, which biscuit is it going to be?
Speaker 3:It's definitely the buttermilk, because the buttermilk is the base for everything. It's kind of like a blank canvas. It's four ingredients, it's whole buttermilk, salted butter, cream cheese and our flour, and it can be anything and everything. And so growing up, I ate biscuits more for supper than I did for breakfast, and I feel like America has conditioned everyone to think that biscuits are for breakfast, which I love biscuits for breakfast, but I think they're for every meal, and so a buttermilk biscuit can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert. It can be sweet, it can be savory, it can be topped with, filled with anything right. And I think I love biscuits specifically the buttermilk, because they can be served at the finest cocktail parties at the White House and be served on silver platters and they're the best things you've ever tasted.
Speaker 3:But they can also be served at the Bowman Interstate gas station and be 59 cents and be one of the best biscuits that you've ever had, and for me, biscuits hold no economic barriers and they speak to everybody, and they're not just the bread of the South, they are the bread of our country. They're one of the first breads that came over and there's just something so important about this bread. It has such great history and really one of the reasons that I said to my mom when we first started we, this handmade art of biscuit making, is dying. I grew up at my grandmother's you know, right by her side and watched her make biscuits every day and we had them hot coming out of the oven and they. We never had a meal without biscuits and nobody does this anymore. And so we need to revive this art of biscuit making because it's a part of our heritage and our culture and the biscuits that are available to us now are just not what they should be well.
Speaker 1:Every time my husband opens one of those pop cans, I want to say who they are, because he loves biscuits. Um, and, like you said, he'll do it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, doesn't matter. I literally, I just literally. My eyes roll to the back of my head. I'm like you live in Charleston and you are popping that can of biscuits, are you out of your mind? So I've been working on him.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate it, I'm going to work on him to get in the car or get online and order them. But you're right, I mean they're a staple. They're a staple of so many people's. They're a staple. They're a staple of so many people's tables and stories and histories and stuff. Well, we obviously wish you continued continued success on this amazing business of yours. Yes, If you have not watched your PBS show On a Roll, how she Rolls.
Speaker 3:How she Rolls, I apologize. Wherever TV is available Amazon Prime, pbs, of course you can just type it in. You can probably pull it up on YouTube too. I don't know anything about that, but yes.
Speaker 1:Probably, Probably. Make sure you check that out your cookbooks real quick.
Speaker 3:Yes, we have Callie's Biscuits and Southern Traditions. They're available wherever cookbooks are. And then we have Hot Little Suppers and they both have chapters on biscuits, but they're really story-focused recipes about either my growing up and my grandmothers and my mothers and my dad, or Hot Little Suppers is really more of a modern version of what I've fed my family for the last 20 years. And all the stories that come along with it, which, to me, is the best part of the cookbook.
Speaker 1:Well, that's it because they're made with love. I can already.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, when I eat them, I realize it. When I sit here and talk to you, I realize about it, and it's so refreshing to me because there's so many big businesses and things out there and I think a lot of them have lost that None in Mount Pleasant None of our chamber, of course, but you all know what I mean. They've lost. There's so many ways of doing customer service and speaking with their customers these days and there are so many big companies that were so bad at it and just sitting here listening to you. Honestly, when you go and you take a bite of this, you feel the love, the history, the tradition, and so you've done just really an incredible job, thank you. So thank you for taking time out of your busy day to be here with us today, and there are quite a few left on this plate and they're going to be gone in about five minutes, folks, so you are out of luck.
Speaker 1:I want to again thank our sponsors Charleston Radio Group and, of course, our friend Brian Cleary great supporters of the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. If you want to be a sponsor of our podcast or be a guest on our show, just reach out to us and we'll get back to you. Be sure to subscribe to all of our media channels. We will be on Spotify, itunes, youtube, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn. So thank you for being with us today. Until next time, mount Pleasant. Until next time, listeners.
