EXPERIENCE 38 | Building an Icon into a Brand with Louann DeCoursey of Panhandler's Pizza

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is your host, Kurt Bear, and I'm here today with Luan de Corsi. And Luan is the owner, president, and CEO of Panhandlers Pizza. And Panhandlers Pizza is a very long-known pizza franchise, our pizza operation here in Fort Collins, and Luan has aspirations to bring it to more of the world. And I love her story, and I think she's going to do it. And if you're looking to pick up some panhandlers, it's at 27-21 South College. So Luan, why don't you tell us about, let's just start with your journey into being coming the owner, president, CEO of Panhandlers, yeah. Chief bottle washer. So I started out at Panhandlers actually when I was in high school, and I loved working there. I mean, I started, I think, literally the day after graduation, my senior year, and worked there for a while, loved it, saw lots of people from high school coming back through, and all of that, and all the years behind me. I saw them for a few years, and so I worked there for a while, went off to other things in my life, came back, and was a general manager when my boss left, and loved being the manager of it, and we did some fun things, which pizza in the park, and across from Fort Collins High School, and it just had some fun with it, and then went to college, went off, did a few other things, worked for some nonprofits, we might circle back to some of that life journey as well. And so then we, so then I found out Panhandlers, a friend of mine who had worked at Panhandlers with me, called me up, and he goes, hey, John told me he's going to sell Panhandlers, you should buy it, because we own another restaurant in Fort Collins, tortilla merisses, and so I said, no, I know better, I'm not going to buy another restaurant, and he's like, no, you probably should buy Panhandlers, and I was like, no, and then I saw lots of Facebook posts about, oh my gosh, Panhandlers is going to close, and all these things, and so I jokingly said on Facebook, a former employee should buy it, ha ha ha ha, and that got picked up on the Colorado One page, there were something like 2000 likes and comments after that, it's like the most viral I've ever gone, and, and, well that means like 2000 people thought that you should buy it. I know, it was kind of crazy, and so then people were like messaging me and texting me, and I just started talking to the owner a little bit saying, okay, okay, whoever's going to buy Panhandlers, you have to make sure that they do this, this, this, and this, and they can't do this, this, and this, they can't mess with the pizza, they have to keep the idea of wood and brick, and all these things, because that's what makes Panhandlers Panhandlers. And so then my husband looked at me one day and goes, you're going to buy Panhandlers, aren't you? And I was like, no, and then I didn't have the hard to tell them that I'd already put a bit in on Panhandlers. And so then I found out I got the bid, there were about 13 offers for Panhandlers. Lots of people wanting to do lots of different things, like with the recipes and some things like that, but I was fortunate enough to get it, so then, yeah, so, yeah, so I feel like I'm kind of like the gatekeeper of everybody's memories around Panhandlers, and it's taken me probably up until the last six months to actually feel like I own it and it's truly, truly mine. And when was this? And what were you doing, like, just immediately, Leah Jason, you said you were also involved with 13 Marissa's restaurant? I was working with 13 Marissa's some help in my husband out over there. I worked for some non-profits, was doing some consulting work around non-profits in Northern Colorado, you know, we have four kids, so very busy with that. Things to do, yeah. Lots of things to do. We just, so I mean, did I have time to start a new restaurant, or start another restaurant up, and no, not really, but we just figured it out, and so that's, yeah, that's kind of what I was doing beforehand, and I, you know, I kind of say, tell people I didn't mean to buy Panhandler, but I'm really glad I did, so. So was it a well planned accident? I mean, had you been working on like a business plan and stuff like that, you have accessed all the financials and stuff? No, actually, I didn't. I bought it kind of site and seen other than I knew Panhandlers. I knew what I was going to get for the price of it, but John really didn't share financials and things like that about it, which actually was kind of a smart move, I think, because then it was about buying it for the heart, and because you loved Panhandlers and not buying it because of it was a good investment, investment, and number decision, and things like that. And so, you know, probably a little stupid of me to go in that way, or really smart. The banker in me wouldn't have advocated for it necessarily, but the marketing person in me and the person who grew up eating Panhandlers every day in high school, and those sorts of things would say, yeah, you knew the business, you knew what you could do with it. And so, yeah. Well, and it's not degrading pizza by any measure or whatever, but it's dough and some toppings, and there's margin there if you can make yourself popular as a pizza restaurant, you can make profit. Yeah, yeah, you can, but you got to have awfully good dough and sauce and cheese to have really good pizza. I mean, you got to get the right margin. Right, you've got to have, you can sell all the commodity pizza you want, you know, and have frozen pizza or some of the people. Dominoes, whatever. Yeah, so have a 99 pizzas, $5 pizzas, whatever. Or you can have a really quality product that has like 100% whole milk, low moisture mozzarella, you know, and you know, the company takes really good care of their cows, you know, things like that. So, it's about choices to me, like how you want to one decide to do business, and then with our customers, creating that experience as well. And so when, when did this happen? So, panhandlers shut down September of 2017, John and I kind of closed the deal at the end of September. So there was a like a week period that people didn't think panhandlers, they're like, oh my gosh, it closed. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, and I'd be at a football game or something or like, can you believe panhandlers closed? And I'm like, yeah, I can do it, you know, and just really couldn't say anything. Well, you know what's happening. Yeah, I knew exactly what was happening. And so we wanted to reopen a lot sooner, but we had a number of issues in reopening. There weren't a lot of spaces at that time either to move into in Fort Collins. So we kind of moved into the only spot we kind of found that was close enough to make it okay. And we reopened in March of 2018. Okay. And that's at your current location now. Yeah, that's at the, yeah, and that's Strip Mall. Yeah, yeah. Thunderbird Center, is that right? You know, Thunderbird Center is across the street. We're in Midtown Commons. Oh, yeah. Midtown. And it's not a sexy location necessarily, although it is sexy when you walk into panhandlers. I kind of think it is. I mean, we kept, you know, a lot of the ideas of panhandlers, the old panhandlers were brick and wood, but quite frankly, when we opened it or when I worked at the old panhandlers and so that was like 1985, it needed to be updated at that point. Right. So, you know, it was kind of fun to take the idea of the brick and the wood and the round, round lights in the old panhandlers and figure out how to make them a little bit more contemporary, make sense and some metal, some things like that. And, you know, as we're going forward here in the next six months, we're kind of doing a renovation of the space as well. So because I bought panhandlers, I didn't mean to buy the restaurant like I said earlier. I didn't necessarily get to finish it exactly how I wanted to. So we've been working to develop design standards and what all panhandlers in the future should look like and there's going to be some changes that are going to be pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. What I love about it, my wife and I went to Venice years ago and like just that old world charm of that, it almost feels like even just walking around this strip mall space, like you're going to bump into a gondola somewhere. That would be awesome if I could just go across the parking lot in a gondola. I would love that. Yeah, for sure. And although, hopefully it wouldn't smell as stinky as Venice kind of does. Yeah, yeah. My wife and I disagree about how cool Venice was because I'm like, it's stinky. How could it be that great? So go to Las Vegas to Venice, Casino, and then you could just do the gondola there and it doesn't smell. I'm sure it smells a little different. It smells like money. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. So, okay, so you've been re-opened and operating for a while and then obviously last year, COVID nation, everything probably impacted the way you operate. Were you planning on scaling sooner? I know you're kind of doing a bit of a capital raise now and we can get into that as much or as little as you'd like, but were you planning on doing that leading up to COVID and then it was a push pause? We were looking at doing it, you know, we kind of were developing the business plan and what the model would look like and some things like that. But we weren't necessarily planning on doing it at that time or not doing it. Like we didn't really have a timeline set forth. So COVID happened and kind of forced me to think differently. And so we actually came out of COVID pretty positively. Our 2020 numbers were better than our 2019 numbers and our 2021 numbers have shown a huge increase in spend. Awesome. Good for you. But we had to- No PPP2 for you though. No, none. Whatever. Thank you. Yeah. We got a little bit of ERC, but that's about it. But it caused me to think about our business a lot differently, you know, a lot more differently. Well, what did you do? Like, I didn't, I haven't heard that from very many restaurants that our 2020 was better than our 2019. Yeah. Right. Some ways about it. It's kind of a unique sort of thing. So I said, okay, I know that we have lots and lots of fans. After 45 years of a brand, you know, there's lots of people that have went to CSU and then moved or high school here and then moved. And so we did what we called pop up panhandlers. I found a font that I just loved. And so I kept like, I loved the letter P in this font. So I had to do lots of P's and whatever we did. And so I came up with the idea that, all right, you can deliver pizza. Wellington isn't that far. Windsor isn't that far. Greeley's really not that far. And so what we did is we, on social media and through like constant contact and things like that, we just said, hey, we're going to be at this location, like a park or a movie theater. Yeah. Hey, pan's fans. This is where we're going to be prepay for your pizzas, pre-order your pizzas and we'll deliver them to you. And we would do like $1,000 up to Wellington or we did what we call our half-bakes where you get, we bake the dough and the sauce and then we add the toppings cold. So you can, and you finish baking it at home. Yeah. So it's a half-baked pizza. And so we would do those down to park meadows. So I can go with two hour radius with cold pizza. And you know, $1,000 in pizza down there. That's brilliant. That's brilliant. And it worked great and we had, and it got me one, I didn't have to stay at the restaurant. So that was kind of nice, you know, getting to drive somewhere and do something. So we did lots of those over there and we're continuing to do those because people are asking for them and asking for new cities. And will you come here and we're actually doing some as fundraisers with neighborhoods and HOAs. I was going to say also like grand openings for businesses and locations and stuff you could be a partner. Yep. So we've been doing some things like that and trying to figure out how to leverage pop-ups in a little bit different way. Just got asked to do one in Colorado Springs. So it'll be half-baked only. We had parking lot concerts. We figured out how to space out our parking lot and did some parking lot concerts. And we just, you know, we knew what parking spot someone was in when they would order and we would just take their pizza out to them because they couldn't come in. But we could certainly go out. We did, we added breakfast pizza on weekends. We created family meals, lots and lots of social media. Just to remind people that we're still there in the community. I mean, I'm so humbled about how the community responded to one, you know, our first responders. And so people were buying pizzas to send to people. We, you know, the number of gift cards that people came in and bought. I'm just thinking of Domino's pizzas says thank you, but a panhandler's pizza to a firefighter is like thank you and a hug. Yeah. We did a lot of pizzas to the firefighters. And one of the things that we do is we ship our pizza nationally. It's a frozen, frozen way we've come up with it. It holds up great. Is that all innovation kind of forced by the COVID because you didn't have the half-baked necessarily or you knew about them or? We could do them, but they weren't. So we did, it was taking things that I knew panhandlers could do, but actually marketing it, naming them, doing something with them, actually. So like we took pizzas to firefighters during all the wildfires. And it's great because there was a big group that we took pizzas to for Mississippi, which I loved because I grew up in Mississippi, but then we've gotten a whole bunch of nationwide orders from Mississippi. So I know that they're ordering the pizzas because they really loved the pizza and, you know, and so it's been kind of this fun sort of thing or their moms were calling me and telling me thank you for feeding their boy and, you know, so that was super, super, super fun. But yeah, I mean COVID really forced me to think about our business in a different way. And I'm kind of this way, anyway, that I tend not to say no to an ideal, I'll say yes first and then figure it out later. Totally. And so I did a lot of that over COVID, sure I could do 100 slices on a crop. Are there any say yeses that you'd later had to turn around and say no again or the change it? No, I would never do that. I would figure out how to make it happen no matter what. Well, the first time, but would you say I'm not going to do that again? That was them. As far as anything we did during COVID, no, there wasn't anything that has come up so far. You didn't show up with a pop up and nobody showed up because you hadn't. No, because you had to pre-order and pre-pay. Oh, okay. You took your risk out. Yeah, so I took the risk out by doing it that way. So I generally, when we do these sorts of things, I try and figure out what, okay, how can I make this so that it will actually be successful before we would go do it? So that was one of the criteria for the pop ups is, if I'm going to drive to Park Meadows with all these half-baked pizzas, one, I want people to get what they really wanted. And then two, I guarantee. You didn't want to drive back with a half of your half of the pizzas. And there was once or twice that people didn't show up or couldn't come to pick up their pizzas or whatever. And like with Park Meadows, it was great because my best friend from high school lives literally a couple blocks away from where we went, so I'm like, hey, do you want some pizza? She got a couple of pizzas over the summer, too. There you go. Yeah. I was just thinking to myself how, you know, you mentioned earlier kind of jumping into this without a big time plan and stuff. And people think of entrepreneurs as risk takers all the time and we are, they are, but very calculated. You know, you weren't willing to either have a poor customer experience that didn't get the kind of pizza that they wanted or to return with a bunch of wasted pizzas because your half-baked thought out. Right. Right. I tend, I always say that I'm just jumping into things by the seat of my pants, but I probably plan a little bit more than I, you know, you know, did I think the pop-ups would work like they did? No, but I did, you know, I'm like, all right, we'll try at this first round and we came up with like eight cities and eight locations. And it worked. Yeah. So then we just keep doing it. Yeah. Well, you know, entrepreneurs take a lot of risks, but they take many small calculated risks and when they find winners, they do it more. Yeah. So when did, like, obviously, you're probably back up to full occupancy. When you and I met, it was really just getting back to in person seeing each other stuff. Right. And I was like, why haven't I been here? I'm embarrassed that I hadn't gone to the new pants. Right. Right. But when did kind of the, okay, it's for real on the multiple locations vision and things like that start coming together? That kind of started happening over the, I mean, over COVID too. I mean, I want to have more time to do a lot more planning because, I mean, while we were still really busy, I retained all my staff. So I, you know, I still wanted to keep people employed. They barely had enough to do. Yeah. So I pulled out. So, you know, and I think it's really important to work on your business and not always in your business. I mean, I'll be able to make a pizza faster than any of them, you know, for the rest of my life. I know that. And if I can work on the business and make that my job, then I can grow the business. And so kind of over COVID, we really kind of nail down what we wanted the business plan to look like. And, you know, it's a great story to be able to say how well we did over COVID. So that's part of our story. And then, you know, I spend some time really thinking about, you know, 45 years of panhandlers, what did I see work, what did I not see work, how can we make this better, how can I take breakfast pizza that we used to eat as a staff, you know, when we were doing a large group or, you know, something like that, we would make breakfast pizza for ourselves. And then, how do I then take that and make it into something marketable? Yeah. And it's funny for me because I kind of feel like the gatekeeper of everybody's memories, like I said earlier. Yeah. And there's all these old employees for panhandlers that I'm still in contact. I mean, so many of my friends that I worked there with, you know, still really good friends with. And so like with breakfast pizza, I felt like I had to ask them all. So I like sent a big message to all these old pan's employee saying, do you guys care if I try and market breakfast pizza? You know, and was like, man, we really don't care. You own it. And I'm like, okay, tell me about breakfast pizza while we're here. Okay. So pizza is basically, I kind of call it quiche for men, you know, because what's quiche? It's dough, sauce, cheese, and something like this. Too much egg in a tiny bit of meat. Right. So we take, you know, everything panhandlers does is kind of about abundance and quality and all of that. And we have this really great dough that's really pastry style. And so we take that dough, put a layer of olive oil, like we have a biscuits and gravy pizza called the hay y'all. And so instead of sauce, it's got gravy on it, with eggs, mozzarella, cheddar, our incredible sausage, you know, that you can't get anywhere else and red onions. And that's all just baked. Or we do it. We have a breakfast burrito one that has green chili and sausage and onions and peppers on it. Also clever. Yeah. And so, and, you know, we kind of took all the breakfast staples like biscuits and gravy or a Denver omelette or a veggie sort of one. And just created breakfast pizzas out of them. Yeah. Our dough, because it is a pastry style dough, makes really great cinnamon rolls. So we do a Senate, what's called Cinepans. And so, oh, you use that in like your big pan and just put a, put a bunch of cinnamon with it and butter and bake it with some frosting over the top, so good. And so, you know, so we're going to actually relaunch breakfast here in the next couple of weeks as exactly, EGGZA, exactly, mornings powered by pan handlers. I love it. And so, you know, we're, and how do you get that? We're going to be open every, every morning, a lot earlier. Wow. We're debating over the hours right now with the staff. Right. Seven, eight, seven, eight. And then we'll have it every day. And just like pizza by the slice coming and going. We'll do it by a slice. Yeah, we'll do it by the slice and then we'll also have it with whole pizzas. We're going to really push the catering side of it because how many people are sick of like continental breakfast, breakfast meetings. Or grab eight breakfast burritos because that's what we do. Right. Two different breakfast pizzas. Yeah. Some amazing. Yeah. And we have, so we'll do it just a couple of those variations and slices, but we'll have the whole full menu available. We're partnering with Bendo coffee, you know, local, local roaster here in town to, to do our coffee, doing some kind of fun things with, we don't have a full liquor license. We have beer and wine. So we're doing a blurry Mary, you know, with beer and, and bloody Mary mix and a forbidden apple with verbotents, a caramel porter, killer boots, and some at cider mixed together. Oh. So good. Interesting. And cider in orange juice is super good. Oh, yeah. Cider moses. Yep. Cider moses. Well, Jim just introduced me to their mimosa sour beer. Mm-hmm. So good. I always call it Django and it's not it. It's got a different name than that, but it's like a, uh, something. Yeah. But it's a mimosa sour. And so we're going to partner with them and, and do that as well. So, you know, we're really going to try and take over the breakfast day part a little bit differently. Yeah. Totally. Well, and who's the last pizza shop that you saw walking into the breakfast marketplace? Yeah, there, there hasn't been one. Right. So, you know, there are some a couple of our, uh, you know, um, I'm not going to say competitors because we don't really necessarily compete in the same pizza space that a lot of people do, but there are a couple of other places in town that do, do a breakfast pizza, but it's not actually as breakfast, you know, it's just kind of added on to their regular menu. Yeah. They keep, yeah, they keep some eggs in the back and, you know, when they're walking in and can do a breakfast pizza, but, yeah, so we're, we're going to kind of try and leap into that, that day part a little bit, um, and as we expand, uh, we're looking at going into a, uh, site that's a sports, sports site in Northern Colorado, uh, and we think we could do pretty well with breakfast, breakfast pizza there. Yeah. So, I think you could do a sunny side-up pizza. We've talked about that. We can, we figured out how to fry eggs in our ovens because we only have ovens in the back. Right. So, we can fry the egg and then slide them on top of pizzas and some things. Oh, I see. So, we can do them either scrambled or set a site up on a pizza and then we, you know, break it. Well, there's nothing more special than like egg yolk running into your pasta or maybe onto your pizza crust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So, we're, we're noodling on this expansion plan. We're kind of figuring out what we want to become when we grow up right, right, right, right. When does that go public or when did it go public? So, we started a seed equity financing round, um, a couple of months ago. And we had our first closing. Okay. And, um, we're really successful with that and went over our goal for the first round. And we're going into the second round right now, close at the end of this month. Okay. And, uh, our right on target to where we wanted to be, um, and then, and is this something you've done before raised private capital and, um, not in this, not in the same, not in the same way. I did a lot of fundraising. Uh, I worked for universities and nonprofits. So, I knew the idea of fundraising and really it's not that different from, you know, raising money for a stadium, uh, like I did it at UNC or raising money for a business. I mean, it's still asking someone, you know, doing it and asking it to pull their heart string in some fashion. Yeah. It's the same, it's the same sort of thing. So, we've kind of, uh, um, although your donors expect some return potentially. Right. I had a struggle because I would keep calling them donors and they're actually investors. So, you know, I got a little trouble around that. But, um, you know, we've really, um, what is the word, um, coin to the term affinity, and this is an affinity raise. So we took people that loved panhandlers went to pan spans first and said, hey, here's what we want to do. We'd love to share our business plan with you. Um, and, uh, we have all these information sessions you can come to and people are all over it, you know, like a, be my angel, kind of an outreach, right? Yeah. Like, proven yet. I mean, you definitely, the fact that you exceeded 2019 in 2020 and 2020 is, one is going better than 2020 was. Yeah. You know, there's some credibility that goes with that, right? Right. You know, it's a big raise to create a new brand. It's one thing to create a location, but to create a brand is interesting. Yeah. It's been, it's can really interesting too, because panhandlers, I mean, does have this 45 year history for good or for bad, you know, um, and I've never heard anything bad. No. There's, yeah. Anyway, there's a, there's a few bad reviews, but there's a 45 year history. But there's a 45 year history and a value and a constraints. Yeah. You know, um, and so we've been able to, uh, kind of take that, uh, pivot and then, and say, Hey, yeah, we know there's 10,000 memories to one pizza and, you know, one of my favorite things is this woman came in and tasted our pizza who, who was from Chicago and she goes, I've been searching for this pizza for 30 years. Ever since I moved west to the Mississippi, I haven't found it. Yeah. And she goes, I just tasted my childhood and I was like, Oh, you know, that just went to my heartstrings. And so it's been this really interesting journey of, okay, you don't mess with the pizza you don't touch my pizza. In fact, we only added one pizza onto the menu. So there's no new code. When we were opened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We won't do that. Um, but, you know, panhandlers is such a great product. There are lots of fun things we can do with our dough. Like it makes great strombollies and calzones. Mm hmm. So we're going to add that to our menu. You know, so it's really taking this idea of this older brand. What can we do? How can we make it more current? And how can we continue it on? And, you know, quite frankly, the pop-ups were a great way to do market research. Mm hmm. Because I knew where our pan's fans were then. I knew, you know, I got paid to do market research basically. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, we know where lots of pan's fans still want their pizza. And so we've been able to kind of start to really kind of figure it out. And so then in the business plan, you know, we've got like a whole list of new products and adding to our menu, um, you know, it's really important to me to figure out sustainable ways to do things. So we have an idea to do, uh, or what I call an eco pan. Uh, it's kind of like a pizza grower. So you know how you take a grower into a brewery, get it filled up and take it with you. We've got an idea for a pizza pan to eliminate pizza box. Oh, yeah. Things like that too. Oh, I love that idea. Yeah. Um, that'll be another whole show. Right. Okay. Uh, we're working. We're doing a patent search right now. Not ready for a public release. Yes. Okay. Ready for public release. You know, adding CBD oil to a sauce, creating sauce with benefits. Right. Um, adding in, uh, we've really searched hard because so many gluten, uh, products are, gluten free products are very flat. Our dough is a pando very thick pillowy. We've been able to, we've been able to find a, uh, a replication of that in gluten. Free. So we can have gluten free garlic cheese bread and gluten free pizza that's actually a pan sort of piece. So you made a lot of reference to the dough, like to the extent that trade secrets don't forbid or whatever, like what it is about your dough, a pastry style dough that, that really sets it apart. Um, our dough is cooked low and slow and it is pastry style. It's not just, you know, flour, water, yeast thrown in a walk in. I mean, there's a serious process of how we proof our dough, how we, uh, release our dough, the ingredients in our dough. I mean, back when I worked with panhandlers back in the day, I didn't even know what went in the dough or the sauce for that matter. I didn't know the spices. I got, I knew that there was this packet and it had to go with this water with yeast in it. And then you added flour and that's it and I had no idea. Same with the sauce. Now I got this spice packet that I didn't know, you dump it in this much tomato and that's what you do. Um, and because when I bought panhandlers, I even said to John, I go, do I get to know what's in the dough and the sauce and he's like, that's what you're buying. And I'm like, oh, yeah. So, so we, we are actually are just back to that point now. I just did a bunch of NDAs for people. Right. Right. That they're, they have to sign. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody needs to know how to make the dough. Right. And so, um, it's just, but the dough is this low and slow cooked process. That's why our pizzas take so long. Yeah. Because you can't, you can't fast. Oh, and that's where the half baked thing really comes into play as well. Yeah. And so we figured out a process that we can speed up our time significantly. Yeah. Um, and so that's going to be kind of a game changer in, in some more units and developing some other business distribution channels that we're doing. And, uh, you know, the same thing with the sauce. Nobody really, everyone's like, like lots of people will ask me. So is there this in the sauce or is there this spice in the sauce and I'm like, really not going to tell you. Right. It's where it's not. Are you allergic to it? Will it kill you? Yeah. Then I might tell you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Holy then. Yeah. And then only with a pinkie swear. Yeah. Um, so I was just thinking to myself that with the, the half baked and all these different distribution channels and things like that, like, I've never really seen like a more than $12 frozen pizza at the grocery store. Yeah. And that seems like an opportunity to me, just if you could really create a $20 frozen pizza, that's twice as good as those $10 or $8 pizzas. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're, we're looking at that. Uh, we have this incredible advisory board. Um, as part of our, uh, fundraising and as part of really developing panhandlers, we've been able to develop one a really great senior team to a really great board of directors and, and three, I've got an advisory board that their credentials are amazing. I mean, people who have been like COO of Red Robin or the president of McAllister's Delhi. Wow. Or, uh, you know, really up high in supply chain management and, and, and major corporations or, uh, really worked in developing like items like if we were going to sell our pizza sauce. Right. They've been there done that. They, they teach other people how to do this. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, because I have this big group of experts behind me, um, we're going to be able to do. And that's one of, that's one of the things that's on like kind of our phase two of our business. Right. We're selling our pizza sauce. Can we actually figure out how to do a frozen pizza product because if it doesn't hold up, I don't want to do it. Right. If it's got the panhandlers name, it's going to be delicious. Yes. It's got to, it's got to be just like you, you know, when you cook it at home, it needs to be at least 98% is good. It's getting it right out of our oven. Yeah. So that's a big lofty goal. But, uh, you know, I can appreciate the intention with the, with the brand protection there. Yeah. I mean, I just, um, the people expect a certain thing with panhandlers and, and I mean, it drives me nuts. If we, you know, if I find like a one star review or something that the pizza, somebody says a pizza wasn't good. I mean, all like hunt that person down on social media or whatever, be like, can you tell me what was actually wrong so we can fix it? And, you know, I mean, that's really important to me that I don't want, uh, any diminishing of quality. Yeah. So, and I, and one thing we're really doing, uh, right now is really trying to develop. If you have such a quality pizza, how do you create that whole experience to be, to be a quality experience because panhandlers has had this really interesting kind of casual model where you go in, you order at the counter and then you go sit down and you wait a little longer than normal or longer than normal, right? Yeah. And, you know, and you don't necessarily have weight staff and things like that, uh, coming over. But we're going to be retraining all of our staff, uh, and actually creating these, these positions of experience experts who are people who can be in the dining room and see someone's beer is half empty and, and get them a new beer or suggest, um, a new menu item or really guide people through that experience process in a different way. It looks like you really cleaned out that pizza pretty good. Do you guys want some maybe cinnamon roll pizzas? Yeah. Or, yeah, yeah. Or one new menu item we're actually launching tomorrow, uh, at New Belgium. Um, we, we do, we sell slices at the Thursday night Bohemian, uh, Bohemian night's concerts at New Belgium and, uh, it's a canoli in canoli chips and dip. Oh. Nice. So we have this, these really great canoli chips and we have a really great canoli filling and you just eat it like chips and dip. Interesting. Yeah. Um, you have endless imagination for food, don't you? Yeah. Kind of. I kind of sometimes wish I didn't. Right. Well, can we do that? Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, you can do all the things that just will take you a while to be able to do all the things. Right. Hey, we added pickles to a pizza and pickles and mustard were great on a pizza. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Have you used sauerkraut pizza? We've, we're talking about it. We will. We, we did a Ruth Bader Ginsburg pizza, uh, right around the time that she passed away. Yeah. Cause she loves Ruben Sandwiches. Oh. So we did a Ruben pizza in her. Nice. Yeah, the Ginsburg. So nice. Yeah. Appreciate it. Yeah. Uh, the German is what they call it in my hometown. Okay. Yeah. That would be good. Yeah. It's solid. Yeah. You can steal it. Okay. I was like, make it better. Oh, we could do like a horseradish mustard over the top of some pickles and, yeah. Yeah. Oh, good. So let's, let's learn a little bit about Luan. Okay. Um, we kind of breeze through kind of where you came from and stuff. Unless there's like you might be kind of finishing up another round raise right now for Pan's fans. We are. Should people go to a certain place or something if they've been intrigued by this line of conversation? Yeah. They can certainly just email me at Luan at panhandlers pizza.com, uh, call the restaurant and, you know, get a hold of me. Um, we don't have a specific site, but I do have like executive summary, business plan, all that I can definitely send out to people. Always happy. I mean, I love talking about panhandlers, you know, um, so I'm happy to sit down and talk with them. They just come in the restaurant, have a grab a slice and I'll give them the whole pitch right there. Right. Fair enough. For you listeners out there, I've always had a pretty good sniffer for good ideas and the person that could pull it off and I think there's a new, a new premium pizza brand in the front range. I, I, I would say there is. I agree. I agree. And so how did that come to play? Um, how did Luan get to be the kind of young lady that grew into a future, uh, brand developing, whatever? You know, I, I, I, I'm kind of not sure because I kind of did this by accident. Like I said earlier, but, um, you've been around here a long time. I have. I moved here, uh, when I was in ninth grade, um, moved here from Mississippi. Okay. You know, big hair and hairspray and aquanet and all right, and Mississippi, what? Like, like rural Mississippi and you talk funny or city and your parents were professors and moved to this. Kind of more, definitely more that it was, uh, we're actually Mississippi where University from Mississippi is go rebel, toddy toddy, um, and, um, you know, we, we moved here. Uh, I was completely against it, you know, I was fighting to go back the whole entire time. That is a ninth grader. Yeah. It's a ninth grader, you know, against everything. Yeah. I'm staying here sort of things that you can't really say when you're in ninth grade. Um, but, um, you know, grew to, grew to love for Collins, um, really quickly when you're in ninth grade, you lose your southern accent. Right. I mean, if I drink a little all y'all get a death and honey, maybe even honey child, yeah. But yeah, or start blessing your little heart, um, but, uh, that's when my southern comes out. But, um, you know, really went to high school here, uh, right, um, I was a lampkin, uh, I was a lampkin. All right. I, I bleed purple and gold. My kids are, um, um, you know, there's a mural in panhandlers that actually has, uh, I snuck in the old high school as the building because that's where I went to high school. But now, but now, you know, I just tell people, well, that's a CSU music building on there. And then we have the actual logo for lampkins. Right. I know that I know that both of them are because I was a lampkin. That's awesome. I love it. Yeah. And last night, I was sitting with a, uh, an Impala and a lobo at a table up there and, uh, I pointed out that I doubled myself and, uh, one of my favorite, uh, high school engagement stories with my wife and I don't have any kids, but I've done different volunteering, junior achievement and, yeah, for a, a rotary related event for Rocky Mountain, they gave all of us speakers that did like a vocational talk or whatever, uh, what they said were water glasses and it says lobo nation across the bottom and has these wolves etched into the glass. Yeah. But it's a rock's glass. It's a whiskey glass for sure. Yikes. All right. And I was like, you know, this is, it looks like a whiskey glass. I was talking to this. A lady that was administering, she's like, oh, they're water glasses like, well, I'm going to use it for my whiskey. Yeah. Yeah. And I still do. Yeah. Anyway, I digress. I didn't, uh, whiskey glass too. If you see one. Okay. Well, if I see one, I will, I will definitely get, get you one. Uh, so you're figuring out your way in high school. Yeah. You're pretty personal. So I'm guessing it didn't take you long to make some friends, even though you were from Mississippi. Yeah. I mean, I talked funny, but people made fun of me for it. And then they liked me so that it didn't matter, you know, um, and then, uh, I started working at Wendy's. Um, still can tell you the order that the condiments go on and you, you know, Manny's catch a pickling into made a lettuce mustard. Boom. Yeah. Uh, I used to see that one of the area managers all the time from, from Wendy's and later in life, and he'll be like, can you do it? And I'm like, Manny's catch a pickling into made a lot of mustard. Um, so, um, so, you know, and, and actually have a good friend who, he worked at Wendy's with me. And that was like a running thing the other night that we were going through saying, can you do it? So, um, yeah, who can do it faster? Um, but, uh, you know, I, I always liked restaurants. I liked restaurants because you were always doing something different. And you could always talk to somebody different and you worked with different people and you saw different people and I just kind of thought it was fun. You know, I mean, I, I always did, but I still didn't think I'd do restaurant management or anything like that. I was just like, oh, okay, I like Wendy's. I got to dress up as Wendy a couple of times. You know, there, there, there is a picture somewhere of me as a loaf of bread walking down college, I haven't known a parade, um, you know, shy, very shy, you know, yeah. So I'm like, whoa, I'm a bread, loaf of bread. Um, don't let that band that got into the whole bread fight thing. So, yeah, oh, I didn't think about that. Yeah. Oh, I could take him. Uh, trash mouth. Anyway, um, oh, and so, um, you know, I went to college. Didn't really think that was for me kept and then went back to restaurants, worked at restaurants, um, and then went back to college again and, uh, left again. When you're here, local CSU yourself, CSU, UNC, uh, and then a friend of mine said, Hey, let's move to Vegas. So I'm like, okay, you know, didn't have anything else to do. So I went, I was an area manager for pizza hut down there. Okay. Worked my way super fast through their, their kind of assistant manager, general manager, area manager, because, uh, they had a, uh, a mandate to get more women into management at that time. And in the late 80s, you could get away with, uh, you know, uh, what's that, uh, I know what it's called, like in, like for blacks, whatever, it's affirmative action. So you kind of get semi affirmative action. Right. I did. Yeah. You know, I, I think somewhere even in there, but you're smart. And you had vision and, and intention. And so I don't think you should second guess yourself there. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I mean, I had been a manager at panhandlers and things too. And so, you know, that kind of came into play, came back, um, ended up going to UNC again, uh, got a degree in marketing. Okay. I was listening. I was, and I was taking classes in communication because I kind of felt the two really went together, really, really well. Um, and so got a degree in communication as well. But, uh, and then decided to get a master's in communication. And I'm sitting in one of my classes in the president of the UNC foundation was also getting her masters at that time. She was talking in class about like what a foundation does. And she's sitting here talking about events. And I was like, well, that's just like in restaurants and she was talking about fundraising. And I'm like, well, that's just marketing. And so, you know, as she talked, I'm like, well, I can do that. And so I actually said to her after class, I go, you probably should hire me to work at the foundation. She's like, really, why? And I explained it to her. She goes, yeah, I probably should had to interview the next day. And then I started working at the UNC foundation and raised, you know, raised money for them. You were basically the easy button of the executive director because you had all the ideas and you could do them kind of. But you know, it was, it was, it was really interesting to me to see how that all went. And you know, I, uh, one of my favorite classes I took was courtroom communication. So I literally thought because of marketing and courtroom communication, I'm like, you are just marketing your client in a courtroom. That's all it is is marketing. You're, you're, uh, marketing to a jury. He's not an evil killer. He's misunderstood. Yeah. So I did, I mean, and you don't think about, and so you don't think of make decisions in different ways about different things. Necessarily, you have the same set of morals. Basically, if you're deciding someone's guilty or innocent, or if you're buying a bar or a soap. Yeah. So that was my thesis. Basically, I like it. I like it. Um, the, you know, the decision-making model, a marketing decision-making model and applying it to courtrooms. And so that's what I thought I was going to go off and do. I, I, that's why I was convinced I was going to do that. Um, but kind of got sucked into the fundraising side, worked for some nonprofits, um, had some fun doing that. Um, and then my husband had been at tortilla merisses. He decided to buy tortilla merisses also from the retiring owners. Yeah, from the retiring owners. And so we bought it. And then that way I kind of got to play and dabble. And I could mess with like the flowers and the social media posts. Then I could work shifts here and there and I could just go in and talk to everybody, right? You know, took me a while to learn how to actually make a burrito and fold it, right? But, you know, you, it was fun. You know, for me, I was like, I thought it was super fun to go do it. And so, um, the, what was this? That we bought panhand or we bought tortilla merisses in like 2000 and seven. Okay. So you've been, um, it's lasted like 2012, 2012, 13 either way, five plus years, you were doing that without, um, without panhandling to it. Would you have been less likely to add panhandlers or was it just kind of unrelated or, it was very unrelated. I mean, my husband jokes that I bought a restaurant, um, because we, they're really set up as different companies. They're not the same company. There's one's his company, one's my company and near the two show me, but, um, he, uh, but he, he would tell people she bought a restaurant so she could do the thing she wanted to do. Mm. Um, and, you know, he said, he says that tongue in cheek, but I think there's definitely some truth. Well, I think a fair bit of pride probably too, because you are the kind of woman that will do the things that she wants to do. Yeah. And I mean, I do that any, I mean, I do that, you know, I do that. It isn't a surprise to him. Yeah, it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever. But, you know, you know, then, and then when the panhandler's saying happened, I kept telling people, no, I'm not doing it. You know, that's, you know, somebody, somebody will get it as long as they don't mess with it. You know, yeah. And that's what all my friends were doing, and I'm like, well, so, um, but I'm really, really glad I did because I'm having a really, really good time figuring this out. Yeah. Well, I could tell you're the kind of personality type that really enjoys a challenge and, yeah, and making a difference. And, yeah, you've got a lot of opportunity for impact, not just for, for this organization, but for all those pan fans and things like that and all the people around this region, at least, that will get some real good pizza for maybe the first time since they left Chicago. Yeah. Well, and for me, you know, it's really about how panhandlers can help the community. And, you know, so I love doing all the fundraisers we do with pop ups or we have our slices of kindness, which is really like a pay-it-forward board that you can put something up, say a hard up that says a slice for a music teacher. And the music teacher comes in can take that slice down. Hopefully they'll buy one for somebody else or, you know, so we have this whole board of hearts that, you know, that's, it's the pay-it-forward idea. But, you know, any way that we can do anything in the community, I really, you know, really, really want to be a part of it. So, this year, you know, last year, definitely, all the festivals and everything went away and all of that. But, you know, we've been able to do the new Belgium concerts, like I talked about a little bit, Bohemian nights. We've been able to, we're going to be at Taste of Fort Collins. We're going to be at the Peach Festival. Oh, nice. We're going to serve a Canadian bacon and peach salsa pizza. I'm pretty excited about that. And so I really want to figure out how whatever city we're in in Northern Colorado. We're a true big part of the community. And we're affecting the community in that way. And so, you know, that's a huge focus of what I want to. I'm thinking about your Venn diagram a little bit. And it seems like one big circle is amazing pizza, one big circle is community. And it's the third big circle, like the legacy of Panhandlers, or is it your, your staff, your team? I said, maybe there's not a third big one. And I'm just imagining that. I don't know if they're, I mean, I think experience, whether you're, whether you're the community, whether you're the staff, whether you're a customer, whether you're a pans fan or a first time person. I think that would be my third circle. So it's really about community, quality of food and quality of experience. Yeah, I love it. And then the colored part in the middle would be quality in all three of those areas. Right. Yeah, there's other portions of them that are maybe a little different in whatever quality is that, that defining thing. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. What else do you want people to know about Panhandlers before we jump into our faith family politics segment here? Oh, geez. You know, Panhandlers, we just, we just want to be bigger, better, faster, stronger. We really want to serve the community as much as we can, give back to the community. What's your expansion plan? Can you tip me down a little bit on that? Can a little bit. You know, we got kind of booted out of the 1220 West Elizabeth area when they did some expansion over there. But there's potentially, we could go back in over there. So at some point, we may be back in campus West, but Panhandlers originally had four locations. There was one in Fort Collins, one at 16th Street Mall at the Taver Center, one at the Citadel and one in Tempe, Arizona. And what the owner has told me about that because he stayed on my advisory board. So I have lunch with him about once a month and get to hang out with him. And what he said is that was too hard to manage. And so as part of our growth plan, we're really planning on kind of doing it in concentric circles. You know, here's Fort Collins. So then maybe Windsor and then maybe Greeley, you know, really going down in a smart way and being able to manage. Yeah, and manageable sort of ways and most of those stores are going to be company owned because until I create a really, really good blueprint, I'm not going to give away, you know, and franchise our idea because I want to make sure that nobody can mess it up. You know, you know, and blueprinting is a big, big portion of what we're doing right now. We're really taking the idea from user experience and website design. Yeah, and saying, okay, here's every touch point that a customer makes within the restaurant from front door to back door, say if they're dining in. And then here's all the things and systems and processes that back up each of those touch points, whether it's training, whether it's service, whether it's, did we clean the bathrooms, whether it's the quality of the food, do we have standard operating procedures for how you make the dough, things like that. So we're being very calculated as the wrong word, but very intentional. Yeah, intentionally calculated one of the things I love is the old school red Coca-Cola cups that should serve your soda at every pizza restaurant. Yeah, they'll stay as it was basically, it was, yeah, it was, yeah, I don't know, I don't know. But yeah, that's it doesn't really take an intentional approach to build a brand. And so you could see maybe being the franchise or of five to 10 locations up and down the front range is here. And then as that gets proven out, as that gets established with corporate stores, then possibly, probably, yeah, then do a franchise opportunity kind of thing. Yeah, I think I've watched too many episodes of, what is it, what is that TV show, The Profit, and Shark Tank to see where people have messed up, franchising, and do all that. And so, I love to watch those shows because I'm like, I wouldn't have done that. Or, I try and figure out, okay, if Mark Cuban asked me that, what would I do? It's a little bit relatable here with Look With Think Tank, we're 10 chapters in Fort Collins leveling now. Our members generally love us quite a bit, they stick around a long time. And I've had a lot of people, including myself, want to be like, I should have 10 more chapters next year, and really grow this. There's all kinds of businesses in Boulder and Denver, but I don't want to break it, and if I do something messed up enough to break a Boulder, Black or deferred, or whatever, am I going to sacrifice what we're doing here. Right, right. And so, that's really super important to me. So, we've really divided up the business plan into corporate initiatives, so that eco-pan that I talked about, or the sauce, or things like that, will stay in a corporate initiative. And then there's all the restaurants that fall separate from that. And so, our Gold Belly, where we ship nationwide, that'll always go out of what we call the flagship store. And then all the other stores will be different, either slice units, or full flex casual models that we can play with, depending on where we're going. Yeah, yeah. Well, I wish you every success, and I think I can see it happening for you. I can too, which is what makes it super exciting. Well, you have to, if you can't see it happening, you need to be in the wrong room. I shouldn't be doing this, yeah. Which of the, can't talk about topics would you like to talk about first? I guess family. Let's talk about family. Okay. What's your hobby's name? We haven't even... Mike. Yeah, Mike, Fattrosky. Okay. So, we have different last names. And how many years have you been together? We've been together 27, 27 years or so. Okay. Yeah. So, we've never gotten married. Oh, well. But, so I don't have anything to call him your husband, but I guess color... Oh, it's okay. No, it's common law says that basically, yeah. Yeah, it's the same difference, you know. You guys have children together? We have four kids, ages 20, down to 13, and just turned 13 a couple weeks ago. I enjoy doing one word descriptions for the children, if you're... Okay. In a name, if you... Can I use two? Yeah, you can use two, yeah. Sam is 20 years old. He's my gentle giant. Ooh. He is six foot eight. Whoa. And weighs about 260, but he's the sweetest kid ever. He means he plays college football, but, you know, but he's a gentle giant. Yeah. Sounds like both physically, but also just kind and... He's a great guy, yeah. I'm Teddy Bearer, I think people call him. Yep. My 17-year-old who graduated this year, going off to UCLA next year, I would say the one word for her is tenacious. She will serve her well. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited to see in an environment like UCLA how she's going to thrive. It's going to be really, really fun to watch over the next few years and watch that growth. My next one down is 14 Emily, and she... What would be my one word for Emily? There's so many. Intriguing. Yeah. I would say she... She likes to think that she has a bunch of street smarts. Okay. But she's really super smart. But she's 14, yeah. She's 14 and super smart and just... She just gets the world. She's probably one of my best upsellers at Panhammers, quite honestly. You know, she upsold somebody from two slices in a beer to take a full half-bake home with them back to Denver for a large combination. So she did an upsell of like, you know, 30 bucks. And I'm like, who are you? All right. So, and then my youngest is Josh and he just turned 13. And he would be... His one word would be... I would say bullshit her. But I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I need to explain that. Charismatic? No. Charismatic, yes. Josh can say anything in such a way, you'll just believe him. And he retains facts in this way that... You don't even know like how he knows some of the things he does. But he knows it because like, he'll say something at dinner, like a fact about, you know, the world or something. Yeah. And I'll be like googling it. The Galapagos Tourists sometimes live up to 110 years. Yeah. And like, whatever, bullshit. Yeah. And so like, I'll googlet and I'm like, he's right. You know, and how does he know that? And so, but he also, but he admitted one day, he goes about 30% of what I say. I have no clue what I'm saying. So, like... I have to say I have a bit of affinity. My wife would be like, that's my husband. You're just driving. Yeah. Because if long as you're right, like 80% of the time, it's like kind of like, um, bluffing and poker. Yeah. As long as you're mostly kind of right, people just kind of tend to eventually believe your bullshit. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly this kid. And you, if you believe it, it is a bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. He'll argue a point to, you know, too. And he's like a great arguer. So, yeah. That's fun. Awesome. Well, Josh, give him my regards. I will. I'm sure we'll enjoy a slice together sometime. We can tell stories. Yeah, he'll be working at Pans next summer. And how did you and Mike stumble across each other? Um, you know, we had a lot of, uh, a lot of close misses over time. Like, uh, our football teams at high school played against each other. Uh, I was the Lampkin at the time at the mascot. Oh, right. And he actually got a ticket on the way up to the game. So he didn't get to go up to the game, because it was in Fort Collins, because he's from Colorado Springs. And so he would have seen, you know, he would have seen the Lampkin. Right. Not that he's got a big hat on. Yeah, he would have known it was me. But so we, we could across past then. I have a really vivid memory. He was, uh, friends with some good friends of mine from high school. Okay. Um, when he was up here at CSU and he worked at Nates for years and years and years and they all worked at Nates together. And, uh, uh, I have this vivid memory of him sitting on a picnic table with my friends. Right. When I was visiting from Las Vegas one time, when I came back to visit. So kind of met him then maybe, but he, like I said, he worked at Nates and I worked at Jefferson Station, which were all in the same company. Uh, I managed Jefferson Station. And so we would have manager meetings and just started hanging out and then started hanging out like on Sunday nights. How much did you sell? Well, how much did you guys sell? You know, that sort of thing and going and having a beer after work and things like that. So I just kind of all evolved from there. Yeah. When I was house to hang pictures, one to help him hang pictures like a 1 a.m. one time. What, uh, what would he say was the reason that he fell in love with you? Um, for one of the main reasons. I think because I perplexed him. He couldn't figure me out. Intriguing, yeah. Yeah, he couldn't figure me out really. I think, I think I'm a lot like his mom to be perfectly honest. I know that sounds like a little weird psychology sort of thing. No, that's pretty normal really. Yeah, but um, his mom was this really kind of always have an ideas and kind of creative and lovely woman. And I think, I think a piece of that. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, that's a great comment. And how about you same question you would give him? He put up with me. All right. But I'm looking forward to spousing. Somebody that will tolerate me. Yeah, you know, um, he kind of pushed me in some ways. Like he wouldn't, he kind of didn't put up with my BS. Right, you're going to have all these ideas and not chase him. What are you talking about? Yeah, and you know, I mean, I had some Southern girl in me. And so none of the batting my eye lashes flipping my hair or Southern accent would work on him. Right. You know, which intrigued you. Yeah, I was like, hey. Yeah, I think that's that's probably most of what it is. Anything else that's worthy of mentioning your family segment here? No, they make my kids are awesome, you know, faith or politics. We can go politics. Okay, okay. What do you want to talk about? I don't care. I mean, it's a big, it's a big realm there. Yeah, you know, I mean, I, I think politics are national stuff. There's local stuff. We got a new mayor. We do. She went to pooter. We had a party for it. Panhandlers actually. A lot of pooter grads got together and wanted to kind of celebrate that one of theirs. Yeah, they let me go. Even though it was a lampkin. Right. Lots of comments. Well, it was at your restaurant. Well, yeah, so they had to kind of let me be there. But, you know, I think I think she's going to bring a little bit different view to the city. And I think I really appreciate a lot of her views around bringing things kind of back together. Yeah. You know, there's like been weird stuff with the chamber and some other things. And I think that, you know, I know, Ann over the chamber is going to make some huge differences. I think Jenny is going to make some huge differences. You know, I think that we've got a lot of strong leadership and a lot of different parts of Fort Collins. Yeah. That I think we're going to see some, see some growth. And, you know, it's been interesting for me, like to hear my kids as they've visited other places, to realize what it's like that they're growing up in Fort Collins because we're not like anywhere. Right. And so, you know, I think a lot of leadership is going to continue to kind of grow that idea. And I like that. I like that, you know, the city really encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. I think that's great. You know, I have lunch with Josh Berks. Yeah, great. You know, the other day. And, you know, talking about the growth of the city and, you know, how we're going to grow post-COVID. And, you know, is a hotel still going to go in on Drake and Mason? Right. When King Super is going to start at Drake. You know, and the kind of the re-emergence of Midtown as an area, I think is huge locally. You know, I kind of think it's interesting that watching the kind of the renovation of Old Town over the last 25 years, where Old Town really wasn't. Yeah. Downtown wasn't. I was told it used to be where businesses went to die. Yeah, basically. You know, it really was when, you know, back when I was, you know, first here. And, you know, like all the renovations and the concerts and everything that everyone has brought to down there. You know, it's been interesting to watch, to watch, like, New West Fest grow and the Festivals grow. And all the things we've done to make Fort Collins what it is, the growth of the brewery, you know. Sure, a brewery scene. The brewery scene. Yeah. I mean, I worked at Cooper Smith's back in the early days. Right. Flakeship. Yeah. Yeah. Love those guys. And so, you know, I just think Fort Collins has done a lot to make us grow and to be on the map and to be number one and number two and number four and all the different lists and everything. But I just hope that the local community appreciates that. Like, I think we all just take it so for granted that. It's tempting sometimes. Yeah. Sure. You know, oh yeah, we have flowers in our downtown. Oh yeah, we have this really great city park pool or oh yeah, we, you know, our community is like so amazing. We've made it a new open space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of communities don't have that. And to make you a little more uncomfortable, let's talk about kind of some of the divisive stuff in politics, like the national stage or things like that. I wish it wasn't as divisive as it is. I think that's going to rip us apart. It's going to be probably one of the worst, the worst parts of everything and everything. That's kind of my notion. I'd like to see a looser union so that we can stay together. Yeah, yeah, I would definitely agree with you there. I mean, I politically I fall pretty, pretty metal I would think. I mean, there's some Republicans I agree with. There's a lot of Republicans I don't agree with. There's some Democrats I don't agree with. And there's some Democrats I agree a lot. How about with libertarians? Do you mostly agree with them? I would mostly agree with them. I don't know that I necessarily fall into the libertarian camp. Right. Well, because they suck. They can't even get one percent. Yeah, I think sometimes they pull away, which makes me sad. They pull away when votes from where they could go to more of a majority. But I also respect that they have those opinions and have that right. That's a great part of all of it. I feel like 30% of the country is kind of closet libertarians. Probably, probably. But we're kind of beholden to or grown up with and accustomed to the two party system. Yeah, I think I think it would the best thing for our country would be is to have a whole new system. Really? Just to get burn it down. Burn it, you know, it needs to evolve, you know. Like out of a two party thing. Out of a two party to either multiple parties or two different parties. Let's kill these ones and we'll see what grows up and be able to embrace them. You know, I appreciate the diversity that our government are starting to get. I appreciate, you know, I appreciate what both sides are trying to do somewhat. You know, there's things I like on both sides. But I just don't see us ever being able to move forward. And, you know, when I was younger, it was so much that America's number one in the world. And you really felt that we were the superpower. And we're not any, you know, we're really not anymore. Or it's not perceived that way necessarily. Well, and we don't even know who we are anymore. Right, right. So I think we need to heal as a nation in order to be to get back on the global global front and everything and be a for front. I mean, you know, I just I just I would be for like just a bunch of change quite honestly. Yeah, there's there's I can understand why there's a lot of people who feel the same way. Yeah, family faith, no, family politics, faith, anything to say on a faith conversation. Are you from Mississippi? That's like where the Baptist come from. Yeah, you know, I'm not a Southern Baptist or, you know, I didn't go to any revivals where they were, you know, snakes were talking in tongues. No, that's a no. You know, I do it did have a moment as a as a as a young kid to to see some of the revival sort of stuff. And we were actually a Piscopalian. Oh, sure. So kind of Catholic light. That's kind of why I have them slotted in my little brother. Yeah, yeah, we were Catholic light. And so it's so much more of a almost like an intellectual religion. I mean, you know, an intellectual approach to it. You know, more presidents than any other have been a Piscopalian. Is that right? Yeah. And it's kind of a limited level of detachment or almost kind of like I think about Thomas Jefferson was described as a do it. Not a do-est, a Taoist almost not a Taoist. He's actually more of an atheist from what I when I read about him a little bit. Yeah, but what if it is that says that God just kind of created things and then he stepped away and let it just spin. I don't I don't know which one that I don't remember what that term is. Yeah, I understand his philosophy. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, but I, you know, so you know, so I grew up in in in the church. But really, you know, my mom and I used to always argue over this because my mom, you know, say, well, you know, you're going to have to get married in a church. And you're going to have to do this or whatever in a church or baptism or but, you know, whatever. And I just looked at her one day and I go, well, didn't you teach me that God's everywhere? So if God's everywhere, would it really matter where, you know, I could get married in a brewery and he's supposed to be there. So right. There you go. Well, and you showed her you didn't even get married. Yeah, well, there's at it too. But, you know, so I I would say that I am I wouldn't call myself necessarily religious, but I do have faith. You would agree with that notion God is everywhere almost. Kind of. I mean, you know, I believe there is a higher being, but when I was really little or not really little when I was younger, I thought, you know, is it just do we all have like to just the same God? So it was like Buddha, the same God I have, which is the same God somebody else has, you know, and all these different religions and different sex and whatever, is it really just the same one and then it's like culturally based to a certain extent? I mean, I remember having that argument in fifth grade. That's even frankly my own view sometimes right now is that they're they're all perceiving the same creator kind of thing through different cultural lenses and different blurry lenses. Right. Right. You know, I kind of think, you know, to kind of go back to politics a little bit too. And family, I mean, I just, I kind of think that so much of what we're doing like with cancel culture and all of that is that we're missing the context of everything that we're doing. So by, you know, we need to be looking at history differently and from all perspectives and not just the white European history, but we also, I mean, you know, I think there's there's something to be said for looking at it contextually, you know, like to bring up Thomas Jefferson, you just talked about he, he, he did have enslaved people. Sure. But historically in the perspective of who he was and his era, it was a different, different piece of it. So no, it's an awful thing and he should have never have had slaves. But historically, this is what you did when you were his rank, totally. You know, you know, so I think there's a weird balance. And arguably his fritz, his slaves may have had a different respectful relationship with him that other people's slaves even, he might have been a better slave guy than some or whatever. So I think, and or didn't he have a whole bunch of children with his slaves? So, you know, he definitely had a different relationship with some people. Right, he liked him a lot. Yeah. So, you know, so I think I think there's this, this interesting cultural historical context that we're kind of erasing out across all three faith, faith, family, and politicians. Yeah. That's an intriguing thought. Thank you for unfolding that for me. Sure. And have you thought about the local experience? Your craziest experience that you're willing to share to a public audience? Yeah, you know, I mean, I have like a really personal experience that I could share that was just kind of like my do-do-do moment. Or, you know, Fort Collins has just been such a great place to live over all these years. Probably one of my craziest, I think I know one. So, when I turned 21, my birthday was on a Saturday. No, my birthday was on a Friday. So, that meant Thursday at midnight at 12.01. Oh, right. I could go out. Right, bars were open till two. Yeah, I was in line at Washington's at 12, you know, whatever. Had a lot of fun, you know. And then, got up the next morning went to Benagans. Oh, yeah. You know, had bloody marries there. Had lunch, I think, at the junction at that point in time. Had some drinks there. And then went out to the bars again Friday night. Nice. And then Saturday, my friends lived over on West Elizabeth and like Tafthill and all the college houses over there. Yep. And they had this giant eye painted on their wall. Okay. So, they created these Louis N's 21st birthday t-shirts. They made me shrinky dink earrings that were that eye. Everybody signed the t-shirts. They, I mean, you know, it was like this really great, crazy party that really shouldn't have ever been happening at anybody's house. And that started at what time on Saturday? I had probably four. Right. When, sometime until Sunday morning. And so, you partied about 70% of the time, the first three days after you, before you turned 21 or right after the one you're after. Right. When I turned, right from the moment I turned 21. And then, then I was kind of done. Awesome. But, you know, there's that crazy experience. But the one that I said was kind of do, do, do, do. When my mom passed away, my dad caught was, even when she was passing, my dad called me because I think you need to get over here. And I went through the roundabout by their house. And my car was on the passenger seat. I was driving, you know, maybe my phone was. My phone was. Yeah, and I was driving maybe a little bit fast. And all of a sudden, time to say goodbye started coming out of my phone. You know, androba da celli is time to say goodbye. And I just broke down in tears. And started driving a lot faster because I knew it truly was my mom's time to say goodbye. And every time I see hear that song or... How long after did she pass? Literally within about 15 minutes. Wow. So... It's kind of got my hair standing up a little bit. And so every time I hear that song, I mean, I just bust out in tears. But it'll be weird. Like, I'll be thinking about her. And that song will come on. And so, you know, I see a big Egyptian eye. I think of my 21st birthday. I hear that song. I think of my mom. That's one of those weird things about the world that helps you not think it's just a, you know, we're not just walking meat bags. Yeah. And they have those kind of weird connections and stuff. Maybe there is some higher being of some, you know, some type. So... Well, tell us how to other than the... I gave the address 27-21 South College. But how do people learn more about Panhandlers? Order a pizza. Okay. You can go to panhandlerspizza.com. And you can order straight off the website online. Or it'll take you to our local favorite delivery service. No, go nosh. Nice. Or nationwide delivery. There's a button there. And you can ship pizza to any pan's fans anywhere in the country. It's a great gift. It is. People love it, you know. And we can also... You can also get a hold of me through there. Through there's a contact us. That all of the contact us goes to me. Because there's nobody else for it to go to. And... Or, you know, you can give us a call. You know, they're dropping. I'm always happy to talk to pan's fans. I mean, that's my favorite part almost of every day is that I get to hear people's stories and people's memories. And, you know, get to say, hey, people that I know have been eating at Panhandlers since like 1982. That's awesome. And they're in hearing everybody's stories. You know, my daughter would say that it's inconvenient that I know most of the forecars are that they're all panhandlers. Yeah, good thing they don't rely on you for dish washing because you'd be not there too much. Yeah, but, you know, that's like one of my favorite things. And new staff are always just like, someone just told me this story. And I'm like, yeah, I know. That's what's going to happen every single day. I love it. It's one of my favorite things about my... Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Locoh Experience Podcast. This is your host, Kurt Bear, and founder of The Locoh Think Tank. If you or someone you know would be a great guest for our show, or if you'd like to learn more about our small business owner, or your advisory chapters at Locoh Think Tank, please visit our website at locohthinktank.com or email us at connectatlocoh thinktank.com. That's LOCOthinktank.com. If you've been enjoying this series, don't forget to subscribe. And we love great reviews on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. And don't forget, always keep it low-code.