Brewery Business Success

Speaker 1: hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from

Speaker 1: when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in I Nez risell is a Tarboro North Carolina based mom activist entrepreneur somaler and writer she owns the super popular Tarboro brewing and just released her newest book about September 11th which hit number one on multiple Amazon lists following its release the book documents her journey working at windows on the world at the Twin Towers and about how she rebuilt her life after the terrorist attacks thank you so much for joining me inz please tell us more about who you are I am born and raised in a very small town in rural eastern North Carolina where I now live and run a brewery with a satellite Tap Room with my husband who runs our restaurant so we started our path in tarb 19 years ago with our restaurant and then about 6 years ago when we opened the bre I love that I understand being from a small town I grew up in a town of a thousand oh wow and I now live in Los Angeles I have since I was I've lived in La since I was 19 and I know you spent some time in New York you wrote a book titled life after Windows please share with us your journey in writing the book yes so this book details moving up to New York after I graduated from college and going into culinary school and discovering that I had a passion for wine getting my dream job as a as a 25-year-old running the beverage program for the largest grossing restaurant in North America windows on the world uh in the top of one World Trade Center which was the North Tower being employed there on September 11th I I was not in the building on 9911 but details the the day of and the days months years after and the healing that came and a big part of that coming back to tarbor North Carolina a town I had promised myself uh I would never return to the trials tribulations joys of running a restaurant in a small town and then opening a brewery that has been one of the hardest things I've ever done and then actually getting the courage to put it out there for for the universe to read well good for you and there's a reason that you weren't weren't in the building on that day and it had to be I I can't imagine going through the experience can you share with us why why you weren't there that day yeah my sister got married on September 8th so I had come home on the 5th to be her wedding and I grew up in a divorced home and I spent time with my dad I was always to spend time with my mother you know the beauties of of being from parents who are separated and so so the day after the wedding the nth my mother had made arrangements for me to go and be with her for a couple days so I was in the mountains with my mom and her friends and was set to fly back on Wednesday morning September 12th wow how was it going from a small town to New York I found it the best thing that had ever happened to me I I didn't know it then but I was so enthralled by the freedom of no one knowing what I was doing and being able to give me their opinion about what I was doing because I grew up with lots of parents and grandparents and I was close to all of them you know everybody felt very entitled to to tell me what they thought I should be doing and all of a sudden I'm I'm in this city millions of people and I just could go and do freely there was not one moment of what have I done done you know I'm missing my my familiarity of the South that just wasn't my experience so I fell in love with New York City I remember the night before I moved just being terrified it takes a lot of courage to make a leap like that from such a small town yeah I was really fortunate that my boyfriend was already living there he' gone up first we were not living together but he was there and then four girls from North Carolina were going to come up shortly after they I was there for about a month and a half two months before they moved I'm sure I would have been much more nervous if it was only going to be me yeah I didn't know a single person when when I moved but I had a similar experience to you like I love the energy of the city and the freedom and I just you know I'd hit a point in the town I grew up and where I just was ready for more and I wanted more seems like you you probably hit that point too for sure so was this when you moved to LA or did you live in New York also no this was when I moved to LA it honestly was between New York and California but I I remember walking across campus to a final and it was hailing and the buses weren't going and I had to get to my class and I remember thinking okay no more snow next year I'm going to be in the sunshine and I got to Loyal marry Mount where I finished college and someone ran across the uh campus with a surfboard and I said I'm in the right place I've come to the right place for me here I am you are a somaler and the owner of a Brewing Company tell us about what you do and what give you the inspiration to start and launch your company Stephen and I had opened our restaurant in Fall of 2002 we had converted one of the dining rooms into a working wine seller kind of a combination of working with your husband being in the restaurant business finally making a conscious decision to not continue the master sooer path which the three of those combined equal burnout I wasn't going to leave Tarboro we had bought a huge building in July of 2008 where we had hopes of moving the restaurant to um and of course that was right before the bottom fell out in in our country's economy no one wanted to invest in a restaurant period much less when in eastern North Carolina and we were really following closely what breweries were doing to transform small pounds Stephen was very supportive of hey if you think this is going to work we should do it and he's a big part of jointly helping the write the business plan and the idea was that a we would create this new business in Taro that would be a lot more accessible than our restaurant while our restaurant is quite affordable compared to La New York Chicago standards it still was not for everyone not even lunch was for everyone and so we thought this Brewery would be an added bonus I mean my passion is Tarboro and and getting people not to just visit but to want to live here that was the vision behind it that we would create a business that was much more accessible to the locals and add another attraction to our small town I had no idea how hard it would be just because the the landscape of local breweries changed so much from the minute we wrote the business plan till the day we actually got the doors open the number of breweries in North Carolina had tripled our model was all built on wholesale I couldn't get a distributor people were like oh you're not that local there are 40 breweries in Raleigh you know just it was really hard and so we um we got the tap room open about four months later but even that tarbor doesn't have the foot traffic that a Charlotte or a Durham has and so while I would not trade for anything it has been a very different six years than what I experienced with on the Square where people were clamoring to get in I had never worked in an environment where I was actively trying to get people to like us I'd come from obviously windows and a brand new casino in in Atlantic City and and even on the Square that it was drawing people in this has been where I've been actively working to get people to enjoy it so it's just different but good for you for having that tenacity in your book description you say over time you find yourself again love is reborn children provide a renewed Insight on life and new businesses provide growth and purpose do you have any tips or lessons you've learned for making a pivot or a leap to start over whether your pivot is a choice or in your case when it's not yeah I've become um such a better listener I know now there was a big void in Tarboro for a community space something was telling me that and when we built the brewery while I was telling everybody it was a Tap Room really what I have learned is it it's a community space where people can come together I didn't realize how important that was I probably wouldn't have known that had I not chosen to listen to people who were at tables than I was I I will always say you better be listening to your community right and they're going to tell you and sometimes it's going to sting and sometimes it's going to feel like gold but I guess the choice I made in this case in particular was to listen it's great advice and it's to listen to yourself because you listen to yourself about creating and building a community space and then also listening to clients and customers and consumers which is always important because sometimes we can get so headstrong in doing what we want at times we might not be going down the path that our clients and customers necessarily want and what a great thing for you to do to create a place where your community can come together because it s seems like that was that was needed and of course beer Wine and Food yeah and then you put meaningful conversation in that mix and it's just like Perfecto I love that what is one thing that your business has done for you or taught you and your clients that you didn't realize what happen on the restaurant side it really was a big part of teaching me boundaries to realize that like the service industry is emotionally taxing of course it's physically laborious no matter if you're in the kitchen or if you're in the front of the house but just what you have to do to protect your mind and your heart and your soul it's very little downtime people are they'll take as much as you know you'll let them take while I grew up Southern and thinking if I didn't say yes then I was rude just understanding that I if if I want to be able to do what I want to do then I have to make sure that the life isn't sucked out of me I don't think people um Talk enough about what restaurants can do to the people who work there regardless of its management owner server whatever role it's a lot put up those boundaries is super important and then on the brewery side I guess the biggest thing that I've learned is how much a label matters yes and do you create your own beer so we have a wonderful Brew masterp partner Franklin Winslow who creates all the recipes for our beers I have been known to brew on occasion but I am not a brewer I'm just a drinker I've had hundreds of interviews and I have not had the conversation come up about the toll on the restaurant industry so thank you for sharing that because we go to a restaurant and we enjoy the atmosphere but I can see from the other side how wonderful but also how challenging it can be at times magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy easily for my my father if something's bothering you go and do something nice for someone and you will instantaneously feel amazing if we send somebody a text in the morning that says have a great day you're on my mind like just the benefits of that it could be something big taking someone dinner but it doesn't have to be they're little little things we can do every day that will change someone's mood the joy is constantly working to do something nice for someone whether it means a kind word or an actual gift that's so true and the Gratitude is on both sides you feel the Gratitude and the other person makes their day too right thank you so much for joining us today iness can you tell us how and where our listeners can find you how we can reach out to you yes so I Instagram is my thing I I just really enjoy Instagram and my name is D rivella the book I I encourage you to buy it from an independent bookstore all you have to do is ask for Life After window by anra Bella um I'm very proud of this book of course you can order it on other places too or you can visit me in tarbor and see smalltown life I love that I now have a cousin in North Carolina maybe I'll have to come see you please do I would love that if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer a community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our sheb built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil it business Consulting and the Sheil it blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave