Father-Son Duo Invests in Real Estate, Opens Restaurants and…Tours Country with Jimmy Buffett?

He said, "I don't want to work for the sound company." He says, "I want to own the sound company." Yes, that's what he said. You're almost changing consumer thought patterns and buying process. There are people here that will celebrate their community. We want to be a part of that.

The restaurant, what was the original back of the napkin like this restaurant's going to be X, Y, or Z from South Bin to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get In the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Roots Reality Co. , the absolute best real estate team here in central Indiana. Listen, if you're looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate, you need people who actually care about our Indiana community.

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Today, I'm joined by Eddie and Tom Batista, a dynamic father and son duo shaping Indianapolis's entertainment and food scene. Tom was a longtime stage manager for Jimmy Buffett, and he turned his love for independent cinema into the can can cinema and restaurant, a cultural hub for film lovers from all across the state and the region as well. Eddie, a restaurant tour, co-owns Blue Beard, an acclaimed ery that has helped put Indy's food scene on the map. Together, they combine their passion for hospitality and community to make Indianapolis an even better place to live. So, we're going to be diving into the history of this father-son duo, talk about how they built some of Indy's hottest spots, and talk about what's next for this dynamic duo. Gentlemen, welcome to Get In.

Thanks. Thanks for having us, dude. I am I am pumped about this one. So, I mean, as I kind of looked back and was kind of doing my research, there was about a thousand ways we could have taken this episode, right, from Blue Beard to Can Can to I mean, there's a 10-p part docu series that could be done about, you know, Jimmy Buffett and the time there. And so, I guess I really want to start with Tom talking about like this this cultural and art scene and and how did you end up with Jimmy Buffett? When I was a junior in college, I bought some land and I was dropping out of society and then I ended up coming to Indianapolis to make money and a friend of mine called me and said they're doing a a show uh a festival at Bush Stadium.

They need help because they had to move it at the last minute from Raceway Park. I could go down there and help them and the only thing they don't have any money to pay me because they're going to lose their shirt, but I could learn how rock and roll works from backstage and so that interested me. Where were you buying land at and kind of going off the grid? down in Orange County. Yeah. 42 acres.

Oh, wait. You So this was This is in Well, I tried to buy it in in 1970, but I wasn't 21 and you couldn't enter into a contract in Indiana. And then when that was done, I came up to Indianapolis to make money to dig a well and, you know, so I had money to get water instead of walking a quarter of a mile to a stream. That's when somebody said I should go help him put this show on at Bush Stadium, which I did. We got there at noon on Friday. worked all through the night.

The show started at noon on Saturday. It was over at 11 pm. The head guy there, his name was Bruce Deforest. He said he had done Woodstock and so did the the sound and lighting company both had done Woodstock. He said, "Everybody, this is at midnight on Saturday night after we just worked straight through two days, you know, Friday at noon until all the way till midnight on Saturday night." He told all the people that volunteered to get in for free, go home and get some rest and come back at noon on Sunday and help him take everything down.

It was three semi trucks for, you know, full of stuff. That's these are his volunteers. He He has his volunteers volunteers who could got to go to the show for free. Why didn't he care about the music? I wanted to see how it all worked. And so I came back on that Sunday at noon and no one else did.

He, his three truck drivers, and me took down all the scaffolding. You were the only one that came back. Yes. And so when we were done with that, he gave me a stack of plywood that we had to build a fence to keep people from attacking the stage. And I was able to use that for my barn roof down in Orange County. But anyway, um he then asked me if I'd be interested in going to New York and helping them build a nightclub.

And so I had not been to New York and I said, "Why sure I would love to do that." And so it's like your your fork in the road was 42 acres in Orange County, Indiana, out of society, right? Or or a nightclub in New York. And so I built a nightclub at 15 West Fourth Street uh in the about a block and a half from Washington Square Park. It was called the Bottom Line and it was there for 30 years and they recorded a lot of albums there. How long did the process of building a nightclub take?

Took six months. So, six, so you just packed up, left. Are you still, did you graduate college? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I got a degree in history, but anyway, he um he sent an airplane ticket first.

So, then I went on an airplane to New York and in the city with my hammer and stuff. It was Did you have I lived at Bleecker and Bowie. Oh. Which is a really hip part of New York now. At the time though, it was all full of homeless and bums and it was tough. Were your like parents involved in this?

Like you're 21, you're trying to drop kind of out of society. Were your parents around? Well, yeah. My parents were around and they didn't want me to buy the 32 acres because they came through the depression and you don't ever buy anything on contract. You save your money and pay for. So then you come back to them and say, "Yeah, you know what?

I'm not going to do that." You're right. I did. I bought this land. Oh, so you had the land, too? Yeah.

I already had the land and I built the cabin. That's why the guy saw the pictures of the cabin. He knew I was a carpenter and could do it. And then you're like, "Yeah, I just bought all this. Like, we're on contract, you know, doing the whole thing. I'm actually going to pick up and go to New York for six months.

Yes. And what did you learn within those six months? I mean, that's like real, you know, big city experience. Everybody in New York thought Indiana was full of Indians. That's the first thing I learned. What year is this?

Uh 1972. Okay. All right. That's something interesting. Uh and you're like, "Oh, no. This is I mean, come on.

It's not quite like that." That segueed into after we got that done, he asked me to go out with him and be an assistant carpenter on David Bowie, which was uh 1974 Diamond Dogs tour. And so then you go from I have this cabin. I have my, you know, in the middle of nowhere, my closest neighbor is a half a mile away and he doesn't even have a car. He only has a horse and a tractor, right? And I and I've lived in New York around, you know, 16 or 17 million people.

And was it like that situation where, you know, one of this like the opportunity came from showing up on that Sunday? Showing up. Absolutely. And then you get the opportunity to go to New York and build this nightclub. Then from there, you're on tour with David Bowie as an assistant carpenter. So I'm assuming there's a lot of building, setup, tear down, all that stuff.

So we you go into a studio a Broadway studio where they build Broadway shows and that's where we went somewhere during that trajectory you end up coming across Jimmy Buffett and that ends up being like um you're you work with Jimmy for like an extended period of time for 32 years. So how long into the process did it take for you to get linked up with Jimmy Buffett? Well that was in 93. Okay. So you that's like 19 years you did other things in the music and entertainment industry camp and you know I did a lot of different shows. I had to write them down cuz I couldn't Well, let's hear what what all Yeah.

Let's take it from the top. So you're David Bowie. Well, the first thing we did when we were doing the the bottom line uh we took David Bramberg to the Philadelphia Folk Fest for Say that five times fast. That was really fun. So that was my second show there. And then I did David Bowie uh Diamond Dogs tour in ' 74.

It segueed into young Americans and then after that the same designer that did David Bowie designed the mothership for Parliament Funkadelic. So I was with Pon for six years. And I mean how much time were you spending on the road and out and about versus at your cabin in Orange County. Well I spent most time on the road because in those days you would go out for seven day I mean you know seven shows in a row. a day off, seven shows in a row, and you would do it for a couple couple months. And so that's where that was.

So six years with B Funk and then came home because my daughter and son were born in 81 and 84. And so I then tried to stay home and help my wife, you know, take care of the kids and family. So your wife home the whole time? Yeah. But she would come out to great cities and, you know, she's a conservator. She restores oil paintings for a living.

Okay. And so she she she's down at the cabin. No, no, she's up here. So I started buying property right away when I was because I figured out I could rent rooms anyway. Whatever. Yeah.

I just have always bought property. Yeah. And so real estate's kind of been in your DNA from the very beginning. Even when uh older, you know, more experienced, we were like, "Ah, no, we just came through the depression. We saw that like don't buy this unless you save up all your money." And at that point, it's like you can never really acquire that much property if you're always saving up cash to get it.

My parents finally uh when I bought my first house, it was next door to them. This lady wanted me to buy it and offered it to me, but they had to cosign for it. So, it was a $12,000 loan on a house, a three uh threestory, sixbedroom, three and a half bath brick house with a slate roof on Fall Creek Boulevard. Oh. $12,000. And I had to go to a bank and they wouldn't loan me the money because the only thing I could say is I'm in rock and roll.

And they said, you know, talk to the tall boy. Talk to the tall boy. Yeah. It's a pound sand. Uh, okay. So then, so Eddiot, you're born around that time.

You're you're coming back. Uh, I mean, growing up, when you have career day at school and you know, it's like, okay, so and so's dad's a lawyer, so and so's dad's a doctor. Like, what would what was that experience like? My dad's in rock and roll. I mean, it was good enough. I went to Immaculate Heart of Mary and they actually didn't like that he was in rock and roll.

No. Oh, not at all. So I had a little rough time there. Oh yeah, that's that little rock and roll boy. Oh yeah. And long hair and they Yeah.

A little counterculture. Had fine grades but was And like what? And this is in the 80s. Yes. Okay. So born in ' 84.

So it's a 90. So like 90 you're going to school. Yeah. Okay. So somewhere around that you're probably you know second, third, fourth grade. You get linked up with Jimmy Buffett in the early 90s.

Yeah. In the early 90s. But before that, uh, I did a opening act. Oh, this is after I worked for Jimmy. Yeah. I did, uh, Lenny Kravitz and we opened for the Rolling Stones.

And the thing that kills me to this day is I didn't take a picture of Ed and Mick standing watching, uh, Lenny's first soundcheck at Soldier Field. Yeah. At Soldierfield, Chicago. Like, you're just you're just And like, were you exposed to a lot of He could go anywhere as a kid. We we just had passes that said Lenny Kravitz and we couldn't get into the you know the places that he could go even I'm just a kid. I'm just be boopping around in a pass but it's they kids could go.

It was and so so as you like you find a long period of your career with Jimmy. What did you start doing with Jimmy Buffett and stage manager? stage manager and then I stayed. They wanted me to do different things and go out with other people and I said, "No, I'm doing this." And the reason was is Jimmy worked 25 or 23 weeks I think when we started a year and the rest of the time you had off. And had he figured out cuz I know like in his story he like grinded early on like trying to find the niche and it was like cuz he kind of is a country music guy but it was like beach country and and it just hadn't caught on until until it like exploded.

Right. Yeah. I got with him after he exploded. Okay. So, he was already like had kind of figured that out and he was a big name. He quit doing drugs and or slowed down a lot.

He was more of a businessman. And so, what does stage manager look like? What's the What's that? Day of show. Day of show. You're making sure.

And that's why I would never be They asked me just recently to be production manager for the Core Reaper band that's going out with the Doobie brothers. The Doobies and the Reapers. But anyway, I refused to do it because I can't stand having all these people call me all the time every day, you know, about transportation, hotels, everything that you have to do as a production manager. I said, I can do this. I'll be a stage manager because that's a day of show. So, if you're doing 10 shows, I'm working 10 days.

And that's what kind of from the beginning, right, was you showed up and it's like it might be a 24-hour day, you know? Well, they weren't that bad, but yeah. And then it's, you know, the Sunday 8 in the morning till 1 in the morning. Yeah. So, so growing up, being exposed to all these like huge name celebrities, are there any like very memorable moments for you? Uh Eddie, it was like, oh, like this is crazy.

dinner at Legal Seafood in Boston with Jimmy Buffett and the crew and we're eating lobsters and then Parliament Funkadelics's in town playing some little water shed wateride, you know, outdoor stage in Boston. So, we take cabs over there and I happen to jump in the cab with Jimmy. So, it's I think mom was in the cab, too. You were in a different car. How old are you at this point? I don't know.

13. But what was cool about it was we had invited all the band, anybody that wanted to go, we could use our backstage passes and get into the show. I had arranged it with the punk people. Everybody turned us down except the two big black security guys, Charleston and Harley. They were ready to go, you know, let's go see Parliament. And then Jimmy jumped up said, I'm going.

And so that was we didn't even know he was going to go with us. And so that was really kind of fun. And it it does seem like this um from the beginning just from like a couple antidotes is like these really cool stories and these really cool opportunities come from like raising your hand and saying like, "Oh yeah, I'll go do like I'll go to we'll go see P Funk." And then all of a sudden you and Jimmy Buffett and your mom are in a cab rolling over to a show on the water in Boston, right? All of a sudden you're building a nightclub in New York just because you you like raised your hand and said, "I don't care about the money. I just want to learn this experience."

And I think that's a good lesson that a lot of um whether you're a young entrepreneur or you're trying to advance your career or anything like that, it's like, hey, a lot of good comes from just volunteering for present. Being present, being present. He's always said keep your blinders off. Yeah. You know, so you can see all these things. Yeah.

See these things and some opportunity will come up. Were there any moments for you, you know, that's a very uh a unique career, right? Right. It's like you probably have sto we again I've said in the beginning we could do a 10- part docky series and all the stories, but were there any moments for you that were uh where you just like had to sit around and take it in of like this is my life like I get to do like this is my career, you know? I was never that enthused because I didn't care about music. I mean, I was around all these people all the time.

And that's they probably like that because you're not Well, they like on these big shows that I didn't do drugs. They're like, "Oh, yeah. He's he's he's the adult. Yeah, exactly. I was the adult in the room, so the spaceship never killed anybody. It landed on stage, you know, hundreds of times.

Uh, was there ever a moment where you were like sweating? I mean, all this especially over the years like scenes or stages and sets have gotten so much more elaborate. There have been times you were worried. They're better now because they're they watch how they're built and they're paying attention. Uh, when David Bowie came to see his set for the first time, he came in, we didn't know he was coming. We'd gone to lunch.

He came in, he wanted to ride the elevator. We had an elevator that went 25 ft in the air. It was 35 ft wide. And he would come out on it and sing changes. It was supposed to come down halfway and stop. He got on it.

I'm running the crew, the queue. First queue I've ever done in the business. And the son of a goes all the way to the floor. He gets off. He said, "Who's running this thing?" And I had to stand up.

Me, you know, I had to stand up and hold my hand up. And he goes, "Is that as fast as it'll go?" And I said, "Yes." I had no idea, but I said yes. And we stayed all night and we put a Porsche handbrake on that motor that was running that elevator so that I could stop it with my hand. No way.

See that? And that's just like figuring out. It's like So he was cool about though. I mean, he could have just totally freaked out and said, "Get these people out of here. They're worthless." But he wasn't.

And I I feel like that is not the rap that a lot of rock stars and celebrities get that they're you know understanding and you know realize that they're going to figure it out. Yeah. A lot of them are primadonas. Did you gravitate towards the crew like those type of individuals like you know you mean you spend what was it 30 years with Jimmy? Jimmy and it's like oh there's clearly synergies there and you really enjoyed Jimmy was that kind of guy. He he liked his people and he kept them on.

So it was really good. You're doing I think you said 23 weeks out of the year. That's to start with. By the time we were done it was 16 weeks. 16 weeks. So we'd only do two two weeks and then we'd have one or two weeks off, two weeks, one or two weeks off, two weeks, one.

And so that gave me time to do everything around Indianapolis. Yeah. So help build the restaurant. Well, what was your first dip? Like you're coming back, you have this time, you're in between shows. What was your first kind of uh investment in toward into the Indianapolis community?

Bought a building to build parliament shows. Caddy corner from Shortidge High School. It's on 34th Street, 121 East 34th Street. It is now called the Storage Space Gallery. Okay. So, they do shows there and we kind of subsidize it because I let the person live there so cheaply.

But, it's a really great, you know, space. And you bought that in what year? Uh 1977, maybe 76. So, you real estate has been a thing. You like knew that this was you buy it and you don't you don't let it go. Well, when I bought the house on Fall Creek, I I turned it into a rooming house.

So, I had six bedrooms and actually one in the basement and so I just kept one bedroom and rented all the others out and it paid for it and it paid for the I made some money even. Yeah. You know, paid for all the taxes, insurance and everything. So, real estate kind of became the thing uh going on back home. So, you'd go out on the show or on the road, you do few weeks, come back home, the real fix everything, fix all the problems that are broken. Yeah.

I don't know. How many properties are you guys up to today? Well, I don't know, but we I used to own 10 houses, but we got out of the housing and into uh commercial real estate more. It's a lot easier. So, and then investing into the community, right? So, now like with the restaurant and can can um and the art project and things like that, what was kind of the first or or like the next step that led you into building the Indianapolis community up?

Well, my wife being a conservator, she worked at the art museum for 10 years, and everybody that works in the conservation lab at the art museum talks about going out on their own. And so, uh, there was a building down, it's 922 Massachusetts Avenue. I love that you have all the addresses. He's he's sharp there. It's not really, but it's it's where Bai is. Yeah.

now. And at the time, um, you know, it was an abandoned building and so I was going to buy it for my wife's lab so she could move her art studio there and repair paintings there because that was kind of the becoming the arts district. Okay. So, yeah, just finding these commercial properties and going and so while that's going on, Eddie, you you're kind of growing up, you're seeing dad out on the road. Was like the thought to get into the rock and roll business or the music business? Oh, let me say this.

when I tried to take him out and say, "Hey, you know, you could do." He said, "I don't want to work for the sound company." He says, "I want to own the sound company." Yes, that's what he said. So, from the early days, then you were like, "Hey, entrepreneurship, business owner, that's the route that I want to go." Chase a progression to get where I am now.

But, you know, I wasn't too interested in much until I got to college. Where'd you go to school? Uh, Kelly School of Business and then IU Law McKini up here. So, and then graduated as a lawyer. Yeah. Heck yeah.

I love, but I didn't sit for the bar. I was already halfway through uh law school when we opened Blue Beard and Amelia's and then Milk Tooth. We opened my last year, you know, of law. Yeah. So, you knew you're going through law school, but you you kind of saw like, okay, I'm not going to go work at the big law firm and do that whole dog and pony show. It's like entrepreneurship and and getting into restaurants.

Uh that was what you wanted to go do. Yeah. Well, I mean, I got out of college during the Bush crash, the 2008 housing crisis, everything going down and the economy just, you know, I'm sitting in, you know, a class at Kelly School, and the professor's going, "Well, it's a market correction." And then the next week he's going, "Well, we've never been here before." And the next week he's just kind of crying in the corner watching his investments all go down the toilet, and everything he taught us all semester was completely and utterly wrong. I'm coming out of college in that environment.

So, what do you do? You go to law school, right? Yeah. When in doubt, just go get more school and that'll that that'll prolong what you got to do, right? But it also created a glut of attorneys. So people coming out in my class that area also had, you know, a lot of competition coming out and we had property companies and were working in commercial real estate kind of a decision that I can use my law degree to be able to further the property companies and we also, you know, had this dream of doing a bakery and my best friend was a chef and we wanted to open a restaurant, too.

So, and so the original the first thing was Blue Beard. Well, Amelia's and Blue Beard happened at the same time. At the same time, yeah, we opened both of them simultaneously. And for anyone that doesn't know, uh, Amelia's is a bakery, right? And that I mean, delicious. They do 6,000 lbs of flour a week.

I don't know how what does that equate to in a lot. Yeah, that seems,000b. Yeah, multiple full pallets of flour. But it's all handmade, you know. It's it's a hightouch artisan European, you know, hearthbred bakery. But we also do laminated laminated pastries.

It's a very intense. What was the year? Uh 2012. 2012. And had like this wave of cuz now it's like you think of like artisan hair. It's like very it's everywhere, right?

It's a very popular thing. Even the big brands were trying to be more artisan. But in 2012, was this like were you catching a wave early on? No. This was a a complete hole in our market. We had Breadsmith, which was a chain that made bread in the shape of what they thought the bread should look like, but they didn't really make the bread, you know, it was just mediocre.

And Tom was traveling, you know, all over finding good bakeries and good bread in all these cities. And you're like and independent art movie houses in most of the downtown areas of cities. We didn't have any of that. through your travels on the road with with Jimmy or wherever you're going, you're like, "Hey, there's this all these other cities have this this bakery. Why don't we why don't we?" And and then at the same time with the restaurant, what was the original like back of the napkin like this restaurant's going to be X, Y, or Z?

Literally a back of a napkin sitting at the dugout. Yes, absolutely. with my friend John Adams uh who went to culinary school and we had talked about doing a restaurant where Black Market went into before Black Market existed. Now it's where Bod Tai is. So we'd had the idea but we didn't actually have a real plan and it was too early then. So we had purchased the building that Blue Beard and Calvin Fletchers and Amelia's is in that little complex of buildings and knew we were going to do a bakery and John and I said hey you know if we're going to do it now is the time.

I also fell into a liquor license right around then. Also, how you fall into a liquor license? Yes. Studying for professional responsibility in law school is how you do it. So, when you're studying for professional responsibility in law school, you're probably doing just about everything but studying for professional responsibility in law school. There we go.

So, you're So, my friend Andy Mara, we're sitting there trying to study and he's reading IBJ and he goes, "Hey, did you read that article about the liquor license auction coming up?" This is 2012, right after the 2010 census. The Super Bowl's coming. They're pushing to get more liquor licenses into the market. And he goes, "Hey," you know, he jokingly says, "You should go get one." And I go, "All right, so study and look up how to pre-qualify for this auction, how to do it."

Called the parents, said, "Hey, I need a thousand bucks to qualify for this auction." Gave me a thousand bucks. We sh Sherry my gave him a thousand bucks. We went to the auction. There were uh I think it was 94 or 96 biders and that many licenses. They went for face value of $1,000.

So, I had a liquor license for a three-way license. A three-way license. Yeah. Beer, wine, liquor. The week before cost 50 grand, 30 or 40 or 50 grand. It the they gave out how many of them?

94 94. Yeah. The census 2010 census. So we grew could support more licenses and no bidding war happened. Actually, there was a guy there that was speculating. He seemed like a motorcycle Hell's Angels guy.

He set up his company to be liquor licenses are us. And there's definitely in this contract says you can't speculate on these licenses. If you buy them, you have to put them in use within a year. and he had a you know it was like hund and something bids on those 94 licenses and Chris Shabben another kid I went to law school and I walked up to him and said hey you need to withdraw a couple of these bids if you don't withdraw these bids we're all going to bid against each other you were bidden on 15 licenses just retract them get us down to 94 and we'll get them for the face value and the guy grumbled at us and kind of like looked at us like punk kids and then withdrew his bid and did it yeah and did it and everybody got him for a thousand bucks instead of us all bidding against each other you know it would have been five grand, six grand, whatever. But would it have been um 94 was the number they were trying to issue?

Yeah, that's all. So, you knew they were capping it at 94 and like, "Hey, dude, come on. You don't need 15. It's like we can all get speculation." So, he still got a handful of them, but he bought, you know, 20 other licenses. Oh, yeah.

Uh, and so you fall into a $1,000 liquor license, have a building, I mean, there you go. Talk about destiny, right? So, so at that point you have the liquor license, but you and the building's coming together and then you're like, "Let's launch Blue Beard and Amelia's at the same time." Yeah. Well, I called John and said, "Hey, if it's now or never, you know, we've talked about doing a restaurant. We have a building.

We're doing this other project. We're doing Amelia's no matter what. We have a liquor license. I have to put it in use. Let's go get a drink at the dugout." Literally hash that out on a napkin in the dugout.

What was and what was the idea for the initial concept of the restaurant? Well, we watched all our friends leave. People go to Chicago, go to New York, go to LA, go to all these big cities that they had to go to to be cool and do great things. And we were here in Indie and we took a lot of pride in our city. I still don't know why we take a lot of pride in our city, but we do. Not that there's anything bad about our city, but you know, what's the crux of why you take pride in place, but we watched them all leave and we said, "Well, we can stay here and do things that are cool here.

let's just do what we think is great here and let's focus on Indiana. So it became Blue Beard because of how do we celebrate an Indiana artist Kurt Vonagget Indianapolis author artist the book Blue Beard. How do you create something that people will celebrate like it's one of those big cities that I I mentioned and we did what we we knew. You know, talk about celebrating. I know that you guys have been honored in a multitude of ways, including like James Beard nominations, and it is a staple of quality. I don't how do you say in the Hoosier?

It's a it's a damn good restaurant here in Indianapolis, right? And you know, last year was a a best restaurant USA semiinalist at James Beard, which was a huge the hugest best restaurant in the USA semiinal semi- finalist. Yeah. So, State Bird Provision, which is in San Francisco, actually won that award. You know, that to us, you know, as young kids, knowing the culinary scene and knowing what a James Beard nomination meant, to open up to a James Beard nomination was an amazing amazing experience. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. I talk about putting yourself on the map. Bill Beard is unpretentious. We don't have wide tablecloths. I mean, we have a great staff. I don't know.

Oh, yeah. And this year, actually, we just got a hospitality nomination. So, you know, in the past, we've had Great Lakes chef category nominations for Blue Beard. Throughout the time, there's been a lot of them. Uh, and Chef Abby Maris was the one that was the actual nominated chef for a lot of those. But this year, we got a nomination in the category of, uh, hospitality, which is another national category.

So, we're up there with a short list of the best hospitality in the entire country. And that comes from your staff, right? of hospitality. It's one thing to have really good food, but also a great service and hospitality. What are the factors that go into that when they're they're narrowing down the the field for for that award? I we I don't actually know what their their factors are.

We just keep doing what we're doing. Hey, right. He's like, yeah, you just keep having good people making great food and great drinks, great drinks, and it works. But it's trying to create that environment where our staff can thrive. So, you know, it's not about rules and processes. It's about how can we make these people feel what's the goal that we want to do?

We're here to to show people a good time to make sure that we can comfort them, feed them great food, but just facilitate an experience. Well, and at the time, this was not something all over Indianapolis, right? There weren't very like farm-totable type restaurants or anything of upscale dining, right? There's a couple things. Greg Hardesty and Regina Mahel were like the two that were really doing that that was connecting with the right groups of people. Well, Greg had uh Elements back in the day on Massav uh right where the the sculpture the head sculpture Alabama and uh Massav and Regina was down at 888 Massachusetts Avenue down on the East End.

Greg was pushing the envelope to some really interesting food. But Regina was creating great more approachable food made with Indiana ingredients, doing the complete farm-totable thing. But she hit a market that actually, you know, appreciated that. She didn't scare them off. Yeah. And you're training people to dine.

Without those two restaurants and those people training a lot of people to eat great food and to actually think about what they're putting in their body and to taste that there's a big difference between this weird tomato something from this chain restaurant versus this handmade Indiana tomato soup when tomatoes are in season. Way different. You know, you're you're almost changing consumer thought patterns and buying process and eating process. Oh yeah. And they were training people. Yeah.

And they did it in a way that that could connect with people. It was great though they are competition. Were you going to them and like hey like mentors in the space? Did you find any people to like help you guys? I mean your first time restaurant tours you're young and your co-founder went to culinary school but you're coming out of law school and I don't know did you work in restaurants with John? My first job was in a restaurant but not like that you know at Bazbos.

So which was great. You know it was a lot of fun and that that community atos was incredible. There's still a great community, but those two chefs that I named, everybody's also worked for. Anybody worth their salt in Indianapolis right now has worked for either Greg Hardesty or Regina Mahel. So, John Brooks has worked for both of them. But Milktooth Abby Maris worked for both of them.

John Adams, my original partner, worked for both of them. So, we had those connections. And, you know, when I had some hard times at Blue Beard, you know, Greg Hardesty was the guy, you know, we were at recess at the time. you know, we sitting in the basement and talking and having a drink and crying about business together, you know, he was he was great. So, so you come out of the gate, you get the James Beard semi finalist year one and are you guys just like, "Oh, we're we're so good at this. We got like and then was it just all up and to the right for the next decade?"

Yeah, it hasn't really let up. It's been we we're busy all the time still, you know. It's it's also kind of a grow or die type feeling. So each year we've continued to do more. John Brooks with Milk Tooth. When did you guys open Milk Tooth?

Uh 2013. So next year. Yeah. Like, yeah, I'll just do another one. He came back from Montana. He was cooking in Missoula.

You know, him and John Adams and myself were all friends in high school. We've known each other since forever. And uh he came back in town and he saw what John and I were doing. And he kind of he was going to be involved in doing a small sandwich shop for Amelia's. didn't end up happening, but he said, "Hey, I can do that, too. You know, let's do this."

A lot of detail to the story, but our current partner in a different property company and our partner that we put together Can Cinema with, we bought the building across the street that Milk Tooth is in and built Milk Tooth with John Brooks and he was living upstairs above Blue Beard in the apartment at the time. It's where his son was born in the pool. Yeah. Upstairs, which is now actually a private dining space at Blue Beard called the Second Story, but private dining space that's also had child births. That's that's a unique fun story. Yeah.

But it's a cool apartment and it's just a fun place to bring people together. The pace of things uh grow or die that we built Milktooth and then shortly after that it was the bakery needs to expand. So in 2015 we added the storefront for Amelia's because Amelia's was doing nothing but the wholesale delivery and selling bread from behind the bread counter at Blue Beard, which is now just a service alley. So Oh, so it wasn't what it is today when I think of Amelia's. Yeah. Oh, no.

We we called it Amelia's because we knew we couldn't call it Blue Beard because we wanted to sell it to our competition. We wanted all the best restaurants in town to have this bread. They wouldn't do Blue Beard bread, but they do Amelia's. Wow. So then you're going to the other, you know, fine restaurants in town. You're like, this is like it's really really smart because it create you have the restaurant, but it creates this other revenue stream.

um where it's like if a distillery or like of a bar starts stealing their own vodka or doing whatever there it's like oh you have this but you can also sell it to other places. That's super smart. And so so as things kept going you expand Amelia's are you still on the road as much as you are and and what is your like relationship between helping out with what's going on with the restaurants versus what's going on with the music industry versus what's going on because Can can starts to come together at at some point in the store too. Yeah. You guys are busy. my music career when I go out on the road I have to be there.

So, you know, I'll be gone for two weeks or 10 days and then back for two weeks or 10 days. So, and I always have something to do. Ed has a list that's very deep of projects that I can do. So, so you just dad Yep. This is the dad project list. I come back and What kind of What's like What are some things that are on the dad project list?

Well, yesterday I had to get a pressure spray. What is it called? Oh, yeah. A jet kit. a jet kit, a jeter. Go to our shop, get a forklift, load a big jettter into a truck, take it over to a group of plumbers.

Job, have him do it so that he didn't have to do it cuz he, what were you doing? You were busy doing something. Oh, yeah. We had to put in, you know, a new water service at the building on Massav and I was over there dealing with all that stuff. And as you guys are expanding, was the plan like, hey, we want to open dozens of restaurants and grow this big corporation or like what what's the ethos behind it? Keep your blinders off.

That's, you know, opportunity when it knocks, take advantage of it. So, so where was the next time that opportunity started knocking? You opened Milk Tooth, you're expanding the bakery and you had those blinders off. We opened the pizza place. Yeah, we opened the storefront in 2015. We built the building on Mass Avenue at 88 890 Mass Avenue in 2016.

890. That's where Rooers's Kitchen was. And now that's going to be Fernando. So, here in Broadle, it's a Brazilian Mexican fusion restaurant. Very small restaurant up here, but fire. Yeah, Cristiano and Elizabeth.

They're they're great. Their son is Fernando. Family business. Everybody loves them. The Brazilian food is incredible. They're doing a second location.

So, okay. So, they're not getting rid of this one. They're not getting rid of that one. Don't worry. All right. You're better come downtown, I can say.

But 8. 90, it's a three-story building on the corner. So, we did that in 2016 and built Kingdo, I think, simultaneously. So Kingdo was a cool partnership that came together with well yeah the Whitker family. So they're great. They they have Marian Inc.

uh which is a near east side business that's been there for decades and decades and they wanted to do I mean if anyone hasn't been to Kingo it's like the boutique pizza right it's very upscale delicious uh but in the rise of casual casual environment like go hang out drink beer but the pizza is like not not your papa hut John's you know come on yeah topnotch uh you know 90second pizza a really really hot oven so then you're up and put that together they had the building. This is Yeah. 2016ish. They had the building over there. Uh that was an old service station. We just got done doing Milk Tooth and the Whitaker family.

Tom's sister is married to a Witchker. We're connected with that family very closely. So, keeping your blinders off and then this building, what do you think about doing something here? Searching for the concept. We found the concept. created, you know, connected an investment group uh led by Reed Owens, one of my good friends to, you know, put together this team to do King D and then had Lucas Brown, a great architect from Bloomington.

We just I think we did a really great project. Every year that building looks better and better. It's really cool. Oh, I I think that and as I start to put it, I had no idea of all the different things that you guys are kind of like in the same ecosystem of and I'm like, "Oh, that makes sense. Th those are kind of connected. I could see that."

like it's a really cool concept, really cool space and a lot of inspiration from some of the biggest cities or the coolest concepts in, you know, the San Francisco or the New York or whatever. And it's like, oh, we can bring this to Indiana and put a little Hoosier spin on it and and really up the bar for dining and hospitality in Indianapolis. I I'm putting all these pieces together. I'm like, that's super cool. I want to take a minute to tell you about my friends at JC Hart and the opportunity that they are giving to get in listeners. They are offering summer savings of up to two months off of rent at these brand new communities, East Bank and Noblesville, The Edge on the north side of Indie, and Wheelhouse in Westfield.

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They also wanted me to let you know that they are always looking for awesome people to join their team. They just made the list of best places to work in Indiana for the 13th time. Check out their open positions at homejcart. com. Now, let's get back into the episode. The question I have is, okay, so as these new developments start coming together and you keep your blinders off, how do you balance staying focused and keeping your blinders on on on growing one of the best restaurants in Indianapolis with Blue Beard while also keeping your blinders off and uncovering these new opportunities?

Like, you know, between some people say stay laser focused like be the best at this thing versus like opportunity can lead you anywhere. Work really hard, you know? I don't know. There's a lot of pressure. So, as you build each of these things, you add more and more employees and more and more people that rely on you. And you have to build better and better systems.

And you have to learn as you go. In our ecosystem, under a paycheck that's signed by me would we got 140 people. That's 140 people that, you know, pay their rent, go out on dates, do all their, you know, live their lives on the the cash flow going through these businesses. Loves Indie. They love Indie, too. There's a huge responsibility and a lot of pressure there.

So, no, I haven't I don't take vacations and I'm really busy and uh I really do enjoy it and love it. But yeah, you just keep going. It's what you signed up for, right? It's what you signed up for. Yeah. Yeah.

And if you want to make Yeah. this outsized impact in these communities, uh yeah, you have to do that, right? And they rely on you and they're trusting you guys to, you know, be the leader. Is this where the interesting swap or switch to not switch but uh development of the cinema? Like you've done restaurant. Okay.

They're like you're kind of becoming the restaurant guy. We usually start in areas that are downtrodden and the the land and the properties are cheap. Mass Avenue. It was cheap at the at what the dead end. It was the dead end of Oh, over is that like so you're talking about like the bottom district? Yeah.

So you were in there like what year were you guys? 83 is when we bought the building where when he bought talking about holding on and like like oh things have really come full circle. So then we did that and when that was all going was what are we going to do next? So then we went down to where Blue Beard is and that was in the 2010s. Yeah, it was 2010 I think. What was Fountain Square?

Was it still like a similar vibe? Oh no. I right when we bought that Well, first we knew that there was a green line on the ground in front of that building and that green line went eight miles around our downtown and that was the plan for the Gan Glick Cultural Cultural Trail. Yes. And we from the beginning proponents of multimmodal transit, walkable cities, livable cities, knew that this weird idea for a real walking and biking path around the city. And actually seeing the Monon, you know, people were crazy.

We had a great example of focusing on multimotal infrastructure working really well in our city. Uh we really believed in that and I don't think anybody noticed it quite yet. It was still too early. It was just a green line on the ground and some people talking. Uh you could stand in front of those buildings when we purchased them and you could look down into Fountain Square and you could look all the way to downtown to where it splits under the Pacers parking garage and not a single car would be parked on that street all day long except for maybe one or two in front of Calvin Fletcher's Coffee that would pop in to get a cup of coffee and go out. And is the neighborhood technically Fletcher Place or what's the neighborhood technically called?

So it's Fletcher Place on the the downtown side of the interstate and included in Fletcher Place is Holy Rosary Neighborhood. to the old Italian neighborhood that they they wouldn't let Fletcher Place neighborhood association kind of take them over. When we got there, there was kind of some wars going on between them. Oh boy. Stay out of it. We love put yourself in a little Hatfields and McCoy situation down there.

So Blue Beard is technically in Fletcher Place. It's Holy Rosary neighborhood in I I'm pretty sure it's technically Fletcher Place, but there's also a dividing line there of the historic district. So there's historic Fletcher Place, which is the other side of Virginia Avenue. So it's IHPC protected and our side is not. Wow. So that's why you see, you know, the mazo and the hinge, the apartment buildings that have popped up on that, the slate, all those buildings that were built on that side of the street are because there's no historic preservation commission control over that side.

So it's so you what side that would be on the north? Well, it's a 45 degree street. So it's kind of wild. So across the street from so the blue beard side is historic protect historic is not historic protect and that's why hell those apartment buildings have popped up where tappers and all that stuff then on the other side is historic district and that those can't be built up. Yeah. Well I mean it's just a a huge process.

They they could get there but it it's it's a lot. Had we not bought Blue Beard and the three buildings that are all connected there, they would have been torn down and there would have been an apartment complex there. you know, another condo thing. And that's like a a a staple of what I feel like you guys do. It's it's not demolish it and start from scratch. It's restoring these pieces of history, right?

Like an old filling station or, you know, Ameilia's the the one on Virginia Avenue, that building was 1866. The building that's connected in the back of it, which is where Blue Beard is, was uh 1935. No, 1924. And then the building where Calvin Fletcher Coffee is was 1935. So I mean, but we saved those buildings and the history of those buildings. The Historic Preservation is the only reason why they were building on one side and not.

We do like the Historic Preservation Commission and completely believe in what they do. Yeah. And we have a lot of buildings in historic districts that we've, you know, had to think twice about what we do with them because of that. And I think that that's yielded better projects that better connect with our community. So yeah. Well, and talking about connecting with community and building better projects, like the cinema can can comes along at some point and and it's a different sort of concept, right?

Like building a restaurant and doing that whole piece versus building a a movie theater in a cinema like is a little bit different. What got you guys into that? As I traveled around the world, when we stay in cities with Jimmy, we never did backto-back shows. We had time off in every city and we would go to movies during the day and most big cities had a cinema downtown. So I always wanted to do an art movie house in downtown Indianapolis. Then we ran into Sam Sam Sfin, our partner.

We did Milktooth. We bought the building that Milktooth is in. And and the reason we hooked up with him is because he was going to do a cinema in Fountain Square and he was going to buy this church and then a house next to it and he wanted to have someone open a restaurant in it. So that's why he called me and I said, "Well, you know, John Brooks, our friend, wants to open a restaurant." And so I brought him down there to look at it. He looked at this place where Sam wanted to have his thing and it just wasn't going to work for them.

and he asked them, "Well, is there any place you'd want to do a restaurant?" And they said, "Yeah, we had this building, but they took it off the market and because they found an oil tank and they took it out and they increased the price by $60,000, even though it probably only cost 20 or 10 to get it out. So, it was just out of the range for me to buy it. But Sam, he came down and looked at this thing and he said, "We'll buy it." And so, then we became partners. And so then you buy the the spot that now ho hosts u or that now is can this was the milk that was milk.

This is how we got started. Okay. Then we started looking for a place to do um independent art movie house and we looked all around the city everywhere. Yeah. Boiler room at the Stuts. We were on the south side on you know an old metal plating facility that was going to be a nightmare.

We were on Bean Creek next to the tube factory and big car. All these different places. that Jewish temple that's at 34th and Central that just got vandalized. That building, we looked at that building. We looked all over to do this. And then you land on that uh near east side.

Is that the is that Holy Cross? What's that neighborhood? Windsor Park. Windsor Park. That's where you end up uh pulling the trigger for Can. Yes.

This was just a thought from all your travels. You're like, you know, we need this. We need this. Sam traveled and thought the same thing. He he has a place in New York and he also loved you know independent art movies and he had a sister or a cousin or somebody who had one in Orlando. So he knew about the business and that it's Yeah.

He wanted to do that too. And what year did you guys open up Can the day co was the day we were supposed to open. It was the day we had to close. Yeah. So it was right around this time of year. You know it was Yeah.

St. Patrick's Day. We were watching the St. Patrick's Day parade in 2020 as co 19 was coming through and we didn't know yet. The question was are they going to cancel the St. Patrick's Day parade?

We'll use that as a bell weather to know if we're going to have our two weeks of opening extravaganza and launch parties and soft opening dates and invitees if this is going to happen. And they canled the parade. The next day we had our final staff, you know, family meal where we cooked everything on the menu. Everybody ate through it, gave a champagne toast and said, "Hey, we'll call you back in maybe two weeks." A year and a half later, we finally got to open to And you already like staffed up and everything. Oh yeah.

No, we were we were launch day. We were go. We were trained. Did you guys have to say like, "Hey, we can't open this." Like call me in two weeks. Yeah.

That turned into two year a year and a half, man. And you're just sitting there like you have this thing that you can't use. You still have to pay interest. You still the bank still needs their money. you don't really have a real payroll yet that you can prove. So, you're not getting PPP funds.

You're, you know, you're you're out there. Like, it was a horrible Oh my gosh. situation, especially had you not had other things that were, you know, still and you have to go figure out all those things to make sure they don't shut down. Oh, it was Oh my gosh. And that was wild, but Oh, we're past it. We're through it.

That's the amazing thing. And you got Canan open. Uh, and I know we had crew from H Heartland Film Festival on and I know you guys are involved a lot with what they're doing. Uh, and I think you screen some of the the H Heartland Film Festival uh shows there. Like give us the ethos and the story of of what goes on at Can. We're firstr run independent art film on screen as many days a year as we can.

360ish. What we're trying to show is the best, you know, independent film that you can find. We want to be the outlet for that because so much of it passes over Indiana as a whole and never gets a chance to be screened. And I liken it to what happened in the music industry where people now have recording devices that you can have in their bedroom. They can put out a great album for, you know, way less money. Where it used to be you were in a studio was hundreds of thousands of dollars to put together an album.

You can do it with film, but now it's instead of being hundred million or $30 million, you can do a pretty good film for, you know, 10. Still a lot of money, but there's a lot of cool content coming out that doesn't get seen. Oh man. And I learned when we had Rocky on and he was talking about like what goes into creating these fil and I was like you kind of like okay it's like you know a couple guys with some cameras out there and it's no it is tens hundreds of thousands of dollars to create something that is art and like submittable to whether it's Sundance or Hartland Film Festival or any of those. It's like it is way more expensive than you think. It's like I have a few cameras I'm like oh I could go out and make a film.

No, absolutely could not. Like it is it is a capital intensive process. And even um did you guys go to the duel premiere? It was downtown. Do you guys remember that last year? It was at the Phoenix Theater I believe on the circle.

What's that one there? Hilbert Circle Theater. Yeah, it was it was at the with Punk. Oh, you that's pretty Parl Funkadelic. You know there you go. Um, while I was talking to to those guys, it's like a venture company.

Like you go out and get people to fund your film, million dollars, $2 million, whatever it is. And with the hope that you can get the right actors, you can get the right everything and then sell it to a, you know, for them. It's like the goal was to get it. I think um Lionsgate end up picking it up. But it's like and that's how you get your exit, right? is like based on how many streams and DVDs, if they still do DVDs, I don't know.

But like that's how you get your exit back to your investors. And I did not think about art and film that way. I was thinking of it as like I I didn't really know, you know, I didn't I didn't know the ins and outs of that. And it's crazy. What we want is a space for exhibition as so much competition comes up with, you know, streaming. Everybody's device can be in your hand.

You've got, you know, 80inch TVs on people's walls in their houses and can get anything pretty much with the click of a button. a week after it's released in a theater. We want to preserve the social aspect of seeing a film and enjoying a film and connecting with a community. So, we want to be a place where people can have conversations around film where they can have that experience where they can laugh together, cry together, decompress after seeing a film and actually have a real experience around it and not just this solitude of sitting on your couch and just consuming. Yeah. and building community around that versus, you know, binge watching the next 15 episodes of your favorite Netflix show.

Can Can officially then opened in 2022, would that have been? Uh, there 2021 somewhere in there. Um, so you know, threeish, a little over three years of of Can. Are there any of those like emotional moments that you think of like a time we brought the community together to share? Last week we got the funk I think was the name of the show and it was Kyle from Kyle Long Long Cultural Manifesto WFYI. He organized to have seven or eight of the original U blues and players from Mass from Indianapolis that all played and grew up here and they did this great talk for you know 45 minutes or an hour and then they screened we Got the Funk and it was just like an amazing event.

There was probably 90 people in the theater and it was just touching. I mean, yeah, you bring together the community to have these conversations and it makes this like going to a movie theater, it's like it's not a social exper like you're a social like you go pick up your snacks and whatever and you watch the thing and you get out of there as quick as you can. But building these conversations and community around film the which is a medium that I mean a ton of people are passionate about that just like music and like whether it's uh when they bring songwriters in and you like get to talk with them as they talk about how they wrote this song like it's a it's a piece of art and culture that Regal Films like just kind of like commercialized out of it you know and uh screening I mean we went to I went to the dual premiere and it's like you know there's A-list actors in Hollywood and I was like this is this is really Cool.

And then at the end, the whole everyone gets a question and they're as it's a Q&A segment of like what was going through your mind and how hard was it to do? And I was like, wow. Like this is the kind of stuff you see on YouTube that's like happening out in LA or wherever and and like there are places that whether it's on the biggest scales or whether it's like with these community impact driven films. There is really cool conversations happening around the these mediums. That's I mean I love that. I think that's super cool.

And we're trying to get some sort of tax abatement to do movies. I don't know what you call them exactly. And that's why our our state is so way behind times with shooting and doing movies. Well, tax credits for production credits like they have in Georgia. If you notice, Pa uh Pennsylvania and Georgia outside of your New York and Hollywood and other places you'd expect films to be made are getting the bulk of like small smaller independent films because they've got such a great tax credit system. So you see that little Georgia Peach, you know, splash screen before the film that this film was made in Georgia even though it's set in Indiana or Michigan.

Yeah. Well, yeah, their tax structure makes sense to be able to make a film in that state. We ours it it doesn't. So it's a lot harder to make a film here and more expensive. And it would be interesting, right? You think about Georgia and it's like if Indiana leaned into this of like, okay, your movie can be set in LA, but with the duel, they there was scenes that were set in LA and they used Lake Michigan to be like the coastline where they were like out on the beach or whatever and it looked like it was the ocean.

Or you could be like in the hills of southern Indiana and it doesn't feel like you're in Indiana. And so being able to play into all four of those or all those different mediums, it's like it could be a good place. So in two hours you could go from a a natury southern Indiana wilderness to a beach to a big city. And I don't know. I think that was a really cool idea of something a new revenue stream. Well, like John Green of Fault in our Stars was shot in in Pennsylvania.

It was set in Indianapolis except for the Funky Bones scene. Yeah. I mean there a couple scenes, but it doesn't, you know, it's because it didn't make sense to shoot a film here. And maybe I'm wrong on that. I'm pretty I'm I think you're right. Uh, I know there was then there a few glimpses here or there, but one thing that I saw and I keep going back to the duel just because I had this conversation and they talked about an investor, let's say they write $100,000 check and there could be a tax credit for, you know, you get X amount back or whatever on your taxes, which makes sense and you can create more films and, you know, fuel this arts and culture in Indiana.

They So, in one of the scenes from the duel, they take an underground drug tunnel to Mexico from, you know, like the southern California border to the Mexican side of it. And they're like, "We're smuggling drugs through or whatever." That was their thing. They used Bedford, Indiana, the under the longest underwater river in the Lost River. The United States. Oh, the Lost River.

And they they went down there with cameras and sang and they did the whole thing. And I was like, Indiana, man, that's crazy. Like how cool is that? Well guys, I mean this has been an awesome show. I feel like I could talk to you for for hours. As we come towards the end, there's a few themes that I see uh that I'd love to unpack with you guys.

And the first one is as I look at the locations that your restaurants or can can or you talk about Massav in the 80s like you take these bets on parts of the community that are more affordable. There's not necessarily a ton going on there, right? Like Windsor Park, like I I don't know what was going on there. Hundreds of abandoned lots and houses. As you're thinking through the risk you're taking on to go and open a restaurant or open something there, what's your thought process in that? We don't I don't think risk.

I just think with this building work Yeah. What's the potential? What's the potential? I don't think risk. Well, and then we But you have to draw people in there, right? You have to have people coming to Oh, well, we knew they would.

There was a library across the street from the one uh where the can can is. There's a cool library and you can tell the story. Why did the library still there? We will search a community. We will interact with the community before we buy something. We'll kind of know what's going on and kind of people that are around in that neighborhood and if there's much infrastructure there.

Massav, you've got, you know, uh well, we built a merchants association. That was the infancy. But Fletcher Place had an active community. Holy Rosary had an active community. They had neighborhood orgs. They had meetings.

They had people that care. When we went into Windsor Park, we saw that there was this Carnegie Library across the street that the library tried to shut down in I think 2006. And the community came together and had a march from that library downtown to central library and or it might have been to city county, but in protest of the closure of their library. So, we knew there's a community here that views the library as a positive resource in their community that wants to support this thing that takes pride in their neighborhood and like just knowing that that that there's that cultural fabric that there are people here that will celebrate their community that we want to be a part of that. Yeah. How can we add to to what they're already doing in that neighborhood?

We don't come in and and try and change a neighborhood. We come in and try and celebrate with the neighborhood and be an asset and a resource in that neighborhood. And I think that in um if you think about those neighborhoods, there is a lot of push back of like, oh, you're going in there and you're buying cheap real estate, gentrifying it. And the way you just talked about it's like, oh, like that does happen, you know, like that's happening in places, you know, that's going on. How do you blend and like be like, oh, we want to be a a resource and an asset in this community and and become actually part of the community where because it would just have been easy for them to also look at that and be like, no, we we don't like this. We don't want them coming in here.

So, how do you bridge that gap? Well, in general, we're not cashing in gun stores that we're putting in. We're putting in community type things. We're doing things that we want to be proud of and that we want our city to be proud of. So, we've built a reputation around that that that we're going to be thoughtful not only with the developments that we actively with the businesses that we actively run in our own developments, but also in the tenants that we help to select. You know, the our tenant mix on Massav, it's a bunch of small businesses.

They're all really cool. We could definitely be making a lot more money with that building, but we keep our rents reasonable. We choose people that we think add to the fabric of that neighborhood that make it better, that are going to be active participants in the community of that neighborhood and and really try and make Indianapolis a better place. So like Tomorrow Bookstore is a great example. Yeah, Jakeler over there is so involved in shaking the bushes on Massav and being a part of that community and making sure that the things that need to be happening in that neighborhood are happening in that neighborhood and just connecting people left and right. It's he is, you know, just that that's the tenant that we want.

It's an incredible thing. One of the first things I always do when we go into a new area is I start picking up trash literally everywhere all the time. Me personally all the time. It's on the dad list, right? I still do it. You know, I pick up trash all the time.

I got involved in the uh Poges Run Committee to clean up Poges Run. And so we do cleanups in Poges Run. We get involved in the community and people realize that we're not a a hit and run. We're not coming in here trying to make everything more valuable, sell it, and go, you know, go to Miami. For those that don't know, I know about Poges Run, right? It's that underwater or under city.

Have you done it? I haven't done it. Oh, come on. I need to do it. Yeah. Can you give us for the people that may not have heard of this, what is Poges Run?

Uh, Poges Run is this creek that runs up from what where's that little reservoir? I don't know what they call it even, but it runs from the northeast, goes down all the way underneath Indianapolis, the downtown area for two two miles and then dumps out into White River kind of near um Kentucky Avenue. Can Can you just like go? There's a two-mile. Well, there's they have cages, but people have all broken the cages off, so you can actually walk it. It's kind of It's very interesting and probably illegal.

Probably. All right. So, just heads up, that might be illegal, but you know. Yeah. But it was illegal to do the idol, too. Yeah.

Oh, I mean, you know, you weren't supposed to go out on the interstate and do anything, but so we did it. Uh Well, well, I do want to talk about you before we started recording, you said one of your proudest additions to the community was the idol. Yes. Um and and for those that may not know what the idol is, could you explain that? Yeah, it's on a point of a hill where the south split of the interstate is. So 65 and 70 kind of split there and go every which way.

And there's this uh brow of a hill facing southwest, I believe. And we put uh three rows of chairs from the original Bush Stadium and a little screen over the top, a sun shade screen over the top of it so that um people could sit there and watch cars in traffic. And I I think that if you've seen people that live in the Fountain Square Fletcher Place area, like they've posted that on their Instagram story or whatever, it's like you're just watching cars like I think there's some symbolism behind it of like slowing down and watching that. I don't know if there that was thought sitting idly by and um it was on CBS Sunday Morning so there was idol. So it's ID L E. I thought you were saying ID O and I was like idol that's weird.

I get it. The idol. The idol. Ah, okay. That makes a lot more sense. Go to uh Sunday morning on CBS and Google it and it'll come up.

Uh I love it. The one thing I did want to touch on before we kind of wrap up the show here is you talk about the responsibility that you have like you talk about that Massav building like you can easily raise rents, you could like you could make more money if you had, you know, nothing but a chain corporations in there. I could, you know, and I I actually just had making this connection back to Orange County. I talked to some um someone that was down from southern Indiana. They talk about like Jasper versus some of the surrounding county Dubo County versus some of the other surrounding counties down there. And early on, you know, people make decisions and Jasper chose to have less national like GM plants and things like that come in and more and build up their local business ecosystem more.

It it put them not at beholden to GM or beholden to these huge companies when they had to make cuts. they closed down these plants and and some of the surrounding counties around there like are not doing as well as Dubo County is because they built up their local ecosystem. And so it was just an interesting parallel that I'm making to like well we want to build up these tenants these locally owned businesses in Mass on Massav in Indianapolis even though you may not be you know not you're not making as much money as you could today but down the road the whole city will reap the benefits of that decision because we aren't beholden to you know Cheesecake Factory going out of business or whatever it is. So, I appreciate that and I'm I'm putting those ties together is is pretty cool for me to see and I I think that's a huge responsibility for you guys to have to like, you know, choose what goes in where for your buildings.

Well, it's also small enough that, you know, our little company is small enough that we're it's just us making the decisions. If you're a big corporate, you know, real estate firm and you're trying to maximize shareholder value to take the risk on this little guy that who knows, you know, a lot of these people are unproven and we're sitting there sitting down with them talking through their business plan going, "Well, this sounds like it could work. Well, let's give it a try. Let's do a shorter lease and let's do some extensions and let's figure out how to get you off the ground as cheap as possible and get you launched." And it's like a risk that that uh there's not much room in a corporate structure to take. How do you make that decision and balance between like putting yourself out at risk like building up the community but also like protecting yourselves and building a company that's sustainable because you do have 140 paychecks to pay?

Well, those are outside of the property company. Those are property company's us, you know, those are all like restaurant employees. That's all just that's all going restaurants, bakeries, things like that. We would rather move faster. If you look at a lot of places that are have a, you know, leasing company working for them to lease their spaces, they'll sit vacant for six months, a year, two years, three years, you know, like waiting for the right person to come in and pay their $60 a square foot instead of just leasing it today for 45. They're going to sit for three years.

And that that blows my mind. You're damaging a community. You're hurting everything around you by keeping that vacant. So, I'd rather take a risk on somebody not paying me that has a cool business idea that there's a good chance they're going to do well, but nah, the risk's pretty high. You know, when you look at a bank or a corporate structure, that risk's too much for them to tolerate. I'd rather get somebody in there, give them a chance, and let it let it roll and see what happens and nurture them through it.

Final question on this, and we'll get kind of some fun segments here at the end. When you think about all the the leases and you know businesses that have come in and gotten space from you guys, what was the biggest risk that you guys took like on a business that paid off in the end? Blue beard. I'm kidding. I mean, dead serious. Like that's that was actually the first time that we went in and did our own concept in one of our own properties.

Restaurants are are a huge risk. And I've watched so many people that should have, you know, succeeded, work as hard as I've ever worked, but just all the things didn't line up quite right. And it just didn't hit quite how it needed to hit. And in a different year, a different season, a different, you know, environment, it could have hit and it could have been the best thing that we've ever seen. And it's just it is wild how fickle you know the the industry and community and media around these things you know actually really really is. So it's it's a it's a rough business and you know I I commend anybody that's in it really.

Uh this has been oh my gosh I I could do a full three-hour podcast episode on this but we are down to the end of the show. I have a couple fun segments here. We'll go Tom and then Eddie and then we'll go Eddie and Tom will kind of bounce back and forth. So the first one is our younger years segment. It's brought to you by our friends at ORR Fellowship. They're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young business leaders across the state.

So Tom, what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self? I'd give myself a pat on the back. Keep going. That keep your blinders off. Keep your blinders off. Yeah, maybe that might be the episode title.

Keep your blinders off. Like that's a great one, you know, because a lot of people, especially in the age, it's like just go be this specialist that just does this one thing. And it's like that'll get you where you want to go, but it'll get you working for somebody. Yeah, exactly. You know, I I would love if your blinders are all the way on, hit me up, hit them up. We'd love to have you as an employee, right?

Like those kind of people will get you uh they're really good at doing their job, but if you want to build ecosystems or build these things, um keeping those blinders off is a great piece of advice. Eddie, what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self? I think it would be have empathy in everything that you do. If you can understand the other side of a situation, be it an adversarial business situation or employee employer relationship and why people are working for you and are going to, you know, pour their time and effort into what you're trying to do, you have to have empathy for those people and understand where they are to really be able to get them on board with where you want to be. I love it. Empathy is important.

We got a couple fun questions here as we kind of round things out. First one, all the restaurants, what's the one menu item people need to try? I'd say the okonamiyaki at Can Can. The okonamiyaki. What is okonamayyaki? It's a Japanese pancake with a whole bunch of different stuff on top.

It's Japanese bar food is really what we're doing over there. So, it's sharable, wonderful, kind of decadent, indulgent Japanese food. Tom, one menu item. All the restaurants, what are you picking? It would be lunch at Blue Beard and it's the general sos or however you say that shrimp. General sews shrimp from Blue Beard for lunch.

Blueard at lunch. That's the That's the move. That's the thing. I've had it I did it four times already. If If someone was going to Blue Beard for the first time ever, if you want to get the full Blue Beard experience, what do you order? Well, that's the thing.

Blue Beard changes all the time. So, our menu is in constant rotation. And it's not the whole thing changes every week, but an item will come into season, go on the menu, and then it'll fall off. So, there's just this slow churn of changing dishes on the menu. So, the best advice is we spend big part of what we do is spend time training our staff on what we're actually doing in that kitchen. And because it changes all the time, they taste through all the food and it's fresh in their mind.

They know what they're talking about. They're very professional hospitality, you know. Yeah, they really get it. Tell them what you want. Tell them what you like. Tell them what your favorite things are.

If you're apprehensive about something, just talk because that's their whole the whole goal there is to get you to talk and get you to experience that food and they are like the liaison to actually giving you that experience. And get a pendis club drink. The dentist club drink. Pen Dennis. Pen Dennis. Yes, sir.

What is that? It's a drink. I don't know what the hell's in it, but just It's really good. There we go. All right. You heard it here first.

Is it true that the Amelia sourdough starter is nearly a decade old? Yeah. Oh, I mean we started in 2012. It's been rolling since then. The same start the same. Yeah.

We have this big tank called a fermental aan that actually uh stirs and cools, you know, keeps the the temperature or starter at temperature. That's crazy. So we don't have to show up in the middle of the night and feed it and stir it. Wow. A decade old sourdough starter. Yeah.

Over a decade probably. Yeah. So I mean every day that comes out, you know, that tank gets cleaned. We put the the starter into the bread, hold some aside, and then start new. You know, you got to refill the tank. So, we hold some off and it just goes right back in the tank after you've cleaned it for the day.

Wow. So, it's just a a cycle of continually feeding this thing. Yeah, that's the that's the secret ingredient. Okay. These are the same three questions I ask everyone who sits in the chair. Uh we're going to learn a little bit more about uh what you guys like across the state of Indiana.

So, the first question, what's something that the world needs to know about Indiana? that there are creative people here. Downtown Indianapolis has a creative community and culture here that is, you know, on par with any other city. I mean, you can't put it up against New York or LA or Chicago. Pretty much every other city. We've got a creative class here that's working and hustling really hard to do really cool things, and there's constantly something to do.

So, get out of your house and go do it. Well, it's on top of the War Memorial, not the one in the center, World War II memorial or something. It has a stair step top on it. You need to go in there and then ask the guard which door goes to the stairway upstairs and you go over and there's this long set of stairs and you go up into this room and it is spectacular. You will be blown away by it. It's right across from the federal building on Pennsylvania.

Yeah. Eddie, what is a hidden gem in Indiana? Uh Wasach Lake. What is Whoa. Wasach Lake is uh about an hour due west of Indianapolis. It's a lake resort.

Uh, little cabins. I mean, it's it's an incredible it's a a place what what's their tagline? A place for friends and family. Wasach Lake, the hidden gem because it is so close to Indianapolis. You can go there's, you know, it's 200 some plus acres. Nine cabins around a lake.

Uh, you know, it's a I don't know, probably a 50 acre, 60 acre lake in the middle of it. And it is just like the perfect escape to be able to just go not drive for hours on end. Get a cabin. They're reasonably priced and relax. It's so it's such a cool place. Was that lake?

It's on the list. Who is a Hoosier that we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. He's a transplant and it would be Jacob Budler and Julia Brady. They started Tomorrow Books. They're immigrants from South Africa and he's just they're just the coolest couple that have built this coolest little bookstore and he outreaches all over the world and brings people here to give talks about their books.

He's an amazing character that has his fingers in a lot of things. It's not about huge amounts of money. It's about huge amounts of passion. I love that one. Eddie, who's a hooer that we need to keep on our radar? someone who's doing big things.

Malia Simone Bacon. Her and Alan Bacon, her husband, have put together Gang Gang. And there's a whole group of people that is Gang Gang. But it's arts and culture community in Indianapolis. They who puts on butter, right? Yeah.

They put on butter and they do a lot of really cool things in this city. And uh when it comes to doing big city things in Indianapolis, like real arts, culture, and community things, they are the most impressive group, you know, that the city's ever seen on actually putting together and executing these incredible events. Yeah, I think that they're going to have to be an episode uh before up in Labor Day or or somewhere around there. Like it's in the fall. Oh, for sure. You definitely should have.

That'll be a fun one. One thing we have in common, Malia and Ed and me, we all went to a buff. Oh, their main motto is for others. Now it's men and women for others. Used to be men for others. And so there you go.

That connection. It does seem it's like between Chitaard Cathedral, Perbuff. Some of these north side private schools, there's always people doing big things and giving back to their community in a in a special way. So um I love it guys. Thank you so much for coming on. We get it out.

Yep. Thank you so much for coming on. I have just thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and learning more about I mean from being on the road with Jimmy Buffett to starting Blue Beard coming out of law school. It's been a heck of a journey and the impact that you guys make in our community is significant. So I'm I'm sure lots of people I mean if they don't thank you so much for the work that you're doing. It's important.

It's impactful and uh it's been a heck of a story to hear about. So I appreciate you. And the next time you come down to Blue Beard, we'll show you the bakery. The bakery. And I need to see the birthing private space upstairs. Right.

And a a pandennis club. And And a penis club. Let's do it. You drink? Uh I haven't had one. No.

Do you drink? Uh I I dabble. Yeah, you can drink. Yeah, I can drink it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, I'm in.

So, appreciate you and and we'll talk to you guys soon. Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at sweetwater. com.

If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the Hoosier State great. We'll see you next time here on Get