Making Good

08 - Reneé Blanchard and Ella Campbell, Church Alley Cafe

In this last episode of Season 1 of Making Good, Reneé talks with Ella Campbell, Church Alley's social media manager about rolling with the punches of owning a small business. We discuss the new changes at Church Alley Cafe & Grocer. We also get into the details about making financial decisions and different types of loans for restaurants. Lots of great tips for other business owners. Plus we talk my favorite restaurants and why I have a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi's in my backyard. 

Ella is a local musician and artist. You can check out her work here: 

https://www.instagram.com/ellabystarlight/

https://www.raymondstreetruckus.com/

 

07 - Tippy Tippens, Goods That Matter

Goods that Matter creates everyday design goods, with extraordinary impact. Tippy Tippens is the Chief Eternal Optimist of Goods that Matter and founder of the GOOD Shop. She is a social entrepreneur, designer, and consultant who is passionate about building sustainable and equitable growth; making the objects that we live with, work for us instead of against us; and fighting climate change.  In September of 2010, she moved from Brooklyn to New Orleans after the BP Oil Spill in order to create BirdProject Soap. Matter got its start on Kickstarter & Tippy is a 2011 alumni of Propeller’s Fellowship & New Ventures Accelerator program. She was inspired to form the company upon developing BirdProject, where she saw the need for socially inspired eco-products that poetically fulfill our basic needs.

You can learn more about all the products Tippy designs and produces at https://www.goodsthatmatter.com/

05 - Sarah Lambeth, Founder of Pretty Coffee Roasting and Whatever Coffee

Sarah is the Founder and Operator of Pretty Coffee Roasting, and Co-founder of Whatever Coffee, located inside Steins Deli. In this episode I talk to Sarah about how she became one of the few female roasters in the country and she ended up with an almost all female supply chain. We also talk about why coffeeshops all have different definitions for coffee drinks that all coffeeshops have on the menu and why baristas ask you so many questions when you order a drink. This was a great conversation! 

Check out Pretty Coffee Roasting - https://www.instagram.com/prettycoffeeroasting/

Check out Whatever Coffee - https://www.instagram.com/itswhatevercoffee/

04 - Hieu, Gabe, and Ron, Operators of Kin

Kin is a ramen shop located steps away from Xavier University where co-founder Hieu went to school. Hieu saw this little yellow building at the corner of 3 busy streets and knew something special should open there. A few years later he purchased the building without any clear plans but eventually opened a delicious restaurant to rave reviews. Within the first 6 months Gabe and Ron joined Hieu and his wife's entreprise. Gabe as one of the main servers and Ron on dishwasher. But the three men quickly ended up becoming business partners and dividing up all the work together to make Kin the success it is today with a clear mission to bring affordable, delicious food to crowds that represent the diversity of New Orleans. 

We talk about the struggles of owning a small business in New Orleans and during the pandemic. We also talk about how customers view our businesses and where our industry needs to get it right once and for all. 

 

Check out Kin on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kinfordindin/

03 - Dr Nicole Caridad Ralston, @Eatenpathnola

Dr Nicole Caridad Ralston runs a highly popular instagram account dedicated to sharing the amazing food all over New Orleans as well as important food history moments. She started blogging and writing about food when she moved to New Orleans in 2012. Dr Caridad was convinced to start her Instagram after a (then) Xavier University student, Eliqua, interviewed her because she loved the food Tumblr (also called Off the Eaten Path NOLA).  

"New Orleans is bound to sink into your soul and belly, and I'm here to help you navigate our food scene! I believe that New Orleans has the greatest food in the country (yup, I said it). We have a rich food history that began with the indigenous people who thrived in the Crescent City before Bienville even stumbled upon us and then got mixed with the cultural traditions of Africans, Creoles, Cajuns, France, and Spain to create our current food scene. New Orleans is also known as the Northernmost point of the Caribbean and as a Cuban-American, I can attest to the similarities. " - Dr Nicole Caridad Ralston

Check out her instagram here - https://www.instagram.com/eatenpathnola/

Check out her website here - https://www.eatenpathnola.com/

 

02 - Kate Estrada, Laughing Buddha Nursery

In 2010, Kate came into the picture when she met Grant at Laughing Buddha (buying red wigglers for her apartment compost bin!). Kate grew up in a rural area south of Madison, Wisconsin, surrounded by conventional corn and soy fields. Her parents always grew a large vegetable garden and composted and as a teenager she spent summers working at a local garden center,  but she never imagined going into gardening or agriculture professionally. She studied journalism at the University of Missouri and held several reporting jobs prior to serving in AmeriCorps and moving to New Orleans in 2009. She worked as a fundraiser in nonprofits and universities for several years before joining Grant at Laughing Buddha and their farm, Local Cooling Farms, in 2016. 

 

Laughing Buddha Nursery

01 - Bernie and Natasha, Founders and Operators of Heartsleeve

Bernie and Natasha are partners in business and in life. They print and design Church Alley's t-shirts, tote bags, website, and product branding. The pair are founders and operators of Heartsleeve, a New Orleans based design and print studio rooted in community. Bernie January Jr. is the Creative Director and Senior Designer at Heartsleeve. Bernie has been formally trained in multiple artistic mediums and is a graduate of Tulane University with a degree in Neuroscience. He's an educator and previous Program Manager for Green Light New Orleans, an environmental non-profit focused on supporting local households in sustainable practices like energy efficiency and gardening. Natasha Noordhoff is the Lead Screen Printer and Partnership Director at Heartsleeve. She develops relationships with new and existing Cause Partners to collaborate in meaningful ways that support work to put Louisiana communities first. Natasha is Managing Partner in the collaborative, women-owned retail store The Good Shop.

Check out all things Heartsleeve! 

20 - Renard Bridgewater, MaCCNO

Bonus Season 2 Episode!

MaCCNO is celebrating its 10th anniversary on November 20, 2022, at Zony Mash with a star line up! Check out all the details on this amazing event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/787259485803139/ 

In this episode, I spoke with Renard Bridgewater, MACCNOs Community Engagement Coordinator, about the organization's origin, purpose, and how they met the moment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit our city's musicians and artists hard. 

Since 2012, the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans (MACCNO) has been organizing, empowering, and advocating with New Orleans musicians, artists, traditional culture bearers, and other members and allies of the cultural community.

Renard Bridgewater is a native New Orleanian and graduate of both Holy Cross High School and the University of New Orleans. As a tenured veteran in the city's Hip-Hop community (performing under the moniker Slangston Hughes) and previous participant in Sweet Home New Orleans' Accessing Artist Revenue Streams course, he has a passion for live music and artist empowerment and continues to pass on the knowledge he has gained to help empower his peers. This is utilized in his Uniquity (yoo-knik-wi-tee) Music imprint, which provides a performance platform for regional/touring bands and local Hip-Hop, R&B, and Spoken Word artists, as well as providing music publishing for local artists and facilitating workshops that cultivate professional development in the music industry. He joins us after nearly fourteen years with The Times-Picayune, where he worked in HR and production.

 

19 - Ella Campbell and Reneé Blanchard, Season Finale

That's a wrap! Season 2's final episode is here!

Ella joined me again for this season's final episode. We talked about my book "Focused & Flexible: Strategic Planning for Small Business".

Ella and Renee discuss how our small businesses help us grow and evolve into better friends, lovers, and leaders. The challenges we find for ourselves stretch us beyond just being able to do the nuts and bolts of our everyday tasks. But cracks us open to the people we know we can become. We also talk the importance of more compassionate communication by explaining how we love with the people we love the most. 

So, yes, we got pretty deep into what it takes to create change in your own life, boundaries with friends and family members, and the "just do it anyway" philosophy I made up within the conversation.  It's an emotionally honest conversation about the challenges and great joy of making significant changes in your life. 

18- Leah Porche, RDN, LDN

Leah Porche received her Bachelors in Dietitics from Nicholls State University. She has owned her juice bar + yoga studio and worked in restaurants for many years. She teaches an approach to nutrition that focuses on the well-being of the person, not to a diet or a cultural norm. We spoke about her approach to Health At Every Size and even included some chair yoga at the end of the episode. Her blog On the Food Size offers recipes and ideas to fit your health, your body, and your lifestyle. 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

Intuitive Eating, 4th Edition

Anti-Diet

Decolonizing Wellness

More Than A Body

Body of Truth

Belly of the Beast