Small Lake City
Small Talk, Big City
Join host Erik Nilsson as he interviews the entrepreneurs, creators, and builders making Salt Lake City the best place it can be. Covering topics such as business, politics, art, food, and more you will get to know the amazing people behind the scenes investing their time and money to improve the place we call home.
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Small Lake City
Vault Episode 1: Edison House - George and Charlie Cardon
We're thrilled to take you back in time with a special re-release from the Small Lake City Vault—our captivating discussion with the dynamic duo of George and Charlie Cardon, the forces behind Salt Lake City's Edison House. This isn't just any conversation; it's an exploration of the Cardon brothers' journey from the roots of their unique upbringing in Salt Lake City to their vision of fostering meaningful social connections. This throwback episode unveils the intricacies of their entrepreneurial adventure, the creation of a 21st-century social club, and the impact of their experiences on their business choices.
Imagine the concept of a social club brought to life with the perfect blend of ambition, creativity, and an unwavering commitment. George and Charlie Cardon, armed with their diverse experiences, did just that. We navigate the inspirational journey of Edison House, shedding light on the vision that sparked its inception, the hurdles faced, and their strategies to overcome them. A real highlight of our discussion is the brothers' insights on the ever-evolving cityscape of Salt Lake City and its potential to emerge as a vibrant hub for commerce.
As part of our Small Lake City Vault series, we're revisiting some of our favorite conversations with Salt Lake City's most influential voices. This episode with the Cardon brothers is one that truly embodies the spirit of community and innovation. So, tune in, reconnect with their story, and get inspired all over again.
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What is up everybody and welcome to the Small Lake City podcast. I am your host, eric Nilsen, and I am so excited to be with you all today, because today is the day that we launch the inaugural Small Lake City podcast episode. Now, as you've probably seen from social media posts and the title of this episode, but we are going to be interviewing George and Charlie Cardin, the founders of the Edison House, a new social club that opened up in downtown Salt Lake City in November of 2022. So still a very recent thing Hearing about them, of their upbringing in Salt Lake, then moving away for a little bit and coming back to start this amazing community that they've built at Edison House. One thing to note before jumping into it is there is a small period during the podcast where the audio goes a little bit quiet and a little bit low quality, but it does come back and thankfully is not during an important part of the conversation. So when you get to it, either skip ahead to when it gets better or just power through, but without any other further ado, let's hear from the Cardins. So welcome.
Speaker 1:Welcome, everybody, to the first episode of the Small Lake City podcast. This is one I've probably been the most excited to record because of the kind of build up to being a part of it but then also kind of seeing how it's become what it is. And I'm talking about Edison House. For those who don't know, edison House is the newest social club in Salt Lake City Just been really engaging and really creating a true community in the area and in this city for this younger generation to kind of grasp hold to in a place where there's been a little bit more let's call it stuffy presence of sorts.
Speaker 1:And so I'm here with Charlie and George Carden, the brothers and co-founders of Edison House, where we're going to talk a little bit about them and their upbringing in early days in Salt Lake, how they came to found and create this really cool space and what they hope in the future. So, so excited to have you guys and welcome to the pod. Yeah, thanks for having us. Good to be here. Obviously you guys are born and raised in Salt Lake and kind of want to hear about what life was like for you and your upbringing, but so kind of walk us through, I mean, where you grew up, kind of the schools you were with some of your kind of closest friends, best memories.
Speaker 3:George, go for it. I mean, we, uh we grew up in the same households. We probably have a lot of the same stories, uh different perspectives on some of them, for sure, though. Uh, both from Salt Lake city, though. Yeah, I mean, we're born and raised here. We're actually, I think, we're eighth generation Utah, is that right? Yeah, so both of our, both of our ancestors on our parents' side, and both mom and dads actually came across the prairie and are Mormon pioneers.
Speaker 1:Oh geez.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but we're not Mormon, though. We grew up not Mormon. I think it was our great, great great grandparents that broke away. So we grew up not Mormon. I feel like for us, that was actually, at least for me, sort of a part of an important dynamic. I would say for me, when I think about what it's like in Salt Lake, um, cause, it felt sort of like there was an in crowd and an out crowd and it's nothing to do with the um, you know, the, the Mormon faith, it's more just I, I there were the people who are, you know, um, that sort of that their community was, and then everyone else, you know, sort of had to fight our own community as well. You know sort of had to fight our own community as well. Um, and I, actually it's it's funny, you know, now that we're talking about um and working on community with a lot of our life um, you know, the Mormon faith has an incredible community and learned. You know, I've learned no-transcript.
Speaker 3:You know that's not mom and dad's story, though you know, like the story that I heard is that I barely got born, so and I think that's that's definitely your fault, not Maddie's fault.
Speaker 2:So Maddie's, our middle sister.
Speaker 3:Got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know, I'm just the honest truth is, you know, we've had, we had a fairly normal childhood. I mean I think obviously the dynamic here with the LDS church, you know, was maybe foreign to anybody who's not from here. We went to different schools, charlie, charlie went to uh Highland and kind of went the public school route through Indian Hills and uh, I went to, I went to Rowan Hall. So I actually didn't have as much um kind of direct uh exposure to the LDS faith or that community as Charlie did, just because, uh, rowan Hall is quite small and it's actually not very LDS.
Speaker 2:So the the people who I was, who are my peers, um, you know, I wasn't as exposed to that, but uh, yeah, I mean, I don't know, I I was kind of fun, you know, funny enough, I actually wasn't the most social, certainly wasn't the most popular kid in high school. I had lots of friends but um, I sort of drifted between friend groups, um, I was sort of friends with everybody but not best friends with anybody, um, which I think actually did kind of give me an interesting perspective when it eventually came time to start thinking about what it actually meant to build a community here in Salt Lake, but, um, yeah, I mean our, our, our growing up, our upbringing was great, our parents were fabulous and great support system and I think sort of set all of us off on you know, the right path of life, so to speak.
Speaker 3:And yeah, we're really fortunate. Mom and dad are pretty awesome. They're uh. Yeah, they treated us, treated us right yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, I don't know my, I'm trying to figure out a way to make my high school youth days super exciting.
Speaker 3:Well, you weren't really a troublemaker at all, I mean the only thing that comes to mind I don't even know if this counts as troublemaking is like George, he loved Utah Jazz, he still loves Utah Jazz and he won back-to-back-to-back and he won back to back to back.
Speaker 2:Something like that Two or three costume dress-ups.
Speaker 3:Oh God, I wish we could get these photos out.
Speaker 1:He was dressed as a genie.
Speaker 3:He wore a toga one night. These are when the Jazz were in the playoffs these have got to be on the internet.
Speaker 2:I still have that streak. I literally went to a Notre Dame football game dressed as a leprechaun last year. That did factually happen. Like as a leprechaun last year.
Speaker 1:So every factually happened like as a 33 year old I love that. So you said you had kind of like jumped around from like friend group to friend group. Cause I was very similar like that, where I had kind of my like core group of friends were my neighborhood, but like I was a kid who could walk down and I don't mean this in like an arrogant way, but like I just had a lot of diverse friends and could like sit and talk with anybody. Was that mostly based off like different?
Speaker 2:activities you were engaged in? Or are you just the person who could be put in a room with a wall and the wall would be your friend five minutes later, something like that? I mean, I I will say I think I uh probably developed a little bit more charisma as I got older, but you know whatever that means. In high school I mean, yeah, I, I it wasn't around shared interests.
Speaker 2:Um, obviously I have a huge music person. I mean, that was always something that um has been super important in my life. But, uh, as it relates to how I would connect with other people, it was more on like a personality, like kind of energy basis, so to speak. Um and I, I have been fortunate to find ways to connect with lots of different types of people. I'm a very curious person by nature. I mean. I even remember, and I've always been kind of an old soul, so to speak, I mean my, when I was probably I don't know how old I would have been, but I can remember being very fairly young and always wanting to hang out with my parents and their friends and always wanting to hang out with my parents and their friends.
Speaker 2:Um, because I maybe it was just a maturity thing or I just was interested in like adult concepts, adult ideas. Um, I remember, you know, I, my parents, would have dinner parties on a Friday night and like, instead of going and hanging out with my friends, I'd be like, can I come to the dinner party?
Speaker 2:I was that weird little nerd kid who just was like but it came from a genuine place of curiosity and wanting to actually get to know these people and, like to this day, I consider myself at like legitimate friends with a large number of my parents' friends. I mean, I remember like two couple of years ago me and my husband went up and spent like a weekend with Tim and Marina. I'm like my parent. My Tim went to college with my mother. My parents weren't there.
Speaker 1:What'd you do this weekend Be like? Ah, I mean Tim and Marina we had a great time backgammon and whiskey and all sorts of things.
Speaker 2:But I, yeah, but I have a like a lifelong history of just making friends with all people from all walks of life. Got it.
Speaker 1:So I kind of want to keep this theme of community going because I think it's such an integral part of what you guys have done at Edison House. And that's something that I've kind of come to realize and I like the kind of way that you put it. Charlie is like, especially growing up, you don't really see it until you can look back, kind of postmortem, and say, oh, there definitely was like an in and out. Like I remember seeing the kids who weren't LDS get made fun of because they were in a church on Sunday and like we were all so naive and young that we couldn't really put together like why that was happening. And now, on the flip side of things like that is one thing that makes Utah so strong is because you have these people in these neighborhoods and pretty much everybody knows their neighbors and knows everybody. I mean it can also be a bad thing, sometimes when everyone's too,
Speaker 1:much in your business, but I mean in other places that I've lived.
Speaker 1:It definitely doesn't have that same sort of like interconnectedness that we had.
Speaker 1:And I love that you two kind of have these two disparate experiences where you have Charlie, who goes to Highland and has this very public school experience, just like I mean, like I did, and then we have George who did I mean the Roland Hall track, which I mean I knew a bunch of people went there and kind of echoed those same sort of sentiments and especially wasn't until I went to college and I mean joined, I mean Sigma Chi, the fraternity where I interact with a ton of judge kids and I was like, oh, there's this whole other kind of under like community of the non LDS people who it's like the Juan Diego's and the judges and the Roland Hall's and like all of those people kind of all knew each other is in the Roland Halls and like all of those people kind of all knew each other. But I was never involved with that or I didn't really understand until kind of now as I meet uh kind of people in like let's call it adulthood and see how that all comes together. So was there a reason why Charlie decided to go to the, the home of the Rams down the block in Roland Hall. Or did they just like, uh, george Moore, or how'd that work?
Speaker 3:Well, the joke I always say is that, uh, I wanted to play football and so they didn't have football at Roland Hall. I actually did go to Roland Hall for one year and just didn't. I didn't, wasn't really for me, um, but I wanted yeah, I really wanted to play sports. I love football, um. So I went to Highland to mostly to play sports. I love football. So I went to Highland mostly to play sports and it was close.
Speaker 3:I grew up with a lot of the kids who went there, went to Indian Hills and all of the kids that are in that school funnel into Highland, so sort of like my group that I was with all the way from when I was young, all funneled into Highland. So that's how I ended up there. But you know, yeah, roland Hall, I did it for one year but it just wasn't. It wasn't the right fit for me. I still don't really know why, but I was the new kid. I don't know if you ever been the new kid. I was a new kid for one year and I was too soft to like power through it and like become not the new kid the next year and I was like I'm going back.
Speaker 1:So when I was so my parents got divorced when I was 10. And so I grew up predominantly in the avenues until then and then we moved, uh, kind of Yelcrest area and so I went to enzyme through the end of fourth grade and then moved and did fifth and sixth in Bonneville and I remember going in and like that area I mean you guys are probably familiar, it's like very close knit, everybody knows everybody. Like you mentioned one name and all of the other names kind of tend to domino around and so I walk in as this kid who I mean I like my mom's a single mom so she isn't friends with all of those women and it's just like, well, who the hell is this kid that showed up? And I remember I would go home every day and be like mom.
Speaker 1:I don't want to go back to this prehistoric school because it's old school and kind of like knew a couple of familiar faces from doing like swim team and stuff in the past, but definitely can understand that Like new kid, no, like sitting alone, kind of not knowing how to make friends super well and kind of like always trying to like almost force your way in and that's that's never fun for, even even in adulthood. If I try to find myself in a new situation, like shit here we go again. Just go talk to someone and kind of make it what it is.
Speaker 3:It's hard.
Speaker 3:I mean making, I mean part, a large part of what we're doing at Edison house is trying to help people meet, you know, friends and make connections.
Speaker 3:And it's challenging, you know, even with, you know, a beautiful space and all the programming and all of that um, it still takes work and investment and, um, but every you know what part of the reason I love what we're doing is I find the most enjoyment in my life. Other relationships I have, and you know, the most relationships I have are my friends, you know my, you know my family and I have my, my amazing girlfriend. But outside of that it's like, you know, a hundred relationships with people that I really care about and that really brings a lot of joy to my life. And so I find, you know, I find an immense amount of fulfillment and trying to, you know, create spaces and opportunities for people to to make those connections, cause it's hard. It's hard Even even within Edison. Now it's going to be challenging and outside of it I find it extremely hard to make friends and just meet people and get out there.
Speaker 2:That might say something about you, Charlie.
Speaker 3:Well, george and George, and specifically his husband Matthew, are like the ultimate social butterflies, so you actually might not even understand the challenge, george.
Speaker 1:He sits down and starts playing the piano and next thing you know there's 20 people, 20 girls, when I was young I used to be so jealous.
Speaker 3:George would sit down and play the piano and girls love when you play the piano and George would have like girls would be swarming.
Speaker 1:What piano and like girls love when you play the piano and georgia, like girls would be swarming. What a waste like wrong team ladies, wrong team.
Speaker 1:Hindsight makes that story even better. Exactly, I know I love that, so so I like that. You guys kind of had this, because so you guys are four years apart, so my next oldest sister is like three and a half years apart and like we like we're close, but not like really close like today we're. She's one of my best friends, she's like one of the people I can talk to anything about. Have you guys always had this similar bond in kind of this, like strong brotherhood, or when did that start to show up? That's a good question.
Speaker 2:I mean, we were always like amicable, I don't know. I used to kind of harass Charlie and usual older brothers. Yeah right, I used to whip his ass on the you know, the living room floor and all that shit, but uh, he still doesn't like that, uh. But no, I mean, you know, I'm the.
Speaker 2:I think the like you alluded to, the four-year gap, is enough to create legitimate separation when you're younger, because you, when you're in seventh grade, that's a very different life space than when you're in 11th grade, right, when you're like a junior in high school. So I, and then you know, obviously you graduate and you go off and do your thing. So so we've always had a very positive relationship. We never had like animosity between us. But I would say that the strength of our relationship, you know, when we reached adulthood it definitely solidified, I mean, charlie. I think going to Notre Dame after I went to Notre Dame created a common sort of bond between us, that sort of set our relationship on a closer path and then, obviously, with like starting a business together, like're like that's a, that's a whole new sort of arena.
Speaker 1:So which I applaud, like I love my family so much, but the thought of like okay, like see you tomorrow morning and then see a family dinner and see you on the holidays.
Speaker 1:See you here Like that's a whole nother level of of familial relationships that I mean I applaud. Like one of my best friends is a dentist who's works for his dad and and is working on taking over that practice, and it's like I just see him like, oh, so you just see your dad like all day, every day, he's like yeah, but he's like my, there's like work dad and then there's like family dad and they're like two almost very different people and so that's awesome that you guys have had, um, I mean, a good foundation to begin with of growing up in the same household and I mean it sounds like it there wasn't any I mean bad blood or like I mean hatred, but it just kind of, as time went on, just that that grew stronger and became more and more strong. I mean, obviously you guys decided to do this together and I don't think anybody would do it if they're like, hey, I kind of iffy about you, but are you in yes or no?
Speaker 3:And there's always that sort of extra risk. We talked about it early on in that like we're not going to let the business ever get in between, like family relationships. And you say that early on we've been fortunate there hasn't been that issue, but we talked about that up front. We were like we want to always put our relationship as brothers first and our father's involved. And so he, you know, made us sit down and say hey, we got to talk about this because this is another layer of risk that goes along with working together. But we're lucky we haven't had.
Speaker 3:I mean, we go at it, but we always come back to the middle, your brother, if you have a good relationship, is? It feels like I can actually push the boundaries a little more than I could with another co-founder, or at least a co-founder. You'd have to have years and years of trust with them, yeah, where we can really push the boundary and get mad at each other and, you know, really push the boundary, um, and always come back really quickly, and so the level of sort of like transparent communication that occurs between us is really high, which is so helpful in business.
Speaker 2:Oh without a doubt Politics to like zero.
Speaker 1:So I like that you're I mean like dad has come involved and like, hey, if you guys are going to do this, here's some ground rules that you need to have, because a like I mean this could flop tomorrow, but to be able to walk away and say, hey, still love your brother, like on onto to the next, whatever that might be. I mean, what kind of role did your dad play in like your childhood or early ages to kind of set this foundation of you wanting to do this? Or maybe it was completely out of the wheelhouse of what he had done previously?
Speaker 3:Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1:Hope you're enjoying the episode so far. One big announcement is that Merchandise is live. Go head over to the website smalllakepodcom to check out the Merchandise. We have great shirts, hats and sweatshirts. I went through a rigorous process to make sure I had the right person creating my merch and the right t-shirts and sweatshirts to do it. So go check it out. Go cop some gear and look great this season in your new small lake city merch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I I before we jumped to that. I actually want to clarify something because I think it's an important distinction. I wouldn't say that Jeff said here are the ground rules, because Jeff very much treats us like adults and you saying like here are the ground rules is the way you would treat like your children when they're children, and I think that's just a really important distinction around like why this relationship and this dynamic has been successful. It's because we all have a lot of mutual respect for each other, not just like as family, like family is the foundation for like the love and the trust and that you need that before anything else, but like to function as, like a, as a business unit.
Speaker 1:You also have to have like that respect that's based on each other as like functioning adult human beings competent people Like cause it's one thing to have family and I think everybody can agree that like there's probably some sort of family, whether it's I mean close family, siblings, cousins, second cousins, whatever but there's like I would not start a business with this person because I don't think they're competent and they couldn't do it, which is like you can still love them and like they can have their own strengths.
Speaker 1:But, like, I like the way that you put that, charlie, where it's like oh, like, we had this family relationship that was strong, we loved each other, we loved each other, we trusted each other, but on top of that, we could look at each other and say, hey, you're a competent person with skills that I think we could do this and execute well, and you're someone I would want to back and and like let's go do this together, instead of just saying, hey, you know what Like love, you appreciate you, but this is my thing. Maybe in the future, but for now, thanks, but no thanks, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. I mean, and if and if it didn't go well, it wouldn't be you know oh, I was went into this with a rose colored glasses about George's competency. It would be us as a team, we're equals, and like if it works great, it's because we equally put in the time and we're, you know, equally successful, and if it doesn't go well, no-transcript. And that was never the case.
Speaker 1:And I think we've all heard of like so many examples of that, both like personally and like I mean call it like case studies or stories you hear through I mean the interwebs that it just slowly like starts to blow up and then they hate each other and can't come back together and it's, I mean, not what anybody would want to come back to and I liked that. When it's family, usually there's that vested interest that's a little bit more strong of saying this doesn't matter, you matter more than whatever this could potentially be Right.
Speaker 3:And we say all this, and I've also seen witnessed family businesses blow up.
Speaker 1:So, like I also feel very fortunate that, uh, you know things are going well too, it makes it a lot easier, right, totally. But so kind of want to talk about your parents' influence on this. But I mean, was this something that when you were growing up, you're like I want to start my own business, I want to do my own thing? Or your dad or mother or whoever was these influences saying or teaching you about all of these core concepts and principles and and thinking about it in a certain way, or their examples, or did this start that early?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, well, jeff, uh, you know, was one of the founding members of the company that he spent his whole career with, uh, which is Wasatch global advisors. You know, he was like the third or fourth employee and built it into like a powerhouse in the finance industry. So, um, you know, that was always kind of part of our family history, um, and obviously there's a great deal of respect and admiration that goes along with that, um, so, yeah, I mean by just sort of by nature of like, you know, you inherit your family story and kind of what that means, there's a I won't speak for Charlie, but I would imagine he probably feels similarly which is, you know, that begets a very serious like interest in entrepreneurship and starting your own business. Um, and also there's a part of you that maybe just sort of self identifies with that, because it's kind of like where you came from.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I would say too, I mean, for me I always felt like seeing you know dad be really successful. He never put external pressure on us to sort of chase being really successful in business but for me personally created a lot of internal pressure to try and to kind of, you know, really take your career seriously and really try and strive for success. And this is kind of something that I actually didn't know within myself or really understand until, you know, within the last few years.
Speaker 2:I don't know, charlie stresses more than I do. I do stress a lot Only the paranoid spry.
Speaker 3:I do.
Speaker 2:I just don't like to lose, but there is.
Speaker 3:I hate losing, but there was something for sure for us about like at least for me personally where, seeing him being really successful, I was always like I need to do that in order to have his approval. And that was not external given to me, it was something that I kind of produced within myself just by growing up around him.
Speaker 1:It's always interesting how that is right, is right because so.
Speaker 1:So my family my mother's a pediatrician, my father's uh, it wasn't he's retired now, but a pediatric neuropsychologist and I couldn't be further away from medicine in my life and like that is the biggest like non-starter to me, uh, where now I work in I mean data analytics and I just look at numbers all day and tell people what they mean, but then I have like my, my sister, who's a pa, and like very involved, I mean mean in medicine and everything.
Speaker 1:So it's so funny to see how there can sometimes be this huge correlation between kind of parents and what they're doing and demonstrating and making that actually happen and like passing that down, compared to like yeah, like thanks, but maybe no thanks in the long run, the long run. So I love that he was able to, and especially like a healthy way to say hey, here's the example I'm setting. I built this thing that turned into something really special. I'm not going to put this weird pressure on you that says you have to go build something on your own, but to really see that example and in turn say how cool would it be to do something similar. So I love that. That kind of guided you in a healthy way, instead of just a anxious and like overbearing way that you can. I mean, we can probably all think of two to three people in our, in our own personal lives that that goes that way.
Speaker 3:For sure, and it's it's, I mean, for me, like I'm, I've done a lot of more self-reflection the last few years and I've come to realize and you know, every anybody who, like, studies psychology is going to be like, yeah, no shit, dude. It's like the level of influence that your parents impart on you in both you know, overt and invert ways, where they're like, you know, telling you exactly yes, do this, don't do this, and then the way they act and the way that you know you see them in setting examples, it's pretty. For me it's been really eye-opening and really interesting to sort of self-reflect and be like, wow, I see where a lot of these things in the way that I act, in the way that I think, where a lot of that comes from. And self-awareness for me has always been like, or has been recently been like, the sort of first step to really start and understand all your motivations.
Speaker 3:You know why you do things, because everything you do you do for a reason. You just don't always know why you know, and I found it, it's been interesting for me to see how much of that comes from sort of that history. I don't. I don't know if, like George, you feel this way at all, or you do, eric, but like. This has been a self-realization I've had in the last few years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean I. There's no question that your childhood influence is super important and I do spend a lot of time thinking about. I would probably say that I spend more time thinking about how to change my behaviors than I do about like where the root of those behaviors come from, even though I understand that they're intrinsically tied to each other. But I'm I'm very much like a like.
Speaker 2:All the books I read are about like how the brain works, and you know that there are, there are angles on psychology that I find super interesting. Um, I have spent not as much time doing like the classic, like Freudian self-reflection, but I do. I do find um the human brain super fascinating in terms of how people behave and how you can um motivate and both yourself and other people, and, and, yeah, I mean like we could get into like the reptilian brain versus like the developed brain and all these other sort of like angles, but, um, I do share an interest in that totally no, I'm the same way because, like it wasn't till, because I think of like my 20s is almost like a wash, except for like the maybe later part.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't until like I was a lot more introspective and thinking about like almost the way I think, where I mean as like a childhood and early adult, like you see your parents and you see their behaviors. But isn't until then you're like, oh, I do this in the same way that they do that, or this correlates the way they are. Now I understand why they do these things, because I am inherently part of them and there's so much correlation behind it and that's yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, we could spend hours on that subject, but cool. So I want to kind of transition into post-Utah. I love that you guys both left Utah for a period and it's so interesting that you both ended up at the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. I mean so, Charlie, what was your decision process of deciding to go to Notre Dame?
Speaker 3:Well, I was the little brother who went and visited.
Speaker 1:George, sorry, let's start with george, because let's go chronologically, I'll answer your question for charlie uh, cool cool older brother, one here, let's do it.
Speaker 2:Uh, no, I mean, um, I knew, uh, two things. Well, I knew three things. I wanted to go to a good school, I wanted to get out of the state of utah and I wanted to go somewhere that had a good football team. Notre Dame checked all three.
Speaker 1:So there you go. And when did you study there? Finance? I was a finance degree. Nice, I was a finance major as well. So what was the? Did you start off as a finance major, knowing what you're going to do, or what was that? Well, at Notre.
Speaker 2:Dame, yeah, notre Dame, they do general, like they don't actually allow you to declare until you're a sophomore. And then I entered the School of Business and then same thing, they don't actually allow you to specify your major, I think until your junior year. I never like switched tracks significantly. I didn't have any goal, or you know, some people are like I don't want to be a VC or whatever. I just had a broad interest in business and it seemed like the thing to do.
Speaker 3:there you go and that was a fine detail, you know, yeah as we talked about.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure that's totally no, I love that.
Speaker 1:It's uh. It's always interesting to see people's processes because, like for me, for example, I started at the? U and I was like I'm going to be a architect, that is my what I wanted to do. I love playing with legos, I love building connects. And then I was sat through my first intro to architecture class and I was like, nope, not even a little bit like. This is not my. Not enough jobs, not enough money, not enough creativity or my type of creativity. I should say and went and I can talk about it forever. But it's like architecture, civil engineering, pre-pharmacy I don't know what the hell I'm going to do. Let's go check out business. I'm a numbers, social, collaborative person, gravitated towards finance and then kind of been the rest is history for there. So I always love seeing how people kind of either go in with a hypothesis and then are like, eh, it's not what I thought it was going to be and does it?
Speaker 3:does it make you take a bunch of classes, sort of like like a baseline general classes for the first few years, or do you go right into your major?
Speaker 1:I mean, there's always like the prereqs for like the major itself, which, in essence, are pretty exploratory, but there definitely isn't as much of like an intentional hey, you can't focus on anything specifically until you have these years of foundation under you to to understand, which I think is absolutely the right way to do it. Like no one knows what the hell they're, even even people that graduate they graduate they don't even know what the hell they're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they just. They just changed it another day where if you want to go to the business school route sorry, undergrad business school route you have to apply into that business school coming up high school. I don't think they require you to take all business classes when you first get there, but for me I'm like man, I had no freaking idea what I wanted to do and I found taking all these prereq classes, whether like take you know writing XYZ or you know philosophy of this.
Speaker 3:I found all that extremely helpful and being like what am I interested in? What do I want to spend the next you know 30 years of my life doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's wise and like cause like the University of Utah has something similar about that like graduate, apply towards business, like the business scholars. And then I was kind of rubbing the wrong way. I'm like does anybody ever graduate high school? It's like, hey, I'm going to go business. That's like that. That is it Ready, set go?
Speaker 3:Not very many. Not very many, not me Cool.
Speaker 1:So that's so. So Charlie goes in. You know finance speaks to me.
Speaker 3:So what was your decision process of saying you know what I'm gonna follow big brother's footsteps and I'm gonna go to notre dame as well. Well, for me I had a semi-similar process. I was looking more for a school that was really fun and school that was not in the state of utah and a school that was good. Um, I didn't have a football thing. I was kind of surprised to hear that and I went out to visit Notre Dame while George was there and when I was, a couple times throughout my high school and, you know, went out there when they had a football game going on and it's just like the most fun in the entire world. It's full day activities with you know, beer pong and tailgating and tradition and everything, and I just like immediately fell in love with it. So I was like this is, this is where I want to go.
Speaker 3:I kind of didn't even really explore. Honestly, after I went out and had that experience, I was like didn't really explore anywhere else. I applied other places. Obviously, I wasn't sure I'd get into ND, Um, but I was like this is it and I, I love. I mean I'm like still a huge fan. I mean I'm a huge Notre Dame guy, Totally.
Speaker 1:And like. So after college I moved to Seattle and I'm not sure if you guys know, but like, seattle is a place where, I mean Michigan places a ton of students, notre Dame places a ton of students, so there's this huge presence of like Midwest and I mean everybody I talked to was like, like it was the time of my life, because you're, I mean it's, it's a college town. Everybody wraps their heads around it. There's so much community.
Speaker 1:Again, the theme of community keeps coming on in its way through and so, yeah, I'm always envious of people who are able to get away from Utah and go do kind of like an out-of-state, like more traditional college experience, because, don't get me wrong, I had a great experience in University of Utah and everything that I experienced there. But there's always part of me that like was, like it would have been, it would have been fun to get away, get out and go kind of have this almost like uh, tight-knit um area or almost this like yeah, just super concentrated area of college you did, you did your van your van six months.
Speaker 3:I think everybody wishes they could do six months in advance. So, it sounds like you made up for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, net, net, we all got what we wanted to some extent. So okay, so let's like talk about like after school, Cause I know, uh, Charlie, you moved to New York for a little bit and got that experience there. I mean.
Speaker 3:Charlie, chicago, chicago sorry.
Speaker 1:Chicago. Yes, you moved to Chicago and had that experience. I mean, charlie, what was your pre-Edison, post-notre Dame experience like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I moved to Chicago which is really common out of Notre Dame Exactly, I'd say maybe a quarter to half of the kids out of the business school moved to Chicago. I moved there. I was kind of looking for jobs in private equity and venture capital. It was right.
Speaker 1:It seemed like there was this period. Sorry, we didn't talk about it. What did you study at Notre Dame? I studied finance.
Speaker 3:I know right, it seemed like there's a bit of a switch where there used to be a very clear path where you had to go investment banking, private equity investment banking, mba, venture capital.
Speaker 3:There's a couple firms, though that especially smaller, even startup firms, which is where I ended up landing that. There's a couple of firms, though that especially smaller, even startup firms, which is where I ended up landing that were taking kids right out of undergrad, and so I really wanted to work on the buy side. Um, my Jeff you know our dad, jeff he has been an investor his entire life, so I kind of absorbed a lot of that and really enjoyed the process, and so I wanted to go on to the buy side. So I was looking for jobs in the buy side and landed at a company called Birchwood Healthcare Partners, which at the time, was a startup private equity firm. So our founder, isaac Dole, and Ratul Shah had just started this firm, maybe a year and a half before. There were three other partners when I got there, so there was a total of five, four people plus myself, and the four people were partners.
Speaker 1:So I was like the one young guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I did everything and it was actually. It was actually really fun. It was a great experience for starting a business because I got to see I got to do just a whole bunch of stuff that a small business does. You know, I did everything from like help out with accounts payable at times, like I would sometimes have to go to our portfolio companies and help out with accounts payable, which is like a very like small business-y thing, and did a whole bunch of stuff like that. So it ended up being a great foundation for me to, you know, start a business. And I also got a really great, really great exposure to finance and sort of thinking through investments, building financial models, all the sort of traditional things you do in a private equity or investment banking role, and I find that also to be really helpful as well. So that was, I mean it was a really fun experience.
Speaker 3:I was like I'm never leaving Chicago. I love Chicago. I had so much fun there, still a ton of friends there. But George called one day and was like hey, I got this. Like so much fun there, still a ton of friends there, um, but George called one day and was like hey, I got this like kind of crazy idea. What do you think about this? And at first I was like no way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Good idea, Uh pass yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:Just, it felt so sort of new and like at the time, you know, Soho was Soho, who's kind of what we're mostly modeled off of. Let's pause there for a sec.
Speaker 1:I want to go to George and his experience after, and then we can get to him in that phone call. So you graduate from Notre Dame. And what was your path, George, as far as steps after college?
Speaker 2:Well, I lived in Indianapolis. I worked for Angie's List. I did a lot of different worked for Angie's List. I did a lot of different things for Angie's List, really enjoyed my time there, learned a lot about a lot of really positive things, a few things not to do, but mostly I have very positive things to say about Angie's List. I think it's one of the strongest cultures cultures that I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Um, certainly within business. Um had the opportunity to work in marketing. I worked directly with Angie actually still in contact with Angie and talk with her once a quarter. Um, and yeah, just spent four years there learning. I worked in their product space. I ended up helping them. Um open a department. Uh, I. I also was in data analytics on the business side, not on the tech side Really enjoyed it. Yeah, I got a well-rounded kind of fast-paced education in all things startup and decided I wanted to go to get my MBA if the timing was right. So I ended up in UCLA. Uh, in LA, also did a six month traveling stint. Uh, spent about a month on every continent when I was 25. Hell, yeah, uh, yeah, which was what eight years ago, which is kind of wild. Um. And then, yeah, spent the spent a couple of years in LA. Didn't set out to open a social club by any means, but knew that I was hoping to do something entrepreneurial.
Speaker 1:So you just had that like itch and we're just waiting for the right idea, kind of yeah.
Speaker 2:I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I mean, I I may even be giving myself too much credit, cause I'm not sure that I actually went to UCLA with a hard and fast idea that I wanted to start a business.
Speaker 1:And did you meet your husband in California?
Speaker 2:No, I actually met him in Indianapolis. We ended up moving to LA together. Um we weren't married at the time but um, but yeah, we uh I I actually had generated an interest in the hospitality space. We had an old family friend who was kind of a serial entrepreneur, who sparked an interest in me at a young-ish age in the bar industry Hopefully not too young.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why I said young-ish. Right, um, hopefully not too young. Yeah, that's why I said young ish.
Speaker 2:Right, Um, but I there, he, he had these theories around, um, there being like an arbitrage opportunity in dive bar acquisitions because these bars were cash flowing at a much higher rate than would be reflected in their financials. Because the old dive bar roll up strategy. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's literally what it was.
Speaker 2:I've heard that a million times, literally what it was, and he wasn't totally wrong about it. His, uh, his theory was correct in so far as, if you were to look at what they're reporting on there, you know to the IRS like they're taking a lot of money under the counter, lots of cash, a lot of cash transaction, poor cash management, you know, and then there's just kind of like operational, you know benefits from coming in as somebody who actually knows how to run a business and taking it over from somebody who has no idea what they're doing. So, um, I actually that was where it started was I was? I literally wanted to start a dive bar roll-up business. That was what I set out to research. Um, and so I definitely spent a couple of days like literally to like cause. My theory was I need to know like the full picture of these dive bars. So, on like a Tuesday, at like one 30, I would go to like four different random dive bars around LA and like the middle of nowhere, and I'll tell you what a dream. You definitely see some characters. It was an interesting insight. Pretty quickly learned that wasn't the environment I wanted to surround myself with for the rest of my career.
Speaker 2:Very memorable moments, had a good time. Glad I did it. A couple of days was enough, but I did time. Glad I did. A couple days was enough, um, but I did. As we started to actually chase the bread crumbs, start to uncover, you know, you, you I generated an understanding of these hospitality businesses and what worked about them and what didn't totally, and so there were all these interesting sort of stones that I would turn over and be like, oh well, that's kind of an interesting idea. And you know, I assembled enough of those and ultimately it led to Edison House and the business model of a social club.
Speaker 1:So from all that dive bar experience, let's call it market research. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It really was. I just have this Forging and tonics on a Tuesday afternoon I'm working dive bar experience. It's called market research. Yeah, I just have this Forging and tonics on a Tuesday afternoon. I'm working dive bar research.
Speaker 1:Just walking in this dive bar you're like you guys have a piano. Yeah, like I have a tip jar. I'm just going to sit down and we're going to see how this goes. Last time I was at a dive bar I actually did some fantastic karaoke and it was actually in Santa was actually in santa monica, so it makes me laugh that you're in la going to divers. I'm like is this the same dive farm? Probably. I can't remember the name because that's how good of a karaoke night it was but so okay, so you're doing all this.
Speaker 1:You're looking at dive bars. To be like this is kind of interesting. Let's look at these unit economics. Let's look at these operations. You have these guys who don't know how to run a business. Ton of opportunity there. I mean, what was that moment where it clicked, where you're like, hey, maybe not this, but I think this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know that, there was any single moment. It was an aggregation of a couple of ideas. One of them was we realized that all these bars were sitting there empty, like you know, 80% of the time, but they're paying a lease 100% of the time and they're monetizing Friday and Saturday night. They're highly exposed from a risk perspective because they don't have diversified revenue. All their money is contingent on people showing up in this one narrow time. So the question becomes well, how do you monetize that asset right? How do you think about monetizing this space that you're paying for 24, seven, um, and there are whole like side economies around that question that we sort of ran down that rabbit hole right, like you know, you can find I don't know how these businesses are doing today, but at the time, like there were new crop, you know, cropping up, there were new businesses around like restaurants would lease out their space during the day to small startup, you know, to people who just wanted somewhere to go Right. And so then that begins the question.
Speaker 1:I don't know why my brain instantly goes to those like paint and sip classes, cause I'd be like walking into like a bar on a wednesday at two and they're like, hey have a seat and listen to this instructor.
Speaker 3:I'm like touche.
Speaker 1:But yeah, like totally, I mean like then you have like I can almost see this like brunch proliferation, where people like, oh yeah, let's get people in in the morning because they're always there at night, and then and yeah, I could totally see that like that connection between there's these core times they're making money, which is Friday, saturday, weekend nights I mean probably some sort of relative consistency during the week but then at the end of the day you have this bartender sitting there idle with maybe one depressed dude at the bar, but besides that that's not going to make a dent in lease payments, Right right.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of one idea. And then you've chased that, right, and it's like, well, people are looking for a place to go. It's like, well, why is that happening? Right, why do? Because? Because there was this whole other side thing that was happening with WeWork and and the remote working economy, right. But then, and so there's that dynamic happening where people are no longer tethered to an office from nine to five, and so there was a lot more mobility and people's, you know, ability to to go wherever they want. Um, and so there were all these just kind of pieces that started clicking into place.
Speaker 2:Another one we talk about, like non-diversified revenue. Well, you know, the idea of a membership revenue was really sort of one of those critical pieces, because it then unlocks this idea of like oh well, the idea of a membership revenue was really sort of one of those critical pieces, because it then unlocks this idea of like oh well, all of a sudden, you're no longer, like, highly exposed to day-to-day, like operational success. I mean, we don't get me wrong, we are very much tied to day-to-day operational success, but if somebody, you know, if we have a slow Friday night, it's not like our business is suddenly at risk. Right, it's that we had. There is more leeway and more opportunity for us to build a more long-term relationship with our customers. Um, through that. So all of these different pieces started kind of like coming together. It's like, how do you take this idea that people have more free time? And the idea that somebody would want to go sit in a bar simply because they need to get out of their house is like, really, it was like, well, that's kind of weird, why is that Right?
Speaker 2:And then, and then you chase the rabbit hole of the third place, which has a long history. Starbucks is the third place. That's the original, you know, american third third place. They captured this before anybody else, the third place being not your home, not your office. Where's the other place that you're going to spend your time? Totally right. And so what does that 21st century first third place look like? Well, what would you want in a space where you could go and spend your time right? And then, and then it just kind of started coming together while you and then you, you and then, of course, to Charlie's point, their Soho house, and so this business model does exist. And so then you start doing that research. Well, what are these other clubs? What are these 21st century social clubs actually? Look like, um, and you go from A to B to Z and you end up with a business model that was, I'd say, like 75% of Edison house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean it also. To me, soho is carrying the torch of social clubs, that's, and that torch has been burning for a long time. I mean, people don't realize this in the U? S, but in the UK, especially in London, social club culture is very important. There are, there are, hundreds and hundreds of social clubs in London alone, um and Soho. We talk about soho because we're the most similar to them. Um, because they really, in our opinions, kind of reinvented the social club model for you know today, um, and brought it over to america. So we kind of george was going through this whole discovery in the hospitality space and pieced all these things together and then said, whoa, look, there's this other company that's doing this.
Speaker 1:They just started to come to the United States and they're having a ton of success, which has got to be so relieving. Because, like you, have all these thoughts going in your head of how do I create this space, what's going to incentivize people to be there, how do we make it a viable business model? And all of a sudden, here's this like perfect case study that like almost kool-aid mans its ass through your wall to say, hey, this is how this can work. And like even I was in austin a couple months ago visiting a friend and I mean there's a soho house there that's been popping. But then there's also like these other different, kind of like nuanced social clubs that are popping up.
Speaker 1:Like there was one I can't remember the name of it for the life of me, but it's a country club but then they also have a social club downtown for members. I mean they have like a really nice simulator but it's like really great rooftop bar, bar space. So it's like, oh, there's this nuance to it, all of kind of seeing how people want to create that space. So I mean like just thinking of like the timeline of things I mean what year was this going through your head? Or maybe like the year that you called Charlie and said hey, I got an idea. Are you in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what? I graduated like mid 2018. So it would have been all through that. I mean, the really the bulk of all this research was happening kind of my second year in grad school, which was like fall of 2017. And we actually set out to do the dive bar, um, like business model, uh. And then halfway through, like we did the first semester chasing that, and then halfway through I basically because it I I essentially recruited some of my class, because you do it as a team, it's like that's the way that the thesis works. So I had recruited my team of people to help me. And then it became very apparent to me because I was serious, I was like I didn't know that I would open business, but I was thinking about it, and the others were all like it was very clear, like they're not going to they're just focused on their summer internship.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, exactly, so they can go to McKinsey and do their thing and kind of go on.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So halfway through we had done like all this research and then I basically strong armed everybody and was like, yeah, we're going to change, we're changing course, we're doing the social club thing. And they didn't really want it. Like there was a lot of pushback, they were like we've already done all this research. I'm like I really don't care, because, like I'm actually going to probably open this business, or I certainly may, and like I'm just making this call. So I forced all my class and thank, thank you to all of them for going along with my insistence, and so we spent the next half of the time there, the next semester, essentially kind of like pulling in this whole business model concept together. Love that, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, charlie, so you get this call from your brother saying, hey, I got this idea You've been doing I mean healthcare, private equity and he says, hey, I got this idea. What was your initial response? Reaction to this idea? I mean my first reaction was kind of like.
Speaker 3:This is crazy. You know, neither of us have a background in hospitality, first time entrepreneurs. You know, in my head an Edison house even grew in terms of size and scope since we first started and at the time even the size and scope felt large. You know big. You know we're talking multiple restaurants. We didn't have the rooftop pool at the time, but multiple restaurants, gym, all these things, and I was, I was actually pretty hesitant, I was like I don't think this is a great idea. Um, but he, he kind of chipped away at me, he, he sent me his research deck. Um, what I think really sort of sold me was sending me to Soho houses website and saying, hey, check out what they're doing. And for anyone who hasn't been to Soho house, it's, you know, the, the, the main social club, I'd say, of the last 15 years Totally Incredible. I mean, they've got 35 clubs across the US and any Soho House you go into you're going to be like, wow, this is freaking cool.
Speaker 2:I've never been. Are you serious? I've been to the one in Chicago.
Speaker 3:Don't tell people that I was in the one in Chicago, like last week.
Speaker 2:I mean it's We'll get you a guest pass. Oh my gosh. Okay, I have my own vision of what we're doing. I mean you do own your own vision.
Speaker 1:He has his own club.
Speaker 2:I don't need Soho House.
Speaker 3:But I'll tell you, they've been around for a long time, so they've had a long time to mature and really get it right and and really get it right. And I feel like they really got it right. Did you go to the one in Austin? I?
Speaker 1:just walked by.
Speaker 3:I was with the one in Chicago. You walk in. It's so cool, the food is great, the music's perfect, the people are cool. You go up to the pool. They just got to dial it in. The one in Chicago is 15 years old, so they've really got it dialed in at this point. But that is really what sort of changed my mind on this, because it's such a big swing that it's like if this thing, if it, if it doesn't work out and there's always that opportunity that there's that possibility like it's. You know, it's not easy to unwind and doing that without having someone else who has proven that the model works was would have been really hard for me to make that step. Like I don't think I would have taken the step if I hadn't seen Soho house being like this is a totally new thing, that like we're just kind of inventing out of thin air which we're not.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I should probably clarify. I have been to many other social clubs. We did a whole trip where we went and visited like a bunch that was a badass business trip. So I didn't. I have done my due diligence as a competitor, but no, yeah, I mean I think yeah, Charlie's right, Like they built the industry.
Speaker 3:And for me, I was just like I'm not going to. It's not like a tech startup where you know you can do, you know, test it, mvp, it see if it works. It doesn't work, it does work. You go in this direction, right? It's not that way. It's like you got to take a full, full ass swing.
Speaker 1:All in all in.
Speaker 2:You got to go all in and I'm like.
Speaker 3:I've got taking that proof of concept because that's ballsy well, it's also a consistent theme, which is charlie is more risk averse than I am. I am there you go.
Speaker 1:I am risk adjusted well, because it's a good balance so I remember the first time I heard about soho house, like I, I just saw someone liked a post on instagram and it it was this. I have to go back and find it just to kind of giggle at it now, but it was a picture of the lot that we're now, I mean, standing in in the second floor of a three-story building, yeah, and it was just like I think there's literally goats eating grass and they're like soho, I mean, not so house. Well, uh, edison house coming, uh, 2020 something. And I remember just like my smug, dumb ass was like, believe it, when I see it, you know like you're applying. Oh, is that you all? Like you're applying?
Speaker 3:Oh, is that you All right Membership, you're out, it's over, that's fine I actually do remember that.
Speaker 2:Well, mostly not, not at you particularly, but there was a, you know, yeah you get it. You get a fair amount of like snarkiness and the early stages of that.
Speaker 3:I think a lot, I'm sure a lot of um business. Like you know, founders go through this, but, like I caught my yeah buddy phase, which was I would tell people what I'm doing and they say, yeah, okay, buddy, and it was like I had. We had a long yeah buddy phase cause, you know, we didn't break ground for a year and a half after we decided to do it.
Speaker 1:So it was like COVID time, it's COVID.
Speaker 3:It's tough.
Speaker 1:Cause were you guys deciding on doing it before COVID, and then COVID came and threw a wrench in things.
Speaker 3:So we purchased the property and about three or four months later COVID happened. And then we broke ground in the middle of COVID. Right, yeah, that was right, we broke ground.
Speaker 2:That sounds about right. Yeah, we broke ground, but there's a lot that's happened, but we purchased it, which is like it's not a point of no return.
Speaker 3:But, like you know, we've put down contractors, bid the project covet hits. So it was, we were down. We were far enough down the road that, like there was no, you could turn back. But it was.
Speaker 2:We were like we're not turning back yeah, thankfully most of our like our our bids were locked in. So at least from a financial perspective, there was some there's quite a bit of financial hedging that had happened that we were not exposed to, had we been six months later.
Speaker 3:When you talk about being lucky too, it's like we. If we had, if we had been not far enough down the road and COVID hit we, I'm sure we would have just thrown our hands up and be like there's no way we're going to. We know what I mean Like we're we're not doing this. But if we had been too far down the road and we tried to open it during COVID, it would have been the worst experience ever. We actually have a colleague who I won't say who she is, but she got caught up in the middle of this, was supposed to open during COVID at a beautiful space and just got, you know, steamrolled by it. It breaks your heart. I mean awful.
Speaker 1:It's actually funny. I was listening to you, george, talk about, I mean, mean, putting together your deck and your thesis of like why this is a good thing. So I was actually at one point going to open up like a chopped salad place in utah, because you go to any major city, yeah, there's a chopped salad place my girlfriend would be there every single day.
Speaker 3:She talks about this non-stop someone says it so and we have food and beverage. We have food and beverage support.
Speaker 1:Man, let's do this, let's team up and I was like literally had like the analysis down, like everything was like green light, and I eventually it got to the point where, like, because I was planning on doing it downtown, planning on having, I mean relying on I mean the golden sacks, the wells, fargo, built like kind of that core thing, and then obviously coveted I'm like well, nope, like absolutely not, and it's still like in the back. I mean, who knows, maybe one day, but seriously, come find us if you uh we got a lot of kitchens you can cook out of and figure out how to do it.
Speaker 1:Hey, we can grubhub the hell out of here. Oh yeah, um, but that's so awesome because, like, especially thinking of like such an ambiguous idea that takes, I mean such like a I mean going back to your example in comparison of like a tech startup, where I mean you can get a tech startup going get an mvp stood up with relatively little investment and then you can go do the typical route of go raise your money and go scale and product market fit, etc.
Speaker 1:But here it's like we bought land, we have a building being built, we have all these other investments, like that's a lot of like I mean capex investment and like, as you're going through this process of I mean the bidding, the purchasing, getting everything going. I mean, what were some of the unexpected headwinds and things that came across, oh man I mean we ran, we've ran into a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we can talk yeah, we've run into a lot of problems but, um, you know, I'm sure it's this. It's the same with every startup right, there's just there's always things that go wrong. I mean, I would say broadly, the construction process was extremely challenging, given covid and the supply chain. Um, what comes to mind when I think about what was really hard the last few years was just like navigating that as first-time developers and then layering on top of that COVID and it was just crazy things where we got a call one day from our contractor and he was like they're running out of steel and we had some issues with permits and whatnot. We hadn't figured out our permits but we had bid the project and he was like you need to buy your steel today or we will not get steel for a year and a half. And I'm like how much money is this? Like four hundred thousand dollars?
Speaker 1:I'm like what did you take, cash or check?
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm like you're serious. He's like I'm dead serious. You need to put in the order today and I need to wire the money to them pretty much today and you have to make a decision pretty much in the next like hour because obviously you have a huge history of steel purchasing and, oh my, the past.
Speaker 3:I mean the first question I asked him was like what happens if, like, we don't go through? He's like you own $400,000 worth of steel. Like I don't know what happens, you have to go to the mill and pick it up you know, and that's how Edison pivoted to the second steel industry.
Speaker 3:I mean in during COVID, we could have made money and just been out. You know, we could have just made out like bandits. But, um, you know, there's, there's so many of those stories. I mean at one point, like the city of Salt Lake they're one of their planners had an issue with our rooftop pool and like just there's, there's, just there was so much, there was so many things that came up, um, but I think a lot of that is development broadly. Um, in so far as like there's just, it's a, it's a complicated challenge doing developments complicated challenging, I did not realize how gnarly it was going to be totally yeah, um yeah, I just I mean I mean funny story.
Speaker 1:I have some it's probably all funny in hindsight.
Speaker 2:It's all funny because it's well it's sort of funny, because when you, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's just like I'm a little bit older and I have a little more perspective, but the whole thing seems a little nutty now that you say it out loud. It's like you've never developed, you've never entrepreneured, you've never done. I mean it was like we just literally made the shit up. We're like we're gonna build this big place with four bars and a pool and a gym like literally we've never done any sounds like you're building like the ideal barbie mansion, but instead it's an actual building.
Speaker 3:I mean I mean yeah, I mean yeah, it is. I agree, it is kind of crazy. It also, I mean there's other I'm just thinking of some other like funny, crazy stuff that like we were in Costa Rica, we had just started excavating, george and I are playing like I don't know. We're with our friends like drinking and hanging out, and I don't even remember we had this really intense water storm, like rainstorm Remember that Filled the entire hole. There was a forklift at the bottom that was floating up and George and I were like holy shit, what have we got ourselves into? We literally just broke ground Three months earlier. Rooftop pool turns into in-ground pool.
Speaker 3:Ground pool oh my gosh. Yeah, it was pretty funny At the time. It wasn't funny, but but now it is.
Speaker 1:You can always laugh about something once it's been enough time.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, I mean it was hard and funny and whatever.
Speaker 1:So one thing that tends to be a lot of issues. I mean, I would imagine a situation like your guys' was like alcohol permitting in utah.
Speaker 2:Did you guys run into a ton of issues with that?
Speaker 1:oh man, um, definitely yes, as a function of the way the legislature has written the law um, which is probably super easy, convenient, not at all painful.
Speaker 2:Well, I I would actually say that, um, checking the boxes had, like it wasn't particularly difficult in the sense that, um, I think they actually did make it fairly clear what we needed to do in order to qualify to get a liquor license. Um, you know, some of the rules made it fairly prohibitive in terms of, like we discussed early on, do you want to be a restaurant so that we can allow kids in? And things of that nature became very clear very quickly that, based on some of the restrictions of non-bar liquor licenses, that we needed to be a bar right.
Speaker 1:Most importantly, thank you for that important decision.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a decision we talked about. I mean, we did you know we talked about that and I actually think it, from as a product perspective, it's actually beneficial that we are a non, that we're a 21 and over establishment. Um, I think people appreciate the fact that there aren't children here, uh, but nonetheless, um, most importantly, if any other liquor license would have prohibited the, the movement around the club, so you would have to, you wouldn't be able to, like, take a drink from one room into the next, and you know you, you're obviously a member here Like that just doesn't work. It's not that?
Speaker 1:it's not the dynamic here. You need a whole, double your staff of just transportation, right?
Speaker 2:So just walking with trades, so I think there were there were some limitations on that that by far and away the biggest issue was just the number of liquor licenses available and whether or not we would be able to get one.
Speaker 2:Um, we, we actually felt that the DABS and all those involved in like the issue in the issuing of the license were fairly easy to work with and and made it pretty clear what we needed to do, but they have no say in the number of licenses that they have to distribute.
Speaker 2:And that was really scary up until essentially the last minute, because the DABS made the decision to essentially require that we be ready to open before they would give us a liquor license, which meant we had to staff our hundred person business, take on a, you know, very sizable payroll and prepare ourselves to open our doors without a liquor license. Yeah, up until I mean, I'm trying to think I think we got our liquor license about a week before we actually opened, which is an enormous amount of risk and trust that they asked us to place in their hands and thankfully it all it all worked out. Um, it hasn't been an issue since we've opened. We've been it's been perfectly smooth sailing since then. There was definitely a couple of month period where there were very high stress levels around acquiring a liquor license got it.
Speaker 1:I guess I'm on like the other side of the coin. What is something that you feel like went better, or like just happened to have gone really well, that you didn't anticipate well, as I said, I'm kind of like always the optimist, maybe to the point of being a little naive.
Speaker 2:So I don't know, like I don't know that I would have set out on this path if I didn't have like a high degree of confidence that what we were going to do would be successful, to find that it seems like there is a genuine demand for the product the way that we had anticipated.
Speaker 2:It seems like we have had, you know, I don't know that we talked about this in kind of like my research phase, but one of the things that we really tap into as a product is we actually provide people a sense of belonging. There's a very like fundamental need for people to have a sense of community. We throw that word around very loosely in day-to-day conversation, but it actually is a fundamental like need of human beings, without a doubt. And so it's been very interesting and and and you know and really nice to see members who have expressed a real degree of gratitude for providing that, to the point where we've had members cry during interviews because they were so grateful. We've had members tell us that they were preparing to move out of the state of Utah until they joined Edison House. Until they joined Edison house. Um, we have a number of like really high involved members who have embraced our product and like truly what it means, that it's like deepest core and really run with that baton, and that's been very, uh, gratifying.
Speaker 1:No, and I can echo that a hundred percent Cause. So as someone was born and raised in Utah I mean was raised very LDS moved to Seattle after graduation where I mean it's a place where I remember having talks about religion like twice maybe and it just wasn't a thing and I kind of put it on the back burner. Then came back to Utah I mean no longer participating active member. I was kind of done with that in my life. But I also didn't want to go back to like my old social circles because I developed as a person and so I wanted to find a community, especially people who weren't necessarily from here. And so that's when I moved into like hardware apartments because I knew that there was going to be people not from here, probably wasn't going to be a ton of Lds people and like trying to find like that community. And I found like and I moved in like two months before covet hit and so all of a sudden we're all locked in this building and like gained some amazing friends there that I mean I still hang out with all the time and still keep in contact with that are that are amazing. And then, and still like again during that time is when I saw this and I was like, oh, that'd be of cool of an idea, but don't know if it's going to actually happen, what it's actually going to be like, and then fast forward to now where I remember walking into the grand opening and being like, oh, like, here's my P, like here are the people that I do want to spend time with and even in my life cause like one thing that I've realized and had so many conversations with friends with is, I mean, your early life social experiences and social connections are handed to you, like literally, you grew up going to the same place every day with the same people and they become your friends. And like, if you could do that today, it was like, hey, we're all going to go to the same place, we're going to hang out, we're going to have recess, we're going to play four square and dodge ball, we're going to have music. Like, sign me up. And then you, you go to college, where that gets amplified even more.
Speaker 1:And then, all of a sudden, after that it's just like this cold, I mean clean cut from these social experiences, and it's like, okay, like go, go, figure it out. And that's really hard for people and it was like, honestly, pretty hard for me because I didn't know where to go to find my people or to go find these communities that I needed. But to your point, george, like that is so much, part of the human experience is having a community that you can have and I mean I mean both of you see me here enough to know that like I've embraced this place. I um, I mean love coming here, love experiencing people, and even like there's times like I mean even last week I was going to go sit by the pool and just work on my laptop and I was like I really need to do better about talking to people. I need to do something. I don't know if I want to, and all of a sudden someone's like oh hey, do you work at a company I'm employed at? And I was like yeah, and they're like, oh, my sister works there. And two and a half hours later we're like, oh my gosh, here's your number, here's my number. Let's follow each other, let's hang.
Speaker 1:Just continually, perpetually, keeps being a reminder of a. It's a place that we can have those social connections, feel that sense of community and have it fostered and grown and have it reminded all the time. So it's not like this, show up once and like, oh, I met someone, but people are still guarded and not there. But and I keep talking to other members and other people and it's it just keeps being that way and I bring friends here and they're like well, how do I join? Like this seems like amazing and and it is really such a cool experience you guys have been able to foster.
Speaker 1:So kudos to you guys and the execution and the curation and like the ambiance and the vibe and everything. It's kind of whatever you need. You can find some extent here and I know there wasn't a ton of like natural experience before it, but I think you guys both hit it out of the park and I know it took a village to get it all done and like I mean, all the bartenders are some of the coolest people ever and they like remember my life and we get to sit there and bullshit and I see my morning crew and I go to the gym and go get my coffee of Amelia and Kenzie and and it and it's so fun to fun to have that in the right people and like and obviously I don't know how many people know this, but it is also intentional by you guys, cause, like the way I met Charlie is, I mean, I applied, I get an email saying hey, we like to interview everybody before to make sure we're letting in the right people, and then I'm sitting in the back of my van.
Speaker 3:You're in the van.
Speaker 1:I think I was in Vermont or something and I think you check that box. So, like, what questions do you have for me?
Speaker 3:And yeah, like you're in a van dude, you're cool Like this is it. He took the risk.
Speaker 1:I think it worked out. But so I mean so thinking about where Edison house is now. I mean, I mean, what does the future entail? I mean, where does, where does this vision take, you guys?
Speaker 3:I mean, we're still super focused on Salt Lake. Um, you know we want to grow, we are interested, we're looking at other markets. Um, right now we're still tuning the car. Um, I love that story that you met someone here and had that connection and like became, you know, friends and hopefully that grows. When I hear that, I'm like that is why I do this. Like, I love hearing that, you know, because what I, you know, I'm really like reflecting on what you said about how hard it is to meet people and build a community.
Speaker 3:As an adult, everybody that I talk to feels this way, like, and I think a lot of it has to do with the world that we've grown up in.
Speaker 3:That is unique to the world that our parents grew up in.
Speaker 3:It's so easy to like and I have the same feeling all the time.
Speaker 3:I was laughing and you're like I don't want to get out of the house today, I can just sit home and I can get that dopamine drip by looking at being on Netflix by you know, getting on my phone, by staring at Instagram, whatever the things that we all do, and I find myself getting pulled into that a lot in a way that, like, I don't feel good about. And every time that I'm like you know what? I'm going to go out, I'm going to go talk to somebody, I'm going to meet someone I always leave those conversations, especially with people at the club, and I'm like that was awesome, like that was so fulfilling as a human. Like I don't know what it is, I know it's something in our software and our brain, but it just like really fills me up and but I always feel that pull. That's like I don't want to do this today, like this is, you know, this is I want to sit home, watch Netflix and I feel like we all have that Cause.
Speaker 3:that's that easy dopamine drip I'm tired, it's been a long day. I don't think they didn't have that ability to get that like sort of cheap dopamine drip where they can just, like you know, turn on Netflix. They would be like you know. They'd be like I'm going to go down to the bar down the street because otherwise I'm going to sit here twiddling my thumbs you know what I mean and like um. So I just think that this world that we've grown up in is is sort of dangerous from that perspective. It's kind of a honeypot and I find myself even challenged with that and I spend all day in a social club.
Speaker 3:But just to I know I digress, but just to talk about the future. I mean we're looking at expanding Edison House, but we're still super focused on number one. We just launched an initiative that we're really excited about called Clubs, which is a way for us to help build community within the community of Edison House around identities and interests. We've spent a lot of time thinking about what are some of the great communities and why are they great communities? One of them really is proximity, when you're talking about earlier. If I could go back to school, where it's recess and we're all there together, just being in proximity, builds community and I think there's an extra layer you can get deeper on which is around. You're connected on something and we think the great natural things different clubs based around interest and identity. We have women on the identity side women, bipoc, lgbtq.
Speaker 2:Did I miss something? What are you laughing about? We have eight. We have eight. Sorry, I can't even keep track, but you got the three identity clubs.
Speaker 3:Those are the three identity clubs and we have Outdoors Club Concert Illuminates, which is our charitable organization. I'm really excited about that. Um, what are the last two? Wine club and the book club. Wine club and the book club Um, and so that's when we think about the future. We're still thinking about Edison house one, and how do we fulfill that mission, even more so than we have today, like, keep pushing that forward and saying how do we continue to help people, build connections, build community, meet one another, make friendships? So when I think about the future of Edison House in the far off, I see, hopefully you know two, three, four, but right now, really, what we're thinking about is one being like how do we get, how do we dial this in and really fulfill that mission in such a way that we feel so good about it that we're ready to take it to the next market? George, do you think more about number two, three and four than I do? I mean probably.
Speaker 2:More risk averse right. That's why we're both together One focus is here.
Speaker 1:One focus is there.
Speaker 2:No, but I think what you're saying is broadly correct.
Speaker 2:I mean, from a business perspective, we sink so closely that we're aligned on that.
Speaker 2:It's very important for us to get the first one right and to get it to a place where we can responsibly start looking at expansion, and I think we're close, but we're not quite there yet. I think I think through the end of the year it would be foolish of us to start, you know, taking our eye off that ball just yet. But I do think, probably before you will, charlie, um, I will start to maybe push us in that direction. It's a little bit the dynamic that we have, um from a risk perspective, and just like the roles that we play, um, but I do think that we're very closely aligned on where we see it going. You know, I think, taking that mantra of build community, um bring beautiful spaces to people, um create spaces for people to connect, like that's what Edison house is. It's not a building of four walls, it's about the people who are in it. And I think there are ample opportunities for us to take that mission and press it out into the world, and that's what we'll do.
Speaker 1:I like the way you said that Edison's core principle boiled down his community, and the more that you can have more hyper-focused communities, more nuanced communities, more reason for people to come show up to ignore that dopamine drip, that Netflix, that Instagram, that whatever it may be and be present here, I think will only set more success, as I mean two, three, four, five, 50, a hundred, whatever that might be.
Speaker 1:But until it is a place that people want to go like the community is the community. The building is just a bunch of like bricks and $400,000 of steel. But I think that you absolutely hit it on the head as far as the priorities goes is nail the community side and then I mean replicate it once it's there, cause I mean it'd be so easy for I mean a lot of other people to be in your situation. Be like, okay, it's successful, people are paying, we have members. Now let's keep fucking, let's just get as many of these as we can, and then we can go swim in our gold coffers and go right off into the sunset well, there's also a critical mass component.
Speaker 2:I think the thing is a year from now. The risk profile goes way down as we continue to grow membership. And we are growing membership for anybody listening. What are we up to right now, do you know?
Speaker 1:I won't.
Speaker 2:I won't disclose that, but there has been a and I, I when. So when we first opened, we paused growing membership and that narrative has been sort of misconstrued as, uh, you can't get in, and so that's actually been one of the challenges that we've had in growing membership is, we'll talk to people who said, oh, I heard it's like an 18 month wait list. It's like, no, that's not the case. We're, we're grateful to have a lot of interested parties, but, um, we are yeah but when we're as inclusive as an exclusive club can reasonably be.
Speaker 2:So our goal is to grow the membership to the point where, you know, the vibe really hits the way that we want it to, and it does most of the time, but there's still plenty of opportunity for us to bring people into this building without deteriorating the quality of the product. In fact, I think the more members we can add, at least for the time being, the more dynamic the community is going to be. And that's kind of the point I'm making, which is, as we mature the community and the membership, the more self-sustaining the business becomes, and at that time it would be responsible for us to then be able to look elsewhere to expand the business.
Speaker 3:And I mean, on that point, like one of the great learnings I think we had is that the this building is freaking big and it swallows people. Like we had 250 people here last Friday. I want to say it was at the. Was that country night? We had a country night. It was really fun. I'm probably 250 people check in and the building had energy, but it was not full by any means. Yeah, and that's that's like kind of a double-edged sword for us, like it's really exciting because it means that we can have more members than we originally thought when we first built the business model, and the other side of is we need to make sure that we grow and maintain that energy because the building can swallow people.
Speaker 1:It's just so big oh, without a doubt, especially with like summer's. Now here the roof is is popping, yeah, and because I remember when I first started coming like I mean on the weekend it would be busy, especially when it was new, yeah, but then you'd come on a weekday and be like I think I might be the only person here there's probably a hundred people in the building.
Speaker 1:Even more so too and like that's I love, and like there's a story I'll share with you. Where it was was a mother no, it was Easter, and it was me and three friends and we were a little hungover and we just wanted to get brunch somewhere. Yeah, and so I'm hopping on the phone calling every typical brunch spot in Salt Lake. They're like, let me make one quick call, edison, there's a table waiting for you. We walk in, we sit down, we have brunch and we have this space to ourselves. It's nice.
Speaker 1:If I want to go sit around with 20 people and have that like drunken, kind of like let's call it ragey night like you can have that too. Or if you want to come see a show, or like like there's something for everyone. And like the other thing I was going to add to what you guys were talking about is kind of like what you've been curating is like the diversity is so amazingly done because, like if you walk into I mean the country club, for example it's going to be a bunch of stuffy old white people that are just pretentious and hate each other. And if you remember there and you don't feel differently, then prove me wrong. But we're here.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, I walk in and I see like everybody from the age of 21 to like 61 and there's people covered in tattoos, there's people not covered in tattoos and like it just the diversity and seeing the people has been really awesome, cause I was kind of one of the one worries I had before I joined is like I'm like what is this? Could just going to be like my high school friends and carbon copies of them, but absolutely wrong, like it's been every walking way of life. But it's also like good people. So it's not just this like revolving door of whoever wants to come, but it's like good people, but good, very different people. Um, to create this like foundation of community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've. We've worked really hard and intentional on that. Um, we are broadly way more diverse than Salt Lake is, uh, and when it comes to industry too, which you know is at least for me personally, when I was in Chicago in finance, I ran in finance circles From an industry perspective, no single industry makes up more than 15% of our membership, and that adds another really interesting dynamic where you just run into people you would never run into. I have a friend here, stu, and he runs a mountaineering film festival, of all things Right, and I'm like I would never run into to Stuart and he's like the coolest, most interesting cat on the planet and I love that sort of bouncing into people that are not the type that you'd normally have in your orbit, and then all of them to your point.
Speaker 3:We work really hard to curate on four different axes and it sounds sort of like a little bit cliche or tchotchke but it works and we really believe it which is we look for people who are interesting, social and kind, and those are the three things that we look for in people. And the last one is authentic, which is just be yourself beyond those four things, and we found that to work really well, because those are the types of people you want to be around. You want to be around people who are interesting and social and they're just nice, good people. Um, and we've, we've I feel like at least the majority of our membership are very interesting and have a lot of, you know, cool things to say and have interesting life experiences, um, which is not always the case with everybody in the world you know.
Speaker 1:So it's like now that you say that I can't think I've ever like walked in and had like one of those typical, like let's call it a Karen moment, where someone's yelling at a bartender for some stupid thing, Like everyone's like good people, like through and through.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we, we work really hard for that. I mean, we had a whole we. We either every member is either referred by a current member that we know or is is interviewed, and it takes a lot of work. I mean, I, our membership team, lauren, who's our head of membership, is amazing. Um, uh, lindsay, who's our community manager, is amazing. They've interviewed probably, I mean a lot, a lot of people. They've they've done hundreds of hours of interviews, probably, or a hundred hours of interviews, whatever. It is More than that, more than that, yeah, a lot of interview time.
Speaker 1:Um, most popular people in Salt Lake by this time. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:She knows everything. She says she's gotten bribed. I mean, she has a bunch of funny stories about that. Um, listen, I suck, but you take a thousand dollars, just let me. But we take it seriously, you know, and that's, that's part of the reason that we feel uh, you know, the community has been so awesome, you know, so full of great people yeah, no, definitely kudos to you guys, but I kind of want to transition a little bit and just think about, I mean, salt lake city itself, utah, utah itself.
Speaker 1:What excites you guys about being back in the city, back in Utah. Is there anything particular that draws you back to here specifically, or something you're excited about, or just kind of a good place to call home for the time being?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, part of the reason we came back here is because we understood the market really well. We knew more people. There was a home court advantage. We understood the market really well, we knew more people. There was a home court advantage. Beyond that, though, I think there is a special opportunity in Salt Lake as it relates to the evolution of the city that doesn't exist in most places.
Speaker 2:The city is very different than the one I grew up in, and, as we discussed earlier in the conversation, the predominant religion here not in any good or bad way, just in my observation has created a dynamic here where there's the LDS population and then there's the non LDS population, and that's that counterculture for lack of a better word is very strong and that that's been around for a very long time, and so there has always been this under current, where that non LDS population is sort of looking for their identity, and and I think that's kind of what we're starting to see it's what we've capitalized on to some degree here at Edison House is there's a huge influx of people who are moving here.
Speaker 2:Obviously, there's a tremendous amount of growth and change. I think the number of people living in downtown proper is going to double in the next five years. Right, and a lot of that is about how does this city that has access to the outdoors in a way that no other city in the United States does Right, there's so many sort of geographic advantages to living here Um, how does that, um, how does that counterculture sort of like find their own identity? How does the city sort of grow up in a in a way, because the city has been underdeveloped for a city of its size, right? I mean, for a very long time there wasn't somewhere you could go and get a drink. I mean the the liquor laws here are infamous, right.
Speaker 1:You used to have your membership card. I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's an irony there, right, but yeah. So I think Salt Lake is just in a really interesting place where it's like there is this real grassroots movement to unpack what Salt Lake City really is and really can be, and the strength of that counterculture is there. There's a lot of momentum there, um, and we're just hope to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:I know Absolutely Like I I love that you kind of mentioned that counterculture because with like again going back to like the LDS comparison of like there's a such a strong community there and then I mean people who like leave the church or come like they still seek that community Cause it's one of the biggest losses from leaving that and I mean that's one thing I've learned kind of in my I mean like 20s is like there's so many subcultures in Utah that are so strong and so accepting that you wouldn't even know Like I mean I think I'm wearing a heavy metal shop t-shirt and like there's a huge, I mean on our metal community.
Speaker 1:There's a drum and bass community, we have one as LGBTQ communities, I mean it's geek community and culture Like I could go on and on and on and they're usually all so accepting where if you were to just like I mean to sound cliche and almost boomery go on Facebook and find a group, you could join it pretty quick and like find friends and meet up and like start to grow something. And I think that's only going to proliferate as we continue to go forward and have people come and try to find that community proliferate as we continue to go forward and have people come and try to find that community, and I think this is going to be a nice oasis for so many people who really do just want to find those social connections and community.
Speaker 3:For sure, it's like the way that you put that, yeah, salt Lake's a. I'm excited to see Salt Lake sort of for lack of a better word grow up or evolve into a large city. You know, coming from Chicago and I was just there last week, I mean and maybe this is I don't know how many people feel this way, but so maybe it's just me but like I crave and I love the energy of a big city, like I went down to Chicago and it was like noon on a Thursday and me and my friends went out to a restaurant, out on like the lake and it was like or on the river, and it was just like electric. It was like there's a hundred people in this restaurant, there's people streaming by, like everyone's having drinks, like it was sunny out and I was like, wow, this is so cool. There's so much energy.
Speaker 3:People are out of the house, they're, you know, experiencing and walking around, experiencing the city, and I feel like Salt Lake traditionally hasn't had that so much. I think some of it is that people spend a lot of time outdoors in the mountains and whatnot. But I do think that Salt Lake is going to grow into that and sort of take on some of that big city energy and nightlife and we hope to be a part of that and I'm really excited to see Salt Lake sort of evolve into that sort of next phase of being a larger city, because I absolutely adore Chicago, I love New York, I love Los Angeles and I see Salt Lake hopefully on the trajectory of pulling in some of those aspects, hopefully just the good ones.
Speaker 1:You know it's always growing pains, but sort of that big city energy, that I think a lot of people really like no, totally, and I think about kind of the macroeconomic and macro just pictures in general that's happened over the past few years from COVID, especially like comparing some of the biggest cities before then that were thriving, I mean like the New York's, the LA's, the San Francisco's, the Seattle's, that now, post COVID, aren't, in my opinion, like in the same prime that they were, and there's been just so many changes. But then we've also seen this growth of like these let's call them secondary and tertiary cities, where I mean Salt Lake's on the map, bigger Denver, shown growth, north Carolina I mean not North Carolina, um, nashville has been booming. Charleston, like these other cities, are starting to grow. And like you look at history and like it's not like new york, as soon as the pilgrims landed, they're like this is the biggest city financial hub of the world, everybody who wants to do commerce has to come here, like it was built that way. And now I see utah kind of I mean especially salt lake, being one of those four, um, those front runners of a potential new hub like that and and like to your guys point, like those those things you mentioned are key things that have to happen to get Salt Lake through this new identity crisis that it finds itself in and I'm super optimistic about it.
Speaker 1:I love this place, I love the outdoors, I love the people. I obviously have a ton of bias, but I'm so excited for what's coming and what's to grow Because, like you were saying, charlie or maybe it was the the Utah we grew up in is not even close. Like I was driving through sugar house the other day and I, like, was sitting at the intersection I closed my eyes. I'm like what did this used to look like? I can't remember and I mean that's. I mean you drive down four South. You see all the apartment buildings everywhere now and it makes me excited and seeing how many people come. Yeah, always going to be growing pains, but excited for the future and excited to see how Edison house is going to play a pivotal role for, and be that community for all these the this, almost as lighthouse for the new people that show up. So I'm excited for what you've done and kudos for the way that you guys have done it.
Speaker 3:Thank you, yeah, we're, we're working on it. And to George's point, as he said earlier, I think it's only going to get better too, I mean, as we continue to grow and bring in more amazing people. It's on a curve up which is really exciting Totally. And to put it in a plug, if there's any city planners out there, the one thing I want Salt Lake to figure out is the public transport. I really wish they could figure it out. It's so hard to figure out. Chicago's got to figure it out, New York, of course, as it figured out. But God, I wish, I wish I had the ability to do public transport and walk. That's the one thing.
Speaker 1:I think it's missing. I miss living in a walking city.
Speaker 3:I just love walking cities, man. I mean there's. It's so charming, you know. But that that's okay.
Speaker 1:My hypothesis is, we're going to be an e-bike city in no time. Because of how spread out we are, that would be radical. Because so I actually I don't know if you guys know this, but so when I was living in hardware, I lived there's a track, sorry, a front runner station across the street, yeah. And so and I had to go down to Lehigh every now and then. Well, I mean, then I was going probably like three days a week and I was like, well, I don't like driving because it's like I mean, at least an hour out of my day gone. And so I was like, wait a minute, if I buy an electric scooter, I can hop on the train, I can work on the train, then I can scooter from the Lehigh train station to the office and then do that, and then I actually don't lose any time, except for like a collective 10 minutes of the scooter there and back.
Speaker 1:And so that was the first time I literally like double dived into like Salt Lake public transit and it was good, yeah. But once you start using tracks and buses in Utah, now you're just like hard stop, nope, this isn't, this isn't working, and I'd love it too. But I agree, like any city planner. Please, please, please. I'll run for something I'll vote for you.
Speaker 3:Same thing I love. I in Chicago. I rode the L everywhere. I loved it and the bus system was great and I was, and I moved back to Salt Lake and that was the one thing I was bummed about. I was like I miss being able to walk everywhere, and part of it too. There's density in that you can walk to a lot of restaurants, bars and coffee shops from where you live, based on how the city is set up and that's and Salt Lake is not really set up for that, you know. And so there's definitely a way to solve the problem, but I'm sure it's, I haven't thought about it at all.
Speaker 1:There's someone who can and will do it.
Speaker 3:Somebody else whose job it is right Exactly. We know what we want, Totally Just know how to get it.
Speaker 1:So before we sign off here, kind of two quick questions for you guys is one if you were to invite someone to be on this podcast, who would you want to hear their story of, and why?
Speaker 3:d brewer's one person yeah he's the executive director of um downtown downtown alliance.
Speaker 1:Yeah so he's and he's a great guy.
Speaker 3:He's really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a really nice guy um yeah, I mean, like I I'm a big fan of, uh, I think some I don't know if you do you know, uh, annie kwan and sky emerson are really great. They're like a power lesbian couple in town. They're wonderful. They're two of my dear friends, um, and they're just really interesting people. They actually have their own members. Uh, yeah, they are members and actually they have their own podcast. Actually, you should get the three of them. The third person on their podcast is Amy Redford, who is Robert's daughter. Oh, interesting. And the three of them have the Scrappy Broads podcast, which is very interesting. It's about Scrappy Broads, but they're all just very interesting. Obviously, amy comes from a film background, but Sky is a screenwriter and Annie's worked with Sky Hop and um, they're just very interesting. Um, successful people and and they're lovely. Um, missy Grease is kind of cool. She's found in public, uh, public coffee, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:She's an interesting cat.
Speaker 1:That's a cool brand that's become so popular.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean the truth is is like there are some the. The challenge is not in answering like finding an interesting person, it's like in combing through all the interesting people that we know totally. Um, you know who? Because salt lake is like that's what's happening here, right, I mean charlie, you mentioned mickey's the first one that comes to mind.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, mickey galvin.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, one of our dear friends passed away, but he would have been great yeah, I mean I'm biased, but my, my, uh, my friend marlo is a drag queen, is super interesting cat. Uh, I find him, marlo, marlo's, an interesting dude. I dig that, uh, yeah, yeah, I've come from the LGBT community, obviously, so I'm like I'm, my mind goes there. But, um, you know, troy Williams is a really interesting guy. He runs the equality Utah, um, and he's a really thoughtful person. Um, he's not just, you know, there are a lot of people who live in, you know, the political world and kind of don't know how to like see their, you know, see the world from the other perspective. And he's somebody who I really admire the way that he sort of like approaches the world. Yeah, so there's a handful of names.
Speaker 3:Totally yeah. I mean, I need to think on that one, because I have a couple of names that come to mind and nobody really jumps. I was like, wow, this is great. I know if I.
Speaker 1:So then the second question is I mean, what Utah related media or people do you follow to? I mean keep in touch with, I mean what's going on?
Speaker 2:The honest truth is I believe Charlie's true, for Charlie too we're not huge social media people, because is that what you mean Like from a social media perspective?
Speaker 1:I mean whether, however you want to define it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we fall like from a social media perspective. I don't, that's not how I engage.
Speaker 1:You don't need social media, you just walk into the social club.
Speaker 2:Well, that's where it's the whole thing, right social.
Speaker 3:Well, it's where it's the whole thing. Right, get off the dope. Dopamine drip. I mean I really don't I when I when now that when you ask the question, like, wow, I actually don't really follow anyone on the media side in salt lake and I and I think part of that is kind of exactly what you just said, which is like I get all my news and information about what's going on in salt lake from the people I run into at the club. Yeah, I didn't know. I mean it kind of sounds like a cop out. I mean I read, like you know, I read the wall street journal and I do all this sort of like more um, I don't know us national or global type of media. But when it comes to like, how do I get my information about what's going on in salt lake? For me it's really all the people I know and I run into at the club.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a, it's a very like old school approach and it's totally true. Like all of the I, I'm I'm grateful to be friends with a lot of people who are, you know, making a difference in Salt Lake city and I. Almost all of those relationships are in person via, you know, like legitimate friendships. I mean, I can throw out names, you know, like David Parkinson's, a good example of somebody who's very involved in a lot of boards. I do, I do some board participation, I'm on the board at end circle and the symphony and opera and you, mocha, so like all of the people who are involved through that, um, but it's very much like an old school approach and that's intentional, got it, you know anything else you guys want to plug any restaurants, friends businesses.
Speaker 1:anything else you guys want to plug any restaurants, friends businesses, anything else going on that people should know about?
Speaker 3:Salt Lake is awesome, come here people. I always it's funny, I feel like everyone there's always a joke that it's like Salt Lake is not that great, don't come here, people. Which is like I feel like there's kind of a opposite of the way. I'm like let's, you know, let's get this, let's, let's, let's rev the engine, put some gas in it, you know um but support local.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't go to McDonald's, absolutely no, don't do that yeah.
Speaker 1:But come check out Edison house, if all about, and come meet George and Charlie for yourselves and see what all the magic's about.
Speaker 2:Perfect, we don't leave.
Speaker 1:So I'm surprised you guys don't have a bed somewhere.
Speaker 3:Oh we should. I've never slept here. We got, we got wine Wednesday tonight and then trivia, so the club will be rocking.
Speaker 1:Wednesdays are, Wednesdays are fun. There we go. Um well, both of you thank you so much for the time. It has been amazing, just get to know you both better and hear more about the story of Edison house and, yeah, everyone's grateful for those that have been involved and hopefully just keep selling, being more of the great place that it is.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you for being a supporter and a member so gladly all day, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of small lake city podcast. Don't forget to like, follow, review, subscribe and share this episode with your friends and we'll catch you next week. We'll see you there.
