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Julie Mountain and Dana Noorily - Founders of the Granola Bar · She’s Smart

0:00
First and foremost, thank you for being on the podcast. And for being on time.
0:04
And for being the most on time. Yeah, thank you. By the way,
0:06
I'm on time all the time, and I really appreciate that.
0:09
You met in 2010 and then opened your first granola bar in Westport in 2013.
0:17
11 years ago this past weekend. So exciting. How did it happen?
0:21
You met and created this idea. How did that come to fruition for you guys?
0:26
It's Sister Wyvie. Yeah. Like you. Do you want to start? We both had careers
0:30
in the city. We had both separately moved to Westport.
0:34
It's a very universal story. When you move to Westport, how'd you get here?
0:37
When we met, we both had mutual friends that said, oh, you're both going to
0:42
be at this party for kids. It was a three-year-old birthday party.
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Mutual friends had said, you have to meet Dana. She's so nice.
0:50
And then they said, you have to meet Julie. She's hysterical.
0:54
I mean, I'm also nice. She's also funny, right? So we met Because our children
0:58
actually sat next to each other.
1:00
Yeah, it was random. Which is so random for the pizza section of the party.
1:03
We've never discussed what if they never sat next to each other.
1:06
What if they had sat next to someone else?
1:08
I would have chosen that. That would have been a very different story.
1:10
I would have been doing something else.
1:11
We will answer your question. We promise.
1:14
Her, Logan, and my Alex were three years old. They are now graduating high school
1:19
this year. And we're waiting on college.
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So the girls are sitting next to each other. And we strike up a conversation
1:25
and realize, oh, you're the person I was supposed to meet. When I reflected
1:28
on meeting Dana, I was like, oh my gosh.
1:31
At the time, my reaction was, she's everything I'm not.
1:34
She had all of these friends. Big head star in the mommy circle.
1:40
And an older child. But I had this visceral gut reaction that this was someone I wanted to work with.
1:48
She did not want to be friends. No, I still don't. She's doing my part.
1:53
I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old at home. Dana had a five-year-old
1:57
and three-year-old twins.
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And we had both stopped working. So I think when I met her, I was like,
2:02
oh, wait, this is somebody I could do something with.
2:05
So all of these wackadoo ideas in my head, let me try them out on Dana.
2:09
Yeah, I say it as a joke, but it's actually true. It's low-hanging fruit.
2:14
I had a career, as Julie had, a lot of stimulation. It was so much work.
2:19
It was hard to manage both worlds.
2:21
My kids were babies. I was fortunate enough to have my mother and father-in-law
2:26
helping out with the kids.
2:27
It wasn't like I was trusting somebody outside my family. I was very fortunate in that regard.
2:31
We made a lifestyle decision to move to the suburbs.
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I left my job. It hit me pretty hard. You know, it's like the grass is always greener.
2:39
And then when I was looking at my days, my weeks, my months,
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I was like, oh boy, this may not have been the right decision for me.
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So I was relieved to not have to do the juggle.
2:50
So when I met Julie, I was in fact low-hanging fruit, but it was true that I
2:55
was seeking something. What did you do beforehand?
2:58
I was in the music business since I was 18. I did concerts at Irving Plaza.
3:03
I ran Irving Plaza from 1994, 2003, till I graduated.
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I was at NYU at the time and also running Irving Plaza. I was always very...
3:12
Happy being exceptionally busy. I went to NYU, ran Irving Plaza,
3:17
went on to work in Atlantic Records for a little while.
3:19
She wanted to get excused from her classes at NYU and be like,
3:23
she'd say to a professor, but I'm doing this.
3:25
This is what I'm doing at work. I don't remember college, but no, not for that reason.
3:29
I was more square even in the music business, but I was in the music business.
3:34
And then I went on to consult in the music business as I was thinking through,
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like, how am I going to juggle getting married, having children?
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How am I going to juggle a career?
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I was pretty young thinking about that, but I was like 30 and I was like,
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okay, I think I'm going to marry this guy. I think I'm going to have kids. Maybe I should shift.
3:51
And actually when 9-11 happened, I looked at my boss and I said,
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fire me and hire me as a consultant because it was too scary.
4:00
Put all of my eggs into one career basket or one place.
4:04
And I thought, let me start to think through how to juggle.
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So I did that for a little while. And then when I had my first child,
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even before I stopped working completely.
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But I had been working since I was 17. So I thought that's what I wanted.
4:19
I can't wait for the day when I can stop working and go to Barney,
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have lunch, and then go to Bloomy's and have fro-yo and do that life.
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And then I did it. But see how it all came back to food? It all came back to food.
4:33
It did. Well, I'm a Jewish girl from Long Island. It's amazing.
4:38
But ultimately, I guess when I met Dina and I heard the way she spoke and held
4:43
herself, I knew she was in fight.
4:45
She'll get to her amazing career. But I just was like, wow, this is a dynamic
4:50
possibility to do something wackadoo and get my mind off of who am I?
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Because it was a real crisis for me.
4:58
Dana says it more eloquently. I was in depression.
5:02
I've even said that to my girls. Don't make decisions when you're in a really sad, dark place.
5:07
The granola bar is actually an experience of being in probably a pretty scared,
5:13
sad place, which is amazing because the whole point of it we'll get into was
5:19
to be happy and bring joy.
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But I was really terrified about what do I say to people at a dinner party.
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I don't want to talk about my kids at eight o'clock at night.
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I've hired somebody to make sure they're safe and I'm going out,
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but I didn't understand my identity without work.
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Now, do I think that's healthy? No.
5:37
Did I process that? No. Instead, I pushed into it and said to her,
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do you want to do something? Yeah.
5:45
That's fascinating. There's so much to unpack. I'm so excited.
5:48
What did you do? I worked in finance on the sales side.
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I was a sales trader. I started my career at a small British company called Schroeder's.
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We were acquired in 2000 by Solomon Smith Barney.
6:00
And then I went through the Citigroup merger.
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It was a great career. I did really enjoy it. I loved it before I had kids.
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Once I had kids, it became a struggle. There was a lot of travel.
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There was a lot of evening stuff. I was up early. I traded international hours.
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So I get calls, you know, 2 a.m., 3 a.m. And then you'd go out.
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And again, there was just a lot of moving. I had twins.
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It coincided with the financial crisis in 2008.
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My twins were born in 07, 08, the financial crisis hit.
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And it just seemed like a really good off ramp at that point.
6:34
I thought it was going to be a bumpy couple of years, which it turned out to
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be. The business changed a lot from the time I was in it.
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I still keep in contact with a lot of my former colleagues. And it's just different.
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I romanticize what it was versus what it is today. But there were a lot of transferable skill sets.
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Thank God. I remember the first weekend we opened in Westport.
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We were slammed. The story is, Julie, there was a sign on the door, it was a soft opening.
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Julie's like, F that, took the sign down. And she's like, we're open.
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Adrenaline junkie. Totally. And I walked in the kitchen and we were slammed.
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There was a line and so much energy. And I was like, I finally feel the same,
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almost calmness in a weird way.
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It's chaotic, but I feel calmness and a sense of relief because it reminded me of a trading desk.
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It reminded me of a live concert. Yeah. Yeah, you thrive in that somewhat controlled
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chaos almost. It was uncontrollable at that moment.
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I was running back door to go to Trader Joe's to get yogurt.
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We've realized probably a year or so into our business relationship that we were so similar.
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People still meet us and they're like, no, you guys are like opposite.
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But at the core of who we were and what we were seeking, clearly we both had
7:46
something that we were missing and we were fulfilling for each other.
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At the core, it wasn't about what we were doing.
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It was that we were doing it together. Yeah.
7:56
Because what I didn't want, and it was so clear to me when I met Dina,
7:59
was to do something alone.
8:02
Being alone or more alone than I felt was not appealing. Yeah.
8:07
So whatever we were going to do, whether it was sell yoga mats,
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which probably would have been way more profitable. Maybe performers.
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Correct. Very profitable. My point is like, whatever we would have done,
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I think we would have probably crushed.
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Yeah because at the time it just felt like very magical
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to be together and laugh and distract ourselves and
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then show up again as parents which was a whole other story
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yeah you know to unpack but i feel like i think you had mentioned it on an interview
8:35
that and i wholeheartedly agree with this there's no balance when you have kids
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in a career none forget it this whole lean in i don't like it bullshit it is
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like this is not what we do something gives someone misses you something doesn't
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get done on the other side.
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And that is just what it is. You give 100% of your time when you're with the people in that moment.
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Or you don't. Or you're half in, you're half out, your kids are there.
8:57
Ben was up in Vermont because the boys are training for snowboarding right now.
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And he had a shit show getting home this weekend.
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And I had run a fundraiser on Saturday. I was tired on Sunday, but I was able to relax.
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It was just me and the dog, errands, laundry, and baking. It was my relaxing time.
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When Ben walked in the door and he was done, one of the kids threw There was a headache involved.
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Shit show. He was not dealing. Thankfully, I wasn't in a place where I couldn't deal either.
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I was like, I can take this right now. That doesn't always happen.
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It was kind of a magic moment.
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Oh, good point. That the balance may not occur for us internally, but it's at home.
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We have partners that see where we are and react to that.
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They don't live in these myopic, selfish places where they say, but what about me?
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I don't think we've experienced that.
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And that's supportive. Extraordinary.
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It's day one. And I think for us, it would have been impossible if we came home and someone said,
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well, whatever that experience would be, I think we both knew we had the freedom
10:11
to push ourselves to breaking because home wasn't going to break.
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We've set a really solid example for our kids.
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They admire what we're doing. They're proud of us. They thrive off the fact that we have done this.
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I think it will be a legacy to them in many years to come.
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They're going to look In fact, they already look at you guys and they're like,
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my moms are badass, so I'm going to go be badass.
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If you do reflect and the kids see it, totally agree with that.
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I think even if their choice is to be a stay-at-home mom, do that the best you can.
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Yeah. Do what you do to the best of your ability. I talk to my girls a lot about
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like, what have you seen?
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Like, what do you feel when you see? They see the struggle.
10:53
Yeah. They really do see when we get home.
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It's not cute. Yeah. They're more perceptive now.
11:00
When they were younger, it was a little bit different. But now that they're
11:03
older and they're so aware, they know. And these kids are aware.
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My daughter's like, I don't want to own a restaurant. I thought I did.
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But mom, it's struggling. It's full of struggles. So you started making oats.
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I love that in your bio, it says that you wanted to make granola that was crunchy, but not hippie.
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And I wholeheartedly appreciate that because I grew up next to Berkeley, California.
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So you started with that. We forgot we wrote that. You did. I'm like,
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oh, somebody else approved that. We approved it. They were very smart.
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So you started with the granola. Where were you selling it?
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Double L was our first customer. Yeah. Larry?
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Okay. No, Lloyd. Oh, Lloyd. Double L-L-L-O-Y-D. Yes. Lloyd, now famous for the Martha documentary.
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Don't watch that stuff. Yeah. You have to. Iconic. But I went into Double L
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when we knew we had like a product in a mason jar.
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And I was like, I'd like to sell you granola. He was like, great.
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I was a customer there. And he was like, great.
12:00
How much is it? How many are in a case? And what's it called?
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I left almost in tears. And I called Dana. I was like, what's it called?
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What's the case? She's like, let me Google.
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Thank God for the Google. Yeah, there's nine. Imagine if we had chat GPT.
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It would have been something else. We would have been something totally different.
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Yeah, absolutely. So Lloyd, Double L was our first customer on the wholesale
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side. And then we knocked on Whole Foods door.
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Whole Foods was number two. Yeah. Get out in Westport. Yes.
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It seems popular. And also, they started hyper-local.
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We were in the region of Derry Inn, Greenwich, Westport, and Fairfield.
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All the places we know right there. Exactly.
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It got noticed, the sales number, and they picked it up in New York.
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Tribeca. That was my old Whole Foods when I lived in the city.
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Yeah, I used to walk with Easton down there all the time, swimming,
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and then Whole Foods. There you go.
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It was the life. That's amazing. I didn't know about that, that you were in
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all these places. I think we were in like 54, 52.
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Whole Foods, and then we got picked up. Stu Leonard's was our big moment of
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when we realized that we had a business and the capacity.
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Their orders were much larger than Whole Foods. and the sampling hours and standing
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there with the six-foot duck. The guy in the costume. And the cow. Bounds.
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A lot of stim. I still have a little... CSCA from the C. Leonard's.
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We were so young. We were babies.
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We found ourselves in 80 to 90 stores.
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And making no money. Not losing money, just break even. But break even is pretty good in that business.
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But we were doing the math and zero times zero is still zero.
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Everyone kept telling us this supermarket or this chain. And we were spending
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a lot of time trying to do that.
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We used to go into the city and drop off samples of granola all the time.
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We dropped off a bag of granola at, there was this fresh yogurt store outside
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of Grand Central called the Yogurt Culture company.
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What year was this? 13. No, no, 11.
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We dropped off a bag of granola. And then a few days later, we received an email from this guy, Will.
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The email was, you know, the com.
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So we're like, Danon, that's so weird. How did Dan get to us?
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And it turns out that Danon yogurt owned this.
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It was like a concept store from them. And they were trying out and it was like
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fresh yogurt, fruit and granola. He loved our granola.
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So we started collaborating with him going into the city and we did some marketing
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events. He kind of took us under his wing and became a mentor.
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And so we were sharing with him the fact that we weren't making any money and
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we wanted to do something.
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And so it was his suggestion that we open a kitchen in our hometown and have
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a small front of house. Very famous line.
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What's a front of house? Do you know what a front of house is? You probably do. Yeah.
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My brother-in-law was an executive chef. That's the only reason I noticed.
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I did not work in restaurants. I worked in retail. I was not a He said you can
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flip the financials. You can start to make some money.
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He sent us a P&L. It's the first P&L I'd ever seen.
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I was like, what's this? It looked actually terrifying when we first looked at it.
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But it made a lot of sense. If we do this and do this, we can cut out the contract
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manufacturer we were using for our granola. We could make that money back.
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We'd have to hire people. But then this front of house gave us an opportunity
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to sit in my kitchen in Westport as we were 36 at the time with young kids,
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come up with a dream menu.
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We were just playing. We were playing fun. We were just like,
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where would you like me? We were just playing.
15:22
It felt like we were playing shop, honestly. The market protein years ago.
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You look up and down the post road, didn't look the way it does today.
15:30
It was a Barbies, organic market, Subway.
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But that was it, really. There were a lot of evening restaurants. Yeah, a lot of dinner.
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It was none of the other different brands that are out there now,
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none of the brands from the city.
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It was just really kind of like a mom and pop type of situation.
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So when we sat down, there was a very large white space.
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For us, we were like, okay, we know we can go to the diner and feed our whole family.
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But I end up eating a lot of fries. I end up like, let me just take one.
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And I was like, how do we, and at the time too, we were doing a blueprint cleanse. It was February.
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And we were literally like, we're going to look so good when we're done.
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She was shivering. We were like, oh my God. But I was like, where can we eat?
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Where on Monday, you can be a lunatic about what you're eating.
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But by Friday, you're kind of into the bacon, egg and cheese again.
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Or that nobody's judging, right? We had seen
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other places that were singular focused like vegan or super healthy or just
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grilled cheese yeah yeah and we were like that doesn't really appeal to us either
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i don't really want to go in there and feel the judgment of wanting a cheesy
16:38
buff chicken i just want to eat the way i want to eat,
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And not have a sense of like, oh, well, that place doesn't carry that.
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It has to be quinoa and beans.
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We just started to brainstorm about what does your daughter want?
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What does your son want? What does my husband want? Any dude I've ever met wants
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a chicken, bacon, cheddar.
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And we were like, it's the 203, chicken, bacon, cheddar. We need a chicken, bacon, cheddar.
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So played and wrote a menu. And people thought we were crazy. Did they really?
17:05
Because one of my questions was the menu. How did they come up with the actual
17:09
menu? Because you make meals for a big dinner.
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And you're like, oh, I'm going to do this, this, and this. But you created something
17:13
that, like you said, you can walk in with four different types of friends and
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any one of you can get something you want.
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You can also just have a coffee if it's just a moment where you're just going to have that.
17:23
The space you created is really unique in that. Because we were not.
17:27
Sorry to interrupt. We were not restaurateurs. We were customers.
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So we still. It was like a wish list. Like if you're online shopping,
17:35
but you're literally putting like all the shit.
17:38
Can I say shit? You get all the shit you can't afford into a cart.
17:42
You're like, wait, I just want that outfit. But I literally don't want to drop four grand.
17:47
For us, we were like, wait, I want a chicken. I want a turkey.
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I want this. It was the dream menu for us.
17:53
And then Dana said to me, we should really do yogurt parfaits.
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And I was like, talk to me about what you mean.
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She's like, you know, like faye and fruit and our granola. So we wanted the
18:04
granola to be a hero. And I looked at her, I was like, you crazy.
18:08
I heard someone saying, there's no way they're spending X amount of dollars.
18:13
No, I know what that was. She just
18:14
came in the other day. She's still a customer. She's still a customer.
18:16
She's still eating the yogurt parfait. You know who you are.
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I said to Dina, why would people want that when they can go to Stop and Shop
18:23
and do it themselves? The truth is the way we did it.
18:26
Made it craveable and delicious. The only answer we have for you is that we
18:31
are you, right? We are our customer.
18:33
When we disconnect from the customer is when things go wrong.
18:37
I want to know about that too.
18:38
My absolute favorite treat on your menu is the afternoon delight.
18:42
It's what I get whenever I'm like, I need this. I will go down and get one and I'll get a cappuccino.
18:49
I've also tried many of the drinks. I've tried the cortado.
18:52
I've tried the Turkish coffee. In all the time, I have been a customer.
18:56
My mother, who lives in California, when she comes to visit,
19:00
the first thing she asks for is the afternoon delight.
19:03
Oh, that's so sweet. She's like, Maria, are we going to that granola place of getting the yogurt?
19:08
Yes, we are. I will go pick one up for you. The afternoon delight happens to
19:14
be a very historic thing for me personally.
19:16
Every Saturday, my mom, my Bubby, and I would drive to Garden City and go to
19:22
Bonwit Teller or Lord & Taylor.
19:24
We would shop every weekend, Garden City, Long Island. And there was a place
19:28
called the Birdcage on Long Island. They would have something called the Yogurt Special.
19:33
It was plain tart froyo.
19:36
It was banana. But to me, that was the afternoon delight. And it's very historic
19:41
for me. It was very comforting for me.
19:43
It's comforting to eat that. And sometimes I have to say, I love that. It's a big.
19:46
It's a good portion. I'll eat half of it and I'll get to that second layer of
19:50
granola and I'll stick it in the fridge. Yeah. Right.
19:52
And then I'll have it the next day. And it's even better when it can gel.
19:55
Yes. When it's got the moisture in it. It's the bath. I'm going to get one this weekend. Yes.
20:00
We should have brought you one. I'm just going to have one now.
20:02
We realize that food's very emotional for both of us. Oh, yeah. Very generational.
20:07
It's how our families express themselves and how we would go to grandma's house
20:13
on the weekends. She'd have seven proteins for five people. Everything was equitable.
20:18
If there's seven cookies left over, each grandkid could have.
20:22
We missed like two minutes, I think. How did you create the environment that
20:28
is the Granola Bar Westport? Because I haven't been to the other ones.
20:30
Actually, that's not true.
20:31
I've been to the Greenwich one, but you walk into the Westport one and it's welcoming.
20:37
People say my name. How did that come about?
20:39
Yes, we desired that. I think when we met at the time in our lives and we knew
20:44
we were going to buy ourselves some really expensive jobs, we wanted the environment
20:49
to be opposite from what we had experienced. People were shocked.
20:53
Even our friends who knew that we were doing this when we first opened and they
20:56
walked in, they were expecting, you know, like white subway tile.
21:00
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but something a little bit more sterile. Yeah.
21:04
Versus what we built. Yeah. And that was very intentional.
21:08
We wanted to make it an extension of the Westport home.
21:12
When it looks like that, you've got all the pockets for Lily and August accessories in 2013.
21:18
It was a joke that came. We couldn't afford that build today,
21:21
but we wanted it to be an extension of your home.
21:25
We weren't ready yet to call it a restaurant. For years, it was about being
21:29
a happy place that Dana and I would greet our friends. They'd enjoy our menu.
21:33
It would be fun, and we'd make our money through the distribution of granola
21:37
that we were baking in the back. That was the intention.
21:40
At the kitchen, we knew we could pay rent. We had a business,
21:43
right? We already had the retail
21:45
customer or the wholesale business and we were selling to the stores.
21:49
And so we figured, okay, anything outside of that will be our profit. Okay.
21:55
Okay. I want to talk about your people because you have incredible people who work for you.
22:04
When I walk in there, I pop in and get my stuff.
22:12
I'm joking. And whoever's at the front is like, hey, Maria, it's right here. And I leave.
22:16
And in your bio, they talk about creating a cheers environment where you walk
22:20
in and everyone knows your name.
22:22
You've created that. There are people who have been there for a while with you
22:26
guys. I have noticed that people don't want to work.
22:29
It's hard to get people to stay on and work with you and be consistent.
22:32
But you have managed to find some people that, from what we see as customers,
22:38
have done a really great job and are really warm and kind. You keep going back
22:42
knowing they're going to be there.
22:43
How have you done that? How do you find them?
22:48
Well, first of all, volumes help.
22:52
And what does that mean? The lifestyle that we offer, right?
22:55
So we're open from seven to four for the most part is very appealing.
22:59
And because of the volumes that we're doing at each store, people are able to make a living here.
23:06
So it's not really as much like a, please work for us. Like,
23:11
it'll be great. I promise.
23:13
That was our first, the Westport store for sure.
23:16
And that created the energy of it. Our kitchen manager has been with us since
23:19
the day we opened. She's still with us today. I'm family.
23:22
But I went to the Dunkin' Donuts on Maple. I said to her, she was at the POS,
23:28
and I was like, I'm opening a cafe.
23:30
I don't know what I'm doing. Do you know anybody who would work in a kitchen?
23:35
She's like, I'll do it. So she's still there. Me.
23:38
And I will say for the most part, we've just had a bit of turmoil in our Westport
23:43
location, which people have noted.
23:45
And that was not our choosing. That was just stuff happens, right?
23:49
For the most part, our GMs have been with us five, six, eight,
23:53
ten years. Our GM in Fairfield has been with us 10 years.
23:57
The way Dana and I run a business is unique.
23:59
The way that we've built it from one, two, and three, and slowly,
24:03
and saying, look, we make errors. We fail forward.
24:08
Be vulnerable is okay. We're very human, probably too human.
24:13
It's been a negative as much as it's been a positive. But for the people that
24:17
work with us, I think it's a fun, good environment and they're able to make
24:22
a living and support themselves and their family.
24:24
Because you have to deal with the increase of cost of living here.
24:27
I mean, if they're able to stay that long, you're obviously doing a good job
24:30
managing that so that they feel comfortable to stay.
24:33
A lot of service-oriented jobs, their wages come from tips. To your point of
24:37
people recognizing and acknowledging you, that may prompt you to tip generously
24:42
every time. Their efforts, they know that there's a reward based on their efforts.
24:47
I definitely believe that the lifestyle is the key driver in terms of retaining
24:51
people because it can be a tough business.
24:55
You're working at a bar till midnight, 1 a.m., or you're just unpredictable.
25:00
Some nights are busy, some nights are slow.
25:02
We have the kind of business that's a little bit more predictable.
25:05
So I think people really value that. Our customers aren't wasted on alcohol.
25:09
Yes, you get the aggressive pre-caffeine moments, or Mother's Day is the scariest.
25:18
I've been there on Mother's Day. 2020 was by far the worst day of our career,
25:22
but our GMs understand that if leadership,
25:26
is compassionate and has some flexibility that's changing as we get larger.
25:32
For the most part, we've cultivated more of a family than a team.
25:36
There are negatives and positives.
25:38
Dana and I, over the last year or so, have tried to take more of the emotion out of it. More as a team.
25:44
If you're on a team and you're not performing, then if you're part of a family
25:49
and you're not, you don't get done.
25:51
We tolerate made as many leadership mistakes as we have on the positive.
25:56
For the most part, people have been very amazing and loving with us.
26:01
All of that warmth makes us female leaders.
26:03
Balance is actually something we've had to learn and we're still learning it.
26:09
I think that's our biggest.
26:11
We just hired a CEO. Congrats. Thank you.
26:15
That's big. Huge, huge. And I listened to him. He's smart too,
26:20
but I listened to him and learn so much every day.
26:24
This is the job. People thrive in that. Yeah. People are thriving with him.
26:28
Good. So it's not either or.
26:30
I think it's very much like a real understanding of like,
26:34
okay, maybe we're not the best to do X, Y, and Z as the company grows because
26:40
I don't want to maybe run the day-to-day of a company that gets more corporate
26:45
nuanced about it. That's not my strength.
26:48
So now you have eight restaurants. How are you keeping it consistent across all eight?
26:53
Because I go to Westport, get my things. You go to Greenwich, you get your things.
26:56
Now you're going to be in Woodbury getting your things. How are you keeping
27:00
it consistent across the board?
27:01
With our team, just hiring and hiring well.
27:05
And our new CEO that Julie just referenced has brought over a couple of people
27:09
that he worked with in the industry and various brands to have a lot of longstanding knowledge.
27:15
The unit experience. And that's really what we were lacking.
27:17
You can imagine you're running it, you're creating it, and doing all of the
27:21
overseeing of that had to be astronomical.
27:24
We don't have that skill set with her and our small team. Incredible.
27:28
It's hard to process because it just happened.
27:31
I mean, it didn't just happen. We did it, but it's hard to reflect and say we
27:35
were able to do that, but to keep it humming and, to your point,
27:38
to keep it universal and everything's the same.
27:41
If you go to Westport versus Greenwich, dressing tastes the same and the size
27:45
of the egg. And it's not always true. And it's not always true. It's impossible.
27:48
That's something where multi-unit experience comes into play,
27:51
where it was a no-brainer for us to look at each other and go,
27:54
okay, it's time to hand over the CEO reigns.
27:57
Discipline? Yeah, as much discipline and power.
28:00
In fact, I think it took more to hand it over.
28:03
And I think we also have JJ, if people know him, but JJ is our vice president
28:09
of ops and our executive chef.
28:11
And I think without him, it would have been very difficult before we hired Rich, our CEO.
28:16
But yeah, we've had some very integral players supporting us at the store level.
28:21
Well, Dana and I, at this point, can go into a store and not know every employee.
28:26
Honestly, I haven't been to the Upper West Side. And I see on Instagram that
28:29
there's a new employee and I don't know her.
28:31
So we're definitely sitting at a different elevation than we have.
28:37
That's been a big curve for us, but a happy curve for us. It feels good.
28:40
It feels uncomfortable, necessary.
28:44
We never feel good. on that we never feel good. Okay.
28:49
But we feel empowered and excited that other people can do this better.
28:55
I think it's really healthy, especially at this stage of our business and where
28:59
we're going to have an outside perspective.
29:02
Sometimes when you're sitting inside of something, you see the same things and
29:06
it's what you're comfortable with. We're like, Oh, good idea.
29:09
Yeah, it's hard. Wow. I wish I thought of that.
29:14
That's not possible. You know, like we're at a stage now where you make a change.
29:18
It's not getting changed in one place or two places.
29:21
It's eight places. Ideas are...
29:25
It's unappealing. It's the execution, right? I can come up with more to an idea.
29:28
People are like, what about this? What about that? I'm like,
29:30
you don't understand. When we have 150 employees, eight locations,
29:34
you can't just be like, oh, let's throw a special.
29:36
It doesn't work anymore. The things that used to empower us or we used to be
29:41
like, oh my God, do you know what I'm in the mood for today?
29:43
And then we'd throw it on the Westport menu and it would fly and become a new menu item.
29:47
It's very, very difficult to do that now.
29:50
Where's the product coming for? How much does it cost? How do we order that?
29:54
Is that an extra fee? We use that ingredient in something else.
29:56
Things that we didn't think about when we were one unit or two units.
29:59
You have all the flexibility in the world, right?
30:02
You over-ordered strawberries, so you make a special or something like that.
30:05
Banana pancakes are coming out. It's kind of like a unified voice of the brand.
30:10
So you can't just have these one-offs. But yeah, it's a learning curve.
30:14
Do your customers differ from place to place? Like your Westport customers differ
30:18
from your Greenwich customer to your Woodbury customer?
30:20
Oh, yeah. Yeah. But the maturity of the store, it's so interesting.
30:24
We opened up in Woodbury on Long Island, and the customer is seeing us for the first time.
30:29
For them, it's a new brand. It's truly a new market. Because when we opened
30:33
in Greenwich, there were people who knew us from Westport and Stanford and Darianne
30:37
and everybody's kind of running in the same circles.
30:39
Even when we opened on the Upper West Side, a lot of Westchester people.
30:43
But this Long Island, it takes three hours to get there.
30:46
Literally in another country. But it's so awesome because for the first time
30:49
we're seeing our brand. Through the eyes. In its maturity.
30:53
Not our first location, nor is it a reaction to our first location.
30:57
It's a different store and it's working really well. And it's the first opening
31:02
we've ever had where we're not running the open. We're not working the open the same way.
31:06
And the response is actually more encouraging because of that.
31:11
Because it's standing on its own. Absolutely. And it's a decade to do that.
31:15
Is there a dish in Westport that is the most popular thing people buy? There's a few.
31:21
That's the thing about our menu that's very... Because we've worked with consultants
31:23
and they say to us, you know, your menu is too wide. It's too varied.
31:27
And we're like, well, that's the whole point.
31:28
Well, good luck. Do a key mix. And they said, okay, let's do a product mix and
31:31
we'll cut out the bottom.
31:32
And so you have your standouts, like your avocado toast, your parfaits,
31:35
and then everything else is equal.
31:38
The almond chicken salad is as popular as the blackened salmon.
31:41
So you're not using any of those anytime soon.
31:44
It's usually when we go rogue, when someone says, you know, you need pimento cheese.
31:49
So there were years in there where Dane and I definitely got pulled more.
31:54
Dane influenced by outside voice. We're like, we can't possibly know.
31:58
But now there's Westport. Everyone's eating the same stuff, right?
32:01
Our coffee went viral in Woodbury.
32:04
Truly. We have this latte. It's called the French Toast Latte,
32:07
which we have in Westport and all the other locations. And there's a woman who
32:10
came to the Woodbury location. Her name is Latte Laura on TikTok.
32:15
And so she posted this video. And how many forwards were there? It was a thousand.
32:20
Get out. That's what you were talking about on Instagram. Yes.
32:23
The latte you were bringing up.
32:24
The other seven locations, funny enough, have had this drink,
32:27
but they haven't talked about it.
32:30
In Westport, the Turkish latte is very famous. But I don't see friends of ours
32:35
going on TikTok being like, girly, you got to go get it. There's a youth in
32:39
Woodbury that we're a little obsessed with, and it happened for us.
32:43
The youth really picked us up in Westport, but TikTok wasn't a thing.
32:47
It was Instagram, so it moved a little slower.
32:50
Whereas Woodbury is actually suffering from PTSD, if you say French toast latte,
32:56
or carpal tunnel with the barista.
32:58
This past Sunday, we sold 211 lattes from 8 to 4.
33:02
People are waiting 45 minutes for lattes. They weren't bad, and they said, worth the wait.
33:09
Yeah. It's a product we've had for a long time. And if we hire someone and they're
33:14
like, we really need to make something that goes viral.
33:16
If you don't let your customer tell you what that is, it becomes a forced marketing
33:22
thing. People don't respond.
33:24
So it's really been lovely in Woodbury how joyous people have been around the
33:29
brand and around what we're doing.
33:31
Very appreciative. We're probably the first restaurant in the area like us.
33:36
Is it near Woodbury Commons? Well, you're thinking about the outlets up in Harriman,
33:40
New York. It's a different spot, but it's also called. It's called Woodbury Commons.
33:44
It's a landmark. It's a shopping center that was very big in my youth.
33:47
I cried a lot there. I was trying on clothes like Benetton was down the block
33:51
and lived at Woodbury Commons.
33:53
Now it's changed a lot, but still a destination.
33:57
And Long Island behaves very differently. We're on the coast,
34:00
so radius where you can't come from.
34:03
We have water. Once you're on Long Island, people will drive 25 minutes for brekkie.
34:08
I don't even know what your question was, but we're happy with Woodbury.
34:10
I'm so – no, that's – actually, that's – okay, so balance between family and
34:15
whatever. There is none.
34:16
So how do you, the two of you, Dana and Julia's friends, balance,
34:22
being business partners, and also your friendship?
34:25
The best friends we have, the friend times. Julie came by with her daughter
34:29
on Sunday to my house, and her daughter helped me with something on my laptop.
34:32
Just sitting around the kitchen table, shooting the shit. We went away for my 50th birthday.
34:36
That was fun. When we do things outside of work, I'd say we feel better as friends.
34:43
If you had to define it, we feel better because the stress of where we are personally,
34:48
I don't want to get emotional.
34:50
What we're doing is so impossibly hard. And I think what a lot of women do is
34:54
so impossibly hard. We are very sensitive to be like, what we do is hard.
34:57
Having each other, sometimes it's impossible for me because I'm a reactor,
35:03
right? Dana's not. She's a processor.
35:05
And so I'm always like, oh my God, oh my God. It's been very difficult.
35:09
And I much prefer Dana as my bestie.
35:12
I much prefer never talking about work and talking about going to Ulta or being
35:17
unhappy with our under eye concealer.
35:20
Or sending a link for something. It's a terrible sweater, but it's adorable.
35:24
It's a three pack. It's always a three pack with you.
35:27
We've talked so much. Our desks face each other and they have for 10 years.
35:31
I was just going to say, when we come in, we have coffee.
35:34
It's like when you meet your friend out for a cup of coffee.
35:37
Some mornings we have to get right down to business. I'm crying.
35:40
We have to chat and how are the kids and what happened last night?
35:43
How was your night? What did you do?
35:45
That kind of stuff. We don't really chat or text too much after hours.
35:49
But if we go a few days without connecting, it feels for both of us.
35:54
It feels bad. But that's the friendship.
35:57
Yeah. That's not the business. I think both of us could go a while if we had to.
36:03
Without talking about business. Oh, that would be the dream.
36:07
That's not the reality. When you're so tight with someone and you've got a bond.
36:11
I also impressed upon the point that,
36:13
I think, and I'll speak for myself, but when my kids were younger and when we
36:17
first started the business, I had a lot of different friendships over the years
36:20
with the stress of our job and the demands.
36:24
It has made it hard to maintain those types of friendships.
36:29
Quite honestly, if I go out, I don't necessarily want to talk about work because it's so stressful.
36:34
They don't understand. They don't run a business. I don't want to burden them.
36:37
I don't think that they would understand the depth of what is going on.
36:42
It's hard for me to explain it to my husband.
36:44
You know, it's just, there's a lot. That's where it gets emotional because we
36:48
are on an island together alone.
36:51
When you started about friends, I was like, I have none. I literally find it
36:55
very difficult to maintain a normal
36:58
conversation with someone about their stresses that I would wish for.
37:02
Even when you said, and I'm not resentful, only a little, but you're like,
37:05
I can edit from up, you know, Vermont, go to Vermont.
37:09
We asked for this. We are continuing to ask for this. This is not a woe is me.
37:14
It's just that our worlds have gotten smaller. Generations, like our grandparents
37:18
are no longer, the world is just smaller and smaller.
37:21
Our kids are leaving. We're becoming empty nesters over the next few years.
37:25
So we're leaning on each other in different ways.
37:28
It's very difficult to go out to dinner and just let go.
37:32
And I think part of that is because I'm stone cold sober most of the time.
37:36
Truth be told but even just going out at night and getting up again and being
37:41
present for the whole day doing my dyson air app yes yes like beautiful thank
37:46
you but it's for the radio i have a face for radio.
37:53
I so respect your thought process about wanting to do this and why you want
37:58
to do this. Right. You're not looking for fame.
38:01
You're looking to actually have conversations.
38:03
I love it. But I get that. I can't relate to the stresses that you guys have, obviously.
38:08
But I have found as I get older, my circle gets smaller.
38:13
And I think that has to do with life.
38:16
And the people you put in it as you get older are quality people.
38:21
And you spend time with those people because that's the time you have, limited time.
38:26
I don't care what you do. If you're a stay-at-home mom, if you're running eight
38:29
restaurants, if you're running a corporation, who you spend time with,
38:33
there's a limited amount of time for that.
38:34
So you're choosing those people for a reason, and they're choosing you for a
38:38
reason. I understand that.
38:40
Our group, I'm good. I got my wives.
38:44
We all joke we're just going to live together at some point.
38:46
Husbands be damned. God love them. But we'll be fine on an island by ourselves one day. with dogs.
38:53
That's all we need. I respect that. It's enough to be present for our kids as
39:00
they get older and need more.
39:02
Yes. Why do you guys get baby nurses?
39:05
Because I need one now. There are 15 and 17. Wait, let's talk about that for
39:09
a second because my kids are younger than yours. I have 10 and 12.
39:12
And I have found that as they got older, they needed me more.
39:17
So like my 12-year-old, sorry, Easton, love you.
39:20
But when he was in sixth grade, I did not like him.
39:24
He did not want to be around me. I didn't know boys had these emotions that
39:28
they could go through. I grew up with a sister and we had our own set.
39:32
I didn't want to be away from him when he needed me because now he's going through
39:36
different phases of life. He's getting older.
39:38
He needs me more emotionally and in different ways. It's less physical.
39:42
We didn't have more accessibility to us than we did to our parents,
39:46
right? There's the phone and the text.
39:48
I didn't have cell phone. Didn't have anything. I didn't talk to my parents
39:51
until I saw them at dinnertime.
39:52
So just think about the access. You knew she should probably head home. Yeah.
39:56
It's 10 o'clock. Do you imagine? 10 o'clock. That's exactly where my kids are.
40:01
I know where they are every minute of my day.
40:03
I even know when my stepson has a hard stop on his car on Life 360.
40:10
Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, you mean seven hard stops today?
40:12
It's like, okay, that's getting a little much. Wait till your kids start driving.
40:16
This is too much for me. My younger son was a couple weekends ago.
40:19
This is going to the mall with some kid Noah.
40:22
I'll cut it. He's up in Hartford. He's going to the mall and I see 90 miles an hour on the Life 360.
40:28
So I call him. I go, where are you? who are you with he's
40:31
like oh i'm with noah and i said where are you he said we're going to
40:34
the mall i'm like 90 miles an hour is too fast
40:37
i'm like if noah's gonna drive like that you're gonna take an uber to
40:40
the mall information no i have that information and i have to do something with
40:45
that information you have to do something with it you didn't tell me i said
40:47
to my steps on the other simmer down the hard stopping he's like creepy that's
40:51
totally creepy i guess the thought is more like they need us they do they need
40:56
us more and i think the world is harder for them too anymore.
41:00
Everyone notices it's put on social media.
41:02
When we get home, going back to like the Friday and where you prioritize that,
41:07
like it's a pretty low priority for me. I'm sorry to the people that love me and care about me.
41:11
There's very few, but the point is small and mighty is way more important because
41:15
when I get home, I really want to be there for my husband, my children.
41:22
Because I'll look at the week and know we're out of there for a few nights or
41:26
not around, or they just need...
41:29
I don't want to look back in an empty house and go, you know what, that was stupid.
41:32
I shouldn't have. Did I really need to go? And that's where the balance becomes
41:37
a bit more of a punch to the chest.
41:40
They value the people that don't require the constant.
41:45
I have maintained relationships with people that I might not speak to for 10
41:49
days, two weeks, once a month.
41:51
We pick up right where we left off, check in, hey, haven't heard from you,
41:54
just making sure everything's okay. Those are the relationships that I have
41:57
been able to happily maintain, but there's not as much face time.
42:01
I think as we get older, that's okay. That's how it should be.
42:04
Yeah. You're all doing your thing. You're proud of your friends for doing their
42:06
thing. The check-in is important.
42:08
But as we get older and we're more secure in who we are and what we're doing,
42:13
it's okay to not get that validation from someone else anymore.
42:17
Yes, that's what it is. I was a new mom. I wanted validation from everyone.
42:20
Yeah. I also am a people pleaser and need everyone to like me.
42:24
That is just my personality.
42:25
And as of, I don't know, the last couple of years, I'm like, I'm good.
42:29
You don't have to like me. I'm not going to be unkind. I'm always going to be
42:32
nice to everyone. But we're good.
42:34
It's okay. I'm okay with myself now. It took a long time to get there and build
42:39
that. As you get older, I think we just end up doing that.
42:41
Well, I keep repeating it. I'll be 50 in March.
42:44
And I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's never been me.
42:48
When I complain about somebody or don't feel their validation,
42:50
it's never been about me. My point is, when it's that frivolous person that
42:55
you don't necessarily, and I'm like, why do they do it?
42:58
It's not about you, right? It's that part. Same with me.
43:02
Like, someone will, you know, I have a hilarious story with a woman in town
43:06
who thought I was the coldest, meanest girlie on the Long Lots pickup line.
43:12
She jokes with me. She walked up to me at the Long Lots pickup one day because
43:16
I was grouchy. And she's like, why are you such a bitch?
43:19
I was like, oh, my God. She's a regular. But she's also someone I actually like now.
43:25
She saw in me my resting phase, the place where I was.
43:31
Elementary school years were not fun for me.
43:34
And that was who I really was. And it took her to be like, why are you such a bitch?
43:39
And I was like, okay, that is me, right? That is me putting out to the world.
43:43
Don't talk to me. That's your exterior.
43:44
And now to this day, she calls me out. It's been a decade, but she won't let
43:48
it go. But yeah, I get that I can put that out because I'm not available.
43:53
Yeah. I don't want you to think I am. Instead of being fake and having funny
43:56
conversations with people. I don't know. It's kind of done having those.
43:59
Right. So this has been so much fun. I have so many more questions.
44:02
I always ask the same three questions at the end of the podcast to my guests.
44:08
So you can both answer them or you can pick and choose whatever you want to
44:10
do. Okay. So the first one is, what have you changed your mind about recently?
44:15
I needed a heads up on that. Oh, recently. Okay. Go.
44:18
I've changed my mind about what self-care means. You go deeper?
44:22
Self-care to me means being authentic with myself, being honest with myself.
44:29
Not about yoga or nails. That is not self-care for me, but self-care for me
44:35
is being honest with where I am.
44:38
I love that. Okay. Dana, mine's nails.
44:43
I've changed my nails a lot. I started getting my nails done,
44:46
which is funny. Although they're chipping.
44:48
I was just going to say the valuation about our career and what is needed.
44:54
We had this conversation with Julie's daughter on Sunday, Not about being successful, unsuccessful.
45:01
We've poured our heart and soul into this for the last 12 years.
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And everyone's like, one day you're going to sell for X amount of dollars and
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you have all this money. I don't really want that. I want peace.
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That's what I've changed my mind about. There was a goal and the number.
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And I would joke with Julie all the time, like, at this point,
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there is no number, right?
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Every chip is in the table, both emotionally, physically. every aspect of my life.
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I am my business. The granoli girls, that's who we are.
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So it doesn't have to do with a number. It has to do with peace for me personally.
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It's so good. Abundance flows from this special space. I love it.
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What is the most unexpected item on your bucket list?
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Taking an RV around the country with my husband. I love that.
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Okay. I don't know if that goes with my Ghani. But you can wear the Ghani while you're going.
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I walk the Celine and the Ghani. Why not? I love a stod.
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I've always dreamt about going on an RV and traveling around.
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I wanted to go to all the baseball stadiums in the nation at one point.
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Nope. You enjoy. I grew up watching baseball with my dad and I was a huge Oakland A's fan.
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May they rest in peace because they are no longer in Oakland.
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I was like, this would be the greatest thing to travel around.
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And now I think our whole family would kill each other.
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I think that's unexpected when people meet me that I'm I'd probably be more comfortable in an RV.
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Maybe. What an adventure. Yeah. What about you? I don't have something specific.
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I'd like to travel with my family.
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There's not a specific place. Yeah. When we're all still available before their
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lives take off, that would be on my bucket list.
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And then the last one, what is one piece of advice that you would give your younger self?
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For me, I would tell my younger self, well, of course, you felt this way because
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of your raising, right? But you've always been beautiful.
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And it was okay to look how you looked through the whole process. It made you who you are.
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I'll throw on Instagram a picture of myself at my peak of what was awkward.
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It spoke to the rest of my life.
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Instead of being a moment in time, even though my mother always said to me,
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you don't want to peak at 14, I didn't ever hold my body dear and own it.
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I would probably want to take that back for my younger self.
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Absolutely. You know, kind of, okay.
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Love that. I'm just getting there now where I'm like, okay, she's good.
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Thank you. My girls come out now and they're like, body tea. It is what it is.
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I am who I am for a reason. It's all there for a reason. Yeah.
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And all of that stuff. You know what I'm saying?
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Yeah, absolutely. I don't want to get it for a reason. It's all there for a
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reason. And you've got to embrace it. Yeah. That's mine. That's so good. I love that. Okay.
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Mine's probably a little bit more cliche, reflecting on the last 20 years of
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my life. Since becoming a parent, I don't think I really enjoyed when my kids
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were younger as much as I should have.
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I have a lot of memories, but I wonder if I wasn't present or I'm always reflective of that.
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I wish that I was a little bit more in tune and can remember all the different
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stages a little clearer.
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Right. And we meet young moms where we're like those 50-year-old women who are
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like, hold on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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You're like, oh, it goes so bad. You want to rush through it.
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I think a lot of people are guilty of that, but I just wish that I could have a do-over.
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Yeah, I fully relate to that. There are years when I'm like,
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I don't remember any of that. It's like a blackout. Thank God for the phone camera.
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I can go back and be like, oh, I remember how fun that was. But no,
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I had a year where I don't have pictures. It hurts my chest.
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But like what was going on was like, maybe I got a new phone.
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A friend who said she wishes she could go back and spend a day for each year with her kids.
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And remember when they were five, six, seven, she kind of planted that in my
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head. And I was like, oh, yeah, that would be awesome.
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Because you remember middle school or elementary school, but not really the day to day.
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I wish I could really taste that a little bit. The days are long.
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The years are short. And it's very true. I felt that. I did.
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Now I don't because they're a little older. Right. So I get that.
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God, I feel that. This was the best. Oh, thank you. I wish we had more hours
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and equipment that didn't fit.
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This is perfect. This is the reality of podcasting. Oh, God,
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thank you. Thank you. This was awesome. You were great. This was awesome.