Lizzie & Morgan Moss - STV: 30

Marc welcomes Lizzie and Morgan Moss of The Myrtles for a conversation about hospitality, history, and building memorable experiences in St. Francisville. They share the story behind The Myrtles, Restaurant 1796, Big River Pizza, Proud Mary’s, and their passion for creating places that bring people together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Greetings to y'all. This is Mark Charbonnet on Steve the Bill, our podcast here in St. Francisville. Hello, everyone. We're very fortunate today to have a fantastic couple that just frightened the whole town of St. Francisville. Beautiful Lizzie and Mr. Morgan Moss. Hi y'all, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Hey y'all.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Happy to be here. I'm so happy you are. You are the proprietor of one of the most audit houses in the world. The Myrtle. And of course, it's internationally recognized. I can't tell you that when I say St. Francisville, people say all the Myrtle. And I myself came to St. Francisville on my 50th birthday to spend the night in the audit house. So everybody does that, I think. We weren't crazy, like you said, some of you guys can be. But you've taken over, Morgan, because it was actually a family thing that your parents did. And then they've moved to North Carolina. And you married Lizzie, and you all have been running the uh the hotel and the um not the hotel, but the inn. Yep. And you've expanded to 1796, which is the year the Merles was built, and that is your fabulous restaurant, which is so interesting. And it's a hearth to table. Yeah. And they have an enormous what would you call that? That's a open fire pad. Yeah. Yeah. And the food is amazing. And um you all were very nice. You when I didn't want to house my Hunt Sloan paintings any longer, you let me hang a bunch of them. Oh please. It was the that was the And then you bought some, so that was an extra bit of a period. Um and then you all married in 2019. And you all have really expanded. You have the Alta coffee shop, you have the tours, you have the why'd you look like that?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Now I could just see I could see them looking at me.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

They're good.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

They're delicious.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So um And now you have a whole new project, which is uh the Blue House Hospitality. So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Well Blue House Hospitality is really just kind of the management group that's overseeing the the hospitality that are our hospitality businesses, right? Where um it's a small team. Basically, it's kind of the parent company, if you will, and it's just funded by a percentage of sales from all of the all of the brands, and then it it hosts um any of the employees that work in multiple of the businesses, right? So like Lizzie and I work in all of them, not concentrated efforts to just one or the other. Um same with our like our office manager Melissa and any other employees who work um who work on all of the businesses is considered a a blue house employee. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

And the uh fabulous is uh Italian-style pizza parlor, which is fantastic. Uh Big River Pizza is fabulous. And then my favorite is of course uh walking through the w armoi into your fabulous cocktail land, which I just love.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Yeah, that's a lot of people's favorite part of uh of what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

You really feel like you're walking into someplace completely different. Yeah. And it's it is truly a uh a takeaway. You're somewhere else when you're in there.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

It's a well that's really what we were going for is because we we knew the building was deceivingly large when we got the opportunity to buy that from the Charlets. You know the Charlets had bought up that whole kind of area downtown and um and they were interested in doing a hospitality project or bringing a hospitality partner in to do a project, and so um we had approached them with the idea of buying that building, and and they were gracious enough to entertain us on that.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

And well, you actually built the building, you bought the the the the subfloor, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Yeah, but we didn't change so the the it was previously the council on the agent building, and it had been abandoned for shoot probably five or six years by the time we had gotten to it, and um it we ended up having to peel that onion back a little bit deeper than we thought we were going to. We um we thought we were gonna which we truly thought that like the roof wasn't gonna be coming down, the walls weren't coming down, that was gonna be an extensive renovation, but we were gonna be able to leave the frame. Um, and when we started getting into it, like it it unfortunately it was just a little bit further gone than we thought it was, and um it we got to the point where uh economically it made more sense to take it all the way down and just start from scratch as opposed to trying to splinter in um it you know all the of the work that it needed. But one of the interesting pieces of it is the the building, like I was saying, is deceivingly large and and it's it was a hundred foot long, the front of it's only 30 feet wide, 35 feet wide, but it kind of continues to step out as it gets as it goes back. Well, like the ice cream parlor steps out 12 feet, the porch steps out 14 feet, and the width of those continues on down the building. Um, and so it's just it was more uh all to be said, it was a lot more square foot than we needed for our little pizza spot. Like we knew that our our volume would be small, we focus on Neapolitan pizza. We really wanted it to feel like a fast, casual neighborhood spot, you know, that was like really good quality food, but in a um more of a quick serve, really casual environment, the kind of place that a local could go without having to have thought about making a reservation, or it's just it's it's 5.30 and we're hungry, and at 540 we can be at Big River and they'll be happy to see us.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

I know I love your sign on the highway. Call now, it'll be ready when you get here.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

Yeah, that's one of Lindsay's uh marketing ideas, and it's been effective. Yeah. Um, so all to be said, we had more square footage than we need for just like our little pizza dining room. The building was so long, and um, so we actually shortened the building by 10 feet, but that's really what that gave us the canvas to birth the idea of doing Proud Mary's back there. It's like, well, how fun would it be to have a kitchen in the middle of the space and run this um Neapolitan pizza shop out of the front and then have a cocktail bar in the back that would just um surprise a local or visitor.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

And whose idea was the armoire?

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Um that was really a stolen idea from one of our favorite hotel years, Robert Leblanc, who's out of New Orleans. He he um I didn't know that. Yeah, he owns uh LeBlanc Smith and does a lot of cool projects. Well, one of which is the Chloe, just a small hotel on St. Charles' St.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Charles.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

And and um and in their one of the suites, they have an armoire situation where like it in the hotel, in in the hotel room, in the guest room, they have a suite that that armoir is the entrance concept into the bathroom. And so Lizzie and I were staying there and and um you thought it was just an armoir to hang yeah, hang clothes, and you open it up and it's the the bathroom suite. And so um we just always thought that that was neat. And um, you know, I think if we lived in a bigger city, we would probably have challenges with like local municipality or permitting or um the people responsible for for um mandating public safety would probably be a little bit more critical as that being a doorway into a space like that. But fortunately, living in St. Francisville.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Is that front of the coral?

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Um no, that piece was actually we Lizzie and I found that piece in New Orleans. It's beautiful, really about a year and a half before we built Big River. Like we had seen, we you know, we had stayed at the Chloe and saw what Robert had done with the entrance into that bathroom, and we just thought that was so fascinating. And um, and we would like to utilize that idea at some point. We didn't know when. And then we were um we were shopping antiques in New Orleans one day, and we saw it, and the hinges on it were perfect because instead of having like individual hinges, it's one continuous hinge from the top to the bottom, which structurally is good because when you cut the middle out of that armoire, it loses all of its strength there in the middle and stuff. Um, so we bought that armoire and put it in storage for a year and a half, two years, and then ended up using it for the entrance into Proud Mary's.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

So, how did you come up with the names of of Big River Pizza and Proud Mary's Cocktails Land?

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Probably about a half a bottle of wine, Mark. I don't I don't recall to be honest with you. Well, so um And I love pizza.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Who did that? That was so great. On the wall of the graffiti.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Well, um so so both funny stories. I think the I think we arrived at Big River just because we we were having a little wine and just reminiscing on being like a river, a river community and what the river means to St. Francisville. And then when we decided to do the Speakeasy off the back, Proud Mary's just felt so on brand with Big River and the theme of what we were trying to create. Um what was the um what was the second question?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

I love you so much.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Oh yeah. So um, as the mosses often do trying to save a buck, we were we were um we were doing a lot of the we were doing part, Stuart McGuinness was our contractor, and that was a lovely experience, but there were parts of the job that we were owner performing and doing ourselves to to um to save money. And so one of those was interior painting. I think it was a Sunday, and Lizzie and I were in there working, we was kind of like tired and exhausted, and um I think she had walked over to the Mag and got lunch for us, and we were just um sitting in there just kind of giggling about um painting, and there was a can of red spray paint that was in there because it had been used to um to mark the floors of like laying out where the booths were gonna go. And um she had picked it up and and just done it playfully on a spare piece of sheetrock that was left in the like in the dining room, and um and inspired by the one on the on in Austin, Texas, on North Congress on Joe's Coffee. Liz Lambert has a really cool designer, had had spray painted that on the side of Joe's Coffee. And so like that's the where the original thought had come from. But anyways, Lizzie spray painted it on the side of this loose piece of um sheetrock that was floating around the dining room at Big River, and was like, that's so cool, you all do it to the do it on the wall. And she's like, no, we can't do that on the wall.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Well, I think well, we had we had just spent all probably the last two or three days painting. We did lime wash paint, which is you know, you have to do by hand, and um, it's it's all about the technique. And um, and it was we had finished painting the whole room, and it was then that he was like, Let's try it. And I was like, uh, what if we mess it up and then we're back to painting, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Um who did the actual spray painting? Lizzie. How did you get that high? Were you on a ladder?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Scaffolding or something, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Rolling scaffolding.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

It's so original and great looking in there. And I love that it's on the t-shirt.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, yeah. It's uh it's a lot of fun. A little a little wine helped the spray paint. Yeah, a little wine help anything.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

So what is y'all's favorite pizza?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Um I go custom. My favorite pizza is the five cheese pizza, but add um pepperoni and basil. And um I actually remove one of the cheeses, um, the ricotta from it. But that's that's probably my favorite, and then fungi. I love fungi is is my favorite. That mushroom and shallot mixture is just and serrano's are just so good.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

If I'm in the mood for meat, I like the uh chicken, bacon, ranch.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, yeah, really good.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

But there's some they're unique the pizzas, which is really nice. I like that very much. And everything's good. I mean, it's not just wings, they have a they're very specific. And the kale salad is wonderful, um the arancini's really good. I mean, everything's really good. And I love how delighted people are when they first go because the armoire just throws them off.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah, that doesn't get old. Um watching people take videos of each other going through the walls, or they know about it and their friends don't. They get to, you know, that's that doesn't get old. That's fun.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

So um tell us about your other project. I mean, tell us about the coffee shop and why it's named what it is. I think that's a lovely story.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Yeah, Elta, um, named after a um a a woman who had a big uh uh big part of uh in my life growing up. Um my my parents had me when they were older, and so my my grandparents um passed away at a really early age, and one of my mom's best friends in the world was this lady Elta Shermi, who was 20, 25 years, my mom's senior. Uh, and she just kind of took over that grandmother role for me, and she would spend a lot of time in St. Francisville with us and running around the myrtles with us, and um and yeah, so that's a bit of an ode to her to that's a nice way to honor her. Yeah. Um yeah, so and Elta and the thought of Elta really was just wanting to um what we really enjoy is um have a guest. What um what we what Lizzie and I really try to do at the Myrtles is create space for um for locals to engage or interact on the property or for um or for people to come onto the property for reasons that are outside of just the the haunted house or to have a meal at 1796 or to be an overnight guest. And so, yeah, creating ELTA was an opportunity for us to be able to, you know, do coffees and small handheld items and um provide people with a place to be able to work and hang out and just enjoy the property and I'll just um in more open and inviting capacity and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

How many employees do you have under this umbrella?

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Um we it I mean the seasonality really, really varies it. Um, you know, because in like spring and and fall we have to really bring on a lot of staff and um in the slower times of the year, we don't let anyone go, but like just schedules will get get tightened up or um you know we have a lot of younger staff members that are kind of seasonal with their school schedules or whatever else they have going on in in their lives. But I guess to answer your question, uh we live at a with our roster anywhere from like 120 to 130. Um and I would say that the hours worked make up the equivalent of what would be about the uh forty to forty-five full-time employees. So um a lot of part-timers, a lot of seasonal um seasonal uh workers and um yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

It's a lot of I love it this it's not new because time flies so fast, but um the way you did 1796 when you put that wall up and there's a lounge area and it really improved the space so much.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

Yeah, agreed. You know, when um hindsight's 2020, but when we were building 1796, we'd spent zero days working in in the food and beverage world. And so it was really the design of it was really more coming from a place of like what we thought looked cool and. Oh, it looks beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

It's just there's something about the way it works.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah, I know, yeah. No, I'm totally with you.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

And I think it makes cocktails nicer.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

Well, it makes that whole space more inviting. But like, I guess where I was headed with that original comment is like we got it all built and it looked beautiful to walk through, but then when we started operating it as a restaurant, I um man, I used to stand in the kitchen and look at the back of those guests that were sat at the bar and um and just like, well, that just doesn't feel inviting, or like it's just that's not what we wanted it to be. And so um, yeah, just time spent in in the seat, time spent in the food and beverage business and better understanding what guests want and how to improve guest comfort led to a small renovation during uh uh one of our closures and one of our breaks, and we put that wall up and added some more lounge style seating over there, and and now it's really people a a place that people go and enjoy a cocktail, or some people have a full meal over there, but it's just it's another space to congregate that you don't feel like you're sat at a table. It can be a little bit more lax.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah, some people had asked me when they heard I was doing an interview with both of you if you would tell us what those subdivision signs for.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Oh yeah, sure. Um it's it's it's really just a housekeeping effort. So my mom and dad recently um recently sold their home, their their our legacy property, if you will, here in St. Francisville. And we're gonna be building uh um a cottage on the Myrtles property for them that will be their St. Francisville residents. They split their time between here and North Carolina, a lot more North Carolina than here. Um, but they still would like to have a place here. And so we're gonna do that on the Myrtles property, and the property needed to be subdivided to be able to carve that off to achieve it. Um, and while we're doing, we're kind of doing it big because we've had some housekeeping issues over the years. Um, for example, like the property down in the bottom where where our garden is and the goats and all is zoned residential. We'd like to get that moved to commercial. Our our um the acreage where like the cottages around the pond, as well as our maintenance barn and laundry facility all zoned residential, not currently zoned commercial. Um, and the reason it I guess all this kind of got got put in just over the years since my parents had bought the Myrtles in '92, it had never really gotten cleaned up. Um and it had just gotten to the point where there needed to be an updated survey to be able to get it um to get it cleaned up. And so just for the first time in 20 years, we've had an excuse to get all that survey work done. And so yeah, um, no formal subdivision in the sense of like housing company.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Nobody's ever uh done anything without everybody getting it they they're like dogs at ears, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Well, I so um and so I have a town meeting on it tomorrow, Wednesday night, on the um the rezoning request of it, but before I could get the rezoning done, I had to get the subdivision part of it done. And people were um, you know, there were a couple key keyboard warriors that showed up on Facebook during that phase of it. I was expecting it to look be a little bit more spicy at that last town meeting with some opposition, but it there there wasn't any. I think everybody in the room there um was was driven by logic and and uh and reason, but that's not always the case on Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah. Has have you all finished your home?

SPEAKER_00 19:16

No, we um we are working hard at that. Um the thing that the view or the listener cannot see right now is Morgan's covered in paint.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

My hands are purple from plumbing. I got paint in my ears.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

So we are we are heavy into um owner performed work part of the house. Um, you know, we're we're painting it ourselves or doing our own tile work just to save save some money.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Um how'd you where do I learn to do that?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Say it again.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

The tile work. Where'd you learn to do that? Um well doesn't mean that I'm good at it, but but but I'm not tiling anybody else's house.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

But yeah, no one no one's calling me to uh to pay me for my tile work, but they say I'm good enough to do free work.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Um, like when we were doing the renovations um at one of the uh accommodations at the Myrtles, you know, we've got a little two-bedroom, two-bath house, the Coco House. And um, we did a pretty big renovation to that um about five years ago and did all new bathrooms and did all the tile work there. Um, just again to to be conscious of of money and um and it worked out well, you know, it's it's really not that bad. Um, and it's rewarding, especially when it's your space.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

No, I agree. I think that's wonderful. I think if you're a couple that works together, stays together. I think that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Kind of learned how to do it um because I started managing the myrtles and you'd have these different little renovation projects, you know, you're redoing a bathroom here or adding a room one there, or changing things around the property, which just always call for like a little bit of electrical and plumbing and a little sheetrock work and some painting or some tile and and um you know, I'd pay these people to come and do the and and do the work, and then I'm so like curious and interested in what they're doing. I end up just like working alongside them and wanting to be so involved, and then it just got to the point it's like, well, just a bathroom, I could probably do that myself or you know, small enough projects that I felt comfortable to just like take it on and and see if I could figure it out. And so um a decade later, I'm just not graded any of those, but feel comfortable enough to do them on the website.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Let me ask you this you Morgan, you grew up in this business because you were how old when the Myrtles was purchased?

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Um less than a year.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah, so you've you it's your life. So this is now new for you. Well, it's not new now, but when you met Morgan, yes, did you know um had you any idea what you would be getting us into with this whole thing?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Or no. I had never really I worked briefly in a restaurant when I was, you know, a 16 year old. Um, but I never worked in hospitality. Um and uh I would say that there was somewhat of a culture shock, not only moving to the country, a small town, um, and but moving to a rural workforce in hospitality was even more which has an international reputation for being the most haunted house in America. I love to throw that that's the cherry on top. Um, and so uh yes, I did not necessarily know what I was getting myself into when we were dating and we were talking about, you know, what it would be for for us to, you know, get married and work together and need to move out here. He was talking about you'll do marketing for us, which is what I was doing in New Orleans where I lived. Um, and then quickly, I think day two moving out here, I became the general manager for the hotel, the attraction, and I had no idea what I was doing. But in hindsight, I mean, I'm so glad. Like I've done every job on that property from housekeeping to office manager to um reservations tour. The only thing I told them I would not do is give a tour. Um, and this is at the time when girls were still wearing those um hoop skirts. I said that's where I stop. But I'm I'm thankful I've done every job on that property and I I I know it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Inside now.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Inside now. So, and that's the only way you really can can know how to operate a business.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

So can you share with with our listeners what's the latest paranormal thing you've heard about or seen?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Huh. Um, we're probably the worst people to ask this question to because we're just kind of numb to it.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

We don't keep our ear to the ground on what the day-to-day guest is saying. Um which I'm I know that there's plenty going on.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Yeah, we we care about the overall quality of their experience. We're monitoring that. But in regards to like paranormal um you know, reported activity, there's you just you see you see so much of it, and 80% of it is in the mind of the guests who like they're probably not having any sort of real experience. They're just it's um, you know, it's alcohol induced, or or they're just they're excited to be there. But we see so much of it that we really don't monitor, um, we really don't monitor it.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I'll tell you something. When I I spent my as I told you, my 50th birthday night there. And we came, uh I was with two friends from New York, and they were in uh a room, and I was in a room, which they joined. I think is that the doll room?

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Well, there's a couple of adjoining rooms. So the Woodruff suite uh butts and like has an adjoining door to um to the Fanny Williams room, which is the doll room, and then um the William Winters room and the John Leake room have an adjoining door as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

If you go upstairs and it's on the left.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Yeah, that's gonna be the um the William Winters room and the Ruff and Starling room.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

So we went um downstairs. This is a true story. We went downstairs. Just and they were all of the guests were like walking around. It was kind of strange. Because it was late. And uh they all had pictures. This is so long ago, this is 20 years ago. They didn't have smartphones yet, but people had camcorders. And I was that one man was showing what is the room on the first floor?

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Red for the sweet.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

He was staying in there. And when we looked at his camera, I can't explain it any other than to say it looked like laser lights were coming out of the chandelier. And it was and I said, you know, it's obviously something because I don't think they would spend the money it would take to create this crazy look.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

I mean, it looked truly like laser like lay have you ever heard of that?

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Yeah, you see a you see a whole you see a lot of yeah, you see a lot of stuff like that. I would say um, yeah, when when I was younger too, like there was probably more things happening. Like I it's interesting that you brought this up and like how the technology's changed over time because I've never really thought about it from that perspective. But I think now I'm just part of why I'm so much more numb to it is because the technology now allows people to drop things into those photos just a little bit too easily that just it's makes it easy to sign off on it. It's like, oh, this has been photoshopped or manipulated. But yeah, you're right. Like when I was a kid, um, General Public didn't have access to that kind of technology, and you would see people with Polaroids or like immediate um, you know, be immediate able to see their photo immediately that they've just captured, and you would see all sort of orbs or um crazy things in those photos, and like those were a little bit harder to discredit as like.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, this was the days of cameras. You didn't have the camera on your phone because you didn't have that. And I'll tell you, we took photographs. We weren't photographing anything, just the house. And when the when the when the camp when the pictures came back at the drugstore or wherever, these crazy orbs were all over them.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

You could take the same picture, like if you were standing in the same place and you took the same picture twice, it was the same image, but the orbs were all over in different places, and that was very strange. You somebody looked at those pictures for me in New York. Yeah. So that that is this is what she said, that's associated with Native American spiritualism. And I thought that was really interesting. But I that was on all of the pictures. It was like it almost looked like soap bubbles, like big soap bubbles.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Yeah, no, I'm it know exactly what you're talking about. It brings up a um childhood pastime because there used to be so many of those photos floating around, but like uh's technology has gone a different direction.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Um now with social media, I can't imagine how the word has spread about and they've done television programs, and your mom actually told me um she makes when she was doing it, she made a a rule that she couldn't bring a Ouija board in the house because she didn't want to bring anything else in there that wasn't already in there.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Yeah. Yeah, that that rule's still enforced. Yeah, we try to um we try to minimize that. We try to respect that it like that there's a paranormal or interesting piece to the house, but it's it's not necessarily what we try to lead with. And at times, you know, it brings in a clientele that we're not always interested in having, you know, it's a little bit um rough and rowdy and uh a little bit obnoxious and just like just there to ghost hunt and and we much prefer a guest who's there to um have a peaceful, relaxing experience and as opposed to as their draw.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah, and as St. Franceville grows, I mean, I would say majority of our guests are not necessarily there for the haunted element like it was you know 10 years ago or however long. Now they're just here to be in St. Franceville to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

And the wonderful uh festival you had this year's was so great. Yeah, it was fun. Oh, it was a beautiful day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah, we're really excited about that. Yeah, and the fun festival.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

The the music and the the different booths, and I mean, and the way ever everybody was just it was like a big it was one big smile. It was a wonderful experience.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Yeah, no, we appreciate that. We put that on with our some dear friends of ours and um James and Ashley, Fox Smith, other locals, and um and it was packed.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

I mean, they had so many people, it was remarkable.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Yes, uh and this year's looking to to top last year. So we're this year we're releasing a few um a few more tickets. I think last year was um 1,900 people, this year will be 2,000 people. I think we have an additional five or six chefs um that we're signing on, so we'll be close to 40 chefs this year, or last year was like a low 30s.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

When is the date of that?

SPEAKER_03 30:23

Um it is the weekend of November 13th, 14th, and 15th.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

So, listeners, it is not too early to start lining up your tickets because it gets sold out and that's it.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Yeah, tickets did did sell out for it about a month in advance, but um, and the tickets will be going live soon. I think the tickets go live for it like mid-July.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah, July 13th.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Is that on bond temps or yeah, so um yeah, and the and the country roads team really handles the that um that piece of it. So I'm a little bit rusty on um on my facts around the tickets going live. And so I'm pretty sure it's mid-July, but follow the festival on social media and you can keep up with that if you're interested in coming coming out this fall.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

It's a great wonderful, wonderful opportunity to really enjoy St. Francisville. Well, I uh keep these at about a half an hour just so that people can listen and not turn me off. And they wouldn't turn you all off because you're both adorable and you're so interesting. So I want to thank you so much for coming and sharing all of this good information and have much continued success. It's just wonderful for me to be a restaurant enjoyer and going to 1796, going to Big River, and also going to um Proud Mary's. And I look forward to continuing it. And your farm, let me, I I gotta bring this up. You have a farm now, and you uh have a garden and you sell at uh the uh farmer's market, yeah. Which is new hours, I saw. It's uh one to four. It used to be in the morning, but it's in the afternoon now. That's our producer, Alan Kennan.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Doesn't have salt lights, Alan. Natural.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Alan's great. He um he helps us out a lot with our bar program. And yeah, we're super excited to um be working with a new purveyor out of New Orleans. They're called Disco Liquids. They focus on um all natural wines and they actually have a St. Francisville connection. The guy who owns and started that company's married to Sophie Trependal, who I grew up with, so um, a St. Francisville girl and and great artist. And um yeah, so uh her husband, DJ, um, founded that company, and they really they focus on some um some really great natural wine selections, and so we're we're actually moving um Proud Mary's wine program over to them to just focus on natural wines at the pizza shop because they have a lot of beautiful stuff that really pairs well with the food that we do, and we feel like that's also a good environment for us to to do lean into the storytelling that uh it that natural wine provides, you know, that's typically small, um, small farmers that are that are growing those batches and winemakers, and and so yeah, we're excited about that. And then in regards to our farm on the property at the Myrtles, that's a um, you know, it's a project that um I felt like we were maybe a little bit intimidated to lean into for a long time and just recently have have dove off into that. But ever since due in 1796, we aspired to be um a farm-to-table chef-driven restaurant with a focus of wood fire cooking, and we always struggled to um to bridge the gap or lean into that um that farm-to-table piece, um, or at least the self-sustainability piece of it that we aspired to have. And um, we always had great relationships with local farmers and bringing in interest in or unique products that are locally sourced. Um, but we always wanted to do it there on the property and give guests something to see and experience and lean into it as an agricultural tourism opportunity and that start to become part of the story of the myrtles and maybe why people are coming. Um, but we've just always been so busy just running the operation, and we've never had anybody who's really had the um the knowledge base to be able to do that well. I certainly don't. I'm so happy to help work work on the farm and and take marching orders from someone who's a lot sharper in it than I am. But um, yeah, that's really what prevented us from doing it. And um last year we just decided to go for it. We found a lovely new gardener, Miss Nancy, who just really um really makes the property shine a little bit brighter. And um she's been spearheading our gardening initiative too with all of our produce. And so we now last year was our first garden. It was great and we learned a lot. This year um we've elevated it from last year, and um it's really producing well for us. It's currently about a quarter of an acre, and um, and we're growing right now um a fair amount of produce for the restaurant, and we've also started a little farmer's market on property every other week through the spring. We'll take a summer break and then bring it back in the fall.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Oh, it's on the property. I didn't hear that. What is that day and hour?

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Um, so we have one this past weekend, um, and it starts at nine o'clock in the morning and it goes till noon. And we had a little over 300 guests come through for the farmers market, and we had um 23 vendors out for the farmers market this past week. So it was it was really great. It was a lot of fun. We had a great band play in, and it's under the live oak trees there between the um the restaurant and the um the garden, the the farm down at the bottom. Um so people really enjoyed it. We have another one coming up in in June. Um maybe two in June.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

June 13th, one in one in June. We're slowing down with the summer months. Um, one June 13th, and then one July 11th.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

And then we'll take a break for August and September. Um, and then we'll pick back up um for the fall and probably do it um twice a month.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

But um for dates on that, we'll announce those, you know, in August or September and we'll announce it on our social media.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 36:26

But we'd want to encourage anyone who like wants to just come be nosy about what we're doing at the garden. Um, we're even trying to develop a garden tour. And at the moment, it's just it's purely free because we're still trying to do the product development around um just like curating enough of an experience that we feel like it's justifiable. But all to be said, it's just led by passionate people who are excited about what we're doing on the grounds from an agricultural tourism perspective. And although it's minimal and compared to where we aspire to be three, five years down the road in that space, um, it's really fascinating with the like, you know, we're doing we're doing our own ducks and chickens. We have a turkey on the property. We cut our own firewood for the restaurant at 1796 with our our wood-fired hearth there. Um our produce garden right now is producing um a little over half the um of all produce that's coming into the restaurant and more than what we need on those specific things. Lizzie got goats and she's doing doing goat milk and goat cheese with that.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Um they're so cute when they're little, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Oh, they're so cute.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

You know, it's interesting. Um we just had she hasn't aired yet, but we had uh Sarah rolling on with her biuseraphone. And it's interesting that we have these young people doing the land. I think that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Yeah, super cool. Yeah, and she's really interested too. So it's a great example for agriculture. I'm currently in a beginner farmers class at LSU, and um and that's I've started to realize through that course, like how well uh loved and respected in the agricultural scene Sarah is with like we go on these farm tours or whatever, and like we Lizzie came with us. We did a um farm field trip with my class down to New Orleans, and when you tell people that we're from St. Francisville, that's what they all know about. Oh, do you know Sarah and by you Sarah Farms? It's like, man, she's um you know, I I always I totally would have expected what she was doing to be impressive and well well received, but um like she's she's really um well respected in in that world and doing doing good work in that space. So kudos to her.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

And to think she was selling windows before that.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Yeah, money. Window world. Well, again, thank you folks so much, and I so enjoyed our visit.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

Yeah, thank y'all for having us. It's lovely straight out.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

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