Elevating Small Town Kitchens: The Brick Kitchen's Story

What do you get when two small-town independent kitchen owners sit down to talk shop? A wonderful, heartfelt conversation with some truly excellent stories! 

Join Cindy Peterson, co-founder of Berry and Basil, as she sits down with Nate Whited, co-owner of The Brick Kitchen in Independence, Iowa. In this lively conversation, they dive into the unique journey of building a family-run kitchen store in a small Midwestern town, the importance of quality tools in everyday life, and the special sense of community that comes from serving rural customers. 

From renovating a historic opera house into a bustling retail space to creating meaningful connections with customers and industry friends, Nate and his wife Shelly prove that small-town businesses can offer just as much — if not more — than the big-box stores. 

Tune in for stories about kitchen gadgets, lessons learned from retail, creative marketing strategies (like sponsoring a college marching band’s mellophone section!), and plenty of laughs along the way. 

Stay tuned for bloopers at the end of this episode! 

Products featured in this episode:

Dreamfarm Flapple slicer

Messermeister Chef’s Knife

Jura coffee products

Follow The Brick Kitchen on Facebook and Instagram.  

For more thoughtfully curated joy, check out berryandbasil.com and follow the store for all the latest products, events and sales at @theberrybasil

Follow the show at @joycuratedpodcast (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok) and make sure to subscribe to us on the podcast app of your choice. It helps us grow and share the story of all the brands we love. 

Transcript

0:01

I can't out Amazon Amazon. I can't out Walmart Walmart, but Walmart and Amazon together can't outdo what we do. Welcome to Joy Curated. I'm Cindy Peterson, co-founder of Berry and Basil, a thoughtfully curated kitchen store in beautiful downtown Chamberlain, South Dakota. Here we discuss food, quality, and real life without the pressure to get it perfect. I have real, honest conversations with makers and product experts to talk about how things are made, how they're meant to be used, and how thoughtful choices can make everyday life feel more confident and enjoyable. One of the unexpected gifts of opening Berry and Basil, and I've talked about it before, has been the friendships that it's brought into my life and Angie's and the relationships that we've built. And it's people doing exactly what we're doing in their own towns, in their own way. And today's guest is one of those people. Nate co-owns the Brick Kitchen in Independence, Iowa, with his beautiful wife, Shelly. And they opened just months after we opened, Barry and Basil. And what they have built is something really special. And I always love chatting with Nate because I learned so much about some of the products that we both carry. I learn something new every time, and I just love hanging out with him when we're at shows. So I think you're going to love this conversation. Nate, let's start at the beginning of your kitchen store journey. How did that start for you and Shelly? The kitchen story. Yeah, you know, I and I always point off by saying, I am not a chef. I am not a gourmet cook, and neither is Shelley. We just we just like to play around with the kitchen, you know, and we're a sucker for kitchen gadgets. So when we would go somewhere, we'd always be, we'd always find ourselves at the kitchen store. And I think I'm well, I know where it was. We're at we're at uh Cooks on Crocus Hill in Stillwater, Minnesota, which is this kitchen store. Yeah, tucked into this beautiful old historic brick building. And I think our kids were probably eight and ten at the time, and we're just kind of like loving it. And and somebody said, I wonder if a store like this would work in independence, which is our town. And it just kind of became this whimsical topic of conversation amongst the family for all these years, and it just, you know, the kids would see something on TV and they'd be like, Dad, we just saw an ad for this thing called a Ginsu knife. We could put that in our kitchen store. Like, well, maybe, you know. Um, but we were always seeing things, and I had everybody always had these ideas, and you know, it was just it was just something we always talked about, and it was never serious until it was. And then all of a sudden, we just started looking at things, and it's like, you know, why couldn't we do it? And there was a small kitchen store in Cedar Falls about 30 miles away, which it was a small kitchen store and and didn't quite have the same feel of the one and the one up in Minnesota, and we just we kind of felt that we could do better. And so we started looking into it, went to our first show in 2015, met some great people there, um, some of which have turned out to be friends of both of ours. But we met uh the folks from HTI Buying Group, which was phenomenal. Met some people some other stores, and right away they're like, if you need anything, call us. If you're curious about anything, call us. You want to know what you call us, call us. And we had the stack of business cards of people to call. And fast forward to 2020, the pandemic's going on. We thought we'd found a building a couple of times to put our store in and it didn't happen. And we said, okay, this ship is sailed, it wasn't meant to be. And in fact, somebody from the HTI Buying Group called me in August of 2020 and said, hey, we've still got this information for you. Do you, you know, do you want us to hang on to that? Is there still a chance you're gonna open? I said, no, I, you know, it would have been nice, but I don't think it's gonna happen. And literally two weeks later, this building fell in our lap. And this building is uh King's Hall. It's our city's 150-year-old former opera house, and it's been sitting underutilized ever since I moved, I moved to this community in in I think 1992. It's just been an afterthought. There's been a couple of different things in there, it just kind of sits in the corner of downtown, and it's so it was so underutilized and so blah, that people didn't even, when I when we said, Oh, we're gonna buy King's Hall, we bought King's Hall. They're like, Well, where's that? What's that? Well, it's you can't miss it, it's the biggest building downtown. But it was so underutilized that people just ignored it. And it just kind of fell into our lap. We partnered with uh another couple that owns a bike shop, and so the four of us, uh Andy and Tanya is the other couple, and Shelly and I. So Shelly, Tanya, Andy, Nate, we call it Stan Development. Stand Development bought the building and immediately went to work renovating it. Um the bicycle shop opened in February of 21, and we opened in uh May of 21, so we're coming up on our May 27th will be our fifth anniversary. And the neat thing about it is, you know, of course, our kids are along, you know, every step of the way, right up until we bought the building. And our daughter was going to uh because she graduated from the University of Iowa in the spring of 20. And as you know, terrible time for a college student to be looking for a job. And she got offered a job to go teach English in Spain. So she went over, she just as she was getting ready to leave for Spain, we said, We think we're gonna buy this building here, but you can't tell anyone until they closed the deal. And her first reaction was, Are you gonna open a kitchen store? Like, well, who thinks so? So she went over to Spain, we bought the building, renovated the building, opened the store. We've been open for about a month before she finally came back, and all four of us got to work a day in the store together, and that was the most special day, I think, yet. Really cool. In fact, we have a picture above the cash register of the four of us, big smiles on our face, first day we worked together. Oh my gosh. So that's that's kind of the that's the brief version of of the kitchen with the brick kitchen and how it got started. It's such a family business, you know, in terms of obviously when we own our own businesses, uh, we put so much into it that when we get to work with our families and and uh and the the help that that when they chip in, you know, and it's just so special because it what's what carries over, I think, when we the experience we have in our kitchens at home and how we we wanted to just translate that into you know making that in more enjoyable for people in their own homes too. And so I think when you feel that love in our in our stores, uh we hope to carry that through into people's kitchens. And I think you guys have that same passion. Yeah, absolutely. We and we've always said, you know, you go over to somebody's house, you have a little get together, whether planned or impromptu, where does everybody end up? In the kitchen. When you have relatives coming to town for a holiday, everybody ends up at the kitchen. Because the kitchen is is really the most inviting place. And so it's only natural that a kitchen store be like that. And you mentioned, you know, family. When when we were really getting down to the nitty-gritty of working on the building, and we had to do a lot of work. There's not an inch of floor, ceiling, wall, beam, whatever that we didn't touch with something. We had friends coming in, uh running a chisel, running a paintbrush, running a shop vac or something like that. And not along with family, of course, but uh we had a lot of friends that just jumped in and and and and pitched in and you know and helped. So it's it's it's been you know, like you say, it's it's the area where it draws people together, just like a kitchen in your home. Yeah. And so how big, you know, let me back up a little bit. You guys are in Independence, Iowa. I don't think we we stated how big of a a community is independence? Independence is six thousand people. Okay. And we're uh we're the county seat of Buchanan County in northeast Iowa. We're about 45 minutes north of Cedar Rapids, about 20 to 30 minutes east of Waterloo and Cedar Falls. So there's a lot of people in Independence that go work in the bigger communities, but our main industry is still agriculture. I mean, we're very much an agricultural community. Our our our business kind of ebbs and flows with planting and harvest season and and things like that, but it's still, you know, primarily an agricultural community, and and we're just happy to provide quality kitchen products to people that, you know, otherwise you'd and you'd have to drive to Ames or Des Moines, which is two hours, two and a half hours. We're it. So we've we've got a very big customer base made up of a lot of really small towns like ours. You know, and and that's again is just that commonality that we have in common. Because you're you're in a city not much bigger. Well, it's smaller. We're uh we're technically Chamberlain proper, if you will, is about uh 2,900. And then we get into the suburbs of, you know, Ocoma and Pakwanna and uh and Kimball and and all the areas around us. So it's such yeah, we draw. Um and it's so funny, you know, it was graduation this last weekend and I had more men, uh, farmers may make it into town for parts at the dealership or whatever else, and they I had more men say, How is the store doing? And how, you know, I still wonder how how things are going for you guys. And I I think people come in and they think, oh gosh, things are expensive here. Except it's it's not when it's the quality items that we don't want to travel for. You know, we I don't want to travel two hours to Sioux Falls and in some cases Minnesota for for some of the higher end stores. And so it just it makes sense to bring that quality where where things last. You know, it's that South Dakota, it's that Iowa agricultural, you know, rather sell you one can opener than six over a lifetime or more. One of our customers said it best is that people in people in small towns deserve good things just as much as people in larger communities. But I think there's also, you mentioned guys coming in. I think when you come from a rural community or with an agricultural background, if you live and breathe agriculture, whether it be ranching, you know, cattle or beef or corn or soybeans, you depend on your equipment and you depend on your tools. And you know full well you can go to you know the big discount store in the south side of town and get a set of tools for twelve ninety-nine, or you can go to you know someplace and get a good set of tools for twelve hundred ninety-nine. You know, I think people in rural areas appreciate the quality of a good tool and they understand the price is going to be priced accordingly. And I think that's what's really helped us, particularly, and I don't know if it's your store, but we've noticed that when a you know, if a if a lady comes in by herself or with a friend, you know, she'll buy some things and she'll oh look at this, and it's nice. She comes in with her husband, you know, she'll say, Oh, I I really kind of like this, and the husband will say, Well, get it. You know, is that better than what you have now? Get it. You know, a hundred dollars for a knife, do you like it? Get it. Well, I think because guys have that grasp of you know, what you're doing is you're shopping for tools for your kitchen. And you know, a good quality tool is is is worth the price. And I always point out that I don't think we're expensive because if you look at our products, and I'm sure it's the same uh Barry and Basil, if you look at what we have here and then look at it online, it's usually one or two dollar difference. Right, you know, product for product, model for model. Now, I don't have a three-pan fry set for fry pan set for 1996. You know, if you really want one, I can point you to a store that has one, but I'm I'm not playing in that arena. Right, right. There's enough cheap imported kitchen crap. I don't need to participate in that arena. Right, right. And I'm sure it's the same with you. Right. Do you do you guys sell online as well? Or do you have a kind of an online presence? So that's a long story. We do, but our our current website is not very intuitive. It's not very, you know, it's not very easy to shop on. We're in the process of getting that fixed. In fact, that's tomorrow's Zoom meeting, is with the agency that that we brought on to do that with. So we plan to do more uh because I would like to capture those people that live, you know, 40 minutes away, they don't want to drive all the way to independence. They they know what they need, they just it'd be nice if they we could just ship it to them. They just go online and find it, click it, buy it from us, and we'll get it to them. Yeah. But I don't I have no illusions of, oh, I throw open a website and people from you know Venezuela are going to be ordering kitchenware from me. Online shopping doesn't work that way, at least, you know, unless you're Jeff Bezos. Right, right. And I think it's that personal relationship that we you know when we're in the store, and I always say uh how we're choosing the products because we've ha had you and I have had an opportunity to talk with the manufacturers, talk with the reps, and and and kind of curate the products that we think are the best in their category and kind of taking some of that homework and getting it done for the people before they even walk in the door. But we lose that that conversation we get to have online. It's still important, but it's it's the relationship that we build along the way that I think is so valuable. And bringing those high quality products to our communities is I mean, it's something that just makes me so proud and how hard Angie and I work to make sure things are priced fairly and appropriately and and yeah, it's just a joy every day. We use the term experience a lot because you know, everything here you can touch, you can hold, most everything here, if it's consumable, you can sample it. I mean, even our knife cabinet. If you're curious about the knife, I'll run to the fridge and and get a couple stocks of celery and you can start slicing and dicing or whatever, so you can feel how that knife feels in your hands. You'll never get that with online. And I think you and I were at the same seminar a couple years ago when they said for small businesses made a really good point. I can't out Amazon, Amazon. I can't out Walmart, Walmart, but Walmart and Amazon together can't outdo what we do. And that really it's always been in the back of my mind. It's like, okay, our our strength, and the strength of all small businesses is relationships and customer service and building that trust between you and the customer. And uh we've had this conversation before, and I I know you feel about as strongly about it as I do. Oh man, yeah, yeah. So when somebody walks in, I I think it's a common where somebody says, Oh gosh, there's nothing I need in here because I don't cook. I I kind of have to chuckle about that. What is your what is your response to that question? I just laugh and I said, I bet you're still gonna find something you didn't know you needed. And eventually they do, and uh I've had so many people come up to the well, I don't even cook, and look at all the stuff I'm buying, I just laugh because you know it there's there's gonna be something you're gonna find. I think you guys do a little bit more gift than we do, and we're almost exclusively kitchen. But there's there's still little toys and gifts and in and stuff that that people find that it's just like, oh my god, I've got to have this. Right. Well, and I think you know, if you eat, you cook, you warm something up. You if you toast bread, you're that's a very good point. You know, and so it's something where uh we all cook. It's just uh what tools are out there to make that easier. And and why as a society if if we don't cook a full course meal, I mean, even if you're opening up a box and putting a couple extra ingredients in there, you're still cooking. So you still deserve great tools to make that easier. Yeah, yeah. That's a that's a very good way of putting it. Yeah, I really like that. So you you mentioned knives, and I think you know, when somebody opens up that knife case, what are the what are the the things that you say or or direct them to to how to choose the right knife for them? Well, the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ask them, you know, what are they gonna use it for? What's the you know if all you're gonna be doing is opening you get a knife to open Amazon boxes, well they've got this, you know, really cheap pairing knife here for you. But I talk a little bit about what they're cooking, you know, how much they're cooking, and then the the style, uh I guess, you know, if if somebody surprises me and says, Well, I do a lot of, you know, I do a lot of Japanese style cooking, well, I know where to direct them. But for most people, I I I point out you probably the the workhorse of your kitchen is a is a good chef knife. And you know, every meal that you make, every quality meal that you make always begins with a knife. And it's almost always going to be handled with a chef knife. So then it just comes down to the feel. You know, is the handle too big? Is the handle too small? How is a blade balance in your hand? Is it too long, too short? Is it too blade too heavy? Is the handle too heavy? And just like I said earlier, I get out three or four stocks of celery and say, here you go, just start start chopping them up and see what happens. And first of all, you can tell right away the people who have very dull knives at home, because usually I have to stop them and say, Okay, you don't need to lean into it, and they'll get cutting and they'll cut one. Oh, I really like that, and they'll go another one. It's like, yeah, that's nice too. And they'll go through about three or four knives, and all of a sudden they hit that one, and they just go, Oh, oh man. And it doesn't matter what the price is, that's like, okay, you know, this is judging by that reaction, this is the knife for you. And we'll still try a couple others. And sometimes they'll be like, Well, I can't, you know, I can't afford a $200 Woo stuff. It's like, okay, well, let's go back a little bit, something a little bit more affordable but similar. So it really, a knife is such a personal thing, it really comes down to how it feels in the user's hand. And once you get that established, the rest is easy. The knife will basically choose itself, for lack of a better term. So we go through a lot of celery, and uh and then we get done, we have to, you know, clean all the knives, and sometimes they have to touch up the edge a little bit. But uh, it's really one of those things where people just that find that, you know, it's like I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, but there's a scene where instead of choosing the wand, the wand chooses you. It's kind of like that when you go into the in the knife case, it's like, oh, here it is. And that's one of the ways that stores like ours can really excel because you know, you're gonna walk into any other store and they're all wrapped up in bubble wrap in a box and cellophane sealed up, and there's no way you're gonna touch that knife until you get it home, and then what do you do? If it's not the one that fits, if it doesn't, you know, so we really we really try, especially with knives, we really try and get people to try them out because that's they'll they'll immediately know which one they fall in love with. Right. We always you know, we we have lots of conversations coming up on the podcast with knives. I have Ed from Kang Shun on actually it'll uh be out this you know, at the we're recording, it'll go out tonight at midnight. But yeah, so I I mean knives, it's just so overwhelming, and I I feel like there's so much information out there that it just really comes down to what feels good in your hand is is the basis of it all. Absolutely. And for you know, from there, I mean there's still you know, there's several handle styles and blade styles if you if you like this model of Kang Shen, but uh you know maybe you you didn't want to quite spend that much. There's uh you can go up or down, you know, in the price list. So there's there's a there's a lot of options out there. But it it yeah, you're right, it uh all comes down to feel because you know you're gonna use that knife for 15, 20 years. You know, that's gonna be your your workhorse in your kitchen, so you want to be sure that it fits well, you know, in your hand and you can you know keep that motion going. You know, one of the funny things that we talked about, and we have a Facebook group with other kitchen store owners, and I'll I'll never forget when you said, and and this again it's probably the third time we've talked about it on the podcast, but the stainless steel cutting boards. And you said that was like God's gift to the knife industry because how many knives have been ruined. So, what is your cutting board of choice? What what do you like using? Well, my my cutting board choice, of course, is an Epicurean. I think most everybody in the kitchen business, we just love those because it's it's very durable, it's dishwasher safe, it protects your knife blades very well, it just does everything. Now, having said that, we've started to get more into traditional wood cutting boards. There's there's a knock against them right now because the grain on wood, you know, will open and close with the humidity of your room. And when it's open and you cut something like meat, you know, the juices from that raw meat can go in there and then attract bacteria in there, and there's a you know, a lot of studies or there's a lot of information out there that says that's not the most healthy thing. And so a lot of people have been avoiding traditional wood cutting boards. And I've been one of them. And then lately I've been thinking, okay, my mom used a wood cutting board for forever. Both my grandparents used wood cutting boards for forever. You know, everybody I know is their mom and their grandmother, and I don't know anybody that got sick from a wood cutting board. I mean, I I think we're overthinking things, and and I and I have a little bit of danger fatigue. You know, oh look out, this product's gonna kill you. I have a little bit of fatigue from that. So we started carrying some more traditional wood cutting boards, and as much as I love Epicurean, they're fantastic, they're very, very functional, they're just not very attractive. And now we've got some wood end grain, some some herringbone cutting boards. I'm really starting to fall in love with traditional wood again because it just it looks so good. So that's you know, it's kind of like now I've got it do I now I gotta have. Two sets of cutting boards, one for work and one for display. Titanium and stainless steel cutting boards. It just every time it seems like every time I go on social media, there's that ad and I just give myself a headache because I roll my eyes so fast. Right. It just showed up, and now we'll probably get the ads again talking about this. But yeah, it just showed up yesterday and I was just like, wow, don't they know my algorithm? Haven't they figured out that I'm not into that? And I was like, yeah, no, please. I I think it's it's misleading and it's it's unfair. You're right. Because it it's so many things on there that that just bait that fear. And we of course want to make the best choices for our family. So let's just add in one more thing that we have to worry about. You know, and I and I get it because there, you know, there are some real concerns with some of the older nonstick cookware that starts to flake off. And there's other concerns, you know, with with all the microplastics in our system and in our, you know, drinking water and everything like that. But, you know, I think a wood cutting board is probably the least thing we need to be worried about right now as far as healthy cookware. Right, right. And and so cookware. I think one of the biggest takeaways that I learned about cookware when we opened the store is every nonstick surface wears down over time. And and finding the quality and that balance, but to have you know, you definitely get what you pay for with cookware. Oh, absolutely. And so is there anything that you learned about, you know, cookware or knives or any other product line that you did not realize until you started researching things? I tell you what, every I think I learn something every day. I mean, every single day I come across like just the other day I was um I'm preparing for a class that we're gonna be doing on marinades. You know, I'm a big proponent of stainless steel. I love stainless steel bowls, stainless steel cookwares, stainless steel utensils. However, stainless steel bowls, if you marinate meats and things in a long amount of time and you have a certain amount of acidity, that stainless steel could leach chemicals into your foods. Now, if you're using stainless steel cookware where the stainless steel is is hot and at a high temperature, and that that high temperature is working against the acidity of the food, you're fine. But if you put a bunch of meat, a bunch of acid, a bunch of spices and things like that in with your meat stainless steel bowl, cover it up and put it in the refrigerator, now everything is is in a neutral state. And that acidity, working with the stainless steel, can add harmful leaching metals and uh uh off tastes to into your food. And I got and I didn't realize it after I thought about it, it's like, okay, if you watch the Food Network and any restaurant, they're always marinating their food in those cambro plastic containers, they're always or glass bowls. So, you know, that's something I just learned. It's like, who would have thought? So it's a it's a constant learning process, and uh, you know, I never would have guessed that because I was I was 100% sold on everything stainless steel. Not so fast. Wow, you know, so it it's it's crazy the stuff that you pick up and just just what I learned about retail in general, and we never even we didn't touch on this, but I think you and I have discussed it before. When we opened the store, the combined retail experience between my wife and I was I worked at a stereo store for about six months when I was in college, and she worked seasonally for about six weeks at a K's merchandise, and that's the extent of our retail experience. Along with everything else, do we want to open a high-end kitchen store in a small town in rural Iowa? On top of that, oh yeah, there's a pandemic going on, so there's strike number two. And then neither one of us have any retail experience. And I still laugh because I see it seemed like the thing to do at the time, you know. Right? Well, I I laugh because when people have asked that question, well, do you guys have retail experience? Well, no. I I sold eggs uh with my cousins and my sister on every Saturday. It's how we all paid for college, and we had a cash register and everything. So it was legit. I mean, we were big time. And then um yes, yeah. And uh Angie's response is she worked at the Limited one Christmas um when she was in high school. And so it's like, yeah, that's we just when you're passionate about it, I know we've made mistakes, but I always say we haven't made any fatal layers yet. So we're we're still playing store, you know. That's a good way to put it. You know, we talked about your past, and one of the things I love, love, love is uh so many people in the kitchen industry, very few were born into this industry or have taken over a family business. And so your past of uh tell me a little bit about what you got you personally did before because I love I love everything. Actually, my career started in broadcasting. I started working at a radio station when I was a sophomore in high school. Sophomore, junior? It I I couldn't tell you what what year it was, but I I I had to read the news headlines every night at at uh 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock, and then a network took over at midnight. And so I had that was my job. 16-year-old kid, news headlines, and it had to be exactly 75 seconds because then we went to a network feed after that. And I'll never forget my the very first headline I read on the air was Ronald Reagan has accepted his party's nomination for president of the United States. That was the first headline, so it goes back a ways. So I did radio for 10 years, that migrated into a little stint with a newspaper, and then migrate you know, things kind of migrate. Eventually, I ended up in television and video production for probably about 20, 25 years, and that's what I was doing right up until two or three days before the store opened, is I was finishing up some projects that um during the pandemic, there was a lot of corporate videos that needed to be done, a lot of what they called the virtual trade show videos that was keeping me busy, and I was doing I was I was working on those, I was helping to get the store open, and I was coaching high school soccer at the same time. So it all you know and it all just came to an abrupt end, and then we opened the store two days later. So it was it was a busy time. You uh in uh your broadcasting, you also I remember you showed me uh you you got to interview Dale Earnhardt, and then Yeah, yeah. So where does the NASCAR story come into play? Well, I was I was in between the newspaper job and the video production job, and a buddy of mine was uh racing in what was then the old ASA series, and uh that was a traveling series that went all over the Midwest, and I was on his pit crew for a while, and he eventually moved on to NASCAR. Um shortly before he went to NASCAR, I took a job with a company that sponsored a car, and so I would go to some of their races from time to time. The picture of of me and Dale Earnhardt was he and uh a couple other NASCAR drivers came and raced at one of the local speedways in Cedar Rapids, and I happened to long story, I knew the promoter. He asked me to be the track announcer that night, so I obliged, and I got to meet Dale Earnhardt and I believe Kenny Wallace and uh Michael Waltrip, and uh I also uh worked with Rusty Wallace there for a while and got to be friends with Davey Allison before he passed away. You know, got got to know a lot of those guys. Yeah, it was it was it was like I say, it was a it was a good time in a previous life. I I love the you know I grew up going to a dirt track every Saturday. Dad would, you know, we'd go get in the car in our pajamas because we'd be asleep by the time he had to load us back up and and head home. So yeah, it's I ironically, Shelley and I met at a dirt track. We met at the dirt track in Independence Motor Speedway, and and we actually uh we'd been open for about a year and a half, and you know, we knew a lot of people that raced in town. In fact, her dad was a late model driver for years. We said, you know, we've had this business for two years. I can't believe nobody's asked us to sponsor their race car. And we thought, yeah, that's a little weird. And then all of a sudden it dawned on my wife, he goes, Wait a minute, Leah, who's one of our best customers, and she's like a two-time track champion in in the stock car division or something like that. She's just why hasn't she reached out to her? Like, I don't know, let's call her. So we called her and she said, Hey, are you looking for a sponsor? And she just she's like, Oh my god, I was just gonna call you guys. So we had her name on a stock car for a while, and then she's moved down a division, and she's she's still doing really, really well, and she just ran out of space for us. But it was kind of neat, and it went full circle for a little bit that we uh uh were able to sponsor a car. In fact, we still have part of I think I think it's like an 1884 Monte Carlo body in our storage upstairs. It's got our our logo over the rear quarter panel. So yeah, we we have that in common. You know, Midwestern Dirt Tricks, we have that in common too. We just we were just at some races a couple of weeks ago. It's just if you're in a small town in the Midwest, you gotta do it. Well, I I love your creativity. Yeah, just your marketing, it cracks me up. But you know, we're we're sports fans. You and I both were we're pet band fans. You know, my kids were in band. We have an amazing music program here in Chamberlain. I was in the Pride of the Valley Band, marching band in Plat in Grillcrest, Colorado, and all the things. And so when I heard what you guys were doing with the Hawkeye band, tell me you uh you made history with an NIL deal for the Brick Kitchen. Tell me about that. We we were the first company anywhere in the United States to have a name image likeness deal with an NCAA marching band. And we had an NIL deal with a melophone section of the University of uh Iowa marching band and just the melophones, because our son our son was a mellowphone at the time too, and he would always, and of course, our son's loves playing around in the kitchen, and Friday night before a home game, he'd make all kinds of snacks, you know, bag them up and everything, and bring them to his section. And we would always joke that, you know, because you've got to be careful what you'd say. So we would joke amongst ourselves that we were the official sponsor of the Meliphone section of the largest marching band in Iowa City, because we couldn't say who. And yeah, and all this time, you know, it's just when we're starting to hear about NIL deals, and this was really Shelly that seized on this. She said, Well, why can't we have an NIL deal with the marching band or marching band members? And we're like, Oh, nobody does it. Well, that's not a good enough reason for her. So she started calling and she started asking. And she got a hold of the director of the University of Iowa Marching Band and said, Why can't we? He just kind of giggled. He goes, I don't see any reason why you can't. So we put this whole thing together. We had all the kids uh meet up one night at Iowa City, sign their NIL contracts. We were able to give them some money each, a certain amount of credit so they could buy products at the store. We used them in some social media, we used them in a TV commercial. Uh, we even had t-shirts made with our logo, and on the back it said, I'm with the melys. We sold those shirts to a bunch of customers, and from the sales of those shirts, we were able to give them money for uh one of their uh bowl games so they'd have extra spending money to go eat and stuff like that. And it was so unique. We we we were actually in Sports Illustrated twice for having an NIL deal with the marching band. And uh over in the corner of the store we have a big poster with the the Meliphone section, all with her brick kitchen t-shirts on, and all the kids autographed underneath each each particular one. Oh my gosh, I love it. Oh, I just love it. I yeah, you know, my daughter did quite a few NIL sports management uh degree, and so she she worked on all of that, and I just remember telling her about it, and she was uh genius. I just loved it so much. It's so cool. If yeah. If you if you Google Marching Band N I L, the Sports Illustrated article is almost always the first thing that comes up, and it's right there. And the funny thing is that even during the middle of the article, they have a hyperlink to the brick kitchen. So you can find our website through Sports Illustrated. I don't know of any kitchen stores where you can say that. No, I don't think there is. And now I which which football team are you a fan of? Well, I grew up with Colorado. Right, right. So in terms of professional football, it's gotta be the Broncos, which I'm I'm right on the edge of South Dakota where there's Vikings fans and then there's Broncos fans of farther west you go. So I I tote that that line right there. One of these years it's gonna be our year again with the Broncos. But of course, South Dakota State in terms yeah, yeah. I have yeah, I'm the Vikings fan. I have many friends that continuously are uh disappointed. So yeah. So it's it's it's it's a life choice. You know, I just chose, woke up and said, I choose to be disappointed, therefore I'm a Vikings fan. Yeah. So and then with college, you know, Chisholm met my husband Chisholm at Oklahoma State. Our oldest daughter went there. And so I got a I'm I'm cowboy fan, tried and true. So yeah, we're we're rebuilding that program too. So yeah, that's it's kind of it's it's uh gosh, it's a passion, but it's also just painful uh when we get into it like we do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, and see I'm having grown up in northern Minnesota, I I still got a lot of gopher feelings running deep. So I'm you know, I'm here, we have season tickets to the Iowa Hawkeyes, I always cheer for the Hawkeyes until they play Minnesota. And then, you know, it kind of changes a little bit. But yeah, I again either gophers, Vikings, Hawkeyes, it's just I'm a glutton for punishment. And then and then I have a soccer team in England that I follow, and they are they they are perennial disappointments as well, so it just you know soccer is is one of those things that I I was like, I I think I understand it. I mean it's obvious we played it in in PE and in school and all of those things. But what is a takeaway? You know, we have the World Cup, my favorite show in the world on Apple TV, and we've talked about it is uh Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso. It is the best show. It makes me happy. I I want to watch it again and again. And the teams, how they're made up of I always think about a football program in college where they, you know, there's kids from all over the country, all different walks of life, socioeconomic backgrounds, uh family situations, and building a team with all these guys to work together. I never realized that on that world stage of soccer, these are guys from all over the world coming together to play and and building that team. I I just it's the coolest, you know. I I kind of look into all that. But when you, as a soccer coach, uh tell me one thing I need to know to get into soccer and and why is a game so stinking long? It kind of loses me a little bit. You you know what? So a soccer game has two 45-minute halves, right? So 90 minutes total. Okay. And then then uh NFL game has uh what, four fifteen-minute quarters? Mm-hmm. Okay. I can go to a soccer game and it'll take an hour less than an NFL game will. Because by the time there in in soccer, there's no TV timeouts, there's no commercial breaks, there's no timeouts at all. They start the game, they play for 45 minutes, and they end it. So you go to a soccer game, you know within two hours, unless unless it's uh unless it's a tournament and there's a forced overtime, you walk into a soccer game, you know it's going to be over in two hours. You know, I've been to football games where we've been there for two and a half hours and the fourth quarter hasn't even started yet. You know, that's one you know, and if you go to an NFL game, there's so much downtime. Or even a you know, a college football game. There's so much downtime while everybody at home gets the commercials or you know what's coming up on 60 minutes next. But with soccer, it just it just goes right through. The thing I try to tell people about soccer is do you understand basketball? Yeah. Primarily? Okay, so it's the same sport. It's the same sport. In basketball, you get the ball, take it down to the other end, you're moving the ball around, you're trying to get the ball to the person with the better shot or with the best shot. Okay, if he makes it, great. If you give up the ball, you got to get back on defense, and you gotta make sure that they don't get a good shot. And that's basically soccer and basketball are the same thing. It's just played, soccer's played on a bigger field, there's 11 guys instead of five, and you're using your feet, not using your hands. The frustrating part of it is in soccer, if you make, you know, in basketball, if you make a defensive lap and the other team scores, you're like, okay, I just gotta remember not to do that next time. You do that in soccer, it probably costs you the game. So defensively, there's much more pressure on doing everything right every time. But on an individual basis, you know, uh how you move your feet, how you move your body, you know, how you keep the ball pushing out to the side or pushing in if you're on offense, it's it's the same sport. And if you watch it as a basketball player, it's it starts to click and it really makes sense fast. That's that's the best way I can say to watch it. I love it. I love it. And uh, it cracks me up that I always thought if the games were longer. I just need to yeah, that they're not at all. Well, um I think people feel that way because there's not as much scoring. Yeah. You know, but then but then people people watch I think a couple years ago we went to the Super Bowl with five minutes left and it was three to nothing. And I remember joking it's like, oh, this sport will never catch on, there's not enough scoring. But what what is your takeaway where, you know, in your in your sports background, what do you think you you took going into the kitchen store where you can kind of relate to things in a kitchen store or in your own kitchen at home? I think soccer is very similar to this is gonna sound like a strange analogy. Soccer is in is very close to cooking and jazz. You start off with a plan in mind, and this is the way it's gonna go, and then all of a sudden things will happen and you have to you have to change from your plan and you have to get creative. You know, in jazz is like you listen to these guys and they go and do all this creative stuff, and then all of a sudden it comes back somehow, it comes back to the original melody. And soccer is that way where it's like everybody's doing what they're supposed to, and all of a sudden you'll get this one guy that makes a brilliant move, and now he's just going you know, one-on-one with the goalie. And so that's a thing that in intrigues me about all three is that you're working together, you're all working the same plan, but what really makes the difference is just little pieces of individual flair at just the right time. And if you can do that, you know, in cooking with the infused olive oils, you just you know what, at the last minute, I'm gonna change this olive oil. Instead of just using a regular cooking oil, I'm gonna use caramelized garlic. And instead of regular rosemary, you know, I'm gonna use this mix of you know, rosemary and in and and asiago or something like that. And just those little pieces, and all of a sudden you you you take something that's just looked really standard and really ordinary, and all of a sudden it's just that boom, that creative burst of brilliance. And you see that in in in all three that just makes you go, wow, where did that come from? You know, and it's it's funny, and in in in cooking, I always have those flashes of brilliance, and I didn't write it down. And it's like, oh, this is this is the best thing ever. Well, what'd you do? I don't remember. I don't remember. I yeah, all the time. It's also why I don't like to bake, because it it's too precise. You know, I like just tasting and adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that and and all of that. I I love the the sounds going on in in the background of your store there. You said you were working on a Jura area. Have you guys sold Jura for a while now or just starting? No, actually we we haven't even received them yet. So we're just uh we're building we've got a countertop that just got put in. Um I think what you're hearing is they're doing some work in the basement. So along with the other there there's a bike shop in the front half of the building, kitchen store in the back half, there's a brewery in our basement. And I think you're hearing them move kegs around down there. So our our basement is the home to Allerton Brewing. Their tasting room is down the street, but they opened, you know, everybody's everybody's opening these businesses during a pandemic. They opened in uh September of 2020, and by March of 21, they'd outgrown their production space. So about the time we were opening the store, uh, we had a contractor downstairs remodeling the basement so we could put a brewery in there. So there's yeah, there's uh several fermenters down there, there's a canning line, and uh they're the brewmasters down there right now, obviously moving the kegs around. That's what you hear clanging and banging. It's a busy place. More more and more reasons to come visit and uh take a road trip. Angie and I have talked about that for years. So uh what where else besides in person, if people are going through Iowa and they want to stop in and see you in person, on social media, where can people find you on social media? Well, obviously, we do a lot on Facebook. It's just the brick kitchen store, um, and then also on Instagram. We do a lot on there as well. But we're we're we've got so much going on in the st at the store with classes and and different events, and and uh you know, from time to time we we've been hosting oh, book clubs and bachelorette parties, you know, want to do something around the kitchen. We've got a big event coming up the first week in June called Demo Days. So we're we've always got new content going up on social media, and uh most of it is generated. We borrow some from some of our suppliers, but we keep very busy on Facebook. And then soon when when we get our new website built, we'll have the tags on the different products where you can go on Facebook and you know, on our social media posts and buy right from there through our website, which was the main reason why we wanted to redesign our website so we can start doing that. And I love watching you and Shelly, you do dating. Yeah. That's got to be very popular. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think you were I think you were there with us when when that was suggested, because we you know she works full time at um and there's a reason why she's not here. She has a full-time job over at um the the bank down the street. It's a fairly large regional bank, and uh she's a chief operating officer. And because she's always over there, and then I'm always here at the store. We never get to work together here very much. So we'd always designate Wednesday night, that's the night, I'm gonna stay late, she's gonna come here from the bank, and we're gonna stay and work on the store together, and that's gonna be our date night. We just joke about Wednesday date night. And uh Laura from In the Kitchen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mm-hmm. She had a couple glasses of wine that night, and she was like, Oh my god, you guys gotta start taping that and making that a series on Facebook. Oh, no, nobody's gonna want to watch that. Well, we did it just to make Laura happy, and now God forbid we miss one. I love that. And we'll hear about it in the comments the next day, and everybody and with and and then you're one of them, yeah. You're uh one of our somebody stopped Shelly at the grocery store the other day and says, I love your show. We get that a lot. It's funny. Oh my gosh. Wednesday nights on NBC. Wednesday night, yeah. Oh my gosh, it's a pretty kitchen. As we kind of you know, kind of round down here, I have to always ask what what's an item that you that's in your kitchen that you could not live without uh that you use it every day or it's common or or what's something that that you go to? Well, when I saw your your email this morning, first easy answer was my Queas and Art grind and brew coffee machine. Because I was just drinking a cup of coffee at the time. You know, it's a hard question, it's a hard question to ask, you know, because since the store opened, I don't get to cook every day. And that's the one downside of of the store, you know. People always comment like, boy, I I bet your meals are fantastic at your house. It's like, well, you know, some nights it's a bowl of Cheerios at nine o'clock in front of the TV. That's that's our dinner. Yeah, I would have to say it's it's probably something really simple like a like a dream farm um mini sapoon or a euro scrubby. It seems like I'm always reaching for a Euro scrubby, something to clean up afterwards. I've got an eight-inch Keston nanobond fry pan that I I use for eggs just about every morning. And that thing is just slicker than all I get out, and it's all stainless steel. And I half the time I don't even need a spatula. You know, I I just love that thing. And you carry Messermeister, I don't know if you carry this particular knife or not, but the uh the eight-inch uh the carbon the carbon knife. Oh man, I love that knife. And I've got access to you know all kinds of knives, and and you're kind of like you know, when when you're in the business, people will send you stuff for free. So I've gotten a lot of good sample knives, but the carbon knife for Messermeister, that's one I bought. And I just love that knife. I you know, it's because it's carbon, it requires a little more work because you always gotta you gotta wash it right away, you gotta make sure it's completely dry, you gotta add some oil to it. But man, that thing is a workhorse. I mean it cuts through everything. I've had it for about two years now. I'll hit it on a honing steel once in a while, and it's still just razor sharp. I just love that thing. That's my go-to knife. Because it's such a guy's knife. I mean, just the look of it. It's rustic, it's not shiny, it's it's just beautiful. It's such a guy's knife. It looks like a guy's knife, and we had, and I'm sure you guys do training with your employees too, and we do it from time to time, and and we really felt like, you know, some at the time somebody would come in looking for a knife, and the first reaction was, oh, let me get neat. You know, and I I want my staff to be comfortable enough. And so we set up a whole bunch of cutting boards, and in each cutting board we put on a whole bunch of vegetables, and then we put a different chef knife all the way around. And we had everybody make some cuts, cut a couple things, and then okay, the knife you have, you're gonna pass that to the person on the right, the person to your left is gonna pass theirs over. So we went all the way around, and everybody got to try a different knife. And of course, my you know, my wife Shelly's right in the middle of that. And at the end, I said, Okay, everybody, we went around, everybody tell me your favorite knife. And I think of the 12 people there, we probably had seven different favorite knives. And when we got to Shelly, she goes, you know what? That carbon knife, I never would have picked that. We have one at home, I avoid it because it looks scary. That is by far and away my favorite knife. And now she loves it too. But you had to put it in her hand and get her to use it, and yeah, it looks kind of mean, it looks kind of masculine, but when you go to cut it, it's just a knife. It just it it's a tool and it does its job. Yeah. You know, you talk about your coffee maker. When when you get your Jura's in, that's going to be your next best thing ever. That I can't. Yeah, yeah, we love our Jura's. And and I have one at home, and I don't think I could live without it. In fact, I think if just that coffee, I I I've been tempted to buy a smaller machine if if I'm traveling to have to take with me to that point. I mean, it's just that good. So uh what else? I was thinking about uh, you know, we're apple eaters in our house and things that I can't live without in our kitchen, but I mean there's so many different lines of apple corers and slicers, you know, it just it's such an easy thing. You just need a knife, but but it's just something that I we end up grabbing, and I have two or three because there's always one that's dirty and you know, everything else, but the dream farm one that folds flat so it doesn't get caught in your drawer is kind of my new go-to for for that. But uh it's my go-to graduation gift for people too. There you go. Why didn't somebody else think of that? You know, I mean there that's a thing. There's I walk around the store and there's I catch the sayings to customers so many times. Don't you wish you would have thought of this? The grip sticks. We have these little grips sticks that seal up. Yes, we do too. Yeah, yeah. Why didn't I think of that? You know, and then the the the folding Apple stuff. It's like I could have done that. Right, right. But it is and I I know on the podcast too, I'm excited to chat with uh Brynn from Served and our buttery gal. Um but I one of the things I really want to dig in with them is okay, so how do you, if you have a product idea, how do you take it from an idea to great success and end up in stores like ours and and kind of ask those questions because one of these days I'm gonna think of something that I I'm gonna need. And I always say people come in looking for for certain things and it doesn't exist. And it's like it sounds like you have an amazing product idea that that you we need to share with the world. So so yeah, oh my gosh, how fun. I have to admit, when I saw you in March and you said you had a podcast, like the first thing I did was text Shelly and said, Ah, Cindy's got a podcast. Why didn't I think of that? Because this is, you know, I mean it's it's broadcasting, it's you know, it's it's it's video, it's this is my jam. And Cindy thought of it before I did that. There's room for everybody. Yeah. Oh, I love it. But no, I've I've I've I've listened to your podcast and they've been they've been awesome. You're doing a great job. And and uh that's fun. You know, a great great idea, great execution. Keep it up, and I hope you have me back sometime. Uh of course. Can't wait to catch up with you guys soon at another show, but uh I definitely need to make a road trip out and and visit you guys and and hang out in person too. So Nate, as always, pleasure. Please give my best to Shelly and uh just chat again soon. Always fun talking to you. I'm you know I'm we miss Cindy this time around, but uh we'll see her again soon. Yeah, yeah. So it's Angie. So yeah, perfect. All right, Angie, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. See, that's that it's always Cindy. Well, you know, and it's like I have an advantage because nobody gets me confused with Shelly or vice versa, but I I do that with you sometimes. I know. Well, everybody does. We we answer to both constantly. So yeah. Which one's Laurel, which one's Hardy? I don't know. Right. We've been asked which one's Barry and which one's basil. Um yeah, so yeah. Uh my my favorite is somebody, some telemarketer called one time and said, Hello, could I speak to a Mr. Rick Kitchen, please? You know, you're you're way off, buddy. You're way off. Right. We uh Joy curated, you know, obviously the name of the show, but it's our tagline that we had from the very beginning, and our business cards had it. And uh we knew that it was a sales call when when people would call and ask for joy. Like Joy isn't in today. Sorry, she's not available. When do you know I'm not sure if she when she's coming in? Yeah. So and then we have a uh stand that we always hang aprons on, and so that's joy. Joy's always there. You know, and actually Joy's been in the back room for for too long. She was in the window for for all the time. We change our jewelry, all that kind of good stuff. So we need to bring Joy back out. Don't we put joy in the corner? Yeah. All right. Always. Thank you so much, Nate. Awesome. This has been a good time. Yeah. Thank you for having me. You know, what I keep coming back to after this conversation is that line that Nate said about small towns. That people in small towns deserve good things just as much as people in larger communities. I believe that with everything I have. It's why Barry and Basil exists, and it's why I love knowing that there are people like Knight and Shelly out there doing the same thing in Independence, Iowa. Find the Brick Kitchen on Facebook and Instagram, and we will link everything in the show notes. Follow Joy Curated in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode, and come visit us at Barry and Basil in beautiful downtown Chamberlain, South Dakota, or online at berryambasil.com. The show is written and hosted by me, Cindy Peterson, and produced by the beautiful Casey Brown at Teal Hat Communications. So until next time, I hope you fill your kitchen with all the things that make life easier and the people that bring a smile to your face. Nate. Nate, how do you pronounce your last name? Whitened. White. Like the past tense of White. So Nate, I've had to explain that my whole life. Right? Yeah.