The Gluten-Free Biscuit Queen

In the early internet days, selling biscuits online wasn’t really a thing.

Today, it’s Callie's Hot Little Biscuit — a nationwide handmade biscuit brand and South Carolina eatery with gluten-free options that sell out daily (seriously!).

In this episode of Eat With Dominique, I sit down with Carrie Morey to unpack the story behind it all.

We break down:
 • How sending her mom’s biscuits from Charleston to NYC offices accidentally sparked a business
• Why growing up in the South made “feeding people” her love language
• What happened when her family’s biscuits were served at Reese Witherspoon’s wedding
• And the moment gluten-free went from unknown to non-negotiable for her eatery

We also discuss why Carrie decided to build her business around being a Mom - not the other way around.

If you’ve ever felt like you have to choose between your family and your ambition — this conversation is for you.

🌟 And if you want to try Callie's Hot Little Biscuit for yourself, you can use code DOMINIQUE15 for 15% off at calliesbiscuits.com 🧡

And of course… don’t forget to like and subscribe to the Eat with Dominique podcast for more conversations like this.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

One day I just went to my mom, Callie, we need to sell these. We're gonna sell them on the internet. And she said, That's a horrible idea.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Hi everyone, I'm Dominique, and welcome to Eat with Dominica, a podcast for women with gluten sensitivities, IBS, and other gut challenges who want to eat confidently and pain-free. In the early internet days, selling biscuits online wasn't really a thing. Today, it's Pallie's Hot Little Biscuits, a nationwide handmade biscuit brand and South Carolina eatery with gluten-free options that sell out daily. Seriously. In this episode of Eat with Dominic, I sit down with founder Carrie Morey to unpack the story behind it all. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the Eat with Dominic podcast for more conversations like this. I can't wait for you to hear this. So without further ado, grab a seat and let's eat with Dominique. So, Carrie, I first discovered Callie's Viscous because our sororities featured you and your amazing South Carolina eateries and brands. And I was really inspired. I knew I had to reach out to talk to you. Something that I find so amazing is that your story started with such a clear intention that you wanted to be a mom first. What was it like building a business where your ethos was that as a center as opposed to the other way around? Sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

You know, building a business with your children and being the primary caregiver for your children, honestly, was incredibly slow. But that was somewhat intentional. And there were moments where I wanted things to get fed up, but it was exactly how I wanted it to be, or how I thought I wanted it to be. And I'm really grateful for that time because the the slowness obviously allowed me to be super present with our daughters, but it also allowed me to really dream about what it could be. And I wonder if had it happened in another way, would it have happened the same way? Because you know, thought when you have time to think about things, that's creative. And so that's when you start, you know, the sky's the limit. Well, what if we were to have a biscuit restaurant? What if we were to write cookbooks? What if we were to have a wholesale business? And that's truly how it all came to fruition. Yeah.

unknown 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

And like you're saying, you were able to expand in so many amazing like directions. When you first started like 21 years ago, did you ever imagine it would become what it's become today? Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

And you know, again, another thing that we did differently than most people, we didn't have a formal business plan. We didn't have these grand plans. It was just a way to fuel my creativity and have something on the side so that I could really be um fulfilled as a human, but also always putting our daughters first.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Yeah, yeah. Were you working um another job also when you were doing this? I mean, you obviously were a mom, so that's a job. Were you doing another um corporate job at the time?

SPEAKER_04 3:13

I wasn't at the time that we started Cali's. We had decided that I had been working since I gotten out of college, worked in New York, and just really wanted to be at home with the girls. And so I did have the luxury of not needing to bring in income. It certainly was nice when we finally did bring in some income because it's hard to work as a mom for for free, right? Yeah. So um that was really nice, but it took us a couple of years to be able to make any money. And for many, many years, I didn't really bring home enough to support our family, just my like things that I wanted to do on the side for myself. So um, no, I was not working. We had decided I'm gonna be at home. And so then that was kind of part of when I said to my husband, I want to start this biscuit business, he said, but I thought you wanted to be at home with the girls. And I said, I do, I want to do both, and and I'm gonna do both. And in the beginning, if I have to hire a babysitter to work, then I'm not gonna do it. I'm going to until I can pay for the babysitters to be with them for short periods of time when I need to run to work for, you know, it was so slow in the beginning. So it it unfolded nicely.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. Um, so I know the company is named after someone very special. Um, can you talk more about like where the name came from and what it represents to you?

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Yes. So it's Callie's Hot Little Biscuit is the name. And we started 21 years ago with the name Callie's Biscuits. We're at Callie's Biscuits.com. That is my mom, Callie, who is alive and well and um uh one of our biggest supporters, and she always made country hand biscuits, which are a very big thing in the south. But hers were distinctively different, and she had a small catering business that she did just word of mouth for friends and family and a few special people when the word got out. And I was always the one serving the biscuits, and so I was receiving the accolades, and people were asking, Where do we get these? How do I order them? And I would run back to the kitchen and say, Mom, they want to order 300 for Christmas. And I and she said, No, I'm not gonna make them because they're too hard to make right and they take a lot of time and it's very labor-intensive. And I said, But you don't want to sell them? And she said, No, I don't want to do that. And I thought, okay, and so you know, all these building blocks, hearing that people love them, wanting to buy them, then moving to New York and you know, working in an internet business and seeing the future, those all like played a huge part in not intentionally developing the idea, but it was just happening. And you know, one day I just went to my mom, Callie, and I said, We need to sell these. And she said, Where? And I said, We're gonna sell them on the internet. And she said, That's a horrible idea. No, it's not, it's really not.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

So that's how it came to be. Was there, I guess we were saying, was the buildup of all these like interesting people having interest in them? It seems like outside of the South, I know you guys catered like Reese Witherspoon's first wedding. Was that kind of a moment when you were like, wait a minute, this is like more than just kind of a southern thing?

SPEAKER_04 6:44

Well, yes, my mom did cater Reese Witherspoon's wedding, and that was a huge deal, and we were so excited. But I back then I wasn't thinking, oh, we need to sell these biscuits. It wasn't until I came home from New York, was pregnant, and watching her make biscuits one day and thinking to myself, you know, catering is such a hard, physically hard business. And at the time my mom was probably, I don't know, 55. And I said, you know, mom, you can't do this forever. It's physically taxing on your body. What if we were to take one product, your best product, and try to sell it? And that's kind of and it just it just popped into my head, but then I had all that other information behind it that started to really make it make sense. Yeah. Yeah. So it was uh it was just an aha moment, but then it just seemed to flood. The idea seemed to flood, and and how I could go about it just came to me.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Did you ever think you had like this entrepreneurial bug before then? Because to even think that yeah, that's what interesting. I'm like to even think that though is very unique.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

No, I always tell people I I'm the accidental entrepreneur and I love telling this story. I was an elementary education major, so nothing to do with my major. I I see my daughters stressing about what they're gonna do when they, you know, get out of college, what their major is gonna be. I'm like, it doesn't matter. Just go learn how to live independently, learn how to be responsible, learn how to be organized, learn how to be a people person, meet people, make connections, and study something that you're interested in. You don't need to worry about that's gonna be what you do for the rest of your life. I will say though, I never taught a day in my life. I mean, I did my student teaching, but what I learned from teaching was it's so important to captivate your audience, whether that is you speaking to a group of 500 people or you're selling to a salesperson or you're talking to your team, your employees, like to learn how to communicate with people and get their attention. Teachers are salespeople. They are trying to get children to drink the Kool-Aid and listen to what they have to say and then ingest it and keep that committed to their memory. So there are so many things that I got from that major, even though I never use it.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Yeah.

unknown 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

No, that's true. I do feel like all the classes you take in college can inform so much of what you do, even if it's not like a one-to-one of what you end up doing.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Totally. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah. Now, something you said that was really interesting is how at the time, like when you were like, oh, we should sell these online, it wasn't very common to really have like a food business unless it was basically a restaurant or catering. What about like what did you see kind of that gave you that foresight to be like, this could be like a thing to do this online?

SPEAKER_04 9:43

So this is what happened. When I lived in New York, I worked for an internet company, it went out of business, and then I went to work for um a temporary placement, job placement agency. And we would courier over milk and cookies. That was like our specialty when we were trying to get a customer, like uh in HR, and there was this company called Elainey's Cookies, and they're still in business today. And so I was constantly placing orders and they would deliver it within an hour, you know, it's kind of like Amazon does now. Yeah. It was the best idea, warm cookies and milk. And then I would write a handwritten note. And so I started thinking, like, this is genius. And so, because I was from the South, and certainly in my office, a minority, as far as like most people were from New York, I started taking my mom's country ham biscuits, bringing them home in my suitcase. I would heat them up, I would have the courier send them over, I'd write a handwritten note. I'm like, I wanted them to know that I was from the South, and yes, milk and cookies are good, but I have something better. Right. And people from all walks of life, all different nationalities would call me and say, What is this? Oh my God, this is so delicious. And so I think for so long I thought biscuits were just for southerners. And that's when I started to realize, oh no, this is a thing. Now we got to figure out how to do it. And so then I started really researching Alini's. They shipped. Um, you know, back then the shipping food was people like um Omaha Steaks, right? Right? Right. That was really it. It was just a couple of specialty purveyors. But I knew from working at with the internet company that it was definitely gonna be something. I didn't realize what it that it was gonna be what it is today. So thank goodness I got really lucky on on that little risk take.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

I feel like, but honestly, it's like I don't honestly, it's luck, but it's like I feel like you were very like deliberate and smart about how you did it. Like, I don't even think I would think to be like, let me bring the biscuits from home and like deliver them. And honestly, like a market testing, early market testing, honestly. Um, so I feel like it was very smart and unique. Like you said, it stands out definitely. In New York, especially. I don't think they get a lot of southern southern food in New York.

SPEAKER_04 12:01

Well, growing up in the South, the way we communicate is to feed people, right? So, you know, we have people for supper, we invite them up on our porch. And I remember missing that so much living in New York. And I would invite my friends for Sunday supper, and they would call me and say, What don't you want to just meet at a restaurant? And I'd say, No, I want to make you a roast chicken and rice and gravy and butter beans and biscuits. And they'd say, We we don't eat in our houses and we've never been to anyone's house for dinner.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

I'm like, What?

SPEAKER_04 12:29

So I think it was just like my natural heritage coming out. Like, I want to feed you, I want you to taste something that you've never had, and I know you're gonna never forget this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

And I feel like it's that like passion that you can see like in Cali's now, right? That it's like it's about the comfort food, even if someone's not from South Carolina or whatever, like you can feel it in just creating a comfort food for people and like a comfortable place and everything. That's like at home, which probably is because it started right with you at home. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 12:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Absolutely. Something I really love is that gluten-free like was not originally part of the game plan for you guys, and then it came about because your community was like, we really want gluten-free biscuits. Um, what was it like for you to be able to meet that need for the community?

SPEAKER_04 13:13

You know, we didn't realize that we needed to do it until we opened our first bake shop in Charleston, and people were we never got the request online, probably because we weren't really selling very much stuff online at the time in 2012. Uh, but people would come in to the restaurant and say, Where do you have gluten-free? And I'm thinking, no, we don't. We don't have it. I I don't even know anything about gluten-free. I I don't know. So somebody on my team who had some gluten-free expense experience really worked on the recipe for us and knocked it out of the park. I mean, I I would I wouldn't be able to appreciate it, but people, even today, like every day we sell out of our gluten-free biscuits. They come in and they, you know, they ask, if if we sell out, they'll say, Can you put more in the oven and I'll come back in 30 minutes? Like it's apparently delicious. Yeah. Uh, we and so once we once we started selling them at the eateries, then we said, Well, we've got to package them and sell them frozen. So now William Sonoma sells them on their um e-commerce site. Of course, we sell them on our e-commerce site, we sell them at the eateries, um, and we have quite a few smaller whole wholesale partners that sell them as well. And I think the combination there is making them by hand and using the right flour. That was really hard to source, but we got the right flour. And um, now we make a mix too. So you can either buy the mix or the ready-made. So, yeah. Yeah. And we sell grits, we sell grits too, which are gluten-free. Yeah. And one thing that a lot of people don't know is that pimento cheese is gluten-free. So you can buy those are the three things that we have on our website that are gluten-free, pimento cheese, grits, which by the way, go really well together, and biscuits and glutes and grits go really biscuits and pimento cheese go really well together. So you can build a breakfast sandwich, you can, you know, build a gluten-free buttermilk biscuit, add your protein, add an egg, and then add pimento cheese, and you've got the best breakfast sandwich in the country.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

It is definitely. I know I agree. It looked like you're saying, and I feel like I'm being thrown back to my childhood in Texas when you're saying when you're saying this right now. So it's yeah, it's definitely amazing. Like you said, like I think creating that inclusive environment too, which is really all about what home is all about, right? Like feeling welcome, feeling included, and I think having those options, certainly as somebody's gluten-free, it's like amazing to be able to be like, oh, I can have this thing I had like when I was a child. Like it's really cool. That's right. Yeah. So now we're all for the gluten freeze.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

We we have not left you out.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Yeah. Um, have there been any particular like stories or moments that have stuck out to you since you added that gluten-free um addition to like your menu, like anything from the community that really stuck out to you?

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Uh, I don't know that I have a particular moment. I just I I look back on that and I think, ah, I mean, I was really not very smart and and not very sensitive of me to forget about that on the menu. So I'm really glad that the community, you know, asked for that and we were able to respond. And I love that it's super popular.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah. Yeah, I know, selling out. There's nothing better than I mean, that's how you know when it's selling out. Yes, definitely. Um, something that I think is really inspiring is that you built a company with 95% of the employees in the team are women, and even some of your, I think all your daughters actually have worked for the business. Um, what does it mean to you to create an environment like that?

SPEAKER_04 16:51

Well, I have a lot of pride around that. And I think most importantly, it was not done intentionally, it just happened that way. And we certainly don't discriminate against men. It just, you know, you somebody once said to me, because hiring can be difficult for anybody that is in that role, you should hire someone that you would want to go to dinner with. And I thought, you know, you can ask somebody all the questions in the world, but you really have to have a connection with them, right? I mean, you work so hard as a business owner to create a culture where people are going to get along. I mean, that's a really big part of what I am juggling every day is making sure that we have the right personalities working together. And inevitably, it there are times when it doesn't always work. But you know, sharing a meal with someone or a biscuit is a surefire way to find out if they are going to fit into your culture of your company. And there's something about women, and I'm not disparaging men, and certainly everyone is capable of this, but women are really great at multitasking, they have a sense of urgency, they are easy to be able to juggle many things, and we're in the business of shipping frozen food. So everything is we got to do it yesterday. We got to do it quickly, we got to move fast, we got to think about, you know, inventory of boxes and gel packs and and biscuits, and there's a lot of like moving parts. It is a logistical job here. So, you know, it just so happened that, and we have a lot of great men on our team too, but it just so happened that, you know, over the last 21 years, the majority of the people that have been working with us are women. So I love that. I'm very proud of that.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah, it's amazing. Um, I know you said that you found that running a business is actually very similar to running a family. What would you say have been like the biggest parallels that you've noticed between the two things? I know you even just write them, you're talking about sharing a meal and like wanting to spend time together.

SPEAKER_04 19:07

Well, share uh raising a family, boys, girls, mixture of both, having a team. There's always gonna be, as my mother-in-law always said, you we have three children, there's always gonna be one that's out of sorts. And it's it's kind of like that. And you know, there's always gonna be somebody that's having a bad day, right? I mean, and our job as a parent or a business owner is to get them to check that at the door before they come in. Like, I'm sorry you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I'm sorry you're having troubles outside of work, but when you're here, let's just enjoy being somewhere else than wherever you came from that are the problems and have a positive day. As a mom, you're constantly juggling all the dynamics of your children. The same thing goes on in a business. You're juggling the dynamics, you are teaching them that their structure, their rules, but you also want them to be happy and you want to create a positive environment. You want them to be kind to you and you want to return that. All those same things apply, whether it's your children or your employees. You want to create a positive place to live or work, and and there's no difference in family life. You know, I often joke that I'm a lot nicer to my employees than I am to my children, because you know, my children, I can just say exactly how I want to say it. In an in an office environment, I need to be more diplomatic, I need to take others' feelings into consideration that I don't know as well. If I'm telling my children the same thing that I've told them 10 times, I'm not gonna have as much patience as I would if I have an employee who I don't know very well or don't know what's going on in their outside life. And so I have more grace in that in that sense. So and I always tell my children, you know better, and they may not. So you get a little bit more of my firmness than they do.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

So that makes sense. That makes sense. Um, I know that a lot of times in entrepreneurship, people think there's kind of like one specific way to do things or it looks a certain way. But like you said, you've had a non-traditional path from like elementary school, um, education um major to now you're running a food business around your passion of southern cooking. What advice would you have for women who feel like they don't fit like the mold of entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_04 21:41

Oh, I would encourage you to not worry about fitting a mold. I certainly didn't fit a mold. I never thought I would ever own a business. I just thought I would work for somebody. It never occurred to me. I and frankly, I I was really scared to do it. I mean, I think that's the biggest. thing with entrepreneurial ship is that you may have everybody's got a good idea but who's gonna execute it and the fear can get the best of you and as my husband likes to remind me if it was easy everybody would be doing it you're doing something really hard and it's going to take so much work um and it's not gonna it's not gonna get any easier if you're successful it's only gonna get harder and you know who wants it to be easy that's so boring you know going through the hard stuff is really challenging but when you get through it and you're on the other side like there's such a a sense of accomplishment and pride and new gain confidence to yourself to your team to everyone that has been with it been in it with you that oh my gosh we can do hard things and this was a great exercise right yeah yeah yeah it's funny my dad says that too if every like my dad says that as well your husband says yeah it's very true it's very true um in those moments I guess when it was difficult or slower what helped you stay grounded during those moments I think speaking to my husband a lot because he and I have polar opposite uh personalities in that you know I will be so emotionally worked up women are by nature more emotional than men right so everything is taken like an email can be read in a different tone and and they could not mean anything by it but I take it differently right that we've all we've all done that you know he's the first one to be contradictory be like I didn't read it like that at all why are you so stressed about this and also this has taken many years to it's a practice you cannot control everything and when you realize that you shouldn't be worried about things you can't control that is really hard and it is a constant reminder there's nothing I can do about this except accept it and if it's losing business or saying the wrong things in a meeting all you can do is ask for forgiveness or say okay I'm losing the business but maybe I'll get a chance in another year you know so you have to like I'm constantly giving myself pep talks I guess is the best way to describe it you know just just to give you an idea like we're we're losing our copy for our pimenta cheese that is an incredibly stressful thing. There is nothing I can do about it except for put my head down and figure out okay where do I go now? And so getting lost in the work and the hard work of trying to solve the problem instead of stressing about something that you can't control you're just putting your energy into something different. And so that just takes a lot of practice. He's done a really good job of coaching me through a lot of stressful times.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Yeah yeah that's awesome um is there how do you think you maybe it was through like the relationship with him like how do you think you got to the point where not only you were brave enough to be like even though I'm scared I'm gonna you know pursue this dream that I have and then also like you said to not try to control things or to not um kind of like allow other people really to affect like how you feel really I mean or because you know it sounds like from entrepreneurship right there's always going to be some fire to put out and even if something good happens it's like oh wait let me like deal with this issue because now we're expanding so now I have to deal with that.

SPEAKER_04 25:44

Like so how do you think you were able to handle that I I think I am it's not past tense it I'm handling it is constantly happening and I'm constantly reminding myself those things that I just said you can't control people you can only control yourself and at the end of the day and this one other thing to add to that you go to work and you work as hard as you can you you know everybody does it differently I have lists of things that I need to get done and at the but at the end of the day you might not get it done or you might not solve the problem you also have to go home and rest your brain go home and enjoy your family go cook a good meal sit down and do something that is a complete departure from the stress and get a good night's sleep that is super key and for me it's exercise so I like to exercise in the morning and it's like a clearing of my head I've had a good night's sleep I've had family time a good meal and then I'm ready to go again and I don't necessarily wake up with the answer but sometimes I do and sometimes I go I don't know what the answer is but I am gonna will it to come to me and I'm gonna go to work and I'm gonna try again you just wake up the next day and you do it again and you got to have a positive attitude and that doesn't mean I always do but I'm constantly when I find myself going down that negative right rabbit hole I'm redirecting myself nope don't think like that right think this way right what else what else are you gonna do? You know you have to just keep going. Yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah because you can either I guess spend the energy on the problem or on the progress to get to like a solution exactly yeah so yeah that's really great advice um I know you've talked about like how you don't always kind of stop to smell the roses right to see all the amazing things that you guys have accomplished um because you want to of course progress and grow and see what's next but right now like what does it feel like to take a moment maybe and like pause and reflect on everything that you've accomplished in these 21 years it feels really cool really amazing honestly hard to believe as I'm looking beyond this computer at all the stacks of biscuit crackers that we have here because we just got a big order of our newest product biscuit crackers that are in all publics around the country first of all I'd never dreamt of a biscuit cracker it it isn't a thing until we created it and like just for this moment only because you asked me look thinking about that like it's insane it's really cool right that I've created I mean biscuits were around before well before me but a biscuit cracker was something that we created from leftover dough that I didn't want to throw out and now we have them in you know 1600 stores across the country that's hard for me to really put my wrap my brain around it's it's crazy and I'm I'm very proud but I also don't want to spend too much time talking about how great that is because I want to keep working hard to try to sell them because getting in the store is the easy part keeping them on the shelves is the hard part. So I'm yeah very proud and very excited and just am so honored that people seem to like our food which is a really cool thing. Yeah yeah going back to the story that I told you about how growing up as a southerner and I know every southerner is like this you want to feed people because you really want that's my language that's my love language so you really want people to love your food. And so I have my food in stores where people are going and buying it right like mind blowing very cool.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Yeah it is really really cool. And I think something that I really love about like what you're sharing and like your mindset I don't know if you've read or heard of the book The Greatest Salesman in the world have you heard of that no but I'm gonna write it down. Okay yeah it's really good yeah yeah I try to read it every year it's by it's really short it's by Ogmandino it's from like probably like the 1950s or something but basically one of the things he talks about is basically like even no matter what happened the day before if I had like a really good sale or like things didn't go the way I want basically I forget what happened before and I try to make another sale like the next day. Like it's and I don't rest on like what happened previously because it's always about like persisting until you succeed and that kind of thing. And so it really reminds me of that and you said it and I think it's a great like reminder and a great thing to just kind of keep in the back of your mind as you like go towards different goals.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

I love it. Yes I can't wait to read that I love books like that. So thank you for sharing and I and I that's exactly how my mind works. It's I'm so proud but I'm quietly proud and then nervous like oh gosh now we're there we got to make sure it sells and um on to the next one because not because I don't care about it. It's because I don't want to go on vacation be like oh we're done for the day. Yeah um you know so that's kind of where my mindset is is you know quietly proud.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Yeah yeah I feel like I mean you're pursuing something great right and so it's like you don't want to just assume that you've already reached it when you can actually I mean I think you said you keep showing yourself you can do more than what you thought and that's pretty that's probably the best you can ask for is you can keep doing more.

SPEAKER_04 31:15

Yeah well and it's also you know I don't have any intentions of not working. I love it. It's very fulfilling and you got to have purpose because when you don't have purpose that's when you start to die inside so yeah I love filling my days with things that are make me happy and this company really makes me happy I feel very blessed to love what I do. And I think that's the secret sauce to life.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah yeah no that's true yeah my parents I remember when I was a kid my dad would be like why would I retire? And of course when you're a kid you're like six you know you're like oh like I all I know is like here people retire and it's like I think the older I get the more I'm like yeah I don't know if I would I don't know why I would ever retire if if like you said you're fortunate enough to like be doing the thing know what your purpose is and be pursuing it.

SPEAKER_04 32:04

Um yeah that's right that is the secret to life.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Yeah um so something we you talked about we've talked about before this was kind of this idea that like you kind of feel like the universe gave you exactly what you wanted even if sometimes in the moment you're like oh I want this faster but you realize like it was exactly what you wanted. Can you talk a little more about that?

SPEAKER_04 32:25

Yeah well going back to how we I came up across the or upon the idea of Calys it was I want to I want something for myself but I don't want to miss out on my children's rearing and I just want to work a little bit right and so you know we would start and I I mean some days I'd work one hour a day you know during their naps it was a lot of nap time working or you know when they became two and I took them to preschool and they were in preschool from eight to eleven work three hours a day. And I remember thinking this is so great but at this rate we're never going to get anywhere right but I but I held fast and then as soon as I started to make a little bit of money I would hire a babysitter to come maybe for two hours a day um you know pick them up from whatever play date or whatever so that I could have an extra hour you know and it just kept building on that and then when our youngest Sarah went to kindergarten they were all of a sudden in school from eight to three right and I thought oh my gosh what am I gonna do? This is gonna be amazing and that was when I decided to open the eatery which gave us a brick and mortar gave us a face and a place for people to experience Callies and that really helped us get the word out and that's when things really started changing in in 2014. So you know I still kept those hours from eight to two in the bake shops because I wanted to be able to drop off my kids at school and I wanted to be able to pick them up and I you know 90% of the time I kept that commitment and you know there was there are always moments where something happened but it was rare and I wouldn't have it any other way. I pick up my kids we'd go home I would still you know check email and work and do whatever but I also cook dinner for them every night I didn't miss a basketball game. Did I miss out on on business opportunities? 100% I couldn't tell you a single one I have no idea yeah so that at the end of the day like your family is what's most important. Living your life is what's most important. Work is very important but it's not more important than your own lifestyle.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Yeah that's incredible and honestly like the more I hear you talk it kind of honestly reminds me of my parents because my dad always said when he like left college which is would have been like well obviously didn't have a family at the time but he always said he wanted to have like a job where he could be at home and his kids could come in the office like whenever he was working. And at the time you know you tell a bunch of guys that they're like well it wasn't even like at the time it's like what um like you yeah and it's like it's like you said like now my parents as a kid like they never missed the basketball game like my mom made dinner every night and like you said I'm sure there are business opportunities they missed out on from doing that but like being able to like as a kid it definitely and I'm sure your daughters feel the same way it's like incredible to see your parents obviously working hard but also like if I have a question like I go knock on like you know I mean the office door like it's probably already open. Um so yeah it's really incredible.

SPEAKER_04 35:45

It it has been a a wonderful 20 years. Yeah and I'm looking forward to the next 20. Yeah um well I guess what what made you like know because I feel like you knew from a young age just like I was saying with my dad like you knew you wanted that from a young age like to have that sort of lifestyle what made you realize that I didn't have it growing up and you know I I think a lot about that because I was a child of the 80s and we we were just talking about this with a friend uh you know we had a lot of people women went went to work for the first time when I was a child you know and I mean we we were latchkey kids we came home nobody was there we were just thank goodness we were safe it was just a different time and I don't remember a lot of family dinners I remember Sunday supper I remember you know a couple sprinkled in but both of my parents were working and that was exhausting for them you know I mean I so I just remember wanting that I remember going to my friends' houses that did have moms that stayed at home and they're like you know just like leave it to beaver like making cookies after school and I thought oh my God this is amazing and I just remember wanting that wanting that to give that to my children wanting to be that mom and so that's why I started uh out as a stay at home mom but it was I I had lived in New York and worked in these big hustle environments and there's something to be said for once you do that you learn how to work really well um but I I want I didn't want it to end but I wanted to have both so I had to figure that was the problem that I had to solve and here I am like all along solving this problem. Well if I do this I can do this and I didn't realize that's exactly what the life of an entrepreneur is all you are is a problem solver. Yeah you are just solving for today's problem and what's tomorrow's and what's coming and anticipating and it's just a daily solve of the problems and then you move on to the next one the next day.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Yeah like you said a lot of parallels between that and the parenting and everything yes 100% yeah and the logistics logistics and problem solving yeah and having unbelievable persistence and never giving up yeah yeah um you mentioned New York right there I do have to ask you said that like you believe everyone should live in New York at some point why do you say that?

SPEAKER_04 38:27

I do I think it teaches you how to work really hard I think it is a place that has unbelievable energy the culture the food and the experiences that you have there they're unmatched you don't you're not gonna get them anywhere else but I think mainly the working you're you cut your teeth in New York if you work in New York and you learn how to be unbelievably efficient and work like a New Yorker and then you come back home for me I came back to Charleston where people stop working at noon on Fridays. They don't go to work before nine the pace is so slow you can run circles around people and and you can do your job and be so much more efficient and then have this lifestyle that you want to have so for me anyway that's it it works for me. Yeah and I'm so grateful for that time in New York.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Yeah how many years are you can imagine almost three about two and a half two three quarters yeah yeah but I can't imagine working there my whole life because you would just be so exhausted yeah and I and and raising children no it would be hard yeah all the praise out to all the New York mamas um well this has been really really great I'm it's already time for the rapid fire we might keep talking to you but I know you have to get the biscuits and everything ready.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

So um first question sweet or savory savory always go to gluten free gut friendly snack oh I love the Snyder's uh gluten free pretzels I should say my biscuits but both we can say both we can say both with my pimento cheese I love the pimento cheese yeah yeah um what is the biscuit combo you secretly love oh so many we we try to do crazy recipes for social media so we're always publishing recipes and the first two that have come to mind that I think of is we did a key lime pie biscuit that was out of this world. We also um one of my all-time favorite is a cream sickle biscuit oh it's so good it's like you know if you ever have the the can of biscuits that's like an orange cinnamon roll it's an orange roll it's like that it has got tons of orange juice and and orange zest and this delicious cream sheet oh it's so good. I mean anything could be a biscuit anything currently the special at Hot Little Biscuit right now is Lucky Charms so house made cereal milk all the marshmallows and lucky charms oh vanilla glaze so good I think I need to go to Charleston I think that's what I think that's what I need to come see us. Yes come on um what is your favorite biscuit on McCallie's hot little biscuit menu oh I think it's the country ham for many reasons it's what gave us the start we wouldn't have this business without it and it's distinctively different but also at the same time beyond comforting it it hits all the notes it's salty it's it's you know got a hint of sweet it's cheesy it's just the combination is to die for yeah um I think I know the answer to this one but what food instantly feels like home oh biscuits definitely biscuits rice and gravy roasted chicken butter beans like that's my that's my last supper yeah um what's the most underrated biscuit ingredient? Cream cheese oh I never I never thought of that if it has to be underrated then I never thought of that we actually put butter and cream cheese in all of our biscuits all of our savory biscuits because the cream cheese is so tangy and it just marries so well with our buttermilk and it just gives our buttermilk biscuit this oomph of like tang that is out of the swirl.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah it sounds really good um what is the best southern dish that people don't realize is gluten free grits and grits are not just for breakfast i mean growing up we had grits for every meal and supper with a piece of fish oh so good I feel like anytime we go to a restaurant that has grits even if it's not a southern restaurant my dad gets it he's from Florida I feel like every time all these foods you're saying I'm like he would love a key lime pie. Like when you said the oranges I'm like I know he like used to pick oranges when he was a kid like I'm like you he would love this yes I love that yeah um so speaking of my dad growing up he always said whether it's about food or people or life that things should be good to you good for you and good with you when it comes to like gluten-free gut-friendly eating what does that mean to you I think gluten-free gut-friendly eating means the better you take care of your body the the healthier your gut is the more you will enjoy life so if you are gluten free want to be gluten free for whatever reason then you should do that and find the

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Best that there is to eat because I'm a huge believer that your gut is the core of everything, health-wise. And although I'm not gluten-free, I do eat plenty of things that are gluten-free. And I also believe that you know the better we treat our bodies, the healthier we are.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

So yeah. Yeah, that's a great answer. Um, well, Carrie, I really, really love talking to you today. Um, it was so great and inspiring to hear your journey um with Callie's Hot Biscuits and how you're meaningfully serving the um gluten-free community. For anyone who's craving amazing handmade biscuits, they can go to Callie's Hot Little Biscuits in Charleston, or they can order them online at Callie'sBiscuits.com and also be sure to follow them at Callie's Hot Little Biscuit on Instagram and beyond. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Yes, thank you. So nice to chat with you.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Thank you so much for tuning in to Eat With Dominique. It was so inspiring to chat with Carrie Mori about Cali's Hot Little Biscuit and how it's dedicated to including the gluten-free community. As someone who grew up in the South, it was really special to experience a classic Southern comfort food made safely and gluten-free. If you want to try these delicious handmade biscuits for yourself, Carrie has offered a discount exclusively for the Eat with Dominique community. You can use code Dominique15, all caps, to get 15% off your entire order at Callie'sBiscuits.com. I've also included the link and the code in the episode description below. Let me know if you try them. I know you're gonna love them as much as I did. If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you have a gluten-free, allergy-friendly, or gut-sensitive friend who needs better options, send this episode their way. We'd love to have them. This podcast is all about actionable tips, trustworthy brands, and real strategies to make gluten free, gut friendly living easier, tastier, and pain free. So remember, whether it's life or food, make sure it's always good to you, good for you, and good with you. I'll see you soon.