SPEAKER_01

0:00

Police was just petty that day. It was morning. Everybody get out. What y'all doing? You know, we're gonna search the van, everything. They search it. Yep, we get we gotta take you all in. And I'm like, no, I gotta show. Like in like five hours, I can't go. They like, get in the car, like you're gone.

SPEAKER_02

0:17

Do you have a couple hours stint? Couple hours. Make it to the stage. Make it to the state.

SPEAKER_01

0:21

And then you get a roll with Matthew McConaughey. Get off stage, Matthew McConaughey. I said, bro, you can't make this thing up.

SPEAKER_02

0:28

I just heard you guys did 20 bottles in one knife. How many people were you feeding? The club. Everybody. The club.

SPEAKER_01

0:36

You get one. You get one. Lynn. Brother. Let's have fun.

SPEAKER_02

0:42

Hey guys, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. What an amazing episode today. Love Tavin, a Milwaukee legend, entertainer, rapper, actor, Ishtar was on this one and he did not disappoint. We go over growing up on the north side of Milwaukee, the most trouble he got in growing up, his European tour at age 20. Good stories on that one. Really taking off with his hits locals in Too Bad, getting arrested in Dallas, and getting cast in White Boy Rick alongside Matthew McConaughey and what that was like, his favorite spots in Milwaukee, what's next for Ishtar, and more. Before diving in, I want to thank our partners for making Milwaukee Uncut possible. We'll kick it off with Nicola, the Midwest law firm injured. Get Nicolay and Russell, and the team will take great care of you. Also, have some great videos with Russell coming up on our social channel, so stay tuned for those big fans of that guy. Also, Drink Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company, best vodka brandy and canned cocktails in the game. Ishtar and I were really enjoying one of their canned old fashions on this episode, one of my favorite drinks out there. They've also got some really good vodka canned cocktails that are perfect for summer. That is Drink Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company. And last but not least, our friends over at Annex Wealth Management. If you are looking to get your finances together and maybe not below it on 20 bottles, that lucid light lounge like Ishtar did about a decade ago. And you have goals that deal with your money, your earnings, and your investments. Go talk to the experts at Annex. They have an amazing team ready to listen and help you with your personal goals. Annex Wealth Management, know the difference. That's annexwealth.com. All right, let's dive in with Ishtar. We've got a Milwaukee legend, Mesmer High School grad played Freaky Steve in the movie, White Boy Rick, which starred Matthew McConaughey. He's had hits including Too Bad in Locals, over 45 million streams. He's performed at South by Southwest. Open for Jason DeRulo on the main stage at Summerfest. Just to name a few. Yes, sir. All right now we got Ishtar in the building.

SPEAKER_01

3:12

All right, guys. What's going on? Thank you for the intro, brother. Yes. What's going on, gang? It's good to meet you in person. Thanks for coming down. Yes, sir, bro. You too, man. I heard a lot of good things. And so, Liam, I was like, man, it's time. Let me go. So, but yes, new project out now. There is no tomorrow. Go get that. Um, it's one of my favorites right now to date. Uh it's only seven songs, but seven of my most personal, I feel like. Um some of my babies. So definitely go get that if y'all get a chance. Good going back, um, you born in Milwaukee? Born and raised in Milwaukee, yes, sir. Um whole life, like I said, uh right here, you know, it's my my baby.

SPEAKER_02

3:59

Yeah, what uh what area was it like growing up in Milwaukee?

SPEAKER_01

4:02

So growing up in Milwaukee, um, it was uh, you know, it was something. Like I said, I from every city, I mean from every side of the city. Um I went to high school, well, let's say my first school, uh, what was that, Claire Mohammed? So that was in um that's in the trenches. I just don't like MLK. So uh started right there, kind of when we moved, you know, got uh over there. Um from there I went to Mesmer, so that's like seventh and capital. That kind of gave me a you know, kind of better sense of the city. Um like I said, it was, you know, so north side, like I said, north side. Um from there, like I said, I'm still just downtown. Like just stay, you know, pretty every side.

SPEAKER_02

4:48

So um growing up it seemed like your dad had uh had a pretty big influence on you just doing my research.

SPEAKER_01

4:55

Yes, so Pops had a big influence racine. Shout out 262 in the building. Um he's a racine native, so I spent a lot of time in racine as well. Um so I always shout out 262. Um that's kind of like my heart as well. Um taught me a lot, you know. Kind of I taught them, you know, where I kind of brought them a lot of my 414 energy down there. And so it was cool. It was cool kind of seeing both sides of uh racine and then Milwaukee as well.

SPEAKER_02

5:30

Um it seemed like you played sports a lot growing up too, and he put he pushed you or not.

SPEAKER_01

5:36

Yes, football was my baby. Um, I was running back. That was my coach. Uh that was kind of just like Your Dad was your coach. Pops was my coach. Was he a hard ass? So what was he like? He was nah, he wasn't a hard ass, but he was. So like was it was he a player's coach except for you? Was he like You feel him? So like it'll be you know subtle stuff. Like I think, okay, we all good, you know, Pops, you know, I forget to do something at home. I get to practice the next day. You know, we doing, we run into the hill, we doing, I'm like, man, Pops, like to the hill, son, to the hill. And I'm just like, all right, and that's you know, the far hill we had to run to, and that was kind of like not punishment, but just kind of like, hey, get to the hill, we see you when you get back. And so um, he wasn't a hard ass. Um, you know, he definitely just kept me, kept me going, kept me motivated.

SPEAKER_02

6:36

Um, do you have any siblings? Was your mom in the picture?

SPEAKER_01

6:39

Yeah, so mom's was in the picture. She was uh, you know, mom's was football coach mom. Shout out to her, making sure I got to practice every day. Um, because we were, I think we were, yeah, we were coming from Milwaukee down to racine probably like every day on some shit.

SPEAKER_02

6:55

Um So you was your dad in Racine and she was in Milwaukee? Yeah. Okay, got it. So you were kind of in a single single mom household on the on the north side growing up.

SPEAKER_01

7:03

There we go. North side, just mom, just us. Um, you know, Pops was you know, Pops was always in the picture, but he was yeah, racing, doing his thing. And so we would just, you know, some summers with shout out to them summers, you know, and racing. We would get to go with him for like the whole summer. And so um give mom a break. Give moms a break. Like moms, we about to go wild out for a little bit. And so, um, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

7:32

What was the toughest thing about growing up on the north side of Milwaukee?

SPEAKER_01

7:35

The toughest thing for me, um, not crazy. Like, it was just knowing, I guess, where you at. Um, you know, we would go to a lot of parties, you you know, you can't predict what would happen. And so it's just staying frosty, I would say. You were put you were partying a lot. I was partying a lot. What what age did you start partying on the north side of Milwaukee? I started partying on the north side of Milwaukee. Mom sent me at the crib like you know, 15, 16.

SPEAKER_02

8:06

Okay, so like sophomore if you're a high school. Oh, with with Wave. Did Wave rope you into this?

SPEAKER_01

8:11

Wave with no, no, let me let me tell y'all about that now.

SPEAKER_02

8:15

We don't want to throw the guy under the bus. We don't have to, but I'm happy to do so if he deserves it.

SPEAKER_01

8:19

There we go. Now, no, wave didn't rope me in. Wave, they would actually, because again, they were two years older, so they would go out. I would have to stay at home. Yeah, I was little, bro, so you know, still in. And so they'd be like, look, bro, it's the grown folks night, you know, you stay at home. So I'd be like that. It's the 17-year-old grown folks night with Wave Chappelle. What a time to be alive, bro. Come on, man. So I would just be like, all right, well, I'm gonna see if I got some friends. And so luckily, um, like I said, moms let me out with the homies, and we'd just go ride around, hit about two, three house parties, get some dance stone, like, you know, it was young.

SPEAKER_02

9:01

What was the what was the most trouble you got in growing up? You guys ever get busted or not really? Yeah, like what?

SPEAKER_01

9:09

Um, I don't think we ever got. Now let's see, a couple cops shut down some parties. Um, I always will get away. I don't know how. Like I said, you're right. You were a running back. I was a running back. Come on, man. So it's be fast. I wouldn't, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. Bro, we see 12, we're gone. And so we're gone. Like we hear, you know, light shots, anything to where it's, you know, it's time to evacuate. Hey, bro, it's time to go. So nothing too crazy. Like I said, luckily, um, yeah, just a minor stuff.

SPEAKER_02

9:45

So you're at you're at Mesmer, and then uh you're you're into music in high school. Yes. And shit shit pops off relevant pretty early for you.

SPEAKER_01

9:57

Early, early. So um, shout out to Mesmer, because that was actually, you know, the first time I had access to the studio, recording my own music. And so um, that was pretty cool. Just those resources stay open. From then, I feel like that allowed me to just, like you said, kind of start puzzling early, kind of take it early, take it serious. Every day after school, you know, we stand at Mesmer until five, six o'clock, you know, as long as you know, G Flat, shout out G Flat, as long as he let us stay in the studio. We're staying. And so, you know, the repetition just kind of who is it?

SPEAKER_02

10:36

Was it you and Wave and those those guys?

SPEAKER_01

10:38

Yep, so it was me, Wave, my brother in Buddha Dar. Um, we had another one, uh Denzel. It was it was a bunch of us. Safe line, it was a couple of us.

SPEAKER_02

10:51

There was some talent coming out of Mesmer.

SPEAKER_01

10:53

Yes, Mesmer, you know, again, shout out Mesmer, man. It's, you know, I I appreciate it a lot more. You know, back then it's like, you know, you had the uniform school, like it's not public, but kind of now I just kind of see it, you know, it helped me in a bit.

SPEAKER_02

11:10

You had to wear a uniform.

SPEAKER_01

11:11

I had to wear a uniform, bro.

SPEAKER_02

11:12

You could you couldn't dress like this in the mess.

SPEAKER_01

11:14

That wouldn't have cut it. I couldn't get fresh, bro. No, but we would get we was getting fresh with the with the uniform. Yeah. We get the skinny, skinny khakis, you know, with the come on, fresh all white, skinny khakis. I had it depressed. Is that in all boys' school? No, no, no. Okay, okay. Yeah, nah. Thank God. Nah, I can't do that. No, hell no.

SPEAKER_02

11:39

Okay, so what was um what was the first moment or the first thing that you put out? Was it senior year of high school? Was it or was it shortly after that or before that?

SPEAKER_01

11:50

It might have been that senior year, and that was the Better Life EP. Um, I think it was probably yeah, like my senior year. Um, and that was again just six songs I recorded right in the crib, you know, at my mom's house. Um, and that was the first project. Yeah, Better Life EP, my baby.

SPEAKER_02

12:10

And that got a that got a good response, right?

SPEAKER_01

12:12

Yes. Um initially that got a great response. Uh the city loved it. Um we got some cool write-ups right away from it.

SPEAKER_02

12:21

Was it was too bad or locals on that?

SPEAKER_01

12:23

Not on that one. Oh, really? That was pre-that. Okay, that was pre-that. So that was they lost me. Um, so that was kind of one of the standouts there was they lost me. It was kind of like my first, you know, my first anything, I guess, was from that EP. That went on to do his thing, stream excellent for me. Um, and so uh, but no, no too bad or anything on that one.

SPEAKER_02

12:46

That was, you know, I was in that and that got that got a good response. Well, what was that like for you? Were you were you like, oh, this this is easy?

SPEAKER_01

12:54

It was kinda, yeah. Not e yeah, I guess, because it was kind of like eye-opening. Like, um, bam, like we made this in the house, you know, dropped it. You know, the blogs are writing about it. Like, let's keep going. I love let's keep going. Like, easy. And then too bad on locals were the was the next year? That was the next year. So freshman year comes. I'm in college. Where were you at in school? I went to UWM. Okay. Yep. So one semester, I don't even remember what major I was going for at that time either. I just had to go because I graduated. So I'm like, all right. But then uh I think I did like one semester there. I might have dropped it. I might have dropped it. I gotta see. We gotta I gotta check to see how I actually went. But um, I all I remember is I did one semester. Call my mom's and told her, you know, I need to take a break. I failed everything.

SPEAKER_02

13:51

How did that how did that go over with your mom and the football coach?

SPEAKER_01

13:55

So mom's and football coach, dad, right. Uh, you know, at first it was um I kind of I feel like they were hard on me at first because they didn't understand. But at the same time, I was showing them kind of, you know, I missed it. You had some traction. Yeah. Were you making money at that point? I was making money being booked. It was, you know, kind of the start. But were you making a decent amount of money at that point? Or I was making livable money. Enough, you know, not no, I wouldn't say livable, enough to, you know, risk it. I I guess, you know, enough to be like, shit, let's try it. If I could do this, you know, let's try doing, you know, undivided attention, 20, and then my manager, you know, he was like, shit, if I got to go, I think like shit, the next month we was in Europe, every show paid, like, yeah, it was fire. It was fire. I was like, bro, what the f you you were you were booked out in Europe. Booked out in Europe. At age 19. At age 19. Two weeks in Europe, didn't know, you know, again, this was um, bro, like, how?

SPEAKER_02

15:02

And it was, you know, really what was that experience like?

SPEAKER_01

15:06

That was um I'm guessing you'd never been out of the country at that point. I'd never thought of going out of the country.

SPEAKER_02

15:13

You know, like yeah, kid from north side of Milwaukee, all of a sudden you're 19 and getting booked in Europe.

SPEAKER_01

15:19

What is this? Like, I'm looking like, bro, where am I going? Like, and so that was just kind of one of those this is real moments. Like, okay, um, ish, you know, we got some offers from you here, here, here. And I'm like, again, let me see where is this? And so, again, just new cultures, new experiences. Um, I learned a lot, like I said, over there. I got to bring Pops with me, football coach.

SPEAKER_02

15:43

So oh, nice. Was he kind of supervising the situation a little bit?

SPEAKER_01

15:47

Tour manager of the year, like I said, shout out pops, made sure I got to man, we was on trains, we was on all type of shit. We had to wake up for, and he was on my ass. Now, like you said, football coach, chill. Tour manager, son, the I'm damn Pops.

SPEAKER_02

16:04

I'm sleepy. Yeah. Well, he probably he probably realized the opportunity you had. Literally. That's when I yeah.

SPEAKER_01

16:12

Were you partying over there, or was it it was I the last day, missed my flight home.

SPEAKER_02

16:19

Let's just say that. Did Pops make the flight and you weren't on it, or was did you both miss it?

SPEAKER_01

16:23

We all missed it, and I got a three-hour leap. Oh no. And me and uh my man, we out partying, and man, all I remember is Did you remember what city that was in? I remember where I went that night. I just remember we did the show, and it was like, yeah, we got an after spot, boom, boom, come to this club. I'm like, all right, and Pop's like, you know, it's your last night, we gotta be at the airport. Like, I got you, Pops. I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_02

16:52

Those clubs go late there too.

SPEAKER_01

16:54

Again, I don't know. I don't remember getting into the hotel, nothing. I just remember waking up the next morning, Pop's yelling at me, knocking on my door. And I'm like, damn. And we missed the flight, but we got back, you know. At the bottom, I think.

SPEAKER_02

17:12

And then you then you made it back and you you dropped some hits that next year.

SPEAKER_01

17:17

Kept it going, you know, got back. That inspired me. Um again to go, I think Broken Hearts and Bank Rose right after that. But uh again, locals, mucho mango, kind of some of my um, some of my were you were you on a label at any for any of this? For any of that, no, just independent. Independent, uh-huh. Um had some distribution, but no label, no, no, no masters, none of that.

SPEAKER_02

17:48

Were you making good money at that point?

SPEAKER_01

17:50

Yes. Yes, you know, and that's when I knew it was real.

SPEAKER_02

17:55

So you're you're 20.

SPEAKER_01

17:56

20.

SPEAKER_02

17:57

How how how much m money ballpark are you making at that point from that stuff?

SPEAKER_01

18:02

From that stuff, you know, I think once I know it was real, when I seen my first check for like 10. Yeah. 10, like off of um like 10 or 15.

SPEAKER_02

18:14

I'm like, damn, this is where's it is that is that coming from bookings or streaming or was it? Streaming, and that was just from streaming.

SPEAKER_01

18:21

Oh, not bookings. No bookings, no shows. That was one streaming check. And I'm like, goodness.

SPEAKER_02

18:27

SoundCloud money?

SPEAKER_01

18:28

It's Spotify. Spotify. Spotify, Apple Music. Shout out to the, you know, I love them to this day. But yeah, Spotify, Apple Music. SoundCloud, I don't think, was even even they weren't okay. Yeah, not yet. They weren't monetizing. Were you were you were you good with them with your m the money that was coming in? I was good with it. I saved it. My mom made me. Shout out to mom, she made me, you know.

SPEAKER_02

18:53

Did you make did you make at least one stupid purchase?

SPEAKER_01

18:57

Oh, I made a hundred stupid purchases. What topped the list? No, um, but nothing too crazy. No, I can I always live, you know, I've lived living below my means. I get just what I want. Um, but nothing crazy. Like I said, I I can say no stupid purchases. I just used to just buy a lot of just clothes and accessories and everything, and then I would, you know, lose it the next day, and I'm like, damn, like from a good night, because I didn't bought too many bottles. I'm like, yo, this is too big. Like, bro, it didn't stop. And so I just felt like, man, it's just dumb purchases.

SPEAKER_02

19:40

Did they did they kind of get you to make an appearance at the club and give you a couple bottles and then you just kept buying? Was it one of those situations?

SPEAKER_01

19:47

No, see, they were stingy, bro. They didn't get no, bro. A lot of places. I'm just a couple did show love. Shout out, you know, Lucid here in the city. They all show me love. Lucid light lounge? Lucid Light Lounge. R.I.P. Lucid. I miss it. You've been to Lucid. I miss Lucid. That was our favorite.

SPEAKER_02

20:03

Um shout out to Chris Stegman, Lucid Light Lounge Lounge legend right there. And Omar. I think Omar was running the place. Omar was running it.

SPEAKER_01

20:12

Omar was running the place. Yes, sir. So yeah, those was lucid days.

SPEAKER_02

20:17

You a 720 guy?

SPEAKER_01

20:19

Um, nah. No, lucid. I just went to 720. Like I'm just getting back into 720, but um, I really it was lucid. They took the cake.

SPEAKER_02

20:29

Um what was it like having having all the all that come at you at once at that age?

SPEAKER_01

20:37

Man, it was you know, it was I guess it was uh it was a lot. I guess it was you kind of just live in it. So it's kind of like time is fast. It's uh you know, it's a lot going on, but it's fun. So it's like you're having so much freaking fun. Um but at the same time it's work too. So again, that's a lot, you know, some things I learned over the time was you know, as much fun as you having, make sure you're taking the time to treat it as you know your job now because it is.

SPEAKER_02

21:08

Then not white white boy Rick.

SPEAKER_01

21:10

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02

21:11

It it didn't seem like you had any experience acting at all. None. Like you're on you're you're I mean, you're on the cover of the movie with Matthew McConaughey.

SPEAKER_01

21:21

With Matthew, shout out to the guys uh again. You know, that was the man above just working, you know, again, I feel like how did that even happen? So that happened again, I feel like through the music. Um, it was just through our music email. Hey, this is you know what we're doing. We would love to see Ishri for a role. And I was like, Okay, random. I'll try it.

SPEAKER_02

21:44

Do they just like your look?

SPEAKER_01

21:46

Basically, maybe that. And I feel like again, it was buzzing. Like I had the movie was shot in in Cleveland or it was, you know, based. So I don't know if they did like some regional research or something. But I don't know how it, you know, ended up. Shout out to my agent too at that time. Um, and so they didn't think I would be interested in it. They were like, you know, we're just seeing if you might. I was like, oh yeah, let's try it. Next thing I know, no.

SPEAKER_02

22:17

Did you did the part come right after the read, or did it take a little while?

SPEAKER_01

22:21

So the part probably came a year after the read. Like six months. A year. Like six months. So it was a while. Because I remember I did. You probably forgot it, but forgot you did it basically. I didn't forget, but I just thought I didn't get it. Like they moved on, like, you know, it's good. And so um, I was actually on a tour at that time. Um, and I forget which tour we might have been on tour with Thay. And um, we were in Dallas, we were in Texas, horrible day, like I said. That was one of the worst days, but the best days at the end. Got pulled over, went to jail, all type of shit. On tour in Texas. Bogus. What did you go to jail for, ish? Bro, exactly, man. Now let's tell, bro. We were entering in Texas. I got my my driver, my shooter is driving. West. Shout out West. You know, we just driving. I guess he's speeding. Yep. We get pulled over. Everybody get out the van. You know, dickheads. I'm like, bruh, can I curse on here? Yeah. Okay, there you go. So police were just petty that day. It was morning. Everybody get out. What y'all doing? You know, we're gonna search the van, everything. They search it, they find not even enough weed to make a damn paper. Like, it was like some bro, smithereens that I forgot it was even in my pocket. What's the bro? You can't even make a blunt with this. Like, you see what this is. And so I had one. I think Buddha might have had a little bit in his book bag. Mind you, we're passing a lot of legal states, so it's just one of the things. Yeah. Got him. And so, yeah, we get we gotta take you all in. And I'm like, no, I gotta show like in like five hours. I can't go. They like get in the car, like you're gone. I was like, well, damn, let's go. Shit. And so what was that exp? How long were you in there for? So I was only in there in a couple for a couple hours. Uh thank, thank God. Got the bomb.

SPEAKER_02

24:23

Is that the only time you've been behind bars before?

SPEAKER_01

24:26

Nah, man, we ain't gonna get into that. Not the only, but yeah, you know, a couple times with petty stuff like that. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

24:37

So you have a couple hours stint. Couple hours stint. Make it to the stage. Make it to the state.

SPEAKER_01

24:42

And then you get a roll with Matthew McConaughey. Get off stage, Matthew McConaughey. I said, bro, you can't make this day up. I remember this. What a day. Yeah. And so then that was another, like, okay.

SPEAKER_02

24:54

What's what's better, the Dallas jail or the Milwaukee jail? Assuming that was the other place you'd better.

SPEAKER_01

25:01

Milwaukee jail, because that was the other place. And I'm gonna say the Milwaukee one because hey, shout out to the guards. They be showing love to ones who know me if they did. So I got cheating, you know, they be like, hey. Oh man.

SPEAKER_02

25:15

So man, okay. So you so you get the role. I mean, what where was that shot and what was that project like?

SPEAKER_01

25:21

So that was shot in Cleveland. Um, that was in Cleveland, Ohio. Six weeks out there. Um, yeah, I think I was out there for about six or eight weeks, about eight weeks in Cleveland. Um that experience was crazy. Still my my favorite experience, I would say, of my whole career. Like music, and that I was like the cherry on top for me.

SPEAKER_02

25:44

Um what's it what's that? Are you shooting like I hear those shoot days are wild? Like 12, are they 12-hour days? Is it what people say it is?

SPEAKER_01

25:52

Yeah, nah, they they would get wild. Like you would be, you know, some days two hours, some days you would be shooting until three, four in the morning. Everybody's sleepy, and you just, you know, but it was I feel like my set was was cool. I had a lot of friends on there. Um, I got to meet some really cool people there. Uh, shout out RJ Kyler that I'm still cool with today. Um, Jonathan Majors, freaking uh Kwan, uh Swank, like a lot of cool people in in there that I, you know, got to connect with.

SPEAKER_02

26:24

And so did you guys go to Vegas for the Vegas scene?

SPEAKER_01

26:28

Then we went to Vegas, man. Shout out Vegas, the golden nugget. That is where we stayed. Yes, that was the final trip. Um, that was after we shot. I think we shot, rapped. They sent us home. It was like, you know, we got to shoot one more scene in Vegas, be ready. And it was funny because not everybody was going to Vegas, and so we were just shooting the whole time, like, you know, are you going to Vegas? You know. Like, we don't know yet. Were some people pissed they didn't they didn't get? Hell yeah. Like, shit, man. And so we got to go to Vegas for another two weeks, you know, about a week or two, and live it up again.

SPEAKER_02

27:06

What was it like working with Matthew McConaughey? He's he's crazy. It seems. He's a goat, you know. Like, he's a legend. He's wild. Hey guys, just wanted to take a sec to remind you that summer is pretty much here. Time to get outside and enjoy the weather, and maybe take a hard look at your financial life too. Led by our guy, who you've probably seen on some of our videos, the iconic Dave Spano, Annex Wealth Management are the ones to call. Annex is a holistic wealth management firm right here in Milwaukee that helps you with everything from retirement planning, smart investing, estate planning, legacy planning, and tax strategies all under one roof. They'll help you declutter your old accounts, dust off your investment strategy, organize your estate documents, and build a plan focused on your goals. That's our good friends at AnnexWealth Management, annexwealth.com. Annex know the difference. Let's get back with Ishtar.

SPEAKER_01

28:07

A lot of times I feel like I was on set with Matthew, you know, and he would he would like really be in character, but you would think, you know, he's just talking and he's, you know, rehearsing his lines. Um, but he was just really down to earth, but he was, you know, also took his job. Like, you know, I'm on set. And um, but as far as just like us and his castmates goes, open arms, call me his nephew, you know, like that was Unk. Um you know, he was, you know, I get my makeup done in the trailer, he was right next to me, you know. And so what else?

SPEAKER_02

28:40

Any stories with him stand out?

SPEAKER_01

28:42

Stories with Steve, um, or with um Matthew was the again, it was a uh it was a movie scene in there. Uh I remember that we were shooting. It's not a personal experience, but it's just a you know, like a film experience. And you know, again, Matthew was, you know, it's Matthew, so we we would see him, but that was the most time that I feel like we were, you know, we just chilling, like not doing anything. And so Matthew came by us, you know, he gets to talking about, you know, just the environment, kind of the movie store, all this shit. And you know, I'm again thinking he's you know talking to me, and I'm talking back to him and like, yeah. And it's you know, these are his lines in his movie. I'm like, oh my gosh, you are like I'm like, bro, and whole time he's lit, and you know, again, I'm in, you know, I'm thinking we having a conversation. So that just showed.

SPEAKER_02

29:37

So you're thinking you're talking to him as a friend if he's just in character rehearsing his line.

SPEAKER_01

29:42

Like, and then he said, Oh, yeah, no, Steve, I'm and I'm like, how? Like, how, Matthew, how? And he's like, you know, time.

SPEAKER_02

29:49

That's why he's he's at the top of the game. Yeah. He's just in in that mode the entire time. Any any good stories from the the Vegas trip with the crew?

SPEAKER_01

29:58

A lot of fun stories. Um, I'm trying to think, Vegas. So we did uh, like I said, I remember we stayed at the gold nugget. I got to go with my best homies there, RJ and Quan. We caught ourselves just the we were the boys, we was in the the group. Um, we was in Richie's group, so we were like his closest friends. Um just some of the favorite stories was kind of I'm gonna say the casino. Um, now that was fire. And then also like our walk into the casino scene was like we all had on the uh the first, you know, the chains, like we walking into the fight, um YG, what I'm saying. It was it was lit. It was lit. And again, we just partying in Vegas, but we shooting, you know, and so it was again, you know, yeah, it's moving quick.

SPEAKER_02

30:46

Yeah, and then um I guess after after that, did you want to pursue acting more?

SPEAKER_01

30:54

Or did you Yes, that was um for me it was kind of like the the opener, and from there, that was it. Went to get an agent, uh, manager. We got some more things in the works now, so um, I definitely pursued it more. It's just a slower game, um, kind of longer, but definitely want to pursue it more and um people will be seeing me.

SPEAKER_02

31:19

And then the time the time between then and now, you've put out more music. Are you is that is that the main the main focus?

SPEAKER_01

31:28

Yes, so the main focus again, um keep the music dropping, keep the fans they're listening. I have to, you know, and so I feel like I was kind of um ignoring it uh for a while, just living, you know, artists take a time to live, and so I took a couple years off and you know, just didn't drop anything, and the fans did not like that, and so I was like, oh, you know, I didn't know. And so now it's like keep the music dropping, man. And you'll be you'll be touring this summer? We'll be touring this summer. We got the tour dates dropping next month. Storn in Milwaukee. So we got some exclusive.

SPEAKER_02

32:10

Can you tease anything? Any any anything you're most excited about? Are you at you're at are you at Summerfest? Can I tease? Tease uh tease a little bit of the hop, the hop experience and uh we can tease break. The hop experience? So yes. Wait, are you playing on the hop? I'm playing, uh not. Okay, because we did have a hop till you drop idea. Turn the hop into a nightclub so people actually go on it, hop till you drop. Put me first. Yeah, I mean we would love to do something. Okay, so City of Milwaukee, Ishtar is committing to Hoph Till You Drop. Hop till you drop. And that's again, we're just No, we had uh we had uh uh Mayor Tommy on. We did you know six initiatives to get the city popping and hop till you drop.

SPEAKER_01

32:54

There we go. I love that. That's what I'm saying. New shit, bro. We want new vibes, new new experiences.

SPEAKER_02

33:02

Okay, so you won't be playing on on the hop.

SPEAKER_01

33:05

Won't be playing on the hop yet until you make that happen.

SPEAKER_02

33:09

Until we drop.

SPEAKER_01

33:10

We're gonna do the wicked hop, is what the hop we were talking about. And that's right out front of the hop, too.

SPEAKER_02

33:17

So we'll send a message to them. You'll send a message to them, not me. No one wants to hear that.

SPEAKER_01

33:23

There we go. So, yes, um, that's one I guess I could tease. We're about to do a wicked hop takeover, just some intimate again. In the uh Jack Lobe, is it the Jack Lobe Lounge connected to it, I believe. There we go. Yeah, good people over there. They're like, you know, you can do what you want. And so that's it. We're gonna do a nice curated event. That's gonna be probably something more, you know, intimate again, because it's you know, but I'm happy, excited for that. Like I said, it's new experiences, new stages, um, and then some other stuff, like I said. Yeah. People stay tuned.

SPEAKER_02

33:57

Stay tuned for that. Stay tuned for that. Um how how how have you evolved and what what have you learned most over the last decade or so since since you got in really in the game?

SPEAKER_01

34:10

Uh I learned, I feel like as far as evolved, um, I had a time. I had time to just kind of think about everything. Um as far as uh now, I feel like I'm a lot more uh sort of, you know, back then I said I was young, wow, kind of just everywhere, you know, party guy. No, I'm more reserved, chill. Um, I kind of know what I want to do, how I want to do it. And um so I feel like as far as evolving, just a little more calm, I guess. Still, you know, I still get crazy, you know. But I tried to just, you know. Pick your spots. Pick my spots. Pick your spots. Like, you know, you can't you can't do that forever, man. So that's uh that's one thing I would say.

SPEAKER_02

34:58

Before we get into some Milwaukee questions, what um what would you say your favorite moment has been in your career so far? You've you've had some amazing ones.

SPEAKER_01

35:09

Not my favorite. Uh like I said, white boy riks, it's like that was probably my favorite experience of now we're talking everything. Everything. Everything.

SPEAKER_02

35:24

I mean, you could do one white boy rick, one one music. Yeah, one music other than missing your flight in Europe.

SPEAKER_01

35:30

Other than missing my flight in Europe. Um, the cherry on top. Oh, that's a hard one for like music. Um I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_02

35:45

Was there was there a certain moment where you were like, holy shit, I can't believe this is happening to me?

SPEAKER_01

35:51

Yeah, like in a good way. Yes, yes. Um, as far as musically, I guess we can start with the shows, you know, from um say my first time at Summerfest seeing kind of that response. Uh again, like I said, I'm I'm just making music just on the.

SPEAKER_02

36:11

I mean, you had thousands of people like chanting your name, right?

SPEAKER_01

36:15

You know, about 10,000. You know, and at that time it's like, bro, like how? Like, I don't, you know, and so that was probably my topic, you know, as far as music was that Summerfest headline spot. One of the, I know when at that time when the first headline at stage, like 10 p.m. It was crazy. And you know, still I think we should definitely shot a video, Sanity. Uh, we got the clips in there, and so that was, you know, like yo, we can it's no stopping now.

SPEAKER_02

36:49

Like, any any favorite music videos that you've shot or that that you're one that stands out to you that's your favorite?

SPEAKER_01

36:55

One of my favorite is actually the song you said, Locals. Uh-huh. It's one of my favorite videos. Um, and that's just again, just I guess because of the time period. Um you know, I was with the guys, you know, just regular shit, you know, still just trying to see what was to it, you know, what was to the music thing. Uh kind of trying to create you know, opportunities and shit. So that was cool though. Like I said, we shot that at home, at Mom's Crib, um Legendary Garage. I still got a lot of the uh we spray painted my name on there, that's still in there. Like, so that was one.

SPEAKER_02

37:36

Any anything Big E would have done differently looking back?

SPEAKER_01

37:42

I would have dropped more music. That's it.

SPEAKER_02

37:44

Yeah. Yeah, I would have dropped more music. Went a little harder when things were.

SPEAKER_01

37:49

Like instead of stopping, I I should have, you know.

SPEAKER_02

37:52

That's fair. Do you think you just needed time to de to decompress from everything that happened, which was a which was a whirlwind of a few several years for you?

SPEAKER_01

38:00

That that was it. Um, that was exactly it. It was like, you know, all of this happened, bro. I just want, and this happened, you know, in three to five years, you know, I might take three to five years to just think and you know, chill, live, see my sister, see my brother, you know, pops, moms, and you know gang members.

SPEAKER_02

38:21

Yeah. All right. Um, if someone's coming to Milwaukee for 24 hours, where are you taking them?

SPEAKER_01

38:28

Oh man. So if they're coming for 24 hours now, they don't have to be, you know. Uh we would do a little bit. We'll wake up, take them to breakfast. Um I don't know where I would take them, but we would go to the breakfast spot. Maybe uh make sure we edit this out. There you go. You know, the sweet diner. Um get something. Uh from there we go back to the crib. Like I said, I do some work, um, take a couple calls. Um might have a Twitch session, like I said, for a couple hours. I like to be on my Twitch every day. Um do that for a little bit in the daytime. Like I said, it's chill, smoke a little bit. Nighttime, depending on the day. Um, of course we're gonna hit the bars.

SPEAKER_02

39:18

Um What what bars are you going to in Milwaukee on a night on a night out?

SPEAKER_01

39:23

On a night out.

SPEAKER_02

39:24

You're going on a little bit of if you're going on a little bit of a bender in Milwaukee. Where are you going? On a bender, now one spot I love is gonna be the trade. Um now. You're going upstairs, downstairs, second floor, where are you going? Rooftop. Rooftop.

SPEAKER_01

39:38

We're going right to the rooftop at the El Cervo, right? El Cervo. El servo. There we go. I love just the view. You know, we got the the outside patio. When it, you know. So we'll be there all night. And then um, it is some A-Bars, but I don't really do A-Bars too much. I like to take it home at two. Um, but if we had to.

SPEAKER_02

39:59

Okay, what do you like better? El Servo or Lucid Light Lounge? If Lucid was still around.

SPEAKER_01

40:06

We're going to Lucid Light Lounge and we're getting a section and we're buying bottles. Great answer, Ishgar. We Lucy, come on, come back, please. Open the night. Chris Stegman, open it back up. Open it back.

SPEAKER_02

40:19

Open it back up. We're waiting. Any any uh any other favorite spots around the city, favorite businesses? Any any businesses on the north side people should check out?

SPEAKER_01

40:29

Yeah, so I was gonna say, um, well, it's still downtown, but uh elevate, as far as clubs, I was gonna say like Elevate Truth Lounge, those two spots. I like, you know, get good love there. Um the north. Um any any what restaurants do you like going to? Now, 1700 pull-up. Shout out to 1700 pull up. If you want some good soul food, fire eats, catfish, things like that, that's gonna be my favorite over there. Um but I eat every, you know, everything here besides that. Uh is that your favorite restaurant in Milwaukee? Yeah. My favorite in Milwaukee. No, that's I can't even. I don't think I might go Oakland just because, you know, memorabilia. Oakland Euros? Oakland Euros. On Oakland, not the airport one. On Oakland. Gotta differentiate. I like it. So that'll probably be my favorite go-to. You got you got like two more? I do have two more. Um, we're gonna do uh let's see, like some fire wings. I know you said like Stinny's.

SPEAKER_02

41:39

Um Stinny's right over there. Right around.

SPEAKER_01

41:44

They got some fire wings. Uh there was one more. I freak. ODBs. Now, classy dive. That's a slept-on one. ODBs. ODBs is the name of it. It's new. Now it's a new spot in. I don't even know, right? It's near the brewer's and like uh that's the name, ODBs. ODB's Classy Dive. Yeah, ODBs.

SPEAKER_02

42:11

It's a newer You got some gems over there.

SPEAKER_01

42:13

Yeah. They got a beef brisket nacho. It changed your life.

SPEAKER_02

42:18

I was gonna ask you your your favorite thing about Milwaukee and why you live here, but I I just heard you guys did 20 bottles in one night at Lucid Light Lounge.

SPEAKER_01

42:25

Well, can't I come on, man? Like 20 bottles in one night. It's like, bro, it's got to the point, like I said, one night, bro. How many people were you feeding? 20 bottles ish. The club. Everybody clubs. Everybody, you we open you get one, you get one, brother. We let's have fun. Cause, man, it's free. You know, it ain't free.

SPEAKER_02

42:51

I'm guessing the ladies loved it. You know, I I'm cu I'm curious to hear. I'm curious to hear um loved it. The strategy. Did you ever go to Mikey's back in the day? Where was that at? Cathedral Square, not far from Lucia, just on Cathedral Square, right by Elsa's.

SPEAKER_01

43:07

Jefferson Street. Was it what was it after Mikey's? Or was it?

SPEAKER_02

43:11

Oh man, they might have done some like country or barbecue place after Mikey's. But anyway, um, they had bomb night on Wednesdays, and my friend the wolf, he would just go up to the bar and buy like 50 bombs, and he would just walk around the girls hand in hand in the bombs like he was a fucking waiter. But if the wolf was the wolf of Milwaukee was just playing the numbers game, and that's it. You know, you know. He wanted to make sure everyone was having a good time. That's it. We gonna party.

SPEAKER_01

43:41

If we was there, everyone's partying, bro.

SPEAKER_02

43:44

Like I said, loose lucid light lounge and Mikeys need to need to read. Gotta bring that back. Bring them back. Gotta bring them back. Um, are you still partying? You're you're you're 30 now. Are you 30 or 29? 29. Do you do you have hangovers yet or no?

SPEAKER_01

44:02

I don't have hangovers. Thank God.

SPEAKER_02

44:05

Congratulations. Thank God. They might get you someday.

SPEAKER_01

44:10

There soon. You know, I know they're, you know, a month away, it seems like. Keep taking advantage of your youth over there. I'm trying. Like I said, no hangovers. I definitely slowed down a lot more.

SPEAKER_02

44:22

And any anyway, Ish, what um why do you choose to live in Milwaukee? What's your favorite thing about the city?

SPEAKER_01

44:27

Man, um shoot, the love, to be honest. Like shit. Uh, you know, I've lived a couple other places too. Um, moved to Atlanta for a little bit, moved to Canada and shit. You moved to Canada. I moved to freaking Canada, bro. For about six months.

SPEAKER_02

44:47

Really? Yeah. Soul searching or exploring, exploring. Going out in nature, exploring.

SPEAKER_01

44:52

All the above? All the above. What part of Canada? I was in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Far code as shit. Where is where's Winnipeg again? I don't fucking know. You lived there. Exactly. It's in can it's in look at I don't have my phone.

SPEAKER_02

45:09

Is that West Coast or is it central?

SPEAKER_01

45:12

I don't freaking. Somewhere over there.

SPEAKER_02

45:16

Why did you move to Winnipeg? I moved to Winnipeg.

SPEAKER_01

45:18

I've heard Toronto is pretty glamorous. You know, I went to Toronto too, five, you know, a couple years later, but I moved right. Where is that?

SPEAKER_02

45:29

Oh Jesus. Did you drive? Did you just did you just drive north for the night and end up in Winnipeg? No, we're not. Were you chasing a girl to Winnipeg?

SPEAKER_01

45:37

No, bro. No, gang. I promise my producer was out there, Cannon's Major, the one I just dropped the album with. That's where he's from. That was hometown. And so I'm like, what? Like, he's like, you know, yeah, I'm from here. I got a house. Like, you're good. Just come. And so.

SPEAKER_02

45:55

Can you give me your phone? I don't have mine on it.

SPEAKER_01

45:57

Yeah. Next thing I know, six months in Canada. Six months.

SPEAKER_02

46:03

Oh wow. Just north of just north of Minnesota. Did you ever pass through Grand Marae, Minnesota? Probably not. Not that I'm not. That's just fucking gorgeous. Right on. That's on the lake still. What was the what was the loot? Did they have a lucid light lounge equivalent in Winnipeg? Any good no. Any talent there?

SPEAKER_01

46:25

Actually, no. No, let me not know. They had one spot. What was it called? Cain's gonna be mad. They had one spot that we would go to every night. It was like the spot. It wasn't a lucid light lounge. It was good though. It was good though. Well, popping was you know, some shirties. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02

46:43

You're the only black guy in Winnipeg.

SPEAKER_01

46:45

I was the only American black guy I felt. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

46:50

Well, you might have been one of the only American guys, period. In Buddha.

SPEAKER_01

46:53

In Buddha. Buddha came with Buddha. Oh, Buddha came with you.

SPEAKER_02

46:57

The whole crew just took over Winnipeg for a year.

SPEAKER_01

46:59

Bro, for six, bro, we were causing havoc. After part of my career. What? It was like that in uh Winnipeg for like six months. I mean, the the shortys in Winnipeg had to love you guys. Well, I don't know why. I wasn't, what? No action. But bro, he was going crazy. Like Buddha every night.

SPEAKER_02

47:22

You were striking out in Winnipeg and Buddha was just wanted there. He was like SimGod out there. I gotta tell you about SimGod sometime. He's one man wrecking crew, but okay. Yes, sir. All right. So you so you stay in Milwaukee because of the love and because it's better than Winnipeg, Canada.

SPEAKER_01

47:40

It's better than Winnipeg, Canada. Like get from everywhere, one side of the city to the other in 20 minutes. I love that. You know, that's it for me.

SPEAKER_02

47:50

Oh man. Well, thank you so much for coming in today. It was great meeting you. That was that was a lot of fun and like um excited, excited for the tour this summer. You getting back out there.

SPEAKER_01

48:01

Absolutely, man. Thank you, Richie, for having me. Like I said, tour dates dropping soon. New music, a lot of fun stuff.

SPEAKER_02

48:08

So absolutely. Stay tuned for those dates and bring back Lucid Light Lounge.

SPEAKER_01

48:14

ASAP.

SPEAKER_02

48:17

Hey everyone, thanks so much for listening. And a big thank you to Ishtar for coming on before signing off. Just want to thank our partners who make Milwaukee Uncle possible. Nikola, Drink Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company, and Annex Wealth Management, Annex Wealth. Know the difference.

SPEAKER_01

0:04

Hey guys, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. We've got a full May and June preview for you with our good friends Josh and Claire from Visit Milwaukee. Couldn't think of two better people to have on this episode, they know pretty much everything going on in Milwaukee, and they host the best events calendar in Milwaukee. So we're gonna give you a good preview, but make sure to visit visitmilwaukee.org and just click on events, and they've they've got literally everything going on there. We also talk about their shoe drop they did in collaboration with Summerfest and Adidas that sold out really fast, and there might be a new one coming. Also, there is a cheese hunt where there will be$20,000 cash up for grabs in Milwaukee, but there's a bit of a catch, so we dive into that. We also talk Michelin in Milwaukee and more. If you're pumped for summer, this is a great one for you. Before diving in, I just want to thank our partners who make Milwaukee Uncut possible. We'll kick things off with Nicola Injured. Get Nicola in Russell and the team will take great care of you. Drink Wisconsin Wee Beverage Company, best vodka brandy and canned cocktails in the game, available at liquor stores across the state, at the DW pub across from the Pfizer and the Corner Bar in Right Field at Ampham. And last but not least, Annex Wealth Management. If you're looking to get your finances in order this summer, talk to our friends, the experts at Annex Wealth Management. Just head to annexwealth.com. Annex know the difference. All right, let's dive in with Josh and Claire from Visit Milwaukee. Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. What better place is there to be in the summer than Milwaukee, Wisconsin? And today, got two amazing people from Visit Milwaukee, Claire Hannon and Josh Albrick. Not Josh Ashenberg, so I've cut that more, but Josh Josh, Josh Albrick from Visit Milwaukee. And we're gonna give you a uh a guide and not to the entire summer, but really with uh a focus on the rest of May and June because there's a lot of going a lot going on. There's a lot going on. And before we get into that, you guys have done some really cool stuff recently.

SPEAKER_00

2:18

We've been busy bees.

SPEAKER_03

2:20

Yeah, yeah, it's been uh a fantastic April. Just April alone has been uh the uh probably the same amount of work as a full year's worth of uh things. In in many respects, it was a full year. I mean, the things that we've been launching have taken a full 365-day calendar year, right? Whether that's getting Milwaukee on Wheel of Fortune, our own episode of Wheel of Fortune uh to showcase to uh the world. And believe it or not, there's eight to nine million viewers of Wheel of Fortune every night. Is it is second only to the NFL in in uh repeat viewership. Can you believe that? That that's how many people. Not by the blank stare I'm giving right now.

SPEAKER_01

3:02

I blew your mind.

SPEAKER_03

3:05

And that's broadcast television still. It is that popular of a show. We're not even including streaming, next day streaming on Hulu and Peacock, which takes it to about 14 million viewers of every episode of Wheel of Fortune. So if you're not watching Wheel of Fortune, I guarantee it somebody in your family is. And uh and we had Milwaukee on it. We had a wedge prize. So many of our partners, uh, you know, whether it was the the Pfister and the Barlotta restaurant group and and several others, uh, Lakefront Brewery. Um somebody gave us prize packets. We had the prize package on the wheel that someone could have won. Of course, the the contestant on the show did not win the prize package, but what was the prize package? Yeah, but now I'm intrigued. Oh man, we had so uh like it was a trip to Milwaukee in the summer for Summerfest and uh a cheese curd making class at Lakefront Brewery, uh spa treatments at the Fister.

SPEAKER_00

3:57

Um about 12,000 bucks is in a Milwaukee vacation.

SPEAKER_01

4:02

Does Lakefront do cheese curd making classes? I feel like they'd want to keep that recipe under wraps.

SPEAKER_03

4:07

Well, it's a it's a special experience that you can get if you were a wheel watcher, you know? Uh and of course, we uh got to uh use their email marketing system and we sent direct messages to all their Wheel Watchers club and uh great way just to grow the network across the country and the globe. It's it airs in Canada and the United Kingdom too. So uh people from all over the world were watching Wheel of Fortune seeing Milwaukee Shine Bright.

SPEAKER_01

4:32

And that wasn't even on the outline.

SPEAKER_03

4:34

No things you've done. Do you want to get the beautiful shoes we're wearing right now? Our uh our amazing collab with with Adidas and Sheik James here locally, who owns Clicks and Sneaks and Summerfest again uh to drop two shoes, two different styles of shoes. The first one dropped uh in April here, uh just in time for 414 Day. That's the one I'm wearing now. For those watching, they can see the shoes. If you didn't see it online, if you didn't see it on social in Milwaukee, if you didn't see it in the news in Milwaukee, I'm not sure what you're watching. It was everywhere. And um the shoes sold out in one day. So one day the lines were wrapped around the block on Brady Street from roughly 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Complete sellout of the shoe. And online we had um it sell out online, the online availability sold out in 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_00

5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

5:25

What did you guys expect to happen? Uh uh well, we knew we would get a lot of media energy. And how many pairs flew? Yeah, so we had uh just shy of 3,000 available for sale that day, uh, which is a uh a small boutique run. I mean, we weren't looking to like have these sold everywhere, we wanted to sell them in the water. And we wanted to be able to tell the story of the city, that's why it's the map on the shoe, that's why we have uh a bunch of Easter eggs on the shoe of Summerfest and uh and things like that. And we thought this is a great storytelling piece. Uh, enter our flavor era that we promote right now through our marketing. Um, and and yeah, so that's it was just that it was like extending the message.

SPEAKER_00

6:07

Well, and so one of the coolest things about it is when you unbox the shoe, take it out of the special paper that we got to design that has like this design on it. Um, you take it out and there's a special metal like hang tag thing with a compass on it. You scan that with your phone, and that's your Summerfest ticket. And it gives you a single-day GA entry to Summerfest. So for us, as you know, trying to get visitors here, you can order that shoe from Shake's website in LA, and you in theory, it brings you to Milwaukee, so you can come to Summerfest. And that like we thought that that fact alone would really help it go viral online, get picked up in media, and it definitely did. And so like we're not in the business of selling shoes, but I think given all that and all of that that made it unique, that like when it blew up online, and then we went to the store and I started talking to people that were like, I've been in line since 6 a.m., like here to get these, and then I mean it was wild.

SPEAKER_01

7:13

Yeah, you're not in the business of shoes, but you're in the business of Milwaukee. And if you drop a cool product with a great story behind it, you see what that can do.

SPEAKER_03

7:22

Yeah, a big portion of what we're trying to uh establish with our tourism marketing and just the marketing in general for the city is that this is Milwaukee as a lifestyle brand. And so it was uh the concept was you know, before you even before you even see the skyline, you're wearing the shoes. And you're you're being endeared to the city and you're being endeared to what we represent and the lifestyle that we live here as a collective. And we want that that same energy to be infused across the country, right? So if you're whether you're from LA or Austin or uh Detroit, you want to be a part of the scene in Milwaukee. And part of that is cool style, right? It's it's shoes, it's it's that flavor that we bring. Um and so we want people to wear it and they they gravitate toward it, they they embraced it. Our locals embraced it. Um the labs. We we launched it at South by Southwest with Summerfest and Shake and Adidas. That's where it launched back in March. We announced it to the world, and right away um the community gathered around it, and the sneaker community gathered around it, and then next thing you know, hip hop culture is all around it, and people are wanting uh athletes were reaching out to us, uh begging for pairs. Musicians, um, and there's and those those requests are still coming. People are because there's people are catching up, right? Yeah, and they're like, Oh, can I still get a pair? And you're like, sorry, sold out.

SPEAKER_00

8:32

Yeah, we found them on eBay for 800 bucks, uh, which is why I'm gonna go. You can still get your pairs on the page. Yeah, yeah. So technically you can find them. But we so on June 6th.

SPEAKER_01

8:44

Not not Peggy, Peggy selling them on eBay, is it? Well, you never know.

SPEAKER_00

8:49

No, it's not. Um, but on June 6th, that's when um the other style, the forum style, um, the what the Milwaukee, these are the viewfinders. Um, so the second style, which is a forum style. Um, and those that's the same style as Shake's 414 shoe from last year, but obviously completely different design. And this design incorporates so many Milwaukee references. I don't even think I could list them all off the top of my head, but they're super colorful. There's tons of different patterns and textures to mimic waves and brick and cheese and box colors, marquette colors, UWM. Like it's it is everything, and they are really, really cool. Um, they have the same hang tag with the ticket on them. So those will go, those will drop on June 6th.

SPEAKER_03

9:41

Yeah. So the first one, the viewfinder, was a literal map of the city. So an actual map overlaid on the shoe as part of the shoe. The second shoe is a cultural map of the city. Yep. So you have two ways to explore the city. That literal map, the grid system, it's on your shoe and the viewfinder. But if you want to really feel the culture and feel the people and the neighborhoods, all 191 neighborhoods, that's the what the.

SPEAKER_01

10:02

Yep. Is it is it the same drop formula? Is it 3,000? Is there gonna be some in retail, some online? Some retail, some online. Um so mark your calendar if you want. June 6th. Yeah, yeah. June 6th, show up early.

SPEAKER_00

10:15

Coffee. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

10:15

Is that sweatshirt? Is that from the shoe? This yeah, we did do that.

SPEAKER_00

10:20

Yeah, we did do some merch um with Adidas. And so there was this. There's a long sleeve. Those sold out too. Sold out really fast. One of them was like a cool like crop jersey. That was like really cool. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

10:35

It's like in drop June since.

SPEAKER_00

10:37

And there will be merch with the second jersey.

SPEAKER_03

10:39

New fresh merch, fresh style, fresh shoes. Yeah, you're not you're not gonna want to miss it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

10:44

We we do not personally have access to early sales, so let's put that out in the world to our friends and family. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. I got someone who came up to me in line that morning and they were like, I will buy you a steak dinner if you can get me the shoe right now. And I'm like, I can't.

unknown

11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

11:04

Are we talking carnivore steak dinner? What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_00

11:06

Yeah, no, it was. It was a carnivore steak dinner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

11:09

So uh and then Michelin, speaking of food, right? I mean, yeah, flavor era. Going to the flavor era, dropping the shoes, dropping Wheel of Fortune. Uh, and really the biggest news might be Michelin. And now that we're a Michelin city, and this is huge for our culinary industry, but it's huge for the city in general. I mean, Michelin is the type of premier brand that is internationally known, internationally recognized, yeah, that puts you in the same playing field as other major cities around the world in that space. So now we can easily compare ourselves to Paris, to Tokyo, to London, to New York City, to Miami.

SPEAKER_02

11:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

11:44

And and we're we're we're peers now fully in the culinary space by having this Michelin partnership.

SPEAKER_00

11:51

So what and so they're inspectors who are totally anonymous. We don't know how many of them there are, we don't know what they look like, we don't know their names. Um, they are out in the city and in the other Great Lakes cities that are doing that this with us, they're out there now inspecting our restaurants. So we're constantly telling our restaurants like now is the time, polish that silverware, it's a game only. Um, and if we have a restaurant that receives Michelin recognition, but especially a star, that doesn't just mean you're the best restaurant in Milwaukee. It doesn't mean that. It means you are as good as a starred Michelin restaurant in Singapore, in Tokyo, in Paris, and like it's it is it's a life-changing recognition. It means you are a sous chef at a one-star restaurant. You can now go work in any one-star restaurant in the world, and that is your that's your resume, that's your like seal of approval. Um, so it it it'll mean our restaurants have an easier time hiring people because everyone wants to work for a Michelin-starred restaurant. So the awards will be announced in 2027. We are so excited for that. And um, but yeah, the I mean the media coverage of the announcement alone is bonkers, so it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_01

13:10

How how rare is it for Michelin to come to a mid-market city like Milwaukee?

SPEAKER_03

13:16

Well, extremely rare. I mean, they hadn't before. And our team had to work for over the last 12 to 18 months uh with them to uh figure out the best path to make sure that we were qualified. So first Yeah, how did how did that whole application process? We worked closely with the American Great Lakes uh contingent. So our friends in Detroit and Pittsburgh and uh Cleveland and Minneapolis and Indianapolis, and we all sort of came together, uh formed a group to pitch to Michelin why they should look at the Great Lakes region. Because other than Chicago, no other city in the Great Lakes region had been a Michelin city. Uh and we really wanted to put our put the collective on the map, and we knew we had more weight collectively than going individually to Michelin. So we made the pitch. They had to vet all the cities. So they actually sent uh inspectors, did their due diligence, how they do it, whether it's online or however, to judge each city and judge what they deemed as culinary maturity. Uh-huh. Was the city for far enough along in their restaurants, with their chefs, with their uh their culinary landscape to even be considered to be judged. So before we could even get there, we had to pass a test. Um and there were many cities reviewed across the Great Lakes region. So every state that touched the Great Lakes uh had cities reviewed. And during that time they came back to us and said, All right, Milwaukee is one of the ones that meets the culinary maturity. And that's partially because of the hard work that Visit Milwaukee has done, whether it's bringing top chef to the city into the state, launching a cookbook with our over 50 chefs in the community that we have that uh has been extremely well received, uh declared her team on our on our diligent work on PR of getting our restaurants in the New York Times, in National Geographic, in Coney Nash Traveler, and all these amazing publications, Eater and Midwest Living, making sure that we are being publicized. And then really the big test though, were our chefs capable? And they are. We have chefs like Edam Pollock, who's been a guest on the show here, who has made a name, right? He's made such a name, not just for himself, but when he does that, he's making a name for Milwaukee. When he's on Hell's Kitchen and Food Network, he's making a name for Milwaukee. When Dan Jacobs was a star on Top Chef, our season of Top Chef, and he made it to the finals, he's representing Milwaukee. When Paul Bartellotta is going on live with um with Kelly uh Regis and Kelly. Regis and Kelly. It's not Regis anymore. Who is it?

SPEAKER_00

15:37

Uh Mark and Kelly.

SPEAKER_03

15:39

Mark and Kelly. When he's going on that show and talking about uh the Bartolotta restaurants and sharing recipes, he's representing Milwaukee. And so all these great chefs when Dane Baldwin's been best chef Midwest for James Beard. And Moramoto, uh written a comma. Exactly. So I mean, we could keep going here, right? And saying, look at the quality of chef we have in this community. And the thing that really separates Milwaukee, though, that I believe is one of our separators, is that our chefs work together. You know, Dimsom Givesome just happened, a great fundraiser that all the chefs come together for. Um they they they do that throughout the year where they all come together and do these amazing fundraisers.

SPEAKER_01

16:18

Yeah. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not really in that world, but when I talk to just Chef Adam and other chefs, it does seem like instead of competing against each other, which is what I would kind of think, because they're all restaurants, it does seem like they're cheering each other on and trying to uplift each other, which which does seem unique for a competitive environment.

SPEAKER_02

16:39

Definitely.

SPEAKER_03

16:40

Yeah, and it's been so that that showcase allowed Michelin to look at Milwaukee and say, yeah, they're they're they're ready to be judged, and they're ready and they can they can hold their own against any other city in the world on the culinary landscape. And so now it's time for our chefs and restaurants to to you know to to prove it for us. And I think that they can. I think I think we're gonna have several who are receive. So there's stars, there's one star, two stars, three stars. Obviously, one star, you're doing great, two stars, even better. Three stars, dear God, you're one of the best in the world. Uh and um, but there's also the Bib Gourmands, which is a recommended restaurant. So before you earn a star, you can be a Bib Gourmand and you can be Michelin recommended. I think we'll get several designations from our chefs. We've got such a strong uh restaurant community. So a year from now, hopefully we're talking about many, and um and uh and we'll see what happens when they announce at the at a ceremony next next spring.

SPEAKER_01

17:33

Yeah. Uh before we get into specific events going on in in May and June, anything you two are most excited about in Milwaukee this summer?

SPEAKER_00

17:44

I mean, seeing our shoes walk into Summerfest, I think is gonna mean Summerfest is a little different for me this year. I'm really excited for that. Um we're gonna do some special stuff at Summerfest to like make it feel like you're you're walking into a community situation because you are, and like it they are their own club now. Um so we have some special tricks of our sleeves there. What about you?

SPEAKER_03

18:12

Yeah, I mean we're the city of festivals. So give me a festival which happens literally almost daily throughout the summer in Milwaukee, whether it's Bastial Days who's celebrating anniversaries this year, or maybe it's IndyCar Race at the end of the season, Summerfest, Wisconsin State Fair, all the ethnic festivals. I mean the list goes on and on and on and on. Um it's really a delight to get to go to a pick your pick your flavor, right? Yeah, and you can go have fun.

SPEAKER_00

18:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

18:38

Can't go wrong. I mean, we we went to Mexican Fiesta for the first time last year. I didn't realize it's like Summerfest in there. Yeah, yeah. It's so largest ethnic festival in the US, I think, over that time span. Yeah. More than 100,000 people every year.

SPEAKER_00

18:53

Yeah, Irish Fest, same size, same scale. I mean, Italiana's a good one. Seeing Pride Fest get bigger and bigger every year, and that's just like a rowdy party for four years.

SPEAKER_03

19:06

I mean, just the list goes on and on. Yep.

SPEAKER_01

19:08

Every every weekend.

SPEAKER_00

19:10

City of festivals.

SPEAKER_01

19:12

Um, let's get into events going on. Hey guys, just want to take a sec to remind you that spring is here. Time to open the windows, clean out the garage, and yeah, maybe take a hard look at your financial life too. If your retirement plan, investments, or estate stuff feels dusty or disorganized. Our friends at Annex Wealth Management are here to help, led by our guy who you've probably seen on some of our recent videos, Dave Spano. They're the ones to call. Annex is a holistic wealth management firm right here in Milwaukee that helps you with everything retirement planning, smart investing, estate planning, legacy planning, and tax strategies all under one roof. Think of them as your financial spring cleaning crew. They'll help you declutter old accounts, dust off your investment strategy, and organize your estate documents and build a plan focused on your goals. That's our friends at AnnexWealth Management. Just head to annexwealth.com. All right, let's get back into it with Josh and Claire.

SPEAKER_00

20:13

Well, there's still a few days left to enjoy uh the Bruce City Birding Fest. So it's like a legal requirement that once you hit 30, you get into birds.

SPEAKER_01

20:25

And so once you hit 30, what? Age in your okay. Yeah. So I should be birding right now.

SPEAKER_00

20:31

Uh 100%. And so there's sorry for asking.

SPEAKER_03

20:36

Sorry for asking. I think you'd like it. You seem like a bird.

SPEAKER_00

20:40

I yeah, it's awesome. There's a lot of apps for our community, and um, there's also a lot of events as part of the festival, including like a kayaking paddle with the UEC. Um, so go paddle and bird watch. I just did it in Florida. You can do it in Milwaukee too. So that ends in 17 years.

SPEAKER_01

20:58

Birding could be good for me. Bree's been telling me to relax more.

SPEAKER_00

21:02

It they're fascinating creatures.

SPEAKER_03

21:04

Take a walk, uh, go go out to Lakeshore uh State Park and the uh and the that stretch of Lake Michigan has some of the most diverse offering of bird uh in the entire country. It's a big migratory path. Yeah, it's a huge migratory path along Lake Michigan, and you can get all year long, you're gonna see different birds throughout the year. So you just keep going back, take a nice walk, see the skyline in the background, and check out all the amazing birds.

SPEAKER_01

21:29

Claire, do you even bird?

unknown

21:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

21:30

Josh seems like he knows a lot more than you.

SPEAKER_00

21:33

Well, okay. So Do you do you do bird bird?

SPEAKER_01

21:38

Do you even bird bird birds?

SPEAKER_00

21:40

I would say we have different geographic specialties in the community. No, even in Milwaukee. Look, I'm into crows, I love a hawk, you know, there we got eagles.

SPEAKER_03

21:54

But you can go all and you can go all over Washington Park. We took we took Bobby Porter's bird into Washington Park.

SPEAKER_00

21:59

He birds.

SPEAKER_01

22:00

Oh, that would be good idea.

SPEAKER_03

22:02

That was a good time uh walking around. So the all those little pockets, all the little parks that we have.

SPEAKER_00

22:07

Washington Park has a BIPOC birders club. Like where we roll deep.

SPEAKER_01

22:14

Oh the Milwaukee Gold Rush.

SPEAKER_00

22:18

Yeah. We also uh our hunters of the city.

SPEAKER_03

22:22

The only thing that outshines our love of birds is our love of cheese. Is that it's a good segue right there. I like it.

SPEAKER_00

22:28

So it's scavenger hunt time uh actively going on right now. Um and you if you go to um the our digital map on visimalkey.org, you can sign up for this scavenger hunt where there's clues dropped on the schedule that's on the map. Um and it means you get out and explore the city and you might find a special sculpture, a cheese sculpture designed by artist Adam Heimbach. And there's varying amounts of cash hidden inside these sculptures. So you could keep it on your mantle uh as I would do, um, or smash it open, find some money. But the point is you want to find as many as you can.

SPEAKER_01

23:10

So there are hidden cheese sculptures around the city right now that you can go smash and get cash.

SPEAKER_03

23:16

Or don't smash, because maybe this maybe because uh Adam is uh has a great following, is uh a famous artist. He has spent many years in New York City uh showing at galleries and doing graffiti style art throughout New York City, uh even though he's from Wisconsin and the Milwaukee area. Um so there is value already in the artwork. So you have to ask yourself, if you're lucky enough to find one of these uh cheese sculptures, you have to ask yourself, uh, is it worth destroying the art to see what's inside, or do I always have the art and wonder what's inside?

SPEAKER_01

23:50

Do you know the varying amounts of cash? Because I saw on the website over 20 grand.

SPEAKER_03

23:54

Over 20 grand worth of cash and prizes are available, and you don't know until you crack it open. It could be 20 grand, it could be a dollar, it could be nothing.

SPEAKER_01

24:02

Do you guys know how many total sculptures are going out there this uh this season?

SPEAKER_03

24:07

It's to be determined because the great thing of working with a experiential artist is that things kind of organically grow. So um probably at least a dozen, but uh he I think he might surprise us every now and then. And what a great idea.

SPEAKER_00

24:24

Yeah, it's gonna be super fun. Organic function.

SPEAKER_03

24:28

Truly Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_00

24:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

24:29

The other events in May.

SPEAKER_03

24:32

Yeah, Christian Yellich uh annual charity concert. We're a proud partner with the the Yellich concert every year, last three years. Uh it's growing this year. It's obviously uh in a new venue, uh, which is exciting. It's at the the new um Landmark Credit Union. Landmark Credit Union Live that's downtown. Uh so many people haven't been there yet, obviously, since it's brand new uh venue. Uh we can see Jake Owen there as the headliner, uh, so you can get your your country music on. Of course, Charlie Barron's friend of the pot here, I think. Uh Charlie is uh is gonna be MC and doing some comedy for everybody. Uh Nicotine Dolls, which is a popular band that's come comes through here every year, plays Summerfest. They've played the the charity concert every year. So those diehards of nicotine dolls can come uh get their fix. See what I did there, get their fix. Um but uh and then Chef Adam Pollock, who is as we mentioned, a friend of the pod here, uh, does a great uh VIP foodie experience that goes along with it. Uh those tickets are in short supply. So if you are a last-minute ticket buyer, you better look real quick at visitmilwaukee.org to see if those tickets are still available because those go fast. Plenty of general admission is still available so you can get general admission at least. Wonderful Nights Benefits Visit Milwaukee, our foundation, which goes to our emergency relief fund for small business owners when disruption occurs, as well as scholarships for local college students. Brewers Foundation gets some of the those funding, uh, that funding as well, and stuff for other uh local charities.

SPEAKER_01

25:57

So Heartland Farm Sanctuary and the public library. Yeah. As you can tell, I watched that clip like 30 times when I was editing it. And Isaac Slade from the fray, I think, is gonna be there. Yep, I know that. Well, but um yeah, I mean I'm I'm slightly biased because I was very thankful that Christian came in here, but it it it has been like my favorite charity event of the year. I like it. It's laid back. They do such a good job with the pre-party, the after party. It's a good it's a good event. Charlie's obviously very funny and some amazing musical acts. And um there's no other fundraiser like we also have um Tacos and Tequila, which is just like millennial bait to its core, I think.

SPEAKER_00

26:41

This is uh May 30th at Franklin Field. But you got like genuine, a lot of like millennial ripross, a lot of millennial and soldier boy. I'm trying to teach my kids to dance, um, but then delicious food trucks, great drinks, chihuahua contest.

SPEAKER_01

27:01

Chihuahua contest. You got the whole lineup. Yeah, rumor is big Frank could be doing a set as well.

SPEAKER_03

27:07

Oh dang local connect. And then the night before, the night before it's all country. Country. So you can get your your twofer, your country, and your RB right now. Big X the plug.

SPEAKER_00

27:19

Big X the plug, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

27:20

Big name and some other don't forget.

SPEAKER_00

27:24

Shaggy Shaggy.

SPEAKER_01

27:25

Shaggy Shaggy's is on the tacos side.

SPEAKER_03

27:28

Shaggy is on him, like east.

SPEAKER_01

27:30

Is Soldier Boy this year or was that last year? But Soldier Boy's this year, but Millionaire's feedback. I know I know my 2000s rap. Um Bree gives me a lot of shit for it. That was probably my favorite genre.

SPEAKER_03

27:44

Flow riders coming to Summerfest, and I could not be more excited. Like, this is that I still have to.

SPEAKER_01

27:50

I might actually stay up past nine o'clock and flow riding.

SPEAKER_03

27:54

I saw him in Miami at a conference, and I know I was like, conference concert? Like, this is what's this gonna be? One of the best concerts I've ever seen. Flowrider brings it.

SPEAKER_01

28:02

What's your favorite Flowrider song of all time?

SPEAKER_03

28:04

Oh man, favorite? Uh well, I'm biased towards My House because it's I used to I used to coach soccer uh for my my son and his youth soccer team, a bunch of eighth graders, and we used to play My House to hype them. Uh so Flowrider on a Saturday morning at 9 a.m. to hype a bunch of eight-year-olds. Yeah, and you were what great coaching. Yeah. And parenting. Oh man. We we won the championship. How could you not could be any better? And I credit some of that to Flowrider.

SPEAKER_01

28:31

I liked right round. That was that was that was a banger. That was a banger.

SPEAKER_00

28:36

Um man. Yeah. Oh, if you don't want to do if none of that is your bag, which that's fine.

SPEAKER_03

28:45

Are you looking up Florrider song?

SPEAKER_01

28:47

I want I want I wanted to confirm something before I said it.

SPEAKER_00

28:52

Um well we have smoke on the water is at the Summer Fest grounds that weekend, if you're more in the blues and barbecue mode. So just a little festival for every flavor. Uh and we're not even in June.

unknown

29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

29:08

So what'd you find? What's the flow right? What do you got?

SPEAKER_01

29:11

Nothing. Nothing but um uh good feeling came up. That was another good one. Um about Ayer?

SPEAKER_03

29:21

Ayer? A-Y-E-R-A.

SPEAKER_01

29:23

I wasn't as big of an Ayer guy, but um Oh, I mean low with T-Pain?

SPEAKER_00

29:28

Come on, guys. Oh wow. Yeah. How do how did we miss that? Wild ones with Sia?

SPEAKER_03

29:34

Alrighty. So now everybody's listening to this and they're saying, Okay, oh dear God, I need to see Florida.

SPEAKER_01

29:39

I got confused. I got confused. Okay, so for some reason I thought Flow Rada might have hopped on um Lady Gaga's just dance. No. So I'm what I was thinking of is Kasha is actually on right round.

SPEAKER_00

29:54

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

29:57

That was all that all took place junior year in college. We were throwing some some keggers, and uh there was a lot of flow rata and lady gaga being played at the end.

SPEAKER_03

30:05

Add in some Sean Paul at Summerfest this year. We have we have some stuff. And then if you want to get the rock, David Lee Roth, I'm can't wait for him either. You're gonna have old school 80s rock and roll. You've got Sean Paul with the reggae. I mean, Flow Rida with the 2000s rag.

SPEAKER_01

30:21

Every everyone just descending on the city of Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_00

30:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

30:25

It's gonna be beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

30:26

They saw the Michelin news. They're trying to get the shoes. Lil Rider.

SPEAKER_03

30:30

Lil Rider needs a pair of shoes.

SPEAKER_00

30:32

Like, probably.

SPEAKER_03

30:33

Last year I was at Tacos and Tequila and Lil John yelled at the entire crowd and said he didn't think we knew in Milwaukee where the windows on the walls were. Can you believe that? But he taught us, and we know now.

SPEAKER_01

30:51

Were they on that one? Maybe. I don't maybe. They could they could be. They could be. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00

30:57

Um uh this does take us into June on the event.

SPEAKER_01

31:02

You did talk about smoke on the water, right? Well, that was well, I was ferociously looking up if Lowrider was on Lady Gaga's song.

SPEAKER_03

31:09

Right after that's Pride Fest. So you get smoke of the water a week later, I think. You're at Pride Fest for the Friday. I'm fired up for Pride Fest.

SPEAKER_01

31:14

I have never been before. You gotta go. It's amazing. I think we're gonna go get some in-the-field content at Pridefest.

SPEAKER_03

31:21

I've gone the last two years, uh, some of the best nights of the season. Like they do it right there.

SPEAKER_00

31:26

For those whose therapy is dance, it's that's where you need to go. That's how I process a lot of my big feelings, and so it's like a cathartic experience, and you're doing it with 60,000 of your best friends in glitter.

SPEAKER_01

31:44

Were you dancing? Oh, actually, you know, I did go for a little bit last year because it is literally right right there. Were you dancing in the rain last year? I remember the monsoon one day. No, okay. Oh, um, Locust Street Fest. They do a phenomenal beer run. I remember we covered that they have four beer stops and people run a mile, and I don't know how they do it. But um it's impressive to watch the elite athlete in Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_03

32:09

There's there are there are festivals, there's events where you're like, it's just better to watch. And that might be a that's a watch.

SPEAKER_01

32:16

I I don't enjoy throwing up personally, but um if other people are putting themselves in that position to showcase their athleticism, I'm I'm for it.

SPEAKER_00

32:24

I was reminiscing about um when Bastille days would have, remember they had like the bartender Olympic things where you had to like carry a tray full of wine glasses around and run and like sprint around an area and again feats of athleticism unique to our festival's sensibilities, and it it was just fantastic watching.

SPEAKER_03

32:53

I mean, think about feats of athleticism at festivals, five Sazz's sampler platters in one sitting. Did you do it? Did you do that? I mean, neither confirm nor deny.

SPEAKER_01

33:06

I'd be very impressed. Those are really, really tasty. They're super tasty.

SPEAKER_03

33:11

And Saz's celebrating anniversary this year, too.

SPEAKER_00

33:14

Happy 50th to our friends at Saz's 50th, Saz's Absolute legend growing up here in great business.

SPEAKER_01

33:21

Um Lowlands for the first time throwing Belgian beer fest June 13th, I believe at in the heart of Tosa Village. I don't know if it's at Hart Park or right there, but um over 25 Belgian breweries and a hundred Belgian beers.

SPEAKER_00

33:38

I think that's awesome. You a Belgian beer and then one of their um fry cone like fries, the frites with all the little dipping sauces.

SPEAKER_01

33:49

Yeah, like the sweet potato ones, those are those are good.

SPEAKER_00

33:51

And then get a bunch of sauces and have a beer on a nice sunny day. Yeah, perfect flavor combo. You don't need anything else.

SPEAKER_03

33:59

You think they'll have Belgian beer? I think they might have a couple, just a few, just a couple, just a couple.

SPEAKER_00

34:05

Um perfect lead-in to World Cup season, I think. So genius on Lowland's part.

SPEAKER_03

34:10

Yeah, lots of lots of World Cup activity this year. Zokolo is gonna have a watch party, um, several of the other bar you know bars throughout the area have them watch parties.

SPEAKER_01

34:19

Oh, no mad scary.

SPEAKER_03

34:21

Brady Street will be hopping. Yep. Um we'll have a section on visitmilwaukee.org to highlight all the World Cup watch parties and block parties. So definitely people should be on the lookout for those. Those will be popping up a lot uh as we get into June and through July as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

34:36

Toward the end of June, Tour of America's Dairyland. Speaking of lowlands, I know they love Toad. Those are fun to watch. I like it because I mean those guys go so fast and they're so close to each other. I'm I'm not athletic or brave enough to do that. And it's nice because they go around like every couple minutes. It's it's fun to watch.

SPEAKER_03

34:57

Those criterions, those types of races are really, really cool. Now imagine if we combined Locust Street Fest with Toad and they had to ride a bike and drink beer. I'm sure no one was there. Yeah, that's coming up too.

SPEAKER_00

35:11

Yeah, you actually they just launched, you can register your vehicle, uh, like right now.

SPEAKER_01

35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

35:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

35:18

And then tell me you guys got something cooking with D. Wade.

SPEAKER_03

35:22

Yeah, that's right. Super excited to work with uh Dwayne Wade and Marquette University and uh trying to find a way to again raise funds for some really great programs uh through uh Sharp Literacy, uh putting funds towards uh a new uh some new facility work on the the auxiliary gyms and some things at Marquette University. Obviously, the Visit Milwaukee Foundation and what we do, same concept of our emergency relief fund and our scholarships and the Wade Scholars program that they announced last year, where they give full rides to several students every year to Marquette through the Wade Scholars program. We're lucky enough that one of the Wade Scholars is an intern with Visit Milwaukee. We've got a great program where uh uh the student who wins the Wade Scholarship also gets an automatic internship with Visit Milwaukee for at least one. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01

36:10

Uh so it's it's Fernando or someone else?

SPEAKER_03

36:13

Uh no, no, it's uh Kennedy Luckett is her name. Yeah, she's still a student, um, and she's a sophomore this year, and uh she's been doing fantastic uh work for us. But it's a great way for us to continue to work uh with the students, work with the Wade Foundation. We're gonna be having a party with them uh in July. So uh we're looking at July 16, 17 uh time frame. We'll do a guest bartending uh competition with Dwayne Wade and Travis Deaner, who they they played together on some of those. Deaner's very legendary Marquette teams uh from the Flowrider era. Um and a little before. Yeah, and uh uh so they're gonna compete at Central Standard, do a little guest bartending, see who can make the most tips in one night. It's a ticketed event. Yeah, uh all the proceeds go to those foundations and uh and nonprofits mentioned. And then we'll have an exclusive dinner with our friends at Lupin Iris on that Friday night. Uh a very small uh amount of tickets available for that, so people should act early. Uh tickets will go on sale soon during National Travel and Tourism Week on May 7th, uh, in celebration of uh Travis uh Diener's number seven. Uh and uh about 60 tickets only available that. So exclusive dinner at Lupin Iris or the big community celebration at Central Standard.

SPEAKER_01

37:29

People need to get some dates on the calendar for the new shoe drop and all the D-Waite activities and empty their bank account and have a great time that's right doing so. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

37:39

Travel and leisure uh said that Milwaukee has the perfect summer experience in an article today. So I think we just like made the case for them. We wrote we wrote the next 10 seconds.

SPEAKER_01

37:53

I agree. I'm I'm really excited after this, you know, little chat, and uh we only got through the month of June. Other than the D Wade event we've got to do it. Touched up just touch of July. Just graced it. Um anything else?

SPEAKER_03

38:08

I mean, look, we could go on literally, we could go on forever. Our calendar of events is stacked. Uh, people if if anyone's ever looking for something to do, I encourage you to just go to visitmilwaukee.org and look at our calendar of events. There's probably 30 to 40 events almost daily, especially in the summer. Uh we do uh we actually partner with the theater district and uh Lakefront Brewery, um Bluebat, uh actually Village, the Wawatosa Village, and several others on it's a live uh busker series, so live free music throughout the community all summer long. We'll be announcing that lineup soon uh as well. So from June through uh August, free music all over the place throughout the city. Um so there's just all I mean, there's always something going on, and we're not even we haven't even gotten into like the concerts that are at Pfizer Forum, the concerts that are at the Pepst Theater Group venues. Yeah. Um, you know, it's it's non-stop all the time. So you just you have to find a place where where is it all at? Visit Milwaukee.org.

SPEAKER_01

39:03

You guys do do an amazing job with that calendar. And then thank you for all you do for the city and all the amazing stuff you guys have going on. Always, always love having you in here. All right, everyone. I hope you're pumped for summer in Milwaukee. And before signing off, just want to thank our partners who make Milwaukee Uncut possible, Drink Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company, Annex Wealth Management, and our friends over at Nikola.

SPEAKER_00

0:04

Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut and Happy Mother's Day week. Make sure to get your mom something nice. There still might be time depending on when you're listening to this. We've got some gift recommendations in this episode, or you cannot go wrong at Kessler's Diamonds, Diamond Joe, and the team will take great care of you. Or I'm a big Sendex flowers, chocolate, and a card guy in and out in five minutes. Can't go wrong with either of those. And we've got more coming anyway. We've got three amazing moms joining us today: Monica Jerkin, Alicia Newby, and Alison Steinhoffel, all working very important and demanding jobs while raising young kids. We go over something they got wrong about being a mom and biggest surprises, lessons learned from their moms, what their kids do that they find funny but have to pretend it's not. Favorite thing about being a mother. And we get into, like I said, Mother's Day gifts for you and their favorite spas, favorite kids' activities, date spots, and favorite women-known businesses in the area. Before diving in, just want to thank our partners who make Milwaukee Uncut possible. We'll kick things off with Nicolay Law, the Midwest law firm injured. Get Nicolay and Rust, and the team will take great care of you over there. Drink Wisconsinably Beverage Company. If you're looking to throw back some brandy, some canned cocktails, or some vodka on Mother's Day, my personal favorite, their canned brandy old-fashioned Drink Wisconsinably Beverage Company available at bars and liquor stores across the state and at their corner bar over in Right Field at MFAM. And last but not least, Annex Wealth Management. If you are looking to get your finances in order this spring, this summer, you need to reach out to our good friends at Annex Wealth Management. Annex Wealth know the difference. Just head on over to annexwealth.com. All right, let's dive in. Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut and happy Mother's Day week. We have three amazing mothers with us today. We have Alicia Newby, the ringleader of this episode, who came up to me after a few drinks of carnivore and proposed this amazing idea. She's also a mother of two: a girl and a boy, and a dog, global sales for a tech company and the wife of the amazing charismatic, larger-than-life personality, Jonathan Newby.

SPEAKER_03

2:39

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00

2:40

Alicia, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_03

2:42

Thank you so much, Richie, for having us. Um, yeah, appreciate the invite and honor to be a part of what you're doing for Milan.

SPEAKER_00

2:51

And this this episode is not about Jonathan Newby, but we may need to may need a snippet on him later. Later on.

SPEAKER_03

2:57

Just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

2:58

Later on. Okay, and we have uh Alison Steinhoffel. She is the mother of three boys, one, two, and six, and works at a real estate private equity firm in the area. Married to a great guy, Andrew. Um thank you for coming in today as well.

SPEAKER_04

3:15

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00

3:16

And Monica Jerkin.

SPEAKER_04

3:17

Hey Richie.

SPEAKER_00

3:19

Yeah, one of the owners owns Magic Productions with her husband, Mike, awesome guy, mom of two young boys, one and two.

SPEAKER_02

3:27

Yeah, or two and three.

SPEAKER_00

3:28

Two and three, excuse me. One year apart, though. And uh and a dog, and Magic does um a lot of amazed Super Bowls, rider cups, just lots of cool events.

SPEAKER_02

3:38

Yeah, audio.

SPEAKER_00

3:40

A lot of cruises, etc. Um anyway. Thank you all for coming in today.

SPEAKER_02

3:44

Thanks for having us. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

3:46

All right, we we will kick it off with something that you got wrong about motherhood before having kids or biggest surprises.

SPEAKER_03

3:55

I think the biggest surprise about motherhood is you I had no realization of how tired I would be. All the time. To all the people I complained of before kids that I was tired. I was false. I didn't know what tired meant. And while it's the most amazing, magical adventure, it is like the most exhausting. So that has what has been a surprise. And you know, just that nobody knows what they're doing. We're all trying to figure out how to raise these good humans. And yeah, it's it's a wild adventure.

SPEAKER_02

4:34

Do you remember when before kids you'd kind of be on the couch at night, like kind of bored? Like, what do we do? Should we watch a show? Now it's like, I want to go to bed, I want to just not have anyone near me, and that's like I need like 20 minutes of that. 20 minutes of like nothing.

SPEAKER_03

4:51

20 minutes of nonverbal time.

SPEAKER_02

4:52

I'm like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

4:54

I've been spending a lot of time driving in my car in silence.

SPEAKER_02

4:57

Oh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_04

4:58

It's probably an indicator of how overstimulated I am.

SPEAKER_03

5:02

But uh also when you get home from meetings and you just sit in the driveway and you need that like quiet car time.

SPEAKER_02

5:08

Like I've turned on coffee house, I'm serious, and I literally just like I sit there and I'm like, this is nice. This is what like normal, like this is this is just a ringing endorsement for Bree and I to have someday.

SPEAKER_00

5:20

This this is not this is off to a fantastic.

SPEAKER_02

5:22

You just need like 15 to 20 minutes of quiet. That's all. And then you can like recalibrate your insides a little bit.

SPEAKER_03

5:28

Well, we are also all like toddler moms, so so our current era.

SPEAKER_00

5:34

Toddler moms and and uh and all working very, I would say, demanding jobs.

SPEAKER_03

5:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

5:39

And important jobs.

SPEAKER_03

5:40

Yeah, yeah. It's it's an interesting dynamic in my role when I have you know clients or or leadership pinging me at 7 a.m. You know, hey, can you can you take a call really quick? And it's like, no, I am cage fighting my children, trying to get them in the car and get them to daycare, and then I will figure this out. So yeah, it's it's a wild ride being a working mom.

SPEAKER_02

6:05

Um and also we're I I would not to like boast about it, but we're also very social. So it's not like we're all. Yeah, you all you all are.

SPEAKER_00

6:13

It seems like you all all of you um uh uh run in some similar circles, but have maintained very good social relationships as well.

SPEAKER_03

6:21

Yes, our husbands' social batteries never die. And while I'd half the time rather be home in sweats, we we rally, we and it's fun, right?

SPEAKER_02

6:32

But then it's another layer of stuff to do. So you're doing obviously you're doing your job of work and then you're doing your job of being a mom, and then also maintaining friendships, which is really fun and just a lot.

SPEAKER_04

6:46

It's a lot of logistics. I feel like I could sum up motherhood in one word, it's logistics, yeah, lots of lists, yeah, right. Yeah, nothing an Excel spreadsheet can't help you with.

SPEAKER_02

6:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

6:57

Yeah, I think you realize like more women, more mothers need to be in charge because the way that we can just be smart about scheduling and thoughtful about thoughtful and intentional um about what we're gonna do. That is that is moms. You just figure out a way to make it all happen.

SPEAKER_00

7:19

Alison, what's the biggest difference of uh being a mom to a six-year-old opposed to more of a a toddler like these two have right now?

SPEAKER_04

7:28

Yeah, that's a good question. It's magical and they can kind of do things for themselves. So, you know, I love I love a spreadsheet. He has a checklist in the morning, like do these things and then you can play with your Legos. Oh, that's awesome. Um that's bad. That's pretty magical. Uh yeah, most of the time. Nice. Yeah, most of the time. Yeah, because he wants the Legos, right? So you know Don't we all? It's pretty simple, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

7:50

We just easier at our incentive program, any any other major surprises? Or mostly just the ti the tiredness and the demand of balancing everything.

SPEAKER_02

8:04

I think it's just figuring out the logistics, as Allison said. Like, it's crazy how much stuff comes with kids. I don't know if you feel the same way, but there was one point when they were really little, and it's like, I don't have enough clothes for them because they're growing, growing, growing. So you're constantly having to be on your phone to order a new size, to get more diapers, to get more whatever. And it's like, I'm not on my phone, like looking at it for like fun stuff. Like, I'm actually like working on doing tasks on it, which is tricky because I try not to have my kids around screens as much, but it's like mom's ordering groceries or mom's doing this, and it's like kind of the dynamic of balancing all that without not being present with your kids too. You kind of feel guilty. I feel guilty about it.

SPEAKER_03

8:48

But I think just all also the internal reflection you do when you once you become a mother and you compare it to your childhood often, and you know, the mind fuck of becoming a mother is is wild.

SPEAKER_00

9:03

Have you have you all intentionally um done things, certain things very similar to how your mothers raised you and certain things differently? Are you are you more strict, less strict, um anything like that?

SPEAKER_02

9:18

I don't know if that world exists anymore, you know, like without like social media and people didn't really know what was around, I guess. Like, think about growing up in the 90s, like magical, right? Um but also like our parents didn't know that there was all of this stuff going around to take us to or to do. And I just think it's a little different than it than it was when we were kids, too. There was no target delivery, there was no Amazon Prime. So I think our parents just had to sound silly, but they had to go to the store, they didn't have time to not do that because they had to do the actual errands probably with us most of the time.

SPEAKER_03

9:55

Well, and I think the expectation on our generation, I feel like our parents got the gold star for keeping us alive. And I feel like my generation of mothers, it can be a little bit competitive as far as, well, what's your kid signed up for? And, you know, sports. I I had someone ask me if I was going to hold my son back a year in daycare so he would effectively be the oldest in his graduating class. I'm sure it is. And potentially better at sports. That's a thing. And I'm like, actually, I think I'm more interested in uh, you know, shedding this daycare bill and if he getting him out of the house a year sooner. Yeah, and neatly has the ability to be a professional athlete. We'll take it. But it's the fact that at two years old there are parents out there thinking of ways to game the system.

SPEAKER_04

10:48

So I mean, there's no risk of a professional athlete in my house. And no one suggested that to us.

SPEAKER_00

10:58

He's got some decent height on him.

SPEAKER_03

11:00

Yeah. Yeah. So so it's interesting. And I feel like because I work all week and I travel for work on occasion, you know, signing my kids up for a ton of activities on the weekends is less appealing to me because I don't know if Newbie's gonna be showing a house. So, but but a lot of my kids' peers are like, oh, we have gymnastics and then we're going to basketball. And I'm like, well, we're gonna go play in the backyard. So it's it's it's interesting, you know, and I think as moms being able to say no is there's also power in that.

unknown

11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

11:38

I heard a stat the other day that the average parent today spends double the time with their kids than they did in the 90s. That's both dads and moms, which is kind of crazy when you think about it that way. I mean everyone's feeling compressed for time, but on average we're spending double the time with our kids. So that's that's kind of a nice thing.

SPEAKER_00

11:56

That is interesting. I wonder if if does that have to do with work from home or is that just that's a good question.

SPEAKER_04

12:03

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

12:04

Yeah, but still. Um what's something your kids uh do that you secretly find very funny but have to pretend it it is not Oh I mean when one of my kids drops an F-bomb and it's like perfectly placed, yes.

SPEAKER_04

12:22

Um or like, you know, another choice word that's Do you do you break or no? I mean, I try not to, but you know, there's gotta be a little discipline. It's amazing what they pick up on the playground. Yeah, it's it's when they say they pick it up on the playground and not at home, but yeah, yeah, a perfectly used swear word when someone's Lego truck breaks. Like I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_03

12:44

Yes, we're teaching them well.

SPEAKER_02

12:47

I also love when one of them is being kind of naughty and the other one just kind of like self-corrects, like either like does a little like butt pat or like pulls a little hair, and I'm like the two and three-year-old are doing that to each other.

SPEAKER_00

13:00

Yeah, that would be funny.

SPEAKER_02

13:04

That's not like you're kind of defending yourself, right? But just lovingly, right?

SPEAKER_00

13:11

Um something about motherhood that uh people don't talk about enough.

SPEAKER_03

13:20

Um I think the pressures of being a mom, I think first time moms go into it with an idea that everything's gonna go according to plan. And I think accepting that very few of those plans will go accordingly, um, you know, it's is eye-opening. Um I think I I think there's a lot of pressure around the journey to breastfeed. And that for a lot of women, you know, does not work out um the way you want it to. And then you're researching all of these different formulas and and you know, what's the right, you know, blend for my kid, and then and then you have a two-year-old who will only eat mac and cheese. So it's a it's a it's a fun little evolution of you know, the pressure you put on yourself for perfection via the standards that you know you read about on social media and things like that to what it actually ends up being.

SPEAKER_02

14:24

So I also heard something that once you think you've figured it out, whether it's a phase or a type of um milestone, like I finally got my kid to sleep, or I finally had them eat their vegetables, something changes. Like you're kind of living in this like limbo area of like goodness for a little bit, and then inevitably it changes because your kids growing so fast. So I think that's so true. Like when they sleep in their crib or when they start sleeping in their bed, it's all working and you're kind of just waiting for the next ball to drop because it it's it's bound to change at any moment, you know.

SPEAKER_03

14:58

Yeah, the good, the bad, everything's temporary.

SPEAKER_00

15:02

Going to raising kids in the in the social media or screens era, and I Alison, I'm guessing you might deal with this a little bit with the six-year-old or at least the screen time. I don't know since your kids are younger, but what are your views on all of that and how do you try and manage manage it?

SPEAKER_02

15:18

So, like uh screen time for the kids in in particular.

SPEAKER_00

15:22

For us, we I'm guessing you're not worrying about a three-year-old on social media right now.

SPEAKER_02

15:27

No, but it's crazy. Like some people there's different thresholds, right? And one of the things I learned as Alicia alluded to to like the feeding journey of your child, you learn really quickly that different homes do different things, and it's really none of my business what other parents do. And I don't really it doesn't impact me, you know. But for for us, um, we we limit screen time a lot. Like they're it just I'm trying to do my best to not be on my phone, not having the kids watch TV. Um, everyone has a different threshold. So like we'll probably do maybe 15 to 20 minutes of TV three to four times a week. And they're watching 90s, like we're watching Arthur, Bernstein Bears, we're watching the stuff that like I watched when I was a kid, but I don't know if that's the right move. Like everyone's doing what's best for their family, you know.

SPEAKER_00

16:20

And do you all try and limit your screen time around the kids? And is that difficult to do?

SPEAKER_02

16:24

I try to, but the problem, as I alluded to earlier, is like I I pick up my phone and I'm like, I need to place a target delivery. Like, like we need diapers, we need X or Y. So then I catch myself telling my two and three-year-old, mommy's on her phone ordering groceries. Like I'm trying to like tell them that I'm actually working and not just like staring at my phone for for fun. Because again, we're growing up in a like we're living in an era where there's so much media around us, and I'm a consumer of it, and my children will be consumers of it. So, how do you teach your kids to be responsible consumers of it as they grow up? I I don't know the answer to that.

SPEAKER_03

17:04

Yeah, I mean, we're obviously not there yet. Our our eldest is about to be five, but I think I'd be wrong to like I work in tech, so obviously we're gonna embrace technology. Um, but I think you know, just raising confident humans that when they are exposed to social media one day that they aren't seeking the validation. Um actually, someone someone gave me a really good anecdote once on the likes that you get on Instagram. Because while you may want, you know, hundreds, even thousands of likes on a certain post, if you only receive 20 and someone, you know, but if you put that in real life that somebody came up to you and you got 20 compliments, like you'd feel really good about yourself if you got but then when you put it in-if you got one compliment in real life, you feel pretty good about yourself. Yeah, so like you can't, you know, hone in on the number of likes because if you if you got all those in person, you'd feel way better about yourself. So I think you know, just raising confidence in my kids to not seek that validation and also you know, social media is a very edited place in realizing, you know, that that it is the highlight reel and you know, to not take it so seriously. But but it is scary. There's a there's a lot of fear with that. I think you know, we'll try to defer it as long as we can, but I think it's inevitable. And hopefully these tech companies are making different changes to make it safer.

SPEAKER_04

18:39

So I don't know, we're not huge TV people, like we never have been, so our kids aren't that excited about or we just don't offer TV that often. But we've come up with things that kind of showcase how exciting TV can be for them. So, for example, our kids hate getting their nails trimmed. I don't know, is that universal mind do? Um, so I let them watch a YouTube video of their choice while I'm trimming their nails, and we've now realized that like our kids are working us independently where they'll be like, I need my nails trimmed. They're so smart. I just trimmed, I just trimmed his nails yesterday. Those nails don't need to be trimmed. So, you know, they they work the system, which I guess is good. They're being creative and clever, but um I think yeah, you can tell kids are obsessed with screens. Even when we go to a restaurant and there's like a TV on in the bar, they're like, you know, trying to see what's what's going on, and yeah, that's just part of life, I guess.

SPEAKER_02

19:37

And it's also crazy, like the brain fog for me is so real. Like after having kids, I don't think it's like actually something wrong with me, but I think I have so much to think about at all times. So for me, a lot of what I do on social media personally, I'm literally recording it so it's saved somewhere because my phone has so much content. Like I'm taking photos at work, I'm taking photos of like a receipt or like a tag of something. And so when I post on like an Instagram post personally, it's basically a reminder of my life, so that I'm like, oh, this was fun, this was fun, this was fun. So that's always my intention whenever I post on social media because my memory has gotten so bad, and it's like, oh, well, this was great. Like this was so fun when we went to on this trip or when we did that. So it it truly is a highlight reel for my for me, you know, which is kind of a unique way of looking at it, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

20:30

Um on a on a positive note, what it what is you all's favorite thing about being a mother?

SPEAKER_03

20:36

For me, it's recreating the magic of the holidays. Like, I probably go a little bit over the top, but I just love creating, you know, Christmas morning excitement and oh, here's the Easter bunny, and and it's just really fun the way at least at this age they they get into it. I've I've been told I'm living in the blink, and like by the time you know they're eight, ten years old, all of this is not gonna land the the way it is now. So so I think just enjoying it.

SPEAKER_00

21:10

I still believe in Santa right now.

unknown

21:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

21:12

Well, for my my parents were, you know, if you don't believe, you don't receive. So I I borderline one into high school, like guys, Santa, come to town.

SPEAKER_02

21:27

I would echo that too. Just kind of creating magic for your kids. And also they're there's so much fun. So like you come home and like they're happy to see you. Life is good. Like we're I'm I'm so tired all the time, but like I love it, you know.

SPEAKER_04

21:39

Yeah, it's pretty wild to have these creatures that you've created, right? Somehow you're you've got these babies and you're supposed to teach them what to do. And it's hilarious when they're negotiating with you and you've taught them how to do that too. So pros and cons. They're smart.

SPEAKER_00

21:58

And any uh any best lesson. From your own own mothers, or anything you admire most about them.

SPEAKER_04

22:04

I mean, my mom always says, trust your instincts. And I feel like that's such a good piece of advice in life. I've been lucky, you know, she's also an excellent grandma who lives very close by. So we are able to leverage that a lot. But I think that's a good point, especially in the age of social media, and everyone's got an opinion and just kind of what feels right in your gut and and go with that and try not to worry too much about it, what everybody else is thinking or doing.

SPEAKER_02

22:29

I second that. And Allison's mom makes family dinner every Sunday. She does. So she will invite the whole family over to her house with like meals. So it's like a theme night. It's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_04

22:40

Yeah, she's pretty great. And when they're out of town, I'm like, what do you mean you're out of town on Sunday night? What am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_03

22:47

Yeah. Um, my mom has just always been so supportive, always told me she's proud of me, things like that. So I think as I I look to raise my own children, you know, just loving support, you know, letting them know that they're seen and valued. That's something my mom has always done for me.

SPEAKER_02

23:08

I think I I echo I hate going last on this one, but I think those same points and also just learning how to be you, like what works well for you doesn't always work for somebody else. And just realizing maybe I need more time for X or Y, and just realizing when to commit to certain things and when not to.

SPEAKER_00

23:26

Awesome. Should we should we get into some of the uh the gift ideas and date spots, things like that?

SPEAKER_03

23:32

Yes, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00

23:34

Great. Um, let's start with Mother's Day gift ideas for people who could use them right now.

SPEAKER_03

23:40

All right, dad. This one's for you.

SPEAKER_00

23:43

Hey guys, spring is here, at least sometimes it's here. I think third, third or fourth spring is finally here. Felt like summer yesterday. Feels like a crisp November morning today. Anyway, time to open the windows, clean out the garage, and yeah, maybe take a hard look at your financial life too. If your retirement plan, investments, or estate stuff feels dusty or disorganized. Our friends at Annex Wealth Management are here to help, led by our guy you've probably seen on some of our recent hit social media videos, Dave Spano. You gotta call our guys over at Annex Wealth Management. Annex is a holistic wealth management firm right here in Milwaukee that helps you with everything retirement planning, smart investing, estate planning, legacy planning, and tax strategies all under one roof. Think of them as your financial spring cleaning crew. They'll help you declutter your old accounts, dust off your investment strategy, organize your estate documents, and build a financial plan focused on your goals. That is our friends at AnnexWealth Management, annexwealth.com. Know the difference. All right, let's get back to today's episode.

SPEAKER_03

24:52

I think we always we still want something handmade. Like it doesn't even won't cost you anything but time. But like force these kids to sit down and like make me a card I can keep forever.

SPEAKER_02

25:05

Yeah, that's that's probably key, I think, especially when they're little. Because when they're older, it's like it is what it is. But like when they're little, like if they can cut something, even if it's not socially like if it's not like aesthetically pleasing, right? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Like our probably won't be if it comes out of my life. No, but like even for like for my husband's birthday a couple weeks ago, Tanner cut confetti and he's learning how to cut. So all this confetti is like different pieces of cardboard and like different pieces of like paper from the house, and he glued them onto the refrigerator, and it was like the best thing to have confetti in our house, you know. So the handmade stuff is awesome.

SPEAKER_03

25:44

Yeah, and if you're not going to make a brunch reservation for Mother's Day, I think you could pick up brunch and on the kitchen table have all these handmade goodies for us, but then maybe go to Alley Boy's and go see Stacy and bring back some bagels and sandwiches. Or you could go to Poppy Bakery and Amy makes the best uh pastries and um avocado and all the things, and you can just do like a little spread of baked goods if you don't want to go to brunch and we like that. Who doesn't like brunch? Get out of your house. You don't have to have anyone clean up.

SPEAKER_02

26:27

I'm a big fan of Mother's Day brunch.

SPEAKER_03

26:29

We also like Commodore out in Peewake. They do.

SPEAKER_00

26:32

No, I haven't been there yet. That's a new new Bartellotta, newish Bartellotta's place.

SPEAKER_03

26:36

Yes, they do a good spread. Um, also like Harbor House downtown for a brunch. Um lower key. Could maybe go to like a blues egg. Um Tosa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

26:52

I mean, on the gifts, I would say something. I love a practical gift. Like, don't buy me jewelry, which seems crazy. Don't buy me jewelry. Um, but buy me a practical gift and like what's practical? Uh you know, something you can use that's not just like a pretty thing or a dust collector.

SPEAKER_02

27:10

Do you have an example?

SPEAKER_04

27:12

Um, last year Andrew bought me a Kindle, and I'm very I was very anti-Kindle, but he bought me one anyway, and he opened it up and loaded it and charged it and made it real plug and play, which I thought was.

SPEAKER_00

27:25

Does it get more romantic than that?

SPEAKER_04

27:28

Andrew and the Kindle preloading. It that was magical. Like he did the extra work to get it all set up. I mean, a mother's dream.

SPEAKER_03

27:37

Yeah. I also think flowers. Um you have to do flowers.

SPEAKER_02

27:41

I agree.

SPEAKER_03

27:42

My favorite florist is Lataire out in Mekwan. Sally is the most amazing floral artist, and she will hook you up. So order an arrangement from Lataire, and that will be beautiful.

SPEAKER_02

27:58

And also I agree flowers, I agree brunch, cards, right? But to Allison's point, like get me a nice pair of pajamas. You know what I mean? Like Turkish Pima cotton, like lake pajamas. That is my like I don't think you can go wrong with that.

SPEAKER_03

28:15

Yeah, for the best. Yeah. Newbie and I also we like to spend our money on experiences. I feel like we've gotten to the point in our careers where if I want it, I'll just buy it. So why don't you take the planning out of something and plan an experience? Book the flight, you know.

SPEAKER_00

28:39

We got a good range of gift IDs.

SPEAKER_04

28:42

Yeah. High low. A trip to Paris, sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

28:47

You you guys had some spas in there too, maybe a spa trip.

SPEAKER_03

28:51

Yes. Yes. You have cards.

SPEAKER_00

28:52

Any any favorite spas in the area?

SPEAKER_03

28:55

Um, I like it's out in Tosa by um Mayfair Mall, actually. It's called Aura Spa, and they do these amazing lymphatic drainage facials. Probably could have used one before I came today. But she will like have you snatch and like get rid of that double chin. So I love Aura. There's also Fister. Yeah. Close by.

SPEAKER_02

29:21

I I love uh locally, I go to Neroli in Brookfield, which I really, really love. And we do a lot of Kohler trips. So we'll do the Kohler water spa frequently. Place is magical. It's magical. It is so wonderful going out there and getting a massage.

SPEAKER_03

29:36

Monica is the queen of Kohler.

SPEAKER_02

29:38

I love Kohler.

SPEAKER_03

29:38

If you need a Kohler right, if you want the inside guide to Kohler, Monica Jerkin.

SPEAKER_02

29:43

It's convenient, it's an hour away. Like you can get there. It feels like you're going on like a little tiny trip and you can still get home the next the same day or the next day.

SPEAKER_00

29:52

It does feel like a different little world when you're in there.

SPEAKER_02

29:54

Yeah. I love it out there getting a massage, getting your nails done, and going out to lunch, either at the American Club or somewhere in Sheboygan, like Il Retrovo. It's pretty awesome. That's a good Mother's Day idea. Sending mom there.

SPEAKER_01

30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

30:09

Or even with some girlfriends. Like, how nice would it be if Andrew, Newbie, and Michael planned a little Mother's Day gift for all of us to like golf. It's like a real layup for them. Yeah, yeah. Because then the boys can sneak off to golf.

SPEAKER_04

30:21

Well, they're like an add-to-cart button. Hope they're listening.

SPEAKER_00

30:25

They can uh they can do a little day trip there too. Yeah, it is only an hour away. Staying over the overnight there is extremely nice, but like, yeah, there's stuff to do during the day.

SPEAKER_02

30:33

We do it all the time. Like we'll go up in the morning and come back before the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00

30:37

They got that iconic coffee shop in the American Club.

SPEAKER_03

30:40

Yeah, the greenhouse cafe. Go there. Yeah. Get a picture.

SPEAKER_02

30:45

That's pretty awesome. Can't go wrong.

SPEAKER_03

30:48

And they have a lot of um, they have the little shops on Woodlake too.

SPEAKER_00

30:52

So new grocery store coming this year. Yeah, next year, you're excited. Yeah, later this year.

SPEAKER_02

30:59

And they have the cutest little baby shop there too for kids called Little Love. So I love that shop. It's wonderful. But even when you're away from your kids, you still want to like buy stuff for your kids inevitably.

SPEAKER_03

31:10

So guilty of that. Like they need not a thing more. Yeah. But like how can we cat from Little Love? How do you resist Little Love, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

31:19

Um, let's do kid kid outings. If people are looking for kids' activity in the area, where are you going?

SPEAKER_02

31:27

This is Alicia's forte.

SPEAKER_03

31:29

No, not it's always instant regret. Um, you know, I can I can I can chime.

SPEAKER_00

31:34

I can I can actually chime in on this one for instant regret. I do big brothers, big sisters with an eight-year-old and um realized a couple places not to take him.

SPEAKER_02

31:43

I'll let you guys go first though, because this isn't Do you have good examples of where not to take him?

SPEAKER_00

31:48

The roller skating rink.

SPEAKER_02

31:49

Why?

SPEAKER_00

31:50

It is fucking chaos in there. I mean loud music, hundreds of kids, dim lights, light show going. Yeah. I can't skate. I was out there with a walker trying to survive. Um and he didn't want to leave either. So I had to hunt him down. I think one kid almost knocked me over. I think I stayed up, but uh leaning on that, and then I told him um after we went that since I used a walker, the city of Milwaukee banned me from going to skating rinks for 10 years.

SPEAKER_02

32:25

Did he believe it or no?

SPEAKER_00

32:27

Yeah, he believes it, right, Brie? I think he does. It was the first time I lied to uh to Ray Sean straight up like that. I looked, I looked him in the eye and uh felt a little bad doing it, but I do not regret doing that. So I have not been back to uh the roller skating rink since. Daven Buster's has been good.

SPEAKER_01

32:47

Yeah, he couldn't pay me for something.

SPEAKER_00

32:49

First time I took him there, he was running around in in hiding in some of the machines from me. Kind of had a heart attack, but he's he's gotten he's gotten better.

SPEAKER_01

32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

33:00

Listens to me a little better. So uh he's he's making progress. You know what's a good spot? Um Cause's mini bowl.

SPEAKER_03

33:07

I've never been there. I've never I've never done it. I've never taken the kids there.

SPEAKER_00

33:11

It's not you wouldn't think of it as a kid spot. It's a dive, it's like it was voted best dive bar in America on Esquire like years ago. And it is a good dive bar, and they have mini bowling, so they're smaller balls.

SPEAKER_04

33:22

Oh yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00

33:24

And um yeah, they they let us in. There was another kid there too. He was really enthralled by the gambling machine, so I had to not make that happen, but he did enjoy bowling too. So anyway, those are those are my places to go and not to go list. But I would love to hear from some actual parents.

SPEAKER_02

33:42

Again, our kids are little, so a lot of we have a zoopass for the Milwaukee County Zoo.

SPEAKER_00

33:47

Oh, shout out to the zoo. I love the show. Shout out to the zoo.

SPEAKER_02

33:50

Yeah. And so with the Zoopass, what what you don't realize with the Zoopass is that you have the convenience to leave whenever you want to. So I feel like when you buy tickets to something, you want to be there for a bit. You don't want to pay a bunch of money and then you feel obligated. And so with the Zoopass to plug that for the third time, it's incredible because you can go in, park, stay for an hour, and leave once everyone starts running around and you are overstimulated. And you don't feel guilty that you're leaving early because you can go back anytime you want.

SPEAKER_00

34:21

I do want to shout out the zoo. They put up an amazing light display for Christmas. That was really cool.

SPEAKER_03

34:29

We love a farmer's market, I feel like ideal weekend morning. We can also take the dog. Shout out to Bruno. He doesn't get enough love now that we've had kids. Massive. Like this is what happens.

SPEAKER_00

34:43

What's Bruno weighing in at?

SPEAKER_03

34:44

Probably 115 pounds. Yeah. He is a burnoodle. This is what happens when your husband shows a condo in the third ward, sees a puppy in the elevator, and says, Oh, they have one left. And then 12 hours later, two people with no experience owning a dog during COVID are driving to Indiana to pick up a massive puppy. Bruno's name in his litter was actually Tank because he was the biggest. And now he's also the biggest dog in the neighborhood. And what have we gotten ourselves into?

SPEAKER_00

35:17

I think after Newbie got it, he had some good quote to me like, I'm a big boy, I need a big dog, or something like that.

SPEAKER_03

35:23

That's just like Yeah, it's respect. So yeah, Bruno adds adds chaos. And um, yeah, we like to do things where we can also show Bruno a little love because he's a COVID puppy, and you know, he just wants to be wants to be in the mix. Um, but also I would say in Milwaukee, like art museum, Betty Brynn, you can find key days where you can go for free. So so that's nice, or even just like going to cops, having a custard date, things, things we like to do with the kids. But like Georgie is a savage, and at two years old, it's just a lot to you know take him out into the wild. We try, we try.

SPEAKER_02

36:05

But don't you think getting them out sometimes makes it better? Because like they're in a car seat and they're stuck there for a little bit as you're driving car somewhere. Like if you're let's say our our routine on like Saturday mornings is we wake up, either go to breakfast or make a nice breakfast, and then we'll like go do something, whether it's like a Sendix run or like going anywhere just to get the kids out, because then they're running around a store or running around the park rather than like opening every box in your house and pulling out toys. I don't know. That's just art that it works for us. Then we come home, put them nap time, and then we have a couple hours of quiet.

SPEAKER_03

36:42

You're just way better at boy energy than I am, Monica. Like, had I had a boy first, we Allison has three boys.

SPEAKER_02

36:50

She's the queen of boy energy.

SPEAKER_04

36:52

Yeah, I come from an all-girl household, so I don't know what's going on 90% of the time. Thankfully, Andrew's from an all-boy household, so he reassures me that this is normal. Um I don't know if it is. So, yeah, I think we like to do, we love to go out to eat. I think, you know, sisters is our morning spot on the weekends um in Elm Grove. They do a great job with breakfast, and then we love Bel Air, they do a great dinner. They've got like the chips and the margaritas on the table within 90 seconds of being there, so everybody's happy.

SPEAKER_00

37:23

Yeah, you guys are really thinking about the kids.

SPEAKER_04

37:25

It's all about the kids. Fast margaritas. Yes. You know, you want everyone to have a good time. So um, and then I don't know, we don't do that much exciting stuff, I don't think. Um, we don't even really go to the zoo very often, which we should because we're not far, but um, the libraries, I mean, guys, the libraries, what an untapped resource. Some of them have toys. Yeah. Like kids. We don't do that enough.

SPEAKER_00

37:49

Milwaukee public library, just whatever library, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

37:52

Um we love the Brookfield Library, they've got puzzles and toys. And um the Waukeshaw Library. I'm sure the Milwaukee public libraries are awesome too. It's just like the libraries are really cool and they're usually not that crowded, which is surprising. And they're free.

SPEAKER_02

38:08

You can rent Tonies at the library. Did you know that? I don't know if Brookfield does it, but one of the libraries rents like Tonies for like the Tony box. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

38:16

Yeah, they're like$20 a piece to buy. You can rent them. Okay. Do you remember like oh yeah, go ahead?

SPEAKER_02

38:22

So think of like a box, literally like a cube that has a speaker in it.

SPEAKER_00

38:26

Looking at the package.

SPEAKER_02

38:27

And I'm kind of looking at the beer, the the lovely beer.

SPEAKER_00

38:30

Three sheep's beer. We'll give them a fuck. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

38:33

So when you put this, it's like a little box that has a speaker, and there's uh almost like a magnet on it. So you put a little figurine on it. And this is a great gift for like a kid that's younger, if you need a recommendation for that. But these little figurines go on top, and let's say it's aerial or it's uh like a Disney character or not, it automatically plays the story. So your kid can then like listen to something different based on what's what he's putting on his Tony box.

SPEAKER_00

39:01

Sounds like a genius invention.

SPEAKER_02

39:03

It's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

39:04

Yeah. We also love a box game.

SPEAKER_00

39:07

So with the little kids.

SPEAKER_03

39:09

Yeah, we will do it. I don't know if it's bold to me, but we've now got it.

SPEAKER_00

39:13

Have you done that, Monica?

SPEAKER_02

39:14

We have. We've done it a couple of times. The kids love it, but it's like, look, it's Giannis, and they just want the blue ice cream. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03

39:21

They just want to find the ice cream machine. I don't know if it's unique to the Milwaukee box.

SPEAKER_00

39:26

You know, I d I took uh Ray Sean to a brewer's game, and I didn't realize how many kid-friendly stuff was around Ampham Park, and I was pretty friendly. Shocked by like the amount of stuff they had for kids to do.

SPEAKER_03

39:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

39:40

Before before I unnecessarily budded in where you oh, you're fine.

SPEAKER_03

39:43

I'm I'm used to it. No, it's okay. Um no, but I think Bango does an amazing job with the kids, and it's so sweet. And I don't know if that's something unique to the Milwaukee Bucks team, is like this mascot that's you know.

SPEAKER_02

39:58

Bango is so great to the kids.

SPEAKER_03

40:01

Bango is great.

SPEAKER_00

40:02

Did you guys want to shout out any women-owned businesses?

SPEAKER_03

40:05

Yeah, would love to. Um fire away. So I think I got Sally at Leterre. Um love what she's doing with the floral. Um, we also, who else do we like for women? Um a good place to go for like a fun mom date while the kids are at school. You can go get some tea at um Honeybee Sage.

SPEAKER_00

40:28

Oh, we shouted them out.

SPEAKER_03

40:30

Yeah, so they do Angie will make you like an amazing tea concoction that can de stress and improve your health.

SPEAKER_02

40:39

I feel like I need to get out more. I haven't heard of that. Wonderful. I want to do that one too.

SPEAKER_03

40:44

Yeah. We have uh Poppy Bakery. Um, Amy's incredible pastries. Who else?

SPEAKER_02

40:52

Well, this is non-food related, but even like Goo Goo Gaga and Brookfield, it's a women-owned children's boutique, and they are wonderful. The owner Ginny is so sweet. Um, and I mentioned Little Love and Kohler, so there's a lot of wonderful children's boutiques run by really creative women.

SPEAKER_03

41:07

Yeah, little monsters. Um, down in it's across from Whole Foods downtown. She has a lot of wonderful clothing and toys, some very nostalgic toys, too. So that's cute to things that don't make noise. Yeah. If you've ever been to Wonderland bookshop in Shorewood, amazing women-owned business, and it like transports you back to your childhood. It like opens a piece of your heart.

SPEAKER_00

41:35

Very cool. I I went to a good one this morning. Um, May 1, physical therapy. Morgan woman started it. And um, if you're aging and banged up at all, I highly recommend it. She does an amazing job over there.

SPEAKER_03

41:47

Yes. Oh, Dr. Fox, go see Dr. Fox at Bo Health. Yes, we love an IV.

SPEAKER_00

41:54

If you're hungover, go to Dr. Fox or or just tired.

SPEAKER_03

41:58

Yeah, yeah. If you're just tired from these kids, or if you're like going on a trip and need that additional support, Dr. Four. Dr. Fox has got your back.

SPEAKER_04

42:09

I was gonna add in the PT realm because yeah, my body's aging too, and um, the untold tale of having kids is that it's very hard on your body. Um, so I have two great PTs that I love: Dr. Brenda at Revitalize. She's a pelvic floor PT, so if you know, you know.

SPEAKER_03

42:27

If you know, you know.

SPEAKER_04

42:28

And then um Crystal at Empower out in Heartland. So um Revitalizes and Hails the Corners. Those are my two shout-outs. And then Miss Molly's Bakery is like so great on what is that, 92nd and center, I think. Tosa in Milwaukee. She's great.

SPEAKER_03

42:47

Yeah. I think Black Bear Boutique in Shorewood as well. That's cute. Cutest, like if you've got a baby shower coming up and those little special occasion outfits, they have got you covered over there.

SPEAKER_00

43:00

How about date night spots?

SPEAKER_02

43:02

Take me to Calucenzo. I want Chef Zach's pasta, and I want to give Sarah a big hug at Calucenzo. And I'm so excited for them and their James Beard nomination.

SPEAKER_00

43:12

Is that right over there?

SPEAKER_02

43:13

It's in Tosa.

SPEAKER_00

43:14

Never mind. I'm thinking of something. Richie, you haven't been.

SPEAKER_02

43:17

You haven't been to Calucenzo?

SPEAKER_00

43:18

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03

43:19

You guys, CJ Coggle, your favorite lawyer's favorite lawyer, brought this into our lives.

SPEAKER_00

43:27

I told him to come on here and he hasn't taken me up on the him and him and newbie.

SPEAKER_03

43:31

Yes, I'd love to get them on together.

SPEAKER_00

43:33

But that would be good, actually.

SPEAKER_03

43:35

CJ is the most incredible foodie. So, like his knowledge.

SPEAKER_02

43:40

I listen to CJ. Like, I'm kind of a picky eater, but if CJ tells me to try something, I will do it. Like he knows what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_00

43:49

CJ. CJ. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

43:51

Or life advice or just anything in general.

SPEAKER_00

43:53

Someone to look at a contract. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03

43:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

43:56

He's the best. He is. He is. Absolute best.

SPEAKER_03

43:58

Yeah, but Kalu Kenzo. So, you know, small small restaurant in Tosa. He was like, no, you guys don't understand. Like, this is where we're going. What Chef Zach is doing with pasta is, you know, otherworldly. And this is where I'm going to go.

SPEAKER_02

44:12

I feel like thanks to CJ, like we've known about this before. You know what I mean? Like now everyone's trying to go and they're having such success with all of their recent uh accolades from the James Beard, but they've always been good. So it's not not a new thing. It's always been good.

SPEAKER_03

44:28

Yeah. Um, we also love love carnivore. Consistently good. Omar, Mark, they they always make you feel special.

SPEAKER_00

44:38

I got a phone call from Omar after he saw you telling apparently you told um him that I told you to come up with a different recommendation because he gets too much love on this show. And I would like to clarify that I said it was cool to list him also to come up with an original thought. So I bet we do love Omar and the team over there.

SPEAKER_03

44:59

No, we we love love Omar. No, I was I was trying to build the list out, you know, give people give people a few more options than carnivore.

SPEAKER_00

45:06

So Alicia, do you have another option other than carnivore?

SPEAKER_03

45:09

Can we keep talking about carnivore? Because I love it so much. Yes, they're so wonderful. Seriously. They are, they are. Um, also love birch, the contramar tacos. Life-changing. Get those. Um, Lake Park Bistro for French.

SPEAKER_00

45:25

Yeah, that's a good sleeper that doesn't get talked about a ton.

SPEAKER_03

45:28

It's a great spot. Yeah. Yeah. Love LPB. Um where where else are people going for date nights? Where we go, just get the sitter and I will be there. Yeah. If you want fun, more relaxed, um, electric lime. Or like that. That's a great spot to do that. Cathedral square, right? Yeah, yeah. Elsa's get the broccoli. We're we're dying for them to bring back all the other favorites, but love, love to date night at Elsa's too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

45:58

Brianna did a uh get a drink at Bryant's and then go to Tenuda's Italian place in Bayview the other night. That that was a good that was a good one-two punch spot right there.

SPEAKER_03

46:08

Um, and then Cassis that just opened, another French spot. Feels like once you're in there, it um it doesn't feel like you're in Milwaukee. Like they've done just such an amazing job.

SPEAKER_00

46:19

So I agree, and it's right on the river for the summer. I've only been there when it's 10 degrees outside. So it'll be good. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on today. This was great.

SPEAKER_03

46:30

Thanks for being here. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_00

46:33

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Milwaukee Uncut, and thank you to Monica, Alicia, and Allison for coming on. Before signing off, just want to thank our partners who make Milwaukee Uncut possible. Nicolay Lodge Rink, Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company, and Annex Wealth Management.

SPEAKER_01

0:00

Life and death stuff. Your brain just clicks into caveman mode. It either speeds up or slows down. And it slowed down for me. A lot of it is crimes of passion. Spur of the moment where you infuse booze, other drugs, really bad decision making. Here comes this car coming at us. This all happened in a blink of an eye. And I go over the hood and I wind up in somebody's front yard. I've got glass and metal in my hair stuck in my head, and I my first thought was Tommy's dead.

SPEAKER_04

0:42

Oh man. If there's something that you you could change about the city of Milwaukee, what would it be? Oh boy. Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. Patrick O'Donnell, former Milwaukee police sergeant who spent 25 years on the force, joins us today. And he's got some crazy stories that you are going to find hard to believe. We go over. If Milwaukee is a difficult city to be a cop in, what he'd change about Milwaukee, a few of the uh near-death experiences he had on the job, the craziest call he's ever received, which was um shocked me how not to act with the police. I'm sure some of you could use some of that advice and what uh what people get wrong about cops. It was a it was a really cool episode and was grateful to have Patrick in. Before diving in, I want to thank our partners for making Milwaukee Uncut possible. We'll kick it off with Nicolai Law, the Midwest law firm injured. Get Nicola and Russ and the team. We'll take great care of you. That is Nicola. Next, we've got Drink Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company, Best Vodka, brandy, and canned cocktails in the game, available at bars and liquor stores across the state. And now, available at Amfam, make sure to grab an old-fashioned in their corner bar, located in right field. And last but not least, our good friends over at Annex Wealth Management. If you're looking to get your finances together and have a goal that deals with your money, your earnings, your investments, go talk to the experts at Annex. They have an amazing team ready to listen and help you with your personal goals. That is Annex Wealth Management. Know the difference. All right, let's dive in with Patrick O'Donnell. Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. Today we're sitting down with a former Milwaukee police sergeant who has seen pretty much everything you're not supposed to see in the ensemble. Patrick O'Donnell has spent 25 years or spent 25 years on the force before retiring. He has authored 11 books. Yes. 11 books, his latest titled Police Stories, The Rookie Years. He has a podcast, Cops and Writers. He's got some stories that are hard to believe. Hard to believe, we'll put it that way. Really excited to have you in today. Thanks for reaching out. It's great meeting you. And thank you so much for your 25 years of service on the on the force as well in Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_01

3:16

Well, thank you so much. And I'm super excited to be here because this is local. You know, all my books, the background is Milwaukee. And I love to be here at a podcast, and you guys are doing a great job in Milwaukee. You know, and it's just I've done a bunch of national stuff. I've done TV, and it's just so much fun to come back to the you know to Milwaukee. That's given me so much through the years.

SPEAKER_04

3:40

Yeah, I'm I'm excited to have you as well. We've never never had a cop or former cop on the on the show. We've had some firefighters and some vets and first responders, but never a uh never a cop. We get a bunch of emails and submissions and stuff, and I saw yours come through, and I'm like, yeah, that sounds awesome. Let's get let's get this guy in here. So uh yeah, welcome. Welcome to the show. Um, what was the moment you realized you were gonna be a cop and did anyone try and talk you out of it?

SPEAKER_01

4:11

Well, I grew up in Chicago. Please don't hate me. Yeah, I am from Illinois. Are you a Bears fan? I am Walter Page to the good start. Are you a Cubs fan, Sox fan? Oh, no, I don't like the socks, the Cubs. I know, I know, but I am a Brewers fan because I love to see the hometown win. Because if the hometown wins, that brings in more revenue. It's you know, it's good for the economy. You know, it's just a good thing. I love to see the brewers do well, unless they're playing the Cubs, then that's different. But I I will say this growing up, Walter Payton was my hero. You know, I I grew up through the years where the Bears were absolutely horrible. Every year was a new quarterback, it just was terrible. And 1986 rolled around, and I'm just like, oh thank God, finally, you know, it's like yay. But I have gone to a Packer game, I've been to Lambeau, which I think everybody should at least once in their lifetime. That's so iconic, it's so neat. Just that whole vibe there is really, really cool.

SPEAKER_04

5:17

It it it is it is magical there. We we um we go to pretty much every game. We don't go into the games, our our interview content just it's it's a uh it's a gold mine talking to the tailgators there. It's so much fun. And like, you how's the opposing fan experience there? I'm guessing you're wearing Bears gear. I did not know you didn't.

SPEAKER_01

5:37

My ex I wouldn't the last time I went there, I was with my ex-wife who was a Packer fan. Okay, okay. That's not why we got divorced, but maybe I don't know.

SPEAKER_04

5:44

Maybe that's legitimately enough not to wear Bears gear, and you still got interesting.

SPEAKER_01

5:50

Yeah, I I did not wear Bears gear. I still had fun, and I even went to an away game in Detroit when they were playing at the old uh was it the Silver Dome or the Silver? Silver Dome, yeah. Yeah, in Pontiac. Yep. And I I gotta say this, we're all wearing, I guess I wore Packer gear because you know I'm like, all right, I'll rub it. It's good when the home team does well for the economy. And I gotta say, the Detroit fans were horrible. Oh my god, they're throwing ice balls at us and stuff, and I mean we're tailgating, and like you people suck.

SPEAKER_04

6:22

Yeah, usually, because we'll always talk to opposing fans when we're up there, and usually they're surprised at how Green Bay fans treat them right in a friendly way. Like it was funny, we went to the Eagles game in the Philadelphia. The dirty birds, yeah. The Eagles fans weren't weren't happy about it. One of them was like, This is so weird, I just need someone to call me a dickhead. And I was just like they were they they wanted some animosity and some fighting, but uh all the other fans seemed uh seemed very cool, uh cool with the the welcoming nature of Lambo.

SPEAKER_01

6:55

Well, I I did get a chance to see Barry Sanders live. That's cool. When I did go and I was TV and reels and whatever, don't do that guy justice. Um the cuts he was doing, my knees would be like in two pieces. I mean, and that was the later years. I can't imagine what he would be like in his prime. There's no way you're tackling that guy. It was just it's like Walter Payton. They were just gods, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

7:21

So you you grew up you grew up in Chicago, yeah. Very, very strict household, it seemed.

SPEAKER_01

7:27

Oh, incredibly strict, yeah. Strict Irish Catholic. Both mom and dad are immigrants from Ireland. Mom came over when she was about 11, dad came over when he was about 19. And you know, you're when did I want to become a cop? It's like, well, I would see the flashing blue lights of the squads going up and down the streets, you know. I'm like, well, that's pretty cool. Then we move from the inner city to a suburb, and this it's very Chicago-esque still. And one night, the the cops are doing a search warrant on our neighbors, they're executing a search warrant. And here comes the stack with the shield, they're all suited up, and I look in my backyard, there's a guy with an M16, the other guy's got a shotgun. I'm like, mom, mom, check this out. And she's like, Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what's going on here? And I was just like, I don't know. So we're just looking out the window, and these houses are so close together. And I'm just like, I wonder what they're gonna do. Boom, the door comes down, they're pulling people out, and I was just like, I gotta do this for a living. This is the cool thing they're getting paid for this. This is awesome. You know, I'm a little kid, you know, and I'm just like, wow, that and TV shows, you know, back then it was chips and SWAT and Beretta, Hill Street Blues, you know, all the all the classics. And I'm like, man, that just seems like such a cool job. So you want to go in and raid houses and chase down the bad guys? Absolutely. Drive a squad car really fast with the lights and siren going. I mean, what kid doesn't want to do that?

SPEAKER_04

9:05

You seemed from what I listened to, you seemed like a fearless individual growing up that wasn't afraid to ruffle some feathers or uh not knock a couple people out here and there.

SPEAKER_01

9:17

I do have an Irish temper, which I have controlled through the years. I had to. When I was a youngster, you know, my grandpa thought I was gonna go to prison. You know, I was like in eighth grade, he gave me a pair of brass knuckles, and he's like, You're gonna need these kids, you know. But yeah, I calmed down and uh yeah, look what happened.

SPEAKER_04

9:39

So, when did when did you officially join the force and how did that happen? Where where was it? Was it in Milwaukee when you first joined?

SPEAKER_01

9:47

Yeah, um, what happened was when I was in a freshman in high school, my dad got a job transfer to Whitewater. So the whole family moved to Fort Atkinson. We found a house in Fort Atkinson, and I went to high school in Fort Atkinson and then went to UW Whitewater, graduated from there after getting kicked out a couple of times. But hey, I still graduated. That's what matters. Yeah, exactly. And I floated around doing all kinds of Joe jobs. We moved to Madison. I lived there for six years, five, six years. And I loved it there. That was just a blast. To be a young person. I grew up in Madison, that's a good town. Oh, to be a young person and live in Madison, that's just that's yeah, that's a lot of fun. Well, what jobs were you working there? I was a night manager at IHOP. How did that go on university? I got into more fights at IHOP than I did in 25 years of being a cop. I did in one year, every night was a battle. It was drunks, street people, you name it, and there was a mental health, an outpatient mental health facility a block away. So you literally had like crazies coming in that were just off the chain. So I did that, I sold cars. Sounds worse than the Walgreens on Brady. Yeah, very much so. But yeah, I did that, I sold cars, I bartended, I did whatever I could do to pay the bills, and I took the test when I was 26 for Milwaukee, and it took four years to get on.

SPEAKER_04

11:25

Really?

SPEAKER_01

11:25

When I took the written test, there was like three, four thousand people there, and that was just one of them. Competition was fierce for how many jobs. I don't know, four or five hundred, maybe? Really? What's it what's it like today? Polar opposite. They're begging people to be cops. You know, Milwaukee never did lateral transfers. Say you're a cop in Shorewood, you know, you've you know got like five, six years on, Milwaukee will pay you a bonus to come over to Milwaukee. We never, ever did that. It was unheard of. I mean, when I I started in 1995, January 16, 1995, and we were supposed to be at 2,000 sworn, and I think we were down to about eight, 1700, 1800. I don't even know if they have 1100 now or 1200. I mean, but the numbers are diminished quite a bit. Why why is that? And did that happen overnight? It didn't happen overnight. A big I think it's multi-tiered. I when I joined, it was you'll do your 25 or more, then you retire. And that was kind of the idea for my generation of you know, you go to college or you go to trade school, you get a job, and you work that job forever, and then you retire. I think job hopping is a lot more accepted now. And it's like, yeah, I'll do this for like four or five years, and something else interests me, I'll do something else. And you know, 2020 didn't help. You're one YouTube video away from going to prison or losing your job or whatever because some weak knee politician just bends to political wins. So that's that's a tough position to be in. Social media's hurt. I'm guessing. Oh, terribly, yes. You know, you'll see a video that looks horrific, and you're only seeing like four or five seconds of it. You don't see what happened for you know, like two or three minutes before that, or after. So that you know as well as I do, you can paint any picture you want and manipulate when it comes to video. And that's what you see a lot.

SPEAKER_04

13:39

Right. So this this is probably the the environment we're in now, is probably the toughest environment to be a cop, would you say, with everything going on in the in the in the media and social media?

SPEAKER_01

13:49

It doesn't make it easier, right? But when I was brand new, you know, picture this 1995. There was Vietnam vets that I was working with on days shift. I mean, I wasn't days, but I worked overtime all the time, you know. So they'd be like, kid, why the hell do you want to be a cop? You know, like this is the worst time ever to be a cop, you know. Blah blah, we were able to do this and that, and yada yada. And I'm like, really? But you don't miss what you never had, right? So, like the new cops that are out there now, they think this is normal. Yeah, so for me, I mean, I saw a lot of evolution going when I first started. We hand wrote all of our reports, we had carbon paper. You know, the the big thing was you went and bought your own carbon paper and you hid it in your locker because the stuff in the assembly was just garbage. You know, you're using white out and green out, and everything was written by hand. Yeah, we didn't we had one computer in the district. There was no computers in the cars. Now it's like completely different. There was no body cameras. There was when I started, there was no tasers.

SPEAKER_02

14:57

Really?

SPEAKER_01

14:58

Oh no. You just had to do what you had to do.

SPEAKER_04

15:04

Spe speaking of, I know you had a uh in in interesting welcome on your first week or so. Oh yeah. For first day or night, maybe.

SPEAKER_01

15:12

Uh, it was the first week. So I'm on field training. And for those that don't know, you go through a six-month academy where you know you're they run your butt off, you know, they scream at you, you learn a bunch of stuff, you salute everything, including the fire extinguisher, you know, whatever, you're marching around, you know, you're doing whatever you gotta do, you're getting all the basics. And they let you loose in a district. Hey, you're a cop now. And I went to district five over at Fourth and Locust, and my first FTO was Reggie, and he was fantastic. This guy was awesome. Just I couldn't ask for better. I had I was very blessed. I had great FTOs, and you do six weeks with one FTO on a shift, so I did six weeks with him. Then they flip you to a different shift. I went to early power, which was 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. with Paulie, and he was fabulous as well. But I'm on the wagon with Reggie, and we get a call at seven o'clock in the morning for a stabbing, and we're like, and it's funny because Reggie just gave me this speech and was like, you know what? I've been working you really hard. He said, We've been working till afternoon every day. He says, I want to go home on time. And I'm like, whatever you want, boss. You know, you're you're the captain of this ship. I'm just along for the ride. He says, All right. So of course we get the call. The dispatcher's like, Yeah, you know, take the stabbing. It was by 17th and no 12th in Galena in that area. And they give a description of the subject, and it's like, okay. So we're bebopping down there, and sure enough, there's dude with a butcher knife, and he's wearing a white t-shirt that's like got blood all over it. And just out in the open, just running, yeah, just running with a knife like this out in the open. 7 a.m. broad daylight. Yeah. Yeah. So my FTO slams on the brakes. I almost go through the windshield. Yeah, I open the door, I draw down on him, and he's running at me with a with a knife like this. Not away from you, at you. At me. And I I got my gun, and I'm like pointing it at him. I'm like, oh shit. So my finger's going to the trigger because you never put your finger on the trigger unless you make you want to you want it to go boom. That's every every gun has a safety. It's your trigger finger. You're not gonna have a discharge unless you're squeezing Mr. Trigger. So I'm like, I start prepping the trigger. I'm gonna I'm aiming for center mass. And I'm like through your head. I'm like, well, that was a quick odd career. Yeah. You know, what, a week? This is all I get out of this shit. I'm like, damn, this this kind of sucks. But you know, there's all kinds of things going on biologically with you. There's auditory exclusion, your hearing is almost gone.

SPEAKER_02

18:03

Really?

SPEAKER_01

18:04

Yes, this is all scientifically proven. You get tunnel vision. These are all the effects, and there's time distortion. So I've talked to guys that have been in similar situations, and it's like life and death stuff. Your brain just clicks into caveman mode, and it either speeds up or slows down. And it slowed down for me. And all of a sudden it's like I'm like, oh shit, here we go. And you know, I'm like, police drop the knife. And he looked at me, and I looked at him, and I think he could tell I was probably more scared than him. My eyes were just like saucers, like, ah, and he's just like, oh shit. So he drops a knife, goes prone, we hook him up, and I'm like, oh thank God. So we take him to the back of the wagon, put him in. My FTL looks at me and says, Usually they're running the other way. They're not running at us, they're running away from us. I don't know. I think this guy was in shock. What was going on? So we go to the crime scene by now. Homicide detectives are there, etc., etc. The med unit's there, and the lieutenant's like, hey, get a dying declaration from this guy. It ain't looking good. Paramedics are like, he's circling the drain fast. So he's in the back of the med unit, and I'm like, dying declaration. I think we had one class where we talked about this, but I'm not exactly sure what. But this is the real deal, you know. This is not, you know, playtime. This is not, you know, role playing. And I'm like, I'm in this med unit, that's what we call our ambulances that are MFD. And they've got his feet up in the air, they got two IVs in them, and they're squeezing the bags. And I'm like, well, I'm no doctor, but I have a feeling this is not going well. And I'm like, dude, you're gonna die. Who killed you? And he's just gurgling. And the paramedics are looking at me like, hey, want to cut us some slack here? We're trying to save this guy, you know. And it's like, all right, we go to the trauma room at Freighter. And if you're ever injured badly, there is no better place to go to. They are amazing. I want to tattoo it on my forehead. Take me to Freighter. It is bar none, the best medical care you're gonna get. You know, they they see it all. You know, like army surgeons, you know, around Desert Storm and all that, they would go to Freighter and train because where else are you gonna get all these gunshot wounds and traumas? Is you know, they're a level one trauma center. If the president's in town and gets shot or anything happens to him, that's where he's going. You know, it it is amazing. But anyway, so they start working on Guy, and I'm amazed. I've never seen anything like it except like on TV. And there's a small army of techs, nurses, doctors, and they all have their own specific jobs working on this guy. And I asked the doc when things started calming down. I'm like, hey, uh, is he gonna make it? He says, Shit. He said, if it was you or I we'd be dead. This guy'll live to 100. And I'm like, oh, okay.

unknown

21:14

Woo!

SPEAKER_01

21:15

Flat light, he's like, so they jumpstart him, they get him going again, they do this three times. He crashes three times. You know, this is like way over an hour, they're working on him. And then finally, the doc the last time he crashes, the doctor grabs his scalpel, opens up his chest, breaks, gets a rib spreader, and starts doing open heart massage. And I'm from me to you. And I'm like, so that's what the inside of a person looks like. And I'm like, I cannot believe this is happening. So he he expired, he died. They did everything humanly possible to try and save this guy, but he died. And they're like, and it was just dejection. Everybody was like, You know, it's like a team losing the Super Bowl or something. You know, they're all these are people, you know, and they're all just so eventually, you know, I I call my boss, I say, yeah, now it's a homicide for sure. You know, etc. etc. So my FTO and a detective comes, and then the um investigator from the medical examiner comes because they take custody of the body, and then you know they take it down to the morgue. So we're all walking out, and Reggie looks at me and says, You know what this is all about? I'm like, no, he said, that was his brother that stabbed him, and he stabbed him over the last hot dog. They were fighting over the last hot dog.

unknown

22:41

Jeez.

SPEAKER_01

22:42

You can't make that stuff up.

SPEAKER_04

22:44

No, I just doing my research on YouTube. It seems like a lot of these crimes are committed over very small items to an extent. Some of them. Some of them, yeah. I've listened to a story about like how someone was basically killed over twenty twenty dollars. Oh, yeah. Or a pair of sneakers. Stuff stuff like that. It's not a hey, this guy what I would think is this guy's uh 50 grand in the hole or something, or 100 grand in the hole, you know, something like that.

SPEAKER_01

23:17

Or a lot of it is crimes of passion, spur of the moment where you infuse booze, other drugs, really bad decision making, and a very low threshold for you know what the quality of life is. You know, how do you value life? And there's places where the value of life is very low.

SPEAKER_04

23:40

Do you see that a lot in in in Milwaukee comparative to other cities? And is it more difficult to be a cop here than other places?

SPEAKER_01

23:50

It depends where you are in Milwaukee. You know, it not all Milwaukee is terrible, and even in the most terrible neighborhoods of Milwaukee, it's mostly good people that live there. It's just that obviously the dynamic, you know, like, hey, this guy just got killed over a hot dog, that's what sticks out. Or, you know, that's what makes the news. That's that's where we're that's where you're going. Right. Absolutely. And it's really a false narrative because, like I said before, you know, there's people that live in these neighborhoods, they feel like they're trapped. You know, they're scared to go outside, they're scared to have their kids go outside and play. It's it's horrible. So that's why we need the bullies.

SPEAKER_04

24:32

Um, speaking of death, what is the closest you've ever come to death? Oh boy. There's been a few times.

SPEAKER_01

24:39

Um any that stand out. Uh two different occasions I've had bullets whiz by my head and hit like the building next to me. And I couldn't return fire because I didn't see where it was coming. You know, it was just like, you know, one was there was a riot at in front of Throttle Twisters, which was at Fourth and Center. It's uh a biker bar. And it was New Year's Eve, and things were getting way out of hand. What year was this around? 97, 98. And it was completely off the chain. It was just one fight on top of another fight, and then the gunfight, then the gun plays started. And you know, you're talking hundreds of people in the street, and there was like maybe 10 of us. If it's probably like 10 degrees out, too. Oh, yeah. But then you know, you hear rounds being popped off, and that's not unusual, but then all of a sudden it's like they're getting closer and closer, and I'm like, whoa, one hit right by my head. So there was that. Then there was another time where um I was on Oakland, like 2400 block of Oakland, that's like two blocks north of North Avenue, and we just broke up a college drinking party. It was not a big deal. Standard. Yeah. And I was one man that night, and there was another copper that was one man. And we just went in there and said, hey guys, you know, we're getting complaints, just you know, chill out, you know, just under the radar, all right? So if you were cool with us, we never wrote him tickets. We never, I'd be like, whatever. So, of course, you know, we're talking afterwards, and his car was facing north, his squad car, and his right leg was inside the car. He was a tall dude, he's like 6'4. The officer you were with. Mm-hmm. He's got his elbow on the roof, and we're just and I'm facing south, and we're just shooting the shit. You know, we're just talking. And I don't know what alerted me to it. I just heard this engine go, I'm like, I'm like, Tommy, jump. So here comes this car coming at us. This all happened in a blink of an eye. And I go over the hood and I wind up in somebody's front yard. There was like a 68 or a 69 Volvo went right where we were standing. Peeled the door. The door was hanging like on one hinge, and it was peeled back like a sardine can. It was a drunk. And I've got glass and metal in my hair stuck in my head, and I my first thought was Tommy's dead. There's no way he survived that.

SPEAKER_04

27:24

Were you two in the street in the car?

SPEAKER_01

27:26

Ran you ran you. Yeah. So I go running over, and I'm fully expecting to see Tommy parts. The guy took off. But thankfully, there was another cop that saw the whole thing and took off after him and got him. But I'm like, okay, there's gonna be Tommy parts all over the street. He's he's gone. And I look and he's in the passenger seat. This guy's six foot four, like 250, in the fetal position. He's like, go get that son of a bitch. And I'm like, yes. So I run to my car and I'm shaking so bad I can't get the key in. I'm just like, I took two hands to put the key in. But this is after you went over the hook of a car. And I'm just like, oh my gosh. So yeah, I'm going the wrong way. I'm just a hot mess. I was I completely lost it. I'm just like, what the F is going on here? So that was close. And then I had another instance where I had a recruit. I wound up being an FTO, you know, later on in my career. And we're at Hillside Housing Project off of, I think it's 12th, oh, maybe like one or two blocks north of Juno, like on the west side. And we get a call again, seven o'clock in the morning, boy girl travel. And it's like, all right. We get a ton of those. It was a boyfriend and a girlfriend having an argument outside, and I'm like, does some someone else does a third party call you on that? Okay. Because they're being really loud, things are getting heated, and they're afraid that it's gonna get physical. So we go there, and I'm with a trainee. This is his first week with me. And I'm like, hey, dude, you know, like, chill out, everything's gonna be okay. So I'm like, get her information, I'll get his. So we did, he they're cooperating, both of them are, but there's something about him, and again, this guy's just a monster. He's like six foot three, six foot four, a solid 250. And I'm like, hmm. And the recruit that I'm with, he's yeah, I'm 5'9, he's probably like 5'8. And I'm like, all right, and said, you know, run these guys. So it's typical you run them for warrants, you know, make sure they're telling the truth about who they are, et cetera, et cetera. And I um I just got a weird feeling. So I'm like, hey, sir, you know, I'm gonna pat you down, make sure you don't have any weapons. You don't have any weapons on you, do you? No. It's like, all right. As soon as I touched him, his shoulders go up like this, and he gets stiff as a board. It's called resistive tension. And it's like, this guy's gonna fight. His fingers, his hands started balling like this, and I'm just like, oh shit. Before I could think, he spun around. Now the fight's on. He's trying to take me down, and I just went lower. And I had a lot of martial arts training, I was boxing, I was, and so fighting wasn't foreign to me. And you know, you you use what your strengths are, and I'm lower to the ground, I have a low center of gravity, so it's like, okay, you're gonna have a hard time taking me down. And then I look and I feel, and he's got his hand on my gun, and I'm just like, oh shit, this guy wants my gun. So I take him, my hand, my left hand, under his chin, and there was these big um metal uh mailboxes on the outside of these buildings, and I just tackled them like I couldn't get them on the ground. And so I just pushed him up against this building as he's trying to get my gun, and I just start banging his head, the back of his head, into these mailboxes until he went unconscious. So his head is split open, and I'm just like, my heart's going a hundred miles an hour. I forgot that I had a trainee. I forgot that there was another person there, and she's screaming at the top of her lungs. Turns out he was on parole for armed robbery. He was, he just did, I think, three or four years in Wapan. He just got out and he violated his parole. So he was going back to Wapon for the for the stretch. He had like another four or five years to go. So me and my recruit were the only two things in between him going back to a maximum security prison and staying, you know, free a free dude. So once he woke up, he's in the hospital. He's like, Yeah, I was gonna take his gun and kill both of them.

SPEAKER_04

32:04

How do you uh how do you process something like that after it happens?

SPEAKER_01

32:08

Oh, my heart was beaten like a rabbit. It's beaten right now, thinking about it. Do you do you go into work the next day? Oh, absolutely. Okay, yeah, you'd I mean, there was a mountain of paperwork we had to do. Yeah. And I'm training this guy, and the recruit that I had with me was really good. He was a sheriff's deputy for like three, four years. He'd worked in the jail the entire time, which is a great training ground for cops. And now I think he's a captain or an inspector. He's done really well for himself, which makes me really happy, Erwin. Love you. And uh yeah, but he could write really good reports, and you know, you're go you just went through all that, and it's like, yeah, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. And you can't stop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

32:58

That's crazy. What is um maybe not the the scariest or closest to death, but what's what's one of the weirdest calls you've ever received?

SPEAKER_00

33:06

There's so many.

SPEAKER_04

33:08

Oh man. I Hey guys, just wanted to take a second to drop a fun fact in here. Did you know, according to a recent Schwab survey, Americans say it takes$2.3 million to be wealthy. You may have had your financial plan set on a bigger or smaller number. But if you're looking for added insights on how to get there or how to avoid some tax pitfalls along the way, our friends at Annex Wealth Management are ready to listen. No matter where you're at in your financial journey and if your situation is complex or simple, the Annex Wealth Management team can give you the wealth expertise and guidance on reaching your goals. That is Annex Wealth Management. All right, let's get back into the episode with Patrick O'Donnell.

SPEAKER_01

33:53

Any stick out, any anyway, stick out, maybe. You know, like in my book, you know, I put in it's like one of the reasons I I wrote the book was you're always gonna, what's the craziest thing that ever happened to you as a cop? And there's so many. But one of the strangest was I was a sergeant in District 2, actually around here. And I was working 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. and I heard a call for a dead body come over. It was in a warehouse, actually, right down the road, that I'd forgot. I've driven by it a hundred times, and I'm like, okay. So my cops get there first, and I'm with a partner, which is odd for sergeants. Usually sergeants didn't ride together, but he was new, and I wanted to kind of show him the ropes kind of thing, you know, the geography. And we uh are getting there, and my cop gets me on the cell phone. He says, Sarge, you gotta see this shit. And I'm like, Well, yeah, I have to because I'm the boss and there's a dead body. I have to respond. No, you don't understand, you gotta see this. And I'm like, Okay. So we get there, there's a woman probably in her late 50s, early 60s, sobbing, and it looks like her adult son is comforting her. There's yellow tape up, and I'm like, okay, we'll see what this is all about. So we go inside, and this warehouse didn't have electricity, and it was a dirt floor. I'm like, okay, there's a bunch of like cars, and there was like a tractor in there, there's all kinds of weird stuff. So they're like, Sarge, Sarge, give me. I'm like, all right, all right. So here's this van with double doors in the back. They got their flashlights out. It was like watching the showcase thing from the price is right, they're gonna reveal. So yeah, it's like, okay, you ready? You ready? I'm like, yeah, I'm ready. So they open the doors, and I'm like, oh boy. Here's a guy on all fours, his pants and his underwear are down to his ankles, and there's a bottle of jolly good soda shoved up his ass with a pick and save bag with strings. It looked like a parachute. And he was dead. Rigamortis had said it. And we all looked at each other and I'm like, He was dead? Yes, very dead.

SPEAKER_04

36:21

How did he die?

SPEAKER_01

36:23

We either it was a heart attack, he went on a uh crack cocaine bench, and he was also doing heroin. He's an older cat, retired, and decided to start doing all these crazy drugs. So he hires a prostitute to shove said bottle of jolly good soda up his ass while they're doing this. That was his kink. And that's how he went out. That's how he went out, and his wife is like, I want to see him. I'm like, not like this. You're not gonna see him like this. Oh, he had a wife, too. Yeah. So, you know, the medical examiner the medical examiner has investigators that comes out to any scene like this, homicides, you know, bizarre deaths, you know, whatever. And one of my favorites was Jen Penn. I loved her. She, no nonsense. When she was smoking, she kind of was like, What do you got, Sarge? And I'm like, Oh, I've got something for you, Jen. Here we go. Come on over here. And she's like, I've never seen anything like this before, and she'd been around, man. And I'm just like, neither have I. So we do our thing. They actually found the hooker, they found the prostitute, and she explained the whole thing, and it's like, okay. So a week goes by, and I'm in a different homicide, and Jen shows up and she said, Sarge, you remember that guy with the jolly good soda? And I'm like, How could I forget? You probably can't unseat the sort of thing. Yeah, exactly. I said, Jenny, how could I forget that? And she's like, They did the autopsy. Now they don't remove anything like that until they do the autopsy. If they're dead, dead, you leave the body the way it is, and you bag it up and off to the morgue it goes. So she said, You'll never guess what they found. And I'm like, don't tell me a hamster or a gerbil. And she said, nope. A bottle of hot sauce. He used that bottle of Jolly Good Soda, just shoved the bottle of hot sauce with the cap off. Oh my god. And I'm like, you can't make this stuff up. I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_04

38:34

Sounds so painful, too. Oh. And he paid somebody to do it.

SPEAKER_02

38:39

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04

38:41

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

38:44

Yeah, I don't know if you can follow that one up. Yeah, I can't. I mean, I've seen all I've seen death in all kinds of ways, but not like that.

SPEAKER_04

38:54

Oh man. Oh man. Speaking speaking of arrests, if someone is in trouble with the cops, not like they just, you know, shot someone and you need you need to get them out. Is there a um is there a way they could minimize their chances of getting arrested and things they do to to escalate this?

SPEAKER_01

39:18

It's all situational. Yeah. You know, it's like, as far as like, say, you know, like the college party. If you're like, if you open the door and you're like, yeah, you know, there's some other okay. Bye. Have a good night. We got a lot bigger fish to fry, just keep it cool, okay, guys. Yeah. But if you're like, F you, you need a warrant to come in here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, okay. You're gonna be that guy. I had something like that where over by UWM, and what happened was I get a 911 call. We have to go to 911. It was a 911 hang-up, and it was a female crying for help. Okay, we gotta go. Yeah, so we go, and it was coming from a crow's nest apartment at an older house, and the only way to get to this apartment was to go through the main living room. I mean, it was just a goofy setup, and they're having a big old party. So this kid answers the door, and I'm like, hey, I got a 911 call for upstairs. I have to go and check it out. And I'm with like three other cops. And he says, Well, you need a warrant to come in here. And I'm like, Not for this, I don't. And he's like, Well, my brother's a lawyer, and I know. And I'm like, dude, I said, tell you what, I'll be super cool about this. I'll give you 30 seconds if you got dope, if you you know you got a bong somewhere or whatever, just put it in the closet. You know, if you're drinking, there's underagers. I'm just gonna pretend they're not here. I it's a busy, busy night. We don't have time for these shenanigans, okay? No, you can't. And I'm like, so he opens the screen door and he starts shoving his finger into my chest. And I'm like, all right, time for you to go. So I literally grabbed his arm, flipped him over, he went airborne. I cuff him up, we go upstairs, she's just drunk. And I'm like, all right, this didn't have to happen, but okay. So I take him to jail, and he's sitting in jail, and I'm like, you know what, dude? If you just would have let me in, you'd be at home partying still. You'd be having a good time. Yeah, but no, you gotta be a moron. All right, that's fine. So, you know, I told the booker, I said, I just gave him a ticket, and he got to sit in a jail cell at District 5, which was really icky with real criminals. And while I'm doing all this, I hear over the loudspeaker like, hey, O'Donnell, you got a visitor at the desk. And I'm like, What? Nobody's visiting me, but okay, sure. Here's this guy with a camcorder. This is the 90s, the late 90s. He puts it on the counter. He says, just so you know, I'm videoing all of this. And I'm like, okay. He says, I'm representing, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, are you a lawyer? Well, I'm going to Marquette, I'm pre-law. And I was like, you ain't no lawyer, buddy. You don't have a license to practice law. And I said, No what you just did? You just bought your brother more time in jail. I was gonna have the, I was just gonna cut him loose, but I said, you know what? He's gonna stay till nine o'clock tomorrow morning. And I said, and it's all because of you. And I'm gonna tell him that it's because of you. That had to feel kind of good. It did.

SPEAKER_04

42:32

I'm not gonna lie, man. It it felt awesome. Um, what do what do you think something is that people get completely wrong about about cops that would annoy you guys or any misconceptions?

SPEAKER_01

42:44

There's so many, you know, and I don't blame people for the most part because you learn everything from watching TV or you know, social media or whatever. You know, they're people. Yeah, they're gonna have their bad days, they're gonna go days without sleep, they're gonna have divorces, they're gonna have sick kids, they're gonna have whatever. They are human beings, they're not robots. So might they they might be a little short-tempered sometimes, yes, you know, or whatever. But probably one of the biggest misconceptions that I see and that really chaps me is in TV and movies, you see a cop get into an officer-involved shooting where they have to shoot and kill somebody, and like five minutes later, they're eating donuts and high-fiving each other, and they're back on the street. It doesn't work that way. You won't see the street for six months to a year while all this stuff is going on, and all this stuff is going on in your head, and you're being demonized, you're on the nightly TV, your kids are going to school, and you know, their little friends are calling, Yeah, your dad killed somebody, you know, blah, blah, blah. Your wife has to deal with that, your husband has to deal with that. It's a ripple effect, and they just sensationalize it. It's like, yeah. Yeah, no big deal, whatever, blah, blah, blah. It's a huge deal.

SPEAKER_04

44:02

And I'm guessing in 99.9% of those cases, the cop did not want to kill that person.

SPEAKER_01

44:08

No, but no cop goes to work and said, Boy, I really hope I smoke somebody today. That is the very, very last thing we want to do. It changes your life forever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

44:20

And peep people don't really even even a lot of the stories you're telling me, I'm like, the fact that you have to have to do that, which is really admirable work, which is needed to be done, and then go back to work the next day or file the report, and it's I you know, I don't realize it as a normal civilian, all you guys kinda all you guys go through.

SPEAKER_01

44:40

Well, in everybody has a different experience for the most part, but there are a lot of similarities. You know, with my podcast, I I talk to cops from all over the world, and we share a lot of the same stories, a lot of a lot of the same heartburn, a lot of the I mean, yeah, it's you're a hundred percent right.

SPEAKER_04

45:00

Um is the if there's something not you you could change about the city of Milwaukee, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01

45:10

Oh boy, I guess it it would be like anything else, it shouldn't be so politically driven. It shouldn't be one person, i.e. the mayor or whoever, that is shocked or outraged and they just have a knee-jerk reaction. The department's the same way, they're guilty of sin for that as well. You know, the police chief, you're a politician, you're not a cop when you get to that level and you're trying to appease so many different people. You know, if if I had a magic wand, there'd be a lot more cops out there. There would be cops doing what they're doing right now, and there'd be a lot more neighborhood cops. I had bicycle cops, they were fabulous, they were awesome. And I had them working at night, I had them working during the day, going down Lincoln, Mitchell. You know, I had beat guys that they knew everybody on that block. They knew everybody in that whole area. I remember one time I was working in a different district, I was looking for a guy for armed robbery, and we had a name. I go, I'm like, I know who knows this guy. I go to the beat guy and say, hey, do you know you know Joe Blow or whatever? He says, Yeah, he works out at that boxing gym boxing gym from three to four. I'm like, solved. You know, I just a lot of kids don't have positive role models, male positive role models. And a lot of times it's the cops. If you talk to the cops that grew up in horrible neighborhoods in Milwaukee and later on became cops, a lot of them will say, Yeah, my positive role model was the neighborhood cop, or the the the cop that would just you know stop and talk to me for five minutes. That's that's huge. That's really important.

SPEAKER_04

46:50

Do you think that's especially a problem in in Milwaukee? I know um I do I've been doing Big Brothers, Big Sisters for like the last couple years. That's great. Yeah, it's been yeah, it's been good. My my uh my kids, single mom household, um, yep, dad, very in and out of the picture, most mostly out, as far as I know. And I know just in Milwaukee Metro alone, I believe there's 600 kids on the wait list looking for a mentor, essentially. And that's just that's just in Milwaukee. And some will try and get into the program in you know it starts at six, which is when I got my kid. It's the youngest age, they let people in, and someone will some people apply and get to 18 and not get get anyone. And um, yeah, not to derail this and plug that organization. But if anyone's worthy, I mean, yeah, no, that's been doing it. It is a uh good way to make an impact. And I know just from research, I know especially boys, I'm sure girls too, but I think boys, especially if they don't have a male role model, they'll just go completely off the rails.

SPEAKER_01

47:55

Well, now the role model is a neighborhood drug dealer. Right. You know, they see the bling, they see the car, they see, you know, yeah, and there isn't a lot of thought about future me in these neighborhoods. They don't think about it as like, okay, I should go to college or I should pick up this trade and you know, get married, have kids, you know, blah blah blah. That's kind of like a lot of them are just trying to survive on a day-to-day basis in their fam families too.

SPEAKER_04

48:21

Absolutely. Yeah, so one one thing, one thing would be yeah, getting more of those positive role models on the streets.

SPEAKER_01

48:29

Yep, and more cops. You know, when I went day shift, I worked nights for 17 years. When I went days, I had to go to community meetings. And I remember my captain is like, You ever been to one of these? I'm like, No. He said, It's kind of like Jerry Springer. You're gonna have some Jerry Springer moments. You know, there's gonna be outrage. There's gonna be somebody that just they love screaming and yelling and you know, blah, blah, blah. He said, just get, just be ready for it. And I'm like, okay. And every time I went to one of these meetings, it was, we want more cops. These are the people that are actually living in these neighborhoods. They want a cop like parked on their front lawn, they want their own personal cop. They don't want less cops. That's why I was like, defund the police. Are you out of your freaking mind? It's probably the worst slogan of all time. Oh my god. I was like, obviously, all of you screaming and chanting this, never lived in a bad neighborhood ever in your life. You've never been the victim of a crime, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, this is so silly.

SPEAKER_02

49:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04

49:29

Yeah, and as you were saying earlier, um I'd I'd I'd um get your take, but I'm guessing, you know, a very, very, very high percentage of cops are good people who do it to help the community, and then you see a bad apple on social media for eight seconds, and that's what gets thrown out there.

SPEAKER_01

49:49

Nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop. You know, that that's what that all boils down to.

SPEAKER_04

49:55

Do the bad cops get filtered out at all once they're in the in the system due to good cops, or is it Yeah?

SPEAKER_01

50:02

I mean, there is a pecking order, and it's like, dude, not cool. Yeah, you know, it's like, no, this is not gonna fly. You know, if you have this anger issue, if you have this whatever issue, A, don't do it in front of me. B, maybe it's time for a career shift because this ain't the right one for you. You know, you're talking about you're a community servant. And if you can't wrap your head around that, you're there to serve the the public. You're not there to serve a police chief or a mayor or whoever. You're your bosses literally are the people. You're there for them. And if you can't wrap your head around that, if you feel you're too important or whatever, again, time for a career shift.

SPEAKER_04

50:41

Um, any before I let you go, any closing thoughts or uh or stories you didn't share? There's so many. We could we could have you back sometime.

SPEAKER_01

50:50

I would love that. I would absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_04

50:52

Well, um, it was amazing having you in today, and and thank you so much for all you've done for the community and the new book. The new book Police Stories, The Rookie Years. Um, if you enjoyed this this episode, I'm sure you will enjoy that. And I'm guessing you could find it on Amazon. Yes, it's on Amazon, and I'm writing the sequel as we speak.

SPEAKER_01

51:11

Love it. More to come. Yep. Thanks so much. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04

51:16

All right, huge thank you to Patrick for coming on. Before signing off, just want to thank our partners who make the show possible Annex Wealth Management, Nicola, and Drink Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company.

SPEAKER_00

0:00

Well, when you have a history of over you know, a hundred years, you have to deal with a lot of different things, depressions, uh, recessions, uh, pandemics, uh wars, all those things. I think the constant is they were very true to what their founding principles were, which was high quality of products, um, and a high level of service. So those have really been, you know, the cornerstones of what they wanted to deliver to the to the marketplace.

SPEAKER_01

0:28

Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut. Today we've got an incredible Milwaukee area story of how an Italian immigrant's produce cart turned in to your favorite local grocery chain with 17 locations that gives back hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to local charities. If you guessed it, it is the story of Sendex. The company turns 100 this year, and we are joined by one of the owners and third generation family member, Ted Ballistrari, who is awesome to meet and have on, super nice guy, and has some amazing stories and takes you inside of growing an iconic local brand. If you love Milwaukee, if you love a good business story, this is a great one for you. Personally, this was cool for me as Brian and I swing by their north level location um at least five times a week. Big fan of that place since we moved over to Toassa. They do a phenomenal job, and it was awesome talking to Ted on this episode before diving in. I want to thank our partners who make Milwaukee Uncut possible. Nikolila, the Midwest Law from Injured. Get Nikola and Russ and the team will take great care of you. That is Nikolala, Drink Wisconsin Bleed Beverage Company, best vodka brandy and canned cocktails in the game available at bars and liquor stores across the state. At the Drink Wisconsin Blee pub right across from the Fiserve, they've got their corner bar in Rightfield at MFM right now. And I see their candle fashions, my favorite at Sendex. You can pick them up there. And if you're if you're looking for beer, Sendex also has a great selection of our friends over at ThreeSheaps. And last but not least, our friends over at NX Wealth Management. If you're looking to get your finances together this year and have a goal that deals with your money, your earnings, your investments, go talk to the experts at NX. They have an amazing team ready to listen and help you with your personal goals. NXWealth Management, know the difference. Just head on over to NXWealth.com. Alright, let's dive in with Ted Ballastard. Hey everyone, welcome back to Milwaukee Uncut, the iconic locally owned grocery chain. Sendex is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Sendex currently has 17 locations in the area, and they will be adding or replacing, renovating, upgrading their store in Whitefish Bay to State-of-the-art store this year. They also love to give back. They've donated over$4.5 million to local organizations over the last 12 years. Third generation owner Ted Ballastruri is with me. He's actually a former lawyer who's been with the company since 2001, I'm sure growing up as well. We'll we'll we'll get into that. And um in a lead athlete, I heard you ran at the University of Wisconsin for four years and have run several marathons. Thank you for being here. Thank you for providing Brianna with uh lunch and dinner about five, six times a week from your North Av location. We are excited to have you on.

SPEAKER_00

3:26

Well, thank you. It's great to be here. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

3:28

Um we don't have to talk about your run running from us, but um I don't know where you dug that up as that that's ancient. I had an inside source. That is impressive though. Um how many marathons have you run?

SPEAKER_00

3:42

I've run 12 marathons and one ultra. Ultra being a 50. You did an ultra.

SPEAKER_01

3:48

Yeah. Where where and when was it?

SPEAKER_00

3:50

I did the uh Ice Age 50, which is uh an incredible event um right here on the Ice Age Trail.

SPEAKER_01

3:59

50 miles. What time did you clock for 50?

SPEAKER_00

4:03

I did it in a little over 11 hours. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01

4:07

Yeah, yeah. That's about um Yeah, I I I have one marathon to my name. I was one and retired. I I did break five hours. Yeah. Not by much. Um, my dad's done a bunch of marathons. He's actually done a couple Ironmans and really wanted to run one with me. So I'd this was why this was in like 2010. Uh like had a couple drinks on New Year's and and eagerly agreed to do one with him.

SPEAKER_00

4:31

And that's usually the way it happens. So you get challenged and uh your bravado sets in, and yep, I can do this.

SPEAKER_01

4:38

Yeah, trained quite a bit for it, actually. And then I remember we got to mile 13. I I grabbed him, I'm like, I can't move. He's like, what do you mean you can't move with with a few more expletives in that sentence? And I was like, I can't move. And then it was uh a walk limp sprint in the street.

SPEAKER_00

4:53

Death marks uh the rest of the way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

4:56

Very impressed that you've knocked 12 out as well as well as uh well as an ultra.

SPEAKER_00

5:00

You know, it's uh I enjoy it, it's kind of therapy for me. So I like I like the training. It's nice, it is a great way to get out and uh Yeah, I love being outside, I love being in nature. I'm one of those people, I rarely uh run with any music or anything like that. I just like to let my mind go, and it's a source of creativity and a lot of fun. And uh there's also a lot of camaraderie. I have a good friend of mine that I've been running with for over 20 years. We meet every uh Wednesday morning at 5 30 in the morning and knock off a few miles, and it's always a a good time.

SPEAKER_01

5:37

I'm assuming that friend is not TJ Marini.

SPEAKER_00

5:40

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_01

5:40

No, no, definitely not. What what is what is the favorite location you've run a marathon in before, favorite route?

SPEAKER_00

5:47

Well, I've run Boston uh six times, which is really an exceptional thing, and uh the uh it's an exceptional race, and I happen to be there unfortunately for I was there in 2013 when uh the bombing occurred. Um and that was really a moving experience. Um and so because of that, I ended up going the next year uh just to kind of uh give my support to the event. Uh-huh. So that was 2014, and then a friend of mine qualified for 20 uh 15, so I went out there and ran it with him, and then we both qualified again, so ran it a a fourth time. And then I thought, well, what the hell? Might as well do it a fifth time. Five in a row would be kind of cool. So uh Boston is amazing, it's amazing. Uh it's an amazing scene. It's you know, 30 to 35,000 participants, uh fans lining both sides of the street most of the way. Um it's there's it's just really a special event.

SPEAKER_01

6:49

Well what was it like in 2013? Where where were you when the bombing had happened? Were you?

SPEAKER_00

6:54

Yeah, so 2013 I was actually through the finish line and and when I found out about it, I was actually back at my hotel. Um but my concern was that I had a friend out on the course and uh then it was trying to find him and um uh making sure that he was safe. So um yeah, uh really uh an uh uh a terrible uh event and and as you can imagine very emotional because uh once you've gone through run 26 miles, you're physically absolutely drained. And uh so the emotions are are very uh prominent and so very emotional. Uh being back in 2014 was incredible. Um the amount of fan support was unbelievable, uh really, really was special, and of course, uh many of the injured victims were there. Uh was really uh kind of an exceptional experience.

SPEAKER_01

7:49

That your best running experience going back in in 2014 and being part of that scene and that energy.

SPEAKER_00

7:57

I think being part of that community, uh the Boston community, the running community that was uh you know so uh taken back by what had happened uh the year before and the support that was shown, the love, uh it was it was pretty moving. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

8:14

Before we move on to uh your your com your company story, I got if you're qualifying for Boston, you're you're moving at a pretty good clip. What's your fastest marathon time?

SPEAKER_00

8:23

Um I've been under three hours uh under three many uh several times. Uh uh now I'm uh you know I enjoy it. You know, I've a I've adopted the Jeff Galloway. I mean, may he just recently passed away, but he was a famous runner who um coined the the the or or invented a a way of running a marathon, which is uh called the Galloway method, where you run a mile and then you walk for a minute. And you you do that. And I did that the last marathon I ran, which was the the Green Bay Marathon. Um and it it was so pleasant, it was great. So I'd like to do that. And my goal now is to break four hours, not three.

SPEAKER_01

9:03

All right. All right. Four hours with 25 minutes, 26 minutes walking is yeah, that's but you know what I found is that you recover so quickly from it.

SPEAKER_00

9:13

But secretly, I have this goal that I would love to try to get to Boston one more time. I think it would be really fun.

SPEAKER_01

9:19

What do you have to do to do that these days?

SPEAKER_00

9:21

I'm not sure what the with the uh with the age. I think I'm with my age, I might be in the 340 range, something like that. Okay. Um so I think it's doable, but I don't know if I want to work that hard. But uh, you know, it's uh it's a great event.

SPEAKER_01

9:40

Um yeah, so so Sendex uh iconic Milwaukee brand, really interesting backstory. Can you tell us how how it all began?

SPEAKER_00

9:51

Sure. Well, um my great-grandfather, uh you know, he he well, first of all, uh the family immigrated from Sicily. And it was really my great-grandfather uh started traveling to the United States in the 1880s, 1890s. And uh he went back and forth uh quite a bit. And uh eventually he met my great-grandmother and they started a family, and and uh an interesting thing about it is they actually started their family here in Milwaukee, but then they made the decision that they wanted to raise their kids back in Sicily, so they moved uh the family back to Sicily, and my my grandfather was actually born in Sicily. Um but because my grandfather had uh he had a dual citizenship, he was in a uh had American citizenship, uh my grandfather when he was born had American citizenship at the time.

SPEAKER_01

10:44

So that was around 1900. Yeah, yeah, he was how rare was that in those days.

SPEAKER_00

10:48

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know how rare it was. I don't think it was rare for people to make the trip back and forth.

SPEAKER_01

10:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

10:54

Uh especially uh in the Italian community, the Sicilian community. That was not unusual for them to make that back and forth trip. In fact, a lot of them would come and work here in the summer, uh, make money, and then head back and spend their winters in Sicily. So and then um in 1926, uh my grandfather, around 1926, my grandfather uh he was seven he was gonna be seventeen. I think he was seventeen at the time. And uh the family then made the definitive decision to move uh uh everybody over to the United States, largely because if they had stayed, my grandfather would have been conscripted into the army uh in st in Italy and they they didn't want to do that. So they moved here uh 1926. My great-grandfather had been uh selling produce wholesale uh in the third ward, and uh my grandfather and his brothers uh started uh it you know decided to have their first store which they opened in Shorewood and uh st just a fruit and vegetable market.

SPEAKER_01

12:01

And then uh how is it for them getting getting it off the ground? What were the early obstacles like the depression hit shortly after that, obviously?

SPEAKER_00

12:10

Yeah, absolutely. And well, when you have a history of over you know a hundred years, you have to deal with a lot of different things depressions, uh recessions, uh pandemics, uh wars, all those things. I think the constant is they were very true to what their founding principles were, which was high quality of products um and a high level of service. So those have really been you know the cornerstones of what they wanted to deliver to the to the marketplace. And I would say that they combined it with a a really um high-level work ethic. Um my grandfather, my father, uh just really hard-working people, um, you know, didn't matter what time of the day or night they were if if they could uh if there was a market open somewhere they were trying to buy produce uh at that market and bringing it to the stores.

SPEAKER_01

13:05

And uh how did Sundex transition from the produce stands, few produce stands, to uh kind of the modern day supermarkets and what was that expansion like?

SPEAKER_00

13:15

Yeah, it was that happened in the 1970s, and what happened was um uh my grandfather and his brothers, and he had uh four brothers, um, one of whom was not in the business, but uh four of them were. Uh they ended up uh operating three different stores, one in Shorewood, that was the original store. Um and uh there was a period of time where they were um they they had to move locations in Shorewood. And so they opened a store on Downer Avenue during that period of time uh to while they were waiting for the new store to be ready. And that was their second store. Um and then uh it did so well that they decided to keep it open when when the new space was open in Shorewood. And then years later, my grandfather actually bought the property in Whitefish Bay and the brothers owned the three stores together. But they decided uh for various reasons that it would be better if each brother kind of owned a store, and one brother uh I don't think was interested in so um each brother you know uh ended up owning a different store and uh my grandfather ended up with the whitefish based store. Um and then it was my dad and his brother uh years later uh in the 1970s that transitioned uh the business from a produce market to a full-line grocery.

SPEAKER_01

14:38

Then has it always been named Sendix? And can you can you tell us uh that story?

SPEAKER_00

14:43

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, it's a great story. Um when my grandfather, my great-grandfather first came to the United States and they s kind of settled, he and his family and his family, which is probably some other cousins and whatnot, were settling in the third ward, uh they needed a stove for their home. So they went and uh they went to a Sears or some other place like that to buy a stove and they found one that they liked. And uh they said to the sales clerk, send it to us, send it. And the sales clerk misunderstood what they were saying and thought that they were saying that their name was Sendik. So they the the deliver the uh salesperson wrote Sendik as their name on the delivery slip, and the delivery people came down to the third ward looking for the Sendek family to deliver the stove to. And anyway, the neighbors, it was a very tight-knit community, everybody knew each other, the neighbors realized what was going on, and then they started to refer to my my great-grandfather and his clan as the Sendek family. And so when they opened their store in in the uh in the nine in 1926, they decided to name it Sendix.

SPEAKER_01

15:51

So so he he loved he loved that the joke was on him, but he just ran with it aside.

SPEAKER_00

15:55

Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, they were wonderful people. Uh, you know, they they had a great sense of life and uh great humor, and you know, so um good people.

SPEAKER_01

16:07

Yeah, so there's three three-ish stores in the in the 70s. Um you guys have clearly grown quite a bit since then. What was expansion like those next several decades?

SPEAKER_00

16:17

Yeah, so then in uh you know, in the 19 mid-1970s, my dad and his brother uh owned the Whitefish Bay location, and there was an AP grocery store right next to them. And AP decided to move uh they it was really interesting. My grandfather, when he when he bought the Whitefish Bay store, um rented the space, built the store and rented half of it to an AMP grocery store.

SPEAKER_01

16:44

And for those who don't know, AMP was the dominant player back then, correct?

SPEAKER_00

16:48

AMP was uh a huge national player at the time. And um they were uh a pioneer in the uh 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and grew uh really really expanded. And I think you know their history probably dates back to the 1900s, early 1900s. Uh-huh. Um so anyway, they had a uh, you know, my I I think about this in the audacity of my grandfather at the time to be building this fruit and vegetable market and then have a competitor uh that he was leasing space to right next to him. Um but what happened was the AMP decided to move uh to a different location, and my father, this was in the mid-1970s, took over that space. There was a wall that divided the two spaces. My dad had that uh wall uh removed, and he was in the in the grocery business then.

SPEAKER_01

17:46

What were your personal earliest memories of of all this? Did you grow up working in the stores? What was your upbringing?

SPEAKER_00

17:52

Oh, sure. Yes. I remember it when it was just a fruit and vegetable market, and I I mean I it was, you know, as a as a little kid, it was very uh joyful because I'd go down there and see my dad and my grandfather uh working, and um, you know, uh it was just a it was a great time, you know. You could uh eat fruit and and things like that. And one of my favorite things to do was we had a a uh orange juice squeezing machine, and I used to uh operate that machine when I was a little boy. And uh we lived on in Fox Point, so a lot of times I'd ride my bike down there, work for a few hours. My dad would give me five bucks, and then I'd go to the um, you know, the candy store and buy some candy or something like that.

SPEAKER_01

18:35

How was the dynamic between your dad and your grandfather? Did they work well? Did that did they butt heads like a lot of uh first and second generation business owners? What was you know?

SPEAKER_00

18:46

I don't really recall that. I I always thought it was a really good working uh relationship, and I think the thing was is that they were both really hard workers. So uh and by the time you know I was a little kid, my my grandfather had was pretty much out. Uh he was he had pretty much retired. Um, but he would come in and work because he that was what he did. That was his that was like him playing golf. Uh he'd go to work, and uh, you know, he'd he was great. Uh I love spending time with my grandfather. He was such a character, he had such a great sense of humor. He was so much fun to be around. And uh he used to love uh the flower part of our business. And so I get in a van with him and we drive to different uh you know greenhouses around the area and he'd pick out flowers and it was just a lot of fun. Um and he knew all the customers, all the customers he knew he knew most of them by name. Uh it was a special time. Whitefish Bay is a pretty tight community. Um my dad knew everybody. Um, yeah, so it's pretty neat.

SPEAKER_01

19:50

And did you did you have different jobs in high school or did you work at the grocery stores, or what what did you do?

SPEAKER_00

19:55

Yeah, so in high school, um mostly produce, worked in the produce department, um, you know, stocking produce, um, you know, also, you know, bagging groceries, whatever, whatever needed to be done, we'd do. But uh my dad worked in produce. That was his, he loved produce, and uh so he had us all of us kids working in that department.

SPEAKER_01

20:17

So was it what was that like? Did you enjoy it? Did you want nothing to do with it?

SPEAKER_00

20:21

Was it uh you know, I don't know that I I had a choice. The uh I you know he I always you know you wouldn't get away with it now. I kind of think it's funny, but you know, he'd write a schedule and it was you know six days um from 5 30 in the morning till six thirty at night, and you you didn't question it. You just said, okay, dad, I'll see you. Um I'll be up uh to drive down to work with you. So that's that's kind of the way it worked.

SPEAKER_01

20:49

It's kind of like the the immigrant type store style story that you hear about.

SPEAKER_00

20:54

Yeah, yeah. And um, you know, I I don't know that it was I don't know that we knew any better. So when you say, Did I enjoy it or not enjoy it, it wasn't really a choice. Um yes, I enjoyed it. I I enjoyed there were so many characters uh in the business, and I used to love going with my dad down to the market where he would buy produce and um on Commission Row, which was Broadway, uh was just a beautiful um symphony of product coming in and out, and all these characters and trucks and forklifts, and um it was just really a a lively scene at uh fashion.

SPEAKER_01

21:34

So bro, Broadway in the Third Ward in the 70s is what you're referring to, which is not nothing like it is today down here. Yeah, totally different obviously. Yes. What other things were going on down there other than produce?

SPEAKER_00

21:46

Well, that's really the area that that's what really what I knew. I mean, obviously, it's changed so much. Uh it's much more upscale now. It was a little bit run down, probably at that period of time, and uh right now. It's a much more exciting place. But you know, the the produce uh vendors, the wholesalers would, you know, they basically took over the street. There was no, there weren't any restaurants or anything like that. But what was really fun is uh occasionally uh my dad used to go down to the Chicago market, um the uh South Street Market in Chicago, which was enormous. And I got to go down with him uh several times to do that, and that was fascinating. That was, you know, you'd get there at 2, 2.30 in the morning, and it was like this little city in this this big city, um, and there was so much activity and things going on, and it it was uh fascinating.

SPEAKER_01

22:46

So you guys are waking up at like midnight drive down.

SPEAKER_00

22:50

Waking up midnight, uh uh driving down. My dad uh you know drove the semi. He had a semi, he'd drive it. Um I'd sit next to him, try to stay asleep, try to stay awake. Um fascinating how much it's changed now.

SPEAKER_01

23:06

How many siblings did do you have?

SPEAKER_00

23:08

So I have two brothers and a sister.

SPEAKER_01

23:10

Okay. And you guys all kind of worked together in in the store growing up?

SPEAKER_00

23:14

Yes, absolutely. And we work together now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01

23:18

Are all all four of you still involved in the business? We are, yes. Wow, that's really cool. Yeah. Did you have a desire to join the business after college while you were in there at all? You went to law school at Marquette, I believe, right? That's right. And then was a lawyer for a decade almost?

SPEAKER_00

23:35

Yes, that's right. Um so I think for uh my father, um, you know, one of the things I think is interesting about more of an immigrant uh uh household is they they always they they always think that it's better uh if you are in a profession. So my parents really stress education, and um uh my dad really encouraged me to get my law degree, and so I did that. And um it's kind of funny because you know, in his mind, you're dealing with a higher level of person, a more educated person. Um you're you're in a profession where people are more professional and everything like that. And uh what I realized really quickly after I joined the law profession is that they're they're just as degenerate as anybody else. Yeah. They just happen to be a little smarter and can get through school.

SPEAKER_01

24:29

Yeah, law, finance, maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

24:31

Yeah, right, right. So they can put it this way, they can uh sit and read uh legal cases uh more than the average person. So yeah. And then uh so I I practiced law for about 10 years and then had the opportunity. Um my um my uncle, uh, who's my dad's partner in his family decided that they wanted to open a store in another location. And so my uncle ended up selling his half of the business to my brothers and I. And that happened in 2001. And when that was when that was happening, I got a call from my dad and said, Hey, I'd really like you to join the business and uh be part of it with your brothers. And I thought at that time, I mean I I really enjoyed practicing law. It was a I was I was w with a really nice uh group of people in a nice law firm. Um, but to have the opportunity to join an iconic business with a really neat brand, I thought, man, there's never going to be another opportunity uh quite like this. And so I really uh took the, you know, it took me about half a second to say, yes, dad, I'll join, I'll join the business. And so that was in 2001. And um we were later joined by our sister Margaret. It's Patrick and Nick are my brothers, and our sister Margaret joined us later.

SPEAKER_01

25:49

So what was it like working with your dad? I hear he's a legendary in in individual.

SPEAKER_00

25:55

Oh, in so many ways. Um, you know, he was just he was salt of the earth, um, hardworking, um honest, um, just a high level of integrity, um, really smart, knew how to uh read people, uh, was very understanding. Uh, he was a great mentor. You know, one of the great things, and I I had a really close relationship. We all had a close relationship with our parents, um, who we all enjoyed spending time with. Um, but you know, he was always, he always had some sage advice at the right time. But one of the things uh that he did when my brothers and I um started running the business in 2001 was that he really gave us breath. Um he could have been a real jerk. Uh he could have said, hey, you know what, this is my business, you're gonna do it my way. He didn't do any of that. He said, look at you guys got to run this now. And he gave us the freedom to do it and to make our own mistakes. Um, which, you know, if you're in business, uh, you know, my brothers and I and sister have been in business for 25 years. You do some stupid things every once in a while. Hopefully you do more uh good things than bad things. And um, you know, so he let us make those mistakes, and uh, I think back on that, and what a humble gesture on his part um to let us uh do that.

SPEAKER_01

27:22

So yeah. What were some of the uh the biggest obstacles that you all have had to overcome to get to where you are today? Hey everyone, before getting back into the episode with Ted, just wanted to share a fun fact. According to a recent Schwab survey, Americans say it takes 2.3 million dollars to be wealthy. You may have had your financial plan set on a bigger or smaller number, but if you're looking for added insights on how to get there or how to avoid some tax pitfalls along the way of friends and NX Wealth Management are ready to listen no matter where you're at on your financial journey, and if your situation is complex or simple, the NX Wealth Management team can give you the wealth expertise and guidance on reaching your goals. Just head on over to annexwealth.com. All right, let's get back to the episode.

SPEAKER_00

28:11

I think the um the growth. So in 2004, um, you know, we you have three family members and then a fourth with our sister in one little store in Whitefish Bay. Um we knew we needed to grow the business. We needed to grow if we were gonna um make a you know a good livelihood for our families and support our families. So we had growth in mind almost from the get-go. And in 2003, we negotiated um to buy one of the old Coles food stores in uh Wawatosa. And um at the same time, we were negotiating with um uh Jewel Asco to purchase a store in Mekon, Wisconsin. And um, we didn't think we were gonna get either one of them, and it turned out within a few weeks we ended up purchasing both of them. Well, that was a huge challenge. You know, to go from one store to three uh almost overnight was quite a task. And um so there's moments like that, and all I can tell you is that you just work really, really hard and uh do your best, try to make the right decisions, and we worked really well. My brothers and I and sister worked really well together as a team. Uh we I think the best way I would describe it is that we each have strengths. Um and what we've done is we've helped each other um exploit those strengths to the best of our ability. So uh let Patrick do what Patrick does well, let Margaret do what uh let her do what Margaret does well, let Nick does what he does well, and let me do what I do well, and then we we work together well as a team talking about these things. So yeah, not not a lot of egos, just try to keep those egos in check as much as we can, um and try to come at it with a a good deal of understanding. But you know, so those challenges of expanding a business, you know, tripling the footprint of a business overnight is is a tough uh you know, that's a huge challenge. And I think when you're young and you don't have much to lose, you're willing to take a lot more chances. Um and uh those were big ones. And then the continued growth since then in in uh 2007 and 2008, we went from four stores to eight in a 12-month period. Um and if you remember back then the economy wasn't doing so well.

SPEAKER_01

30:45

So you you expanded those stores right before the economic crash?

SPEAKER_00

30:50

Really kind of during it. And it was it was tough. I mean, it was uh it was a a tough deal. Um doubling in size in a 12-month period of time, going from four to eight stores. Um and yeah, so it was uh those are challenges that you really have to work through. And how do you organize a business? You run a business very differently when you have eight stores versus one store. Um when you're a one-store operator, you pretty much make all the decisions, you know, because you're there every day. At eight stores, I always tell the our team, you know, you guys outnumber us. Um so we really need you guys to make decisions. So, how do we transition a business from um where you're the point person making a lot of the decisions to pushing that decision making down in the business so that our frontline workers can make decisions and not have to worry that they're gonna be reprimanded or hurt by those decisions?

SPEAKER_01

31:49

When you're going through those times as the leader of the company, um how do you kind of keep your sanity and keep pushing forward? You're you're responsible for for a lot of people's jobs, for stores. You guys are all, I would say, good community centers. You you you have a lot of weight on your shoulders.

SPEAKER_00

32:10

Well, you run a lot of marathons. The um you know, um I think one of the things that we've built, the platform of our business is really built on what we call trust and teamwork. So um, you know, kind of what that means is that we're gonna trust each other to do our very best, and we're gonna work, we're gonna try to break down any barriers that get in the way of us working together well as a team. And so if you if you're able to do that and then have a really good set of values that you continually fall back on, um, where you're um basically setting through your values the behaviors that you want in a you know a Sendix uh associate, uh a team member, um they start, you know, they start to police self-police themselves. And people that don't really get into or understand our culture or don't behave in the manner consistent with our culture don't stay with us very long, largely because it's it's just not the right environment for them. We're looking for people that are you know high integrity, high, high work ethic, um, that enjoy have a service mindset. I always call it, and I I coined this term from from my friend Joe Bartolotta, used to call it a hospitality heart. So we want to we want people that have a hospitality heart. Uh we want it to be a great experience for shoppers to come in, where they feel welcome, um, and uh, you know, that they can um um feel comfortable spending their money and providing a work environment where our team members are are uh cared for and um feel part of something that's bigger. Um, you know, that's really fun.

SPEAKER_01

34:02

Ted, and how many, how many employees do you guys have at any given time?

SPEAKER_00

34:06

Yeah, I want to say we flex between um 1900 and 2,000 right now.

SPEAKER_01

34:11

So I think it was really interesting what you were saying. How do you uh how do you integrate that mindset? You're you're obviously at the at the top. I figure it's a little easier with the leadership team, but to the to the beggar who just got a job, to the to the kid in college who's working there over the summer, to those entry-level employees, and by doing my research, it seems like you guys do have a a very good culture across across the board and by going into your store quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00

34:38

It's really interesting. Um I this is uh something that I didn't realize. Um I want to say maybe 25% of our workforce is my are minors. Um maybe maybe it's not quite that high. Maybe it's 20, 20. We we we hire a little bit of a.

SPEAKER_01

34:54

So under under 18?

SPEAKER_00

34:56

Under 18. So we're you're talking your your high school student, you're 14 to 6 to 18 year olds. Um they live in the communities.

SPEAKER_01

35:06

And um is that Gen Alpha now? Gen Z. Okay, we don't know. They're they're young, they're young though. They're young.

SPEAKER_00

35:15

They're young, and it's um uh, you know, for most of them, it's their first job. Um, you know, and the way I like to envision it for our team members is look, we're inviting these youngsters into our into our uh business. They're we need them because they're really helpful to our operations. We need to give that, put our arms around them and make sure that it's a great experience for them. So back to your question though, how do we get people at the front lines? Is again, we have to have a great, you know, get them to do what we want them to do. We have to have a great deal of trust with them. We need to paint a really clear picture of the behaviors that we want. Um, how how they greet somebody, how they interact with a customer, how we go above and beyond what maybe the mere expectation is. One of the ways I try to put it to people is say we we want to treat people not just the way you would want to be treated, but how you would want a dear family member to be treated. Think of your eight-year-old daughter or or four-year-old son or your eighty-year-old grand grandmother. How would you like them to be treated if they were in in the store? And that's the way we want to treat people. And so if you if you're clear about that, if you if you set that expectation up front, people start to understand it. And the workers that are already there understand it, and they start self-policing those and and um and uh that are new to the the company, and they start guiding them. And like I said, unfortunately, where I'd love to say that everybody is a perfect fit in our business, it's not always the case. And um those people usually self-select out pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01

37:05

Aaron Powell Would you say that's one of the keys to retaining people, especially in your industry where which I'm guessing isn't the easiest.

SPEAKER_00

37:12

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, our our um, you know, because of the number of uh high school and and really college students, we do we do have a fairly uh decent turnover year over year, but our full-time staff is rare to turn over. Our management staff is rare to turn over. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is we celebrate major milestones in the company. So when you have somebody with a 10 or 15 or 20, 30 years with the company, we have a big party for them. And uh I love to go to those. I try to get to as many of them as I can. Yeah, and it's amazing how many um people with longevity uh we have in the company. In fact, as soon as we're done here, I've got to go to 10. One in our whitefish space store. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01

37:59

Very nice. Um giving back, as I said in the intro, very important to you all at you know, over 12 and a half or four and a half million over the last 12 years, so hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Um when did that start? Why is that important? How do how do you guys go about things in that realm?

SPEAKER_00

38:15

You know, I think it's always been uh in our DNA. I think of my dad, you know, supporting the local little league team um in different charitable oper uh you know opportunities in the community. But as we grew, we uh we felt that it was important to continue to give back to the communities that support us so much. And um we do a lot of it through uh a roundup at the register. Uh customers are very generous. Um so it's a really a collaboration um between our company uh and what we do and enabling um our customers also to participate. So um you know, I I I think there are certain basics. Um we're in the food business, so a big part of our philanthropy is to food banks and to uh food pantries. Uh we're big supporters of Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin. Uh I was I've have been fortunate enough to serve on their board of directors and currently serve on their foundation board. Um, another one is uh the Mac Fund, helping children with cancer. Um we have a great relationship with um with Becky Pittner and the and the whole team over at the Mac Fund. And then uh one of our favorites is Honor Flight, um giving back to our veterans who've given so much to the country. And um that's a tremendous organization. Um and so it's really an honor for us to be able to be in a position um to make a difference with those organizations.

SPEAKER_01

39:58

And can you touch on how Sendex, you're you're you're locally owned, that's rare in today's landscape with grocery stores, and you buy it buy from a lot of local vendors as well. Can you touch on that?

SPEAKER_00

40:11

Yeah, so um the industry obviously is consolidating uh as a whole. It used to be that there were a lot of independent grocers like us.

SPEAKER_01

40:20

Um, equity in that.

SPEAKER_00

40:23

Yeah, and well, I mean you think about it, uh Walmart really has changed the the landscape for grocery, but um there are others, uh you know, Kroger, Costco. I mean, these are big uh well when you think about Walmart uh as a competitor, they're the biggest retailer in the world. Amazon with Whole Foods and some of what they're trying to do online. Um the um and I think uh the the grocery business is a tough business with um small margins. Um and uh it requires, I mean, I think it's built into our DNA, our work ethic really helps us. Um but it's tough. Um and so and it's capital intensive uh without the equipment and the facilities that you need. So it's not an easy entry point for uh independent individuals anymore, where you know, our company, like I mentioned, started with a little fruit and vegetable uh market. Um so it's really changed. Um so uh we are proud of the fact that we're third and we hope to be able to transition to a fourth generation um at some point in the future. Um, but it is a little bit unique.

SPEAKER_01

41:39

Yeah. Um speaking of the local angle, are there any um under-the-radar local food brands that that are favorites of of US?

SPEAKER_00

41:49

You know, there are so many, and we're blessed in the state of Wisconsin uh having great agriculture and great manufacturing, that there are so many good uh local vendors um, you know, all from all over the state. And we are really fortunate that we've got great relationships that have built up over the years. Um I would hate to just like single out uh because there are so many good ones, and I don't want to offend anybody, but I will say one. There's uh one um small bakery in Door County um that makes this awesome cracker called Corsica Sticks, and they are addictive. And uh Donaldo and uh his wife Jean uh are hands-on and they deliver to us, and they're just awesome. I love them.

SPEAKER_01

42:41

Um, you you look like a very in-shape guy. Clearly, you run a lot. How's your self-control being around all that food all the time? Like I get pissed at Brie when she buys a bag of chips from your store and stuff and stuff like that, because I just eat the whole thing, or these crackers from Dorr County you were just talking about. Um, those would probably go very fast if they were around me.

SPEAKER_00

43:02

Um You know, it's uh the indulgences are are very tempting. And um we have a great partnership with local bakery, Greebies, um, and they produce these uh crawlers and crawler bites that are so delicious that it's hard to not eat them the whole bag at one sitting. Um yeah, it's tough. You have to be very disciplined.

SPEAKER_01

43:29

Okay. But you know what? Do you have any advice for someone like stick to the fruits and vegetables? Only buy those. Yes, you can keep everything. See, you hear that? You can't leave she's just like it's easy, just have a few. I'm like, I don't have I don't have that gear. Um any uh Any interesting or crazy stories that stand out to you while while working at a Sendex um funny stories and anything that stands out, any working.

SPEAKER_00

44:00

Working at a grocery store is like working in a little uh microcosm of a of a community. And so you get people from all walks of life at all different times. Um some of them are at their best and some of them are at their worst. And uh so you get to see it all. And yes, there are um different occasions and things where you're just like, I can't believe that just happened. Um but for the most part, people are good, and uh we're blessed to have a great um a great um team of associates who are committed to taking care of customers, and we are really fortunate to have some great customers. I will tell you this one story. Um we did um catch a woman uh shoplifting once, it happens. And um when we catch somebody, we usually tell them, look, you're no longer welcome to come back in the store. And her response is, what do you mean? I'm a great customer.

SPEAKER_01

45:03

She was aware she was shoplifting? She was aware she was shoplifting. But not quite aware she was shoplifting. She thought being a customer was just coming in and take taking the code. Do whatever team members do most give their credit card over while in her mind she was a great customer. While that process is going on. Are there any uh slightly different from the under-the-radar food brands, but any um really cool farms or places that you visit across the state?

SPEAKER_00

45:37

I have been so fortunate to be able to visit so many cool, whether it's a manufacturing plant or uh a farm, um so I've milked cows by hand and I've helped uh use I've also milked them using a mechanized system. Um that was really interesting. Those cows are big. And um I've stood in cranberry bogs in central Wisconsin, which is really fun. I've been in cheese plants and meat plants and um different processing plants. Uh I recently did a tour of quality candy right right here in St. Francis, uh where they are handmaking wonderful delicate chocolates and uh talk about indulgence. Uh they do such a great job. I've been to breweries, um uh, you know, helped uh make uh mash uh for brewing beer. Yeah um so you know there's been a lot of cool experiences, uh bakeries, uh uh Palermo's is an amazing massive now, their new place. Oh my gosh, uh just amazing and what a great family. And you know, what you know, some of the characters in our uh, you know, that I've met over time in our business, but Papa Faluca uh was truly one of the princes of this world. He was such a great guy.

SPEAKER_01

47:05

And when we were that Giacomo's dad was bigger than Jasper's grandfather.

SPEAKER_00

47:10

That's correct. And he was such a wonderful man. And uh he would when we were opening up our stores, I mentioned early on when we were opening up our stores, he was still living then, and he would come while we were constructing the store and with his pizza oven and bake off pizzas for all the help. I mean, just he'd just show up. I'm like, this guy is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01

47:33

Did they have frozen pizzas then? Or was he starting did he start with a pizza? Pizzeria?

SPEAKER_00

47:40

Yeah, he had a pizzeria in a restaurant, uh Plermo Villa, and then he started uh doing frozen pizzas, and then Giacomo and his and his brother Angelo started doing pro frozen pizzas, and they've grown that business from nothing. Um and it's just fun. I I think of usingers, and we've been doing you business with using ears for decades, and I've toured their plant many times, and it is what they do, how they the quality of their product and quality of their process is something we should all be proud of to have a business like that right here in our backyard. Um, you think of uh Sargento cheese and what they're doing on a big scale, and then you look at uh Sar uh Sartori, uh Jim Sartori and the Sartori family, what they've done to elevate the the cheese experience um on you know the high-quality cheese that they produce. And there are so many others. I I shouldn't have mentioned any because I'm gonna leave too much.

SPEAKER_01

48:45

I know you can't pick favorites as the guy running the grocery store, but just wondering if any of those experiences stuck out to you.

SPEAKER_00

48:52

Absolutely. There's so many uh Belgioso. Uh look, we're blessed in this state with the Belgioso, the mozzarella.

SPEAKER_01

48:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

48:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

48:59

I see you got the pop Pine River stuff in your store too. I had their uh we did a we did something with uh David Kechner, who it was in Anchorman in the office as uh Tod Packard. Um he was in town and and uh we laid out a bunch of Wisconsin foods in front of him and they had their like cherry cheesecake spread or something.

SPEAKER_00

49:18

That's what they're doing with some of those spreads is amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

49:22

That was that was a funny episode. They're delicious. We had him try the lightning rod mozzarella stick from Third Street Holland. That was a good one. He that he's he he is a character. Um if you if you had uh$50 to spend at Sendex to cook a meal for a family of four. Any recommendations to those out there?

SPEAKER_00

49:43

So I do have a family of four, and I'm the primary cook in our household. Okay, this is a good question then. And uh there's nothing uh, you know, when when it gets it's starting to get later in the afternoon and you know you've got to put dinner on the table, um, there's nothing that's like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna do this?

SPEAKER_01

49:59

Are you gonna divert your hot bar? Because that's what I usually do.

SPEAKER_00

50:03

The hot bar and the salad bar are great. Um that would be cheating. But uh what I do for a quick meal, and I'll just call it my simple bolognese, is I'll grab uh a little bit of diced uh panchetta, um, a pound of uh ground chuck, um, some of our Sendex marinera uh tomato sauce. It's a jarred sauce, and a pound of Sendex pasta. I'll brown off the pancetta and the um and the ground uh beef and add that uh sauce to it, the marinara, boil that pasta with the tossed salad, and you're you're eating good. A little parmesan cheese, and uh it's very satisfying, especially when it's a little cool in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_01

50:48

In any any right we're we're going into brewer season here. Any any recommendations for things to pick up for a tailgate?

SPEAKER_00

50:54

Oh my god, do I have recommendations? Well, for sure, you uh one of my favorite one of my favorite items that we make in our meat departments is our special Italian sausage. It is absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_01

51:07

And you guys make a lot of your own food. People don't know that.

SPEAKER_00

51:10

Yeah, so our delis are pretty much scratch delis. So when you're buying something in our deli, we've made it at the deli. Whether it's a sal, you know, we're a lot of if you go to most grocery stores, their salads are pre-made and brought in and dumped into uh into a uh container. We're actually um hand making each of those salads in each of our stores. Um, all of our prepared meals, our hot bars, all of that stuff is being made in the store by our staff. Um in our meat departments, all of our sausage is made by our experienced butchers in our meat shops. Um and again, one of my favorites is our special Italian sausage. It is really good. But all of our sausage, whether it's uh bratwurst, which would definitely go well at a brewer tailgate, um, you know, our Polish sausage and the other side, we do all kinds of different sausages and burgers. Uh we have these specialty burgers that are just fantastic, all ready to go. Um, those are a must-have at a tailgate. Um our taco dip is fabulous. It's addictive with some of our uh sendix. Uh tortilla chips uh is is a must-have. Uh our deli salads, whether it's our Italian pasta salad, our um French potato or a deal potato salad is great for our tailgate. And don't forget um some desserts. And um I mentioned the the crawlers uh before, which are delicious, but we have all kinds of different sweets.

SPEAKER_01

52:48

And and you have a good alcohol selection there too for those those looking for the tailgate.

SPEAKER_00

52:53

Yes, we do. Um we uh Eagle Park Brewery does a great job making our Sendex beer, which is really excellent. Uh but there are so many uh again local local purveyors that do just just a great job for us. And don't forget, like uh our Sendex potato chips that we make ourselves, which are absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

53:19

And you got for you got flavored ones too.

SPEAKER_00

53:21

We have flavored chips and you got tortilla chips, and we have tortilla chips and popcorn that we're making popping in at the store and uh caramel corn and cheese corn and um all kinds of good things.

SPEAKER_01

53:34

So awesome. Okay. Ready, we're ready for you. Perfect. I'm gonna keep trying to just go to the the salad bar and and um back. Um round rounding out, do you have um do you have a piece of advice to give to other people in in leadership positions?

SPEAKER_00

53:55

Uh well, I I think uh authenticity is critical. Um you know being um being open to new ideas and being who you are, I think is the most important thing. Um we all have special talents. Um figuring out what yours are and focusing on that, I think, is is important.

SPEAKER_01

54:20

And um, do you want do you want to touch on the new the new store? I mentioned it in the intro.

SPEAKER_00

54:26

The the Oh my gosh, it's so exciting. The replacement store.

SPEAKER_01

54:30

It's so exciting. Summoning the whitefish bay. Yes, is it this summer?

SPEAKER_00

54:34

Yeah, uh we're based on construction. Yeah, it's all up in the air right now with respect to weather conditions and whatnot. We'll see if we're we're behind uh I want to say four or five weeks right now, but we think we can make some of that up. We're shooting for hopefully an August opening. Um as that date gets more clear, as progress continues to be made, we'll we'll narrow it down. But it's so exciting. Um the Whitefish Bay store is is really our flagship store. It's where it began for uh you know, for my brothers and myself and for my father and grandfather. Um the fact of the matter is that the store has out the the store that's there currently has really outgrown his useful life. And we were faced with a situation where we needed to spend a lot of money to either upgrade the store or build a new store. Well, luck would have it that there's enough property there that we are able to build a new store while keeping the old store open. And that store is under construction right now. Um it is really gonna be cool. It's it's a two-level store, but I want to caution people the retail store is on the first level. You as a shopper, you won't have to go up and down uh to do your shopping, it'll all be on the first level. What we did here was we moved our our warehouse and back of the house facilities, our kitchens, bakeries, uh, prep areas all to the second floor. And then we're creating um kind of a restaurant uh atmosphere on the second floor with a full bar. Um that was cool. Yeah, so you'll be able to get your salad or your hot bar in and uh come up to the second floor and consume it. And um, we're really excited. There's gonna be so many cool features, but I just think uh being in a new building is gonna be awesome. You know, it right now we have a basement in our store. Uh our our we have uh just a team of workers that are working down in the basement to have them on the second floor with little they'll be able to see natural light and won't be in a damp environment will is a big win for our employees. Um it's the uh the way the building uh looks is gonna be so cool. Um there'll be an outdoor patio on the second floor, there'll be a uh a gathering spot on the first floor uh outside. Um it's just gonna be really uh a neat um a neat place. You'll have the sense of place there that is gonna be really special, and I think it'll just be a great addition to the Whitefish Bay community.

SPEAKER_01

57:11

That's that's awesome. And um, final question uh 100 years now, what are what are you personally most proud of when it comes to Sun Deck?

SPEAKER_00

57:20

Oh my god, the fact that we've been able to stay together. Um that is a huge accomplishment. Yeah, I mean the the statistics are that you know to get to a second generation is not to get to a third generation, the success is only like it's less than 10%. So to get to a third generation and be growing the business is pretty, pretty good. You know, I will say one thing that's been that I'm most proud of is you know, you hear horror stories about family businesses. We really haven't had those. Um my my brothers and sister and I all have a same similar vision for what we want the business to be. And um, as I mentioned earlier, you know, when you're in business for as long as you we have been, you make mistakes here and there. I've never been in a meeting where any of us have has blamed another family member for something, a mistake that was made. It's always, ah, shoot, we tried it, it didn't work, let's move on. That's so healthy and I think so unusual in in a business. Uh and it's something that we hope um that we can transfer to the fourth generation. Hopefully they'll be coming up in the business soon.

SPEAKER_01

58:29

Congrats on 100. Thanks for coming down today, and thanks for all you do for the community as well.

SPEAKER_00

58:34

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01

58:35

Thank you for listening to this episode of Milwaukee Uncut, and thanks so much to Ted for coming in. Make sure to get on over to Sendex in before signing off. Just want to thank our partners for making Milwaukee Uncut possible. NX Wealth Management, Nick Le La, and Drink Wisconsin, probably a beverage company.