67 | A For Profit Business Can Still Build Real Community with Nachely Martinez Owner of Sweet Colada

Hey friends, welcome to Woman Owned Wallet, the podcast. I'm your host, Amanda Dare, a serial entrepreneur who has already made all of the money mistakes, so you don't have to. Now I'm working on my money mindset, expanding my companies, and having open conversations with women around a subject that shouldn't be so taboo. Money.

My company, Woman Owned Wallet, and I are determined to help you foster a more positive relationship with your wallet and help you create a life that makes you say, Wow. Hey moneymakers, welcome back to another episode of Woman Owned Wallet the podcast. Amanda Dare here. I am so very excited to be opening up season seven with one of my new besties.

We always knew we were gonna be besties, but now we like really, really are. And I just can't wait to learn more of her story today with y'all and really just fall deeper and deeper in love with her in our friendship journey. So thank you so much, Nishelle, for coming on the podcast. I am so excited to be here.

I always knew we'd be besties too, because you just have these great aura and the vibes and the joy that you bring into any room you walk in. It's so special. I feel the same, seriously. Like we're actually sitting in her amazing Cuban cafe right now, sweet colada.

Not me having my like 15th guava matcha of the year. I'm like so obsessed with all of the food here, y'all. I had the ham and cheese empanadas this morning. And I don't know how you get the dough so flaky and crusty and like just delicious because I've never been like much of a cook, but damn.

I can teach you. Ah, yeah. Show you. I'm bringing in the kitchen, I'll show you.

So we'll take it from the podcast to Woman Owned Wall at the show. Yes, exactly. A live cooking show. Oh my gosh, dreams do come true.

Yes. We're gonna make it happen. I'm so excited. So we'll maybe we'll all get to see the the behind the scenes, yeah, the magic that happens in the kitchen.

No gatekeeping, no gatekeeping, no. Whatever recipes we can share, I'm more than happy to. And I tell people all the time, even Cuban coffee is so special because it's made with love. Yeah.

Um, there's really no secret recipe to the coffee. It's just this is how I've always made it. This is how my family's always made it, and more than happy to teach you so that you can make it at home or you can make it for your family as well. And I've had other coffee shop owners ask me, and I'm like, please come in, I'll show you.

We don't get keep. It's this is very cultural. And if you go to anybody's house, you're going to get very similar things. So I love that.

And I love that because the idea of sharing your culture is so it's so special, but some people are so protective, you know, of it that I uh you in a way you're being protective of it by sharing it. Yeah, it's perseverance. Yes, exactly. So, how do we preserve that moving forward?

Well, the goal is to share it actually, so that it can continue on. And I just love that you're being open with that, especially with like other business owners. I mean, I'm obsessed with other business owners. Like, I feel like we need to always be doing everything.

The struggle, like we get it. Yeah. I watched your stories this week. Um, one of the reels that you did that we were like, all the crazy things that happened.

Oh my gosh. And I only put the things that are PR appropriate. I didn't put the things that were would be like an HR nightmare, or you know, like I didn't put any of that controversial stuff on there because there were so many things that happened in a week that at one point I was like, I have to start writing these down because this could be its own show and of itself. And with getting our umbrella stolen and having our toilets backed up, I mean, it was just like that was just a week in the life.

I know, right? People don't really realize the maintenance and responsibility or like, I don't know, just what comes along with owning a storefront or owning a restaurant. Like, there's so much random stuff that goes wrong that you as a customer will never see because we're like behind the scenes, like masterminding it all. Well, I told my fiance made a good point the other day because we were frustrated at the cleanliness and the upkeep of things.

And it's normal wear and tear. A lot of the times it is like a chip paint or the flooring or a baseboard that's coming undone, or you know, it's it is wear and tear. And we've been open for nine months. And he made a good point.

He said, Do you not realize that we took over an old house? This is a shotgun house. This is now our house, and we have to keep up our house. And we need our employees and our staff to think this is our house that we have to maintain.

And if you take pride in it as you take pride in your home, then it allows us to have a different level of respect. And I didn't, that was a really good analogy that he used. He's like, that's this is we took over a shotgun house and we made this into a cafe. This is still a house.

There's a living room where people can sit down and gather. There's still a kitchen, like there's it's still a home. And so if we just take that and put it into that perspective of we have to keep up, we have to have a level of respect, just as we would for our homes. I love that because the way that you've designed this space, like to your point, um, is so beautifully homey.

It's so welcoming, it's so open. And I do want to talk a little bit about like how you chose to design this space like that, because I feel like there's an interesting story behind it that probably your bestie Mike told me. That's like, it is like a living room. And like, why did you make that choice next to um the actual like cafe as you walk in?

The second room that you walk into your point being a shotgun house, you walk kind of straight back. And so that second room back is like a living room. And like, why did you decide to make it like that? Well, long story short, or should I go?

I mean it's a long way. Yeah, let's just take the long route. We want to hear all the details. Yeah.

Um, so my mom has a restaurant, Sweet Havana, and it's on Fern Valley in Shepherdsville. It's an amazing bakery. They wholesale, they'll they do full service catering. It is a restaurant.

There's two event spaces. It is this like headquarters of all things you could need for a party, an event, or just for your home. And so when she opened that, it's located in a primarily Cuban demographic area. So it is actually um Oklahoma is known to be a very hot spot for Cubans.

They live there and it's it's starting to become, I say, like a little Miami because even the houses, you'll see that a lot of them, the garages have been converted into little side apartments. And in Miami, that's called an efficiency. And efficiency is you convert your garage into a house, and it's a custom thing, I think, that travels with us from Cuba because in Cuba, there's no access to real estate. So you can't buy property.

Most of the time, you either it's either been built many, many, many, many decades ago, um, or you're building on top of what you already have. And so most houses will get add-ons. They'll add a second story, they'll add a backyard, and then on that backyard, they'll add two more apartments. And then you have the grandma and grandpa live in the front of the house, kids live upstairs, and then the other kid gets married, moves into the back.

And that's just kind of how people live. Like you just build on the house. And that's that's how Oklahoma is becoming. So if you go down to that area of town, you can actually drive by and you'll start seeing, like, oh, look, that apartment has a front door.

That's interesting, or that garage has a front door, which is really interesting. Um, all that to say that my mom's restaurant is culturally very aligned with Cuban. And if you go there and you're familiar with Cuban culture, or if you're from Latin America, you understand it. You get it.

You walk in, you're like, I want this, I want that. There's no questions about it. The people that work there, some speak some level of English, but it is not a requirement to speak English to work there because most of the clientele is Spanish speaking. And the people that don't speak Spanish that go there, a lot of them being immigrants, um, but some of the Americans, they already know.

They're like, oh, I've I know exactly what I want. I know what coffee I want. I want this, this, this, and they point to it and they they get they get it done. And I kept thinking, I'm like, how do I take the essence of this and replicate it?

And it's really hard without having that teaching moment, without inviting people, creating a space that's inviting for people to not feel like they're, you know, having this out-of-body experience. Um, and I had a boss at the time tell me, when I go to Sweet Havana, I feel like I'm on vacation. Oh. And I said, that's interesting.

And he's like, because I don't understand anything. I don't really know what the food is. It's just good. It's a completely new experience outside of their daily in that way.

And the the language being spoken there is not English. And it's just, but he also mentioned that it does come with the uncomfortable of having to put that extra thinking to figure out what to order or to figure out what to get. And that to me, that's stuck, that's always stuck with me. Cause I said, How do we remove the barrier?

How do we remove the having to sit here and translate or figure out or read a menu? And so when my parents came to me at the time, it was, I think it was three years ago, they said, we want to expand. And I and I they asked me to go and help them find a location. They said, we just want to expand.

We are looking for the next location. At this time, I was working in real estate. So they're like, Can you reach out to somebody in your circle and see if they can help us find a location? So we did that.

And as we were looking at locations, I realized that they they didn't need a lot. It's really hard to replicate what they have because their business, they don't have just one business. It's not just a restaurant, it's catering, yeah, bakery, it's all of these things. The event space.

Yes. And I said this it doesn't make sense to replicate that. It only makes sense to replicate the best of it, which is not the best of it, but I guess like a small part of it. A small part of it, yes.

That would be more the most authentic part of it, which is the coffee experience with the sandwich, with the pastries. That is where we started about 20 plus years ago in Las Vegas. Like we started with some coffee, some pastries, and some sandwiches. And that is kind of in the best way, like you were saying, it keeps you comfortable because you have heard of these things, but you get to go in and have a quick experience where you pick up a pastry, you pick up a coffee, you pick up it's it felt it feels very um not vacation, but just part of your life.

Yes. You know, so that kind of easy, simple engagement with things that you do or want to eat every day, like this guava. I want to eat it every day. But just like it is kind of a in a way, a low barrier to entry to Cuban culture.

Yes. Okay, got it. And I think when we look at it on a personal level and we look at what we're most proud of creating, it would be those items. Because, for example, the guava is something that we have perfected over the years.

This is not store-bought guava, this is not pulp that we add sugar to. There are so many levels in the process of making our guava syrup and our guava pulp. And we've always been very proud of that. Because we have more almost 30 years where we've been working on that.

Wow. The bread as well. The bread, we've hired bread makers and they don't get it right. Our bread maker right now, we taught him, but we've had people come straight from Cuba that made bread in Cuba teach us how to make the bread.

So it's not something that we looked up a recipe and figured out how to do. Like it is, it has taken us a long time. So I would say when you look at in our menu, what we're most proud of, it is those very simple recipes that maybe for somebody it does look like a simple recipe, but to us, we know the hard work that's behind curating all of those recipes. That authenticity, that depth.

Yeah, it's the depth of culture that goes into the bread and into the guava. And like it's it is hard to replicate because it the depth of the entire experience, you know, of being Cuban and like knowing how it feels, the dough and everything, I'm sure is just in a way, just passed down or is just like felt, you know what I mean? And so I feel like that's really interesting. So kind of moving through your space, it seems like that's what you wanted from like the living room space was authenticity.

Yeah. And so when we created this, when we when we were looking at the coffee shops at the time, we said, we don't need a whole lot of space, we just need a quick grab and go. And it something clicked for me. And I remember telling my parents, hey, let me take this over.

It was actually my stepdad said, Let me, why don't you run and become the manager? And I said, I'll do you one better. I'll just open on my own. He's like, Okay.

Surprise. Um, and they're, I mean, they're obviously been super supportive, but I told them it's hard to work with family, and they're very, very active in their business. And I said, I want to step into the family business, but I know you're not ready to retire and I'm not ready to take it over. So let me expand the brand.

Let me expand what our favorite things are in a way that we can introduce this to a market that maybe has never experienced it before. So when we found this space and it was a house and it had all those rooms, I said, I looked at it and I'm like, this is it. We're making the, we're opening the doors to our house. Like this is our living room.

And when I think of my grandma, especially, even growing up in Cuba, it was always making coffee and sitting down in the living room, making coffee and sitting down in the living room. And my memories, my most fond memories of being in Cuba are all in my living room. They're not in my bedroom, they're not at the beach, they're not outside of my yard, they're all in my living room. And I have so many pictures that I've always had around my house and my in growing up of my grandma and my grandpa in our living room.

And as I started sitting down with my grandma and picking out pictures, which this was over a year ago, I sat down in her in her bedroom and we started going through boxes and boxes of pictures. It was very clear to me how much memories our house living room held. And it was you can actually see the same furniture from when my mom was born to right before I left Cuba. It's like a stuck in time.

And you can see the same little living room. So my my mom was born in the same house I was born in in Havana, and the same, um, the same iron, iron, uh Cusco fix this. The same iron stand for the TV that in the 50s and 60s did not have a TV. In the 90s, that same iron stand was still there, but had a newer TV.

And in 1995, I had some cousins go to Cuba and bring me my first uh video game setup. It was like a Nintendo, and it was on that iron stand that I got to put it. So I'm going through the pictures with my grandma, and I I'm looking at them like that tortoise shell is still there, and that TV stand is still there, and all of these things were still there. It did not change over, gosh, 40 years.

Yeah, right. The generations. Yes, the generations, and all these memories from the living room. But what's really special about the living room is how it just made you feel.

When you walked in, you sat down, you had a little yap sesh, some cheese, you had a little cafecito, and then when you were done, you're right getting ready to leave, you'd get another cafecito because we do a beginning cafecito, and then we do an intermission cafecito, and then we do a cafecito right before you go because you need a little jolt before you leave. Yeah, you're ready to go back to the world. And so when we picked this space, I thought that I had a lot of coffee in my life.

This makes me feel like normal. Oh no, I can have coffee at 7, 9 p.m. and still be completely fine.

Yeah. Um, and so when we built it, when we created this space, I was like, I need a living room. And I try to find things that were very identical to what I had in Cuba. The couch I couldn't find.

We had this like red leather couch, and I wish I could have found it. I I I looked in eBay, I looked everywhere, could not find a vintage couch like that. Everybody be on the lookout for usually. Yes, some type of red leather, mid-century modern looking couch.

Um, but we had we did find cameras, and there's so you there's cameras downstairs. There's very, very old and vintage cameras, and they all work. But my grandpa was a photographer. Oh.

And so he had a lot of cameras and a lot of photos, which is why my family has a lot of photos. I think a lot of immigrant families or families that have moved a lot that are not even immigrants, but just have packed up and moved so many times, those photos get lost. They do. And so we have so many because my grandma, those are her prize possessions, her photos, because that is those are the stories that my grandpa told.

Yeah. And so we have not me gonna cry. It's no, it's oh my god, it's so special. It's so special, so sweet, and just what a beautiful way to for her to honor him, yeah, but also for her to receive a beautiful gift from him through that storytelling.

Like that's amazing. And of course, all of y'all, you know, yeah, because we have all of that. And so we have all the pictures downstairs on the wall. Um, most of them my grandpa has taken.

And again, I have pictures from my grandpa when he started his bike club in the 50s, and when he started um when he built this cabin in the woods because he wanted to teach my uncle how to fish and hunt and how to be, you know, primal. And so it's just all these like little stories are on the walls, and it's so special to me. And I don't take that for granted when I walk from the kitchen back outside, and sometimes I have a plate of food and I'm frustrated because it's maybe not coming out right or not coming out on time.

And I like first thing I see is my mom's face. I'm like, oh my gosh, how special. You know, it's like it's so personal to me. And especially like y'all both being here and owning things, you know, sweet Havana, sweet Kolana.

Like like you, you are in it together. And I actually really appreciate your conversation having with them of around like, let me, you know, extend or expand the brand in a new way, but it let it also be mine. And I appreciate that y'all, y'all have that relationship where you did talk about it and and that it is really hard to work with family. I couldn't imagine, you know.

So it's just one of those things of like even hearing how y'all kind of decided, maybe even as a family, or you brought them the idea, and then they're like, you know what? Yeah, we're not ready to retire, but we do want to have um, we do want to have you ready when we are, you know, and what a great place to not only learn, but to expand the entire legacy by having your own space and then one day having potentially having theirs and this, or we see how how it goes, you know.

But I thought that was really just a really smart choice as uh as a family and as an entrepreneur, and just being like, you know, I want to have my own and I want to have the experience of having my own so that, you know, I can continue our legacy in like this beautiful way. So that was really, really smart on y'all. And I would say I definitely did not have any plans to have my own business or my own cafe at that time. Um, they were trying to, I think, I think they've always been trying to plant seeds and it finally came to fruition.

Like little did I know they were planting these seeds all along. And when they told me if I wanted to take over or open one, you know, at the time, I said that's like, hey, I'll open it and you just run it. And I said, I don't know that I want to do that because it's it's really hard to run somebody else's vision and somebody else's um mission and values and all of that. And I see how they run their business and I see what they do and I see how much they give into the community and I support them so much.

And if it were up to my mom, I'd be running both. But I actually told her I could not. Um my bandwidth is only so much with opening a new business. Um, and she would love for me to be more at Sweet Havana and help her out, but it's just the timing of it.

I think there will come a time where I will eventually be more involved with Sweet Havana and I will be um taking more of an ownership role, especially as my parents age out. But that time is not now. And that's okay. I'm I'm I've built something that's scalable.

So if we do want to build 10 of these or open in different states or cities, we're able to because it's there at the end of the day, it is Sweet Havana that is supporting a lot of the op a lot of the fulfillment that we have here. And so we can go ahead and now we have a system that works, we can replicate that, and in turn, their business will continue to grow as well. So we're still very supportive. And I'm my goal is that through the Sweet A lot of brand, that they will grow as well with me.

So absolutely. And I feel like what you said, like how you can kind of depend on each other for, you know, that authentic Cuban, you know, bakery. I'm assuming some of the baked goods you're saying maybe come from them. Yeah.

So we have a because of their wholesaling and bakery business is so big. They have a separate fulfillment center, not at the restaurant that is where a lot of the baking happens. So it's this warehouse-looking space where it's just all the ovens. There's a humidity-proof room where we have our yeast grow and our Cuban bread.

And I'm not even allowed to go in that room. Like I'm not allowed to touch that door because it's so the levels of the humidity are, you know, just don't want to mess up all the science. No, yeah, exactly. And they tell me all like you're not allowed in there.

And I'm like, what do you mean I'm not allowed in there? Um, but yeah, that's where we do all of the dough stuff is done in that site for both locations. Um, and then again, a lot of the recipes do come from there. So yeah.

Well, and it's been beautiful to also just experience the space um in a very natural way. Every time I come in here, there's some today I came in and there's three people I do. And like I had a I host a lot of meetings here because I always just know it's gonna be so delicious. And like, you know, you gotta have write-offs for this coffee sometimes.

But like for how much I'm addicted to it, I'm like, yeah, let's go. So, but then every time I do, I come in and I see people from all of different parts of Louisville that I know or that I love and um get to meet new ones. So it just it does feel like a very warm, welcoming space, like like your goal was. And it's it's coming through, of course, is just what I'm trying to communicate is that it's it's beautifully working.

I'm glad. Congrats. I love it. This one of my little bit of my fun sound.

Well, it's interesting because I that's one of my favorite parts is seeing people that either don't know each other, but they're just filling the room with a lot of joy and good energy. And then there's a lot of opportunities where I connect people, where I know I have people in this table that I've met through this venture, and then I have another person in another table that I know is I have this mission. And that is one of my favorite things is to just connect people and say, Hey, I think you guys would hit it off, or I think you guys would do good.

Um, we when I opened this place, I had a little bit of a a and I talked to Gretchen, Gretchen Hunt. She's been on the pod, don't worry. Miss Save the World, Gretchen. We're obsessed with Gretchen.

I love Gretchen. Sent her a photo of us today, and she's like, my loves. And we're like, yeah. Shout out, Gretchen, because she's single-handedly just trying to change the world.

She's on a mission. I love it. Well, she brings us all in, and it's the best thing. She does.

Obsessed. And so I was on the Office for Women program here. The ambassador. Yeah, the ambassador program in Louisville last year for the cohort.

And we I was surrounded by all these women that were just on their missions to just change, make change, impact their communities. And some of them were still trying to figure out how to impact change. Some of them had been working for years on being a change maker. And I was so inspired by all the women that are just blazing their own trails.

I think I had a little bit of an of crisis because I come from corporate America. So I said, What how am I changing the world? I'm not doing anything to change the world. I have a for-profit business.

I don't have a nonprofit. I don't, you know, volunteer, scratch that. I don't, I don't, I'm not an active volunteer in the community. And so I felt because you are running your own business.

It's hard to do both. Not because I don't want to. Exactly. It's because this takes a lot.

It does. It really does. And it's balancing family time with being an entrepreneur. And being an entrepreneur takes a lot of my time.

And so the little bit of time that I have for myself, I try to be very intentional with my family. And so when I was going through the program, I felt like I am not doing enough for my community. I am, it's, I've I just that constant feeling of it's not enough. Whatever I'm doing, it is not enough.

And I sat down with Gretchen and she's like, What are you talking about? You've literally built a space that is so inviting for people to come here and be able to sit down and create ideas and you know, just move their projects forward. And then I started to shift the way I thought of the space as instead of this is just a four-pro just a. I hate that.

I hate when just a because I think that's such a limiting statement. Well, let's just remove it. This is a yes, this is a coffee shop or this is a cafe, but this is a cafe that's centered around community. This is a cafe that's centered around collaboration.

When we were picking the name sweet colada, the k came up a lot. Community, coffee, culture, collaboration. Like the CO is just in every word, and colada is our shareable coffee. So colada, coladita, a colada is a the coffee that we serve in a couple of ounces, and then we give you little, little tiny thimbles that you can share with your friends.

And so it was just perfect. It was like colada, community, culture, collaboration, coffee, like all of the all of the things. And the sharing of it all. The sharing of it all that experience, and that's why you called it that.

Like come on. So wonderful. I know. And looking back, I'm like, okay, that's just you know, I was gonna say hair toss, you know, with our headphones on, it's not really it's hard to toss your hair.

It is, but yeah, definitely applause for that. That that was a big, I think, mind shift for me was realizing that even though I am running a for-profit business, I can still impact change in different ways. And it's not a one size fits all. With time, I think my impact will be able to be bigger.

Um, with time, you know, time will tell. I think my actions will show in the community whether I'm able to be a change maker or not. Um, but I just I live by that, I stand by that. And so I just I invite everybody to come in here and meet and have their meetings because it just fills a space with so much positive energy.

And I feel it. I feel people leave and it's it's like this heavy joy that just looms over. Instead of, you know, when like people come into your space and they have negative energy and they leave and they just suck that positive energy out of you. The opposite happens here because people do come, have all these brains, you know.

It's like filling the cup. Yes, metaphorically, literally. Yes. And they do all these thinking and talking, and then they leave, and I'm like, oh, it's just it feels so good.

I feel like those people are leaving, but they got something out of it, other than just food and coffee, you know. So and I mean the nourishment alone of the food and the coffee and the way that it yeah, fills your belly, the way that it fills your your mental cup is like is such a beautiful experience. And to see all the things that you're saying, and like I've watched it all happen and it's so true and so real. And I would actually love to just like deep dive a little bit together into the idea because I felt the same way that you felt so many times of like, am I doing enough?

Like, woman-owned wallet has always been, I mean, made profit, I don't know, but been a for profit, right? It's hard. Yeah. But it's always been um approached as like a community kind of um momentum building.

Let's have the conversations, let's do the things together. It's always had that. But when people have come in, you know, I just closed my storefront down. So like I've been going through all the things that I used to talk about in the storefront in my mind.

And people would come in a lot and be like, oh, is this a charity? Because I would say we put money in the wallets of women. So I can understand how it's like a little bit confusing and how you might not recommend that. And there, but then they would also say, like, it should be.

It should be a non-profit. It should be. And I think that people have a misunderstanding around that, but I think there's a deeper conversation that a lot of women I speak to about their businesses feel some kind of, I don't necessarily want to identify it as shame, but I don't have another word right now, around being for profit versus a nonprofit if they're doing some kind of community work. And I feel I always felt frustrated.

So I was like, well, women also deserve, I mean, women deserve and women should and women um do have their own money and they can actually make a massive difference with it. So I would communicate that, but also like, yeah, buy something in the store and enjoy it and put your investment into women. Like it doesn't have to just be nonprofits. It doesn't have to be mission driven.

Yeah. Even if it if it's if you don't know the person's mission, you should yeah, I get what you're saying. It's like it's hard to fully conceptualize a little bit for me, but it just has happened so many times that throughout my six businesses, people are asking me if it's an if it's a charity because I'm a woman running it. Like that's what's behind it.

Is like, well, you're doing this nice stuff because you have a mission, it must be a nonprofit. Right. And you're sharing this feminist mission. So I think a lot of times that is associated with a nonprofit or some type of you know driven mission.

Supporting women must be charity. And I'm like, Which is the the irony of it because you're that's I mean, like, yeah does women supporting you mean it's charity? What? It's kind of infuriating because it's so ironic that you're actually trying to do quite the opposite.

And you should absolutely value women. And I think even a nonprofit would not be able to be successful if it didn't have right funding. There's no way a nonprofit can succeed, and maybe no way is a big broad statement, but it's really difficult for a nonprofit to succeed if there's no form of revenue, whether that's grant money or membership money or fundraising efforts. It's just, and I'm not in a nonprofit world, but there's no way anybody can sustain anything without money.

Exactly. And so even if it were to be a nonprofit, it doesn't mean it's free. Exactly. And I think that's what I kept kind of getting at was like they would ask for discounts or they would ask like the same type of person that would come in with some kind of negative energy around the world feminism, would then um, and I don't mean this negatively, but I just don't, again, don't have another way to say it is like they would demote it to a place of charity because it was about women.

And I'm like, of course there are charities for women, of course there are charities for everyone in different ways, but like we're you're trying to demote it into a place of um women are desperate and asking for, you know, more than their fair share in some kind of way. And I would just like to have what you were saying about people just bringing in some kind of negative energy and leaving with it, I would always take that time to try to de-escalate their thoughts around the word feminism because it has been incorrectly defined as misandry, which is hating men.

And I was like, no, like my best relationships have always been with men. I've just, I'm in my my feminism era, which is just the equality of social or social, political, and economic equality for women. And I'm not even looking, like there's nothing. That's what I'm trying to say.

Like, dude, you're coming in here so hot. Yeah, like chill. I'm just, I'm looking for the bare minimum. I'm looking for how do we how do we get everything level here?

Yeah. And so even recently, I've I've stopped saying like equal rights, and I've just started saying equal respect, like the respect for one another both ways. I mean, all in the circle. The equal respect is really what I think we're missing because we are in this hierarchical society.

And I'm like, if we have that level of respect for everyone, that puts us all on the same plane. You know, it puts us in the circle that community needs. And so a lot of what I did talk about was community driven, was mission driven. But I just always kind of felt like people suggested to me so often, and not even just about my business, but other woman-owned businesses in front of me, should be charities or nonprofits.

And I'm just like, I mean, chill out. But I think to your point too, I think language matters. It does. And the word feminism has over the last couple years, not couple, yeah.

It's been a while. It's usually angry feminist. Yes. And I'm like, well, that doesn't mean the same word.

When you put a you know, adjective in front of a word, that changes the meaning of the word. So let's just use the word feminist, and here's what it means. And I think it's just the connotation, the way that it's used, the way that it's marketed, the way that it's put it on. Listen, the marketing is so it is difficult.

It's it's just one of those words that I know in my ignorance in growing up, the word feminism to me meant something negative. Yeah. And that was the same. And it that was me, you know, again, in my ignorance of being high school student and just the circles maybe that I was around.

I just, I just it's like that doesn't sound like something I want to be a part of. It just didn't sound. I think people do equate it like racist feminist. They say is yeah, and I'm like, well, there is something behind that, like racist is obviously negative connotation.

So it's almost like they utilize that in the marketing. And that's the thing that goes across that. Language is so important. It's so important.

How you say things and the connotation and the wording around it, the context, like all of those things are important. And feminism means something different too to people that you talk it talk to, depending on their socioeconomic backgrounds. Yes. And so it doesn't their socioeconomic backgrounds, but also, you know, their history with men or history with other women.

Like it can mean so many things. It can be interpreted in so many things because there really hasn't been like it's just gone beyond its own true definition to be a cultural, like a word that we use um for I mean, I don't want to just for defining things that other than what it is. And I just found like when you said the stuff about leading with community and like the nonprofit, and are we doing enough because we are for profit. What just the way that that feels.

I just wanted to like really um commiserate with you a little bit of like I do often feel that way too. Of like, am I doing enough? Am I doing enough? Yeah.

And I think it's like, yes, we are, because we are space creators and community builders, and we we are constantly connecting people together. And I think that that community has been under um underutilized and undervalued. And right now, I think that's the main thing that's changing the world. And so I do think you're a change maker.

I've always thought that, but like I see us as the community change, you know, that we need that conversational change, even having conversations that we're having right now. It's like, let's challenge this and see why it is. Like, I'm always just curious. I'm just a little curious artist out here just trying to survive.

But like, how do we consistently see ourselves as that community change maker? And it's literally you get to watch it every day in your space. Yeah. And after closing my store, that's something I really miss.

But being in your space has like brought that energy back where I'm just like, yes, and that's happening, and those people are connecting, and this is what's happening here. And I'm just so appreciative that more spaces exist that I still get to be a part of. So just thanks. Hey Moneymaker, did you know that one of the most powerful things you can do with your dollar is decide where it goes?

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Love us. Bye. This store is very amazing. It's so cool.

Your shop is the cutest. I love all the pink. Um, and I love that you're supporting women. Keep on doing what you're doing.

All right, bye. I would say I had some, I've had some pretty special moments since opening this place, and I'm gonna try not to cry because I remember last year I have I have this friend, this thing with my girlfriends. My besties back in Vegas, and we call it Waffle Wednesdays, and every Wednesday we we saw this on TikTok and we loved it. So we every Wednesday we send each other a video recap of our week.

Oh man, I've seen this and I'm obsessed. Keep going. So good because we're all adults and we have our very busy lives, and it's really difficult to just get on the phone for an hour. Like that does not happen.

I don't know the last time you talked to a girlfriend on the phone for two hours, but I used to all the time when I was young, and now I don't anymore. And so we did this waffle Wednesdays where we just record video recaps of our week, and we would send each other like what's going on, what we have what's you know, what's new in our lives, and sometimes it'd be like a three-part video because iPhone only lets you send four minutes at a time. Well, that's kind of nice because it's like you know, in the best way, like keep it tight.

Yeah, and then you can like fast forward so you can see them at a faster speed too. Yeah, the 2x. Yes, it's per level 2x. And there was a period of time last year where every waffle Wednesday I would send them, I was crying.

There was just tears in every and I probably cried every day for the year. And I remember going home after our first day opening and walking into my house and I'm bawling my eyes out. And my fiance looks at me, he goes, You're crying again now. What?

And I go, No, these are happy teaser. These are good, these are good ones. I'm so happy. Yeah, but there has been a significant number of times since opening my doors that I've had these like, if this is the last thing I do, I am so proud that I did this.

And so, and one of them was this lady that I met through WBC at one of the women's business. The women's business center meetings, and she looked at me, she's like, I just want you to know that I go to Suikelada and I I feel it. I feel and I said, Okay, I never met this lady in my life. She's like, when I walked into the living room and I saw the pictures on your walls, and I just realized your story, and I just I know.

And that's all she said, and she starts crying. And she's like, I don't know you, but I know you. And she's like, I just I felt I felt so close to you, and I just I'm so proud of you, and you don't know me, but I'm gonna give you a hug, and I start bawling with her, and that was so special. Yeah, that was tough moment for me.

These moments just like literally Yeah, they keep you going, they do. And then recently I had another girl, and she has been in America for two years, and so she has a lot more recent memories of Cuba than I do. My most recent memory of Cuba, aside from the one trip I took when I was 16, was when I was seven. So I don't have fresh archived experiences in Havana that I can just pull from and say, this is what I want to do at Sweet Colada.

Mine are the photos. Yes, the photos, the nostalgia, the anecdotes that my parents tell me, or the little bit that I've seen throughout the movies in my life. So I don't have, again, I don't have any fresh archived experiences of taste, especially taste. I I own a restaurant where I do not know what this would taste like in Cuba because I don't have a memory of taste in Cuba.

I don't have, like, I don't remember eating a sandwich in Cuba, if that makes sense. Yeah. And so she's telling me that she had the pan conchon, which is a roasted pork on Cuban bread, and that she felt like she was back home at this cafe next to her house having a pan conchone, and that ours tasted exactly the same. And it was very emotional to her because she misses Cuba a lot.

She has her son back there. And that like really touched me because I'm like, I wouldn't know what that would have to taste like, but you felt identified in that moment. And that goes back to just the identity of the place. Like, if you are not Cuban, obviously you don't have that attachment to things, but maybe you're learning about something that is authentic.

And if you are a Cuban, I hope that you come here and you do feel some type of identity. Right in a building where you can say, Okay, this reminds me of this, or I can see my grandma or my mom, or you know, you have some type of it triggers some type of nostalgia for you, and that you can feel like you are seen, your heritage is seen, your culture is seen. So those are like really, really special moments that I treasure and keep so close to my heart. Yeah, I mean it's just like what a beautiful deep validation, especially in the taste category that you were talking about.

It's like what a beautiful thing to hear, to, you know, to take in for yourself is like I am doing enough because I'm doing it right, you know, and I'm doing it the way that feels and tastes and sounds and looks. Like I look around even this room and I'm just like, it's just so beautiful and it feels so like it does transport you, but in the in the most welcoming way, you know. And I think to your point of having the living room like right next to it where you can have those conversations and it feels so right.

And it is the archived memories that you have of you know being seven and younger and like in the living room and all those memories there, like I just think that's beautiful because I I didn't grow up with a lot of memories in my living room, you know, as much as I did my own bedroom or something like that. So I think the culture of the family, the community being together is just it's just so deep and so rich. And I'm just um I'm just beautifully like observant of it and obsessed with the idea of it and excited that it still exists here.

But you know, it's just I don't know. I think you're doing so much more than enough. But I don't even have pictures on my walls at home. And time to put some up.

I know. And I was thinking about it the other day because my fiance does not have a lot of childhood pictures. Got it. Because his family is all separated, all scattered.

You know, he has a couple baby pictures, and I'm gonna frame his dad recently passed, and I'm gonna frame a picture of his dad and him to put on our walls. And I haven't put it up because I'm like, I can't just put a picture of your and your dad on the wall and then have one big blank wall and just one frame. So I'm just trying to curate a bunch of frames so I can just put family pictures on the walls. All at once.

All at once. Um, and we have so many pictures, but that's one of the things that I was thinking about recently because sometimes you wait to take these like aesthetic photos with your family, and these are the ones that you blow up and these canvases, and you put three of them on the wall. And I'm like, bring back having disorder. Organized chaos.

You have everything on the walls because the like disposable camera shops. You know what I mean? Like the I don't know, but my mom, when I was growing up, she had like every grade picture. Yes.

And she had the little, the one with the little round ones that you would put like first grade, second grade, third grade. And I was thinking about it because I don't have any of my daughter. I have some of them printed, but not in frames. And I go, I don't have any of this.

My mom still to this day has those frames in her house. She has all these pictures that have just moved from her with her from house to house. And I'm like, why don't I have that? I should start having more of those memories, memory keeping.

Yeah, because so when we move houses, we take it with us. And then eventually when my daughter grows up and has her own house, she can take some of these into her house. Like, we don't have that. And I don't know why.

I think maybe the digital age has just shifted. Yeah, we don't print them as much and we don't it's it's so fast how many we take. Yeah. I also think there's something to be said about growing up in a very clut, not I wouldn't say cluttered, but just unorganized.

I know what you mean. Like home. We weren't trying to impress anyone because no one saw our home unless we came like they came over. So right now I feel like it's like the millennial gray and nothing's millennial gray, nothing is out, like it's sterile.

Yes. And I think you're basically saying the opposite of that, which I, you know, whatever the you know, warm, I guess. And like is it social media that changed that for us? Or now you had it to be aesthetic and I think it had to be.

People didn't want to show their mess, quote unquote. Right. And I'm like, but it's your collection, it's your story. It's a lived in house.

Yes, it's your life. It's your life. Like, God forbid I show my kitchen table full of stuff, you know. But when you get home and put things on the kitchen table, like, so what?

It's gonna get clean, it's gonna get moved and put away, but it's lived in. Yeah, it's lived in. And I think we've stopped, I think we've just started to curate and be so selective about the things that you know it's around the judgment of so many people that will never come to your house, that will never meet kind that are out in the world however many miles away, you know, like, and because there's more um of like an eagle eye kind of on all of our social media pages, it's like you just feel like unless you can't be some kind of quote unquote perfect, which doesn't exist, then like you can't show your life.

You can't tell your story. And I'm just like, here's the messy middle of it. Like I show up, you know, hair messed up, no makeup, but whatever, because you gotta just, you gotta just keep telling your story. And I feel like we all need to be witnessed, but we need to be witnessed from a place that without judgment to be able to become ourselves.

And that's what I'm trying to allow people to see is like, yeah, there's there's so much more to the story, which is why this podcast exists and why I'm so happy we're here having these conversations. Yeah, I think you know, there's something to be said about a cleaned up frame. Like don't get me wrong. I think if you're doing a video and there's clutter, it's going to get somebody that's watching to swipe, right?

They're like, they don't want to see mess. It's like distracted. It's yeah, it's distraction, and sometimes people like associate that with a negative. But does it remind them of their own mess?

You know what I mean? Maybe. Like maybe I don't know, like maybe go to school to become a therapist at this point. Hey, hey, let's go.

On the entrepreneurs, but yeah, like it's like what does it call back for them? And it's usually their own something about themselves. But there's comes a time where it stops being genuine and it stops being authentic. And I think of, you know, I was having this conversation with my mom this morning because she wants me to help her with her social media and posting photos at Sweet Havana, and she sends me all these beautiful pictures that she had a professional photographer do.

And I'm like, that looks beautiful. What is it? And she's like, Oh, it's a burger. And I'm like, I had no idea that was a burger because the picture's just so beautiful.

I didn't even notice the inside of it. It was just like more artistic. Yes. And so I go, I can't post that.

It's not gonna do well on social media. And she's like, Well, what do what do I post? I'm like, why don't you talk about the burger? Like, why don't you just like record yourself talking about it?

And she's like, Well, I don't I don't really know how to, you know, she's older generation, it's just that we've had different um mediums, yeah. So like a really beautiful picture was their medium of how to get that captured. Right. And ours is like the it is a little bit of the messy millennial.

So just like we've been through it all, we're gonna get through it all. Let's just tell the story. That's what I feel like again, we can stop. There's it's easy for people, especially entrepreneurs, to stop being genuine and authentic when they try to wait to be perfect or wait to be have the perfect shot or the perfect picture.

And I've slowly, I used to hate, hate talking on the camera or wearing a microphone. I used to hate it and cringe. We're just talking about it, you know, cringe when I heard my voice. I'm like, oh, let me just put that on mute so I can edit it.

Um, and now I don't even, you know, curl my hair. And now I barely wear makeup when I do videos because I'm like, people don't really care. They just want me to say something and move on with their lives. Like they're not nitpicking at things.

And I do agree, like there's so much content that we're we're engaging with it, but we're not so intense with it the way we were when Instagram started. Yes, you know, and that there was less content available to us when I started my businesses, and when I was 20 years old, there was only Facebook. So like it's like once Instagram started, and I was learning you did want to get the perfect shot. Yeah.

Because there was no video. Right. And then or there was like vines that were like eight seconds, which were just bring back vine. I know.

And I think something, I don't know, I don't know. I shouldn't, I just think something's happening with Vine. I think it's gonna come back. But that's just dreams.

That's just hopes and dreams. But I do feel like there there is a peak. There's like a bell curve to everything and like the peak of it. We've passed of the perfect, yeah.

The shot is, you know, whatever place, you're right in the right spot. And now it is, it's in the information of that you're sharing versus is my makeup perfect or whatever. People don't people don't even have the attention span to look at the video long enough to see if you have makeup on. They just swipe.

Unless you are a makeup artist or in that space, in that beauty influencer space or content creation, where they're learning they're learning from you how to do it. They don't, they're they're like, We don't, I don't really care if you're wearing makeup, just tell me what's what's in that, or you know, tell me the story or something. Tell me if you liked the makeup that you used. Yeah, like you want a recommendation from someone that's like a friend and everything.

The validity of it. Well, and like you've said a few times, you're raising a daughter. So um I feel like her generation is so different, obviously. They have a different medium, but they can like sniff out like BS so fast.

Oh, my daughter's always like, that's AI. AI. I'm like, how do you know that's AI? That's crazy.

But the AI, I I'm scared for the world that's to come. I'm scared. I think it'll be the same thing. There'll be a bell curve where it gets crazy.

It's it's up, it's going up the bell curve, and that top of that, the graph, you know, that goes from low to high and then back down to low, that bell curve is like very we're rising in it right now. And then I always compare it to like when the internet started, we didn't know what to do with it. So we just did everything. And I feel like we're just doing everything and we'll find the other side.

I'm not even scared of AI for myself because I feel like I'm pretty good at sniffing it out, and I am pretty I'm I'm a like verifier. I'm scared for my parents. I mean, I'm scared about that too. Yes, and so for me, like I know my mom will send me videos that she'll see on social media to share, like, hey, did you know this was happening?

And I'm like, that is AI. Yeah. And it makes me so angry that it's it's not that it's influencing me, like our generation or our kids. It just exactly, and it changes this whole entire demographic, like this entire generation's way of thinking about things.

And I like a perfect example for me was like the Bad Bunny's halftime show. The picture circulating of Bad Bunny wearing a dress was not real. And I've seen trusted or quote unquote trusted members of the community who have posted those pictures and said some derogatory thing about him because he's wearing a dress, which I think that in of itself is bonkers. But let's get through that.

Yes, anyway, but they were sharing these pictures. So then you had other people who feel very passionate about men in dresses jump in, and so it to me it was like the misinformation scares me. Cause I like I said, I can sniff it out. I know it's really I for the most part, I can tell, but my parents can't.

And so it's just skewing the whole mindset of this entire generation. I think I completely agree with you. And I have had to tell my parents as well, like that's AI, or this is not real, or you know, something like that. And it's it is difficult because they're you know, they are from a different generation.

Like there's that's just the reality. Their mediums were different, but it is like it's a distraction as well. It's like two, they're utilizing it in a negative way to generate um divisiveness, to, to bring out it's population control. It's like so, it's so nutty the way I'm like, oh, this is just more marketing in a way for the political landscape that we're in.

And it's trying consistently to divide us. And the only thing that I know about you and I that will forever be true is that we're not trying to divide. No. We're always trying to unify.

And in that way, we are the change maker because we are that's the change that needs to happen. That's the change that's craved because we want to be together. You want to have those pictures, you know, with your parents and with your grandma and like with your daughter. You want to have all of those moments in the living room together where you're not divided by something that is not real and did not happen.

And now you're talking about if it's real or not. Like you have it's a distraction from community, from family, from relationships, and it's causing the divide. Yeah. And that's the part personally that scares me.

And I agree that it's the part that scared you, I think, is what you were saying as well. Is like, I don't want to lose my parents in their, you know, in the last third of their life. Yeah. When I'm in the second third, like I want to be close to them, but like we're where the information and like almost we're the parent, you know, we're like guiding them on what's real and what's not.

And without even maybe Maddie does it to your daughter of like, grandma, that's not real. She thinks everything is AI, though. Like she'll see somebody skydiving and she's like, that's AI. I'm like, no, that actually is true.

Yeah, I have. Yeah. But it's like, how do we, we're like in between those two generations. Yeah.

And it's a lot to manage. And we're entrepreneurs and we're we're trying to do good for the community. You know, when I was little, I remember thinking to myself a lot, United's, we stand, divided, we fall, because that's what is written in, you know, our documents here. Um, and the patriotism that came from like being united and our differences uniting us.

And I've always stood on that. That's something that I remember, especially after 9-11, there was this whole sense of patriotism. Because we as a country, no matter where you came from, you were so proud to be American. You know, we used to sing proud of being American and all that stuff.

And I remember like my like 10, 11-year-old me crying, you know, because I was so passionate about America. I love this place because look how different we all are. And how we're able to unite in grief, and we're able to unite also in a sense of community. And I think that's uh always just I honestly, I think that was just such a traumatic moment in my life that that's probably why I am always seeking community.

It's just that sense of we united, we stand divided, we fall. And I think, Amanda, you're a lot like me that we see the best in people until proven wrong. Yeah. Right.

Like I will give everybody the benefit until proven wrong. And I will show up for you if you show up for me. Like we, I'm right there. I'm your girl.

Well, we ride a don. But there's something to be said about people who are, you know, a little bit more skeptical too. Yeah. So it is hard when we have all these divisive things going on in the world, um, to keep the faith and being united or being the people that are like, let's get together and let's do more of this and more of that.

And we do have to hang on to that. We do. And I I think the one thing that is united and that I I try to not relish on, but I think the way that you just said it has really, really hit me just right is like we're we're currently united in grief. All of us are hurting because we're not as connected to one another, because because there is distraction from our relationships in whatever way.

Um, and I I really do think that we're united in grief right now. And like, how do we get through that? Like as a country or yeah, as a world. And it's like, how do we get through that?

And it is through community spaces, and it is through how do we generate the openness and the vulnerability every single time, even after you've been let down, like the amount of times I've been hurt because my heart was so open, you know. Like I've gotten through every single one of those. I'll get through the next one. But if you get your heart hurt by anyone, platonic love, romantic love, across the board, family, yeah, family love.

Like it just is like you don't always know how to recover from that. And you do block people off. And that's where some of that distraction mechanism. The defense of it all.

And I'm just like, my defense is to continue to be more of myself and more of, you know, share through the joy and share through the rest and share, share in the resistance of this hierarchical structure that I'm not interested in being a part of. I think that's the thing is like that shearing. But it's hard to get up every day and do it when it literally I can't watch every single thing or I'm I can't be caught up with everything. And I just think that that is one of the I'm definitely like interested in in it, but I can't let every single thing that I can't change.

You have to be able to change what you can change, and that's what we do in our that's why we are changemakers. We change what we can. But I think there's something you just touched on it, to continue to show up. And it is in your nature to continue to show up.

It is in my nature to continue to show up. And it doesn't matter if one day I'm having an off day and I say, oh, this world's gonna go to crap. Like, okay, whatever, I had an off day. But realistically, I know I'm gonna show up.

I know I'm gonna continue. I know I'm still gonna be positive. This is just, it's just who I am. That's how I've been wired since I was born.

It's it's not going to change because of what's going on. And it's it's for some people, the defense mechanism is to deflect and to guard themselves and say, I don't want to trust people, I don't want to trust governments, or I don't want to trust certain things. But then there's that whole other group of people that's like, that's okay. We don't like the way it is, but we're gonna change it.

And there's hope. There's hope that it's gonna be okay. Like, I generally have hope that this country is going to be okay. I believe that whatever's going on is going to get better.

I don't know when, I don't know how. I just believe that there are more people trying to do good than people trying to do bad. I think that the good outweighs the bad. I think that well, and it's like cyclical, you know.

We go through when it gets too far one side, it goes back to the other side. Like the pendulum swings, you know, both ways. And it's just like, how do we keep it in the middle so that everybody can be um as free as they want to be? Yeah, think of pre-civil rights movement.

Yeah. I'm sure people were like, this country's never gonna get better. Never gonna do anything, of course. I'm just gonna have to move to another country to make it.

They had less understanding of who's who was all, you know, fighting that they maybe weren't alone in that fight. So at least we have we have the connective social media to be like, you know, none of us are alone in the fight. And it's like, how do we create the next system? That to me, I used to like want to burn the patriarchy.

I'm like, mah, and I'm like, no, they're they're totally taking it. We can coexist to a certain extent. You know, we can't. And again, it's just hierarchy, it's just who's on top, and that's that's the power grab that I'm just like, you know what, that's not my thing to break down.

It's not one, I think it's gonna happen to itself. You know, it's like the Barbie movie where they like all go to Mojo, Dojo Casa house or whatever. But it's like there, it's not men, women, it's hierarchy that I have an issue with. Yes, and that can happen if it happens in women, it happens.

It happens in men. And that's what I'm trying to say is like instead of burning hierarchy with patriarchy, we need to open ourselves to what matriarchy is. And in matriarchal systems, we center the future, centering the future and surrounding it and then adding what we can add and not expecting ourselves to add things that we can't add to the center of the pile. And when the future is centered, when the children are centered, when the marginalized are centered, and we each give to that middle, the future is what matters.

And we all want to be thinking about future. And in a hierarchical structure where it's like one person on top and then it goes down the line in this pyramid, you can't see anything good, like the um, you can't see anything uh like beyond the top. But like what's the future? It's the person at the top, but what the circle does and putting it into the middle is everybody benefits from that future and everybody can see the future together.

And if we can't see it, then we don't know how to interact with it. So that's what I'm trying to do is have a matriarchal system which is circular centering the future. And if the more we can talk about that, the more we can get that out there, that's how we create the future, I think, is that that centers the future. Hey moneymaker, if you're listening right now and thinking, wow, I love shopping woman-owned.

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I love it here. So beautiful. Love the Delphi and Dick. Gorgeous.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Women forever. Love us.

Bye. I was gonna say, um, because you touch on hierarchy and I think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And I think the number one need that every human has is safety. Yeah.

Right. And I think of you know the powerful statement that a city that's safe for women, it's a city that's safe for all. I think that just has so much to do with what you're saying. If we center, you know, centering women is beneficial because it it does include the marginalized, including includes, you know, disabilities.

It does include it, it's just a different way. It's the rose colored glasses. Yeah. Right.

And so it's the way to see like across the table versus up the stairs. You know, it's like exactly yeah. And when you can see everyone that is your um potentially your opponent, you know, if you think about that, if you can see all of your opponents, then you know what you're dealing with. But if you can't see them because they're so high up, you know, on some throne somewhere, it's like you just can't humanize that.

And so if you can see across the table from someone, you're like, oh, I'm safe because I know I know who that person is and they're on the same level as me. Well and that's interesting. Safety. I have a theory.

Yeah. Okay. And I don't know if this is my theory or maybe I read this somewhere a long time ago and I've made it into my own thing. Adopted it.

Adapted it. But one of them is okay so women and men are so different because I think naturally in our biology we're just different human beings. Yeah. Um male and female from the beginning of times have always gravitated towards certain roles and women have always been the caretakers, the nurturers, the community leaders and men have always been the hunters, the food, right?

The gatherers go out and use their strength for prov to provide. And as time evolves, I feel like we still gravitate towards those roles because naturally that's just instinctual. I think even if you're not a motherly nature there's still that nurturing in women. I think men too there's still that need to provide or that sometimes it is society that imposes that on you.

But I do think if you look back at history those roles have always been a constant right a cons a consistent and so I think that relates to the way we do business and the way we lead because men lead in a more territorial way. They are like this is my business they lead more with the competition. They lead more with guard right like I have if I don't guard this then I cannot provide or if I don't there's no guarantee. Correct right or if I don't that sense of competition I think a lot of times come from that.

Like if you're looking back at a hunter Yeah it feels scarce if you know if if I don't catch this animal then I'm not gonna eat right I'm not gonna feed my family. Correct. And often they would you know leave women in situations that were the safest for them because women are are the future women birth the future and so we have to consider women at the center of this matriarchal structure because it is the future. So if we they would have us stay in a in a hut or whatever with a fire with whatever close to where they knew we were because in a way I mean men aren't birthing children and of course we're talking about very binary things right now.

But men were in a way don't take this the wrong way but more dispensable which is why they were sent to war which is why because if we didn't protect the womb you know to generate the future then ourselves as a species would be gone. Correct. So that made a lot of sense but they also regarded women as goddesses and as as um this thing worth protecting and in so much of what we've been talking about because of the divisiveness of of whatever you want to call it like we have not because we have enough people in the world we're not regarded as the same thing worth protecting and now the hierarchy feels very like shifted.

If we have so much so many people there's literally men out there that say like men are women are just the people that people come out of this this like one uh dude said that and literally made me want to throw up he was a pastor and he's teaching this to his entire uh the flock whatever but it's like we used to regard life in that way and women's lives in that way as that's part of the reason because we are the life givers that the womb is what we're protecting. The future is what we're protecting and that's where matriarchy was by sending the men out to be the hunters.

And it's it's and it's like where does that change when you have the information age and we're not going out doing that thing anymore. Well what I think it's so special and again this is very binary but I think it's special because women naturally in business have that sense of community and nurture and you see it so much more. And so there's still that competition but I think it's so much easier for women to naturally walk in the room with other business owners in the same space as them and connect and say let me help you you can help me than I think men.

And it just kind of depends. I've always grown up in a very male dominated corporate America where my voice is very small and the male voice is very loud. And there was rarely the examples that I had there was not a lot of um collaboration there was a lot of competition of who showed the best KPIs or who had the best profit or numbers or who could impact this change and it was measured. But then when you get women in the room I think so many powerful things can happen and back to what you said about putting everybody at the table it is everybody.

And it's not a binary statement it's everybody when you can see everybody and what they bring and you're it's just not as it's not it's more human it's less scary or less outside of your norm or whatever if you can put it at the same table put all of us at the same table you can understand the human experience from each person. Yeah. Yeah and I think it's really interesting what we've been able to unlock and discover and I just I love it. I love you I love the change that we're making you can probably hear the train tracks by y'all we're in Shelby Park Louisville but I think it's really fun because you know Nishelley and I just want to kind of ooh it's a big train.

She's a sassy train but I think it's really cool because Nishelle and I are both working on um really pulling um you know Shelby Park to the forefront and it's such a cool place. It's such a cool place and that's you know where Sweet Colada is located. There's so many amazing walkable um businesses and of course woman owned wallet focuses on the woman owned businesses because as we know we're centering the future and so women in decision making positions put up to 90% of their income back into their local community.

So that's why we center it and so if we kind of like band together and then like we're gonna make a new map that's gonna be over in Shelby Park like the one that we had in Nulu area and we watch those businesses grow from less than 30 woman owned businesses to now I just finished the map there's 54 woman owned businesses in the last five to six years. And so I just think that if we can really lift up all of these different communities and to your point kind of have it to where you know you know where to go for community and you know how who's in your community and how to send your people over there because it's so cool.

Like you can get those community recommendations from business owners when we are in a collaborative state because it does benefit the entire neighborhood every single time someone learns about Sweet Colada or Shelby Park or Logan Street Market or any of them. I love it here. It benefits everyone when they go it's hard to go to a new neighborhood sometimes especially as a little billion we're very you know segmented and segregated a lot of times and it's just like how do we engage with these new things and you're creating that space and the new you know in a generally um newish area where it's like it's coming to life and I know that it's been growing and growing and I'm obsessed with it.

But it's just like having that community space to start having that living room to have that you know cafecito then having that community and getting them comfortable coming to one place, they're gonna be comfortable coming to all of the places in this neighborhood now. And like that's just a beautiful change making thing that I know you're doing. I feel like Shelby Park is a little incubator. Yeah it's a little incubator of because I've met so many people in the area who are thinking of starting a business or planning on starting a business and I think from a financial standpoint the barriers of entry are a little bit easier at Shelby Park than maybe other neighborhoods in Louisville because once you know even with Nulu like you price yourself out SS.

Yes but at the same time I do feel like the businesses that do come to the area are so accepted by the community that is here. It's beautiful and when I opened my doors the first people that started coming in were the neighbors. The neighbors would walk in on the street walking their dogs all you know all around the neighborhood and they would support my business and still to this day they support my business and then a lot of the church goers on Sundays a lot of the churches around here we have you know we have some historical you know churches in the neighborhood would start coming after service on Sundays and so much so that we started going to church right here in Shelby Park.

I was like oh my God these people are cool like they come and support my business and they have great conversation and they bring their family so we started going to one of the churches in the neighborhood because we felt such a sense of community here more so than we did at home. Yeah where we live um but my business would not be afloat if it weren't for the neighbors that even when we had that snow we were snowed in the only way really to get here was by foot and there's no parking outside because we were snowed completely and it was people that were having taken their dogs out and you know walk walk around that would come in and support our business and so we're so grateful for the Shelby Park it's it's an accepting feeling it's feels so you know if you walk into space and you're accepted and you're loved it's really special it changes how you it changes how you move in that space.

So to come and how you move outside of it. Yeah so to come to Shelby Park and feel so accepted and welcomed that changed the dynamic a lot for us there was a lot less of me focusing on how to get people to buy in and more focusing on how to show up more authentically and so when I look at people who think about growing their I I wish all my friends were my neighbors like come on please open a storefront right next to me. That'd be so great Amanda there's a really cute one across the street come on do I dream about it yes but do I also need a little break?

Yes but I just yeah I'm I've been trying to send so many people this way and I there's some cool things coming there are some really cool things coming I know two restaurants opening pretty soon in Shelby Park I know on Shelby Street there's a couple of different things popping up around the place and so and I know a lot of amazing people like you that are trying to highlight the history trying to highlight the neighborhoods trying to just pay tribute to what's made this place so special.

And there are generations on generations that have made Shelby Park their home in Smoketown for so long before you and I were even here or so it is so special to honor that and continue to celebrate all of what it is. And in your you know kind of going back to the beginning of our conversation it's like the preserving of it while there is like new growth like how do we preserve the neighborhood and appreciate the history and the culture and you know just move it forward in in whatever modern way it needs to move forward but how do we consider to or can be considerate of history and culture and preservation at the same time while you know while it grows and while the new business owners and incubate start over here and stuff shout out to Logan Street Market.

Yeah they're really got a lot of it kind of going they did and and they're an they're an actual incubate like they actually did grow yeah and want small businesses just you know be able to grow from there and open up their own brick and mortar or you know grow into whatever they want to grow into but Logan Street Market has been an anchor here I remember in 20 back in 2020 my first time coming to Logan Street Market and I thought it was so special but I remember this whole neighborhood being so foreign because I hadn't I wasn't even from here at that point.

I was just visiting from out of town and I'm like gosh there's a lot of industrial like there's a lot of construction or like buildings that look like they've been here for a long time and I didn't see a lot of movement but I saw Logan Street Market and now you have you know Focal and La Pana down the street just doing great things. We were talking to my friends Vic and Christian when they left Barstown Road and they were looking for a new location at that time I was looking for a cafe and they're like Logan Street's where it's next Logan Street's where we're going and they they open there and shout out to the toassies of the world that have been holding it down and the the idle wild Blair's been there for I think she said 10 years you know so can't wait to get out of the butterfly garden.

Oh my god you haven't been yeah I have been a while I want to go back I should say I know she's building something special for this season and she's getting ready to open soon so it's so special yeah well we'll get it all together for y'all and you can just keep checking out Shelby Park and checking out Logan Street market well the whole Logan Street all Shelby Street and everything too that's such a beautiful community it's really well really easily connected to Broadway. So if you're used to coming down Broadway just make sure you take a take a little right take a little right into Smoketown or or I guess it depends on which way you're coming from but I was coming from like downtown or on Shelby.

It's like a mile and a half from New York so close to everything. So close. So definitely come down and check it out and really I'm just I'm just so grateful because this feels like my hub kind of to come to in uh Shelby Park. So I just appreciate you so much.

And before we kind of fully wrap up the my goal is always to put money in the wallets of women by allowing our listeners to know how to follow you and check you out. So uh Nishelle how can they put money into your wallet? How can they follow you? How can they um come get a beautiful drink or pastry?

So Sweet Colada you can follow us on Instagram at sweet colada or Facebook or TikTok and also your website sweetcolottaky.com we have cafecitos we're open seven days a week we offer free delivery so our prices are not jacked up on Uber Eats and DoorDashed or just regular across the board on our website. You can we offer delivery catering and mobile coffee pop-up bars too more than happy to go if you can't come here I'll go to you too. Yeah she'll go so she was set up um a Galantine Sbash this year and at the Women's Business Center of Kentucky has strong women strong coffee and you gave the coffee for that I remember so yeah definitely hire her put money into her wallet because as we know we do good things when we have money so thank you so much for coming on the punk thank you I really appreciate you and moneymakers until next time go out there and make that money if you want to put more money into the wallets of women like we do then check out our website thewomanownedwallet.

com and we can't wait to continue the conversation on our social media so definitely follow us on our Instagram at womanowned.