Game Day

If you could sell a product every person on earth wants, you’d have a winning business. Right? So - other than a phone upgrade - what does nearly every single person on earth want?

Love. And happiness.

That’s the product platforms like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and other online dating services are selling.

According to the latest numbers out there, 5% of people on Hinge find a partner. It’s about 13% on Bumble. Tinder leads the pack with just under 30%. In other words, somewhere between 70 and 95% of people on dating apps don’t find a partner. So, is there another business model that can more successfully package and sell love and happiness? Apparently, yes, there is. It’s been around a long time and exists in various forms in lots of different cultures and countries. It’s called matchmaking.

New Orleanian Ann Parnes is a matchmaker. We met Ann back in 2020, during Covid when very few of us were going on dates and when she had a company called Match Made in NOLA. As the name implies, it was a local matchmaking business. Today Ann has a nationwide matchmaking business, called After Hello.

Okay, so you’ve met the love of your life. Now what? If you’re like most people, you’re going to put a ring on it. Along with psychological adjustment you’re going to have to make to commitment, you’re also going to have to solve the real-world problem of where exactly you’re going to put on a ring on it. And how you’re going to celebrate the biggest day of your life.

You need a wedding and a reception. Who do you turn to for advice about that? Well, how about somebody name Van Vrancken? The Van Vrancken family have been hosting brides and grooms at The Balcony Ballroom for 45 years. Since 1979 they’ve married 10,000 couples!

The Balcony Ballroom is currently owned and run by a second generation of Van Vranckens. One of them is Vanessa. Before joining the family business in 2011, Vanessa spent 16 years in New York as an actress. She’s a member of the Screen Actors Guild and its live theater equivalent, Actors’ Equity.

Whether you manage a single Chuck E Cheese franchise or you’re CEO of Apple, everybody running a business is doing pretty much the same thing – managing people, solving problems, and trying to make a profit.

It’s safe to say that most people with a business would also like to accomplish something else, something less tangible. And that is, in some way, make the world a better place. Business owners define that in all kinds of ways. For some it’s simply being able to employ people and give them an income. For others it’s controlling waste and preserving the environment.

There’s a wide range of contributions a business can make to the world. That certainly includes adding to the sum total of human happiness – which is what you do when you spend your professional life helping people find love, and get married. It’s rare to find businesses where creating and celebrating love and happiness is front and center.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Orleans is a city of mysteries. Tourists, fascinated by ghosts and grandeur, learn about them on French Quarter walking tours. For those of us who live here, there are other mysteries. Like, “Why am I paying so much in property tax and my street still has massive potholes?”

Here’s another New Orleans mystery that may have crossed your mind - when you’re driving down Tchoupitoulas Street. “What goes on behind that floodwall?” The Port of New Orleans is one of the most vital strands of the city’s economy, but to the average New Orleanian it’s the least visible.

And if you’re driving around New Orleans, at some point you inevitably find yourself stopped, waiting for a train to go by. On those occasions, a number of questions may cross your mind. Like, “How long have I been sitting here?” “Why is this train so long?” And “What the heck is in all these train cars anyway?”

Well, good news! Today’s the day we solve all of these mysteries about the port and the trains, courtesy of Brandy Christian, President and CEO of the Port of New Orleans and New Orleans Public Belt Railroad.

Here’s another difference between being a tourist and a resident of New Orleans. If you’re a tourist, you go shopping on Canal Street. If you live here, there’s a good chance you don’t. Maybe you haven’t even driven down Canal Street in a while. If that’s the case, let me reassure you about something: Rubensteins men’s clothing and shoe store is still on the corner of Canal Street and St Charles Avenue. Just as it has been since 1924.

Which brings us to the second New Orleans mystery we’re going to unravel here. And that is, with the radical shift in New Orleanians’ shopping habits, the advent of e-commerce, and the consistent decline in formal men’s fashion, how does Rubenstein’s stay in business? That mystery is unraveled by owner and General Manager of Rubensteins, Kenny Rubenstein.

To anybody who doesn’t live in New Orleans, it might seem strange to draw any kind of comparison between a port, a railroad, and a menswear store. But the sound of a train whistle blowing from somewhere near the river on a foggy morning, tugs pushing barges on the Mississippi, and the Krewe of Rex rolling by Rubenstein’s as the Mardi Gras parade makes the turn from St Charles Avenue onto Canal Street are all equally iconic New Orleans moments.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you Google “demolition videos” you’ll find a seemingly unlimited number of videos of commercial buildings being imploded, and bulldozers mowing down houses.

99% of these videos are posted with gleeful pride. They’re testament to growth and progress. Wiping old buildings off the face of the earth to make way for newer, bigger, and better buildings.

Most cities in America regard this kind of change as positive. That is not how we define progress in New Orleans. Here, a house can be riddled with termites, or a commercial building poisoned by asbestos, and the only conversations we have are about how to save these buildings.

Our desire to save our houses, shops and commercial buildings means that people who work in construction here have to develop special skills. We expect a renovated or restored house to have all the benefits of new construction, but still look like a traditional New Orleans home. We’re not surprised when a new restaurant or coffee shop looks architecturally hip and modern, but retains the bones of its 19th century origins.  

You don’t find those types of construction skills just anywhere. They are, however, the mainstay of Ryan Mayer's Mayer Building Company. Mayer Building Company is responsible for an extensive portfolio of local commercial construction that includes cafes, stores, schools, office buildings, and hospitals.

It’s not like every building in New Orleans was originally fabulous and just needs a dose of TLC to be restored. We have our share of office buildings filled with asbestos, abandoned gas stations with buried storage tanks leaking oil into the soil, and homes that behind the sheetrock are Petrie dishes of mold.

How do you deal with construction and real estate issues like this? And when you do deal with them, how do you stay compliant with all the health, safety, and even geological requirements mandated by federal, state, and local regulations?

Well, one way of taking care of all of these issues is to turn to a local environmental consultancy company called Leaaf Environmental. Leaaf's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Marketing Officer is Jesse Hoppes. 

We hear a lot these days about “silos.” How we’re living in our own self-selected bubbles, getting our news and information from sources that just reinforce what we already believe.

For a lot of us that’s true.

But the one thing we can’t silo is the actual real physical world we live in.

Here in New Orleans, although we have our political differences about how to achieve it, we tend to agree on what our city should look like.

And we also agree that the mostly unseen environment beneath the buildings we’re working to preserve should be maintained in a way that promotes the health and longevity of both the city and its citizens. Ryan Mayer's and Jesse Hoppes' professional lives are dedicated to each of these respective goals.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in 1923, a guy in Norfolk Virginia called T. Parker Host founded a company. He called it, T. Parker Host.

100 years later, in 2023, the company relocated the bulk of their operations to Jefferson Parish to what used to be known as The Avondale Shipyards and re-named it, Avondale Global Gateway.

The new name is no exaggeration. It is now, in fact, a global gateway. The facility is set up kind of like a food court, with individual vendors operating independent dock and shipping-related businesses.

Host employs around 450 people. Most of them here in Louisiana.

What do all these folks do? Well, when a ship ties up at Avondale - or any one of 93 ports in the US - Host takes care of everything - from the legal paperwork and logistics of getting cargo off the ship, to repairs and maintenance, restocking groceries, crew changes, and the hundred-and-one other things an international business and floating community needs.

The Chief Financial Officer at T. Parker Host is Matthew Mancheski.

You can find a similar food-court style arrangement of businesses at the other side of New Orleans, out in the east, at Michoud. That’s the home of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility where NASA is building rockets that will take astronauts to the moon and mars.

It’s also home to a bunch of other space-related businesses, among them, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and a company called Vivace.

Vivace is an aerospace company that designs and manufactures cryogenic propellant tanks. They make two kinds of tanks – small ones and big ones. The small ones are used on space vehicles, satellites, rockets, and some missiles. The big ones are the structures used to build space stations.

The General Manager of Vivace is Vaughan Hart.

All local business stories are not created equal. There are the high-flying tech stories, about someone who dreams up a new app that changes everything. Like Hampr, the Uber of laundry. There are the more prosaic but nonetheless fascinating success stories like Fat Boys’ Pizza who make the world’s biggest pizza, created right here in Metairie. And then there are truly stupendous stories of local companies that most of us have probably never heard of but who are doing extraordinary and impressive things.

Companies like 100-year-old T. Parker Host that plays a vital role in international shipping, and Vivace, a relatively new company that is playing an integral part in mankind’s future in space.

Matthew Mancheski and Vaughan Hart and their comapnies are helping define New Orleans’ and Louisiana’s 21st Century economy. 

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Perception and reality can sometimes be two different things. When it comes to money, that can be a problem.

You’ve probably had this happen: you’re thinking you’ve had a pretty good month, then you get your credit card bill and you get an unpleasant surprise. Somehow, you’d totally forgotten this was the month the dishwasher broke, you had to take your dog to the emergency vet, and you’re not doing nearly as well financially as you were thinking just 5 minutes ago.

The same kind of thing can happen with a business. When you’re running a restaurant, even a minimal gap between financial perception and reality can spell serious trouble.

Restaurants run on small profit margins – often as little as 2%. So, staying informed about multiple expenses like food, laundry, staff, and invoices, as well as knowing how you’re doing day to day with multiple revenue streams like reservations, delivery, and your bar program, is essential for staying in business.

But whether you’re a chef, or you run a restaurant because you love hospitality, collecting and analyzing data is probably not high on the list of things you enjoy, or are good at. That’s why Daniel Meth created an AI tool for restaurants that does all that. It’s called Ingest.

Owning a restaurant or a coffee shop is one of those aspirational dreams people sometimes muse about. However, most of us don’t dream about working in a restaurant or coffee shop. Being a server, a barista, or working in a kitchen is not most people’s idea of having made it.

But for some of the folks who work at Dragonfly Café on Jackson Avenue, getting to do this kind of work provides coveted access to a regular life most of us take for granted.

Dragonfly Café is part of Raphael Village, an organization dedicated to differently-abled adults. The café provides internships for members of The Guild, an adult day program that offers vocational and post-secondary educational opportunities to differently-abled adults. Guild members interning at Dragonfly Café learn vocational skills that can lead to work in the food and service industries, both in the front and back of house.

The founder and Executive Director of Raphael Village is Jackie Case.

Even as leaps in technology like Daniel's AI tool push us ever-closer to an error-free, perfect world, it’s work like Jackie is doing at Raphael Village that reminds us it’s our imperfections that make us human.

Efficiency and profit are important. But so too is leading a purposeful and enriching life. Both ends of that scale are equally essential. Daniel and Jackie's contributions from both ends of the scale taken together, literally create a work-life balance.  

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every creature on earth is concerned with his or her appearance.

I use the pronouns “his” or “her” intentionally, because in most species this attention to appearance is connected to attracting a mate for procreation. 

For the human species, things are different.

Our interest in our appearance doesn’t need to be connected to mating, or even dating. It can be a form of artistic or self-expression. And there are whole industries - from hair dye to health diets - to help us out.

The connection between health and beauty is an age-old pursuit of balance between the art of appearance and science of health. It seems all throughout human history we’ve augmented our appearance with products distilled from nature.

In 69 BC, Cleopatra bathed in milk and honey. In the 1700’s, Marie Antoinette used a face mask made of white wine and crushed strawberries. Today, two Romanian women, Raluca Giurgiutiu and Diana Morari, have a body and skincare company called Madonna Lily that uses all natural, ethically sourced and sustainable ingredients.

You can find Madonna Lily’s products online, in stores, and wholesale via Faire. The company is based in New Orleans.

Humans have a way to present themselves to other humans in a way most species do not. With clothes. Clothes probably say as much about us as anything.

Although we are continually redefining what is fashionable and what isn’t, the one constant we all seem to agree on is, clothes ought to be clean, not dirty. So, given that almost every single human wants to look good in clean clothes, the art and science of keeping clothes looking good and clean is an indispensable industry.

Nobody in New Orleans knows that better than Dale Velez. Dale is the current co-owner of Young’s Dry Cleaning, a family-owned business that’s been cleaning clothes for New Orleanians for over 8 decades.

Back in the mid 1980’s there was an ad campaign for haircare products in which the owner of the company, Vidal Sassoon said, “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.”

That sentiment could easily apply to both Dale and Raluca's companies.

When someone compliments us by saying “You’re looking great” or “I love your shirt,” the first thing we think of to say in response might not be, “I’m using a new face cleaning product,” or “I just had this shirt cleaned and pressed,” but that might actually be what our complimentary friends are noticing.

Dale is keeping a business running successfully into its 8th decade and on the other end of the spectrum Raluca has successfuly navigated her business through its challenging first few years.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at istneworleans.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s more to life than money. That’s true. In some circles it’s become fashionable to talk about the goal of business as being about more than single-mindedly making money. Ok, that’s true too. But it’s worth noting that although money can’t buy you happiness, poverty can’t buy you anything.

I stole that witty observation from a meme on Facebook, but it does point up a basic truth: whatever else you’re trying to achieve, you can’t start, run, or grow a business without money.

When you hear terms like “Venture Capital,” and “Series A Funding” you may find your eyes glazing over and your attention wandering, but these are just various ways of saying “money.” And if you have a local business here in New Orleans it can be hard to get your hands on enough of it to compete with businesses in capital-rich environments, like Silicon Valley.

My guests on Out to Lunch today are both in the business of funding local businesses.

Caroline Crumley is an investor at Benson Capital Partners, a venture capital firm founded by Gayle Benson, best known as the owner of the Saints football team and the Pelicans basketball team.

Van Hamilton Barbeau is Vice President of Evangeline Securities, a firm that facilitates mergers and acquisitions and capital raising services through their offices in New Orleans, Lafayette, and Boston, Massachusetts.

A lot of us have a love/hate relationship with money. We love having it, but we don’t love the effort, time, and risks we often have to take to get a hold of it.

Two wealthy and successful entrepreneurs in the 20th century, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, famously said, “Money can’t buy me love.” But like love, if money was easy to get and to keep, it wouldn’t be as highly prized.

Where you find love is a topic for a different podcast, but if you have a business in Louisiana there are places where you can find money. Not least among them, Benson Capital Partners and Evangeline Securities. As  investors and experts, Caroline and Van are providing literally invaluable tools and products for the development and growth of local businesses.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a good deal of human history, if you wanted something done you had to do it yourself.

As societies became more stratified, we developed division of labor. Today, things are so specialized people over 60 comment this current generation can’t do anything for themselves.

Despite the fact that kids are writing code that powers the platforms these commenters are posting on, they nonetheless grumble that kids can’t read cursive. And, pointing at the proliferation of coffee shops, they complain, “Kids today can’t even make a cup of coffee!”

John Puckett may not subscribe to all of that, but John does have a coffee shop in Uptown New Orleans where he won’t make you a cup of coffee.

Green Beans

The Current Crop Roasting Shop on Magazine Street doesn’t sell cups of coffee. It only sells coffee beans. And what’s more, you can’t even take these coffee beans home and make yourself a pot of coffee. Because they’re green beans.

What you can do at Current Crop Roasting Shop is, roast the beans yourself. You pick the beans you like from a wide selection, and you use one of John’s coffee roasting machines to roast ‘em the way you like ‘em.

Onesie

Of course, even if you’re the handiest DIY person on earth, you can’t make everything yourself. Though Celia Isabel is doing a pretty good job of making a bunch of it. Celia’s company, NOLA Tawk makes home goods, gifts, tabletop decorations, pet accessories, and children’s clothing. NOLA Tawk’s top-selling items are children’s sleepwear and onesies.

They make all their products here in New Orleans. They sell some directly to consumers online, but mostly they wholesale them to stores and sellers across the country.

Onesie Green Beans

It’s nice to do something for somebody else. Giving someone a birthday or housewarming present, or buying a child a pair of pajamas - makes you feel good. On the other hand, it’s nice to do something for yourself. Like indulging your appreciation of coffee by roasting your own coffee beans.

There aren’t too many conversations that cover the ground between the two poles of human behavior – indulgence and altruism - represented by coffee beans and onesies.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’d been living in the 1800’s you might have found yourself sitting at a lunch table asking your friends, “What are y’all talking about? What is “tennis”?”

Today you’re more likely to ask, “What is pickleball?”

Pickleball

Like tennis, pickleball is played on a court with a net. The ball is a kind of wiffleball. And instead of a racket, a pickleball bat looks like a big ping-pong bat.

Pickleball is, reportedly, the world’s fastest growing sport. In 2021 there were 5 million players. By 2023 there were over 36 million. It’s growing about 300% a year.

Here in New Orleans, you can play pickleball at The Exchange Pickleball and Bar. Yes, because it’s New Orleans, it’s a sports complex with a bar. The Exchange - off of Tchoupitoulas Street, near Walmart - is a $3m development that opened in August 2023. And, like pickleball itself, it was an instant success.

The developer and owner of The Exchange Pickleball and Bar is Renee Melchiode.

Sailing

Sailing started out as a means of survival. To get to where the fish are. Or to migrate to other lands. Now, like pickleball, sailing is a pastime.

But getting out onto the ocean, or even Lake Pontchartrain, requires a financial commitment greater than a couple of pickleball bats.

Judging by the number of boats at South Shore Harbor Marina and The Southern Yacht Club, there are plenty of New Orleanians with enough discretionary income to get themselves out on the water. 

Walking around these moorings you might wonder, “Where do all these boats come from?” One answer to that question is Murray Yacht Sales. The boat brokerage was founded in 1974 by Tim Murray. Tim’s son, Stanton, took over the business in the early 1990’s, and today Murray Yacht Sales has brokerages in New Orleans, Houston, and St Petersburg Florida.

Beyond New Orleans, Murray Yacht Sales’ brokers, boats and clients are scattered across the Gulf South, in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

PIckleball Sailing

if you’ll excuse the irony, it’s generally unwise to make generalizations. Especially about people. But it's probably safe to bet that almost everybody reading this has either just put their phone down, is just about to pick it up, or maybe you have it in your hand right now.

There’s something liberating about an activity that gets us away from our screens,  puts us firmly in the real world, and requires a combination of 100% physical exertion and mental focus. Although they’re very different, sailing and pickleball are both in this category.

We can thank Renee for going out on a limb and taking a serious financial risk to bring the fun of pickleball to New Orleans, and in a lifetime dedicated to sailing Stanton's business continues to be a gateway to joy for countless thousands, in New Orleans and across the Gulf South.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We hear a lot about “polarization” these days. And for good reason. It impacts all of us.

There are two types of polarization: political and financial. You can probably make a case they’re related, but we’re talking about the financial variety.

Most conversations about financial polarization tend to take the same shape. They begin with the observation that more wealth is becoming concentrated in fewer hands. Among the reasons, they say, are – big companies growing bigger through mergers and acquisitions; and systemic inequalities in the accumulation of personal wealth. The conversation typically continues with a description of how things are getting worse over time. As the financial poles move further apart, they’re pulling most of us toward the direction of declining spending power. Conversations about financial polarization tend to end with the same conclusion: there’s somewhere between “not-much” and “absolutely nothing” we can do about it.

Tamara Prosper and Daniela Rivero-Bryant don’t buy that conclusion. The interesting thing about Tamara and Daniela is, they’re not making academic observations about economic theory. They’re actually doing things in the real world to spread the wealth.

Tamara is Loan Steward at Cooperation New Orleans.

Cooperation New Orleans is an organization that develops worker-owned cooperatives.

A worker-owned cooperative is a business that is owned by the employees who work there. Rather than a single owner or partners reaping the rewards of the company’s profits - and other advantages of owning a company, like tax breaks – those benefits are shared by all of the employee-owners.

According to a 2021 study, at that time there were 612 worker cooperatives in the US. When we get more updated statistics the expectation is that the number of cooperatives will have risen dramatically over the last few years. They’re certainly catching fire in New Orleans.

Daniela Rivero-Bryant is co-founder and COO at Reimagine Development Partners. They’re property developers. And as their name suggests, they’re reimagining what property development looks like.

Like other developers, Reimagine takes advantage of the Federal Historic Tax Program. But, unlike other developers, Reimagine replaces the lender – normally an institution like a bank - with a crowdfunding model. In this way, members of the local community chip in five to ten thousand dollars and become investors in the kind of property development deal normally reserved for financial institutions or wealthy investors. So, regular folks get access to the kind of potential profit, and the immediate real-world tax advantages, normally only available to property developers.

Reimagine Development Partners’ focus is on smaller projects in rural areas. The kind of developments that are too small for regular investor syndicators, but that have a big impact on a local community.

In any conversation about the direction of the over-all economy, it’s worth making the point that Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook, and every other CEO with a giant income, live in the same world we do. If we’re not doing well, their businesses are not doing well either.

So, an economy that’s on a polarizing trend - where more of us have increasingly less wealth and spending power – benefits nobody.

You won’t find an economist in the US who disagrees with the notion that a strong and expanding middle class is better for everybody. You’ll also have difficulty finding an economist who can tell you step-by-step how to actually reverse polarization and expand the middle class.

But thisis exactly what Daniela and Tamara are both in the process of actually doing. It’s remarkable that they’re both in New Orleans. The work they’re doing is impressive and potentially has enormous impact.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from htis show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworelans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.