Transcript
WEBVTT
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Welcome to Topsail Insider, where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the greater Topsail area of North Carolina.
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Coming up today, we're talking to Garrett and Brandy Shaver.
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They are just the coolest couple behind Salt Marsh Market.
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It's a real favorite for locals and visitors alike.
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Just check out their reviews.
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They're in Surf City, north Carolina.
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This truly delightful little grocery store is packed with specialty foods and gift items, freshly baked goods and a cozy bar serving beer, wine and their amazing shakes and wine slushies.
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We'll explore the array of products they offer today on Topsail Insider.
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Experience a new level of luxury on Topsail Island at Saltwater Suites in Surf City, north Carolina.
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With no nightly minimum, you can enjoy short getaways or an extended stay.
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Each suite features luxury bedding, full kitchens with dining tables and dishwashers, and all suites other than the three ADA suites have full-size washers and dryers.
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And don't forget about those beautiful ocean views.
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24-7.
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Self-check-in provides a hassle-free and seamless experience.
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Saltwater Suites is the perfect choice for your next beach getaway.
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Book your next Topsail visit at saltwatertopsailcom or call 910-886-4818.
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Saltwater Suites Topsail Island's premier luxury hospitality experience.
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Come on out to Surf City Line for the best made-from-scratch beach and bowls on Topsail Island.
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Treat yourself to their delicious bowls with shrimp, steak, fish, chicken or pork, or enjoy their peel-and-eat shrimp beach break salads and more.
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They offer a full bar serving handcrafted cocktails, incredible margaritas and they proudly serve North Carolina craft beer.
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The line boasts the biggest deck on the island with three levels for listening to live music, relaxing in the sun, or head on up to the top deck to enjoy your meal with ocean views.
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Visit SurfCityLineNCcom for their full menus.
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The best service and beach vibes on the island await you at 2112 north new river drive.
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Whether you're a local or visiting from out of town, celebrating a special occasion or just soaking up the sun with family and friends, it's always a great time at surf city City line.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Topsail Insider.
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My name is Krista and I am your host.
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Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Garrett and Brandy Shaver.
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They are the owners of Salt Marsh Market.
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Salt Marsh Market is located in the popular Triton Village Shopping Center and that's on Charlie Medlin Drive in Surf City, north Carolina.
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Garrett and Brandy, thank you so much for joining me today.
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Thank you for having us, thank you for having us.
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You offer a lot at your store.
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You've filled it with such an amazing array of products, so we're going to talk about all of those, but for now, for anyone who doesn't know the Salt Marsh Market, give me just an overview of what your store is about and tell me what makes it different from all the others.
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Well, first and foremost, it is a lot crammed into 1,200 square feet.
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That's a common theme with newcomers to the store.
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Wow, it's a lot to look at.
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It is, but just take your time and work your way around and you'll find something that you're looking for.
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We are a market concept.
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We do have take-and-bake foods prepared meals, wraps you can eat on site, a lot of snack stuff.
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We have a big selection of sauces and rubs, chips, things of that nature, charcuterie type things, meat and cheese trays.
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We also have an eight-person bar that you can sit and have a glass of wine or a draft beer, or even open a bottle of wine if you'd like, and a good large size selection of to-go beer and wine.
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The bar was full, by the way, when I walked in.
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I thought I was going to belly up to the bar and we were going to sit there and chat while.
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I typed away.
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We had planned to do that, but we could not.
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No, it was packed.
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I loved seeing it.
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Some of the other stuff, a lot of local vendors, whether it be local right there in Surf City or North Carolina.
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In general, apparel is really big for us.
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It's not a chain grocery store, it's independently owned.
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Can you tell me a little bit?
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about that?
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Absolutely.
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We definitely are family owned and operated.
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We do have employees.
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We have six right now.
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My first employee was my mother and my son.
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I did end up firing my mother what?
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It was kind of a joke, or it started out as a joke.
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She loved working with us but she also wanted to move back to Massachusetts and so I fired her because she would not leave otherwise.
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She felt really she wanted to stay and help with the store, but she's back now in Hampstead, so really she wanted to stay and help with the store.
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But she's back now in Hampstead.
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So there is that.
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Oh, she is.
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And then my son also was one of our first employees and he decided working for his parents was not what he wanted to do either.
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Do not blame him, not one bit, but we needed them a lot when we first opened and there was so much going on we were just very busy, so it was great having them there.
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Garrett and I obviously work together a lot.
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Yeah, sometimes I wonder how we've been in wife team here.
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It has its challenges, but it's very rewarding.
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We work well together.
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We definitely have a good balance of what he does and what I do, and they're very different at the store, so it kind of gives us a little separation from each other because we both are doing very different things.
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Yeah, garrett, you handle beer and wine primarily.
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Yes.
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And the food too, or no?
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Some of the food, but most of the food items, the specialty items, that's Brandy's, that's Brandy's, yeah Right, and she's really good at it.
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So Well, thank you.
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Garrett, let's talk about your personal history.
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You did mention that your mother was from Massachusetts, so I'm assuming you're originally from Mass.
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I am Okay, and what brought you here to North Carolina?
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originally it was South Carolina.
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I've been here for probably 17 years, 20 years a while.
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I came to Wilmington, probably in 2008.
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And I came here for a boy, fell in love with Wilmington and stayed.
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That's not the boy.
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No, no, no, different boy Different boy, boy.
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Well, that's my story, though.
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It's all good, we all have a story.
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Okay, you two are really young and we're not even thinking about retirement at this stage, are we?
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No, I was thinking about next week.
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I like to work.
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I'm kidding, I need to work, I need something to do.
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Yeah, for sure.
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And Garrett, where are you from originally?
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Originally from Southport.
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Oh, that's such a great area.
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Love Southport A little different than when I grew up there, but it's still very nice.
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Still have parents on Caswell Beach and we visit them quite often.
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Moved to Wilmington in 96.
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Went to UNCW oh nice, and I stayed.
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Can I ask what you studied?
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Marketing, marketing, business.
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Yes, now you guys don't live here in the Topsail area, you're living in Wilmington, is that right, correct?
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What made you decide to open your store here in the Topsail?
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area.
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Well, we never had intentions of having a store in Topsail before we had one in Wilmington.
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However, we saw the location one day, had a letter of intent the next day.
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Oh wow, we knew that location was perfect for what we were doing.
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So of course we didn't pass that up and we have yet to find a location that we would like to do.
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A second location in Are you planning on doing?
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a second location?
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Absolutely, it's always been the idea.
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That's great, but location, location, location, and we just haven't found what we're looking for.
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Would you put it?
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In Wilmington Possibly?
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It really depends.
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I think what we're looking for is we want something with outside seating area, something that maybe not on a strip mall like we are now, just something different, and those are hard to come by, and there's a lot of people looking for the same thing as well.
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What we do is very unique and the location has to be unique or pretty dialed in.
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It takes a certain spot for us to be successful.
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We feel like.
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You mentioned that you wouldn't choose to be in another strip mall area.
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There's a lot of foot traffic where you are currently.
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Are you looking for like a standalone for your second location?
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Ideally it would be standalone.
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That's hard to come by.
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Yeah, y'all need something bigger.
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Yes, definitely bigger.
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Yeah, I want to buy more things, kind of like the new place Wilmy Woody in their truck.
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Oh, yes, yes.
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That building they have, that they're rehabbing, is even I think it's even smaller.
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It is small but it's cute and that's like that.
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We look, we ride by it every day and tiny, but they're putting that nice deck around it.
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I'm sure they're going to make a lot out of the backyard at that right, I think they're utilizing every square inch of that property.
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I haven't seen any plans or anything, but I did just read that article.
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It's pretty exciting.
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Have you had their pizza?
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Oh yeah, it's a busy night when we have them.
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They're at Salted Turtle a lot, so when they're there it's usually a pretty busy evening for us.
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In general, great pizza Awesome.
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How did you two meet?
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Wait, wait, brandy.
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I just want to say that Garrett told me it was love at first sight.
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I'm just kidding, I like it.
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I like it.
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It was not love at first sight.
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She picked up on that very quickly in your notes.
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I knew she would.
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I put it in there just for her.
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I was just asking, like trying to get some information about you.
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And I was like, was it love at first sight?
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And he just looked at me like if you ask her that, she's going to think I put you up to that.
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Well, the story is, I definitely dated him a lot longer than he dated me, but that's okay.
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I knew what I wanted and I was not going to give up, and so and here we are.
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That's right.
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It all worked out.
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How long have y'all been together?
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We met back in 2010.
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We were engaged since 2015.
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We just recently got married in 2023.
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Yeah, oh, wow, congratulations.
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Thank you, yeah, but we've been together for quite some time and we finally decided to make it official, all right, so let's talk about what you did prior to Saltmarsh Market, because, garrett, you handle the beer and wine primarily, but you have a lot of experience in beer and wine, right?
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Yes, tell me a little bit about that I worked in beer distribution for almost 17 years prior to this, wore a lot of hats, did a lot of different things on-premise, off-premise sales, craft brand managing and a lot of that translates to what I do now.
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And what about you?
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I was in the medical field for quite some time.
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I ended up running a small medical clinic before opening the store, which gave me a really good understanding of what it takes to run a small business, and I think that was really helpful for us opening our business as well.
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I do all the QuickBooks and that part of it.
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I think it's interesting what we both kind of our takeaways from our previous careers.
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Like some of the things that like merchandising, branding and marketing.
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The things that I apply now were not the things that I thought would translate like they do.
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It sounds like, from your beer and wine experience and also your marketing degree, that you're coming to the table with a lot of knowledge and and you're coming to the table with with the back end knowledge, but it's different knowledge, but you're selling a whole different realm of stuff.
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I would imagine this is more fun, a lot more fun.
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I don't do any personal shopping anymore, because all I do is buy things for the store, yeah, and then I'm all shopped out and you get a little retail therapy that helps the business and doesn't hurt your wallet Absolutely.
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I'm a big fan.
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It's just as much fun.
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It satisfies that urge.
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What was it that inspired you to take the leap and open up your own store?
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So the big turning point, I think, would have been when my mother passed away very suddenly in November of 2020.
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That was very unexpected.
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This was already in the works and but we were still hesitant, we had not committed.
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But you were already thinking about opening the store.
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We were planning and working on it, but we hadn't reached the point of no return and we both looked at each other and thought what are we waiting on?
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You know, tomorrow's not guaranteed.
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Like we're going to do it, let's do it.
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Yeah, so you guys are both first-time business owners with Salt Marsh Market A lot of first-time business owners.
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We don't know what we're doing.
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We flounder a little bit.
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What hurdles did you face when you were opening up, or deciding to open up, saltmarsh Market?
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The biggest hurdle, and was right in the beginning, was the initial commitment to move on from careers and take the leap.
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Quit our jobs without another job in mind.
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Yes.
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It is frightening.
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Yeah, absolutely, and for both of us to do that.
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That was the biggest.
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I think.
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If you remember, though, it was never my intention to come on full time at the store.
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I wanted a career change and I wanted to leave where I was, so it was a good time for me to do it, to help him open the store and then find something else for me to do.
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I've been trying to leave ever since, but he won't let me.
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No, no, me, no.
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There's no way he could.
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She's not going anywhere.
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It's not a one person job.
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It really does take the both of us, and even that like I could never do what he does, and I could never even try to do what he does in beer and wine, you know, dealing with all of the vendors, and he already knows everybody in that industry, so that was a really easy thing for us to get into because of his background.
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What was the spark?
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What inspired you to say I think we need to open a grocery?
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We never said that, actually, how did it turn into Saltmarsh Market?
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It started out as beer and wine, with his background, and just where we were in the area north end of Wilmington, we were trying to look at something beer, wine bottle shop-ish, and then COVID happened, and then, of course, those places were being closed, and so then Garrett got the idea of reaching out to the Veggie Wagon that were also long-term customers of his, through the beer and wine you mentioned, the Veggie.
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Wagon in our pre-interview.
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But for the listeners who may not know what they are, tell me what they do and how that helped you go in the direction that you went.
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So they started out in Carolina Beach with a shop much like ours now and making all their food in the back in their kitchen, and it quickly grew into another store.
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So they have two stores now and a standalone production kitchen that makes our food their food and food for other stores as well.
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We would not be able to do what we do without the veggie wagon, simply saying that we have 1,200 square feet.
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You've been in the store.
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The space is very limited.
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Our backroom is even smaller, and so having that relationship with them where they can get us the fresh food sandwiches and all of our wraps, all of our to-go food it's all done by them, so that really allows us to be able to be in the footprint that we are and also be able to offer those offerings be able to be in the footprint that we are and also be able to offer those offerings.
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You mentioned COVID.
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Did you open after COVID?
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We did, but we signed the lease in January of 21.
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So right on the heels.
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We opened a business during COVID.
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Or we had grand plans to.
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We tried to.
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Yes, it did take us a year, almost exact to the day, to get open.
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We have a walk-up window, though that walk-up window is only there because it was COVID time when we were trying to do the build-out.
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Are you still using that walk-up?
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window.
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Oh yeah, absolutely.
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We have a doorbell and everything.
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By the time we opened, I think most of the COVID stuff had kind of blown over and people were more comfortable.
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Now the window is just a walk-up window for people sitting outside, so they don't have to come inside to grab their drinks and we can serve them out the window, okay.
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All right, so let's talk about that bar first.
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It is a smaller bar, but even so, I will say that I walked in and it was completely full.
00:15:39.505 --> 00:15:41.109
You offer beer on tap.
00:15:47.635 --> 00:15:49.720
So tell me what types of beer you're offering on tap?
00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:52.907
Mainly local, some regional and national brands, but a lot of local craft beer.
00:15:52.907 --> 00:15:58.118
Right now we have our Beachcomber, our Honey Blonde from Outer Dunes, which is our collaboration beer that we've done with them.
00:15:58.298 --> 00:15:59.078
Oh, tell me about that.
00:15:59.239 --> 00:16:00.080
Two years in a row.
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The folks at Outer Dunes, good friends of ours, we joined with them last year.
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We wanted to do a beer with them because collaborations are fun, and we made a Honey Blonde and it was a big hit.
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And it's been a big hit this year as well.