Out to Lunch Emerald Coast

"What the heck is going on?" Do you ever find yourself saying that when you look at your social media feed? You post something you know is great. It’s funny. It’s interesting. It’s intriguing. It’s sexy. It’s original. It’s got everything to make a popular post – in fact it’s so dang good it could even go viral and get hundreds of thousands of views. But you’re staring at your feed in disbelief. You’ve gotten 12 views and 3 likes. And two of those are family members. That’s frustrating enough when you just want some attention for your cat or your sourdough bread that’s like the greatest loaf you ever baked – but if it’s your business you’re trying to promote on social media, and you’re failing time after time to get any traction – well that’s a far more serious situation. Maybe you’ve tried using AI to get some tips on getting your business found on social media, and that hasn’t worked either. So, what does work, exactly? That’s what we find out on this edition of Out to Lunch. Aerial Payne is the owner of Maranta Copy Co, a social media marketing company here in The Panhandle.You’ve probably heard that these days you can go online and hire an expert social media manager from anywhere - someone who has specialist expertise in getting small and medium-sized businesses outsize attention on social media. Well, Aerial Payne is one of those people. At Maranta Copy Co, Aerial has around 20 employees and she could, if she wanted, live in LA, New York or Silicon Valley, but she’s a Panama City native and chooses to live here. If you have a small business, you’re kind of conditioned these days to believe that the only way you can promote yourself is social media. The truth is, though, you have choices. For example, TV. Yes, there are still people watching TV! And if you have a small business, the answer to your next thought is also “yes” – you’re right, you probably can’t afford to get a TV commercial shot by a production company and placed on a network TV station. But you can afford to get a commercial shot by 30A Media and played on 30A TV. 30A Media is a production company and 30A TV is an independent network of 20-plus channels distributed on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, smart TVs, and iOS and Android devices — with syndication now reaching major cities. Both the production company and the network are owned by Paul Vizard. Entrepreneur Of The Week Our Out to Lunch Entrepreur of the Week is Ryan Eaton. Along with his wife, Jenn, Ryan is Co-Founder and Co-owner of Big jerk Soda Company, a soda company in Pensacola that makes healthy, carbonated drinks – and you can find them at a bunch of stores up and down The Panhandle, including over 60 Circle K’s from Destin to Panama City.  Big Jerk Soda is made from real fruit with no artificial colors, dyes, preservatives or caffeine. There’s Ginger Beer, Lavender Lemonade, Blueberry Peach, Cherry Limeade, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and Crystal Clear Root Beer. What hot, thirsty person looking at that lineup in a cold refrigerator in a store would say, “er, no” and pick out a can of Coke instead? Ryan explains the mental machinations of the soda purchaser and mechanical literal machinations of the soda manufacturer. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Around 75,000 people live in Walton County. That’s the same number of people who live in a beachside city in France, called Cannes. There are 85 other cities in France the same size as Cannes, but you probably couldn’t name them. You know about Cannes because it’s home to the world’s most prestigious film festival. It costs Cannes around $6m a year to stage the festival. Its economic impact to the city is around $200 million. And the festival generates around one billion dollars worth of film industry business. What if we had a film festival here? That’s the question Kevin Elliot asked. Kevin is a film maker and the owner of film production company, Wewa Films. And he’s  the founder of the Redfish Film Festival: a festival of documentary films in Panama City that had its world premiere in 2024. The reason a lot of us love living in this part of the world is the natural beauty of the place. And the advantage of living in a community that’s  small enough to navigate, without the stresses of big city living. On the other hand, when the sun goes down we’d like to be able to enjoy the kind of nightlife that typically comes with a larger population. For example, comedy clubs. Jason Hedden has solved the population vs comedy club conundrum by having no comedy club and a whole bunch of comedy clubs at the same time. Jason’s comedy company, Panama City Comedy, produces standup comedy shows, not at a single comedy club but at a wide range of different locations up and down the panhandle. You got a pizza restaurant? A bar? A theater? An oyster shack? You want Panama City Comedy to stage a show at your location? No problem. This business model has been making people laugh, and making Jason money, since 2019. Entrepreneur of the Week This week's Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Daniel Henderson. Daniel lives in Panama City and he’s the co-owner of a company called BFG Productions. BFG stands for Boogie Funk Groove and was originally a band. Now it’s much more than that. Now BFG books gigs for other bands and for DJ’s, and arranges all kinds of entertainment. Daniel describes himself as a secret weapon in the local entertainment business, working quietly behind the scenes to make events happen. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you live in a small community and you have big ideas, you have two choices. You can move to a city with a population large enough to support your dreams. Or you can stay home and try and make the impossible happen. If you're a theater actor and you'd like to appear in a Broadway musical or a professional production of playwrights like William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, you could move to New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Or you could do what Nathanael and Anna Fisher did and found the Emerald Coast Theatre Company. In 2013 Nathanael and Anna had a traveling troupe, performing wherever they could find a suitable empty space. Then in 2016 they moved into their now permanent home, on Grand Boulevard in Miramar Beach. Today Anna is Emerald Coast Theatre Company’s  Associate Artistic Director, and Nathanael is the company’s Producing Artistic Director. If you love music - from classical to jazz and funk to punk - and you want to go to a record store like you’d find in the East Village in Manhattan, on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, or the French Quarter in New Orleans, you could pack a bag and go traveling. Or, you could do what Tom King did. Following the blue-sky “Field of Dreams” business model –“Build it and they will come” - Tom opened Central Square Records in a space above Sundog Books in Seaside. That was 2003.  Today, Central Square Records is a destination for music lovers who visit here from places like Los Angeles, New Orleans and New York. Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Connie Prather. Connie was a CPA – otherwise known as an accountant -  for large companies and corporations before she decided to walk away from doing the books for big business and focus on clients with small businesses. Today she has a one-person accounting and bookkeeping business based in Panama City Beach called Coastal Accounting. We all have great ideas. How many times have you been sitting around with friends or family and one of you says, “You know what somebody ought to do?...” The difference between successful people and the rest of us is, successful people follow through on a crazy idea and actually do it. Nathanael didn’t sit around waiting for someone else to start a theater company. Tom didn’t sit around waiting for someone else to start a record store. And Connie didn’t sit around waiting for someone to offer her a job that suited her better. They're all examples of the contention that one person can make a difference. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m going to start out today’s show by making a generalization. I know I’m not supposed to do that, but I’m pretty sure you’ll agree with me. So here goes: "Previous generations were a lot more dedicated to their work and their careers than we are today."  Our parents and grandparents used to talk about “getting your priorities right.” When it came to work, that generally meant sacrificing whatever else might have been going on in your life, to getting ahead. Even if that meant sticking it out at a job you didn’t love while you waited for a promotion. Or even the total disruption of being transferred to another city. Today, we’re focused on what we call “work/life balance.” “Balance” is the opposite of “priority.” A priority supposes one thing is more important than another. Balance is only achieved when the things being balanced are equal. Dr. Prudence Farrow Bruns has been way ahead of this game. Since the 1960’s Prudence has dedicated herself to teaching Transcendental Meditation. TM, as it’s widely known, is a form of meditation that draws on roots from Ancient India and is modified to adapt to our modern lives. Dr. Bruns studies the texts of Ancient India to bring the wisdom within them into the 21st Century. Her goal is to help each of us find balance and harmony between our inner spiritual selves and our physical selves. Prudence may have unwittingly been one of the creators of work/life balance. How we live our lives is to some degree dependent on where we live. Most of us live in cities or towns. For many years we contrasted these urban collections of buildings with the natural world, which we called “the environment.” The environment was beautiful and unspoiled. The human dwellings we built on top of it were steel, glass, and concrete. Functionality and utility beat out beauty, hands-down, every time. Today, things are different. Especially up and down our coast here. We make an effort to balance the human and the natural world. We don’t contrast human habitat with the natural world these days. Instead, we talk about “The built and unbuilt environment.” In other words, we’re not trying to conquer nature and subdue it, as much as work with it and embrace it. And we acknowledge that a utilitarian building can also be – and should be – beautiful. This urban planning philosophy has developed as the result of the visionary design work, teaching, and writing of a school of architects and developers under the banner of New Urbanism. One of the leading proponents and practitioners of this movement is Dhiru Thadani. Entrepreneur Of The Week Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Tricia Veldman. Tricia is a speech coach. She has a company called Powerful and Poised, focused on overcoming humanity’s number one fear: public speaking. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most people who move to the Emerald Coast come here to slow down — to trade the hustle for white sand and blue water. Fletcher's lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch did something altogether different. They came here, fell in love with the place, put down roots — and then turned their attention to some of the most remote and demanding terrain on earth. Jim Sumpter is a man who has spent more than 25 years leading people through places most of us will only ever see on a map. He came up through the Army, training and deploying elite recon teams in foreign environments — work that demanded precision, physical toughness, and the ability to keep people alive when things go sideways. When he left the military, Jim didn't exactly dial it back. He went on to earn certification as a Wilderness Instructor through the Professional Association of Wilderness Guides and Instructors, and became a member of the Explorers Club. Jim is also a certified leader in the Duke of Edinburgh International Youth Award program — an honor recognized by HRH Prince Edward himself — for his work mentoring young adults in outdoor leadership. Jim’s partner in all of this — in adventure and in life — is Kristi Sumpter. Kristi is a 500-hour certified Vinyasa yoga instructor, an E-RYT 500, who built her practice right here on the Emerald Coast, starting at Balance Health Studio in Seagrove Beach. She went on to teach nationally at the Wanderlust International Yoga Festival, and has since led yoga on four continents. Her certifications go deep — Yoga Medicine, SUP Yoga, sound healing — and she's the person who figured out that yoga and mountaineering, far from being opposites, are actually a powerful partnership. On every Endeavor expedition, Kristi is there, helping climbers prepare, recover, breathe, and stay grounded — literally and figuratively. Together, Jim and Kristi co-founded Endeavor Expeditions — a Santa Rosa Beach-based company that takes everyday people to the rooftops of the world. Their signature journey is Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest freestanding mountain on the planet, in Tanzania. But they've also worked across South America, Central America, Patagonia, and beyond — always with military-grade planning, always with a safety-first approach, and always with the belief that the people standing in line at Publix right now are more capable than they realize. And in a beautiful footnote to all of this: when Jim and Kristi learned during the pandemic that the Tanzanian guides and porters who work Kilimanjaro couldn't afford school fees for their kids, they started a nonprofit called Kids of Kilimanjaro. Because that's apparently what explorers do when they're not out exploring. There's a version of life on the Emerald Coast that looks a lot like a postcard — beautiful, sun-drenched, and deliberately uncomplicated. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's part of why people come here. But what Jim and Kristi Sumpter remind us is that this place also attracts a different kind of person — people who are drawn to the water and the light and the pace of life here, but who carry something restless and reaching inside them. People who look at a mountain on the other side of the world and think: I wonder if I could get there, and I wonder who I could take with me. What they've built with Endeavor Expeditions is remarkable not just as a business, but as a philosophy. The idea that preparation, courage, and the right guide can get an ordinary person to the top of Africa — that's not a sales pitch, that's a worldview. And it's one they've tested over and over, on some of the most demanding terrain on earth, with clients who showed up nervous and came home changed. Add to that Kristi's gift for keeping people grounded — physically, mentally, spiritually — and you have something genuinely rare: an expedition company that treats the inner journey as seriously as the outer one. And then there's Kids of Kilimanjaro. Because Jim and Kristi didn't just see a mountain — they saw the people who work it, generation after generation, carrying impossibly heavy loads with grace and joy. And when the world shut down and those families lost their income, the Sumpters didn't look away. They built something. That's the kind of community citizenship that doesn't make the local news, but maybe it should. This is what Out to Lunch is really about — not just the businesses on the Emerald Coast, but the people behind them. The ones who washed ashore here, or grew up here, or simply chose here — and then went out and did something extraordinary. Jim and Kristi Sumpter call Santa Rosa Beach home. And honestly? We're lucky they do. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, it's Fletcher Isacks, host of Out to Lunch. When you listen to a show like this you expect a person in my position to give you verifiable,  factual information. But it turns out that statisticians are not collecting information about every subject I'm interested in. I'm interested in the structure of businesses owned and operated by couples. That is, people who got married because they fell in love with each other, and decided afterward that they were going to run a business together. So, absent any factual information, we're just going to have to go with my anecdotal, impressionistic perception. Some businesses are founded by couples who are equals – I’m thinking of recent guests who started a retail store together, and another couple who launched a swimsuit company. There’s another type of couples’ business, and that’s one that’s centered on the skills of one half of the couple. For example, one of the partners is a doctor or a plumber, and the other partner handles administration and book-keeping. Now, this could be a result of my own poor memory and cultural bias, or it could be factual and the result of our patriarchal society, but it seems to me that in most of these types of businesses, the principal partner is the husband. It seems much less frequent the other way around, where the wife is the practicing professional. Which is why I want to introduce you to Wendy Mignot and Lauren Pingree. Lauren is Co-Owner of the Hidden Lantern Bookstore in Rosemary Beach. This is how she’s described her current business arrangement: “This gentleman walked into the bookstore and asked me out. Two years later, we got married. And now we run the bookstore together.” Wendy Mignot’s business, Mignot & Co, in Grayton Beach, is focused on Wendy’s creations of pearl and leather jewelry, and her business is supported by her husband, Jean-Noel, and their two kids. Entrepreneur of the Week My Entreprebeur of the Week this week is another woman in local business, Lauren Newton. Lauren's business is everyone else’s business. Lauren is the founder of the Found Marketing Firm in Panama City. If you live on the Emerald Coast, you might not know it but you’ve probably seen or heard her work. The national Chamber of Commerce estimates that right around 40% of small businesses in the US are owned by women. In Florida, that number is higher. Here, around 46% of businesses are owned by women. And here on Out to Lunch today, that number is 100%. Talking with Wendy Mignot, Lauren Pingree, and Lauren Newton, is statistically and personally a rare treat. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you ask people about the benefits of living in this part of the world, the first response you often get is about natural beauty. We typically assume “the natural beauty of The Panhandle” refers to the white sands and turquoise water of our beaches. People sometimes also refer to our lakes and piney woods. These appreciations of nature are primarily visual. We love how the appearance of the natural setting makes us feel. But few of us stop to appreciate the life that these seascapes and landscapes support. The sea, of course, is teeming with fish. We all know that. But how many of us who live here, or the millions of tourists who sit on our beaches, are aware that a few miles behind the white sands there are families of black bears? Nobody around here knows that better than film maker Arix Zalace. Arix is the Co-Founder of film production company AZA Productions, and director of the feature film, The Paper Bear. In a unique combination of live action and animation, and documentary and drama, The Paper Bear is a love letter to the black bears who live alongside us, but are unseen by most of us. One of the reasons we like to go to movies is, they take us away from our everyday lives, make us sit still, and give us an opportunity to think about more than our daily obligations and routine. That’s also the reason people smoke cigars. People who smoke cigarettes are mostly looking to replenish the level of nicotine in their metabolism. People who smoke cigars are doing something quite different. You can, of course, smoke a cigar while you’re doing something else, but most cigar smokers don’t. For most cigar smokers, sitting down to smoke a cigar is either a part of socialization and conversation, or it’s a form of solitary meditation. Nobody around here knows more about cigar smokers and cigars than Paul Copeland. Paul is the Co-Owner of two stores, both called Shore Thing Cigars, one in Gulf Shores Alabama and the company’s flagship store, here in Watersound. Paul’s partner in the business is music icon Luke Bryan. Luke’s enthusiasm for cigars is the inspiration for some of Shore Thing’s exclusive custom blends, but it’s Paul who has the cigar cred, going all the way back to working at Franklin Cigar in Tennessee, a store he got fired from and later bought. 16-plus years later, Paul has won awards, including like Tobacconist of the Year, and he’s a three-time Davidoff Golden Band Award winner. Entrepreneur Of The Week Out to Lunch Entrepreneur this week is Ross Flick. Ross is a Fragrance Consultant with Scentsy. It’s a fragrance company that sells through independent reps instead of stores. Ross works out of her home in Panama City. You can visit her Scentsy store there, buy from her online store, or catch her at markets, pop-ups and other events up and down the coast. If there are three things that are somewhere between difficult and impossible to convey on the radio or a podcast, it’s the sensation of smoking a good cigar, the experience of seeing a good movie, or the scent of anything. So, congratulations are due to Paul, Arix, and Ross – for having successful businesses and for managing to pull off the impossible and describe them on today’s show. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a pretty good chance that by now you’ve checked your calendar today. There’s stuff you’ve got to accomplish this week, there are things you have to show up on time for during the day, and if you break it down even further, you can plan and account for your time minute by minute. Life is, after all, a series of fleeting moments. The moments that are the happiest and most memorable to most of us, are the ones that don’t show up on a calendar. Maybe it’s enjoying a delicious meal. Or a night out with friends, sipping drinks and sharing stories. Or a magical date at a bar overlooking the gulf. But these memorable moments are only possible because they’re on somebody else’s calendar. Somebody has to show up to work to make that delicious meal. Somebody has to hire and pay staff, and do the hundred-and-one other tasks to open and run a bar.  Around here, one of those somebodies is Dave Rauschkolb. Dave is the Owner/Operator of Bud & Alley's Restaurant Group, and Managing Partner at Black Bear Bread Company in Grand Boulevard and Grayton Beach. These fleeting moments that add up to the highlight reels of our lives come and go. That, of course, is the very definition of a “moment.” But, since the creation of social media, we now have a way to document those moments - and share them with our friends, and with hundreds of thousands of people we don’t know at all. From pictures of our hamburger to a carefully staged, or maybe even reconstructed, marriage proposal, fleeting moments of happiness are captured forever. Or at least until you quit paying for backup storage. Most of us would not claim that our photos on Instagram rise to the level of art. So, amid this sea of images, it can be startling to see a photograph taken by an actual photographer and be reminded that, in the right hands, a camera is a tool for artistic expression. Photographer Chandler Williams creates works of art in photographs that celebrate the beauty of the natural world, principally here on the Emerald Coast. Chandler works under the banner of his business, Modus Photography, and he has a storefront gallery, Modus Art Gallery, in Grayton Beach. Our Entrepreneur of the Week on this edition of Out to Lunch is Jenna Hall. Jenna is the Owner/Operator of a unique transportation business she founded in 2019, based out of Panama City Beach, called Hallin Hearts. Jenna has three buses – an extended cab hi-rise that seats 14, and 2 shuttle buses. The company employs four people, including Jena, and is focused on providing transportation for local residents, not tourists. The bulk of Jenna’s clientele are women who want to go out and have a fun excursion and don’t want to be responsible for anything - from driving to planning the day’s activities. Hallin Hearts is also the go-to provider of transportation for a number of local businesses If you drive down the beach a ways, to the Florida-Alabama line, you get to a shack-type barroom on the beach called the FloraBama. One of the ways you could get there would be to take an excursion with Jenna and turn the trip into a Hallin Hearts adventure. When you get there you’ll find the FloraBama is a hugely profitable business based on low overhead – it really is kind of a shack - and high volume sales aimed at a younger crowd who like to drink. At the extreme other end of the hospitality spectrum there’s Bud & Alley’s in Seaside. Everything about Bud & Alley’s, from it’s architecture to the experience of dining and drinking there, is a reflection of the joy of living alongside the beauty of our beachside surroundings. And while you can leave Bud and Alley’s with a memory – and maybe a selfie – Chandler gives locals and tourists alike a chance to hold onto a slice of that beauty forever, in a spectacular photograph. Like the sea, skies, and piney woods that all contribute to the singular experience of living here, Jenna, Chandler, and Dave's businesses are likewise threads of the tapestry of life on the Emerald Coast. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you could get your hands on, say, somewhere between 70 and one hundred-some-odd acres of beachside property, and you wanted to start a business, what would you do with it? Back in 1969, the answer to that question was the Santa Rosa Golf & Beach Club, sometimes known as the Santa Rosa Golf Club, or simply The Santa Rosa Club. The club started out a lot more modestly than it looks today. It was originally a 9 hole golf club with temporary greens. It opened when Walton County had a population of 16,000 people. Today, Walton County’s population is around 95,000. With an annual tourist population of around 4 million. The Santa Rosa Golf Club is now a re-designed 18 hole championship course, with resident golf pros, and luxurious facilities that include a pool and award-winning dining. The club’s Membership and Marketing Director is Sarah Brazwell. That was 1969. What if you could get your hands on 70 acres of real estate today, in Panama City Beach? What would you do with it? For Dave Fussell that’s no longer a hypothetical question. Dave is the Co-Owner of a family winery based in North Carolina, called Duplin Winery. Dave's father and uncle launched the winery right about the same time the Santa Rosa Golf Club was starting up. A few years ago, Dave and his brother Jonathan came up with the idea of expanding Duplin Winery, and bought 70 acres in Panama City beach. If you’ve ever tried to get a building permit or business license around here, you’ll know just how challenging that process can be. Imagine trying to navigate all that when you live between here and North Carolina, and you’re starting up a business that has almost no local precedent. Luckily, Dave hung in there and today, at 38,000 square feet, Duplin Winery in Panama City Beach is the company’s biggest facility, complete with gourmet foods, merchandise, and live entertainment. Entrepreneur of the Week This week's Out to Lunch Entrepreneur is Zachary Mignot, Co-Founder of cocktails-in-a-can, Birdie Cocktails. Made with minimal, all natural ingredients - and no sugar - Birdie Cocktails are a healthy alternative to better known massively popular canned drinks. They're aimed at the 48 million people in America who play golf - that's where the name "Birdie" comes from. Can you think of any other sport where players don't have to wait till it's over and they've taken a shower to enjoy a cocktail? Unless you’re fortunate enough to be able to wake up in the morning and not have to think about going to work, you’ve gotta do something. If you can make that something, wine, golf, or cocktails, well, that's gotta qualify as winning. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From kids in preschool, to activity groups in retirement villages, people make art. Look around any room. From your doctor's waiting room to your sister's bedroom, you'll almost invariably find art on the walls. Art is everywhere. We often talk about art and commerce as if they’re opposites, like salt and pepper, or oil and water. But in fact, art makes up a significant segment of the American economy. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, arts and cultural industries contribute over 4% of US GDP. That’s about 1.17 trillion with a “T” dollars. Art is not the opposite of business. Art is business. In Seaside, graphic artist Laura Granberry and her photographer husband, Michael, combine art and commerce in their retail store, The Art of Simple. If you live here, or even if you’ve only visited Seaside once, you’ve no doubt experienced the almost child-like wonder of wandering off of Central Square into the Granberry’s store. It’s largely a world where art meets functionality in colorful and often whimsical versions of everyday items. The Granberry’s opened the Central Square store in 2013 and over the years it’s grown from a curiosity to an anchor store in the square. And then there’s the other end of the spectrum: art for art’s sake. Where the perception of an artist creates a representation of an object that is intended to amuse or provoke the observer. It’s often also intended to be a thing of beauty that will enrich the viewer’s life in some way each time they look at it. Forever. That’s a tall order. And over the millennia it has motivated artists to find new ways of expressing themselves, and new ways of showing us the world around us. You might think that in the course of human history, artists have discovered every possible method of creating pieces of art. But that’s not true. In the same way Taylor Swift doesn’t sound quite like any of the millions of musicians who came before her, visual artists move the process of visual arts forward in their own unique ways. Like Allison Wickey. Allison uses a 13-step, four-day process that involves Venetian plaster, acrylic paint, glazes, and an orbital sander to create works that showcase vibrant landscapes, animals, and marine life. Entrepreneur of the Week Our Entrepreneur of the Week this week is Jessica Anderson, screenwriter, film producer and director, and Founder and Owner of film production company, That Girl Media. Jessica is the Producer and Direcfor of the documentarym "The Flight of Jackie Cochran." It’s no secret that things are changing here in the Panhandle. As the area grows in all kinds of ways, our perception of ourselves changes too. We no longer have to look at the area as a backdrop for movies. We can be a place where movie makers live and make movies, like you Jessica Anderson. We can be a place where artists not only come to for inspiration, we can be a place where artists come from. Like Allison Wickey. Michael and Laura Granberry have proven there’s more to beach-inspired design than seagull lamps and framed sand dollars. And we can be a place where we not only consume programs from NPR, we can contribute programs to the NPR network. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re all motivated by different things. Some of us are striving for the C-Suite and a 7 figure salary. Others of us are thrilled to have a job with no stress that pays enough to cover the bills. Some of us are very invested in the type of car we drive. Others are happy to walk and take Uber. And of course, from the same set of circumstances and facts, we arrive at vastly different conclusions about politics. But we pretty much all agree on two things. We want to look good. And we want to feel good. Although we might have different definitions of what exactly “looking good” means, other than diet and exercise, if we want professional assistance to achieve that goal, there’s only one way to get there. And that’s with the help of a person known as an Aesthetician. In the 1800’s an Aesthetician was a person who studied beauty. In the 1960’s we started to use the term to describe someone who creates beauty. Specifically, a licensed skincare or health spa professional. Like Lauren Wilkins. Lauren is a Partner and Aesthetics Nurse at Evolve Aesthetics & Wellness, on Highway 98 in Santa Rosa Beach. At Evolve you can get a wide range of beauty and wellness treatments, including skin care, body sculpting, weight loss, laser hair restoration, tattoo removal… and that’s just a random sampling, the tip of the iceberg of their spa services. If at this point you’re naturally assuming this is a business aimed solely at women, it’s not. There are spa services for men too, including something called “Brotox.” And now we turn from looking good to feeling good. There are, of course, a million different paths to feeling good. For some of us it might be the sense of accomplishment we feel when we reach the summit of a mountain. For others, it’s a half hour of relaxation at lunchtime, doing nothing, sitting in the sun at the beach before going back to work. Then there’s the one thing we pretty much all agree on that makes us feel good. Beer. Beer is the most widely consumed alcohol in the US, outstripping wine and spirits, and if you want to know how much beer we drink, well, reliable studies peg that for adults over 21 at roughly the equivalent of a 6-pack a week. Not all beer is created equal. Over the last 20 years or so – mainly in response to the market domination of conglomerates like Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and Heineken - we’ve seen a resurgence of small craft breweries who make small batch beers tailored to the tastes of locals. Here on the Emerald Coast, Idyll Hounds Brewing Company started brewing beer in 2013. They’ve got a taproom in Santa Rosa Beach and they make beers with names like “Ghost Crab Pilsna’” and “Divide and Conch’r Pale Ale.”  Frasier Hansen is the Owner of Idyll Hounds and also the brewery's Head Brewer. Entrepreneur of the Week Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week this week is Luke Pinegar.   Luke is a musician, a multi-instrumentalist and jazz vocalist whose vocal style can be compared without exaggeration to all-time greats like Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Luke plays up and down the Emerald Coast as well as heading up the Summer Music Academy at SoWal House in Rosemary Beach. Luke has an absolutely beautiful singing voice. His piano playing is accomplished and sophisticated. And he plays instruments as vastly different as the flute and soprano saxophone with a skill that any sole practitioner of those instruments would be happy to possess. You might be surprised to hear his attitude to talent, fame and fortune, and why he chooses to live in Panama City and not Las Vegas. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’ve been in a pre-k-to-12th grade school lately, or you currently have kids in school, you’re familiar with what education is like today. For the most part, it’s not about experiencing the joy of numbers in math, or discovering the lyrical beauty of words in literature – it’s about achievement. Reading to your grade level. Passing standardized tests. Graduating to the next grade. And ultimately getting a good enough SAT or ACT score to get into a good college. It’s, to say the least, stressful - for kids and parents alike. Things are different at The Ohana Institute, at Inlet Beach. Founded by Lettye Burgtorf, now its Executive Director, The Ohana Institute is a fully accredited, independent, private, exploratory and innovative school serving students in grades Pre K – 12 with a system of education based on the acronym, SHELL: Safety, Holistic education, Experiential learning, Love yourself, Love others. The school started up in 2011 and since then – even without a single-minded focus on achievement - Ohana Institute graduates have been accepted into 164 colleges, with an average ACT score of 29 or 30. There’s another American institution that most of its occupants will graduate from: prison. Unlike school, administrators of correctional institutions are mostly focused on the day-to-day existence of prisoners, rather than their graduation. In prison parlance, graduation from the  institution is called “re-entry.” In February 2020, the Governor’s office and the Florida Department of Corrections created the Florida Foundation for Correctional Excellence. It’s a non-profit organization that brings private business partners into the prison system to  create and implement transition programs and workforce training that increases the opportunity for successful re-entry. This statewide program is based in large part on the pioneering work of the Emerald Coast’s Erica Spivey. Erica is Executive Director of the Florida Foundation for Correctional Excellence. Entrepreneur Of The Week Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week, Jared Cartee. Jared is the Community Outreach Director for an organization called Safe In The Panhandle, a non-profit that fights human trafficking, mostly young women who are being exploited as sex workers. The reason we're tlaking about this on a show about local business is the unique business model that supports this non-profit. SAFE is funded by a working farm that includes 1,500 blueberry bushes, 160 Satsuma orange trees, 20 beehives, and 500 Christmas trees. One of the great things about NPR, and podcasts in general, is the opportunity to spend a generous amount of time getting to know people who might typically be regarded as outside of the mainstream. Erica, Lettye and Jared are all innovators doing phenomenal things with their respective organizations. But beyond your individual achievements, what’s fascinating is what brings each of them to our table here at Out to Lunch. And that is, they’ve each managed to harness the power and strength of local business to fuel significant social change. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a show about local business and entrepreneurship in The Panhandle. We started making the show in 2025. If we’d started out twenty, or even ten years ago, a show about local business would have been principally about rental property management and allied businesses, like cleaners and HVAC companies. Or, we could have made a show about all the talented people who grew up in this area and who moved to big cities for a career or to start a business. Back then, the idea of someone moving here to the beach to start a business would have been almost laughable. Boy, how times have changed. All Fletcher's guests on Out to Lunch today moved here and opened businesses in 2023. Meaghan Easterhaus moved here from Colorado and opened Palm Folly Brewery in Santa Rosa Beach. Palm Folly is the first craft seltzer brewery in Florida, and only the 5th in the country. The brewery makes Palm Folly Hard Seltzer.  Hard Seltzer is fruit-based alcohol. It’s not made with any other kind of liquor – like vodka or tequila. It’s brewed principally from fresh fruit and sugar, which makes the drink low calorie and gluten free. You can get Palm Folly Hard Seltzer at the brewery’s taproom on Highway 98 in Santa Rosa Beach. You can also find it on the shelf at the supermarket, or on tap at any one of more than 50 restaurants from Apalachicola to Pensacola. Noah Custer and his wife Mary Margaret moved here from Mandeville, Louisiana. After they got here they met another couple: Lukas and Brynley Joiner. In 2023 the Custers and the Joiners joined forces and launched a business. It’s called Honey Swim. They design and manufacture swimsuits. Honey Swim started out as an online business, and in the first 10 months, with just the 4 partners doing pretty much everything, they were racking up a 7 figure revenue. Today they’re working with social media influencers and Brand Ambassadors. And they’ve expanded into retail outlets. Entrepreneur Of The Week Our Entrepreneur of the week is Jacy Elmore, Owner and Founder of The Beach Wagon.  The Beach Wagon is pretty much exactly what it sounds like – it’s a wagon a person takes to the beach. But it’s not quite that simple. The Beach Wagon is a product, and a service. The wagon itself is a wagon you can pull down the beach. And it’s stocked with the hardware you need for a day at the beach – chairs and umbrellas, a cooler, and an optional canopy. The service aspect of The Beach Wagon is delivery. Tourists have their beach wagon delivered to their condo or hotel, and it’s picked up when they leave. This idea does two things. It lets tourists go to the beach like locals, with their own beach gear - rather than getting a setup on the beach. And it cuts down on waste, in as much as it prevents tourists from buying beach equipment for their stay here and dumping it when they leave. Bright New Day For Beach Startups There are two halves to any new startup business. Inspiration. And execution. And, like two halves of anything, they’re equal. You need a great idea. And you need to do the enormous amount of work necessary to bring your idea to life. Jacy, Noah, and Meaghan have all been inspired by our surroundings here at the beach to create products. Swimsuits, hard seltzer, and a beach wagon. Though we’re living in a part of the world not known for its startup business culture, they’re all going about pioneering businesses in ways we’d typically expect to see in bigger beach-economy communities, like Miami or Los Angeles. It's exciting to see entrepreneurs executing on these inspirations, and it’s inspiring that they’ve moved here for more than just the benefits of a beach lifestyle. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in the days of the California gold rush, you could make a lot of money. If you struck gold. If you didn’t - and most people didn’t - you would typically spend every waking minute till you ran out of money and strength, doing back-breaking labor, swinging a pick and digging with a shovel. Along with the prospectors, there were business people who figured they wouldn’t strike it rich like the lucky few, but they could make a decent living, selling the prospectors picks and shovels. Today, in business, the phrase “picks and shovels” lives on. It’s used to describe people involved in regular occupations who support people in more glamorous pursuits. Jon Shirley is in the picks and shovels department of the hospitality industry. Jon is Chief Operating Officer at Jim Shirley Enterprises.  Jim Shirley is the chef behind the restaurant we’re at right now, Farm & Fire, as well as North Beach Social, The Great Southern Café, The Meltdown on 30A in Seaside, The Bay, 45 Central Wine & Sushi, and Baytowne Provisions. Jon Shirley is Jim’s brother. But this isn’t a case of nepotism. Jon spent 25 years in the corporate offices of the food services company, Sysco. Before that he worked his way up the ladder in the restaurant business, from busser to management. Today, Jon is responsible for the smooth running of the Jim Shirley restaurants and the management and well-being of a staff that can reach 400 employees at the height of the season. Who, at some point, hasn’t dreamed of becoming a rock star? Admit it. You know you have, even if only for a few fleeting moments when you’re singing in the car, in the shower, or playing air guitar. Michael Austin is in the picks and shovels department of the rockstar and wanna-be rockstar business. Michael is the owner of Austin Music Company, Panama City Beach’s only full service music store and music school. Now, admittedly, unlike the gold-diggers of yesteryear, most people who pick up a guitar or take music lessons are not aiming at the riches they can attain from Taylor Swift type world domination. In fact, these days, there is a greater chance of making money in the picks and shovels end of the business than getting rich off of Spotify or getting discovered on Tik Tok. Entrepreneur of the Week Our Entrepreneur of the Week is Michelle Royce. Michelle and her husband Kevin are co-owners of Seafoam Roasting Company.  Michelle and Kevin also own and run a successful HVAC company in Fort Walton. They've been in business since 2019. They have 17 employees. You might think if they wanted a little extra challenge they could hire another couple of people, get an another van, maybe even open another location. But, no. That’s not what Michelle and Kevin did. Instead they bought a coffee roaster. They put it in a room in their HVAC business, and started roasting coffee. Then they started buying specialty beans and creating specialty blends. Then they started working with community organizations, like Panhandle Animal Welfare Society, packaging bags of coffee specifically branded for the charity, so that every bag sold raises money for them. Today Kevin and Michelle have all kinds of collaborations going on, and Michelle is dreaming about leaving the HVAC business behind and making Seafoam Roasting Company her full time career. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you the type of person who finds yourself texting people, “sorry, running late, on the way”? Are you typically the last one to arrive to pick up your kids? Are you “that guy” or “that girl”? The one running through the airport who only just makes it to the departure gate before they close the airplane doors? If any of these are you, you have what behavioral scientists call “poor Executive Functioning skills.” I asked AI, “What is Executive Functioning?” And this is the verbatim response it gave me: “If your brain is a wedding planner, Executive Functioning is the part that keeps the timeline, coordinates vendors, manages last-minute changes, prevents emotional meltdowns, and ensures the bride, groom, guests and staff all stay on track.” For Tania Deer, it’s more than just her brain that’s a wedding planner – it’s her entire professional Iife. Tania has been planning weddings at the beach since 2005. She’s the Coordinator at Sugar Beach Weddings and she plans and executes 50-60 weddings a year. If you’ve ever been in a wedding or planned one, can you imagine doing that gargantuan once-in-a-lifetime task once a week? While I had AI open, I asked it, “What are some other orchestrated events on the Emerald Coast?” It gave me a list of them, including the Destin Fishing Rodeo, the Emerald Coast Cruizin Car Show, the 30A Wine Festival, and a bunch of others. Strangely, the one orchestrated event it didn’t mention is an actual orchestra. When I pointed that out, Chat GPT replied, “Great catch! You’re absolutely right. Sinfonia Gulf Coast is one of the most prominent and truly orchestrated events in the Florida Panhandle.” And so it is. Sinfonia Gulf Coast is a professional orchestra that produces a full concert season, educational performances, guest-artist events, holiday shows and special gala-style evenings. The orchestra was founded in 2005 by a dedicated board of directors and its founder and Music and Artistic Director, Demetrius Fuller. Entrepreneur of the Week Our Entrepreneur of the Week is Dion Jones. Dion is a country music singer and songwriter, and leader of the band The Neon Tears. Dion is a country musician with his roots in the sand. He says  “Santa Rosa Beach is one of the best music towns. It’s like a mini Nashville. But they actually pay you.”  Dion plays up and down The Panhandle, often 7 days a week. He has his sights set on Nashville and the big league of country music, but he's doing it on his own terms. So far his plan seeems to be working. To Sum Up... When we talk about someone’s wedding, we often refer to it as “The Big Day.” Getting married is one of the most momentous and life changing days in anybody’s life. Being the lynch-pin in the wedding of a couple is more than just a job, it’s a serious responsibility. Tania's day at the office is all about balancing the tension between the happiest and frequently the most stressful day in a person’s life. Wedding Planner is not a career for the faint of heart. It’s interesting to note that when a bride walks down the aisle – even if it’s on the sand – to accompany the most important moment of her life, most brides choose classical music. Classical music is woven into our lives in more ways than many of us realize, and none more important than the gift a living orchestra brings to a community, including our children’s education. And then there's the total other, super-popular end of the musical spectrum – Country music. Dion, Demetrius, and Tania represent the wide range of events and experiences available to those of us who live on or visit The Panhandle. They're each making a vlauable contribution to the Emerald Coast cultural economy. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you live around here, you may have heard this piece of business advice: Do you know how make a small fortune in the Florida Panhandle? Start with a large one. Over the last decade or so, as real estate prices and the cost of living have climbed, it’s become commonplace for people who have already done well financially to move here. Or buy a second home here. But there are still people who move here for the same reason most people migrate around the world and across the country: to make a better life for themselves, raise a family, or build a business. Michael Carey had a 25 year career in law enforcement before opening a consignment furniture store, in Birmingham Alabama. He called his store Stock & Trade, and in 2012 he established the business’s corporate headquarters in Destin. Today, Stock & Trade has an outlet in Atlanta, showrooms in Birmingham and Nashville, and at their Santa Rosa location on Highway 98 they have 60 full time employees working on administration, logistics, an allied café business, and furniture design services - from new construction to turn-key for rentals or second homes. It’s not all that unusual to meet someone who moved here, like Michael, from somewhere in the South. It’s a lot more unusual to meet someone who moved here from Russia. Like Eve Emilianova. Now, everybody has to come from somewhere, so it’s not always relevant – or polite - to ask where someone is from. But in Eve’s case, her background has a direct bearing on her business. Eve is the founder of Honey Med. As the name suggests, Honey Med is honey as medicine.  It’s a unique formula drawn from Eve’s Russian heritage and her grandmother’s honey-based cure-all known as “folk penicillin,” combined with Eve’s affinity for Native American, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine. Honey Med has anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties. And it has a growing number of consumers who buy the product online, locally at stores from Panama City to Destin, and in retail stores in other states including Alabama and Tennessee. Entrepreneur of the Week Our Entrepreneur of the Week is Rachel Simmons, Founder and CEO of Yoga Balm, an all-natural anti-inflammatory cream that you apply to your skin for treating the muscle aches and pains that come with exercise, or pain that comes with age, like arthritis pain. Rachel started making Yoga Balm at her home in Navarre in 2004. Today, Yoga Balm has a devoted following across the country. Rachel has 6,000 direct to consumer clients. And 3,000 retail outlets across the country sell Yoga Balm – mostly health spas and yoga studios. There’s a well-known saying in the world of working out: no pain no gain. And while it’s true that sometimes you have to push yourself a little beyond your limit, the goal for most of us is to live a life that’s primarily about the first half of the saying: no pain. Eve and Rachel are focused on simple, direct, natural cures for decreasing pain and discomfort, and for Michael's contribution, there’s no doubt that the peace that comes from comfortable surroundings is itself a form of beneficial meditation. These three local business peple are working every day to make life here on the Emerald Coast peaceful, happy, and pain free. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1988 Nike was one of many sports shoe  manufacturers when they launched a marketing campaign with the slogan, “Just do it.” It wasn't so much the words themselves as the spirit behind them -  an enthusiasm for life itself -that captured the attention of the American public and catapulted Nike into a position of market dominance and extraordinary financial success. Nearly 20 years later, in 2007, a similar thing happened here on the Emerald Coast when Jeff Archer and his partner founded a company called YOLO Board. YOLO stands for “You Only Live Once” and the word “board” referred to a stand-up paddle board. The image of standing up on a board on the Gulf, or paddleboarding to explore the waters of inland lakes, captured the spirit of the moment here. And it seemed for a time like everybody was paddle-boarding every minute of the day they possibly could. Like Nike’s sneakers, YOLO used the success of its paddle-board manufacture and sales to diversify and create a lifestyle brand that today includes bikes, accessories, and even a branded coffee and a coffee shop. It wasn't long after the Nike revolution that running shoes became fashion footwear. And then the flood gates opened. Pioneered by apparel company Lulu Lemon, and popularized by young women who wanted to go straight from yoga class to the organic supermarket to Starbucks to picking up kids and who would rather sit in their SUV in traffic than waste an entire 5 minutes changing clothes, a new style of clothing was born, called “Athleisure.” In 2019, Kurt Tobias gave athleisure a Florida Panhandle flavor when he launched his clothing line, Choona. Choona – which is a contraction of Choose Your Nature – blends our outdoor lifestyle and coastal colors with everyday wear. Choona is branded as “Outleisure” – intended to go from the beach, hiking, or fishing, to everyday activities. Choona is ethically sourced, designed and manufactured in the US, has an estimated multi-million dollar revenue, and is headquartered right here in Santa Rosa. Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week this week is actually two entrepreneurs, Jennifer and Brandon Favano, known collectively as That Kiteboard Couple. Actually they’re a trio. The third member of the team is Tiki, the Marmoset monkey. Tiki is the mascot and for most people he's the social media introduction to Brandon and Jennifer's kiteboard lifestyle which they promote from their homebase in Navarre. And talking of home, unless you have a job that takes you outdoors, a great deal of your life is spent inside. When you live here, there’s an element of torture to that, because the outdoors is, after all, mostly why we live here. So we make the most of any time we can get outdoors. Beyond the beauty, tranquility and rejuvenation of the spirit and soul that comes from just being a part of the natural environment, there’s also something to be said for being comfortable and having fun. Jeff, Kurt, Jennifer and Brandon are all responsible in one way or another for maximizing the experiences of living here in the Panhandle. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’re looking to get into retail and open a store, the first piece of advice you’ll get from any business consultant is, “Sell something everybody needs.” Well, nobody needs a cigar and nobody needs a guitar. So in theory our guests on this edition of Out to Lunch should be out of business. But far from it. One of them has a thriving music store, and the  other has two super-successful cigar stores. The reason they’ve defied common business logic is, both their stores transcend mere transactions. More than just a place to buy stuff, they’re both hubs of social interaction that create community. Michael Austin is the owner of Austin Music Company, the only music store in Panama City. It’s right on the Parkway, just west of Pier Park, and pretty much any time of day or night you’ll find people of all ages taking music lessons. And by “all ages,” there are kids as young as 7 and folks well into their golden years from nearby Latitudes Margaritaville retirement community, learning everything you could imagine, including guitar, saxophone, trumpet banjo, bass, and more. And, of course, you can buy instruments there too. Almost nothing says, “I’m relaxed, I’m happy, and I’m just gonna sit here and watch the world go by” like a guy lighting a cigar. That’s a generalization. But when it comes to actually smoking a cigar, that’s anything but one-size fits all. What a cigar tastes like, what it smells like, and what it feels like to smoke is highly personal. Paul Copeland is the Co-Owner of two stores, both called Shore Thing Cigars, one in Gulf Shores Alabama and the flagship store here in Watersound. Paul’s partner in the business is his good buddy,  music icon Luke Bryan. Luke loves cigars and is the inspiration for some of  Shore Thing’s exclusive custom blends. But it’s Paul who has the cigar cred, going all the way back to working at Franklin Cigar in Tennessee, a store he got fired from and later bought. 15-plus years later, Paul has won awards like Tobacconist of the Year and he’s a three-time Davidoff Golden Band Award winner. We’re used to judging greatness by achievement – whether it’s wealth, strength, or winning. But there’s more to life than striving. The writer Clive James famously put it this way, “A society is not judged by the height of its ambitions but by the depths of its pleasures.” One of the reasons people choose to live or spend time in this part of the world is because we have an appreciation of pleasure. Whether that pleasure is enjoying the natural beauty of our surroundings, enjoying listening to or playing music, or smoking a fine cigar. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.