Building a Food Business from the Ground Up with The Esendemir Sisters
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Meet the Esendemir Sisters
The Esendemir Sisters - Arzu, Fusun, and Gonca are the co-founders of the Mediterranean fast-casual concept, Flatbread Grill, and creators of Thumb Bread, an artisanal bread line made with natural ingredients. Growing up with financial instability, the sisters were inspired by their father's entrepreneurial spirit to start their own business.
The Esendemir Sisters' entrepreneurial journey is an inspiring story of perseverance, dedication, and hard work. Despite facing challenges and obstacles, they succeeded in the food business by leveraging their unique experiences and expertise. Over the past decade, the Esendemir Sisters have baked over a million pieces of handmade bread at their fast-casual restaurant, Flatbread Grill. Since launching Thumb Bread less than a year ago, they’ve already baked nearly a quarter-million pieces of bread and have landed their first major retail account.
Episode Highlights
During this episode of The Food Means Business Podcast, we discuss:
How the sisters' father's entrepreneurial spirit inspired them to start their own business
The challenges and obstacles with navigating permits, finding a suitable location, and dealing with rent issues
How they paused their restaurant business during the pandemic and launched Thumb Bread
How a background in the restaurant industry helped them succeed in the bread category
Ups and downs on the roller-coaster ride of entrepreneurship
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00;00;00;28 - 00;00;24;21
Djenaba
You were listening to the Food Means Business podcast, which features the personal stories and secret ingredients behind what it's like to abandon your day job to start a food business. I'm Djenaba Johnson Jones, former marketing executive turned entrepreneur and founder of food business incubator Hudson Kitchen. Join our community of fellow food, business owners and subject matter experts to learn and laugh with us as we explore a startup world that's a little more culinary and a lot less corporate.
00;00;24;21 - 00;00;35;24
Esendemir
These days, the studio they're trying to get us all into, they had to actually ask one of the hosts to leave and was supposed to be to host the world. I like you, and we're not going to be a chef at all.
00;00;35;24 - 00;00;54;21
Djenaba
So you see, I watched I watched yesterday. That was fantastic. You okay, ladies? Okay, let me make sure I got this right. So Esendemir sisters. Yes. Okay. So I'm going to. I'll start now. Hi. Esendemir sisters, welcome to the Food Means Business podcast.
00;00;55;04 - 00;00;57;12
Esendemir
Hi. Thank you for having us.
00;00;57;27 - 00;01;05;28
Djenaba
Thanks for being here. I'm so excited to chat with you guys. So if you could please do me a favor and go around and introduce yourselves.
00;01;06;26 - 00;01;16;20
Esendemir
You. Hi, I'm Susan. I'm the older sister. Hi, I'm Ari. I am the youngest sister and I am Gunja. I am the middle sister.
00;01;17;06 - 00;01;37;23
Djenaba
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So this podcast is all about quitting your day job to start a food business. And I know I think a few of you have worked a corporate job before before launching your businesses. So I'd love to hear your stories and kind of how you guys came up with the idea of flat bed bread grow and then then bread.
00;01;38;15 - 00;02;12;09
Esendemir
You soon will start. Well, I was working a corporate job after high school. I attended technical training for electronics engineering technology. So after vocational school, I landed a position in manufacturing. So I was actually laid off from that because I was taking too much time off to take my parents to doctors visits and I was a supervisor. So one day they just came to me and said, you know, you can't take this much time off, even though I was using my own vacation days.
00;02;12;27 - 00;02;44;25
Esendemir
And once they laid me off, it was a real big blow to me because it I suddenly went from having financial stability, a paycheck every two weeks to having nothing at all. So but after that, I realized that I wanted to do something that put me in charge of my own destiny and still allowed me to have the freedom to to take time off to take care of my parents, but at the same time, use some kind of some of my skills to make money.
00;02;45;04 - 00;03;16;10
Esendemir
So after after that, I just said to myself, well, what do I do really? Well, that I can I can give back to the public. So and I know food has always been a passion of mine. So I worked corporate too. I write out of high school like my first big girl job was working in midtown Manhattan. And I love the money because we grew up in poverty.
00;03;16;10 - 00;03;38;26
Esendemir
So I love the money and shopping on Madison Avenue and I love the New York City vibes. But I knew early on because I was still so pretty 19 and I knew that corporate was definitely just not for me. I just, I, I couldn't be stuck to a routine and I couldn't be in that kind of just linear environment.
00;03;38;26 - 00;03;46;00
Esendemir
I needed an adrenaline rush, and it just I wasn't going to find it in corporate America, even though the money was so good.
00;03;47;02 - 00;03;50;06
Djenaba
And I know it's hard. It's hard to leave when the money.
00;03;51;02 - 00;04;17;22
Esendemir
I'm not from being literally and having no clothes. And all of a sudden I was making like $19 an hour, you know, so it was pretty I mean, benefits. It's just like. Yes. And then you actually do want to talk about your experience. Well, I never made it to the corporate world. I was actually fielding job offers for positions on Wall Street right after I graduated college.
00;04;18;19 - 00;04;39;17
Esendemir
But theSkimm got laid off and our father needed health insurance so we can have this open heart surgery. And when the sun came to me and asked me to start a business, I jumped in. I took the risk, thinking maybe I'd eventually get into the corporate world someday. But here I am, an entrepreneur so many years later. And I think this is where I would be staying.
00;04;40;19 - 00;04;52;24
Djenaba
Yeah, sounds. That sounds good. I completely agree with you. I'm definitely going to stay here as well. I can't go back at all. At all. So talk to us. So you guys had an idea for a food business? Talk to me about the business and how you got started.
00;04;54;17 - 00;05;27;28
Esendemir
You want to talk about so how do you want to go? That is, they always make me talk about I don't know how I got every interview we do there. They always wait for me to answer this. So basically if you soon our big sister got laid off and my father was was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and he had been an entrepreneur all his life to work as he worked his way up when he came here from Turkey, he built his own businesses.
00;05;28;11 - 00;05;52;22
Esendemir
He didn't end up losing them. So there was a point where we just didn't have very much. And my family was kind of starting over. So we never really had health insurance. We never went to doctors. If you got sick, you just prayed and hope that you got better. So when he had his first big heart attack, the doctors basically said, You're going to need open heart surgery or you're going to die.
00;05;52;24 - 00;06;19;21
Esendemir
Basically, that was so it was a life or death situation. And then when he soon was laid off and she had her job had been paying her well enough where she can support my parents while they didn't work and when we lost that financial. Yeah it's still the now health insurance is a lot better how do you get financial help if you need it right.
00;06;20;19 - 00;06;45;02
Esendemir
And for them I was paying almost $2,000 for you know, for both my mom and my dad for health insurance. And one of the biggest reasons that they were in such bad condition is because they didn't have the help along the way. They they did not go for a blood test. They did not. My mom lives with an £85 hernia that back then she couldn't get fixed.
00;06;45;02 - 00;07;07;07
Esendemir
Now it's too late to fix it because no one wants to touch that. But back then it was very costly for health insurance. And we knew that even with my job, I would have struggled a little bit to try to get them the help that they need. So everything worked out the way it did for a reason. So I'm very thankful for that.
00;07;07;29 - 00;07;47;03
Esendemir
We in terms of the the, the business like actually starting that up, it was, you know, people always want to hear a glamorous story or this this big story about how we came together, where we were strategizing. I think it was really simple. One simple, small decision that was like peace and saying to our Sue, who is graduating from college at the time, at the top of her class, I was great because, you know, I was doing Wall Street or she was going to go on to be a lawyer, go to law school, and she would have been phenomenal at either one.
00;07;47;03 - 00;08;08;07
Esendemir
Thank you. And instead sent her like, hey, I have an idea, I want to start a restaurant. Do you think like you could help me? And I was like, Yeah, sure. Just I think she said she said exactly verbatim. Well, you just graduated business school. Do you think you can help me start a restaurant? And my response was like, okay, how to start a restaurant in business school?
00;08;08;07 - 00;08;10;17
Esendemir
But sure, we let's do best.
00;08;10;27 - 00;08;13;11
Djenaba
Right? We'll figure it out. That's great, I think.
00;08;13;12 - 00;08;34;00
Esendemir
Hey, do you want to do to me was like, do you want to do marketing stuff? Because you're like really creative? I was like, Yeah, sure, I'll do all the fun stuff. And then that was it. The three of us were like, Okay, yeah, we're going to do this. And then Arzu kind of took control of formulating like a concept coming up with the menu and she wanted to do this special.
00;08;34;00 - 00;08;55;20
Esendemir
Brad how you want to talk about your special great idea? Oh, yeah. I mean, I wanted something different because restaurants are challenging and I told both my sisters that if we're going to make it in this industry, we had to exercise differentiation, we had to bring something of value to our customers, something different that everyone else wasn't offering.
00;08;56;12 - 00;09;16;10
Esendemir
So I really wanted to create and base concepts around unique homemade flatbreads, and that's how we came up with them right? I came up with a proprietary recipe. I wanted this spread to be weaved throughout our menu, so I didn't have a whole bunch of different breads and different inventory to have to control. So and this bread is special.
00;09;16;10 - 00;09;29;27
Esendemir
And I always say this because it literally did save my father's life, because you had a lot of kids coming out screaming, Mommy, I want sandwiches, my grilled cheese on some bread. So it really did help save his life. And I'm so grateful for that.
00;09;30;09 - 00;09;48;04
Djenaba
That that's so amazing that you were able to do that. So let's talk about this bread. So it's I I'm a big fan of focus, so I love that you chose something to focus the business around. So actually let's step back for a second. How did you get the business off the ground? I mean, it's one thing to have a concept.
00;09;48;04 - 00;09;50;10
Djenaba
It's another to actually execute on that concept.
00;09;51;13 - 00;10;19;17
Esendemir
So we were not ready for the challenges and obstacles that we faced. I mean, anyone else for that? I think the menu and the food was the easiest part because that was something we were familiar with. What we were not familiar with was the challenges of going for permits, of finding the space that needed needed so much. Yeah.
00;10;20;06 - 00;10;41;26
Esendemir
And we were delayed. I mean, we literally lost so much of our money for rent of just trying to get over, just trying to get open. Yeah. And you know, I was not prepared for the disaster that is waiting for me. We didn't do this just once because we opened up several restaurants. But you never got easier, you know.
00;10;41;26 - 00;10;52;20
Djenaba
I kept thinking it would be so much easier because I, you know, have my one facility. And I thought, like, if I do this again, it's going to be so much better because I know what I'm doing right now. So you're telling me that's not going to be one?
00;10;52;24 - 00;11;09;02
Esendemir
It's not it's not just to like a lot of what holds this up. And even now, like when I look at the my the pain points in the frustration, a lot of times it's your vendors to just then coming through for you on time that that they have delays or they change their prices or they have supply chain issues.
00;11;09;02 - 00;11;43;18
Esendemir
So you show up ready, willing to do the work and then the people that you hire or you're working with can't come through for you because of something on their end. So you're kind of backed into a wall, I think with the bread are the hardest thing for us was probably just taking that chance and saying, okay, we're going to pivot from doing the restaurants full time to doing the bread full time because that was just a really small, crazy idea to other people because they didn't think we should be walking away from the restaurant brand because we had done it for so long and it was familiar and we built up this brand equity
00;11;43;18 - 00;12;06;17
Esendemir
for over a decade. So they want us to keep expanding and keep going. And but for us, we were just, you know, it was it was pandemic. We were like, you don't you're not going to you're not going to thrive in a pandemic. You know, selling having restaurants is just well, with all the restrictions after COVID shutting down, people are not allowed to come in and eat.
00;12;06;17 - 00;12;37;24
Esendemir
And for us, 90% of our business was the University, which was shut shutdown. So we took a hard blow. So it was a do or die for us. We knew we had bills to pay and we had to pivot quickly and we're so happy we made that decision early on. And so starting up the, the, the CPG side of it was a little bit of a new business, but we had already gotten our feet wet because while we had the restaurants we were selling to local stores and we just, we were still making it by hand for the stores and now our restaurant locations.
00;12;37;24 - 00;12;55;14
Esendemir
So it was difficult. So at some point we had to put the brakes on it, but we knew that we wanted to go back to it. So when the pandemic hit, we kind of invested what we would have invested into keeping the restaurants alive. We invested into the bread, essentially getting that up and running, getting the equipment we needed.
00;12;55;26 - 00;13;15;25
Esendemir
Um, finding a space to that was difficult as we knew we wanted something that was already ready to go. We didn't want to build because build outs take time and hours. You met a couple that was retiring and had a bakery and they had the oven we needed, had the mixer we needed. We had our own rounding, dividing equipment we had invested in.
00;13;16;05 - 00;13;32;27
Esendemir
So we were able to like move right in and start our first. So in that aspect, I think we got lucky for the first time and we, you know, again, like we always say, we have bad luck every when one thing is going good, something else, we just collapsed on the other side.
00;13;33;14 - 00;13;49;11
Djenaba
I think two things can be true. It's always, always, always something going on. So you guys got you had some traction before, you know, kind of as COVID was having a before COVID and then you kind of decided to make the pivot into focusing on the dumb bread. You were still you were in a couple of local stores.
00;13;49;11 - 00;13;59;24
Djenaba
How did you make the jump from local to like stores to kind of going into like a Shoprite or the other places that you were?
00;13;59;24 - 00;14;16;01
Esendemir
We had to learn quickly. Yeah, we had to learn first. And the first thing that we learned was how to operate a pallet jack, you believe it or not, for some reason I was like, We have to learn how to operate a pallet jack. And she was right because we didn't have we don't actually have a loading dock where we are.
00;14;16;01 - 00;14;46;07
Esendemir
So everything we do is like something that seems small to other people. Like we can only have straight trucks with lift gates actually becomes very difficult when you're loading pallets out. Yeah. So that was like the first thing she said, we have to operate a pallet. Jack and I have video of her doing this. Try to never, ever say we're going to add an hour or something that that was like actually like try to figure out how to get those pallets out the door because we knew we were going to do we were going to deal with the big orders, like we were doing smaller orders.
00;14;46;07 - 00;15;09;16
Esendemir
We started off slow with like a local deli's, the school. We had a relationship, wanted to place an order. We did some online orders so as small, but we knew that we were going to be working large wholesale orders. So we were kind of trying to teach ourselves the logistics, like how to wrap a pallet, how to get the cases onto the pallet, how to make sure that pallet doesn't tip, you know, just to logistics of getting the product to our distributor.
00;15;10;01 - 00;15;33;09
Esendemir
In terms of our first major retail account that was I don't I don't want I don't want to say it was a lot, but I think the right place at the right time and the first person who saw it really loved it and he hadn't actually met us yet. He just saw the products and he loved the product and then he learned our story and he loved that.
00;15;33;09 - 00;15;50;28
Esendemir
So it was one door opened, we walked through it and then another door opened. So that's basically how it happened, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And it's unusual, like you said it, we had a lot of doors slammed in our faces. Many people think otherwise when they meet us, like, Oh, you girls are so sweet, you know, you're lovely.
00;15;50;28 - 00;16;07;16
Esendemir
I wanted to do well. And, you know, is there anything I can do? But it wasn't like that. The first 13, 14 years in business, we had a lot worse clothes, so we had two doors open like it was. I don't want to say it was easy, but it was like we started sprinting. We're like, Right, life is the darkest hour before it closes.
00;16;08;04 - 00;16;23;26
Esendemir
So but I think going back, I think was all the years that we've dedicated now. It was coming through and there was an ROI on all the years of hard work we put in. And that's what those doors were, you know, so credibility, right? Like we had we had some kind of credibility established now because the we earned it.
00;16;23;26 - 00;16;46;01
Esendemir
Yeah, we worked hard for it. Like the bread category is tough and it's dominated by, you know, locally, it's dominated by really big bakeries and then nationally it's just dominated by the major bread manufacturers, not in a category. And if we hadn't had the background on the restaurant industry, it's unlikely we would have been able to do it as quick, you know.
00;16;46;01 - 00;17;07;18
Esendemir
And also we just as you've been making this bread for how long? So when like something something like our machine breaking down, if it breaks down, she knows how to hand around. It's not ideal to do 5000 pieces by hand, but she does it if, you know, if we run into it. So when we run into obstacles, we run into some of these obstacles before in our restaurant industry career.
00;17;07;18 - 00;17;12;26
Esendemir
So it's a little easier to navigate and we don't cry anymore. I think we just laugh.
00;17;14;09 - 00;17;16;20
Djenaba
Because at a certain point you just have to laugh because it's it's all.
00;17;16;20 - 00;17;20;06
Esendemir
Funny. It's like, Oh, this is terrible, guys. This is awful.
00;17;21;27 - 00;17;26;20
Djenaba
So are you all still managing the manufacturing yourself or have you been able to outsource that a little bit?
00;17;27;25 - 00;17;55;04
Esendemir
We are doing it ourselves now. And and that's because I want to find ways to make things easier so that when we do bring on a team, everything's just easier for them. So they have to go through all the mistakes and challenges we've had. So we are currently looking to putting a team together. So because it's not feasible, we're not going to be able to do all the manufacturing production piloting, but we are trying marketing everything ourselves and we did this again with the restaurant early on.
00;17;55;04 - 00;18;19;04
Esendemir
We did every task ourselves down to even cleaning our own bathrooms. So and we did that for the restaurant. Then we were able to hire a team of people. So that was nice. And that's where we are currently. We are looking to grow our team. So and she's is is really great and she's having tons of conversations with people about everything, you know, like raising capital, finding a bigger space sales staff.
00;18;19;04 - 00;18;32;03
Esendemir
So we're always talking to people and having conversations and taking meetings because scaling is really important for us right now. Definitely moving a lot faster than we anticipated. So we're trying to keep up with that and then get ahead of it.
00;18;32;22 - 00;18;45;12
Djenaba
I think it's so smart to do the job yourself first. That way you know what you're hiring for and so you're going to make less mistakes. You're going to make mistakes. We don't make less mistakes because you actually know what the job is. So you you know, it takes an hour to do something and someone's taking 2 hours.
00;18;45;17 - 00;19;17;15
Esendemir
That you need to do. And that's how we were with the restaurant to where if somebody came in, it was easier to manage a small staff. Less people would walk into our restaurant and it actually became this thing where like if you left our restaurant and you went to work somewhere else and you said, I worked with a girl that was a flop, or they almost always hired you because they knew our team was small and that you had to be kind of a bad ass to keep up with us because we we knew all of the tasks inside out where I would put up sheets that says it should only take you 30 seconds
00;19;17;15 - 00;19;38;28
Esendemir
to open and close this machine and toast the sandwich like we were down to the nitty gritty. I want you to be like, okay, you should only take you 2 minutes to make this platter from start to finish because we had done it for so long. And then I think ours was just been she's like, really come a long way with being becoming more productive and efficient with the process.
00;19;38;28 - 00;20;06;12
Esendemir
And it's surprising because again, like it happened so much quicker than I thought it was where, you know, when we were doing of production, one batch would take us like 18 hours. Now she's now it's like 4 hours on it. But wow. So she's she's really focused on that. But again, it's just emerging yourself in the process. So yeah, well, I would like to say you made us sound like a bunch of crazies with the whole process and oh, I was going to say my former staff, they thought I was a nut job.
00;20;06;12 - 00;20;22;18
Esendemir
I just wasn't with me. It was me. I'm not job. No, you are, actually. But you were one of the early favorites. But I would like to say that 90 over 99% of our employees are still in contact with that. Wow. Okay. So that's a good sign right now.
00;20;22;18 - 00;20;27;02
Djenaba
That's a very good sign. That's a very good sign. So they also have you thought about hiring those employees?
00;20;27;03 - 00;20;48;16
Esendemir
Awesome staff. Yes, I promise. We're actually we're we're not in New Jersey right now. I was in New Jersey. We're here. But and we do a lot of the work out here, but the actual baking is currently getting done. So we travel back and forth. So we are trying to bring the manufacturing back to New Jersey. But as you know, New Jersey is very expensive.
00;20;48;23 - 00;20;49;29
Djenaba
Sounds very special.
00;20;49;29 - 00;21;03;25
Esendemir
Yes, we love it. We want it. We tiro we're like we really want to be back in New Jersey. But finding commercial industrial warehouse space in New Jersey is at an affordable price. Is not easy, especially in North Jersey.
00;21;04;04 - 00;21;17;26
Djenaba
Yeah, it's such a challenge. I know firsthand. So. So, yeah. So can you guys give give us. Oh, let me ask this question. What is it like working with your sisters? Because everybody can't work together.
00;21;19;18 - 00;21;52;03
Esendemir
I think we I think we've become better at separating like so in the restaurants. I think we were we brought everything to the table, like all of it, our God. They are like the one toy Barbie doll. We had that country would share with me. I used morale it's like in the middle of our is for us like you are always an awful sister so we've got we've done a lot better at separating the two and saying, you know what, this what you're talking about is not related to the business at all.
00;21;52;03 - 00;22;09;08
Esendemir
Like, let's focus on that. So being able to separate our personal issues from the business, I think that was always tough for us because, you know, we work together, we see each other all the time. You know, there's nowhere to go, there's nowhere to run. Like, even if I want to escape that mine, we're running. We're running like a four day production schedule.
00;22;09;08 - 00;22;25;24
Esendemir
There's nowhere for me to go. Like, I'm stuck a female, but we love each other. Know soon as like our big sister. She's like our mom. So there's a certain threshold of how I can fight with her because she's like my mom, you know, I can't. I can't fight with her the same way I fight with you, my little sister.
00;22;26;03 - 00;22;50;13
Esendemir
I'll go. I'll go and I'll go. I'll throw hand supplies if I have to. I see my mom, my second mom, you know. But we have we have fun, though. We have fun. Would have fun. We do have a lot of fun. We have our own inside jokes that cause me corporate America. I call her corporate. No corporate America because she does everything.
00;22;50;13 - 00;23;10;14
Esendemir
Everything has to be by the book with her. Like everything. Like if you you go outside like standard operating procedure. She's just there watching you saying, well, how have that? So yeah, that's her nickname. And then yeah, it's it's it's fun. It's fun. The good days are fun. The bad days where we're sharing the burdens together.
00;23;10;14 - 00;23;22;10
Djenaba
So good. So give me some lessons learned from a piece of advice that you want to share with someone that's looking to leave their job and launch a food business.
00;23;23;18 - 00;23;43;08
Esendemir
I'd say I think the one piece of advice I want to give people is never to be discouraged. People always have something to say, right? And they may not support your vision. I always say, I just learned to be your own cheerleader and believe in yourself. There are going to be days when nobody believes in you and you have a lot of critics.
00;23;43;18 - 00;24;05;08
Esendemir
If you need to just believe in yourself. And I always say Just focus on yourself. How are you going to move yourself forward? How are you going to move your company forward? A lot of times people are too focused on social media where other people, what other people are doing and they're losing time. Right. So and instead of focusing on other people, just focus on yourself and your business and how you're going to progress.
00;24;05;08 - 00;24;30;14
Esendemir
So and be prepared for the the crazy roller coaster ride. Yes. Because you're you're always putting out fire sometimes. I would say that just being a business owner is putting out fires. That's what you do some days and there's a lot of instability and it's crazy and challenging. I then I think fiction will tell you this. When you work corporate, you have higher level management who puts out those fires for you.
00;24;31;22 - 00;24;57;29
Esendemir
So I think for me, I never appreciated I always wondered why my boss doesn't do this or how come he doesn't acknowledge this. And I didn't realize from a business standpoint that they're working on these huge problems and fires to be able to keep their their staff with their paychecks every week. I think the biggest advice I would give is I didn't have a choice.
00;24;57;29 - 00;25;34;15
Esendemir
I was laid off. So I didn't that paycheck just cut for me after. I think if if you could do the research and still get a paycheck and work in corporate until you're ready to to really adventure out your self, my biggest advice would be to take that path. Don't just leave your job and the stability. I had no choice but think for for me I think research and don't just up and leave because you have this don't give up on your dream either but really plan a family foundation.
00;25;34;17 - 00;25;54;09
Esendemir
Yeah I think people because sometimes people look at us and they're like, wow, it's so cool. Like they took a risk and they don't realize. We grew up and very we had a very tumultuous childhood. We grew up in poverty. The sheriff showed up one day and locked us out of our home and we lost. So we grew up, my parents, my father came country with nothing like we watched him work hard.
00;25;54;09 - 00;26;21;24
Esendemir
We watched him open up restaurants and lose restaurants and lose businesses, lose properties. When you grow up in that environment, you're kind of already forged in the fire. You're used to instability and that will drive you forward, you know. But if you have a more stable life and even if you have more privileged life, acknowledge that because entrepreneurism is basically a rollercoaster, you're you're up, you're down and you're all over the place.
00;26;21;24 - 00;26;43;11
Esendemir
But where you start, we grew up in that environment. So for us, where it was already crazy now. So we were just walking into another crazy area. Okay, this is you know, this is just another crazy day for us. Cool. So what are we eating for lunch? The most important vision of the day, right? Yeah.
00;26;44;02 - 00;27;02;16
Djenaba
It is the most important decision of the day. I think about my next meal every time consuming. The first one and maybe the second one. I'm thinking about it. So it's really important. So do you guys get an opportunity to relax, have fun? I know that there's a lot I mean, you there's a lot of work and you're constantly thinking about work.
00;27;02;16 - 00;27;09;24
Djenaba
I know I do. But is there a moment where you're able to take a step back in some way from the business?
00;27;10;26 - 00;27;30;15
Esendemir
So on our on our on our days off, there's, you know, when we're actually when we're not actually in production and we're back home, we're actually doing a lot of marketing stuff. We're doing interviews, we're going to events, we're planning our next move. But if we do get a moment, I'm just like quiet when there's nothing to do.
00;27;30;15 - 00;27;50;29
Esendemir
That's such a luxury we do and we try to like we actually try to have our alone time away from each other, but see, soon, unfortunately, she's also my parents, like main caretaker, so she has to make her days off or their doctor appointments. So it's if this morning I had to wake up early, I have no sleep.
00;27;50;29 - 00;28;11;29
Esendemir
Took my dad to his blood test and then had to shop for some stuff for him. Get him grocery. Yeah, but today I think. I hope I can get him a manicure and pedicure. That's my luggage. She's like she keeps saying it's like I really she's manifesting and she's like, I go to the nail school, I really and then ask you, well, what do you do on your days off?
00;28;11;29 - 00;28;31;23
Esendemir
Oh, I like going hiking and going on really long walks. It really does help me to de-stress. And then sometimes on these walks I actually am able to problem solve. Like some of my biggest challenges are solved on my long walks. I know I try to keep the business separate, but sometimes it just comes to me when I'm alone away for my sister's like, aha!
00;28;32;00 - 00;28;53;16
Esendemir
Or hot girl walks on my cup and just like sitting at home talking to my plants and reading. Yes. And then there are days and even though I face every day, I still enjoy doing it on my off time. I like creating new products. I don't know. And I also love trying new restaurants, but I love going with my sisters because it's not fun going alone.
00;28;53;16 - 00;29;13;13
Esendemir
So I try to find like new concepts and new cozy restaurants to go try. Yeah. So you present? No, that's weird because I love to try new places without you. Oh, well, she's like. She's like. Like I said, she's like our second mom. So mom's like her own time, right?
00;29;13;13 - 00;29;31;19
Djenaba
That's true. It is so true. So, so at Hudson Kitchen, we have what we call Moneyball in the lobby. And so sometimes people bring it when they get new take on new retail partners or some employees we bring in when they get their paycheck. What are you guys celebrating right now? And it could be anything that's personal or professional.
00;29;32;23 - 00;29;51;28
Esendemir
Let's say we want to celebrate how much bread we made. We got a lot of bread. Yeah. We've always been on the market, I think less officially less than a year. And it took us a decade to bake a million pieces by hand, which I'm proud of this year alone. We think almost a quarter million pieces ago, just.
00;29;51;28 - 00;30;11;04
Esendemir
Yeah, and we want to celebrate that. I guess if you're in the bread business and bakery business, you know how much that is. Yeah, three girls. And people said, you know, people have said we were crazy for venturing away from the restaurant business to do the CPG business, but we are so happy we made that decision. So I think that's something we like to celebrate right now.
00;30;11;10 - 00;30;12;24
Esendemir
So I'm sure. Good.
00;30;13;11 - 00;30;22;19
Djenaba
Well, thank you for being guests on the Food Means Business podcast. I really appreciate it. Please let our listeners know where they can find out all about you guys and thumb bread.
00;30;23;05 - 00;30;41;17
Esendemir
So thumb bread, thumb breaker is where we keep an updated list of store locations where you can buy the bread. There will be a short time frame where you can buy the bread online for the holidays, but it's going to be a very short period. So you have to get it quickly because we sell out and then we're on social media.
00;30;42;11 - 00;30;49;09
Esendemir
At a sudden, the sisters, we have a sister page and we're always on like bread as well, so.
00;30;49;24 - 00;31;14;10
Djenaba
Well, thank you. The Food Means Business podcast is produced by Hudson Kitchen. It's recorded and edited at the studio at Carney Point. Our theme song is by Damien de Sandys, and I'm your host, Nabil Johnson Jones. Find out more about Hudson Kitchen by visiting the Hudson Kitchen dot com or follow us on Instagram at the Hudson Kitchen. Listen below and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
00;31;14;11 - 00;31;15;05
Djenaba
Until next time.