Luci Butts, September 23, 2022

Luci Butts, September 23, 2022

In this interview, Luci Butts talks about her business Chilled Peels Lemonade, as well as discussing being raised in Detroit.

Detroit Historical Society

Detroit Historical Society

en-US

Luci Butts was born and raised on Eastside of Detroit, and in 2020 she founded her business Chilled Peels Lemonade.

Lily Chen

Detroit, MI

9/23/2022

48:13

Taylor Claybrook

LC [00:00:02] Okay. I'm going to hit record on this, too. Okay. All right, so my name is Lily. I am a curatorial consultant here at the museum. And we're yeah, we're really excited to have interviews for our hustle honorees. And today you're from Chilled Peels Lemonade. Yes. Amazing. Okay, so let's get started, though. My name is Lily. Today is Friday, September 23rd. Thank you. Friday, September 23rd. It's about 5:30 p.m. and we are really excited to have one of our Hustle interviewees or hustle honorees here today. Go ahead and introduce your full name. Spell it out for us and then tell us your business name too.

LB [00:01:02] Okay, so my name is Luci Butts, and my business is Chilled Peels Lemonade.

LC [00:01:11] Great, and Chilled Peels is spelled Chilled and Peelz with a “z”?

LB [00:01:19] Nope, peels with an s.

LC [00:01:21] Perfect. All right. And do you have a brick and mortar?

LB [00:01:27] We are inside of a brick and mortar, so we're actually inside of the Holy Moly donut shop. Okay. 17101 East Warren Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. 48224.

LC [00:01:38] Okay. Yep. And what year was your business founded?

LB [00:01:42] 2020.

LC [00:01:43] Okay. Very cool. Are you from Detroit?

LB [00:01:46] I am born and raised.

LC [00:01:47] East side or West side. Yeah. Yeah.

LB [00:01:50] East, not too far from here. Kirby Street.

LC [00:01:52] Oh, wow. Okay. You're literally on the street. Yes. Is your business on the east side, too?

LB [00:01:58] It is. It’s at Warren and Cadieux. Oh, right. Detroit down from Grosse Pointe.

LC [00:02:02] Wow. Yeah. Okay, So literally not too far from, you know.
LB [00:02:06] Yeah. 15 minutes.

LC [00:02:08] Is your whole family from the east side?

LB [00:02:09] So my family originated from south, but. Yes, moved here and moved east.

LC [00:02:14] Okay, very cool. And are they still here?

LB[00:02:17] They are. So my mom is here. My father, he passed away from COVID hence how we got started with everything with the lemonade.

LC [00:02:26] Wow. Okay, So that's definitely we'll get into that story. Tell me about growing up in Detroit.

LB [00:02:34] Um, so different from now. So I grew up on Kirby Kirby and Mt. Elliot. So a little further down across the freeway. Yeah. I tell our children all the time. When I grew up, we actually stayed outside all night. We made pallets on the porch.
Watch the stars. We will wait til it got dark. All the kids from our neighborhood would go skating. Like just skating around our blocks. Yeah. Or riding bikes around our blocks. All of our neighbors were friends we still keep in contact to this day to some degree. Plan at Belle Isle riding the giant slide. Yeah, all of that. So I have been able to partake and look and see the different things that Detroit have now versus when I was growing up, such as the River Walk that we didn't have. But now it's kind of neat to see all of those things coming to the inner city.

LC [00:03:30] Yeah. Yeah. What year were you born? 81. Okay. Eighties baby. Okay.

LB [00:03:35] Yes. Adidas.

LC [00:03:37] Yeah. So you. You kind of saw a lot of the coolest parts of of growing up in Detroit. And did you go to Detroit Public Schools?

LB [00:03:48] I did go to Detroit Public School. So I went to its not even open anymore. But it was Rose Elementary and they changed the name to Rose Open Elementary it was DPS. And then I went to Whitney Young Middle School. DPS and I went to King High School and I went to Kettering High School.

LC [00:04:06] Wow. Okay, so.

LB [00:04:07] King, I went ninth, 10th and 11th and 12th grade, I went to Kettering.

LC [00:04:11] Okay. Yeah, very cool. And then after you graduated from high school, what did you do then?

LB [00:04:21] So I graduated from high school. I went to Everest for a medical administrative assistant. Then I went to school for CNA, graduated and actually did not become a CNA, a certified nursing assistant.

LC [00:04:36] Gotcha. Okay.

LB [00:04:37] Yeah. So I worked maybe, like, a few weeks and decided this is not what I want to do. Yeah, my family have always been family of entrepreneurship. My mother had a daycare center. My mom had her own retail. She was a retail supplier for women apparel. My father was a plumber by trade. Wow. And he was a pastor as well. And they were both chefs. So they always dabbled and dabbled. And I knew whatever it was, that idea, I wanted it to do something that benefit my own family.

LC [00:05:15] Yeah.

LB [00:05:15] So I founded a business. I can't even think what year it was. Tender Hearts LLC, which was therapeutic arts and crafts for seniors. And then from there, I moved on to working at General Motors and then Chilled Peels.

LC [00:05:34] Okay, So. So talk me through this journey. I'm so sorry to hear that you lost your dad. But and also let me know if you don't want to get into it. Okay. Yeah. Tell me through Tell me kind of the journey of how you how we got started.

LB[00:05:57] So. COVID came out well became known about I want to say about March. I was still working. I was inside of General Motors Poletown plant right here off the Boulevard 94 Freeway service drive. We were wrapping up there and actually about to close, not due to COVID, but because of some construction going on inside of the building. And so I want to say we closed like March 13th, but it was right in time that COVID season came out and everybody was getting sick. And so around April, my parents both were sick and my father went into the hospital and then he passed away on April the 27th. So when he passed away from COVID, schools let out around it time, they sent all kids home to do virtual learning. And I was in a grieving process and didn't want to return to anywhere to work.

LC[00:06:56] Yeah.

LB [00:06:57] So I started thinking like, okay, what can I do to kind of I think when you're grieving, you should keep yourself occupied with something. Most people just want to build a self and be it and, you know, drown in the sorrow. But the important part of grieving is to keep moving. And so in me trying to figure out what to do to keep moving, Lemonade was actually not my idea. My husband said, How about we build the kids a lemonade stand. It was going to be something to help them occupy their mind. Yeah. And deal with the grieving process. My dad was a great pioneer, a great example in their life. He spoil all the grandkids. He was just as close with them as he was with us. So Friday in school, get out. He picks up the kids. He keeps all the kids. It's 26 grandkids, all spoiled by him. And so my kids amongst the other grandkids were really drowning in sorrow. Yeah. And so my husband just actually came up with the idea that kind of saved us in that time that we didn't know now. So he said he was going to build them a lemonade stand. And I told him no. I was like, no, you know, I don't want them to have lemonade stand. It's a great responsibility. They're gonna look at it fun in the beginning and and they're going to see the responsibility behind the work. And then I'm going to be stuck doing it. And I think I was in the moment of trying to drown myself in sorrow. I don't want to get up and, you know, commit to anything every day. And so and I had just did that anyway for six years. Yeah. Working. So he said, okay, he's very easygoing. So he just was like, okay. And maybe about a week later my sister mentioned lemonade stand for the kids. So when anything comes to me twice, I look at it as confirmation. So I told him, Go ahead, build a lemonade stand, and we'll see how it goes. And the next day, that's how fast he built the lemonade stand. The next day, the kids had lemonade stand. Of course, they was excited. I've always been into crafts and hospitality with beverage, so I quickly decorated it. We put decorations all around, we put it on a corner. Our first customers was Detroit police officers came up, got lemonade. We were trying to give it to them for free because we were so excited, but they would not accept it for free. And that was right on Kirby and Mt. Elliot is where the lemonade stand was right outside of my dad's church. And so day by day we continued to sell lemonade and after about a week we were doing like $200 a day. Every time we came out and set up, we had $3 cups of lemonade our only flavors was plain lemonade, strawberry lemonade, peach lemonade and raspberry lemonade. We didn't have a business name. We didn't have flavor names, we didn't have anything. So after
about two weeks, I was so excited. I'm like, What can I call this business? And so I'm like, okay, it's cold and it's lemonade. First name I ever came up with is the name that stuck. I don't know what made me think about it, but it was like chill pills. So I hurry up and I looked online and I started seeing if any other companies use that name. The only thing that came up to this day besides my business now was like some shrimp on ice, I guess, because it's a shrimp peel. And so I was like, Good, nobody has the name. Let me hear you have been licensee. So I hurry up. Went on a state, paid for the license for it. And then after that I was like, okay, what kind of what do I want the logo to be? And I started going through the logo and picked the lemon chilling on ice. We played with that. We've probably had about three to follow goals, and that's how we started.

LC [00:11:07] It happened very quickly.

LB [00:11:09] Very fast.

LC [00:11:11] I mean, so your dad passed away in April of 20 2020?

LB [00:11:16] Yeah, April 27, 2020.

LC [00:11:20] Yeah.

LB [00:11:20] And we started our lemonade June 9th, 2020.

LC [00:11:26] Wow. I mean, that's really a story of taking literally I mean, taking something so devastating and coming out strong, you know, and trying to be so resilient in the face of something that I think everyone can understand, you know, which is. Losing people that we love. How old were your kids when your dad passed away?

LB [00:11:51] So I have seven.

LC [00:11:52] Wow.

LB [00:11:53] Seven children. My daughter is she will want me to say soon to be 21. She'll be 21 next month. And so she was 18. Yeah. Turning 19. Right. Yeah, she'll be...

LC [00:12:13] I think that was two years.

LB [00:12:15] I think that's right. So she was turning 19? Yes. My son De'anthony, he will be 18 in December. So he was 16 then. And then I have twins there too, now. So they were eight and. I'm sorry. Yeah. Twins start at ten now. So they were eight. I have twins that are 13, so they were 11.

LC [00:12:37] Two twins, two sets of twins at once.

LB [00:12:40] Yeah. So the ten year olds are boy/girl and the 13 year olds are two girls. And my baby daughter, London was eight. I mean, she's eight now, so she was six then.

LC [00:12:51] Oh, wow. Those are all really tough. Yeah.

LB [00:12:55] Really tough ages and in London have really always stayed with him. Yeah. So my job sent me away to a plant in Evansville, Illinois, and he was so
attached to her that when we first laughed, he was like, She can't go. So she stayed with my parents. She wasn't in school, so it was kind of convenient. Yeah. And she didn't want to leave. And then when she did leave there, he started traveling 8 hours up there to come and check on her, make sure she was okay. Eventually we came back and we spent a lot of time staying with them and, you know, making sure he was okay. He was a little sick from something else, then, but he recovered. And so we moved. And even when we moved, he came to get her. If she came home, he came back two days later to pick her up. And that was all the way until when he got sick. He, well, when they first got sick, they were home. So he was concerned about them getting sick and sent her home.

LC [00:13:53] Yeah. What is your dad's name?

LB [00:13:56] Robert Butts, Jr..

LC [00:13:58] Yeah. Okay.

LB [00:14:00] He was a pastor and he was pastor of East Side Unity Church of God in Christ on Kirby and Mt. Elliott.

LC [00:14:06] Okay. Yeah. Well, I think just because he plays such an important role in your life, in your children's life, and in this story, I really hope that we can incorporate him in the story.

LC [00:14:17] And there is a flavor after him. His nickname was Sonny, and he was a superintendent in a church. So we called it super Sunny Melon. And that's because watermelon was his favorite fruit and he used to sing about it.

LC [00:14:35] So he used to sing about watermelon?

LB [00:14:39] That's true. Watermelon. Watermelon. Sweet to the rind. The little kids like that kind and always sang about it. He bought watermelon all the time. Cut it up for the kids. So we created watermelon lemonade and we called it super sunny melon lemonade.

LC [00:14:55] Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay, so in 2020, you are your. You start with the lemonade stand. But now things are growing. Yes. And like we said, you know, you you incorporated the name and the business kind of very quickly in a couple of months. Yep. And what were the next steps to get you to where you are today?

LB [00:15:22] So winter struck and a lot of people are saying, oh, lemonade is summer…it’s a summer drink. So, you know, what are you going to do in the winter? And I was like, Well, I'm just going to kind of take it easy in the winter. And when summer start back up we’ll have the lemonade stand out or think of something else. My plan was to actually buy a shed like the tool shed. It's like a sheet shed, and my brother does construction, so I was going to have him to cut windows and build a porch around it. Across from my dad's church is a big lot that he had. So I was going to make it look like somewhere you can come and chill in a line and have a cup of lemonade in the summertime. And so throughout winter my summer customers will call me and say, Can I get a gallon of lemonade? Or can we get a couple bottles of lemonade? And I would say, okay. So I was like, okay, I'll make them one gallon of lemonade. And so of course, because I make it in the big batch when I would make them the wand and I would post on Facebook or Instagram gallons of lemonade for sale and that would turn into a whole day
of selling gallons of lemonade. And so I'm like, okay, this is going well. And so I did that throughout the winter. And then I heard about a farmer's market through East Warren Farmer's Market. So it's the area of Warren and Cadieux. They have like a farmer's market yearly. So the next summer I signed up for that. We sold lemonade through the farmer's market every Thursday for a couple of months, and that's when I decided to step it up a notch and go into some of the local restaurants and ask them if they would like to feature our product. And so those restaurants were Slaw Dogs. It was Smoky Beans and Greens and eventually holy moly donut shop. So when we went into a holy moly donut shop, the owner there told us to leave them a few samples inside of his store. He featured a lot of local vendors.

LC [00:17:38] This is 2021.

LB [00:17:39] This was 21. Yes. So he said, Just bring me a sample. Let me see how it tastes and I'll get back with you in a few days and let you know. And so I took him a sample. And about an hour later, when I answered the phone, the only word he said was fire. And I was like, Hello? And he was like, Fire. When can you bring me some more? And I was like, okay. And the rest was history. After that, literally, we went in there, we stack them up with about 20. That kind of built up my courage to go and seek out some other places like the Commons on Mack Ave.,and a few other places. And then we went into a few gas stations and we asked them to feature our product just to get some customers response. And nowhere have we ever went there. We didn't sell out. We have supply over of 15 to 16 different locations of all local places. And we got up to about 2500 bottles a week. Bottling. We kept incorporating different flavors. I don't want to keep telling sad stories, but last year, my baby brother, he was 28 years old and then my oldest brother would have been 49. And Marvin, my oldest brother, was struck by a car in New York and he passed away about a week later from a brain aneurysm and then the day before his memorial, my baby brother was struck by a stray bullet and then he passed away. So we're literally preparing to go to the memorial and funeral for my oldest brother. And my baby brother passed away. And so really devastating for my family, my mom, everybody. But it led to me being a little bit more creative with my business. So we have Marvin's grape lagoon, which is grape flavored lemonade. We have Rock and Reggie lemonade, and so out of all the Lemonades, every one of them have a special name from Screaming Strawberry to Punch Peaches Lemonade to Shirley Temple Lemonade, which is raspberry. We have Big Mo money green Lemonade, which is the flavor named after the owner of the Holy Moly donut shop, Mario. But out of all of the flavors, the ones that are most special to me, there's four. So I have Nita’s strong lemonade, which is the pink lemonade. And Juanita is my mom name. And I think she's one of the most strongest women to walk Earth. Before losing my father, before losing my two brothers, my mom face breast cancer in the year of 2014, and she beat it with, I mean, great faith. We were falling apart. My family was falling apart. My dad was falling apart. It's like you hear cancer and you just fall apart. Yeah. And every single day my mom said, I'm going to be healed, delivered and set free. And that's what happened. So she's 17 years cancer free. I celebrate her every day for that. And so to me, she's always been incredibly strong. Six of us, six of us. Yes. So I have five siblings. And even in that, I saw my mom go to college as a grown up with little kids and graduate. So she graduated college. My mom was always there for us. So name one flavor of the heart as one of my special flavors Nita’s strong lemonade and it's pink color because of breast cancer. And then a super sunny melon was my dad's flavor, which was tricky to make because I needed it to be the right flavor of lemonade, watermelon. And so we went with the squeeze watermelon, of course, to get that flavor down pack in the and rock and Reggie called rocking because my brother was a musician. He was a 28 year old bass player. He played bass since 14. He played the
organ since 16 and the drums. And so even on the day of his passing, he had just came from band rehearsal. So his flavor is called Rock and Reggie because he really rocked. Yeah. And on top of that, he was. He had his own business, too, so he really rocked and Marvin’s Mad grape lagoon. No, he wasn't mad, but it just kind of fit with the name. He was very easygoing, so that's why we incorporated Lagoon. But it's a grape flavored lemonade.

LB [00:22:24] Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you with us. It's so crazy.

LB [00:22:36] It's fine. But listen, the world is crazy. I tell people that all the time. And so one thing that my father taught me. Keep rolling. Like you can stop for one brief second. You might want to cry, scream and pull your hair out. But he always taught us to do it while you're still rolling. Yeah. So literally, my brother passed, and the next day I was out doing deliveries for lemonade and people were like, Are you crazy? Yeah, you got to stop for a moment. But I feel like life doesn't stop for us. It doesn't. You can think you can be planning to something ten years from now, and it may never happen. So because of that, I use their stories to do exactly what I'm doing every day. I just left the shop sending out of order. Now I'm here. When I leave here, I'm back at the shop. I'm sending out another order because I just want to be the example to my children that and not just my children, but other young people. Everybody don't get to go to college. Everybody. Or I feel like everybody is college material. Yeah, that's because I'm a mother. But any event that you don't go to college, a lot of people think that when you don't go to college. Just go get a job. But I feel like what we need to have a successful future is already inside of us. And so when you can't go to college, maybe you can't afford it or whatever. Opportunity doesn't create stuff for you to go to college. You reach down inside of you and you find what makes you happy and you do it. Yeah. So I worked at General Motors for... Or for General Motors for six years. And I made a really decent amount. And I was a supervisor. And I find more joy in what I do right now every single day. And I make less money. But I'm doing something to bring awareness for young entrepreneurs. My children every day are learning how to run a business from the back and and the front. And I do something for my community with my profit. So you might find us down at the terminal bus terminal handing out lemonade or donuts, or we'll go to one of the wellness centers and we'll hand out free lunch. Or some days we feel…like Cass Corridor we used to go down here when it was open all the time and pass out to the needy. But I used to say, but think about all the people. Sometimes when you're trying to do something for someone, you will look past the people in front of you and you want to do something for somebody ten miles away. So while we're headed down to Cass Corridor, we're passing some people on the corner. People at the bus stops, people standing at the freeway asking for a dollar. So we turn it around and those are the people that we go and do something for. Yeah, the people that are I don't want to call them stragglers, but they're by themselves. They're not in a group. They're not expecting, like at these other places, they expect churches and different organizations to show up and feed them. But the person laying at the bus stop or have made a bet by the freeway isn't expecting anybody. And so those are the people that we go out and do something for, whether it's food or money or a book bag or toiletries or whatever it is. That's all we do.

LC [00:26:14] Yeah, Yeah. That's amazing. When you say we, is it you and your children? Is it do you have a team of people?

LB [00:26:20] It’s literally me and my children.

LC [00:26:22] Okay, cool.

LB [00:26:23] So right now running Chilled Peels and is my children my little ones were more hands on when we were in the lemonade stand. But, you know, when you go into a brick and mortar, it's different. Yeah, well, labor loss. So my little daughter, she's eight right now. She always say, I'll be glad when I can have my business back. So they don't understand. It was a little bit different when we were making lemonade in a church and just coming outside in the lemonade stand and I still try to do a few events where they can sell out doors. But on for our day to day operations there is Kaylah, who is the daughter that I took in. She is her name is spelled Kaylah and she is a very vital part of my business. She is I call her my eagle eye. She's going to find a way to make business every single day. She's going to go out and market on. I don't think it's a market she promotes. She brings in new customers. And then there's De'anthony. He's like the brains of my operation. He's thinking about how can we grow and how can we make more by next year? And he's in 12th grade, so he'll be going to school for engineering and he's already saying, I'm using my degree for designing a factory so that we can mass produce.

LC [00:27:56] Wow.

LB [00:27:57] So and that is our goal. In the future, we will like a Chilled Peels factory where our juice is mass produced so that we can sell it.

LC [00:28:08] How is it produced today?

LB [00:28:10] Hands, using our hands.

LC [00:28:12] Wow.

LB [00:28:13] Yeah, we are using our hands every single day.

LC [00:28:17] You're saying that. So you have bottles that you got created?

LB [00:28:20] Yeah. So we have bottles from a supplier. We use the local supplier. We have the I want to use the proper word, but it'll come to me in a minute. And then there's caps that tamper proof…tamper proof taps. So once they're gone, if you take it back off, it tears the seal. Okay, so we're really old school right now. Wash your hands. Yeah. Come in. Gloves. We are hand producing, like anywhere.

LC [00:28:53] Like literally with lemons.

LB [00:28:53] 500 lemonades a day we can produce. It will take us all day. But we can do it.

LC [00:29:02] This is crazy. Okay, so this is so cool. So what you're saying is you have bottles and and tamper proof caps.

LB [00:29:09] And we have five gallon barrels.

LC [00:29:14] Okay. Yeah. And you. You have, like, a lemon squeezer.

LB [00:29:18] We got lemon squeezer there. We have ninjas. We have everything. So all different kinds of equipment. We have not gotten to the place where we're just now getting to the place where we're going to get the cold press. Yeah. And so, you know,
that'll do work for you. Yeah. That you just peeled a skin. Throw it up there. I don't even think you've got to peel the skin. And you just throw the lemon up there. It kind of just squirts juice. But right now, yep, everything is manual. And so what we did and we did this two years ago, actually, when we started off, we started off making by the gallon because we had it figured out the recipe for the gallon. Yeah. And so I'm like, okay, well, if we get a five gallon barrel times the one ingredients by five. Let's see how it comes out and bam. So right now, we've master five gallon barrels and that's how we make it. Five gallon barrels. Five gallon barrels makes 40 bottles.

LC [00:30:17] I mean, no wonder people love this lemonade. I mean, it's literally handmade lemonade. Yeah.

LB [00:30:22] And then we are using different fruit purées. So like mango berry is mango berry lemonade is.

LC [00:30:33] Don’t share the secret recipe.

LB [00:30:34] Know, is mango and strawberry and rockin Reggie is a Bolivarian strawberry. So as listed on the bottle, they all know that we have pineapple upside down. We have berry peach, which is peaches and strawberry. We have candy apple. This weekend, we're actually going to be featuring our new flavors for the fall, which is caramel apple lemonade. And we have apple pie lemonade.

LC [00:31:04] Wow.

LB [00:31:04] So we already had the candy apple. We already have the green apple lemonade. So we'll try caramel, apple and apple pie just to see what our customers think about it.

LC [00:31:16] Yeah. Yeah. Wow. This is I mean, it sounds like there's just so much fun and creativity and creative flavors and. And it seems like in the two years you haven't stopped creating, I mean, you're not coming up with a lot of kind of unique and fun flavors to make lemonade kind of a year round thing. Yeah, we do. Yeah. I can't believe this. So, I mean, hundreds of bottles go out every day, and you guys are making those by hand. Has it been? Tell me about the journey of making these secret recipes. Has it been a lot of fun?

LB [00:31:53] It has, yeah. Some flavors didn't make the chopping board. So we always get our flavors like we're inside the donut shop. So the owner there, Mo, he is really good and honest at saying no.

LC[00:32:09] Hmm.

LB [00:32:10] That's not it. Or yes, almost there or that's it. And so if he says, No, I don't really like that one, then we continue to critique it. So, like, super Sunny Melon came out first this just sunny melon. Last year, it wasn't what we wanted it to be. Yeah. And so I
took it back off, and then I tried it again and I had my mom to sample it, my sisters. And then I took it back off like this isn’t it. So after two years, we finally just came up with the perfect super sunny melon flavor to actually put it out there for our customers. So our flavors, a lot of them were spot on. First try some things. Just go together, some take a little bit longer to create some flavors we create by our customers choice. So it may never hit a shelf, it may just get bottled because you X. So, for example, we have a flavor rush and wave. It's after a family called Rushing, their last name is Rushing and it's mango and.
Coconut. And so that flavor was created. But it may not be a high seller for everybody, but some people like, you got to like kind of like pina colada to like it. So those flavors. But yeah, every day we're thinking of new flavors that we can bring out flavors for the, for favors for we're already like, what can we bring out for next summer? Yeah. This summer we brought out the bomb lemonade. We wanted a lemonade that tasted like the firecracker or the cherry bomb pops. And so we started flavor sampling it in February, and we introduced it in the summer.

LC [00:34:07] Wow. Yeah. I don't know anything about, like, you know. Copyrights or anything like that. Yeah.

LB [00:34:20] So my recipes, some of them are, the newer flavors are not. Yeah. But where every time we create a new flavor first you want to make sure before you pay for the copyrights to it or patent that flavor. Well, pay for the copyrights or patent of flavor
name. You want to make sure that it tastes good. Yeah. Not. You'll just be paying for something for sure. And then it's like a one hit wonder. So a lot of our flavors, we have to make sure that it's not just a seasonal, but it's all year round. We like to bomb all year round. Yes, it was good. In the summer is still good in the fall. It's still good in winter. So yes, we do try to copyright or patent our brands once we know that they're going to be a hit.

LC [00:35:12] Yeah, yeah. This is maybe a question you don't want to answer, but what lemonade flavor do you drink the most? It's okay if you don't want to reveal it.

LB [00:35:28] So it really depends.

LC [00:35:32] Yeah.

LB [00:35:32] It depends on how I feel. One week, I might say. Now, if you ask any business owner that is in food or beverage, this question, they may all give you the same answer. When you own a restaurant, you probably eat your product the least.

LC [00:35:53] Yeah.

LB [00:35:54] And so you may not want to share that information because some people might look at it like, Well, you don't eat it. Why do I want to eat it? Or you don't drink it? I don't want to drink it, but maybe once a week I'll have a bottle of lemonade unless I'm tasting a new flavor. And it really depends. I go back and forth between the rocking Reggie and the candy apple.

LC [00:36:19] Yeah, Good to know.

LB [00:36:21] So even though my family one’s like my dad, my brother, my mom, those are my favorite flavors. Well, they're the most sentimental to me. But for drinking candy apple and Reggie.

LC [00:36:39] Yeah. Yeah. I'm really curious about this mango coconut lemonade. That sounds fun.

LB [00:36:47] Rushing wave lemonade.

LC [00:36:48] That sounds really…

LB [00:36:50] It's good. I like pina colada, so it is good.

LC [00:36:54] It's a lot of I think coconut is a very strong flavor. Yeah.

LB [00:36:57] So you can't it's the I mean, we used the smallest amount. So when we say we want a hint of coconut, it's like a very small hint. Yeah. Because it can almost overpower the actually lemonades all of our lemonades what gives us the green light to actually bottle it and sell it is if it has the balance of sweetness power. Okay so even with the watermelon at first the sweet over balance the sour and you just taste watermelon. Yeah. And it tastes like watermelon juice. So we have to find that center where you, when you drink it, you want that. Yeah. You know when somebody gives us that reaction we know is tart and it's sweet and it's perfect.

LC [00:37:42] Yeah, Yeah. No, that totally makes sense. I'm just thinking about lemonade and donuts now. Yes.

LB [00:37:51] Oh, yeah. And then it goes really well with the donut. So even when I go out and do events, I'm taking donuts out with me.

LC [00:37:57] Yeah.

LB [00:37:58] Because now it just kind of goes together. It's like we're family.

LC [00:38:02] Yeah. It's amazing that you've developed that partnership. You know, I think so many people have this, like, false idea that businesses are always competing against each other, and that's definitely not true. And we can see that in your case, right, that you literally complement each other perfectly.

LB [00:38:22] Yeah. And it was not even… it was holy Moly was not a plan. But I have always been one of those ones who plan and dream ahead. So while I was at GM and I knew our plant was closing and I was trying to figure out what was next. And this was back in March. Well, actually back in January 2020, I rolled out and I still have it in my phone. I wrote out a blueprint and business Plan for Donut Shop that I was going to call the Cozy Cook, and it was going to offer this cozy environment where you can come and get donuts and tea and latte and lemonade and other dessert. My family all bake and I was going to incorporate all them into this business and a safe haven for children to come out and hang out and drink whatever beverage they like. Then use our wiFi and I never realized that my dream still came true. It did, until maybe like a couple of months into this year, I went back looking at I always go back and look at like things I wrote in a diary or a journal, and I look back over that business plan and everything that checks off, everything on that list checks off inside the donut shop. But I don't own a donut shop. Yeah. And so I think that's really unique. Like, you know, sometimes in order to succeed, you may have to merge with somebody else or lean on somebody else, or they lean on you. But together, the two of us get it done. So if he's not there, I can run a donut shop, and if I'm not there, he can actually run my lemonade. And it's funny because when you mention patents and copyrights, nobody has my recipe but my children. Yeah. And in honor of the donut shop. So I always tell them it's like the krabby Patty formula from SpongeBob. It better not get out. Or bush baked beans when I keep saying what's in the sauce, but it's is really a family recipe. Yeah. So even with a list of my ingredients, my children say you're going to tell
them how to make it. And I say it doesn't tell them how to make it or what to put or how to do it. But you have to list ingredients.

LC [00:40:41] Yeah. Yeah. Well, it doesn't tell how much.

LB [00:40:43] No, but you've got to list ingredients for, like, allergy purposes. Yeah. So the only way to get my recipe is from my children.

LC [00:40:54] it's amazing. And and maybe, you know, as they grow up, like, it becomes generational, you know?

LB [00:41:02] Well, that's the plan. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely the plan. So my 5 to 10 year plan would be that wherever whatever school they go to, if they decided not to return here for whatever reason and to start a new life there, if they want to still be a part of our family business, I would start a Chilled Peels where they are.
LC [00:41:28] Wow.

LB [00:41:29] So that's the plan then that way we'll have that's when we'll go out and actually branch out and be in other states.
Speaker 1 [00:41:38] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Detroiters drink lemonade, but also other people drink lemonade too.

LB [00:41:44] especially south.

LC [00:41:46] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then you're not dealing with like six months of hell.

LB [00:41:52] Like nine months of winter. Three months of summer.

LC [00:41:57] Exactly. Yeah, that's a great idea. I mean, I love. Of course, the uniqueness of businesses that start in Detroit like, oh, you know, it comes from a place so often it comes from a place of resilience and strength. And I love that. But it's also cool to see people spread their wings and, you know, well.

LB [00:42:19] I will want to make sure that I'm always here with the Chilled Peels Yeah, because we Detroiters are just something different. Like we hustle. Very different. When people heard that I was selling lemonade, it's like you're selling lemonade. But I think that we Detroiters are resilient and we can sell anything. Yeah. And that's why there is vending machines inside of Metro Airport that's selling eyelashes and I mean, literally like eyelashes. And I've have so many friends that sell so many unique things. Like when the pandemic came out, I think that's when you saw the true blood of Detroiters, because there are so many different businesses that came out of the pandemic. And pandemics normally make people fall. But we're so tough that it's like rising out of the dirt, like you saw all kind of business. I was every two weeks ignore it now, but every two weeks before pandemic, I was at the nail salon. I never missed a nail appointment. I feel like that's the one reward to myself is my nails I give my kids everything. I don't care about materialistic things, but my one treat to myself every two weeks was money. So when they closed the nail salon down, I was having a panic attack.

LC [00:43:49] Yeah.

LB [00:43:49] And about three weeks later, I see online on Facebook there people are selling predesigned press ons.
LC [00:43:58] Yeah.

LB [00:43:58] And I mean, it just showed the spirit of Detroit. Like, we are going to get it done by any means necessary. And there are so many businesses that started in 2020 during the pandemic and not just started, but survived and are still going. So and I was one of them. I started in a pandemic, and I thought it was just going to be something I did until we were able to come back together. And I was thinking I was gonna be back at work at know the plant. And here I am. I'm still doing lemonade.

LC [00:44:34] Yeah. Yep. So it's amazing. Mm hmm. Tell me what hustle means to you.

LB [00:44:42] It means so many different things. Wow. So I grew up in church and it's funny, but when I was like 20, somebody always called me Holy Hustler.

LC [00:44:58] Really?

LB [00:44:59] Yes, but that's because you can always find me selling something. And so I think that it is a person that knows how to take the idea and transfer it into a form of or stream of income. It may not be ordinary. It may not be the things that you are used to, but it is to take a product or take the idea and grow it into a product and a brand and be able to generate revenue. I think so. Or a hustler is able to look out and see what the need is in their community and fulfill that need with something that they create. I think it is to do things without double thinking. I think it's like you think about it, you do it. I think it takes hustle too. I think it takes hustle too. I'm sorry about that... I think it takes hustle to run the world. You know, I think it takes. What am I trying to say? It's a mentality is before selling a product. It is in your mindset is like, I got to get out here and get it. I've got to get this done and I've got to make it happen. It's a lifestyle for me. Every single day, nobody I'm not punch... I'm not punching somebody's clock. So it's a difference from being somebody employee to actually getting out here and hustle and a product. You're your own inspiration every day. You might have to remind yourself of 20 different reasons why you're getting up and doing it. But it's nobody. You don't have to. It takes a different drive because nobody's going to fire you. You just won't make money that day. Yeah, I get up every day. Knowing I control. If I make $0 today, I control if I make $1,000 today. So that sort of hustle kicks in. I want to make all the money that I can make. I want to come from every order. I want to delivery. Every order that I set that I was gonna deliver it today. And that's without excuse. And I think people that hustle, we get it done, and it's without any excuse.

LC [00:47:29] Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for talking with me today, and it's so cool to hear about your journey, and it's just such a great example of something that's so joyful, even in, in like a very painful time and with with very painful experiences. Yeah. You know. I'm so happy to hear that things are going really well and there's more and more flavors, and we're going to see more and more of your lemonade, for sure. Yes. All right. I'm going to hit pause.