[ep 101: Jess Reno on leaps of entrepreneurial faith, creating safe spaces & the beauty in hard things]

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to The Craft. I'm your host, Meg Lobis. This podcast is a collection of intimate conversations on artistry mastery and life with talented, passionately curious creatives and entrepreneurs. Most of your friends, some are those I've admired from afar. I hope you enjoyed these conversations, this exploration of the humanity that connects all of us as much as I do having them. Thank you for being here and for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING] There's a great depth to Jess Reno, who is a soul and a heart that are as deep as they are wide. He's the founder and CEO of Nemesis Coffee and Doke Bakehouse. But these titles alone don't come close to telling a story. He grew up in Scarborough, Ontario, in a neighborhood that demanded toughness, and a family shaped by poverty, hardship, and resilience. It made him grow up fast. After his dad made the radical decision to get straight in his life, he applied to Emily Carr. That choice would change the entire trajectory of their lives, eventually bringing them to Vancouver, where Jess eventually got a job at Cafe Artigiano and unknowingly, setting himself on the path to becoming one of the most intentional and creative hospitality founders in the city. In this episode, Jess shares parts of a story that he's never spoken about publicly, what it meant to grow up quickly, navigating generational trauma, healing a long time chip in the shoulder, running his first coffee shop with family, taking the risks that eventually allowed him to build something of his own. We talk about entrepreneurship, identity, family, leadership, heart, and the quiet responsibility of creating spaces where people and patrons feel safe and seen. This one is deep, honest, and real, and I'm grateful he trusted us with it. Without further ado, our incredible conversation with a blazingly bright Jess Reno. Jess Reno. Hi. Welcome to the crowd. Hi. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so glad you're here. Me too. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed our first ever conversation. Yeah, me too. A few weeks ago. And I felt like we could have gone for hours, but-- Definitely. I walked away very energized. I was like, oh, wow. You know, when you have those conversations, you're like, oh, OK. It's the human connection when you're actually speaking to someone who, what we're just talking about, going deep. I was like, oh, wow. That my cup got filled that day. So-- I felt the same way. Oh, sweet. I was like, oh, you know, I think Jess might be, as they say, a kindred spirit. Oh, nice. What is the definition truly of kindred spirit? That's a great question. Because I don't know. But I think it's a nice thing to say. I think Ken needs family. Yes, OK. Right. Yeah. Your next of Ken. And so I don't know if Dread is just-- Yeah. Not really sure, but now-- I tried family. I tried family. [LAUGHTER] That we need to consult an etymology website to see where it comes from. And it sounds so nice. Yeah, it does. Kindred. Yeah, it really does. Also old-timey. Mm-hmm. Yeah, a reflection of oneself. I love the nostalgic piece of life. Yeah, and we should enjoy that. And yeah, I was watching a-- I was watching a period piece the other day. And I was like, you know, what a different time. But also felt so relevant in ways too, just the way-- just the things that they were emotionally having to go through. I'm like, oh, yeah, it doesn't matter the time period. We're just-- We're still going through shit. Yeah. Yeah. This is great. Yeah. But yeah, it's a beautiful thing too. I was actually saying, kind of, went down this rabbit hole on design. And I found myself just deep diving, like the 1950s, 1940s to the '60s era kind of driving. And the whole concept around, like, I'm going to be great if we could build something that you'd pull off the side of highway on route to a destination, but it is part of the destination itself. But it felt like one of these beautiful drivets, you know? But it's one real estate, so expensive. So it's hard to do that. But ultimately, I'm like, ah, it's like a really beautiful goal. And maybe one day we'll actually be able to build some of our companies in that direction. I've kind of dreamt about that for a long time. I think pulling on the nostalgic piece or historically nostalgic piece is even it's not mind the nostalgic personally. I think there's something really intrinsically beautiful about that. And it doesn't go out of the style. Yeah. Right. It feels warm. It does. And if you think of a drive in, it was a kind of gathering, you know? People came there, they came together and enjoyed. And it just seemed really fun. Yeah. Yeah. Not contrived. Not just like, yeah, I just want to pull up. Yeah, I just want to pull up. No, it's frills. You just want to like, yeah, on a date or, you know, get a milkshake or-- just we romanticize the idea of that. Yeah. I think it's the beauty of trying to build and make things and get an opportunity to actually kind of curate it, but not like too much. Yeah, too much. So I can have it's opportunity to just be what it's supposed to. Yeah. Speaking of milks. I went to go see the movie "Cinners" with a few friends. Oh, so good. Oh my gosh. It is-- listeners, if you haven't seen "Cinners," and it's still in theaters, please go. It's crazy. It's kind of a masterpiece. But it is an masterpiece. It really is. And it has something very deep to say. Yeah, yeah, it really did. It really does. Yeah, I don't want to explore. Yeah, not your old regular vampire movie, but the vampire meant something also very different. Yeah, are you the type to watch a movie, but before going to watch the movie, watch the trailers, or you just go blind. I've been going in blind, and it's been phenomenal. You know what? I went in more blind than usual. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because usually I do like to read-- there's a few critics and publications that I do like to read their reviews. But this one, I was like, try not to read as much. Yeah. Because I knew this was a wholly completely original movie. And I was like, you know what? No. But yes, "Cinners" highly recommend-- It's going to clean up at the Oscars. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be crazy. I hope so. Yeah. He's so talented. I mean, all of that whole cast, but Ryan really does. He's a nuttor. He has the real deal. Yeah. The real deal. Yeah. But yeah, speaking of milkshakes, we went to the Brentwood VIP. Sweet. Well-deaf. And they did have milkshakes on the menu, but they were only alcoholic. They didn't do regular. So Brentwood, theaters VIP. Yeah, call out. [LAUGHTER] We just want some regular milkshakes. Yeah, not trying to be drinking all the time. Exactly. Not these days. Yeah. Well, appreciate you being here. Thank you. Appreciate the time and your energy. And yeah, I mean, I feel like you have such a rich story. So speaking of history and nostalgia. Wow, great. So great. So good. You're a pro. Let's go back. Let's go back to Scarborough, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Scarborough. I mean, grew up up until I was about, I guess, 13 or 14 until we moved out here. But we bounced around a lot in Scarborough. And it still feels like home, like that. Any time that I do pop back there, and I tried to at least once or twice a year, any time I get back there, my family's still there, my aunts there, my cousins are there, my mom is there, my brothers are there. I just feel back at home. But there's something to be said about these mountains and the ocean and all that, that just it's hard to not want to be in Vancouver. But I do, yeah, I do love it. It's shaped me for sure. And I think a lot of the experiences growing up as a kid formed a lot of the identities that would kind of pick up within my business, Nemesis and dope vacuffs, and another brand soon to be announced. And if I say, Sophie, you might kill me. RPR person, she's amazing. But yeah, it was a pretty interesting and dynamic childhood, for sure. Tell me a little bit about your parents. Tell me about the environment. What did it smell like? What did it sound like? Yeah, it sounded great. I mean, my dad was-- Dad started all my music taste comes from him. He was playing everything. So he put me on hip hop when I was a baby. And I think my first hip hop record was Stakes Is High by Dale Lessole, that I remember. [BLANK_AUDIO] There was other ones playing while I was in the boom or something, but yeah, I really, really remember just like having a cassette and we had a little like cassette deck and for the younger generation. This is throwing it back. I'm only 31, but still and just playing that on repeat. There's a bunch of songs that still stick with me to this day. But yeah, it sounded amazing from like Aretha Franklin, like Soul and Hip Hop and R&B and Metal. This is everything jazz. My dad will listen to everything. So great taste, great taste in music. It was eclectic, I would say, because my family is a mix of Greek and Italian and native and not everybody would congregate with each other. It was quite fractured. But I would go and bomb around to individual homes and I would get tapped into these just different cultures. Also Scarborough's, especially my youth teenager years, is like the Jamaican community is strong. So it would taste like that. It would taste like Sri Lankan cuisine. It's very multicultural there. So yeah, there was no dull moments around like food. We just didn't have the money necessarily to go and have these experiences that I'm getting now. It was a lot of like street food, a lot of like batching sizes of like faquette, which is like a Greek lentils and things like that. It was to feed the body to sustain. But yeah, it was beautiful. It opened me up. Also a lot of it was coffee. There's a lot of moments where we go pop into these little coffee shops as like the escape, you know, and it was affordable and accessible. And I think that's where the early notions of this coffee shop concept in which I find the business I find myself and was really planted. It was like, it was always this escape that was positive. We would go back into our neighborhoods and to these households that were quite complicated or had challenging them. But there's still time made where we could go get a coffee. And I love that. It was my favorite. What were you like as you're bouncing around as a kid, the city? Yeah, what were you like as a kid and a team? Yeah, as a baby as a kid, I was very sweet is from my understanding is soft spoken quiet reserved. And as I got older, it was more awareness of maybe the environment and people were a little more angsty and there's you get a little more exposure or understanding of maybe some of the destructive natures around your friends households or your own. And then we started to form chips on our shoulders. So I would say that I was always sweet. I think around my teenage years, I started to definitely get a chip not like a little bit, but like a lot of bit of a chip on my shoulder. And I was maybe struggling with the world as you know, like I would especially when I came out here, I would say post scar bro, we moved out here and I'll maybe I'll go into that in greater depth, but especially when I came out here, I had already fully formed a chip on my shoulder. And our circumstances looked and felt a lot different than anybody else that I was going to school with except for select few from other schools or other family walks of life that we connected with that we're also having harder times and we form pretty deep friendships. But everybody else was like, yeah, it couldn't be bothered with the school I was fighting a lot, I was getting in trouble a lot of that stuff, which I think a lot of people, if you know me, you'd be like, no way. If you really know me then you definitely know for sure. Right, right. Yeah, because when you come from a lot, right? You get the me that I give you, I always get the, and I think that's the same for a lot of us. Yeah, I do remember you saying to me that you and your dad, I think moved out here. He's an artist that heart, no, for sure. Yeah. And Emily Carr was where he was going or headed. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I mean, a little bit of backstory. My pops to really brilliant person had a very challenging upbringing. And maybe one of which I'll probably struggle to get into the depths of but enough so where our exposure to some things was quite a typical. Like other households once can't, you know, and you will always speak real with us very candid no matter whatever the circumstance was. And maybe that was probably not always the best thing for a kid that's just forming, you know, nonetheless, I mean, I am still who I am today. I'm proud of that. But he had a really difficult life didn't graduate school. He was a left school one that when he was in his teens to graduate high school. And later on in life, you know, I have my mom and then she, she they separated. She left one I was younger. And I was complicated. I love my mom. So if my mom's listened to this, I love you. I love you. But yeah, it was complicated. She ended up believing my dad was more or less like raising us like as a single father. And then my, I guess, ex stepmom came into the picture who I also love and care about and my two brothers, I guess, are my half brothers. I just can't. It's such a weird thing to say. They're my brothers. They, they came to be with that relationship, same dad, different moms. And that fell apart over the years when I was about 12, 11, 12. They broke apart as well. And my dad was just not in a good way. He got hospitalized. He was super sick. He had a heart condition. Then we were real broke. I still remember we're in a small town at this time in Cobrag, which is non-terriot just outside of Toronto. We moved there with this idea that we're going to start like a really nice life. And we're going to be a family and do all these things. And you know, the opposite happened really. And yeah, things derailed the relationship, their relationship derailed. And then those kids became kind of like collateral damage in the process. So my brothers got separated from us. I was with my dad, but he was trying to figure stuff out. So I ended up spending a lot of time with a family in Cobrag that kind of took me in, named the Hobie family. And then I was spending a lot of time with them at the Salvation Army Church. And they created a level of. In normalcy, I think through a lot of it. My dad was trying to figure himself out after being sick and hospitalized and losing his family and his kids and being absolutely broke. And there was times, I still remember we were saying like a grocery line up at no frills. And we had just a small amount of food. And then he couldn't afford to pay for it. We had to put it. I guess we left it on that conveyor belt. And then we won and we checked the bank balances. A dollar 98. And that's all we had. A dollar 98 as a family. So, stressful times, for sure. And I remember that I think I was maybe 11 or 12 or so at that time. And then he tried to get better, like, change the circumstances with nothing, which I definitely respected him a lot for that, especially at that time. But it made me have to live with my mom and to have taken us in and in the end. And I never lived with my mom before. Like really lived with my mom. And I already had chip on my shoulder now. Although it was starting to form for sure. And my pops ended up going to complete, I guess, the GED equivalent. And then he got accepted to a school called Sir Sanford Fleming College in Haliburne. Even more remote small town in Ontario. And we live with my mom at this time, though, this was like the height of me in Scarborough just. There's a couple of friends that I lost, like, immediately. I never really was exposed to, like, gun violence. That's when I really first got exposed gun violence and lost a friend. But, like, more periphery, I'm still new to this, like, the social dynamics. But, yeah, a friend lost his older brother who was 17. And that was shocked to share with me. And then we lost a friend later on that year. And then I lost one more while we were in summer school, because I was flunking my school as a Pope John Paul Catholic secondary school. and then they're going to Mother Teresa because I failed and That's like in a whole other hood called Malvern. I was going to summer school there and someone got killed that summer and that we knew and it was just, it was a overwhelming, I would say. Like by the time you're 14, you're like, "What happened?" You know, like family broke apart, flat broke, staying with my mom. Didn't grow up with, "Now I'm in the hood running around these kids." And you know, like for smoking weed, forgetting to fly, it's just a kid in chase, got jumped a bunch of times and I'm sorry to see people. You know, like just the dialogue is like it's guns. We got to have that. And I think Toronto actually has a lot more, like that street youth latching on to some level like weaponry or whatever for protection. It's the idea of it more than I experience when I move to Vancouver, I would say. That's a whole lot of, I guess we'll get there in my own ways. Yeah, so just going through a lot of that for the first time you're not fully formed, you just see, yeah, if the pressures felt different and I felt maybe probably a little bit more upset with the world. And I think my dad, in his recognition of that from a distance, he was, I mean, my mom gave him calls because I would be skipping school and getting into shit and she didn't really know how the parent, you know, like that's, you know, didn't grow up so like I didn't maybe give her the time of day either at that time in my life. I was like, "I don't get shit, you know, I'm just going to go out and do my thing." And whatever, maybe that comes with it. And my dad was like, "Hey, do you want to come with me?" I got accepted to Emily Carr as a student. Do you want to come move back out here with me or back move here with me and I said, "Yeah." And that's where my journey in Vancouver began. So. Thank you for sharing all of that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm begging. Yeah, exactly. I wish time to have. Yeah, I never really do this. What made you say yes? I wasn't happy. Just anything was better than whatever that was for sure. Well, I felt like anything could be better. And also like, no matter the friction, my pops is always, he was my person. He was my parent, you know. So, especially at that time growing up. So I am more familiar with him. My dad, he's not, you know, he's, he'll tell you like this, you know. So, yeah, I just, I felt like I could use a change and the journey of moving to another city, like we didn't, he took us to go travel once. Or him or my mom split up and we drove from Toronto down to Mexico and we stayed on the beach for like two months. I was four years old outside of that. And it was like just a tent and whatever. It was a very strange and obscure trip. And I don't have much memory of it. And I don't know really why he did that in the first place. But or what circumstances in his life he was dealing with that made him want to do that. Bring us to little children on a drive across, you know, America into Mexico, which, you know, drive, it's, yeah, it gets a little sketchy. Get a little hairy. And we got some stories of that for sure. But I don't have as much recollection of that. But outside that we never went anywhere, never traveled anywhere, never saw anything. So this was my first time experiencing a trip, you know, and a change outside of like the environment in which I knew. And that felt exciting. What did it feel like when you got here? We got in the evening and we, I just remember he has a cousin. We just less contact with that. I actually have no idea where she's at. But she posted this up. We stayed on her couch. We were couch surfing. And yeah, we, we say, we gone at night. So I didn't see the mountains. But when I woke up the next morning, I went outside and I looked north. I'd never seen the mountain before. So it blew my mind. I was like, I still have the exact memory. I was like, whoa, how did it feel? It felt amazing. And it was the summertime or early summer or whatever. I was like a June or something of that when we came out this way. So I think, I'm too long. And yeah, it blew my mind. So no. And then what was the chapter like as your dad went to Emily Carr and you're here and you're trying to figure things out to what did life look like at that point? Yeah, I think whatever was formed in Toronto for me personally just continued here. It got exasperated here. So the, and I for sure was not an easy kid to have at all. And he wasn't an easy parent to have. I find it means like this is not the most ideal of circumstances beyond this. But you're the child who's greatest teachers though. Yeah, yeah, many ways. And there's unspoken friction that still permeates, you know, and I would like to find a way past that in time. But for sure, you know, like, yeah, I've learned probably so much from my dad and through our experiences. And it was, it was a, it was an honest conversation like what we, I had to get a job. And we after the couch surfing, he found a studio apartment off of Caroline and eighth, which is like one block west of Fraser Street. There was a ball of Dibo across the street. There's this blue house and we stayed in this basement studio apartment. And yeah, we shared this tiny, it was a tiny little apartment. It was him and I. There's no, there's a hot like a hot plate. There's no stove. There's no oven. There's none of these things. My bed setup was a curtain that he hung to divide us to give me just like a time, a bit of privacy. And we went to, there's this place called VGH, not the hospital, but VGH on main in Broadway at the time, which was like a thrift store. And we got like all of our furniture from there. And it was, it was exciting in many ways. You know, it was like this new journey and we're just going to tough it out. It wasn't unfamiliar. I think we were been broke for arguably my entire life. So, but this, this was a little bit different. And we've got our furniture and we've got the TV and we're just trying to pull whatever we could off of nothing that we had. I had to get the job. The lady that sublet the department, the name was Maggie and she worked at Artigiano and she helped me get the job. And that was my first foray into coffee. And yeah, it was, I wasn't doing anything glamorous. I was washing dishes and frying paninis. That was my entry into the, to the world of coffee. But they let me work, you know, actually put some hours in because I had to work more than just like it's a part time job. I had to like provide some work. So, and carry some bills and feed myself and close myself often and help my dad because he was a student. He wasn't drawing in the income and he's got a bit of a learning disability. So it's hard for him to do multiple things at once. So when he was doing this school stuff, that was incredibly challenging. Plus, you know, in retrospect, the amount of stuff that he was going through to force court and just broke and, you know, just trying to get life restarting and goes, goes all very new and challenging. And you know, well, I think back on like that's crazy tough for him. Yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot to carry. It feels like in listening to your story and you know, how you grew up and the evolution of it all, you just, it feels like you had to grow up so quick. Yeah, definitely. I would say probably yeah, because I, one, or I'm 31 now, but I think for the amount of stuff that we've done, I feel like a, like, like, like, I feel like an old man. Yeah, for sure. And there's, there's always been this hunger that exists there, but the hunger is not to like we need to do more. It's to effectively fix this idea of a broken home in building these new homes, these nemesis locations and other, other concepts. That's the drive. Like wherever we show up, I just want to make nice, you know, I want people to actually have a really nice time. And that's not something I often, or have ever really shared, maybe a, it's, I have a couple of people, but I think one, I take a step back and think about it. It's to make something nice, which makes me want to do more of that at a higher volume often, as often as possible. And through that, we've, yeah, that growth, the experience, the pushing to do something. the hunger to re-correct or change the cards for my family and my loved ones so that my future generations, all my families for the most part have had not the most ideal upbringing I would say. So yeah, being the one and hopefully not the only two make some of those changes. My sister's actively doing that too. Yeah. Yeah, like creating your own path or showing that there's another destiny that you can have despite, you know, some earlier circumstances. Yeah. Before we get into the Nemesis chapter, I have a question around before Nemesis, who do you feel like you were becoming? I think I was falsely idolizing maybe it's a tough thing to say but like, yeah, just the gangsters I grew up around, I would say. I was and I was set on going down that path for sure. I thought there's money in it and there's, you know, I think when you grow up with as much friction and challenging your environment, you're scared and you have a sense of fear and I wanted to make sure that that never was the case like going forward, you know, in my life. So it's definitely leaning that direction and that's how, you know, it's like, you know, I won't be fucked with, you know, like I won't have those issues in my life. I'll deal with it. Definitely I got squatted people, you know, that are ready to like lay it down and they all have the very similar upbringing circumstances too. So we're kindred spirits to each other. Yes, you're kind of gathering, you've sent each other and come to a safe place. And then you, yeah, well, yeah, safe in the room of full fire. It's just pure danger. But yeah, within each other, we found like we resonate and I've got friends that, yeah, just relationships that run really deep that started from such a young age because you're going through these experiences of, you know, trying to make sure that you have that sense of security. Financially, not being mess with, it's prideful. Sometimes it's eco, you know, but you have each other and like with each other, you have no problems, you know, with anyone else. That was the path, for sure, I was going down. It was the, it was, but that was one. The other side of me was like also cognizant. I always have been reflective as a pretty one. I was a kid of the circumstances and the awareness, I just might not have known or had the tools on how to deal with it or deal with the emotions that come with it. But I knew that I also didn't want that too, you know, so me trying to latch on to like the world of coffee was actually like a solace. It was a very positive environment. It was full of people that they would never know. I don't talk about this stuff. So I'm like, they would not know about these circumstances, but they were normal and nice. There's no issues really with them. Maybe they all had an individual, like, and I just, we didn't get that deep, but most part, I'm like, wow, this is like, it's like an educated, artistic, creative kind of hip, you know, squad of people. I'm like, who are these people? You're like, oh, yeah. Maybe there's something I can learn here. Yeah. And it was just, it was really safe. It was like the definition of like, I was, you know, you're not worried about anything happening when you're with that group of people. They're not worried about. They're not even thinking about anything. We're just making coffee. Yeah. What about coffee was a solace for you? Is it the act of making it, makes you slow down and is meditative, or is it the interaction with people in the cafes? Like, what was providing the solace? I think a lot of it, I think the meditative aspect of coffee or making coffee, that came a little bit later for me. I really didn't like coffee when I started as a kid. You make me drink that. I wanted a whipped cream and fucking caramel. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I wanted sugar. So that's what I would have when I was first starting, but I was like 14 years old, so rightfully so. But it was definitely the interaction with people. You know, it's like, I really did actually like just greeting and congregating. And then you see a lot of it's ritualistic. So you're just seeing a lot of the same faces come into that cafe all the time. And then you're forming relationships. Ordering the same thing. Yeah. Definitely just building a connection point. Two world that was felt very different than mine. And then the frequency, you know, I was at a busy shop when I got my first job. So actually, I've never not been at a busy shop. I went from there to like the first 49 parallel on Main Street when the original founder, his name is Vince Piccolo. He sold Artigiano. And then after his knock and he was done, he ended up opening up that flagship that was on Main Street. They had a little hole in the wall on West Borthy, I believe, close that down. But and that was a super busy cafe as well. All of those, both of those for sure, I was just meeting so many people and like developing social skills really, you know, psych. And it was it was great. It was endearing. The hospitality business can be challenging because you sometimes, you know, people just want their coffee and their frustrated and they definitely did not know the type of day that I was having or where I was coming from. You know, and I don't think anybody's it's not on them to know that. But you know, one people like air their frustrations or whatever. It's like my younger person reaction was like, yo, keep it together. You know, and I did. I would never let that. I always check that stuff out the door. But yeah, it was I love that piece deeply. And then that formed or fostered like a community in which I never really had. In the true sense, there wasn't like a I have to do this to be a part of this community. Like I have to prove my worth or beast to have street cred or like any of the slow show up. You just show up. Yeah, yeah, I love that. And yeah, it opened my mind a little bit more. And I just kept following those instincts to pursue it. Yeah. And what was the point where you're like, you know, we're going to take a leap of faith on myself. And I'm going to open up my own spot. That was the upside down heart. Yeah. Well, prior to that, there was a little shop called Lerife. It was my middle name and my sister's mill name. So my sister and I had a shop, my pops. We are all part native. So he was able to pull some loans from an indigenous bank called Tac Tauhu Aboriginal Capital Corporation. And we were able to scrum some money together and we got a little hole in the wall on commercial drive off the ground. And it was actually there where I learned the most amount of lessons also that like doing business with family, especially for family has a lot of like unpacked trauma. You know, I don't usually use that word that that much, the trauma piece, but for sure, there's a lot. I mean, I just kind of went over a bunch of it. And there's a lot more as a whole lifetime of things within there when we were unresolved. And I said, the dynamic is unresolved. It's not like we had each other's backs and we were a solid unit. No, we my sister was going through it. I was going through it. My dad was going through it and we didn't really know how to coexist. But we've thought just like that home, maybe in Cobra, you know, it's like that if you do this thing, things will get better, you know. And really the thing will never fix the problems you got to work on yourself to fix those within yourself and seek that out. But yeah, maybe go and tangential here. But we got a little shop off the ground. And I learned definitely the most amount of lessons of maybe what not to do, you know. And things to be weary of and mindful of. And it equipped me for sure, at least with enough to go, I don't want to fail. And in all intensive purchases, it was a failure like that that shop got the ground and then it failed. And my sister ended up leaving. I ended up leaving. And we were left with like quite a bit of debt and challenge on how to get out of that. Just trying to reflect on it. My pops had a end of the having to sell it to the guy next door. We ended up having to sell it to the guy next door who took it for like biv's like a song and a dance. But from that point, you know, I still had a little coin talked away. And I was, I had some extracurricular activities at the time within life. And I ended up going to see the world after for the first time actually. I ended up going to Australia and Japan and touring around, going through America. I never really went anywhere. And that gave me a bit of a sense of pause and refresh. It was also there at Lerife that I met Albert, who's like my right hand Josh, who's one of the other. Right hand's James, who roasts our coffee. He had his first date there with his now wife who has two kids. So there's so much beauty and really, really great things. The good, overwhelmingly exceeds anything that was not good for sure. Now definitely. Sounds like it was the stepping stone, which is how most chapters of our life are. They prepare us for the next one. Yeah, it was meant to be. I'm hoping, yeah, definitely a glass half full. There's always a lesson to take away. And so when you were doing your traveling, that was mostly that was solo. So this was like time for you and really, probably, you know, you were probably unpacking so much while learning so much inwardly. Yeah. When you came back after that tour of the world, what do you feel was like the biggest thing that you unlearned about yourself or learned about yourself or maybe both, you know? Yeah, unlearned. Not sure. Definitely, you've learned a lot about myself. I learned that I want to explore different cultures and that whatever is happening within the confines of the environment is that a lot of it, too, even when we're flat broke, I mean, it's mental. Still, you know, like you've been beaten down into this submission that it's hard to escape. You know, and I think getting on the plane and going somewhere really, truly, for the first time, outside of our own country, that made me feel like, oh, I could change things. You know, I could change my environment up. I don't have to go back here. You know, and I love that. That opened my mind up. And then, but I also crystallized the idea of like, okay, I still love this, the exchange and the community building and this endeavor as a whole. Let me try again. And Nemesis came to be through that process. I didn't want to give up. Yeah, there wasn't, it wasn't being out of me. I really did love that community aspect. And yeah, but I wanted it to feel real. And you know, it's called Nemesis for a reason. And the hearts are not right side up. It's upside down for a reason. It had to feel like an extension of myself or this story, this archetype of, you know, what feels like truly an underdog, you know. And then make that resonate and connect with people. So it wasn't just like, hey, now I want to open a cafe. And here's this idea, like, here's a name. And here's a weather. I'm like, it all feels very personal, actually. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I really like the upside down heart because, you know, the heart is still there. But at least for me, if I was going to put my interpretation of it, it's also like, yeah, life isn't always like, you know, rainbows and sunshine. You know, there's, they're the things that we go through. And so I like that the heart is still there. But there's like a, there's like a reality that like it's upside down to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, things are hot, you're able to still love. But yeah, yeah, it's prof, yeah, it's one I'm so happy that we actually got that. Shocked. The ones ever really inverted the heart, you know, like, and then built their entire brand on that. But it really, it does resonate exactly as you say. Yeah, I'm like, it's never just cookie-cutter. It's never right side up. Yeah. But it's, I do believe truly that people, their base level is still love. They're still seeking it. They want it. They want familial. They want safety. They want security. They want community. And so just those, those foundations that that fundamental, it's all rooted in love and connection. But yeah, you got to turn it upside down because who's, who's got it just like, who's got a perfect, yeah, exactly. It's exactly good. And now you've got a few locations. You've got the one in Great Northern Way. So Gas Town, I think, was the first, yeah. It's the first one, yeah. And I was just there the other week and it's, I love it. I love that spot. But I used to work here at a company and the office was not too far away on, on Pender. So I would pop in there quite often. So Great Northern Way. And that's an upside down rose. Yes. Yeah. It's based on Tupac lyrics. Yeah. For us, I mean, like when we're working with Perkins and Will, their idea was to bring biofilia into the architecture and landscape, which we absolutely adore and love. And yeah, yeah, is one of the principles there. It was just really open to working and like conceptualizing alongside us. He's very humble and his approach really, really sweet and loved what we loved as well. So his approach was to create biofilia and for us, we adopted it and what it means to us is a rose from concrete soil, so it's based on a Tupac poll. And we were talking about how, yeah, Tupac, he was a true poet. Yes. Yeah. I'll go front and back on Tupac. It was a savage rock in my high school. Yeah. Yeah, me against the world is like why you think. And still, right. Yeah. And you've got a few more locations. Can we talk about them? Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah, so it started with the gas sound and then we opened Polygon, which is our second location. Love the idea of just you exit through the gift shop. Like we actually blew the wall. You can exit through the gift shop like that Banksy. Yeah. Doc and it's, you know, I thought, oh, less of a location but more so the idea of like when we pick a location, like why do we pick that location? And it's really romantic. If you walk around there, you see the ocean, you're on a boardwalk, go through the gallery. Like I find that to be very endearing and sweet. And then Great Northern Way came to be, which is definitely our flagship hand sounds, where we roast our coffee. It was the most arduous project in process. We were on the verge of collapse as a company many times. You know, like we don't have, this is the one thing I think people don't really know about Nemesis, but we don't have outside investors. And given the information that I just shared, that I never came for money. So there's not that. I think when people see it's just so, they're very quick to go like, oh, they just got backing. Oh, they just like, it's like a big end. They don't realize that it's like a pretty reg, tag, young team of people are just trying to figure shit out and have had enough resilience to get this thing across the finish line of the things that you see, of which half of our existence has actually been in the pandemic. So we got gas sound opening on Valentine's Day, which is also very fitting with the inverted heart icon. So our first birthday, and birthday is Valentine's Day 2017. Then we got polygon off the ground three months before the pandemic hit. And that was extraordinarily expensive. And we turned every stone just to get that across the finish line, but we couldn't find outside partners. We got a little bit of money in, but it didn't really influence or change anything. We all just kind of put up everything that we had. I put up everything I possibly had and saw that debt. And a lot of that was built on debt. The fact that we got in the first place is extraordinary because we don't have assets to like put up or any of those things. That's a, I mean, I have to, that's a podcast into itself. I have to bring my CFO in here. Yeah. Because the man should tell you how stressful. Yeah, yeah, that was. And then the pandemic hit and gas sound, which is doing really well as a store now. But just was that whole neighborhood became a show itself. I mean, we watched all of our peers who had restaurants and shops start closing down. And they got really, I mean, we've been broken into so many times. And yeah, it was tough for sure, but it became like an eighth of its sales. So it was just dead weight and was costing us a lot just to hold it down and carry. And we had Polygon, which just opened up. And that was the only saving grace within our company. I'd say we were able to draw a line on the outside. The neighborhood was nice. And dope aircast was kind of floating. our company, our pastry brand, and people would just go and get the sandwiches or get a pastry and line about that. I'm very, very thankful that we had something like that to keep things kind of going and then, great northern way, we're in the middle of building that thing. And we couldn't get the financing to clear any of that stuff. And with the amount of debt that was incurred in the payment schedule attached to it, we were just on the precipice of collapse as a company. And it was overwhelming for sure at that time to be in the state of growth without any backing and being a new company full stop anyways. We were only like three years old as a company wanted a pandemic it is it was wild. And like just off of a new location. Yeah, it was challenging but that we didn't change. We dug deep. We figured it out. We got it across the finish line. We still lost a lot. And then we started to shift our approach on how we negotiate and know our value and these new locations were from not, you know, I love what we built, but the restaurant industry they take such a shitty brand of like there's so much influence that restaurants cafes, F&B and whole the hospitality community brings to the neighborhoods that they show up in. But it's usually the structure of those deals as that tenant is forking up all the money for building and the payback to succeed is one thing that's very incredibly challenging. But too, if you are succeeding the payback can be years and usually years before you make it all back. And there's the odd companies or teams that manage to be extraordinary like a cow dog. Let's say what Joe has been able to do is like fascinating and phenomenal. But outside of the anomaly, you know, I'm like that's usually what happens and we're adding so much value to these properties more to the neighborhood or enriching the neighborhood and we're then fighting for a very small piece at the end. You know, like restaurants typically are 30, 30, 30, 10, you know, so 30 on your costs of goods sold 30 on your labor, 30 on your operational costs, rent and fixed and all that stuff. And then 10% profit. If you're great, you know, like if you got things dialed in 10% is crazy. You know, I'm like people tip more than the 10%. You know, so for all the hard work. Yeah, yeah, it's a hard. It's insane to not get paid for years and then to once you eventually get cross that to make 10% back and then you got to think about I guess the people that it's usually not just the one individual you might have a partner. You might have a few and then you got to break that apart. Like it's a business fully of a labor of love and it is feels quite futile sometimes actually and you know, but the heart is in the right place and we love it. Everyone's got to eat. We want to feed the soul. We want to build our communities. We want to play an active role within them. We want to feel like we can do something and food is we all share this communal experience around it. Whether it be coffee or food or any of those things. So so many people have an expression that they want to showcase to the world and then doing so, you know, the heart is in the right place. But what we found is we were playing everything on the line trying to build something special for a city to appreciate like that flower building is crazy. You know, like I, I, I, I was iconic, you know, thanks. You want to be so where there's nothing like it in the city and I think that makes it iconic. Yeah, given even just how we started and like the intentions behind it is like that that's not someone just came and dumped that there for us. You know, like we really had to pull every stop out to do something special. I'm glad that people show up, but ultimately I'm like for it to make its money back. It's the same. It's going to be incredibly challenging to, to net that back. But the value that it's brought to this neighborhood now is measurable, but also in many ways intangible too. Like I don't know if you remember going down great northern way. There was shit all. Nothing. Yeah. It was a dead zone. And now it's active that neighborhood feels like we're I guess they're active because they're coming in the nemesis, you know, but that feels really special. The impact we can have. And now I'm seeing these towers start to pop up and these things are starting to rise and it's like a neighborhood you want to be in. And a lot of that is because of what's happening as an activation from the hospitality side that people are connecting with that want to move into the hood. Of which I was like, okay, well, if we can have this impact on this real estate in which we don't own that we have to pay all this money into to eventually get paid back to fight for scraps. In the end, that's a fucked up equation. You know, I'm like, that can't be the case. So every deal that we constructed posts, I'm very grateful we did something that substantial is great northern way, but our shift from the business side really started to be in reflection and cognizant of the value that we actually bring and then being steadfast on like because ever after we did that, everybody wanted us to do it again, but it's like, we ain't going to pay for that man. And also, I don't want to give away our company in the process. There's no way. I'm like, I rather not do it at all. So yeah, we negotiated the deals and there's no broker that wanted to take on the deal structure that we were thinking of crane because it's like, it hasn't really been done or we never really saw it down before, but our subsequent locations we fought for a long time and then and found some really great partnerships to to that recognized the value in which we bring and put in a lot of the upfront TI tenant improvement allowance so that we could try again, do this again. And it's alleviated some of the pressure now. The business is still going to be really, instead of it taking like five seven plus years to pay back, but you've put in it's going to take one to two, you know. And then and some of them are even better, but that's better because at the end of that, we still have to fight for that 10%. You know, so it's not like there's a massive rainbow on the other side of this. Right, but at least you fought for your worth. For sure. And I think that's now starting, not just us, so I'm seeing other people start to recognize that too and I'm an advocate for it as well. So, um, so on a board, uh, call urban experience aligns, shout out, tech in team. Um, they're doing amazing work, um, trying to create like connect place makers and developers and everyone who's having some level impact, um, and in a massive scale to a small community focused scale, um, together. And, uh, I just did a talk recently and that exactly what I was talking about, you know, it's the same thing I'm saying here right now is just advocating for the type of deal structure, the type of recognition from a landlord or a developer to the tendency themselves. If I go and spend a million dollars on your property, you get that property improvement. And then you can take most likely a 50% loan to value. That property value has increased and then you have the increase of the actual capital that we put in that you did not, um, and I'll top that you have security in the right tenant as long as it's the right tenant or someone that's proven there's value in the lease that you've negotiated. So now you're coming up on two things immediately upfront and then you're going to pull your money out the gate and then you're going to go and buy more real estate and invest that into other businesses that are more lucrative. That's incredible. That's where we get fucked. Right. I'm like, and I'm sure whoever the developer partner is, they're like, oh, I don't like that. That he's saying this puts the truth. Yeah. Yeah. But it's incredible that this group exists to sort of give people the language and knowledge. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that's maybe the language knowledge that I'm bringing to the table through the experience of it. And that's why they want me on that. And then I'm talking about it because at the end of the day, yeah, it's like to buy a property here is an insane endeavor period. But for us to not have any ownership of that, but we lift the value of it intangibly just through intangibly and like the traction we create within the community, tangibly by the money that we put in and also the value of our lease. And then we're still fighting for a very small amount in the end. I'm like, that's crazy to me. So yeah, I just want to balance those scales a little bit more. And I want all of our peers in this city and beyond to have the same opportunity, you know, and then I'll always push for that. So there's a lot of people, at least within the restaurant space, do hit my line, you know, to talk about these things and also to support them within their negotiations. So if you're listening to this, you can continue to hit my line. I'm here for that. Yeah. That's wonderful. I mean, that's that's like true equitable place making. Yeah, a little bit more like a little bit more. Everybody should win. Yeah. Yeah. In the end, especially if we're putting up the money, you know, like it's going to be balanced a little bit more energy and your time and exactly. Yeah. Your blood sweat and tears essentially. So we level the plane feel a little bit more. I actually think our community that feels like when it's missing the soul, when it's missing the spirit, when people are frustrated, of the cost of things, you know, for sure missing the middle class, how do you build that back a little bit more? And then naturally just feels a lot more sustainable, a lot more enjoyable. It gives rise to individuals that are working within a shop, like a cafe, to not feel like it's like a menial stepping-stone job. Like, there's a value to being able to connect with people. It's tremendously valuable for me. It's what creates a city you can't have just buildings and no community and just have individualistic shells of people walking around. We need that connection. Well, everyone who needs some help to hit up jazz, as we close this conversation, I just have a couple more questions. If Nemesis was to vanish tomorrow, what would you hope that people will remember about how, you know, not just about the space, but how it made them feel? I hope that they felt a sense of real community and true congregation, you know, the ability to tap into a community, even when you're new. I guess when I think about just through the lens of coffee, when I get off the plane in any city, that's like the first thing I look up. And then I feel like it's a great access point to that city, you know? So I hope people feel like there's a sense of belonging in community and that it was really theirs and that's the work that we're trying to do. The coffee and the food and these other things, doing them well is just the catalyst for the connection to happen better, you know? And you were talking a lot about the chip in your shoulder and what's that relationship to the chip like now? I've, yeah, I guess there's been a lot of maturity for sure. There's been lots of solo time and conversation and thought full processing and I resonate more as very grateful maybe for the experiences. It's, I can tell you this much, it doesn't make me nervous to walk in a room with anybody because of what I've experienced, you know, like I never walk into a business room or board or meeting or whatever and I feel like never assert on someone else. I'm like, they're all people and I also often have the ability to reflect on like they have no idea, you know? Like, and there's so much I have not shared here today. Maybe there will be a part here at some point, but, you know, and but outside of that, just more gratitude, you know, gratitude, making peace with a lot of that and then finding beautiful ways to make it manifest in a positive way through these spaces that we build and connections that we get to have with people, you know? Yeah. I have so many questions, but I'll end with a question that I ask every guest with what you do, with the work that you do. What is it that you want to leave behind in the world? Oh man, this is going to sound cheesy, but just some love. Yeah. Yeah. Just, yeah, just that. I just want my time on there before these currents close to even if like we all will be forgotten in time, but, you know, for the ones who do remember, I just, it would be great to know that we actually did compelling enough things and connected with enough people in the right way and it was sincere that just felt like we showed a lot of, or I showed a lot of love, you know? Yeah. I love it. Well, it loves an energy and, you know, that energy there goes way. Yeah. Yeah. Just thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Thanks. I hope there is a part two because so many more questions. So maybe later this year. But in the meantime, if people want to connect with you, where can they find you? But where are the locations that they can visit and support Nemesis? Yeah. Actually, I'm so glad that you said that because Sophia, our PR person, it's like you should talk about dope eggheads. That's coming. I didn't mention any of our sorts. Within today is, can I call out the day? Of course. Yeah. Today is May 22nd. We have a shop, a new Nemesis flagship opening in Quillam on June 14th. And right after that, we have a dope bake house and its first standalone location in North Anne, opening on July 4th. So you can see us in the physical there and you can connect with me on Nemesis.coffee. And we also have a new dope eggheads social media dope.bakehouse on Instagram. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate you. Thank you, May. Appreciate you. If you enjoyed that last conversation, be sure to check out more episodes with craft on Spotify and guest photo galleries on the website at wearethecraft.com. Thanks again for listening.