Saints Rest

(car horn honking) - Lisa, your proper turn that bucket. Hi Ben, what can I get you? - I'll take a medium house blend. (chattering) - I have a medium house blend. (upbeat music) - If you've been to Grinnell, you probably know exactly where I am right now. Also, if you read the title of this episode, you might have a clue. I'm at St. Trest for this episode of All Things Grinnell. (upbeat music) This is All Things Grinnell. I'm your host, Ben Benversi. On this week's show, we'll talk with Noga Ashkenazi, class of 2009, who directed the movie St. Trest, a musical drama filmed and set here in Grinnell. Then we'll talk with St. Trest's former owner, Jeff Phelps, and the current owner, Sam Cox, about how the coffee shop has become a home for so many in the Grinnell community. This week's show is coming up next, after a word from Grinnell College. The information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent the views of Grinnell College. Noga Ashkenazi came to Grinnell as an international student from Tel Aviv, Israel, unprepared for the cold winters and unsure what awaited her. During her four years here, she found a new home in Grinnell. And after making a documentary about her experience tutoring inmates through the Grinnell Prison Program, she decided to make a narrative film set here in Grinnell. Noga came back to Grinnell in October for the screening of her movie. We sat down to talk about the film and how she fell in love with St. Trest. - Well, when I was a student here, I was, as you know, very far away from home. And when I found myself spending a lot of time at St. Trest, I got really close to the owner and founder of St. Trest. The owner at the time was Jeff Phelps. He became like a dad to me while here in Grinnell. I come from a big city, Tel Aviv. And in Tel Aviv, you have your neighborhood coffee shops, but it's not the same as coming in and knowing everyone around you and everyone greets you and Jeff knows exactly my drink and always just takes care of me. And it felt like a place where I could call home away from home. So I just, I really loved the atmosphere. I was blown away by the too many string band concerts there because it was just, I remember this one night, it was snowing outside and they were performing and the place was packed. Like you literally, people were standing and you couldn't move because it was so packed and they were playing this great, you know, folksy music. And the atmosphere, the ambience was just so magical that you could feel the community coming together and it being a family. So I loved that and I really wanted to capture that feeling in a movie, in a coffee shop where live music is performed and people from the community come to listen to it. - Yeah, that's beautiful. Can you pinpoint a specific moment when you decided that you were gonna make a movie in Grinnell? - Yes. When I, I spent my junior year in Paris and I took some film classes there and kind of fell back in love with film. Film is what I had always done back in Israel. But when I came to Grinnell and realized there wasn't a film program here, I became a theater dance major and that took over my life. And I kind of put film aside for a few years. And then when I went to Paris, I knew that film is what I wanted to do after graduation. And so when I started teaching at the prisons, at the Grinnell Prison Program, I found the experience so powerful that I felt like this is something I wanna document and share with people and they should meet these people and hear their stories. And so I had the idea of making a documentary inside the women's prison while teaching a feminism class and kind of making the film about women's issues in the criminal justice system in a broader way. So of course, everyone I asked about it said, no one is ever gonna let you bring cameras into a maximum security prison. And it sounded kind of crazy. But I went to the Des Moines prison administration and pitched my idea and surprisingly they said yes. So my senior year, second semester at Grinnell, every week, twice a week, me and a few Grinnell volunteers and my co-teacher, we went to Mitchellville Prison with cameras and filmed our eight classes that we taught there. And four years later, the movie The Gray Area came out. It was four years of intense labor. I did it while having a full-time day job in LA working in the film industry. And so I knew that this was gonna be my first feature film. If I wanted to be a filmmaker, I just had to make a film. And what was available to me was my experience here in Grinnell, which I thought was really unusual. Grinnell students going into a prison and teaching classes, I'd never seen anything like that. - So this movie, Saints Rust, was your first foray into, I guess, a non-documentary film. - Right, narrative. - Huge, enormous undertaking. And it turned out beautifully. - Thank you, I appreciate it. - Was it always gonna be a musical? I imagine the coordination of writing a movie script while also writing songs had to be like an extremely difficult process. Was there sort of like a give and take between the script and the songs? - Absolutely. First of all, yes, it was always gonna be a musical. It's not a musical in the sense of people start singing about their feelings and dancing in the middle of the street. You think of singing in the rain, which I love, but it's trying to bring the musical genre to a more modern time where we wanted the songs to come in and out of the plot kind of seamlessly and organically, so you almost forget you're watching a musical. And the songs just happened naturally within the scene. So yeah, it was a very big undertaking. We wanted, especially since we wanted to do live singing on set. And we didn't wanna compromise on the way most musicals are pre-recorded and you just have the actors lip sync. So yeah, I worked with two amazing composers in Israel for about a year. We wrote the script while they were writing the songs. And so the writing of the story influenced the songs and vice versa. And it was a really awesome creative process. - From what you've told me, this movie was such a collaborative effort without thanking everybody. Can you talk about how it felt to make a movie with help from so many people? - Yeah, if I started thanking people, we would be here all day. So I won't thank anyone. I will just thank everyone. - You did it all yourself. - No, I couldn't have done this movie without having a Grinnell alum, Paul McCully, who agreed to fund this adventure and believe in me and in the story, wanting to make a movie about Grinnell. He really saw the vision and was supportive from day one. So that's 100%, none of this would happen without him because making a movie costs money. Secondly, Grinnell College, it's a huge broad thank you, but they provided us with so much support, logistical support. We stayed in the dorm for a month and a half at main dorms and a 30 people crew just slept in the door rooms and it was quite a unique experience making a movie while living in the dorms. Main lounge became our war room or whatever it's called and we had all our equipment, all our costumes, everything was all over main lounge. We had a piano, we were rehearsing there, we were eating there, Grinnell provided catering services, like a few other businesses around town. So that was huge. Our associate producer, Todd Linden, who knows everyone around town, helped coordinate with different businesses and basically the whole community came out and supported us, they all were extras in the film. We had scenes with 100, 200 extras and so people just came and spent the day with us and saw what it takes to make a movie. Sam Cox, the owner of Saints Rest, she closed Saints Rest Coffee Shop for a whole week for us. We shot there day and night and it was an incredible experience. We felt very welcomed by the community and people were excited seeing a movie being made here. Hopefully it was a good experience. I know it wasn't easy for people just because there's this whole huge crew that comes in and takes over parking spots and brings equipment and some things break in the process but I hope it was worth it eventually for them. - Yeah, well, based on the showing last night, there was a lot of community support there so for those people, it was definitely worth it. Did it feel like first year all over against staying in the dorms? (laughs) - I stayed in the dorms all four years so and I love it. It was amazing. I mean, besides the fact that it was July and we had no ACs, we were very happy in the dorms. Yeah, it was surreal coming back here as an alum, making a movie, a professional film with all these people and having it based here in the dorms. - And some of your friends, so what was it like working with a cast that included some of your friends from Grinnell? - That was the point for me is to make my first narrative feature with people who, A, I love as human beings and B, people who I think are super talented and are like me trying to make it out there as professional artists and so we recruited our friends, some of them are professional actors right now. I co-wrote the script with Tyson Stock who is a Grinnell alum my year and he's been my creative partner. He's writing my next film as well and the music director is Brian Kavanaugh-Strong who went to college with us. So it was just being surrounded by my Grinnell friends and the greatest part was bringing them back here to Grinnell to do this and eating at all of our favorite restaurants in town and just hanging out again like college except making a movie. It was great. - I want to talk a little bit about Danny's character. - Yes. - 'Cause there are some obvious overlaps with you. How much of Danny's character is informed by your experience? - A lot, actually. So for those who haven't seen the film, Danny plays an Israeli young woman who right now is, she went to college and med school in the States. She came from Israel and now is doing her residency here her family is all still in Tel Aviv and she has an American boyfriend and she's kind of torn between the decision of staying here and marrying this guy that she loves versus going home, which was always the original plan. So yeah, there's a lot of me in there. I definitely struggled with that decision my whole time. I spent almost a decade in the States I went to college here, lived in LA for three years then moved to Illinois and throughout this time I was planning on, I was building a life here in the States and I had relationships but at the same time home was always Israel and my family was there and it was really hard having to work my way around the geographical distance. So geography is a huge part of my life and also of the themes of this movie is when sisters find themselves living apart in different States, in the United States it's very accepted to live in a different States from where your parents are. You go to college in the other side of the country you get a job in a different state you just kind of move around and Israel is such a small country that if you move further away than 20 minutes from your parents it's like considered really weird and everyone is so used to being in the same geographical space. So yeah, ultimately I went back home to Israel where I'm based right now and that kind of solved that debate in my own personal life but yeah, lots of similarities with Danny. - Yeah, also the dynamic between the sisters in the film Joni and Ally, you said you have a twin sister right? - I do. - Who you're very close with? - Yeah. - Where did you get the idea for those sisters who are really connected by music and Grinnell but whose lives have diverged quite significantly? - Well, I think the conflict between the sisters was a way for us to discuss ambition versus contentment. I see that as the central conflict in the film. One sister has dreams that she feels like she cannot live them here in Grinnell and she has to actually leave town to make them come true, career aspirations, et cetera. The other one is extremely talented, writes songs, performs them, has extraordinary talent but she chooses to stay here and she herself is torn between choosing her life and where she should go. And so I think that the sisters represent two different life choices and the audience can find themselves identifying with either one of them, and you always miss out on something. When you choose a path, whether to live in Grinnell for the rest of your life, there's huge benefits to that. You gain the sense of community, the sense of home. Small-time life has a lot of charm and appeal to me and then, of course, moving to a big city has, provides more options, career-wise. I found myself moving to LA right after graduation and I was really homesick for this type of place. So you always, whatever path you choose, you're gonna be missing out on some things and you're gonna sacrifice some things. - Yeah, so for more than just Grinnell audiences, this film obviously has quite a broad appeal. It's already been shown at a number of festivals and I know it's received quite high praise and recognition along the way and rightfully so. There's not a wealth of movies out there about small-town Iowa. Why do you think your film resonates so well with people who aren't necessarily from Grinnell? - It's a great question. I'm still trying to figure it out. We premiered at a small town in North Carolina and Riverrun International Film Festival, which is a really well-known festival and yet it's a small city. The people there, we had three sold-out screenings and we won the audience award there and the responses we got were overwhelming. Just people really saw themselves in the film and I think you don't have to live in small-town Iowa to see yourself in that conflict that I just described and have those same questions for yourself, for your own life and what path you chose and how far you are from, I had people come up to me and say, "I have a sister or I have a brother "and they live a few states from here "and the geographical distance is really hard for me," and so they're touched by different aspects of the film and a lot of people say they were really moved by the music and drawn to it from that angle, so I hope people can find different things to appreciate in the film and they don't have to be from Iowa. - Certainly, so while it does have that appeal and those themes kind of resonate with everybody, I think it also is really special for the people who are familiar with Grinnell and I know I loved seeing all the scenes in the movie and knowing where they were filmed and I've been to those places and I've done those things there, but it did feel a little different to see them featured in a movie. I'm curious, did it feel like you were rediscovering Grinnell through the lens of a camera when you came back and filmed? - 100%, my cinematographer, Matthias Gransky, who's one of the best working cinematographers out there and I was really lucky to have him, he's originally from Germany and he's based in, well, he's from Austria, he's based in Germany right now, so him and I are both foreigners coming into this American Midwestern town and both of us look at it probably a bit differently than what Americans look at because I didn't grow up in an environment like this. So for me, everything from that water tower with the red top and those alleyways and just the Grinnell Park and the bowling alley which looks like straight out of a 50s movie and we both looked at those locations as outsiders and I think that helped bring out their charm and their magic because we're just not used to them, this is not the type of topography we see. So, yeah, I saw it with new eyes and I fell in love with it again. The house we filmed at, which belongs to the Clower family here on Broad Street, is I think the most beautiful house I've ever seen, when we found that location and they agreed to let us stay there for a week in film, it was just, everyone who sees the movie asks about their house because it's so beautiful and it's just a house standing on Broad Street. When I was a student, I never noticed it, I never, so now you get to really look at the space, you really look at the coffee shop, you really see things that stand out to you and yeah, I love doing it. - Yeah, it was funny. Joanie's walk to work in the film is the same walk that I have to work basically. - Oh yeah, that's right. - I live on Broad Street. - That's true. - She was like a little deja vu there but I do, I can appreciate the feeling of kind of seeing Grinnell through new eyes even though it's been only a little more than a year since I've been gone, it is different coming back and looking at everything and appreciating different things. Okay, I want to play a bit of a game here. I'm going to ask you some of your Grinnell favorites. - Yes. - Give me your honest answers. - Okay. - Favorite time of year in Grinnell? - Summer. - Good answer. As we gear up for the winter here, it's going to be brutal. - It was hard for me coming from Israel, I was, I'm like freezing at 70 degrees. Like I cannot deal with this weather. So yeah, definitely summer, beginning of school year. - Uh-huh, favorite study spot? - Favorite study spot, St. Thrust, but on campus. Wow, GRC, the library, I don't even know anymore. I was all over the place. - That's good, that's fine. - The forum. - The forum, yeah. It's kind of changed a lot in its history and even probably since you have been here. They've now got like a digital arts lab there. - I know, yeah. - It's cool. - I was the last class that experienced it as a forum before the GRC became like the student center. - Oh, okay, that's interesting. Favorite restaurant, non-cafe in Grinnell? - Okay. It's between Chong and Paglia. - Okay. - I don't think I've even pronounced those names right, but you know, the pizza place. - The pizza place and the Chinese place? - There's another, there's a Chinese buffet, China Sea, but I've never been there. - Oh, I've never been there either. - But Chong is certainly the popular destination. Favorite building on campus? - Boxbound. - Boxbound. - I spent all my time there, so. - Okay, favorite professor? - Oh, you're gonna get me in trouble. - I'll give you up to three. - Okay, Astrid Henry for gender women's studies was a mentor, someone I looked up to and I admire her until today. Craig Quintero was my directing teacher and I absolutely loved his class, was my favorite class. I'll stop there because they have a long list, so. - Okay, favorite food from the dining hall? Stir-fry maybe, station, do they still have it? - Yeah, they still have the stir-fry station. Have you been in the dining hall since? - No. - Are you gonna go there today? - I have to, I have to see what's changed. I mean, has a lot changed. - Well, I mean, I wasn't here in 2009, but. - But they still have all the stations of like. - They still have the stir-fry station, the sandwich station, pasta station, all that good stuff. - Yeah, okay, we had that. - Did they have the ice cream machine when you were here? - No. - Okay, so they don't have it anymore, but when I was here as a student, they had an ice cream machine, like a soft-serve machine, but now we've switched back to like four containers. - Oh, yeah, now we, I don't think we had that. - Did you have ice cream at all? - I'm sure we did, yeah. - But neither of those fancy options. - But yeah, if there isn't a question, then I have to also say a big cookie. - Okay. - From the, if you were not gonna ask about the grill. - Yeah, I guess I didn't ask favorite grill item, but. - Did you see it in the film though? - I did, and I wrote it down, like in my notes, I was like, "The big cookie made an appearance." - The big cookie. - I was so happy. - It had to make an appearance. - Of course. - But also there was, in my time, there was only a big cookie, and then I came back to here a few years later, there's a huge cookie, or giant cookie now, and that's new. So it's, I don't know what's gonna happen in a few years. It's gonna just grow and-- - It's gonna be a plate. It's gonna be a giant, enormous monstrosity of a cookie. Dairy Barn was also featured in the film, so you have a favorite Dairy Barn food item. - 100%, yes. So, coffee-flavored ice cream with cookie dough is the best thing you'll ever have there. - Coffee-flavored ice cream with cookie dough, wow, that sounds good. - It's amazing, yeah, is it still open? - Yeah, it's still open, usually until fall break, so you can still catch it too. - I'm going there right now. (laughing) - It's not necessarily ice cream weather. Yesterday was 80 degrees, but today's a little cooler, but Oli'd ice cream. - Yeah, me too, forget the weather. - Good, and then, do you have a favorite coffee shop in town? (laughing) - I don't know, yes. - Cool, well, I figured I'd give you that soft ball to end the interview. - To deny out my love of persons, right? - Yeah, yeah, put you on the spot. Well, thank you, Noga, for making this film and coming back to Grinnell and sharing it with all of us and for coming to talk to me today. I really appreciate it. - Thank you, it's such an awesome project you're doing, and I hope this podcast just takes off and that everyone listens to it because you're wonderful at what you're doing, and I wish you all the best. - Thank you, Noga. - Noga Ashkenazi is a Grinnell graduate from the class of 2009. Both the film and the soundtrack will be available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon, sometime in early 2019. You can sign up for their newsletter at www.saintsrestmovie.com and receive updates that way, or like them on Facebook at SaintsRestMovie. Links to her trailer and music from the movie are also available on our website, grinnell.edu/podcast. Here's a little snippet from one of the songs in the movie. It's called "Right Now." ♪ Running, running ♪ ♪ Under all the time it says ♪ ♪ We're not afraid ♪ ♪ The present moment is right here ♪ ♪ Right now ♪ ♪ Right now ♪ - After talking to Noga and seeing the movie, I wanted to get some historical perspective on SaintsRest. So I talked to Jeff Phelps, the former owner of SaintsRest, who was there when Noga attended Grinnell and made an appearance in the film as the hippie guy in the bowling alley. Sam Cox is the current owner of SaintsRest. I sat down with both of them to see if they could tell me why Saints has become such a staple of the Grinnell community. Jeff took me back to the beginnings of this iconic coffee house. - We opened up Saints in September of 2000, no, of 1999. I'd owned a liquor store and wine shop before that and it really wasn't working out real well and decided that we wanted to do something a little different and I had originally looked at starting a coffee house 10 or 15 years before that but the consulting company said it wouldn't work in Grinnell, it wasn't big enough. But the demographics kind of changed over those 15 years and as coffee became more popular and so decided to do it. I had a partner at the time that helped finance it and that partnership didn't work out so we kind of separated just right after we got it started in September of 2009, 1909. - 1999, when did I start coffee house? - Today we're gonna party like it's 19. - Saint Rush has been here since 1909. - Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? - And you've been here the whole time. - The whole time, since the Mayflower. - Okay, so since 1999, Saint Rush has been serving coffee to sleepy Grinnellians. Jeff, I've heard various stories about the significance of the name. Can you give me the lowdown? Where does the name come from? - It's really based on a chapter in the late Professor Wall's book about the history of Grinnell. Even shows up in the movie Saints Rest. There's a scene in the movie where they open the book to chapter four and I can't remember the exact name of the chapter but it has something about Saints Rest and the saint and his rest, I think is what it was called. But I wanted to have a contest to name the place 'cause I'm really terrible at naming things and we were getting all the standard things, common grounds and the bean and all that kind of stuff and I got a call from my friend Joel Wall who was Professor Wall's son and he said, "Have you read my dad's book?" And I said, "Yeah, I have." And he says, "Well, if you're doing this contest "you need to look at chapter four "and reread that and see what you think." And I did and I loved it. It kind of in some ways tied in with what I had done before because as you may know, JB Grinnell was a real teetotaler and had all these clauses that if you purchased land from him, you could not serve or store or drink alcohol on that land or he could take it back. And so when I decided to switch over and I saw that name Saints Rest, I really liked it and decided that that's what it would be. So my friend Joel won a free cup of coffee which he's never come to collect. (all laughing) - He'll come collect it for me and that's how it works. - That's what you get for naming rights, I guess. - Exactly. - Sam, how did you then get to know Jeff and eventually become the owner of Saints? - So I was a customer of Jeff's first. I would come in 'cause I love coffee my entire life and so I was always flying through to get my coffee on my way to whatever job I was going to. And I took a leap of faith like back in 2005 and opened a small coffee shop at the Williamsburg outlet and Jeff was my mentor for that. So he helped me run through all the equipment again and understanding how to use that and how to do things. He gave me a lot of his suppliers. He was incredibly supportive and helpful. And unfortunately that one did not make it but I feel like that was a great starting point for me to understand how and what I could do when this opportunity came up. And we actually had talked about this probably about 10 years ago and it just didn't come to fruition at the time. It wasn't the right time for me. It wasn't the right time for him. So when he came back six years ago now, yeah, I started working on all of my paperwork and how am I gonna get this financing and how am I gonna do this? And by December, we had it all figured out and all ironed out and I took over in January of well six years. So where do we at? - 2013. - 2013, yeah. - Yeah, so he as really the person that's helped me be where I'm at and do what I'm doing. I was scrolling through a photo book at Saints the other day and I didn't realize that the art gallery actually used to be a part of Saints name and the logo. Jeff, can you speak to the role of Saints as an artistic hub of sorts? - That was really an idea that my partner at the time came up with. I wanted to put artwork on the wall and he really didn't wanna be involved in running the business at all. But he wanted to have an art gallery in Grinnell and so we decided that was one of the impetuses for him to become a partner. So he hired a woman named Mindy Bacon to contact artists and bring in artwork and then she eventually as he backed away from the business she took over the whole art business but I thought it was a great idea and I think you still sell quite a bit of stuff there. And so we tried to support mostly local artists and jewelers and things like that. People with Grinnell connections and I think one of the first things that we did was we enticed a young photographer from Grinnell College named David Kennedy to bring his photography in. And David's gone on to become a pretty well-known photographer in North Carolina. He's in fact produced a book called A Portrait of Grinnell when he graduated, that's an amazing book I think and then had a second edition of it, not too long after that. But so it kind of started as a way for local artists to have a place that they could show their work and maybe make a little bit of money from it. - And Sam, how do you see saints as part of the artistic community here in Grinnell? - Yeah, I look at saints as an opportunity to just be supportive. I rarely turn anyone away for any reason, whether it's they want to put something on our walls or it's music that they want to perform or there's a special event and we happen to be the venue. I just feel like we are a communal space and if I have the space, why would I not offer it up for those who need it or want to utilize it? So that's how it works out for us. - When you took over, I know you changed a few things but you've definitely kept the spirit of saints. How do you think about the legacy that you inherited from Jeff when you took over saints? - Well, I have a fantastic legacy. I mean, I couldn't be more grateful, truly. And the funny thing is, the longer I'm there, the more everybody's like, you are becoming more like Jeff every day. To which I say it is their fault. It's all their fault. And it's nothing to do with Jeff or I 'cause we are angels. But yeah, we are saints. - We are saints, yeah, there you go. I like that. - So yeah, for me, it was just about kind of just changing some things into more of who I am and what I am. And so we took on in-house baking, which is the one thing that Jeff didn't do. He had some bakers through the years but we took on in-house baking. So there's always stuff that's made from scratch. In fact, that's what I spent my afternoon doing today. I opened up, and Jeff and I went round and round and bet a dinner on this. I opened up flavored coffee in the coffee shop, mostly because I love flavored coffee, which makes Jeff very unhappy. But so I bring that in there. And I mean, really, it's the same business, just with a slightly different spin. He's a little more calm. I'm a little more wound up. Yeah, that's just how we roll. - Well, that's because I'm less caffeinated. - Right, even then. - I don't drink nearly as much as I used to, but. - Yeah, I'd say we're both characters in our own right, just slightly different. - I agree. - Can you both give me an idea of what makes saints special to you? I don't know if you feel this way, but I think it bridges the college and the town in a way that few things do. - I agree with that 100%. That's one of the main reasons that I wanted to start a coffee house was I wanted a place where people could come and not be hassled. And if not, sit together, at least be in the same room together. And it worked out way better than I ever thought it would. As I watched over the 14 years that I was there, I watched friendships develop between people from the Mayflower home and college students and business people and derelicts. And it just was a, you know, it really worked as a hub, as a place for people to gather. And Sam's done such a great job of making it even more comfortable than I did. And it's, you know, it's really the few times that I go in. I gotta admit it, it's over the last six years, seven years, it's been really hard for me to go in. I, you know, always felt like I was interfering if I was in the place. And yeah, she always makes that face when I say that. It's just one of those things when you get rid of something that was so important. And I didn't wanna go in and say, "You should be doing that, you should be doing this." And knowing me, you know. - He might have a time or two. - But, you know, what Sam has done is just absolutely wonderful. It's an extension of that. I think it's even more comfortable now for people than it was when I owned it. - Well, thank you, Jeff. - Well, it's the truth. It's just so much fun the few times that I do walk in to see, you know, different groups sitting around the table and discussions that range far and wide. It's, I think it's really important for Grinnell to have a place like that. And I don't think there really is any other place in Grinnell that provides that to the extent that St. Therese does. - Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, what makes it so important to me is probably two things. It's a legacy, right? And it's Jeff's legacy first. And as long as the story about St. Therese will be told, it'll always be told with Jeff and who owned it first. And 'cause I can remember the people that used to own businesses in Grinnell and I still remember their names. And that's gonna be Jeff and they're gonna remember when Jeff owned it. And then they're gonna remember when I owned it. And, you know, those two memories are gonna meld together. But the most exceptional part of that business is the customers. And my answer to anybody that wants to own a small business is it is not glamorous. And it is hard. And it's a lot of stress and strife and turmoil. But what makes it all worthwhile are the customers because they're not my customers. They are my friends and they are my family. And I'm so lucky to get to meet so many young college students. And there's always the special ones in that group that end up being more like your kid. And that you're very fortunate to get to be that parent figure for them when they're having the good days and the bad days. And also just the community ties that you make. People that I've never been exposed to before, the professors and the faculty that I would never have seen or had a conversation with have also become friends of mine. And I'm so lucky to have that source of knowledge 'cause even when I have these just strange random questions, I know somebody that I can go track down and be like, can you explain this to me? 'Cause, you know, I can't say that I am an incredibly cultured individual but I'm so lucky to know so many cultured individuals that I can pick their brains. And that's a great opportunity for anyone and everyone that comes to the coffee shop. - You know, one of the things that I think about is how many people doubted me when I opened the coffee house and the committee, it's not gonna work, you know, why are you doing this? And I know you got the same thing when you came in to the point where, you know, we wanted this to happen. - Way to be creative. - We had to be creative. We ended up self-financing. And, you know, everybody, my accountant said, I think that'll work, I think it's great. But then every tax time he says, boy, you sure don't wanna get it back now or your tax deductibles are gonna go crazy if you get it back and-- - I know nothing about that. - But it's, you know, it's just one of those things that if you have faith in something, in somebody, you make it work. And it worked out great for me. If Sam had paid me all in one big check, I'd have spent it in two months. But this way, it was a supplemental income before social security kicked in and it couldn't have worked out better for us. And the community is what made that happen. You know, I don't think you lost any customers when I left and I know you gained a whole bunch of completely different clientele. And that's, you know, that's what I wanted to happen. And I'm sure it's what you wanted to happen too. And it's, so, you know, we can spin and circles, patting each other on the back, but it's really the community that made this place work. - It is, every day. - In the age of Starbucks and Duncan, these large coffee corporations, how has Saints managed to carve out and maintain such a stronghold here in Grinnell? - You know, I recently had this conversation and Jeff's had this experience and I really haven't where another coffee shop came in and tried to function. And of course, we had another, a small bakery came in that was serving coffee and you get this moment of panic where you're just like, how am I gonna make it in? I can't lose 10%, I can't lose 15%. That's affecting me personally. I think that when and if that happens again and it most certainly will, we certainly will take a hit. But I think what we are fortunate is that we are community and college supported. And even though those places are gonna come and go, it is not my true core. Like they're certainly gonna get business from other people, but those are people that have never come to see me anyway. I feel very strongly about the customers that I have. And even when I was a customer of Jeff's and the other shop opened, I didn't go to the other shop. Jeff was here first, that was my place and that's where I was gonna go. So it will happen, I have no doubt. And the answer is you just keep doing what you're doing. Don't alter your plan, if you're doing it well, continue to do that and just stay the course. And you know, if it's meant to be, it will be. And if you're good at what you do, it'll keep going. - That's the real key is stay in the course, I think. When that happened, when the other coffee house opened up, panic is not really the word, it was sheer, just terror. You know, how am I gonna do this? I know how much money I am not making. How am I, how is somebody gonna siphon off 50% of my business and how will I survive? And what happened was that a lot of my customers did go there and after two or three months, they slowly started filtering back and they started bringing other people with them. And it turned out that the competition was actually kind of good in some ways. Obviously more for Saints Rest than it was for the other place because he didn't make it. - Well, and you started, Jeff started with an exceptional product. Our roaster out of Altoona, who's been the same roaster for almost 20 years now, even though they've switched owners a little bit, an exceptional product. And I get samples all the time as did Jeff of everybody else's coffee beans. And I will tell you that I am truly astounded by what she continues to produce. And that is part of what we do. The other part of course would be the scratch made products that we bring to the bakery area, which is, and we're reasonable, we're not crazy expensive, we're moderately priced, it's a small town, but it really comes in my opinion down to the product that we serve. And that started with Jeff and we've been fortunate enough to be able to pass that down to where we are. So other people can come and go, but the answer is they're not serving the same things that we're serving. Over what, the last 20 years, there were actually three roasters involved and three different owners. And the original roaster was incredible, but she just couldn't stick to one thing. He never knew when you were gonna get deliveries. She was incredible, and an incredible trainer. And then the second roaster was very passionate about it, but decided when her husband got a job opportunity in another community that it was time to sell. And the woman who took over toward the end of my time is just as passionate about coffee. And those are things, as Sam mentioned, I'm glad you mentioned it, because it's, I mean, that's really the core of it. If we opened up a really nice, comfy coffee house and served crap coffee, we wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. - There's a reason you guys come off campus. We have good coffee, no slight. - Certainly plays a role. So what did you both think of Noga's movie? - I thought it was fantastic. Sam mentioned making friendships with people on campus that would come into the coffee house, and that's exactly what happened with us. Noga came in with her father her very first day in Grinnell, Iowa. And she came in kind of half-scared, and she and her father walked up to the counter, and we chatted for a little while and found out where she was from, and just talked about Grinnell in the community. And she wanted off to sit with some other international students that had come in with her. And her father looked at me and said, "You know, I'll never be back to Grinnell. "I'll never come back here. "You take care of my little girl." And that was, I kind of felt obligated at that point to stay in touch with her, and Noga and I did. And she was in a lot when she was on campus, and I would hear from her even when she was studying abroad, and it was just really tickled that that relationship developed. And what she's done with the movie, I can't imagine anything that would serve the community better, that could serve both the college and the town and the coffee house. But the story itself is just such a marvelous story. It's a love story, and I just, I had no idea what she was gonna come up with, but it was just really something to see, and I really enjoyed it, so. - Yeah, I agree. For me, so Jeff was gone when they were filming this movie, and I told Noga that it had better be good 'cause she was a pain in my rump. You have no idea what it takes to make a movie. I have no idea what it takes to make a movie, and I can tell you it is one of the most invasive processes in the entire world when it's shot in your little area of town. But I thought that the town was displayed absolutely beautifully. I thought so many movies you see, and you know it's somewhere that you're familiar with, and it doesn't remind you of that. And I thought Grinnell was showcased really beautifully, and I loved the actors and actresses. I got to know them all. They were really just great down-to-earth people to watch the creative process and see how it all worked out at the end, and knowing everything that went into that is overwhelming. So, but yeah, it's a great film. The soundtrack is phenomenal. I just, I absolutely loved it. I've seen it twice. I haven't been fortunate enough to be able to get in there any other times 'cause it just gets kinda, gets away from me, but I certainly will buy it whenever it comes out. But it's so cool to see the place where you work and you live and you love on a screen. I mean, on a really personal level. It's really neat. - And to have those actresses actually make you feel like they've been there. And that was, you know, that it's their place. You know, I think Honey was just absolutely amazing as the owner, and I could see some of you. - She worked with me. - I could see some of me. - Yes, she came and worked with me for a little bit, and I was just cracking up. There's a part in the movie where it is literally my line, and I'm like, "Wait a minute, that is me." It's super funny to see. - And I would echo everything that Sam said. Those, especially Honey and Danny, and the guy that played Michael. - It's Michael. - Yeah. - Michael is Michael. - Michael, yeah. Alley, Alley is the other one that I was trying to think of. That, you know, they really do just such a fine job of settling in. I mean, it's their place. - Yeah, it's super cool. - And what amazing people to work with as you mentioned. I had that one little scene in the bowling alley as the hippie bowler, and it took all day to film everything that took place in the bowling alley, but it just blew me away to be sitting there during downtime and have Honey break into, you know, just start humming a tune. Alley would just join in, and pretty soon they'd break out into a complete duet, and everybody in that place was just, "Oh my God." And it was just wonderful. - It's super neat. - It really is. How come you weren't in the movie? - I did not want to be in the movie. In fact, I'm really upset with Noga, the one picture she took of her and I, I think I had a bandana in my hair and some bib overalls on, and I was dirty and scrubby, and I don't even know what I was doing. I'm like, "That's the one you chose." That's, yeah. So no, I didn't want to be in, but I did offer her my famous bib overalls. I was disappointed that they didn't make it in the movie. - They didn't make it in. - Yeah. - Well, with the success of Noga's movie, soon people will be flocking here from all over the country to see Saints Rest. But in the meantime, thank you both for taking the time to talk with me today. - Absolutely. - I appreciate it. - Thank you for inviting us in. - Jeff Phelps is the founder and former owner of Saints Rest. We were joined by Sam Cox, the current owner of Saints Rest. If you're in town, make sure to stop by and say hi, and you can check them out on Facebook at Saints Rest Coffee House. And with that, we'll wrap up this week's episode. On the next show, we'll interview some of the guest speakers from the Rosenfield Symposium here at Grinnell, which dealt with the inextricable relationship between sports and society. Music for today's show comes from Brett Noosky and Audio Blocks. If you'd like to contact the show, email us at [email protected], find us on Twitter with #AllThingsGrinnell, or check out our website, grinnell.edu/podcast, for more information about the guests from today's show. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. I'm your host, Ben Benversi. Stay weird, Grinnellians.