(energetic music) (upbeat music) - My name is Gary Holstein.

I'm the director and curator of the Daum Museum.

I got my start in the museum area in a kind of non-traditional way.

I am from the studio side of the museums.

And so from the very beginning, I've always been about the arts, but also about how the arts work with the community.

And so that's kind of why I ended up here because it's at a community college, which makes a lot of sense.

Dr. Daum was a radiologist who developed a relationship with the first director, Doug Freed, who was the painting instructor at State Fair Community College.

They started touring around the world collecting art with the long-term goal of creating the space for that collection to live here on the State Fair Community College.

So by the time that this was created, Dr. Daum donated about 300-400 pieces, and he also donated the money to build this wonderful facility.

Since that time, over the last 20 plus years, we've grown that to just over 1700 pieces, and it started off with large scale, abstract expressionists and ceramic pieces.

And now we have a nice variety of work.

Everything from original pieces that were donated to pieces that are made now.

We just acquired new pieces from the last show.

And, you know, we have video work, we have wood, and we have a really amazing collection of prints, including works by Kara Walker and other artists of international note.

The exhibitions will change out.

The biggest one changes out about every six months or so, but I have three floors, so I change out the main floor every six months, but I change out the top floor and the bottom floor about every six months as well.

So there's always something different about, you'd say every three months or so.

We're trying to rotate things to where if a person comes here and didn't bother to look at our webpage to see that we have something up, that there's always something to see because we have 1700 objects at the ready all the time.

We currently have a show that's being installed right now called "All We Are," and that utilizes portraiture and figurative works from the collection.

And, you know, it's all about identity and who we are as people and, you know, perspective.

Because I think one of the things that art does really well is it gives the opportunity to see other people's perspectives, maybe gain a sense of empathy.

And I think that's so important for us in the world as people and as communities.

John Malta, he is a digital illustrator who has work in "The New York Times."

He's done work for Facebook campus and, you know, various magazines, "Garbage Pail Kids."

He starts with a hand-drawn image, which he then goes in and colors through digital means.

And then he takes that, he creates a comic book, and he turns that into this full on installation of work that's like your walking physically into a comic book.

So it kind of does all of the things that I think are really interesting and happening in art, especially in the educational environment, which I've always been a part of.

Where, you know, you're using what's new, but you're also drawing on what would be considered a more traditional form and you're bringing them together, you're taking them back apart and you're just re-envisioning, you know, the world through all these different creative means.

The other exhibition that we have up right now is Casey Whittier.

She's Kansas City Art Institute.

She has an amazing artist who does all of these intricate pieces of ceramics that look like they're woven.

I worked with her in the first show that I brought here with Artaxis, which is a international arts collaborative.

She was one of the people that I worked with when I first came here.

I had response from the visitors and students about how much they liked her work.

And so this gives me the opportunity to respond to my community and say, "This is what you like, I'll give you more of it."

And also to deepen the relationship with an artist and a community in Kansas City through, you know, continuing that back and forth.

So our primary methodology for education is visual thinking strategies.

And so that's a program that is about bringing students in.

And our focus is 4th and 5th graders, and it brings students into the museum and instead of saying, "This is what the art is about," and, you know, giving them that sort of like lectured at, we allow them to participate in the creation of meaning within the space.

And so we ask them questions about what they see, and then we ask them to kind of follow up on why that's important.

And the idea is about starting conversation, critical thinking, developing listening skills, and those other types of attributes that, you know, are useful to art students, but also useful to all across the different types of programs that we offer at State Fair Community College.

The other thing that we're just starting out, we're doing curatorial programs with students here at State Fair Community College.

And we're hoping to grow that with other students around the region as well.

And so this show that we're sitting in right now was the first curatorial project of one of our State Fair Community College students.

We also have a supportive program where we provide opportunities for students to show each year inside of our gallery space.

And within that, you know, we get to support the students by, they get to see amazing art, but they also get to follow up on their professional development, which was something that I didn't necessarily have as much of when I was going through the art program.

Because I was from a really rural environment, there wasn't museums, there wasn't that sort of thing, and it wasn't a career path that was identified.

And so I said, you know, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make art communities happen, and I'm going to use my position to make sure that there's resources for rural kids like myself to see art and to view art and to learn more about it and to see it from all over the place too.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - I am Kim Roberts, we own the store together.

I make mostly the (indistinct), the ordering, checking stuff in, making sure the book is balanced, stuff like that.

- I'm Pat Roberts.

I mean, I help with the ordering and checking in, but a lot of what I do is investigating games, paints, the miniatures, all the stuff I love anyway.

And so it's not the hard part.

- The community games and hobbies, it's a community is what it's turned into.

We have a lot of amazing customers who come in, they play games, they've met people that they would not have met under other circumstances.

And it's all, we just play table games.

It's a chance to talk to people and playing board games, card games, miniatures games, just all kinds of stuff, role playing games.

- We always had a vision that it wouldn't just be a store.

Anybody can go to a store and you can go online.

You don't need to come here to, you know, just get a store.

It's all about not being just a place to buy things, but a place to come and develop friendships and talents that you might not even have ever thought you had, you know?

And- - A place to belong.

- A place to belong, yeah.

Yeah, a community.

- He's been wanting to open a game store for as long as I can remember, but when he first started, all the kids were little and he's like, "Oh, you only work part-time."

And I'm like, "No, that's not gonna happen."

And I have little kids, so it's like, "No, no, no."

Two of them actually work here.

One of them will be here this afternoon running a D&D game, one of them runs miniatures games on weekends, and then our oldest does the sewing for some of the stuffies that we sell.

- The pictures of us when we first started, it's funny.

Yeah, we were a lot different then.

- Not much in the aisles.

- [Pat] Well, we didn't have all these shelves, yeah.

- When we first opened we had two little rows of shelves and they were short shelves and all the games were front facing, so.

- [Pat] And we didn't have walls.

- [Kim] And now we're constantly out of room.

- So we just keep getting taller shelves.

(laughs) What we found is people really want and crave, you know, they're tired of just being on their phone.

Everybody wants to have somebody that they connect with, you know, and actually have real relationships that are, you know, meaningful, and your friendships, if you're face to face, you get the nuance, you get all of the things that, you know, make you actually connect.

- It's my brother's shop and I was real excited when he was opening it, because it gave me a store to come play games at.

It's important for the community, it gives a lot of people a way to connect with others that they may be uncomfortable doing so in other settings, but when you can play over a board game or a card game, it gives you a common bond.

- I think a business or an establishment like this is really important for communities and individuals because it's a place to build community and fellowship.

Everybody feels at home.

There really is something to offer for anybody.

People that are kind of non-gamers or new to gamers and also people that are really more established gamers, more heavily into it.

- One of the things that I love about it is the welcomeness to diversity.

It's a safe place for anybody to come and play.

One of the things I love about this store is, is all of the art on the walls.

I think that's really important.

And then some of the different events like the Breast Cancer Awareness, the fundraising they do in October, the auction that they do in November.

- Every October, the whole month is for cancer patients.

It all goes to the patients themselves for copays and stuff.

And our customers actually make the products that we raffle off.

We've done that.

Another one we did was Dungeons and Doggos, which is role playing games where you play as animals or have a lot of animals in the role play.

And that all went to local animal shelters.

- We thought we could make a difference.

You know, the amount of money we earn isn't gonna cure cancer at all.

But if we can help people that are in that problem, I mean, every family is hurt by it.

So if we can help, then everybody can see that you're doing something that matters.

You don't have to ever just give up.

You can always be a positive influence, you know?

It's an experience.

It's not just a game.

It's part of our, you know, it's part of bringing up the children, et cetera, or my friends, and none of the games are just a thing.

You know, the games are an experience that becomes something that I can look at that, I can remember all the times that I pulled it out and we had a good time together, you know?

I mean, what we need in this world is more small, interconnected businesses.

I mean, the part of the doom of our culture is we're getting nothing but big box stores that don't care about you.

They're certainly not gonna know your name, and they really don't care what you want.

They just want you to buy things.

And, you know, that's not us.

- Pat and Kim are really great about supporting the people that do stuff at their store.

So when I run Bolt Action or Age of Sigmar, some of the other things I do, I know I have support, so I have the store behind me.

It makes all the difference in the world, all the difference.

- You can play, like I do 40K, you can play it at home in your basement, but you're not going to run into the group of people that you run into here and grow and grow the community.

And it's the best thing about stores and especially the brick and mortar stores is the community gets to grow and you get to meet more people.

- If you haven't been to a game store in like a decade, it's a different world now.

Yeah, everybody plays games now.

It's not just old, stinky, sweaty guys like me.

- We are in Peculiar, Missouri right off of I-49 next Peculiar Sonic.

Perfect location, just jump right off the highway, grab a snack and play all day.

(bouncy music) (twangy music) - So we bought this property in 2001 and it was a liquor store at that time.

But the restaurant started in 2008, and that's when we started.

- I started working here at the Red Shanty in 2007.

And at that time they were still building and working on the restaurant.

It was just a liquor store bait shop.

And I was more excited about just helping them get something new going, you know, and the idea of having a barbecue place in the small town that we hadn't had anything like that really, so it was exciting.

And so I started helping them then, and I've been with them since then, just through all the struggles and, you know, the good times and the bad times both.

- There's absolutely zero things easy about running a restaurant, but I'd say the people that are employed here, work here, they make it happen.

- I come in about an 1.5-2 hours before we open and then everyone else kind of shows up a little bit after I've been here.

So I like to be the first one here, kind of get ready to go, and then prep it up and get ready to go for the day.

Setting up the register.

I'll go to the grocery store and get some groceries just for like our daily stuff.

And then we close it down and I'm usually here an hour, two hours after close, and then turn around and come back and do it the next day.

We make all our food, almost all the food from scratch.

It's all made in-house.

As far as on the menu, the most popular dish here, the chips, and probably the Hobo Pack is real popular.

Another one, the burgers are popular for us.

They're smoked burgers and most places don't do that, so something kind of different.

- As far as the menu goes.

I think the most unique thing to our restaurant is probably the Frog Pollard sandwich.

There was a man, his name was Frog Pollard, and he was a cook and everybody knew him back in my day as a youth.

And he worked at the Junction as a cook and other places.

But he would make this sausage breakfast thing for Mrs. Branson.

And after the breakfast lunch at the Junction where my wife worked in high school, he would make this sandwich, which was just leftover breakfast sausages on white bread with pickles and maybe some buck.

And after my wife and I got married, we would have this sandwich occasionally, and we just called them Frog sandwiches after Frog Pollard.

And we kind of upgraded that thing, and then we put it on our menu as this, and we make the sausage here, we grind our own pork, season it, put it all together and make this Frog Pollard sandwich.

And that's how it got to be here.

- I think food is very important, atmosphere is important, and staff.

Those three things are probably the major, you know, being friendly to people, you know, we want people to come back.

We want them to enjoy the experience.

It's more than just the food.

It's everything all together packaged in one.

Ken and Annette are both really into like antiques and collectibles and you can tell.

It shows in the decor that, you know, it's really their thing.

- My uncle Ned had done it in one of their businesses and I'd seen in other businesses and it looked like a good fit for me.

We have a basement level that a lot of the prep cooking is done, kind of get things ready, prepare stuff.

The smoker is down in the basement level as well.

It's an old hickory pit smoker.

It was actually manufactured here in Missouri.

And we smoke all the meat here, you know, anywhere from some meats only smoke for an hour or so, some meats like the pulled pork smoke for like 15 hours.

So we got a really long smoke time.

We run with like a staff of around 10.

10 to 12, it kind of varies.

Sometimes, you know, we'll have less, sometimes we'll have more.

It's very much like being in a family, you know, having a family away from family, basically.

We're closed three days of the week because it's such a small staff.

Wednesday through Saturday are the best days, you know, we can get things done and people still have time off.

We're not working ourselves completely all the time.

This town is really good about supporting each other.

I feel like, you know, we do things for the schools.

They come in and, you know, they'll bring in people from their different school events and whatnot.

Definitely important, especially in small towns because, you know, you don't have a whole lot of population here, so you gotta kind of branch out and work with each other.

- This place operates because I have great people.

I mean, Josh Kressre, and Jake and Jay and Jesse, and all my servers.

This happens because they work really hard and they do a great job.

It happens because of them.

They're the ones that pull it off.

I'm very proud of them.

- We're open Wednesdays and Thursdays 11 to 8 and then Fridays and Saturdays 11 to 9.

We are mostly active on Facebook.

So if you follow us on Facebook, that's a good way to keep track of like if we're closed for any particular reason.

Sometimes we do vacations where we'll close for a week so that everybody can kind of spend time with their families.

And then we have a website, redshantycafe.com.

If you go to that, there's some information on there.

We try to keep it updated as accurately as we can, but yeah.

- I want to be thought of as a good place to come.

I want a little calmer, more peaceful, relaxing atmosphere, which you would come and visit a little bit with your family.

- I want 'em to come in and be amazed by the way it looks from the inside.

You know, I get a lot of people that come in and they say, "Wow, you know, I didn't realize that you had all this going on in here.

From the outside, you can't really tell."

And so I like that they're surprised about that.

And I want to fill 'em up, make 'em full and make 'em happy, and then I want 'em to come back and wanna bring their friends and their family along, you know, and check us out again.

You know, give us another shot and see how things are and join us for more meals.

(faint twangy music) - My name is Darby Davis.

I got into soap making because I purchased a bar of soap from another local vendor.

I loved it.

Started getting on YouTube and went down the rabbit hole and figured it out and here we go.

Well, Moonlit Petrichor, Petrichor is a "Doctor Who" reference.

I knew whenever I was coming up with my name that I needed to incorporate that somehow.

And then the moonlight part is because I've always been fascinated with the moon and petrichor is the smell of earth after rain.

So one of my favorite fragrances or smells in general.

So I figured that was a good way to name a soap business was with a smell.

It's been pretty great.

It's definitely getting better.

I've made more money this year than I made last year, just in the last few months.

So I'm seeing improvements and I've gotten a lot of new vendors.

So it's definitely grown quite a bit.

(whimsical music) I don't want a vendor that's not going to feel comfortable being in here.

So they have to understand that we are all like nature-based, witchy, gothy, whatever, you know, heathens in here.

(chuckles) And I want them to feel comfortable when they come in the door.

Most of them, I think most of them came, the newer ones came to me through Facebook.

My older vendors are my best friend, a couple of farmer's market vendors, people that I knew.

And that was a goal when I opened the shop was that I wanted my friends in here with me.

And I am trying to get as many of them as possible as long as their stuff goes with the theme of the shop.

So yeah, we just have this little, it's like a family going on down here.

So typically I just welcome them in.

No matter if they leave empty handed or with something, I always tell them, you know, "Thank you for coming in."

"It was nice seeing you," if it's somebody that I've seen a million times And, yeah, I just try to welcome them without being overly annoying about it.

I don't follow them around the store or anything, I just stand there and if they need me, I'm there.

If they do wanna hang out, then, you know, like if there's somebody that enjoys being in here and comes in often, then I'll walk them around and show them things.

But most people, you know, I let them come to me if they need help because I know how obnoxious that can be.

(serene music) That's a big part, like when I'm shopping for, like most of the product that I sell, like my teas and coffees and stuff, I look for eco-friendly, cruelty-free, all that.

So even my three bath and body vendors I have in here with me, I make sure that they are locally sourced, eco-friendly, cruelty-free, as good for you as possible.

And that is my main goal in here, especially with my own products, is to make it as eco-friendly as I can.

Right before, the reason I bought that bar of soap was because one of my coworkers had just kind of opened my eyes.

Like, I had always been against like animal cruelty and all that stuff, but she was like big into zero waste and do as much as you can to have as little of a footprint as possible.

And so I was like, well, a good place to start is with your beauty products.

And so I had started going through all my beauty stuff and now all of my beauty products are cruelty-free, eco-friendly, all the good things.

My hair dyes all vegan and all that stuff.

And so I bought the soap because I was like, well, we might as well.

There was a little shop on McGuire Street, that it, unfortunately, closed during Covid, and they had like three different brands in there.

So we just picked a bar of soap, took it home, and I fell in love with it instantly.

It was a plant-based soap like all of mine are.

And so I've kept everything plant-based.

I do soy candles because paraffin candles are known to be toxic.

And I also do a recycle program on all of my containers.

So that'll also help with the whole eco-friendly thing.

Soap, there is no theme with soap.

I kind of pay attention to what it's supposed to smell like.

And then I kinda imagine, because I've been an artist, so I kind of imagine what colors I think that that would smell like.

And then I just kind of put that together and create that.

And then I try to keep the same theme every time I recreate the soap.

Sometimes it doesn't work.

But for the most part, my soaps have stayed the same every time I've made them.

Some of my soaps and candles are named after like characters from favorite shows and things.

And so I'll try to match colors from the character or from the show that I'm referencing or whatever.

(gentle music) So I knew it was going to be tough, but up until recently I didn't think about all the hurdles I would have to go over.

I've been an official business for three years.

Yeah, a little over three years.

And I honestly didn't think I could have a shop, because when we sat down and talked about it, there was just no way we could afford one.

We can't afford to get a loan to get a business.

We thought rent was gonna be outrageous.

We got very lucky in this place.

The landlord is awesome.

The rent's super cheap.

It's cheaper than most houses.

That is the main reason why I'm here because I found this place on Facebook Marketplace, and I jumped into it as soon as I found it knowing that I was going to need an outlet.

And it worked out very well.

And he is so understanding and it helps a lot.

Of course, I'd love to expand, and like I said, have a bakery attached to my shop at some point.

But that is like way in the future.

That's not even something I even can imagine happening at the moment.

But downtown, in general, I feel like I've noticed just in the last year that there's definitely a community going on here that we all try to support each other as much as we can.

When I know that I'm gonna order food, I try to get it from a local place down here close to me.

I always get coffee from the local people down here if I'm here, because the money stays in your community and you're not supporting some billionaire that has a lot of money already, and you're helping us achieve our dreams.

I hope that I'm still doing this in 20 years.

Well, I hope that I'm doing this with employees in 20 years, so I'm not the one doing this all the time.

But I hope that I'm still making my own products and that I don't have other people doing that for me.

And I hope that I have a bigger shop and that kind of thing.

But I hope that I'm still surviving in this part of my life in 20 years.

(gentle music) (upbeat music)