- Envista is pleased to support Working Capital.

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Learn more at envistacu.com.

- Go Topeka's entrepreneurial and minority business development is proud to support Working Capital.

We share the vision to assist local entrepreneurs with growing their business.

- Additional funding is provided by The Friends of KTWU.

- Welcome back to another episode of Working Capital.

On today's show, we meet two different families who started businesses around the table.

Whether you're hungry for food or stories, these local businesses have you covered.

First up, we digest what really makes Magic Meals Home Delivery cook.

After supper, we'll hear the story how one family's passion led to opening an independent bookstore and the community they're helping to curate.

Stay with us as we explore business around the table.

It's all about business on Working Capital.

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to Working Capital.

For over 15 years Angela and Stacey Davis have been the dynamic duo behind Magic Meals Home Delivery, providing home cooked healthy meals for busy families, seniors and those who may need a little help with special diets.

Let's learn about the key ingredients to their business.

Angela and Stacey, welcome to Working Capital.

- Thanks so much for having us.

- So 15 years already.

Now I've seen a lot of other meal companies.

They're online, they've come up in the last decade, but you guys are really ahead of the curve.

What inspired you to go this route?

- Well, we actually started cooking together when we first started dating.

Our first dates we would get together and watch Monday night football and make dinner.

And so it's been part of who we are from the get-go for sure.

But we were looking for a business that we could do together before we got married, and I have a master's degree in holistic nutrition, and so we knew we wanted to be self-employed, we knew we wanted it to involve food, and we stumbled upon the idea of personal cheffing, which is actually how we started when we first got going.

And we would load everything up and cook in people's homes and then leave it there, and then take everything back to our place at the end of the day, and then another person the next day.

- So cooking in someone's home, how many clients did you have at that point?

'Cause that seems like logistically kind of a nightmare to clean up and go to the next spot.

- It's a lot more labor.

- So how many years did you take of that before you started cooking out of your own commercial kitchen?

- Well, the first about 18 months or so we were cooking in our client's home and personal cheffing.

We got married during that time, we actually also had our first child at that time, and he was about six months old and going with us into people's homes.

And when he started crawling, we realized that maybe that wasn't gonna work for much longer.

So that's when we bought the house where we live now and put in the state licensed kitchen, got it all approved and set up exactly the way it needed to be and started delivering to people's homes.

- It was our plan pretty early on to build a customer base, doing the personal chef stuff, and once we had that customer base would follow us to the delivery business.

We could set up and start right away at a higher volume.

- How did you find your first customers?

And how did you find that and how did you grow that out?

What was your bread and butter?

- Well, when he started, one of our biggest challenges early on was that people just weren't familiar with personal chefs, or if they were, they thought it was something that not I'd use that, somebody else does.

So we started out with our close friends.

And we just said, "We will cook for you "just for the cost of ingredients."

And all we ask is that you just share.

So tell people about us.

- Tell people about us.

- Some positive reviews.

- Yeah.

And so we started out with, I think we had three close personal friends who let us cook in their homes.

And we just did it for the cost of ingredients, and they told other people about us, and we just grew from there.

- That's fantastic.

What was one of the toughest obstacles you faced other than having to chase your at your child around?

(Stacey and Angela laugh) - Really it was just educating people and this was way before all of the home delivery that you see now, restaurants and Uber and all of those kinds of things that you see now.

And this is actually almost 17 years ago in November will be when we got started.

And so educating people about the possibility of having somebody cook homemade real food meals and bring it to you.

And we did have a lot of folks who thought that maybe that was just not for them.

Maybe that would work on the coasts, but not here.

And so we talked at a lot of women's groups, church groups, we put up brochures everywhere that had a board that you could pin something up on, anybody that we could talk to or get our information in front of, we did and word of mouth and that kind of personal advertising has always been by far the best that we've had and how we grew.

And people got to know about us.

- Well, one of the hurdles that we faced as much like our clients, we thought that this was for a higher end clientele.

So we started out doing some pretty fancy stuff.

But then as our client base grew, and we saw there was more people we knew, people like us, and so our meals became much more home-stylish healthy versions of food that we know and love.

- Stuff people would wanna buy five days worth instead of thinking, oh, we're having some people over on Sunday, let's have them make a nice meal, we'll pop it in, but you're really into the everyday helping people out with their routines.

- That's exactly right.

The vast majority of our clients eat our meals either every day, or just on the days that they're too busy and they don't wanna run through the fast food line.

- Speaking of too busy, how're the sales?

Can your clients still get on the website and find a meal for next week or are you guys sold out most weeks?

How quickly do you really need to get in that queue?

- Well, we do sell out on a very regular basis.

We have a different menu each week.

We work on a six week rotation.

And we do sell out, but we also cook for new clients almost every week as well.

I have some clients regulars that order every week, some every other, some once a month.

It's all very flexible depending on what people need for their life.

- Yeah.

- But there's usually room and we're always cooking for new folks and always wanting to help more people out.

- It's funny how people come and go in our business.

We have some families who have young kids who are in sports and stuff.

We only cook for them in the summertime when they're busy.

- When they're busiest.

- We do the family meals at night.

We have other seniors who we only cook for in the wintertime when they don't want to have to get out when it's icy and stuff.

And then we have some folks that we just cook for year round.

- That's fantastic.

Well, it's time for a short break.

Please stay with us as we talk more about meals that are magic.

We'll be right back.

You're watching Working Capital.

Welcome back to the show.

Angela, Stacey, tell us a little bit what it's like to work with family in the kitchen.

That's one thing we always hear a little bit of a stigma towards.

How do you guys make that work?

- It's always worked for us.

It's been an extension of our relationship and we get along.

We like each other.

We talk while we're cooking, and some days we talk less than others and that's okay too.

And we've always loved the fact that this business let us both be at home with our kids.

We didn't have to choose one of us to go to work or daycare or that kind of thing.

We were able to take turns in the kitchen or those things when our kids were little and we really valued that, the ability to be at home with our kids.

And now that they're older, the flexibility to be able to work in the evening if we've got stuff going on with the kids during the day, it's just always been a part of who we are and how we work.

- Yeah.

- And we feel very blessed to be able to.

- Well, we have a pretty relaxed work environment there.

And so we'll have podcasts going in the background and we can pause them and talk about what we're listening to, or we'll have documentaries and stuff going.

So we can introduce a lot of things to about in our work environment.

- As you guys talked earlier, some weeks you're sold out, so do you see yourself expanding in the future?

Where does your business grow from here?

Or are you kind of just... - I really think that as far as the amount of cooking we're doing now, we're happy with where we're at.

Nobody's getting rich, but we're doing just fine and we're helping as many people as we can.

With the quality that we hold ourselves to, if we got much bigger, we'd have to bring in a lot more employees and we would have to sacrifice our quality.

And we just don't wanna do that.

- We've considered it at different times through the years.

Moving into a bigger either a retail space or at least like a warehouse prep kind of space and having employees, but we really value the personal aspect that we are cooking for individuals.

We're cooking for a lot of them most weeks, but it's still Stacey and I doing the cooking and we control the quality and we know that people are getting real whole food and we know what's in it and so do they.

And we think that's pretty important.

- Well, with that, how has COVID changed your business?

It has changed everyone's, but more people coming to you because they know the quality instead of going out to eat?

They're not worrying about all those other extraneous things when you go out to eat?

- Yeah.

There's no risk of being in public.

Like at the beginning of COVID especially when people were just very concerned about leaving their house at all.

And we do have a number of people who are in the high risk categories that we cook for, and we were able to help them stay at home and stay safe and not have to worry about getting out to the grocery store or restaurant or those kinds of things.

We did definitely see an increase in sales at the beginning of COVID.

And also a lot of challenges when groceries were hard to come by.

And so we just started cooking different things.

We would take whatever was available and find a way to make it work.

It's actually how we added brisket to the menu.

(laughs) We didn't use to think that we had the space to do briskets, but that was one of the things that we could always find when groceries were low and so we gave it a try, we figured out how to do it and now it's a favorite and I don't think it's gonna be able to leave the menu rotation- - Yeah.

- for a long time.

- For the first three months of COVID, we never sold out.

We just couldn't tell people no.

And so we just cooked all the time and it was three months before we finally took a week out of the kitchen to kind of... - Take a little break- - Yeah.

- and breathe a little bit.

- We were getting tired.

- But people, they really needed us.

It's just hard to say no when people really need you.

- And with that need, it's not easy to cook for everyone, but you kind of have that base family, but what about these people with special dietary needs?

How do you cater to them?

- Again, that plays to the fact that it's just Stacey and I doing the cooking.

I don't have employees that I have to make sure that they understand exactly different restrictions and what they can do and what they can't do.

My education with holistic nutrition, I'm very familiar with a lot of different ways of eating.

I'm not a licensed nutritionist, I can't prescribe diets, but I can follow doctor's orders really well.

(laughs) And definitely something that is close to my heart too, the way food and health are intertwined has always been very important to me, so helping people who have those restrictions.

The vast majority of people we cook for it's all the same.

But we have the ability to do a separate batch on the side, or to make adjustments for people who need that.

The biggest one that we do it's probably diabetes,- - Yeah.

- although the vast majority of what we do, it already follows the guidelines for the American diabetic association.

- Just real food.

(all laugh) - It's whole food and we cook it all from scratch and lean meats and lots of vegetables and all of those kinds of things.

But we also have a number of gluten-free clients.

And some of those are celiac patients and so we have to be really careful about cross-contamination and things of that nature, but because we control our kitchen, it's really pretty easy for us to do that.

- Yeah.

- That's fantastic.

What a great business.

And you definitely have me hungry now.

It's time for another short break.

When we return, we opened the book on Round Table Bookstore.

Stick around.

You're watching Working Capital.

Welcome back.

One Rossville family has taken their passion for reading and created a community experience in NOTO.

Round Table Bookstore doesn't just sell books, coffee and art.

It also curates imagination and creativity.

Andrew Howard, Donna Schultz, Scott Howard and Rain Schultz have opened an independent bookstore during an age when online giants like Amazon have taken down some of the larger chains.

Let's open the book on Round Table Bookstore and find out a little bit about their entrepreneurial story.

Donna and Andrew, welcome to Working Capital.

- Thanks for having us.

- Hello.

- So, independent bookstore, you guys opened a year before COVID, how's it going?

- (laughs) It's going great actually.

- Yeah.

We may not have chosen, hey, a pandemic is coming.

Do you wanna open a small, independent business?

But we're loving the bookstore and NOTO and Topeka, so it's gone really well.

- And this is not your main careers.

This is kind of a family adventure.

How did this come about?

- Adventure is a good word.

- That's exactly (Donna laughing) what I was thinking.

That's a great way to describe it.

- So we all do have our full-time jobs that many of us have had for a number of years.

But we love reading and Andrew had a dream about opening a bookstore and he took Scott and I down to NOTO and we went on an adventure.

(Donna and Andrew laugh) - And we haven't slept or looked back since.

So yeah.

- So what sold you on NOTO?

Because it's kind of a space it's still rebuilding, so there's limited hours there, does that help with fitting in with your other schedules?

- Mm-hmm.

So the limited hours was a big part of it and just the feel of NOTO itself and the arts and kind of being its own little community really is what is what sold us on it.

We knew as soon as we decided, hey, we're gonna try this, we knew we wanted to be in NOTO.

Not that there aren't other great places in Topeka, but... - And at the time they had not opened Redbud Park yet.

It was kind of in process.

And we were able to go to the art center and talk to them about it.

We saw what was coming and we just thought, this seems like the right place.

- How have they embraced you?

First Friday Artwalks, is that kinda your biggest night of the month?

How does your clientele work there?

What's your normal customer look like?

- That is a great question.

I think we're still figuring out what our normal clientele looks like 'cause we have a little bit of everything.

We have people who just want new books, we have people that just want used books, bargain books, people that just come in for our drinks, so it kinda depends a little bit of everything.

- And I would say the Friday Artwalk is not our regular customer because Friday Artwalk is really a lot of people coming down and seeing what's going on, maybe it's their first time up in NOTO, and then some of our other days are when we have a lot of our regular customers who they love an independent bookstore.

So we get kind of a variety and we're always surprised at how many people are still coming in to Round Table Bookstore and they say, "We didn't know you were here.

"We didn't know we had an independent bookstore."

And so the Friday Artwalk is definitely a big night for us, a big day, but it's the rest-- - Well, the people are steadily coming.

- Yes, yeah.

- They're fighting all the days that you're open.

- Yeah.

- That's great.

I stumped in there aped in there.

It's a cute little store, multilevel, you have the bargain bin upstairs, kind of all those books, all the artwork on the walls.

Tell me a little bit about your space there that you're creating.

- So it's definitely been a work in progress.

We started and had some floors to replace and some walls to paint and all kinds of stuff.

And as we continued to grow, we had been a fan of Jordan Brooks's work for a long time and we knew that we wanted color and the mural.

That something that kind of distinguishes NOTO is to have murals everywhere.

And so we got in touch with Jordan and he was nice enough to spend a few months at night in our bookstore painting our mural and we couldn't be happier with it.

So that's cool.

- It really has a little bit of art from different literature pieces and it's entitled "She reads it into reality" and we love it.

So, it's kind of a highlight.

- So, COVID.

How has COVID affected you?

You didn't expect that.

Already probably a challenge starting a business and then a little less than a year in, bam.

- So one of the things that makes independent bookstores so great is a lot of the events and community engagement that they have.

And so when COVID hit, we had started doing open expressions, open mic nights, we had started doing book clubs, we had live music on first weekends, all kinds of stuff.

We were getting ready to start the story slams, and then we shut down fully for a month, and then we were doing delivery only and shipping and stuff.

So it was definitely a challenge.

And it still is because a lot of people come in for drinks and that's hard to do with masks on and things.

- Yes.

It's time for another break.

So stay tuned for another chapter, we'll be right back.

Welcome back, Donna, Andrew.

So, coming out of COVID.

You're kinda fighting, grew fighting like everyone kind of had to do, how's your growth going?

How's your business coming along?

- It's going really well.

There were some things that we started in COVID that were continuing that really helped us.

We offered free local delivery because people couldn't leave their houses, so it was necessary.

- Very good.

- And now it's just a nice thing for people who don't have time to stop by or are still sheltering and things like that.

And then shipping and online sales, COVID kind of forced us to get those going and so it's a nice alternative.

Nothing beats browsing in a bookstore, but if you can't make it in, those are good options.

- You weren't really pivoting, it was just resegmenting your major areas 'cause you figured have more walk in to begin with now you're really competing then within Amazon at that point.

- Yeah.

It's difficult to compete with a giant like Amazon who can sell books cheaper than we can even buy them.

- But that's only with people who know what they want.

- Exactly.

- When they're going in and experiencing, they really wanna find something new.

So having people there who have curated the books, know what they're selling, that can be very beneficial to someone who has a big library at home or getting something for their kids.

So how does that experience work at Round Table?

- Well, one thing I would say is COVID actually coming out and even through the process, Topeka has been a wonderful community supporting local businesses.

And I think they took us in as the bookstore and they thought we're gonna choose not to support bigger places, we're gonna support our local businesses and we're gonna support Round Table Bookstore.

I think that's been part of our growth and I think it continues to be the growth.

And I think it's one of the strengths of Topeka.

So that's been a plus for us.

- What's your delivery area?

I know you can ship anywhere, but what's your... - So as you said at the beginning, we actually live in Rossville.

So kind of anywhere between Topeka and Rossville 'cause we're headed that way anyways, but then just kind of Topeka surrounding area.

I've had deliveries out at Berryton and up north closer, not quite to Holton, but... - So really all of Shawnee county.

- Yeah, pretty much.

- Other independent bookstores, how do you guys view each other?

Are they competition or you guys kinda work together in a network to kinda shut out the big chains?

- Yeah, it's kind of a big family.

We all do things similar, but then we do things that kinda cater to our local community, and our needs, and our strengths as booksellers too.

So there's a lot of things that, hey, what are things you guys are doing to survive COVID or how do you handle delivery or things like that.

What do you think is gonna be a big book for Christmas and things like that?

So it's really nice.

We actually in July just went to Kansas city,- - that's what I was gonna say.

- sorry, and went on a tour of independent bookstores in Kansas city.

So it was cool to see how they're doing things, what kind of books they offer, and we got more ideas.

- Yeah, lots of ideas.

We went to several in Kansas city and then we stopped in Lawrence, went to the Raven Bookstore and Dusty Bookshelf.

I think family is a good way to think about it.

We are connected and we're always looking for ideas and sharing ideas with other independent bookstores.

- Working with family.

All pluses?

Is there some extra headaches?

- Rainbows, unicorn.

No.

(Andrew and Donna laugh) No, it's really good.

It requires patience and communication, like anything with a family, but one of the really nice things, especially when things are tough, like you're replacing floors in a business or COVID hits, is that you know that no matter what happens, at the end of the day, you're family.

You're going home, you're together, you love each other.

- And you can lean on them.

- Yes.

- You guys have a shared passion.

It's not just like someone is just funding it.

You guys are all part of this.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's just great.

And I love the family aspect and the way you're kind of bringing that into NOTO, which is, they're trying to build community there.

So it seems like you're trying to kinda get a community hub there, it seems, all these events you're having.

Tell us about the future.

What do you have planned there to really get people in there and get involved with the Topeka community?

- Yeah.

- Well, just even this last week, even with people still feeling some reluctance to get out, our tables were full, people were there discussing books, having conversations.

We have people who come in and actually, you brought up Jordan's mural, want to look at the mural, want to know who did the mural, and so we want to be a place where people want to gather and have conversations and talk about what matters to them.

- Yeah.

And we're starting kind of getting back to where we were pre-COVID.

So we've got Dungeons and dragons games that are meeting, we're starting up a board game night, we've got three book clubs that we host along with other outside ones that just wanna meet in our space, we've got open expressions, open mic nights.

So, all kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

- What they're saying is follow you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, find your schedule?

Lots of stuff happening down at Roundtable bookstore?

- Yeah.

- That's fantastic.

And you guys picked a great spot to start this.

And I wish you guys luck in the future.

- Thank you.

- Thanks.

- Well, that's the final page of tonight's show.

I'd like to thank Angela and Stacey Davis for Magic Meals Home Delivery, along with Donna Schultz and Andrew Howard from Round Table Bookstore for being with us this evening and sharing their stories.

As always, if you know of any interesting business or management techniques, we wanna hear from you.

So give us a call, drop us an email or send us a letter.

We look forward to hearing from you.

See you next time.

And thanks for watching.

It's all about business, and you've been watching Working Capital.

(upbeat music) - Envista is pleased to support Working Capital.

Switch to empowered, switch to Envista.

Learn more at envistacu.com.

- Go Topeka's entrepreneurial and minority business development is proud to support Working Capital.

We share the vision to assist local entrepreneurs with growing their business.

- Additional funding is provided by The Friends of KTWU.