141: Hustling to Build Two Full-Time Businesses with Alexis Joseph

In this episode, I talk about making sure that your images are really clean for Pinterest. And we talked to Alexis Joseph from Alchemy Juice Cafe and Hummusapien. How fun is that to say about what it's like to run a successful restaurant along with a successful blog? Hey there, everybody. This is Bjork Ostrom. You are listening to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. And the Food Blogger Pro Podcast is brought to you by WP Tasty, which is our site for WordPress sites. If you have a WordPress site, whether it's a food blog or not, you can check out wptasty. Right now we have two plugins, Tasty Recipes and Tastypins. And the weekly sponsorship here on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast from wptasty is called the Tasty Tip. Because we don't spend a ton of time talking about tasty recipes or tasty pins. If you want to learn more about those, you can go to wptasty.com but we do spend time talking about one actionable tip that you can take away and apply to your blog. Sometimes it has to do with Pinterest or SEO. Other times it doesn't have anything to do with those. But today it does have to do with Pinterest. And the tasty tip for today is making sure that the images on your blog posts are really clean when it comes to Pinterest. And here's what I mean by that. When you go to a blog post and, and you click the pin button. Now the pin button that I'm talking about is the pin button that is the one that brings up all of the images on the post, not the individual pin button on an image. When you click the Pinterest button, that brings up all of the images. That should be a really clean result. And here's what I mean by that. Oftentimes on a blog post, there are lots of different photos that could be pulled up when you click that pin button. But for a recipe blog or a fashion blog or a DIY blog, what you really want to be presented is the content from that post. And if you test this out on your blog by going to a page, going to a post, and clicking that Pinterest button, and what you see is maybe your profile image, maybe there's some social media images that come along with that, lots of content that doesn't relate to that actual post, that that needs to be cleaned up. And the good news is it's relatively easy to do that using a little piece of code that you add to the image HTML that is the no PIN code. Now, if all of that sounds super complicated and totally overwhelming, not a problem at all. If you work with a developer, they can do it. Or you can go to wptasty.com nopin and that will redirect you to an informational article that shares how to do that, where you can learn more. And I won't try and explain any HTML on the podcast, I promise, because that would be overwhelming. But I wanted to give you that quick tip so you could apply that to your blog if you need to clean up your Pinterest images. And again, the way that you can test that out is just using the Pinterest button that pulls up all of the images and gives you the option to pick from one of those. And what you want is the only images that should display are the images related to that blog post or that article that you want people to share on Pinterest. So that is the tasty tip from wptasty. If you haven't checked out wptasty, you can go to wptasty.com that's WP for WordPress, and learn about what we were doing there with tasty recipes and tasty pins. On today's podcast, we are chatting with Alexis Joseph, and she's going to be talking about what it's been like for her to run a successful restaurant cafe. It is called the Alchemy Juice Cafe, along with a successful blog, Homo Sapien. And she's going to talk about what her day looks like, how she structures her time, what it's been like to work in those two very different industries and the things that she's learned that has helped her grow along the way. It's gonna be a great interview and I'm excited to share it with you. Alexis, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, we chatted about a few things here before we press record, and I'm excited to jump into those. Uh, I'll leave that as a cliffhanger here for people that are tuning into the podcast. Uh, but before we dive in, I always want to take time to hear a little bit about somebody's story when they're on the podcast, and especially when it's a story that's unique and interesting like yours, where you are working in, you know, the niche field of nutrition and healthy living. But I'm guessing that maybe your path that you started isn't one that you thought would lead you to where you are right now. So let's rewind the tape a little bit and hear about when you first stepped into this journey and first took this first step on this path. Where were you and why did you decide to get into nutrition? Get into the space of food and healthy living?

Yeah, so I always kind of tell people that my first love was food and food only. And then kind of writing happened after that and nutrition happened way later. So I always kind of hold food the closest to my heart, if that makes sense. And that's kind of what I have always came back to and finding the joy in that and then kind of seeing where that takes me in other areas. But you know, I didn't really delve into nutrition until I actually took a trip to Israel in college, I think it was in 2010. Got super inspired by the culture and the people there. I read some books that looking back now, I actually probably wouldn't have read but just, you know, got really, really inspired about helping people kind of battle chronic disease with nutrition or reverse chronic disease with nutrit and specifically plant based diet. And that kind of all meshed together with my interest with food and with writing with the blog. And you know, I switched from business to dietetics. And that was kind of, kind of what set it all off is actually.

That trip, what was it about the trip specifically that impacted you?

Yeah, so I had never, I grew up eating like well, you know, my mom cooked every night, but it was pretty traditional, you know, we would never have a meal that was like vegetarian. And in Israel I actually met a gentleman who, it was so funny because I remember him being like, do you know the Britain Bob's Red Mill? And I was like, no. And now it's like. But yeah, I actually met a guy that was like newly vegan and my mind was just blown and I started reading about reversing disease with plants. And it was always, for me, it was always from that standpoint of being like really this fascination that you could take hold of your health in this way. And obviously a lot has changed since then and if you know my story, that's another topic. But yeah, really obviously just the produce over there and just the food and really the culture around food. And it's a lot different in America and it's a lot more. There's just a lot more spontaneity and lightheartedness and kind of soul with food over there. So. Yeah, but it really was the culture and the people I met and kind of my eyes opened to some things that I really wasn't aware of.

Yeah. The other thing, I'm just curious and you probably aren't Excited to talk about this if you weren't excited about what they are now. But what were the books that you read? And curious to know why you wouldn't read them now or suggest them.

I'm glad you asked. One of the books was Skinny Bitch and this was also like, I don't even think Instagram. No, Instagram didn't exist. So it was like another world. It wasn't blogging was still like, this was before I started the blog. Like it was such a different time. So I read Skinny Bitch, which I just thought was like the Bible, you know. And then I read what was the other I read, I think I read out of War's Dilemma, Michael Pollan, which actually really, you know, really likes that book. But I, you know, I read some things that were just super, super fear mongering and super, you know, cherry picking evidence. And my philosophy now is just so much looser and finding joy food and food freedom and definitely not to that extremism, you know, hate yourself if you have a sip of milk kind of situation. But yeah, it's always funny looking back to, you know, how I would have, you know, I was young and young and young and free back then, reading some crazy books.

But it's interesting, I think sometimes that's what it takes where you have a huge correction and then maybe find a middle ground after you get further down and develop your own opinions. But I think, I think sometimes what's so appealing about some of those books, whether it be food or finance or family or faith, like to have something that is so extreme is pretty sticky. Like it's clearly defined and there's a hard edge on it and it's easy to follow that. But I think once you get into it and start to develop some expertise and opinion, then your opinion gets more nuanced and doesn't have to have as hard of an edge, which it sounds like maybe happened with you. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, so you did this trip, you come back, you make a pretty big decision to switch your focus. So you said you went from business to dietetics. And then what does that look like in terms of making that decision and making that switch? And at that point, did you know then what your path would be?

So I kind of always thought that my career would be, you know, maybe something with like marketing, media, writing business. I grew up always loving to write. My grandpa was a professional writer. He actually wrote books on grammar. So I grew up with that kind of in the back of my mind and really loving Just like loving that creative outlet. But obviously dietetics is a huge switch. That's like a four year undergrad and then you have to do a year long internship. And you know, all this, it has a lot more to it. But I just totally blinked on the original part of your question.

Well, just wondering about what the change was like. So you make that switch and when you're making that switch, are you intentionally saying, okay, I know that I am interested in this, obviously, but did you have an end goal in mind of where you wanted to go with that?

No, totally not. I just thought, you know what, why, why does this only have to be a hobby? I feel this like crazy like fire in my soul, this like tangible passion about nutritional wellness. So why not study it?

You know, got it. And so, and I think that's for a lot of people that are at that point in their career or, you know, in college, they say, okay, I'm interested in this. I don't necessarily know what I want the end goal to be, but I know that I'm interested in it, so that's what I should study. Which makes a lot of sense. So fast forward then and you are wrapping up your career as a student and starting to look at what the next step is. What point along the line did you start your blog and what was the intent with that?

So I started the blog pretty much, really. I think I was in Israel in July and I started the blog like around the time when I got home. I was like a total fan girl of Oshi Glows and back then followed so many different blogs and my dad like, okay, you love to write, you love food, why don't you start your own blog? I was like, okay, so started that in 2011. I really, it was totally, you know, no one was reading it. It was totally just my own fun place to mess around and a little like food diary. And I really didn't become serious about the blog until probably like 2016, which is when I actually started making an income. But before that, I decided after undergrad to do a combined. So I mentioned you have to do that internship. I did a combined master's and dietetic internship. And during that two years, that's when I was kind of thinking, okay, you know, I think when I graduate, I know I don't want to do anything clinical. I really want to work with people and help people, you know, with nutrition and maybe do some writing. Maybe I'll write for a magazine. You know, never did I think that I would finish school and alchemy would happen, like, literally, if you would ask me if I'd be running a restaurant, I'd probably would have laughed in your face.

And I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of people that are in that boat post college or post life as a student. The interesting thing is that you kind of have this different version where I feel like a lot of people come out of school and they do something completely different than what their major was in. True for me. I had a. I majored in management and retail merchandising, and now we, you know, run a membership site for food blogs. So it's this totally different space. But there was this kind of deep part of me that had always been interested in tech, always interested in design. And so it, you know, this avenue opened up and it like, it made sense to go into that. It seems like that's maybe the case for you with, you know, didn't necessarily see this path of running a restaurant, but there was this core interest in health and nutrition. And when that opened up, then you're able to walk into that and to really own that. But the. At the same time, you had your blog kind of happening in the background, and you said around 2016, it was at the point where you're starting to take it a little bit more seriously. So let's dig into that a little bit. What. When you say taking it seriously, what did that look like? What were some of the changes that you made that helped to accelerate or that helped you to dedicate some more time to it and to really start doubling down on the success with your blog?

Yeah, I think it was so interesting. I mean, the biggest change I made was buying a professional camera, obviously. And it was just such a different time with blogging because it wasn't like everyone had a blog back then. So I didn't know I didn't have as many, you know, quote, unquote, like friends in the, you know, in the industry to kind of go to. I was kind of just winging it. But getting a camera and actually utilizing Pinterest to its full capacity made a huge difference for me. And then I think, also just changing how I looked at my blog because I always thought of it as, you know, oh, I have this silly little blog. I just kind of do it for fun and really without even making any crazy changes, just changing how I looked at it and kind of giving myself some more credit and taking it seriously, like, okay, you're putting all this time and energy and passion into it. Why? Why does it have to be some ridiculous dream to make it, you know, more of a career or more of a money maker if you're putting, like, I said so much time into it. You know, I had a bunch of student loans. I was in grad school. And I just really started challenging myself to make the most out of it. And that's kind of when, I don't know, I don't want to be cheesy, but I really feel like I was, like, putting out those vibes to the universe and things just started kind of coming my way. Like, I don't know. I remember the first time my vegan lasagna got it was in a slideshow for like, HuffPost Canada or something. It was like the best day of my life. I was like, I want lasagna. I'm in HuffPost Canada. Like, what's HuffPost Canada? Yeah, you know, I thought it was such a big deal and I stayed really consistent. I worked so hard on that damn blog, you know, when I was making nothing and giving everything. But I kept with it just because I loved it so much. And I never. I didn't have the intention of it becoming really much more than what I set out for it to be, but I think that that's, you know, the way for it to happen. And I think you have to kind of almost not have those intentions in the beginning, so it can be real and, you know, you can do things the right way. So I think just building that authentic audience from the beginning when I didn't have any crazy motives really helped get me, you know, to the state today where I am. I'm just so, you know, transparent with my readers and engaging and just real and just kind of putting it all out there for everyone.

Yeah. And talk about the name Homo sapien. Homo. Where did that come from? And I love it. I think it's a great idea and I think for. You can explain it for those that are listening, because when you see it, it's a super creative name.

So it's Homo sapien, Like homo sapien, but hummus. And it's like, if I had a dollar for every time I said that to someone, I wouldn't have to blog.

I was just gonna say, well, for Lindsay and I, it's like pinch of yum. Like pinch of salt. Like.

That'S so funny. But I was actually, baby, I was like a full time nanny in grad school in the summer, and I babysat these. I just forgot the word. Oh, these like prodigy children. They were literally the most genius children. I mean, they were like 12. They weren't toddlers, but just incredibly, incredibly smart young women. And I remember sitting at the table and the girl's name was Sana. And I was like, sana, you know, I need a really good, like, punny name for this blog because I'm kind of like, you know, I like to use humor and blah, blah, blah. And we were writing down names and I would always like, pull up, open the refrigerator and like, do this, like, weird dance in front of the refrigerator to them. And they always thought it was so funny. And they like, we were all talking about that and I was like, grabbing hummus from the fridge and she just blurted out, homo sapiens. And when she said it, it was like the stars were aligning. And it was just like, we're done. Pack it up. You know, it was just like. So it was totally this girl that I used to babe before. Not me at all.

Yeah. But great name and a great story to go along with it, so it works. So at what point do you start to consider the possibility of. Along with intentionally hustling and building your blog and getting some traction there to open a restaurant location or. Well, there's multiple locations, but your first restaurant location. And how did that conversation start and what was that decision making process like for you?

Yeah, so I met a gentleman named Abed Alshahal in college. He was a nutrition major. We became friends. We would always study together. And I started working at one of his family's restaurants in grad school. I was serving what's called the Crest. And so him and his brothers had this restaurant group that his dad had started. He had immigrated from Lebanon and came from nothing and started with a convenience store and had built a few restaurants around the city. We became really good friends. And again, I was serving during grad school. I would help out with the menu a little bit, and I didn't really think anything would go past that, but we always joked we'd be walking on campus and we'd be like, why is there nowhere to get a good smoothie? This would be amazing. Blah, blah, blah. He was gonna go pre med. He ended up staying in the restaurant industry with his family. But I finished school and he had been working on this idea that I didn't even. Wasn't really involved in because I was finishing school and taking my RD exam or. And he reached out to me and was like, you know, I have this business proposal for you. And when he kind of laid it out, I was like, yeah, right. Like, I remember my best friend being like, yeah, like, you know, alchemy might happen, but what are you seriously gonna do? You know, we just didn't think that it was actually gonna happen. So Abed teamed up with a gentleman who owns a bunch of property down here on the south side where we live. And it's really awesome because it's in a. It's close proximity to Children's Hospital, so, you know, bringing healthy food to an area that really needs it. And yeah, I got involved in that way because I, you know, I could say I'm lucky. I could say it was the universe. But something brought us together and he had the resources and I had, you know, the food knowledge and the, you know, marketing and all that jazz. I had no management experience really in restaurants, so that was very. I really learned so much on the fly about restaurants, but that's, you know, it was very much in their court and I was kind of like along for the ride, if that makes sense.

For sure.

Yeah, yeah.

And I would love to dig into that a little bit. So your role officially is director of business development and brand integrity, Is that right?

Yeah, we always joke that I have like 80s titles and I want.

And I want to unpack that a little bit. So. So let's talk about the business development part. What does that look like as it relates to alchemy?

Yeah, so business development is really, you know, we always talk about how alchemy is kind of pushing the limits as far as what we like to do. So even with the model itself, it's kind of this like dietitian crafted menu. We integrate nutrition counseling there. Really, you know, we say integrating healthcare and food because we have these on site services. So I'm always kind of working on like the next big thing thing for the concept. So, you know, right now we're working on. Well, right now we're working on the second location. So that's development in itself. But it might be even something like helping to centralize our juice production or helping to create new prepared meals that we want to do, helping to redesign the website, really like moving us forward beyond kind of like, you know, the restaurant industry is a grind. It's just like, it's just a day to day grind. And I, you know, in the beginning was just in that day in and day out. And of course that happens still sometimes, but right now, really having that kind of bird's eye view of what can we do to push this concept forward and to continue just to challenge ourselves.

How about the brand integrity piece of your title?

What does that look like, yeah, so my role, it's funny because my role is kind of like, what do I not do? But with brand integrity, it's kind of my favorite piece because it links so much to the blog stuff I do. So brand integrity is really, you know, making sure that everything we do is in line with who we set out to be and to kind of hold everyone and hold our food and hold everything we do to a high standard of quality. And, you know, are we tied to our mission? Are we maximizing our local sourcing? Are we, you know, using non GMO canola oil when we fry falafel? Like, all these little things that other people might not think of. But, like, everyone knows Alexis is so anal about X, Y and Z, and we have to do, you know, all these little things. So that also goes into, like, obviously, I run our social media. I helped redesign our website, the photography. You know, we've never really paid for marketing. So I do. Obviously, I do a lot of our marketing. So that's kind of what I'd say. That's, like, what that all falls into.

Yeah. And that's actually one of the areas that I wanted to talk about and I was really interested to hear you explain is, you know, I think people that listen to this podcast have heard us talk a lot about what it looks like to market your blog, but there's also this entirely different world of marketing as it relates to a physical location. And can you talk about that a little bit and, you know, for context, people that are listening, I would guess that a lot of them are interested or have thought about the possibility of opening a restaurant that either complements the work that they're doing online or is the main thing, and then the work that they do online maybe helps drive people to that place. So can you talk about some of the things you do from a marketing perspective and things that maybe would be a little bit different or maybe the same that you would for your blog?

Yeah, I think that what I've learned from my blog helped me immensely with the marketing piece of alchemy, because, you know, I didn't study. I didn't have any formal education in marketing, although I feel like, you know, how many of us had formal education in blogging? Probably not a lot of us. So it's common these days. But marketing for the business is so much of, like, keeping up with the trends. And it's very different from the blog world because even if your restaurant has a certain niche, we are in such a bubble of, like, health and wellness or I AM at least. And it makes you. You have to remember that, like, we are a small percentage of the population and not everyone. Your restaurant's not gonna be, you know, a line out the door because you're serving a superfood latte that everyone on Instagram would freak out over. Cause that's not like the world. So it's so much about really looking at the market that you're in and how to tailor it to that and knowing how to drive sales constantly in new ways. There's just a lot to keep up with and there's a lot of competition. So we might add an amazing dragonfruit smoothie bowl to the menu that no one's doing. And months later it's like, okay, it's getting cold out and we're a smoothie bar. Let's make new lattes. Or next year the trend is that no one wants fruit in their smoothies. So are we making. We make the veg head smoothie. It's really keeping up and staying current with your customer base. And another thing that we pride ourselves on is. And also it's funny because I feel like the blog world totally keeps me on my toes with what's in style with food. And even our donuts are made with almond flour. They're gluten free. Because we all know that that's huge right now. But it's just so much more than you'd expect. Because even things like we want to have more males in our store because we don't want to be. We don't really want to have that feminine Persona. It's not even a juice bar, it's a cafe. And for me, that can be hard to separate sometimes. Because Alchemy's personality is not homo sapien or Alexis personality. It's its own thing. It's different, it's unisex. We don't want it to come off as pretentious or. Not that I'm. Not that I'm pretentious, but that obviously the healthy restaurants can have a little bit of that. You know, you walk in, you're like, what is half this menu? This is kind of scary. So Alchemy really prides itself on like approachability and accessibility and being just being a place that everywhere that anyone can dine at and you know, you can all sit at the same table. So for us that means having a turkey sandwich and it means having gluten free bread and it means having dairy and non dairy items. So, yeah, it's just a lot about. For us, I think keeping up with who our customers actually are versus who we're targeting and challenging ourselves to stay innovative and not get bogged down by what everyone else is doing, similar to the blog world, because you gotta just stay in your own lane. You can't do it all. And that's just. It is what it is.

Yeah, for sure. How do you. When you say keep up with your customer base, how do you do that? Is it having conversations with them surveys? What does that look like in terms of keeping up with your customer base? Or is it more of a sixth sense thing where you kind of have this gut intuition?

I think it's. You know, I think a lot of it is definitely having those customer conversations. You know, when we train, we say that we're in customer service first, before food service, and really getting to know our people. And, you know, we have people that have been with us for four years that have came since the beginning, and. But really thinking like, okay, obviously you're gonna target the people that want this kind of food. So obviously, people that want a smoothie bowl are gonna come to alchemy. How do we get the businessmen that would love our roast beef sandwich but would never come because they think all we have is juice? And how do we create a marketing campaign that's not feminine and that's not unapproachable to get more people in the shop to see that we have so many things that aren't just like a kale salad, you know, so. So. And it's hard to get out of that box because, you know, again, you might assume like, oh, I'm gonna open this place, and who wouldn't want to eat all this healthy food? But healthy food's expensive and it's trendy. You know, there's always that kind of, like, are people always gonna want to be eaten as bowls? Or one day everyone gonna be like, smoothie balls are terrible for you. And we're like, so. But that's what, you know, we're so dynamic. Like, you know, we were. There's so much beauty in keeping your menu and staying true to what you do, but we're not above, you know, trying something new with our customers. And, you know, we're not. We're just always open to change because you have to hustle in this industry, and you have to be, you know, staying up, keeping up with what people want.

Yeah. So you talk about this industry, and let's say we're continuing to speak to those people that would be interested or with at least playing around with the idea of Opening up some type of food service, restaurant, cafe, juice bar, whatever it would be. What would your advice be to those people that are interested in stepping into that world? Because I'm guessing there's a lot more than you'd expect if you've never done it before.

Yeah, that's such an interesting question. I'm trying to think. I feel like one of the things I've learned and you might not expect I'd say this, but finding the right location is so important. And there have been so many times where we've thought we'd put an alchemy somewhere and we didn't for a variety of reasons. And we look back and we're so glad we didn't. But I mean, even just knowing the real estate around you and being able to. Not being afraid to try to make a deal and to really spend so much time looking at the market and thinking of where you'd want to open, because we're kind of like on the south side of Columbus in an area that's totally being re gentrified and you might not. Five years ago, it was a totally different space and we got a really, really, really good deal on rent because the area was still up and coming. And looking back, we would have paid triple that to be somewhere else with no more business. And obviously you pay for location and you don't want to open up in the middle of nowhere. But it's definitely not a smart move to just pick the hottest area and pay top dollar for real estate. And thinking about lease deals and trying to get the longest lease you can, because we all know how that goes in those turnover. But yeah, I don't know, I feel like that's something kind of out of the box that people don't think about. That's been so, so important for what we do. And also along that adapting to where you are. So we will change our menus and change our offerings based on the location, based on where we are. Like what we're doing for the second location, we're brunch and eggs and those kind of things because it's a more. There's less like grab and go traffic. It's people that, you know, it's a smaller community, they want to like, sit down over coffee and have brunch. So not being afraid to just really stay, you know, stay dynamic with your brand.

Yeah. Well, when you think of, you know, back to that first year of opening up Alchemy, what was one of the hardest things that maybe surprised you about the process?

I think just how overwhelmed I felt managing people and feeling all those pressures all at once. Because you just, I mean, it's like having a blog, you know, it kind of never, it doesn't sleep. But when other people's, you know, income and there's so many things dependent on how your store is doing. And in the beginning, we were not making a ton of money and there were times where I was like, oh my God, like, I don't even know. I just assumed that they were just, it would be so, so busy. And in the beginning, it took us a while to grow. It was an interesting area and we were young and one of the first people doing it. And it was very tough in the first year, but just definitely that all consuming feeling of like, just the pressure. And I am someone who gets very easily stressed out. So it was really, really hard for me to just be constantly, you know, and every day in the restaurant, it's like you do so much and then you have to do it all over again and again and again every single day. And, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't ever stop.

So how did you, how did you deal with the pressure? What were some of the ways that you figured out to work through that and handle it or maybe not handle it?

Yeah, that's a good question, I think. I mean, obviously having a bed and having the support of other people around me and. But I really think that my passion for what we were doing is what our, I mean, our passion, I should say, is what sustained us then and is a hundred percent what's sustaining us now. Because, I mean, if you, you know, if you have the money and you have, you know, you can, you can open a restaurant. But to sustain a restaurant and to make it successful, you have to have passion and purpose. And I so firmly believe that if you want it to be, you know, if you want to really make a difference. And I think that in the beginning, that just was what kept me holding on. You know, when someone would pick up a salad and be like, oh my God, I eat this every day, it's so good. Like, that one comment would just like, make my day. And I'd remember, like, okay, this is why I'm doing this. And I always said, like, nothing, nothing good comes easy. And I've had my fair share of challenges in life and I think that I had always just looked at this and I still do as a humongous challenge and sacrifice oftentimes because, you know, quote unquote, like normal people, you know, not everyone wants to do something like this. And that's totally understandable because it's a. It's a ton of work, but some people do. And if you have that personality where you're like, let's go. Let's just. Let's take it on each and every day and hope that we can make something beautiful out of it, you just, you know, you got to kind of keep. Keep the faith. I feel like I, like, mental. Like, let's go. Even though, you know, I. It's so funny because when we open Alchemy, I, like, wasn't drinking coffee at the time. I don't even. That was such a stupid decision. But I remember we opened and I was like, drinking so much coffee and like, all the other restaurant owners are like, smoking, and everyone's like, you don't smoke? And I'm like, no, I don't smoke. Like, do you know what this is? But I would just drink, like, so much coffee and. So funny.

Yeah, well. And it's interesting, you know, I think that applies to building a website or a blog or just a business in general or a nonprofit. Like, if you're going to build something, if you're going to create something from nothing, you have to have this drive and passion and purpose that pushes you through the times when you feel super strong resistance to doing it. Because if you're just doing it to create a really good income, you know that, like, for you, you would have quit within that first year because that can't be the sole purpose of what you're doing. And yet I think it's important for that to be a piece of it, because it can't just be strictly passion either, because you have to pay the bills. There has to be that balance between passion and profit that continues to push you forward. So for you, when you look at your. Kind of reflect on who you are. And I think self awareness is a huge piece of understanding business building or restaurant or blog or whatever it would be. Do you have any insights into what drives you as it relates to both from the health side, but also from the business side? Like, what is it that's driving you to be successful or to build something?

I mean, I honestly would say that it's this, like, I'm gonna use the word passion, but it's like this. I mean, I feel it so physically and it's such, you know, you could say productivity, purpose. When I'm. When I'm in the restaurants and I'm just getting things done. You know, even if it's just our, you know, for example, on Last Friday, our prep person introducer quit on the same day. So that was entertaining.

That's fun.

I make a bunch of salad this week because that's what you do. And, you know, getting back to like the basics and just looking around at our staff and how much we've grown and the things, even the little things. We used to keep our own milk in glass bottles. Like it was the dumb. I have no idea why we did that. We went to New York, we found these liquid dispensers. You know, I was just staring at our liquid dispenser and I'm like, we have come so far and obviously Alchemy is profiting now. And I think just having. I feel so proud to have built some. To have built something that is really making people's lives easier and healthier and more delicious, obviously. So I've just always been someone that's so fueled by that feeling I get when I'm feeling the feeling when I'm feeling just that, you know, that. That feeling of passion and that you're making a difference and doing something you love at the same time. Which there's literally, there's just no better feeling in the world for me.

Yeah, one of the things that we were talking about before we press record was you had talked about, you know, you're. You're starting to talk a little bit more and be a little bit more transparent in some of the. Your history or your story as it relates to growing up in finances and how that impacts your hustle and your willingness to work super hard. And I think that's always an interesting thing for other people to hear and probably something that a lot of people can relate to. And we didn't get super far into it because I love to save that type of stuff for the actual recording. So would that be something you'd be willing to talk about? Because I think people would really appreciate that and relate to that.

Yeah, for sure. I think one of the questions, hands down, that I get asked most often is how I balance Alchemy and Homo sapiens because they're both full time jobs, obviously. And I feel like the reason I do that day in and day out is because of that Hustler mindset and just because I've never not had, you know, more than probably at least two jobs. So, yeah, I mean, to give a little background, my. I, first of all, I had an amazing childhood. I have amazing parents, you know, and love them to death. But we definitely had a lot of financial issues probably when I was around like 13, my parents pretty much, like, slowly lost everything and just kind of throughout high school, mostly college, but just a lot of financial stress, helping out my parents with bills, tons of student loans, and just really bankruptcy and just really dealing with things that I just never saw coming and made things very, very hard. So I obviously paid for everything from since probably, I guess, early college. And I hustled because I had to. I didn't have anyone I could go to to help me in any way. And so many people are in the same boat. I know. Obviously, so many people pay their way through school and all that jazz, but, you know, for a long time. P.S. also, my dad had stomach cancer and a stroke around this time, and just kind of a lot going on. I had some addiction in my. Not me personally, that I dealt with some family members with addiction issues. So it was just a lot for me to handle. But I used to kind of look at it as this super negative in my life. You know, I had a terrible credit score that really wasn't my fault that I won't get into, but I felt like I had all these challenges that I just didn't deserve. And I was like, why does this have to happen to me? But looking back, it's totally what, you know, fueled me to be so hardworking. And I just grew to love, like, that feeling when I was hustling and making good money. So when I first started making money for the blog and I was able to, you know, I'm like, I think I'm $8,000 away from. I had, like, 75,000 in student loan debt. And, you know, feeling being able to, like, use my blog to pay off those loans was so magical to me. And I just thought, you know, I'm gonna get out of this and I'm going to do something huge with my life. And I'm gonna look back and think, thank, you know, thank the debt and thank the credit card issues and all these things that happened to me that used to, you know, cause me so much stress. Now I look at them as, like, honestly, kind of like a blessing in.

Disguise for people that are in a similar situation to what you were in, where it maybe feels like this mounting pressure. Maybe they have a lot of debt and other situations outside of their control, maybe some within their control. What would your advice be to them to encourage them to continue moving forward? And did you have any mantras when you were there or things that you told yourself that would maybe be good things to pass along to listeners?

Yeah, I just, you know, I just always kept in Mind that my destiny was in my own hands and that I just told myself that I was allowed to live the life that I'd always imagined. And I really, I really felt so, so true to that. I really believed and I still believe that whatever I want to do in life, that I can do as long as I work hard for it. And I didn't always believe that. But once I actually started seeing like the fruits of my labor and actually believing more in myself, I realized that, you know, I think the mind is really powerful too. And I think that having confidence can be, can be so huge to get you through those times. But you know, for me, like starting something on a passion that I didn't even know would become a side hustle and then a full time hustle, you know, obviously that was so helpful for me and just having, you know, anything you can do to bring in some extra cash and like, I've done it all, you know, I, you know, was on Craigslist in college like doing, you know, whatever random stuff to make money.

And I sold, I would buy and sell sneakers on ebay when we were first married. Lindsay gives me a hard time about that often where I'd buy wholesale from Chicago and then sell sneakers on ebay. So yeah, for sure.

And that's what it is. I feel like so many successful people have had to hustle and they find creative ways to make money because you have to. And I really believe if you stay in that hustler mindset and you have some faith in yourself and know that you can have, you know, a bright future and you deserve a bright future and just keeping that belief because when you lose that confidence, it's really hard to, you know, put your all towards something.

Yeah. So you have your blog and you have the restaurant launching multiple locations, you're keeping up on social media, you're doing blog posts, you have sponsored content, managing all of these different things. What does a typical day look like for you? Are you somebody who has this really rigid schedule and you say here's what, what the day looks like or are you kind of free flowing and you know, major deadlines? I think people always like to hear how other people work. So can you walk me through if there would be a typical day in a typical week?

Yeah, I literally, I had an interview with, with Forbes like a couple days ago and it just got published today and it, the question was a typical day. So I have it all ready.

Yeah, perfect.

So I am extremely not rigid. I'm like totally free flowing. I'm very like flying by the seat of my pants. And I think that there's beauty and flaw in that. But I know that it's that like looseness if you will and openness to change has definitely gotten me to where I am. So on a typical day I work out in the morning like twice a week. But if I'm not working out in the morning, I will probably wake up around 7 or 7:30. Like I'm not getting up at 4am no thank you. So now obviously when Alchemy first opened I was at the store every day at six. So Alchemy zone for four years. Now if you're opening a new business, like my life was pretty freaking crazy. So I was majorly hustling a few years ago. I'm still hustling now. But just as kind of a side note because Alchemy is a bit older now. But yeah, I wake up around 7 or 7:30, I make myself a nice breakfast and I am usually at one of the restaurants or working somewhere by like 9ish. And usually while I'm eating breakfast and up until 9 I'm on my computer tying up loose ends for blog stuff. So maybe I'm like promoting a post, maybe I'm like emailing a client, social media, you know, doing all those things in the morning, catching up on emails and then all day during the day I am kind of bopping around from Alchemy or Trism or staying put in our offices and just busting stuff out. So right now it kind of depends like what's going on with the restaurants. But pretty much every day I'm going Alchemy, checking in with our manager, seeing how everyone's doing. Right now our prep person just quit. So I spent a few hours today like making our salads at Alchemy and then I'll usually be on my computer and I'm doing anything from working on the menu. For the new concept, I have to order our point of sale system. I have to make sure our new manager is setting up interviews for hiring next week. We're right now centralizing our juice production. So I do a lot of like logistical like I'm kind of like the glue. So I'm like doing a lot of people, kind of higher level people managing quality control all the time. So making sure everything's functioning well and tasting good. We just redesigned Trism and Alchemy's website so I was working with our company on that. Throughout the day I'm doing social media stuff. I might have like a marketing meeting, I might be working on, like, redesigning our menu with our art team. And then so pretty much all day I'm like, very busy just doing God knows what for the restaurants.

Yes. Yes.

Some days it's like we're slammed and I'm on the line making smoothies like a boss. So, like, I'm above, like, I will hop on the line anytime. I love it. And in the first year and a half, Alchemy was open. I was on the line all the time. So. And then I come home and probably around like six or seven, I will. I probably work out like five times a week. It's a huge stress reliever for me. So I'll. There's actually a gym right above Alchemy. It's super convenient. So I'll go do something at the gym. I'll come home and hope that we have leftovers. And if not, I'll make something hopefully not too hard that'll last for a while, like lasagna or something like that. And in the evening, I do a lot of catching up on blog stuff. So that's when I'm like, pretty much on Sundays I do like mass recipe making and photographing. And then during the week I'm like editing the pictures or on Sunday editing the pictures, getting up the content, emailing brands. And I'm working with. On Tuesday night. I do what I ate this week for Wednesday post four times a week. So really in the evenings I'm working on blog stuff again. Sometimes alchemy stuff as well. Saturday's kind of up in the air. I'll like, take some time to myself. Might be at the restaurants when the new Alchemy opens. I'll be there for sure, like all the time on the weekends. And then Sunday is like a lot of blog stuff. So I definitely work a lot. But I also take time when I need to. And I honestly, writing is therapeutic for me. So while there's times I don't feel like making like 10 loaves of banana bread, most of the time I feel very happy when I'm working on the blog stuff. So I guess it just doesn't feel so much like work at night. So when people ask me how many hours a week I work, I literally can never. I have no idea because it's like at night I don't even feel like I'm working, but I'm on my computer.

Yeah. And I feel like that is. That really is the sweet spot, isn't it? It's finding something that is work technically but doesn't feel like work. And it's kind of that happy in between where you're doing productive, important things. And there's this. There's this quote, L.P. jacks. I don't know who that is, but one of a business coach sent this to me, and I feel like this applies. It's a quote, so it says, a master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his pleasure, his mind and his body's education, its recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he's working or playing to himself, herself. He always seems to be doing both enough for him that he does it well. And I feel like that applies to what you're talking about, where it's like, what is this? When people say, like, how much do you work? It's like, I don't know. Is it work? It's somewhere in between.

Wow. I'm gonna have to have you send me that one.

Yeah, I will. Yeah, it seems like it applies. So I think to hear that, people will find a lot of inspiration in the Hustle. And I think it's important to point that out because from the outside, sometimes it can seem like it's so simple. But then when you get an inside look, you know, like, okay, people are quitting, and then you have to step in and be on the line while also writing four blog posts a week and, you know, working from six to 10 when you get home. And it's not something that's simple and clean, cut and easy. And it takes a lot of hustle. But like you said, it can be done. And with enough time, whether it's a physical restaurant location that you're launching or a blog that you're building, you will find that traction and you'll find success over if you stick with it and continue to get a little bit better over a long period of time. So would there be any last piece of advice, Alexis, that you'd give to people that are interested in kind of following your footsteps, whether that be a restaurant or a blog, but people that are interested in hustling and working for themselves and building a successful business?

I mean, I would just say just keep believing. And the moments where you. Where it's 9:30 and you. The last thing you want to do is write about Choccha muffins. Those will be the times where you will look back and be so glad you stayed consistent to your audience and to whether it's writing about food or doing accounting, whatever it is, you'll look back and be thank yourself for putting in the extra time to get you where you are today. So yeah, that's what I would say.

Stick with it for sure. Alexis, where can people follow along with you? You can list all of the different places both for your blog and for Alchemy. And then you mentioned Trism as well. You can talk about that quickly.

Yeah, Trism is Alchemy's sister concept. It's an eatery bar event space on Ohio State's campus. But my blog is homo sapien.com and Instagram is Homo sapien. Twitter is the Homo sapien because someone else took Homo sapien and Facebook Homo Sapien and then Alchemyjuice on Instagram. And our website is alchemyjuicecafe.com awesome.

And we'll be sure to link to all those in the show notes as well. Alexis, so fun to talk to you and thanks for sharing your story. Really appreciate it.

You too. Thank you so much. Hey friends, Alexa here bringing you the review of the week. But first, how inspired and motivated do you feel after that interview? Alexis is so cool and I hope you guys learned a lot from her journey and get inspired by her hustle. So our reviewer of the week this week is Reagan Jones from things like Blog Brulee, this Unmillennial Life, Healthy Aperture and the Recipe Redux. And it says, whether you're a new emerging or seasoned food blogger, this podcast is for you. Each week you'll find new information to help grow your skill set as a blogger and challenge you as a professional. I have learned so much already and continue to await every new episode. Thank you so much, Reagan, and thank you all for listening. We so appreciate you. The podcast, as Bjork has mentioned before, is one of our favorite parts of our week, so we're so thrilled and honored that you tune in each and every week from all of us here at fbphq. Make it a great week.

Sam.