Major League Baseball coming to Nashville? Nashville Predators opening night is tonight. Plus, our sponsor, screened threads, comes to life in an in-person interview today! All this and today’s events, on Nashville Daily.
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Our Guest: Scott Harding of Screened Threads
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00:00 Hello everybody. This is the Nashville daily podcast. I'm Stuart Deming
00:03 And I'm Erin Pennington and we are live inside of screen threads. Major league baseball is coming to Nashville, Nashville predators. Opening night is tonight and plus our sponsor screen threads comes to life in an in person interview today.
00:18 All this in today's events on Nashville
00:20 Daily.
00:32 Guys, you've, you've heard about screen threads for probably the last 30 episodes. And today we actually have the owner of screen threads. Mr. Scott Harding. Scott, how are you doing today? Hey, good morning guys. How are y'all doing? Well Scott, you have not been in Nashville your entire life. So where did you move from to come to Nashville?
00:53 Well, we've been in Nashville for about five and a half years. Kind of a long story that brought us here. I'll try to make it as quick as possible. A us moving to Nashville. It's actually our son's fault. He came here to go to college and ended up staying and when he graduated from college he couldn't find a job. So he he graduated from Belmont and so he was he was, he was here while he was going to school, fell in love with the city, ended up staying. And so when he graduated, he couldn't find a job. So I said, I've got a job for you. I bought him some screen printing equipment and told him taught him how to screen print and told him to start selling jobs and he can make as much money as he wanted to. After about three months, he decided that wasn't for him. And so we had to move here to resuscitate our investment and and get and get everything going. So that's how screen threads was born. It was born literally in a garage and a, and so we but we had a, we had a good time with them.
01:56 Yeah. So obviously, you know, for anybody who's listened to the podcast, you've know, screen threads probably from our kind of our ad, but you know, screen threads is a shop that, that does a little bit of everything. Even beyond actually printing, printing tee shirts and everything. So what exactly does screen threads do now and how did it evolve to everything that's outside of the, the screen printing?
02:22 Sure. whenever we moved here five and a half years ago I was looking for a place truthfully that I could just screen print in the air conditioning because for the 30 years that I've screen-printed I've always done it in a, in a basically like a glorified garage and you don't have any, any kind of climate control and it's literally, you know, 200 degrees what feels like most days. So I was just looking for a place that I could screenprint in the air conditioning and I had a guy tell me a, I needed to consider coming and talking to the guy that owned the building at marathon, which is where we are a M. And so came down and talk to him. Went through several things, ended up getting a spot here and as we were getting ready to open we had the idea of also incorporating some retail into our screen printing again, just to give us a, another source of income coming in.
03:21 And so we did that. And truthfully that just kind of launched and became its own its own multi-headed monster almost as we were adding more apparel, adding more gifts. And so we really tried to keep our retail space very heavily Nashville themed and curated with us being on the trolley stop. We have a lot of visitors that come through our doors so we really try to appease making sure they've got a one of a kind very unique handcrafted or handmade here in our shop. A gift for their experience while they're here in town.
03:57 What's one thing as we're talking about the retail space, what's one thing that you wish would sell really well, but because of where you are, it just does it, but you would want to sell the crap out of it?
04:12 I don't know. Let me, let me think.
04:14 Yeah, we'll come back. We'll come back to that. Yeah. So Scott, you came from a city where traffic is really terrible and then you move to another city where traffic is pretty terrible. So how has your experience from moving from Atlanta to Nashville with traffic?
04:34 It's not a good day in either. In either city. You can say that it's beyond bad. If you like the color red, you'll enjoy looking.
04:42 I map both places on a regular and great land. The brake lights. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. They're color blind. I'm sorry. You're color blind. It's a, just make sure you hit the break. All right, so we have some events happening tonight. This is opening game of the Nashville predators, verse Minnesota wild at 7:00 PM at Bridgestone arena. Have you guys ever been to an opening night for the predators? Not an opening night. It is fun. It's a blast. Amanda and I had the opportunity to go to one last year. I think I've been to three opening nights since I've lived here. But it's just, it's a fun experience. And when I went to tickets were cheaper. Now they're a little bit more pricey, so yeah, if you guys can afford that, definitely check that out. I think the most impressive thing they do is their light show. Other light shows on the ice writeable especially for opening season. It's so much fun or opening game and then a happening right next door at the Ryman auditorium. We have the opera classics at 7:00 PM we talked about this last week and they're, they're just doing this. It seems like they're doing this opera classics at the Ryman every Thursday for the last, I think six or seven weeks.
05:51 Yeah, they have been a, it's like I said, it's always the best way. If you've never been to the old Opry and you've never been to the Ryman, this is the show that I would choose to be for you. You can go see the type of show that would happen at the grand old Opry a and the flavor and everything that happens with that along with a venue like the Ryman. It's a good combination.
06:12 Yeah. And then another event at the Ryman auditorium, as we said, they're having over 283 events this year. So this is happening Friday night. This is Heather land. I'm not really sure who she is. But she's performing at 8:00 PM on Friday night at the Ryman auditorium. We have another Nashville predators game one day. When's that happening? Here
06:33 They are stacking up the the weekend with events. Predators are playing the Detroit Redwings Saturday 7:00 PM. That seems to be the common, that's the time for downtown events. Yeah.
06:45 7:00 PM 7:00 PM seven 30. Yeah. A and then this one's happening from today all the way until the 12th. This is the 50th anniversary and this is going to be at the Regal Hollywood in 27 theater in hundred Oaks and it's the Nashville film festival. I need to get tickets for that. It's Nashville film festival.org. And what's happening at the Hermitage?
07:07 So we've moved past the dog days. All the dogs are gone at the Hermitage and now we have our fall Fest at the Hermitage and that's Saturday. And Sunday, starting at 10:00 AM every day. And you want a, a nice combination of events at the Hermitage. You have the fall fast, you have some history, and then late night you have the ghost tours and the seven and 9:00 PM Wednesdays through through Saturdays, I believe. So you know, the hermit is pretty much, they're bringing out all the stops this fall too.
07:41 Every, some fun, every place. Cheekwood Hermitage. Yeah. Lucky alive farms. Every place is bringing out something really bad
07:48 For like the people who expected these days to be in the 70s right now. And so they planned outdoor events all day.
07:56 It's 99. It has been so hot. It has been absolutely scorching out. Speaking of cooler weather, I think on Sunday it's going to be a little bit cooler. And it's the Tennessee Titans versus the Buffalo bills. Sunday at noon. Yeah.
08:11 That stadium. If it's a nice, cool day, that stadium will be full.
08:15 Yeah. And it's like the breeze coming off the river. It's nice. Yeah. But that's a 12:00 PM at Nissan stadium to get tickets for that. That's Titans online.com.
08:25 Yeah. All right. So getting into some interesting stuff. If you've listened to the podcast before on a few episodes, we've talked about rumors of major league baseball coming to Nashville. It really started I would say maybe a little bit over a year ago. You know, they, they really started proposing back in January. Like I think they formed the LLC for this back in January. Yeah. And then we had rumors because the, the Orioles contract on their stadium is up in 20, 21, I believe. And you know, they've not had either, there was something in the mix to show, okay. They may not renew on that lease for the stadium or something was going to ride to where there may be a change in ownership or moving. And so it's, it's been rumored that Nashville might be the next home to something like this.
09:19 But the, the news today isn't about the orals. This is about MLB and Nashville. It's an organization that is has kind of put their Mark now and their stamp on the movement for major league baseball for when an expansion is ready that Nashville will be pretty much the city to host a new team. And so this is the, the kind of interesting thing and I've had a lot of people ask already, you know, is there a new team that's been announced? Like, why is this coming up? Why is major-league, why are we seeing all these MLB announcements, renderings for a stadium? You know, was there a team that was actually, is our team moving here? What the heck is happening? And if you look on their website they actually say major league baseball has made zero indication that they're ready for an expansion team.
10:12 They're still trying to fix issues with current teams. But basically they're putting their stake in the ground to say, whenever there is, we're ready, they're going to be ready and they're going to be able to hit the ground running with everything. There's not gonna be any kind of of hair out of place when major league baseball is ready to make a move or when another team is ready to, you know, move out of their city. I'm guessing the expansion is going to be the first thing that actually happens before another team moves. Especially because major league baseball I think is the only professional organization that has 30 teams instead of like 32 and their organizations. So
10:53 Yeah on the article that we're reading from is the Tennesseean and they say [inaudible] for a major league team is $1 billion. That's a lot of money without having a stadium. That's just a little bit of capital. Let me write that check. But this is Scott. You're writing that check writes a couple of other ones. Stuff's too,
11:15 The interesting thing is they made clear that this is no public money's going to be used to make this happen. Which, which is, you know, which was about, was it the majority of the case for the national soccer stadium?
11:33 Yeah. So there the Nashville soccer stadium that's gonna be built near the new fairgrounds or the addition to the fairgrounds that they just made. I think it was $100 million of public money is going to the soccer stadium and it's just been this huge controversy. And I think these guys with the Nashville baseball, they have saw what happened in this city with the Nashville soccer club stadium and now they're like, okay, we need to privately fund all of this. Yeah.
12:02 So the people that are on this thing, this is not some like put together by some, a fantasy team fantasy baseball team that had a, had a wild dream. This was very carefully calculated there. I'm looking at their kind of their board of people, their managing directors, a guy named John LOR. He's responsible for all the day to day business of this company. He has 30 years of experience in real estate development, sports and entertainment fields. Led the acquisition efforts on behalf of two major league baseball franchises and executed both of those acquisitions and the sale of the Seattle Seahawks served as the vice president of the Blackhawk corporation, one of the country's largest residential and commercial real estate developments. This guy knows what he's doing. Yes. the chairman of the board, Alberto, our Gonzales serves the 80th attorney general of the United States and formal counselor to the president, chairman. He's the chairman of the board of directors and brings experience dealing with media and government entities and addressing complex legal and business issues. Their baseball advisor is Tony LA Russa. What a legendary name to have behind that. He's a hall of fame baseball player. We've got another all-star Dave steward on the board. Steve Hodges of music industry advisor here at national, also on the board. Scott, where are your thoughts?
13:29 So on the cause, potential expansion for the major league baseball?
13:34 Oh gosh. Baseball has always had such a special place in my heart. I played it all through as a kid growing up into high school coached my son from four year old tee ball all the way through varsity. So baseball has, has been a very, very big part of our lives. A couple of thoughts. I think that it's great that, that we've got another major league team coming to our city. I think that it only does great things for our, our tourism and for the, the growth of our sitting. My only concerns are the sounds, you know what's going to happen to them. We have it. We have a triple a farm club here, right? And I just know what's going on with the real estate in our city and where are you going to carve out a spot? Big enough for a baseball field and a goes zillion parking spots.
14:33 So then you've seen the renderings yet? No, I haven't. Okay. So we'll show you the greens, show you the renderings where they looking at, so this is at the Tennessee Inn on TCN audits, also an article on the Nashville business journal, but they're looking right at Nissan stadium. So if you're walking down the pedestrian bridge to your right where the empty parking lot is there, the renderings are going to be a 1 million square foot office space for like mixed use, like retail and development. And then [inaudible]
15:01 I realize a million is like the size of both of the Amazon buildings. Right. 1 million. Yeah. Yeah. So like there'll be a big space. There's, yeah. The bare renderings is basically it's going to be a new section of town. Yeah. And it's like, so I'll show you just right here on this map. So they're thinking of nothing. Yeah, there you go. That's where they're thinking. And they're going to have parking and they're going to have [inaudible]
15:23 1 million office or 1 million square feet of office space, retail mixed use. And the stadium's going to have a retractable roof.
15:32 Well that'll be great. And this is all privately funded, which is even better because they said if a the city of Nashville where to rebuild the Tennessee Titans stadium, it will cost one point $6 billion more than the stadium itself. More than the state now itself. Yeah. This is something, when I saw the renderings, I'm like, this is visible. This, it is, it's beautiful. It works. And it's privately funded. Love that. Yeah. And there's a, when I saw the renderings for the stadium and everybody can go see this in the national business journal or potentially it's a MLB music city.com is their website or new channel five or Fox 17. It's literally on international daily, you know, it's everywhere. But of course there would be in their renderings instead of seeing the field, do you see a massive concert venue attached to the back of right field?
16:25 Which is hilarious. But as soon as I saw it, I was like, Oh, of course that would be in primary drawing in the, in the Nashville thing. But you know, it's actually, it works and it looks great. A retractable roof is almost if you're going to just go big, there'll be retractable roof now. Yeah. Everybody today is doing that. That that's, yeah, that's not an unusual thing. And as hot as we get in the summer, even though we're not like in the desert or anything, still need air conditioning. [inaudible] You still have some really warm evenings. So let's let's move on to the next
16:56 Piece of construction news. This is found over in the Gulch and the article that we're about to read is found on the Nashville post and it says boutique hotel eyed for whiskey kitchen site. Have you guys eaten that whiskey kitchen in the Gulch? No. So whiskey kitchens grates. They have one of the largest select Shi selections of whiskey in the city of Nashville. They also have an amazing hot chicken pizza. It's fantastic. It's part of the M street restaurant. So that Street's called McGavick. You have a Veronica, which is a sushi restaurant. You have a whiskey kitchen, you have Kane prime, that premium steak house, and then you also have San Antonio. And I knew that, I knew that whiskey kitchen was going to be moving like three years ago. And so the original talk was right there on the 11th Avenue is where they're going to move whiskey kitchen. And put a hotel there. But now the conversation changed to where they're going to be putting a boutique hotel right there in the Gulch. It's like, this is like the edge of the gall child say, right. Like right next. It's kind of close to I McDonald's on Broadway. But so they're, they're talking about putting a 10 story hotel there and the renderings of this hotel has like this amazing rooftop bar and
18:10 Cool.
18:11 Cool. And just like looking at the skyline of, look, it looks great. Yeah.
18:14 Yeah, it does. This is cool. I, I I wish that would national started building.
18:22 We are living in a screen printing shop. Sorry for my crazy guys.
18:28 It, I wish that, you know, 15 years ago when Nashville was building, they would have built their developments to represent kind of the, the mixed use feel that the Gulch has. But we're getting there and this is, this is just cool to see that the, the Gulch is continuing to just thrive. What's, what's the one that's in there? The thing that's going under construction right now that knocked out that parking lot for [inaudible]
18:53 Big parking lot, right in the center of [inaudible] that's going to be the w hotel. The w w w w, one of those luxury brands. They would consider themselves to be a, at least a four star pod, potentially a five star luxury brand. Yes. So it's the w w I can't remember who's their ownership company. I think. Let me check. But they're, they're up there with like Waldorf grand Hyatt, four seasons. Okay. Gotcha. They are a luxury brand. So let's see. W it's a Marriott property. Okay. Yep. Nice. Got Lisa Marriott's SA their port heavily. They're invested in, yeah. The Mormons are investing very heavily into now Marriott, Marriott's up a Mormon company. Yes. I did not know that. So they they're building this four seasons as a separate company. So a lot of luxury brands are coming here and they have the the JW Marriott, they have, I think Weston is under Marriott, but they had their building like crazy.
19:50 And this is a rumor with this is not confirmed. You heard it here, you heard it here first. The JW Marriott is going to be expanding another tower right next door. You know, whenever I, whenever they first came in, there was a nappy building, two towers, right? And I think they announced that it was in the renderings, right? Whenever they first came in, no one was going to be a class, a office space, and the other one was going to be a hotel. Right? But I think Turnberry, the guys who own that property Marriott is the managing company of that property. Turnberry didn't get the right approval or funding for, I can't remember what basically a planet or a stage a in a stage B, you kind of deal. So every single day we'd love to cover how explores tip of how to experience Nashville. So Scott, how would you, if you had the guests coming to town, how would you show them the city of Nashville? Well, this is what I tell folks that come into shop while you're
20:48 Here in Nashville. Eat local. There's way, way, way too much incredible food opportunities. And you guys have even alluded to it on the show earlier today. There's just way too much great food that you can only get in Nashville. Yeah. And so find those little mom and pop shops that have, you know, been here forever or something new that's come up. You know, there's just a lot of great opportunities for some fantastic food to speak into that for a second. When Amanda and I were in Colorado, it took us two and a half days to find good food and we're like, wow, we're really spoiled in that is so good. We really are in, anytime we travel, we always think back to, well, we could get this here and I'll wait. Nevermind. We're not in Nashville. We can do that. Sorry, Erin, what were you about to say?
21:36 Well, I was about to ask Scott what it was there. A place that you take somebody is, that's like a default, like you have to have at least try this before you leave kind of place. Scott takes me places all the time. Wow. There's a couple of those places. If if, if the person that I'm with wants to experience live music, okay. But they don't necessarily want to be in one of the honky tonk bars that's down on Broadway or something. Right. A great place that we have discovered is and I mean it's very common, know a lot of folks know about, they'll know of this restaurant is pockets. Pockets has, you know, we were the one that we really like to go to as the one down in Franklin. I mean nothing to the one downtown. We just liked the ambiance of the old building that's been restored down in Franklin with, with their restaurant.
22:28 And we've heard Grammy award winning artists at Frank at a, at pockets. Yeah. Yeah, well yeah, for our, whatever their coverage is. Yeah. The costs of your meal plus a small cover. And so, I mean, we've just experienced some incredible, incredible two two hour, two plus hour long shows with no interruptions and no commercials about feeding, starving children or anything else. Nothing wrong with those, but it's just two plus hours of solid music. And that's, that's always been a very safe family place to go to. And it's a very unique date night if you, you know, if you want to go to experience that where you can have a great meal, you can have great music and it's, and it is and it is a, a, a just a great, great evening. Or do you typically get buckets? I always get their a piggy Mac. So it's Mac and cheese with pulled pork on top.
23:23 Well, what I always, what I always get, they don't do anymore. I always used to get the chicken and waffles. Chicken and waffles are amazing. I love the chicken and they don't do that anymore. And so, yeah. Yeah. So I'm having to find a new GoTo, but anyway, they and then as far as like, if they just want like a burger or something like that. Yeah, the brisket burger over at Martins, I just can't get past that is really good. Yeah, I enjoy that one as well. That's probably one of the best burgers I've ever eaten. So those are my two go to places that if that if I'm bringing, if someone's coming into town and they want to go to a very Nashville type place, those are the two my first to go to recommendations.
24:08 Do you have any attractions that you like to bring them to?
24:14 Man, I don't get out much. I work way too many hours to get out much. Scott always ask me what attractions. Yeah. Steward as my go to. If I, if I have somebody coming to town, I'll say, Stuart, make me a punch list. What do we need to get? So I take him to food and he gives me attraction.
24:29 Yeah. All right, so speaking of food, let's talk about where we've all eaten locally, not just where we hope to eat too after this. But a Stuart where somebody somewhere that you have eaten local.
24:40 Yeah. So yesterday we had the opportunity to eat at milk and honey and I just had their cinnamon roll for the first time. Oh my gosh. This cinnamon roll was like the size of my head. I had to skip what didn't have the beard. He almost did like the frosting, like almost had like the beard on it. Like it was covered in frosting. It was probably like it was big and that was the first time I've ever had,
25:00 I see maybe 40% of that role maybe. And I skipped lunch and it was
25:06 Two bites of it and I'm like, okay, I'm satisfied until I eat my salad.
25:10 Yeah. I mean it was just a monster. It was, it was great. Their coffee is when you go to a restaurant that you know, doesn't folk that focuses more on food. Yeah. Normally coffees left behind as far as flavor, their coffee and they have an entire coffee bar, so, but it was amazing milk and honey is one of those places that just super, they, you know, some restaurants say, Oh we focus on this. They literally just, it seems like they decided we're going to focus and do great at every single aspect of a meal.
25:42 I still want to try their gelato. I have not tried their gelato yet. Yeah, because there's not a lot of gelato makers in Nashville. Hm. There's the only one I can think of that like really specialize in gelato was in Franklin, but I know they closed about a year ago. Oh man. Yeah. What about the place in the JW? JW makes [inaudible] too. Yeah. So there's like two places now that make gelato, but like there was one place in Franklin and they were incredible. Like it was comparable to Italian gelato. Wow. but they close. I have not had their gelato. I've had other things that Coke goes and I love Cocos. Yeah. So I just need to go try their gelato. It's pretty good. I'm spoiled cause I lived in Italy for a long time. So Aaron, where did you eat locally?
26:22 Okay, so I also mentioned that I had that honey fire or that honey fire, we've mentioned that so often.
26:28 Oh honey fire bring some money. Fire right now.
26:32 The milk and honey. I had, I had that. But also recently had Priesta parlor, just their coffee. Which is always good. I've been going to their golden sound location a little bit more. You've been hanging
26:44 Out there quite a bit. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't think I'd like it, but it's, I like [inaudible] all of their locations. Yeah. They need a little bit more air conditioning and I think they'll be fine. So where do you eat locally recently? The last place that you've already mentioned it was was a hunting fire. How many fire I did and I've had a new sandwich and it was it was amazing. I know. It doesn't sound like a great combination. It's there surf and turf where it's got brisket and shrimp. Huh? That does. It sounds interesting. Yeah. I'd be willing to try it from honey fire. We can not wait to have you on an episode. It was, it was absolutely incredible. I mean, like, lick your fingers to clean them off. You don't wipe them off. It was, it was, it was awesome. Wow. That's, that is an interesting combination. I wonder where there's a good that from Donna. It was, it looked like it was just popcorn, shrimp. So, I don't know that it was anything, quote unquote special, but it was an incredible, incredible combination of brisket and and shrimp. Yeah.
27:53 So obviously you guys, this episode is still sponsored by screen threads. And we're going to be talking more about screen threads, but all you need to know, you use the code Nashville daily to take 10% off your online order and visit them and Scott in person and say hi. And at marathon village, marathon village, and use the code Nashville daily telecom slide across the counter on a piece of paper. Whatever you want to do to get that code across to him. You can always say she fell daily. You can say that. That's, that's all you need to say. And you'll get 10% off your order. And you can go to [inaudible] dot com to visit their online shop. Like we've been saying, do you want to get your Christmas shopping done for your family members?
28:33 Speaking of, yeah, our custom made Christmas ornaments shipped yesterday. Oh, these things are amazing. And they sold out in 12 days last year. No, it was actually I think nine or 10. But anyway, we made it just a little over a week with them last year. We more than doubled our order this year, so I'm hoping maybe we can make it through the one, two or three weeks this year with them. You may sell out of all of them in a day. I mean ornaments. As soon as basically summer passes, people are thinking about Christmas presents and we've been selling Christmas ornaments all year long. Wow. It's been crazy at how many Christmas ornaments we have. So Amanda and I travel somewhere in new together. We always buy Christmas ordinance. Yeah, right. Like, yes.
29:11 Yeah. Becomes there. There are those few items, like there's magnets that people want to get. For me it's, it's me. For me it's coffee mugs. And what are some other items that people usually like to take home
29:24 With them? Key chains, key chains. Tee shirts, obviously at handles, puzzles, hats for me. But then I switched to coffee. Bug's. Yeah, it's, it is it's, it's, it's really crazy. Again, how many things you think about like Christmas ornaments that you just sell in the fall or the winter getting ready for Christmas. Literally, we've been selling hundreds of them every month. It's been, it's been that big of a, at that big of a thing for our shop.
29:50 Yeah. And I know I've talked about this and Stewart has as well when we talk about screen throats on the podcast and it's the, the candles that you guys have. Where did you acquire such an amazing collection of these candles?
30:04 We we get them from a company here in town called Southern Firefly and Heather, the lady that is the owner down there she and I just struck a friendship up literally about the time that we were opening a screen threads. And and so it just was one of those very natural fits for our shop. And and it's just, it's grown to be a pretty big part of our, of our business that we do. And here at marathon, yeah, they're, they're amazing candles. I can't ever, I talk about it
30:36 Just about every color there. Candles and they burned well. And if you get the larger candles, they can turn into a whiskey cups. They can Sippel to some whiskey, which is awesome. So, Scott, let's, let's dive into it. What's it like being a small business owner here in a thriving metropolitan city?
30:56 It's a challenge truthfully. You, you have the challenge of trying to keep up with the big box stores you know, especially whenever like black Friday's coming up. Yeah. And I've discovered we're now in our fifth year here at marathon and I've discovered that black Friday and even cyber Monday are really more for big box stores than they are for mom and pop shops. And so small business has small business Saturday. Right? Exactly, exactly. So that's gonna say, that doesn't mean we don't have other days that we get to capitalize on, but but the, that, that's our, our, truthfully, our, some of our bigger challenges are just trying to be everything to everybody. And we know that we're a boutique store and we're not going to be that. So we tried to do the best we can with what we have.
31:43 And something that's very important to me is we really, we want to serve our customers. We want to serve others well. We want to love on folks well and we want to take care of them. And, and so if someone comes in from out of town and they get home and they discover that their tee shirt doesn't fit because they ate too much, they too much. They ate too much local foods, but it's a good thing to do that. But we just replaced their shirt and no cost to them. In fact, I tell them, give the shirt away to someone else, let it be a blessing to someone else. And we just replace it. We don't make a big deal about it. We just do it. And that's just one of the small ways that we really try to serve our customer. And, and that's something that's incredibly important to me.
32:32 What do you, what do you like about being in close to a downtown part of, of, yeah.
32:41 It, you know, last year Nashville had how many millions of visitors. Yeah. 15 million registered visitors. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's, it's great to get to capture some of that. Yeah. The fact that we're on the trolley stops I think helps a lot with that foot traffic with us not being directly in downtown. Yeah. We're close. We can see it when you throw a rock and hit it. But, but but we're not directly on Broadway. We're not directly right there in the heart of downtown. I think you're getting downtown traffic. I agree with that. I don't think we are either, but the, but the trolleys stop is bringing a lot of that traffic to us. Yes. And so, you know, that that has helped us a lot. And and we've been incredibly fortunate and very blessed to get to be where we are and do what we do. And there's very, very thankful.
33:32 Yeah. This was something that we talked about on the podcast maybe about a week ago. There was an article in the national business journal that talked about Amazon's future effects on just about everything coming into to Nashville and you know, they talked specifically about, okay, you've got HCA and Amazon here really upping their game. That's gonna force a lot of other medical tech industries here to really have to almost sometimes play ketchup. Do you, are you starting to feel just as somebody who, you know, is not in the medical industry and you know, so you don't have to compete with HCA, but you know, you've got a big corporation like Amazon coming in. Do you think you're going to feel some of the effects of Amazon coming in in some ways?
34:17 Yeah, sure. I think that we will. The, my, my concern with all of that truthfully is just traffic. Our traffic is already crazy and now we're talking about adding those thousands and thousands of jobs and multiple thousands more people in cars
34:34 For every Amet one Amazon job, their estimate, the experts are estimating 1.5 additional jobs on top of it.
34:41 Yeah. Every one Amazon. Yeah. I, yeah, I agree. I agree with that. I think that we'll see more of that ripple effect. And, and guys, we're, we're in a super strong economy right now and and I'm very thankful that because of that strong economy, people have more expendable income. So they're getting to travel more, they're getting to spend more money when they're there and and we're getting to reap the rewards of that. And I'm just, again, I'm just super thankful because every year it's allowing us to continue to see growth. And the more growth we have, the more jobs we can, you know, we can provide, we're hiring more people, we're continuing to see growth in that area. And you know, what started out five years ago with just me, we now have seven on our payroll. So so you know, and again, I know that's, that's not Amazon numbers, but for a little mom and pop shop that started in the garage, you know, that's something that we're, we're very thankful for.
35:34 I think something that's going to be really interesting for our, our is
35:37 You specialize in custom apparel and eCommerce fulfillment, right? So talk about that for a second. Because there may be some people that are listening. They're like, Hey, I want to start designing tee shirts and selling them online, but I don't want to touch the product at all.
35:52 Yeah. The, the great thing, what we've done is we've come up with a system that allows us to help you manage your e-commerce so that you don't have to have an enormous amount of inventory. You don't have to keep up with all of your orders that are coming in. You don't, I mean, literally whenever we get everything set up, the two things you're gonna have to do are you're going to have to approve everything before it gets put online. And then the second thing you're going to have to do is you're going to have to go to the bank because because every month you're going to be getting checks from the sales of what your stuff is, is producing and doing. And so we, again, we try to serve businesses in that capacity because we're set up to where we can just print that one shirt for that customer. Whenever they go to your website and order just one piece. Whereas with a lot of screen printing shops, you know, they're not going to touch your order unless you order a minimum of 72 pieces or however many pieces they're going to have minimums. And we don't have that. We're equipped to set up to just literally print one piece at a time.
36:56 Yeah. So so is, it doesn't just stop with tee shirts. What other kind of materials are you able to to manufacturers or work on?
37:08 Sure. The, of course t-shirts is the biggest thing that we do, but we also have we've, we print on kitchen towels. You know, we do that. We we have bags. Yeah. We've printed, we print on canvas bags. I've also printed on paper making posters. So if folks wanted to have more of a vintage look on there I've got a poster coming up for an event. We, we do we, we do that kind of a printing as well.
37:39 You can, you also have access to stickers and customizing a lot more like different apparel, like hats, sweaters and hoodies.
37:50 Yeah, we do embroidery. So we embroider all of our hats. We've got a wide format printers so we can print all kinds of stickers. We can do all kinds of digital transfers with that. And then like you said, we also do an enormous amount of sweatshirts every, every month through our, our shop plus whatever else comes in. And you also do vinyl, correct? Yes, yes. We, I don't have any outright now, but I have some windows in the back. We've, in the past we have printed a vinyl had vinyl cutout and do a nice inspirational sayings or whatever on a windows to allow people to hang those on their walls, to have a nice piece of art that's from a vintage piece of a glass from a, from an old window where they can hang that and have a, you know, a really nice, nice piece to hang in their house.
38:43 So with being in the business of custom designing things for people, what's the weirdest design or logo or say any you've ever had to design
38:59 Scott? I know, I know you've seen some stuff. The the, he's over here sweating. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a lot of people want me to put some more needed to be filtered. Same as on shirts. I'll just leave it that way. And truthfully, a lot of those, I just refused to do it cause I don't, I don't want to get into that. And it's amazing to me. People will walk in and they'll say, Hey, can you take this logo and print it on a shirt for me? And I'm going, no, it's kind of copywriting. We don't do that. So yeah. You'd be shocked though at what some people ask to have printed out. The one that had like the Gucci logo. Yes. Yes. Can you guys put on a Gucci handbag and the store it on a tee shirt? They wanted the Gucci logo on a tee shirt.
39:50 Oh God did politely say, ah, sorry. We're not going to print that for you, Scott. You have a shirt that we want to start selling off explore and he says it was a rough night in Nashville and it's out of focus. So if you could send me that picture, we want to post it so that we can, yeah, I'll get that to you. I've got it. I've got a particular font that whenever we type it out on the computer, it literally looks out of focus it, Oh my goodness. Your eyes crazy. Crazy. Going down on the street and just selling the shirt, some money on it and nobody would be able to read it late at night if we did though. Cause is a rough night. Yeah, he had a rough night.
40:29 We'd still, we'll sell it to them in the morning. We'll go to like pancake pantry and those hangover places and we'll call them. They'll go and sell. It's a great day. So what's one tip for a small business owner with dealing with the amount of growth in Nashville? So like what would you give as a tip?
40:45 Be patient. Grow organically, don't get too big, too fast. And, and be patient. Stay humble. Work hard. And and, and again, we're a lot of, in my opinion, where a lot of businesses get in trouble as they try to go from a to Z in one step. And, and so you've got to do things sequentially. We didn't get where we are today in one step. It's taken us five years to get here and we're continuing to grow and change. I think that the thing with a growing businesses, if you don't change your die, you'll die. And so you've got to continually be looking at new equipment for production. You've got to continually looking at new products that you can bring in. That doesn't mean you're doing away with all of the old, but it means you've got to continually be reevaluating because your business is a living, breathing organism and you've got to, you've got to feed it in order for it to continue, continue to, to grow and, and, and to be what you want it to be. So those would be my recommendations.
41:55 If you walked into national from Atlanta today and you hadn't been in Nashville before, would you? And screen's rights didn't exist, what would you do as a, as a business idea or would you, or would you still
42:13 T-Shirts? Well, there's a whole lot of tee shirts that are walking around the streets and yeah, and there, there is, there is a, even with all of the screen printers that are here in Nashville, there's still so much business that's out there that can be gotten that truthfully, none of us are really scratching the surface for what potentially is there. And because I've screen-printed for 30 years, I, that's kind of my safe place. And I understand the markup that's in that as well. So that's probably where I would lean to. But if you've got something that's unique and different and and that is consumable I love, I love having gifts that are, that are what I call consumable meaning like the candles. That candle is only going to burn for about 50 or 60 hours, and then they gotta come by and another one. Yeah. And so I love the fact that, that, you know, we have a lot of those consumable type gifts where they're, they're reaching back out to us to get another one. So I would say try to find something like that, even that, that is a unique a unique blend of a, of a gift and that consumable. Yeah. Nice. I like that.
43:34 Oh, one thing we love to ask our guests on every episode is, what is one thing that Nashville is missing? Or one, what is one thing that Nashville needs? So some examples are a theme park bike lanes. So what would you say Nashville is missing?
43:52 A place for those dang scooters
43:55 You're talking about? Like the dumpster that's behind the Cumberland river? Yeah. I don't know if y'all saw, I actually saw her scooter while I was gonna say, I don't know if y'all saw it or not, but a couple of months ago in the back alley behind our building, there was a scooter that was literally in about four pieces thrown up against the fence. So like I was intending on taking a picture of it and I drove by it for weeks and I'd never did. I think that it's gone now. My monster came pick it up. Yeah. I may have found it. I don't know. I, you know, as our city grows, again, it's, it's just
44:33 The infrastructure, you know, making sure that we've got room for everything that has to be here. Yeah. That's, that's to me the biggest challenge that I think our city is facing right now as it is with any other major city as it grows. It's just part of the growing pains that you go through.
44:46 Is there a favorite thing that you, when you go to other cities, is there a favorite type of attraction that you'd like to visit first when you go to other cities or do you just like to see the uniqueness of what that city has to offer?
44:59 We try to see the uniqueness of that city because every one of them was different. If my kids are with me, we have two grown children and both of them are married. I just had our first grand baby a month ago, congratulate six, five weeks ago. So if the kids are with us and we're traveling, one thing that we always try to do as a family is we always try to find an escape room. Oh. And and do that. And I must say we've done six or seven of them I guess now and we've never gotten beat. Wow. That's awesome. We've escaped from every one of them. We've done, so that's awesome.
45:31 So Scott, where can people follow you on social media? Facebook, Instagram, the works.
45:35 Just screened threads. Look us up. It's a screen threads.com and you can get to our Instagram and I think our Facebook is linked to that as well. Okay. And if you'll just go down to the bottom of the page, I know it's got all of our social media stuff there so you can find us there. They'd probably be the easiest way to get to us with all of our social media and our show notes as well. Yeah,
45:57 Absolutely. Scott, before we go it's going to be winter and false fall. And winter soon,
46:04 Well, you're probably going to skip the winter. I think winter is coming off of vengeance Delta according to the farmer's Almanac. That prediction is right. I like, I'll just come in with a vengeance. I like that saying. How would you tell people to experience Nashville's? It's getting
46:19 Colder and, and fall and winter coming dress in layers.
46:25 How are your, if you're like me, you could wear flip flops and shorts until it's 13 degrees outside. But that's not the normal Joe.
46:32 I'm dressing layers. Come expecting to walk a lot. Bring comfortable shoes. Yeah. And and just have fun. There's a lot to do. There's a lot to see. There's a lot to experience. Nashville's a great city with a lot of things to get to experience and so you know, just come have fun. All right. Yeah. Thank you for, for being on the podcast and thank you for hosting us in your, in your store. Absolutely guys. Thank y'all.
47:01 So this is the Nashville daily podcast. I'm Stewart Deming. Make sure to go follow us on Instagram at X PLR dot. Nash. You could tweet at us at X PLR, underscore Nash. Give us a shout. Also, we came out with our top murals, our top favorite six murals in the city of Nashville. As cheesy as that is, I, I'm freaking popular. Like the big of the videos are blowing up. Is it really? It's like, I don't know where it's at, but I'd say like 150 views. Yeah, we just released it just a little bit ago. But yeah, it was fun. I rewatched it, and rarely do I rewatch a video right after I put it out, but I do, I watch Aaron's videos next time, but I actually, I enjoyed it. It was fun. But yeah, he, Aaron put some amazing transitions in it, so make sure to go watch that on our YouTube channel or he could watch it on our IGT V on our Instagram account and have a great day.