Derek and Andrea Johnston with The Gathering Board

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:24] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by our local small business initiative, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending capitalism, promoting small business and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Mainstreet warriors.org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David Inc. Please go check them out at diesel. David.com. You guys are in for a real treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with The Gathering Board Andrea and Derek Johnston. How are y’all?

Andrea Johnston: [00:01:13] Hey Stone.

Derek Johnston: [00:01:15] Good morning.

Andrea Johnston: [00:01:16] We’re doing good. How are you?

Stone Payton: [00:01:17] I am doing well. Coming off the Memorial Day weekend, I shared with you before we went on air that I got my youngest daughter married off. I’m anticipating a raise. I got more family coming in through the week. So tired. But it’s I’m feeling very blessed and so delighted to have you guys in the studio. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think maybe a great place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners mission purpose. What are you guys really out there trying to do for folks?

Andrea Johnston: [00:01:56] So our real focus is just to provide people with delicious, beautiful food. I love feeding people. I love eating. And thankfully Derek likes to eat as well too, so it works out well together. And really our goal is just to provide a product to people that that allows them to gather together. Like your daughter’s wedding. Right? You probably noticed the food is sometimes the highlight of the event.

Stone Payton: [00:02:29] So yeah, it was a big deal and if I’d have been on top of my game, you’d have been in Chattanooga with me this past weekend.

Andrea Johnston: [00:02:34] I love Chattanooga this weekend. We actually did do a wedding on Friday and it was for 125 people. And it’s just something that it’s like a magnet. And, you know, you can have Chick fil A or you can have tacos. And, you know, Chick fil A is doing the Lord’s work. But but there’s something different about charcuterie. And if I had a dollar for every time somebody said, oh, that’s too pretty to eat, you know, I would be very wealthy. And but what we find is it’s it’s a magnet that draws the people together. They they just gather around, which is pretty much why we came up with the name the gathering board, because we wanted something that is the central focus of your event. If you don’t have anything to talk about, at least talk about the food and, you know, making it. Visually appealing. That’s that’s really high importance for us. High quality foods. It’s got to taste good, look good and. Yeah, that’s. That’s. That’s what we enjoy doing.

Stone Payton: [00:03:44] Well, it’s got to be incredibly rewarding work. What are you in fact, I’m going to ask you individually and I’ll start with Derek at this point, because you guys have been at this a while. Derek, I’ll start with you. What are you finding the most rewarding about the work, about the business? What do you enjoy the most?

Derek Johnston: [00:04:03] My past business. I’ve been a medic since I was 19, a paramedic and a lot of a lot of times when we take care of when I took care of people on the ambulance and the E.R. or wherever, we would take really good care of them, drop them off, and then probably never see them again. Here we’re feeding people, which is super enjoyable. You can actually see somebody when they come to pick up our food. We show that to show them to it. We show them the board first and they always get this amazing smile and they are like, Oh, this is so beautiful. And then we open it up and they can smell it. So. We know. I like the saying you eat with your eyes first. So they’re seeing it visually.

Stone Payton: [00:04:55] That is so true, though, right? It’s true. Yeah.

Derek Johnston: [00:04:58] And they get so excited and when they get home is obviously going to taste better because it’s a work of art, right. And when they come back to order, another item, another board, they tell us how delicious it was. So again, a lot of we get a lot of feedback on how delicious, how artistic the food was and it made their event a lot better. So I really enjoy that part of it.

Stone Payton: [00:05:27] Yeah, that’s a tough answer to follow. Andrea, how about you? Is it very similar or is there something special that you find that you get out of it these days?

Andrea Johnston: [00:05:35] So I had a lady stop by with her two daughters and her sister’s husband’s father. You can follow that sister’s husband’s father.

Stone Payton: [00:05:45] Oh, yeah. I’m from Alabama. I got I got.

Andrea Johnston: [00:05:49] You know what I’m talking about. He had passed away, and so she had bought two boards to take over to the family to just kind of say, hey, sorry, sorry for your loss. And she wrote us a note a few weeks later, and she said that when she brought that over there, it was just this amazing moment where all the family members, the brothers, her sister could gather around, the mom, the wife that had just lost her husband. They all gathered together and she used that word gathered together to eat off of this charcuterie board. And the boys were so happy because that was the first thing that their mom had eaten in three days. And I still get goosebumps. I still tear up a little bit every time I think about that story. And that is that’s what I love. I love to hear these stories of connection, getting people together over a shared plate. And there’s something magical about sharing food off of one plate or one platter. And that’s that’s the joy that I get, is hearing those stories of how our food brought them together and created a bond and a memory.

Stone Payton: [00:07:04] All right. I got to know the backstory on this, the genesis of this idea, the early going. How did you end up here? How did it all get started for you guys?

Andrea Johnston: [00:07:13] How did a medic and a real estate agent become charcuterie? Exactly. Do you want to tell your.

Derek Johnston: [00:07:20] You’re actually better at telling you.

Andrea Johnston: [00:07:22] Talk a lot more.

Derek Johnston: [00:07:24] I have, yeah.

Andrea Johnston: [00:07:25] So Derek and I met, I don’t know, 4 or 5 years ago and we started dating and I went down to Midtown where he lived and we went to Ponce City Market. So it’s one of the first weekends we spent together. So it was it was pretty momentous.

Stone Payton: [00:07:46] Great choice, by the way, for a date, right? Yeah. Nicely done.

Andrea Johnston: [00:07:50] Sir. He knows what he’s doing. So we went to Ponce City Market and there’s a little Italian restaurant there and we got a charcuterie board. Now, I’d been on dates before and I’d had a charcuterie board and it was good. But this one was special because I think mostly because I who was with and they did a also did a great job of presenting the board. I’m pretty sure there was some focaccia on it and it became more of an event than than just food. So I’m throwing all the olives his way because those are disgusting and hogging all the tomato jam and oh, try this and, you know, have a little bit of that. And it was so much fun. And so a couple of weeks later, we went to another restaurant and got a charcuterie board and it was terrible. It was dry. The presentation was blah. It was like on this silver like cookie sheet kind of plate. And it just it didn’t it wasn’t appealing. I didn’t enjoy it. And it irritated me that we spent a lot of money on this board that we didn’t even like. And so we joked around about doing YouTube videos of charcuterie board reviews so that nobody else would have to suffer the same fate that we had to go brutal.

Andrea Johnston: [00:09:09] Yeah, it was horrible. And so we, we had this big plan to go out to all these different restaurants and get their boards and do a video review, but then Covid hit and of course, we didn’t go anywhere. Everything was shut down and we ended up just, you know, staying at home and cooking for ourselves like most people did. And Derek here is a very good cook. But he’s he he was making it an event. He’s like, let’s put on some music. Let’s drink some wine. It’s a date. It’s a date. It was an event, Yes. But I was starving, waiting for him to cook it. I was so hungry and some rummaging through his fridge. He’s griping. I’m making dinner. I’m like, I know, but I’m hungry right now. So it kind of hurts my my soul to say I put together this plate. And I think the first items on it were like Kraft singles and baloney. They have their place. Those from Alabama.

Stone Payton: [00:10:13] Sounds perfect to.

Speaker5: [00:10:14] Me. Yeah.

Andrea Johnston: [00:10:16] But we could do better. So anyway, whatever I do, I just like to do really well. So we went to Whole Foods and got some better cheese and added some meats and some nuts and things like that. And pretty soon we were making those for dinner, his post and pictures on Facebook, and his mom asked for one for her birthday. So I was like, I have to step up my game if this is a gift, right? So she lives in they live in Mississippi. And so we went down there for her birthday and bought her a really nice wood board and all the meats and cheeses. And then I wanted to get some cheese knives for it. So we stopped a little antique store, told the lady what what I was making and and, you know, we’re talking because that’s what I like to do is talk. And she’s like, oh, there’s a place down in New Orleans that makes and delivers charcuterie. And it was that like, you know, aha moment because I like to start businesses in my head and, you know, name them. What can we do and could this be a profitable business? And I’ve done so many of those in my head, but this one just seemed really unique. And I’m like, We don’t have anything like that. That would be awesome. So we just talked it through and planned and came up with a name and a logo and a website and took off.

Stone Payton: [00:11:39] Well, I got to tell you, I feel like for whatever my opinion is worth, you absolutely nailed the name, the logo, the the look and feel the frame. Thank you for the business. I feel like you absolutely nailed it. And now here comes the reality of opening a business. It also occurs to me you may have had to jump through a few more hoops than like I did to to spin up this studio or even the whole Business RadioX network because you’re dealing with food. Is that is that accurate?

Andrea Johnston: [00:12:06] Yeah, absolutely. So we did start this out of our house and I supposed to. Not supposed to, but I didn’t have any reference for if this was even a legitimate, sustainable business. Right, Right. I wasn’t willing to throw thousands and thousands of dollars into something if I would get ten customers. Yeah. And so once we realized there is a demand for this and it is something that we could turn into a business, absolutely, We’re like, let’s get on it. So I think we had started in August of 2020 was when I was like, we’re official with a logo. That makes you official, right? Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:12:51] But that right there smack dab in the middle of all this crazy stuff, man, you guys are right.

Andrea Johnston: [00:12:56] We’re like, Are we insane? Telling people, Gather together, gather around, and everybody else is like, get away.

Stone Payton: [00:13:02] But maybe people were starting to get thirsty for that, right? And to have a mechanism, you know, to. Wow.

Andrea Johnston: [00:13:07] Yeah, yeah. There definitely was a market of people like just I need charcuterie. And the fact that we could deliver to them was super helpful. Yeah. So we delivered to everybody. We also partnered up with a local business where we could drop off boards to to their store and they would keep it in the fridge for customers to pick up. They liked it because, you know, they got more clients into their store. We liked it because it gave us the opportunity to drop it. Often and the customer could pick it up at a later time. So that worked out really well. But I would say August to March, March is when we signed the lease for our storefront and got things started. So it really wasn’t all that long.

Stone Payton: [00:13:46] Another big jump to me, huge jump. I mean, we’re sitting in a studio here in a co-working space, right? And so I pay a monthly fee for that, but my out is pretty easy. You know, I don’t have this big capital investment, don’t have this huge lease. I mean, my hat is off to you guys for for taking that jump. Do you remember your first handful of clients or collaborations? I bet they I bet they’re like burned into your brain, right?

Andrea Johnston: [00:14:10] I do. I do. Her name is Danielle, and I was in I don’t know, I was in the grocery store. And so I have a website that has an app that on my phone, it’ll notify me if I get an online order. And so I had put the website out there and I just remember, I don’t know, maybe in the produce aisle was standing there and my phone went off and I looked, I was like, I got an order and I was by myself. I probably looked like ridiculous dancing around, doing a little happy dance in the middle of the store. But like, I got a legit order from somebody I did not know. So Derek had, you know, clients that he would teach a CPR classes to and he’d be like, Hey, why don’t you bring them aboard? And so we had done a few of those, but that was our first legitimate, I don’t know this person. She just ordered a charcuterie board and I probably took 3 or 4 hours making it so it was perfect. I was so nervous.

Derek Johnston: [00:15:09] We’ve definitely gotten more proficient at little bit.

Stone Payton: [00:15:12] Oh, I’ll bet you. I bet you have systems in place and your checklists and all that. So how does how is the sales and marketing aspect of the business evolved? Is it is it a lot of referrals now? Is there are you still finding you do need to get out there and shake the trees a little bit and let people know that you’re here and all that?

Derek Johnston: [00:15:30] Well, honestly, we haven’t really advertised much Up until recently. We’ve done one Facebook ad, very limited budget. Yeah, it’s mostly been referrals. Typically, every time we go to an event, especially if we staff an event, say we have, we’re going to a wedding or a corporate event where they have 100, 150 people, you have 150 potential clients. So if you present very well, we have a lot of people that will come over and book things while they’re at the event. So we’re getting ready to market and push where we’re at because a lot of people don’t realize we’re across from the old train station, but staffing has been a challenge. So that’s we’ve slowly worked up to where we can really start pushing, but we don’t want to overpromise and under-deliver. So getting our staffing up a little bit more and we’re going to really start doing some marketing.

Andrea Johnston: [00:16:42] Like when we had the website going, it was a month or two or so before I was ready to say, Okay, let’s go and we can get into that a little bit later. Why? It took a little bit at the beginning, but what we did, and I will shamelessly plug Cherokee Connect.

Stone Payton: [00:17:04] Oh yeah.

Andrea Johnston: [00:17:04] Forever. And I will forever be a subscriber to their to their Facebook page because they really got us started. So we were just a tiny little brand new business. And I did one post, I don’t know, 5:00 in the evening and I said, charcuterie boards delivered. Is that a thing? It is now. And I had a couple of pictures and stone. I had over 500 visits to my website. Wow. That night. That night from 5:00 until midnight. It was crazy. Just the insane response from this community. And clearly they wanted charcuterie as much as I did. And it just took off and just right off the bat just took off and. Holiday seasons are already insane. So, you know, Halloween up until about New Year’s. Just go, go, go, go, go. So it was a good timing as far as that goes where we started it in the fall. That was definitely helpful, but just a really supportive, amazing community.

Stone Payton: [00:18:13] Oh yeah. God bless Josh Bagby and Cherokee. And Josh was kind enough to come in the studio not too long ago. And he’s just a he’s a wonderful person. And I recognize that this is grown beyond just Josh and Josh’s efforts. But he’s that guy that lets it do that, right? And he’s just a wonderful person. And yes, Cherokee Connect is fabulous. And I find that the the whole Cherokee County business community community in general just they’re so supportive. They will rally behind you if you let them know that you need and want to help, which was new for me, right? I had always been a little more invested in positioning. And but once I started telling people, hey, here’s where I could use some help, like with this Main Street Warriors program that we’re doing. You know, I couldn’t really figure out how to get it going. I just started asking a few people and they just jumped to help. And it sounds like you’ve had the same kind of experience.

Andrea Johnston: [00:19:08] Yeah, absolutely. Just good, genuine, amazing people in our community and all of our all of our clients. We are very fortunate. Everybody’s been amazing. So nice. We we don’t get yelled at like a lot of restaurants get yelled at. Right. Right. And everybody’s so nice. And like Derek had said, referrals and Cherokee Connect. I would say, hands down is why our business is doing so well.

Stone Payton: [00:19:38] Boy, that doing good work is a good sales tool, isn’t it?

Speaker5: [00:19:40] Derek That helps.

Stone Payton: [00:19:44] Now are you finding because I do feel like maybe it’s just because it’s gotten on my radar in the last several months. But but my instincts are that the whole idea of charcuterie is a little more popular these days, or at least I’m seeing it seeing it more. Are you finding that you have to work hard to differentiate yourself, or is there just enough demand and enough business that the good ones are here and there’s room for them to or like? Or do you find that you have to do some things to try to really differentiate yourself?

Andrea Johnston: [00:20:15] Well, number one, I would say we are licensed and insured. That is how we are different than almost all of the other like charcuterie businesses that you see. As I mentioned earlier, you’re not supposed to start this out. You’re not supposed to do this out of your home. Right? You’re not able to get a cottage license like you are if you’re making jams or breads or cakes. Okay, that can be licensed properly. But this is meats and cheeses. It’s time and temperature controlled, different ballgame, totally different ballgame. So there’s only a few of us in this county that have gone through the steps to get licensed. We’re dual license with the Health Department and the Department of Agriculture for a variety of reasons. One is wholesaling and then we are considered a restaurant. We’re in this kind of nobody knows what we are.

Speaker5: [00:21:01] Are we a.

Andrea Johnston: [00:21:02] Restaurant? Are we a caterer? Are we take out. Yes, yes. We’re all.

Speaker5: [00:21:07] Just decided.

Stone Payton: [00:21:08] To check all those boxes, go through the paces and I got to believe you’ve got these I don’t know, these minimum performance standards. I’m from the consulting world. I’m probably using the wrong words, but.

Speaker5: [00:21:20] We get like.

Andrea Johnston: [00:21:21] We get inspections. Okay. From the health department, I’m happy to say our last two were both hundreds.

Speaker5: [00:21:26] Nice.

Stone Payton: [00:21:27] Can’t do much better than that. I’m not that great at math, but that sounds like a good score.

Speaker5: [00:21:30] That’s a good score.

Andrea Johnston: [00:21:31] It’s a good score. But really what what we do to differentiate ourselves is the the quality. We’re using high quality products and we’re making it look beautiful. We really spend a lot of time on that. On the esthetics part of it, it’s like Derek said earlier.

Speaker5: [00:21:53] It goes back to what.

Stone Payton: [00:21:54] Derek said, right?

Speaker5: [00:21:55] You eat with your.

Stone Payton: [00:21:55] Eyes first, so you can’t just pop plop it all on the table.

Andrea Johnston: [00:21:59] Right? So I will say there’s he kind of gets irritated when I say this. There’s nothing special about our food except for it’s fresh. We buy fruit constantly to make sure it’s fresh. Meats and cheeses cut daily like it’s fresh. And it’s how we present it that when you see you can have a pile of cheese and meat sitting on a plate. Yep, it’s food. It tastes good. But when we put it together with the edible flowers and the blackberries and the rosemary, it tastes better. It just tastes better because it looks better. So we definitely do that really well. We do grazing tables that are just awesome. They really they really are. They’re pretty cool.

Stone Payton: [00:22:50] Well, even your boxed product that you came you were kind enough to bring some to me this morning and it’s absolutely gorgeous. I’m sure the food is. Going to be delicious, but it’s just it’s beautiful. And there will be a picture of this where we publish. But for those who are listening live or catch it on a on a podcasting platform, I mean, it’s just beautiful. It’s got the cool little twine tied with the with the tag. And you’ve got you’ve got the, the just all the pieces just you can see through the cardboard box so you can get a vision of it. So you’ve taken great care not only in the, in the product itself, but the way it’s presented.

Andrea Johnston: [00:23:23] We also do a lot of our products. We make them in house. So the jam that you have on your board there, yeah, we make that ourselves. Oh, and there’s bourbon in it.

Speaker5: [00:23:33] Sweet, right? Oh, wow.

Andrea Johnston: [00:23:35] So we kind of have a cult following on that jam. I had one lady who had purchased a large board for a birthday party that she was putting on, and then a couple hours later, I had a family come in to the store. They’re like, Do you have some of that jam? And I was like, Sure. They said we were just at a birthday party and they had it. It was amazing. I was like, okay, it’s right there. And then 20 minutes later, another couple, Hey, do you have some of that pepper jam? We were just at a birthday party. It was two couples from that same party coming to pick them up. It was kind of funny. I have one person say it’s like crack. Like there’s. They’re just like, they need a fix.

Stone Payton: [00:24:18] Well, you had me at Bourbon.

Andrea Johnston: [00:24:21] Yep, we do bourbon. We have some jam that’s got red wine in it, one that’s got brandy, a Guinness chutney like we have fun with with with the sounds.

Speaker5: [00:24:32] Marvelous.

Stone Payton: [00:24:33] So a lot of our tribe, people who tap into this show, whether it’s live or on demand, they are entrepreneurs as well. You know, they run small businesses, a lot of them here local, but also nationally. And so I like to find out if this happens to people who come to the studio, as you got things going, began, began to get your feet under you, did anything kind of sneak up on you? Were there some surprises along the way in terms of running a business that you just didn’t see coming, that you didn’t anticipate and you had to adjust for? Or did you pretty much just have smooth sailing?

Andrea Johnston: [00:25:12] Well, I said we signed the lease in March, right? Yeah, March 3rd, I believe. March 1st is when I saw the space. And March 2nd is when I told Derek about it.

Stone Payton: [00:25:24] Man, she can make a decision, huh? Are the two of you can.

Andrea Johnston: [00:25:27] So I am very much a risk taker.

Speaker5: [00:25:30] I see that.

Andrea Johnston: [00:25:31] And. And what made me decide was I was like, you know what? This is going to go quick. And if I don’t jump on this, I’m going to regret it every time I drive by. Yeah. So I was like, Hey, Derek, I found us a space. What do you think? He’s like, Whatever your heart desires. He always says that. Okay, cool. Half the time. I know he’s kind of like, you better think about this a little longer, but he said I could do it. No, he was on board. He always supports me in everything. I am very much like, Let’s go. He’s got the brakes. Slow down. And together we work really well together. I get he’s like, frustrated at me for going so fast and not planning, and I’m frustrated at him for making me stop and slow down. And it works out great for both of us. I push him. He pulls me back a little bit to make sure what we’re doing is we’re doing it well. Like you said earlier, we don’t want to overpromise and under-deliver. So when we get to a certain point like this last weekend, I had to close down orders on Wednesday, Tuesday, Tuesday or Wednesday for Saturday, because we were fully booked.

Andrea Johnston: [00:26:44] We could have taken a lot more, but I did not want to rush. I did not want to put out a product that wasn’t perfect. So I would say. What we didn’t anticipate is I would I would say just even the volume of orders that we get and having no time to do anything else. So trying to keep up with the bookkeeping part of it or my poor employees, I’m like, I’m going to pay you today, I promise. No, they always get paid on time, but. Just the things that it takes to run a business. It’s hard to keep up with that because I’m very involved in making the boards. And, you know, we have we have some great staff. We just brought on another girl we’re looking to hire. If anybody is looking for a job, I would say that’s that’s one of the the biggest things that I wasn’t anticipating is just the lack of time, lack of time to do anything socially or otherwise.

Stone Payton: [00:27:52] I would think that would that would be an incredibly important and productive dynamic that you guys have a different perspective or bring a different set of strengths to the equation. And clearly you trust and respect each other’s vantage point, even though that might not be your default, you’re a little quicker to throw your hat over the fence. You’re a little quicker to hit the brakes and kind of evaluate the situation, not unlike my business partner. And I think although it seems like you guys are doing a much better job than we are, but we’re doing fine. We’ve been at it a while too. That is marvelous. Anything else unique or different or something you have to really be cognizant of because of the fact that you are a couple? Is it does it come like, are there some specifics about division of labor? Or because I got to believe there are some unique aspects I’m trying to envision Holly and I and we are a marvelous couple, I believe. And you talk about incredibly supportive. I mean, she is just unbelievable. And I’m not sure that she and I should run a studio together, let alone a network. So, yeah, anything speak to that a little bit. If there is anything to to acknowledge on that front. Well, that.

Derek Johnston: [00:29:07] Was a concern initially. We talked quite a bit and. Came to an overview and some limitations on what we would do and what we wouldn’t do. I think the challenge, we work really well together. The the big challenge, I think, is not having personal time. We have a lot of business time together and we’re working, working, working, but we don’t really have a good bit of time to have off and do the things like we used to do when we were dating. So that was the.

Stone Payton: [00:29:52] Birth of this whole thing in the first place, was to go have fun, date night and evaluate charcuterie boards.

Derek Johnston: [00:29:57] But we have fun during the day. Yeah, we’re infamous for dancing in the kitchen at home, so I love it. Brought that to the store. So we’ll put on some music and dance. Usually when nobody’s there, when we’re making jam or whatever, after hours, we make that a date.

Speaker5: [00:30:16] Now we’re so late, I don’t think that’s lame at all.

Stone Payton: [00:30:21] I think it’s.

Speaker5: [00:30:22] Terrific.

Andrea Johnston: [00:30:23] I go through all my pictures and were like, Oh, that was a fun date. We went here and here and here and here and now. All that’s on my phone is charcuterie pictures of meat and cheese.

Speaker5: [00:30:31] So the answer.

Stone Payton: [00:30:32] To this question may be a little out of focus, given what you were just kind enough to share with me about. You know, right now, it’s just heads down. We’re we’re we’re buried. But I’m going to ask anyway outside the scope of the business and I’ll ask each of you individually, but also it may be a shared thing, but outside the scope of this business, are there some passions My listeners know for me it’s hunting, fishing and travel, right? Is there something like that for either of you, or were the two of you together that you will circle back to when you get all the rest of this stuff figured out?

Speaker6: [00:31:08] I’ll go first.

[00:31:10] I have another business. Like I mentioned, I’ve been a paramedic since I was 19. I was able to push medications to save somebody’s life, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t purchase alcohol and I wasn’t on the company’s insurance. So I’ve been doing that for a really long time. I and I started my own business in 2005 where I just do training now. I did some occasional Covid contracts and I’ve worked a lot of different other areas, but I mostly just do training and I really enjoy training people. I like when that that light bulb goes off and somebody that, you know, finally gets it. So I do enjoy that and I’ve been limited on what I can do with my other business because we’ve been so encompassed currently getting this one going and operating.

Derek Johnston: [00:32:10] Very well. So I’m going to let you go with it.

Andrea Johnston: [00:32:15] Well, I’ll tag on to what you had asked earlier about us working together, because I really want to emphasize, we we don’t fight. We’re we don’t fight. It’s the coolest thing ever. That wasn’t always the case with me, with previous relationships. And I’m not a fighter, so. And neither is Derek. And so we talk. We talk. And I’m like, Hey, I don’t like when you did that. He’s like, Well, I didn’t like when you did that. Okay, well, I’ll try not to do that again. Okay. Okay. And then we’re done. And it’s the best thing ever. So working together really hasn’t been that much of a challenge. It’s been quite fun. I would say. This weekend you were asked what we did. We didn’t do anything. I went outside by myself and I took a bath by myself. And I spent some alone time because we’re together all the time. I just need to be alone for a little bit. And so that’s, I think, kind of how we recharge and get back at it. But I just really enjoy, really enjoy working together. And, you know, that’s not the case for everybody. And to be able to say, hey, you know, we’re a great married but not good business partners. Well, that was a little concern that we had. We actually started the business before we got married. Did you really? We did. Wow. We were a little backwards on that. Yeah, that’s how we roll. So we actually just got married about a year ago. And so that was a big concern, you know, starting the business together, going to derail a good relationship. Right. I think it’s just changed it a little bit. So.

Speaker5: [00:33:59] Um, well, I’d love.

Stone Payton: [00:34:00] To hear that. And I and I genuinely believe it, just watching the dynamic here in the room because I have the benefit of being here with you in person live. And I also get the distinct impression that when it’s time for you to have your your space, your alone time, it’s not something that Derek regrets. He supports that too, and makes room for that, which is an important part of that equation, right?

Speaker5: [00:34:24] Absolutely. Yeah.

Andrea Johnston: [00:34:25] He I would come home and I’d say, Hey, I bought a camel for us as a pet. And he’d be like, Well, this is really inconvenient, but let me go build a barn.

Stone Payton: [00:34:38] Or he’d go into the bottled water business and just leverage the fact that. Right. He’s he’s always thinking he’s got this business, he’s got this. Yeah, that’s.

Speaker5: [00:34:44] Fantastic.

Andrea Johnston: [00:34:45] Crazy supportive of anything I want to do. So that’s terrifying and awesome at the same time.

Stone Payton: [00:34:52] So, so coming back to the business of providing this art that is food, are there are there some parameters around it? Like you’ll only do small groups or this size group or can you do really large groups? Have you decided to to look at bringing on like what products that would products and services that would complement it either through collaboration or you got any of those kind of plans in motion?

Andrea Johnston: [00:35:20] Back to the all we do is charcuterie and no time for anything else. Yeah. Good problem to have, right? Right. But also I have all these like we have all these ideas of people we could collaborate with and I want to, as soon as we just take a breath, you know, because we’re just putting out a lot of food. This last weekend, we probably put out food for about 350, 350 people. Wow. Just on Saturday. So he had Friday when we had a grazing table as well. So we’re just we’re just kind of just feeding people. We definitely want to to do things in more collaboration. But our focus right now, charcuterie, like I know some businesses will try to do this or do that or do this or do that to get more business coming in. Right, right. And then all that does is confuse people. Are they a sandwich shop or are they brunch or are they this or that? Yeah. So we we decided we’re going to focus strictly on charcuterie until we are known for that and nothing else, then we feel like we could branch out a little bit more. So we do boards for one person that are cute little six by six.

Speaker5: [00:36:39] Boxes, a board.

Stone Payton: [00:36:40] To a client or a guest or a.

Speaker5: [00:36:42] Yes. Okay.

Andrea Johnston: [00:36:43] Yeah. This one you have right here is for 2 to 4 people. So two is a meal up to four if you. It looks.

Speaker5: [00:36:48] Like a single.

Stone Payton: [00:36:49] Serving box to me.

Speaker5: [00:36:51] No, I’m kidding.

Andrea Johnston: [00:36:52] If you’re hungry, your wife will not be happy. If you choose. That’s a single person. Unless she’s that.

Speaker5: [00:36:57] Single. I’m sorry I interrupted you.

Stone Payton: [00:36:59] You’re one person. And like, this is AA2 to four.

Andrea Johnston: [00:37:02] Yeah, we have one That’s 3 to 6. 5 to 10 going on up. Right. The largest that we serve on an actual platter is up to 30. And so you can get multiple ones if you have a large group and then we’ll do the grazing tables after that. We we do have the big board, we call it our bougie board, this gorgeous black walnut board that that Derek actually made. And we could fit food on there to feed 50 to 60 people. And that fits in our fridge but nobody else’s fridge. So you have to pick it up and take it right to your event.

Stone Payton: [00:37:36] But Derek made the board.

Speaker5: [00:37:37] Of course he did. Of course.

Andrea Johnston: [00:37:38] He did. Geez, I know, right? So then we go up to grazing tables and those we’ve decided to do a minimum of 50. Just because we take so much time, we take so much effort, we do a lot of food, and if we do a grazing table, that means I’m going on site to to build this and then I’m not at the store. So we would have to limit what orders we take. So we just decide. 50 people is our minimum for us to come out to your to your shop, to your office, to your home and do a grazing table on site. And then we’ve done events for up to 600 people. So last December, we did an event down in Buckhead for 600 people that was so terrifying and so much fun at the same time.

Derek Johnston: [00:38:34] It was very rewarding because we did it all in two hours, fed these people. We got a lot of people fed in two hours. It was just a lot of prep to it. But yeah, a lot of prep.

Andrea Johnston: [00:38:49] So two days out we’re cutting the meats and cheeses. The day before we actually did skewers instead of a grazing table because you can’t get 600 people through a grazing table in two hours. It’s just impossible because they’re taking their time looking at this, looking at that sort of like with the event planner, we decided skewers was the way to go. So you get two meats, two cheeses, an olive and a tomato or whatever. And then we did a variety of those. We did some spinach dip and vegetables and a couple other things and. Nine 967 skewers, I think is what we did.

Speaker5: [00:39:26] And you may or may not have.

Stone Payton: [00:39:28] Even been able to track it, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to learn that some business came from exposing 600 people to write quality of your work.

Andrea Johnston: [00:39:38] Yeah, definitely. The event planner that hired us to do this event, we’ve done multiple ones from with her since then, you know, building that relationship, right. Making sure that we we deliver what we say we’re going to on time, high quality, beautiful product. That’s that’s what we must do every time. And in doing so, we get future business.

Stone Payton: [00:40:03] Well, everything you guys have said is compelling. But again, you had me at Bourbon. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to reach out, have a conversation with you? And, you know, it may be. Well, let me back up before we give them some coordinates. How does it work? Is it best for them to call the shop, walk in the shop, go to an online thing? Tell me about that. And then let’s definitely make sure we leave them with coordinates.

Andrea Johnston: [00:40:28] Sure. Absolutely. So the easiest way. Well, there’s no easiest whatever is most convenient for them. They can stop by order right from us there at the store. You can call us and we can take your order over the phone. Or you can go online and order from our website. At the end of it, write down what day and time you want it. We’ll make sure that it is ready. So you say, Hey, I have an event Thursday afternoon. I would like to have the board by 2 p.m.. We’ll have it ready for you Thursday by 2 p.m.. We aren’t going to make it today for Thursday. We make it on Thursday. So that’s really important. We always make the boards the day that you pick them up, Whether you choose to hold them over the next day is up to you. But we’re always going to make them that day and then we’ll have it ready for you by to send you a text when it’s ready. But then you can come anytime before we close at six. Pick it up. Hey, you’re running late, so you’re going to come at 330. That’s fine. It’s there waiting for you in the fridge.

Stone Payton: [00:41:23] And I can come to you with maybe a few specific ideas to fold in. Or I can come to you and say, Look, I got 30 people. Half of them are Yankees. I don’t know. I got to feed them. My my wife.

Andrea Johnston: [00:41:35] You say that like it’s a rude thing.

Stone Payton: [00:41:36] It’s not a rude thing. It’s just, you know.

Speaker5: [00:41:38] I’m a Yankee.

Stone Payton: [00:41:40] Sometimes their tastes are different, right? So maybe they don’t. And so and half of my extended family is Yankees because I my wife is from Philadelphia, but I can come to you with very little knowledge about what to do and just say, help me figure this thing out.

Speaker5: [00:41:53] Right.

Andrea Johnston: [00:41:54] So generally, we like to say. It’s worked out really well to say you get what you get unless you have an allergy. So certainly will work around allergies as much as possible. If you say, you know, stone, I hate goat cheese, I don’t want it on there, or mostly olives. People don’t like olives.

Speaker5: [00:42:13] Well, you don’t like. They’re so gross in the charcuterie.

Stone Payton: [00:42:16] I love olives.

Speaker5: [00:42:17] Do you like olives? Jerk? Yes, sir.

Stone Payton: [00:42:18] So do I. So that’s just an interesting little tidbit. But you will bring olives.

Speaker5: [00:42:22] I will.

Andrea Johnston: [00:42:23] Bring them. Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:42:23] That’s the thing.

Andrea Johnston: [00:42:24] People will be like, oh, I don’t like olives. And I’m like, What are you getting a board for 25 people? Somebody is going to like olives. Okay, that’s fine. But just off to the side. So we find it’s there’s so many options. We have so many different cheeses and meats and accessories or accouterments is the word. It gets overwhelming. So we just say, hey. And really, people end up saying, you know what? I don’t care. I trust you. Just whatever. Sure. And so that works out really well because we’re able to, you know, put cheddar. We’re always going to put a cheddar on there. It’s amazing. Top left corner. They’re nice.

Speaker5: [00:43:03] And I got.

Stone Payton: [00:43:04] My eye on it right.

Speaker5: [00:43:05] Now.

Andrea Johnston: [00:43:05] But then we can work through other cheeses that I might find that are new. You have a one in there called A Smoking Goat.

Speaker5: [00:43:13] Oh, baby.

Andrea Johnston: [00:43:13] It’s so good. I don’t really care for smoked cheese. He doesn’t care for goat cheese. But this is delicious. And so we can try something like that. Whereas whereas if somebody says I don’t like goat cheese, they might not be willing to try it. But if they don’t know what it is and they eat it, that’s really good. What is that? It’s goat cheese. What? I didn’t know I liked it. Well, you know, because we don’t do inferior goat cheese. There’s some goat cheese. That’s terrible, right? We try everything. Everything. This is how I keep my girlish figure. We try everything to make sure it’s taste good. And aside from olives, I like everything that we put on our boards, and, you know, so. So that’s. That’s generally how it works. Unless you have a preference, we just give you what we think would look good. And once in a while people come back, Hey, I didn’t really care for that Gouda. Some, you know, some of our customers don’t like Gouda. Okay, so we make a little note. They don’t get Gouda. This person doesn’t get pickles or, you know, whatever. And. Everybody’s happy. Everybody’s happy with it.

Stone Payton: [00:44:22] So I’m sure they are okay because I’m happy just anticipating. I know I’m going to be happy when I see you again on the other side of this. Okay, So let’s do leave them with store, location, website. Anything else you think would be a good way for them to to connect with you?

Speaker5: [00:44:37] Sure.

Andrea Johnston: [00:44:37] Well, first off, I’d like to say we are having we’ve been there two years, but we are finally having a ribbon cutting ceremony. All right. Finally, this has been on our to do list for quite a while. Right. But it’s going to be next Tuesday, June 6th at 3 p.m. We’re going to have the Chamber of Commerce over. Do the big scissors with the ribbon. Should be fun. And we will have a grazing table there. It’s not unlimited. I would say the first 100 people or.

Speaker5: [00:45:05] So.

Andrea Johnston: [00:45:06] Can get to help themselves. So if anybody wants to join us for that, that would be wonderful. And we are also going to say thank you to your listeners. And we don’t do coupons very often. We haven’t really needed to, you know, So we’re going to offer a coupon for 10% off to any of your listeners. The coupon code B, r, x Business RadioX That’s how I got that perfect original, right?

Speaker5: [00:45:32] Nicely done.

Andrea Johnston: [00:45:33] Yes. For 10% off. And then you can find us at 2800 Holly Springs Parkway, Suite 100. So we are right across from the old train depot, the downtown area that’s going in. Yeah, we’re right in that little intersection and. Our website is w w w dot the gathering board.co. So we do get a little bit of confusion with their.com was taken but the gathering board.co is where you can find us online and phone number is (770) 500-8715. We are on not on Twitter we are on Instagram, Facebook and I did just start a TikTok channel.

Speaker5: [00:46:19] I know, right?

Andrea Johnston: [00:46:20] We are a whopping 53 followers already.

Stone Payton: [00:46:22] And we’ll get to see some of those dancing in the home kitchen videos on TikTok.

Speaker5: [00:46:27] No, no.

Andrea Johnston: [00:46:29] This girl does not dance.

Derek Johnston: [00:46:32] Possibly. And I want to say one more time, thank you for inviting us in and thank you to your listeners. That code is thank you to people who support the radio, the local radio. So we really appreciate that.

Stone Payton: [00:46:45] Well, it is my pleasure. And it really has been a delight having you guys in the studio. Thanks for sharing your insight, your perspective, and thank you for being such an important part of our community. And don’t be a stranger. Let’s continue to follow this story. Come in sometime maybe with one of your event planners and we’ll spotlight their business and maybe talk about the collaboration. But it’s an exciting time and we’re excited for you. You guys are doing important work and and we certainly appreciate it. So thank you.

Speaker5: [00:47:15] Thank you. Thank you.

Stone Payton: [00:47:16] All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Andrea and Derek Johnston with the gathering board. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.