Courtney: Yeah, we are so excited. Sarah said that it was like an amazing pre-interview. She was like, I don’t even need questions. It’s just going to go naturally. 

Dana: She did try to write it down. Yeah, we’d love. To hear about your unique story, how you got started and this started your journey.

Inez: Sure. I’m born and raised in Tarboro, North Carolina, super small town, Eastern part of the state. And, after college I wanted to attend culinary school and we searched for one that wasn’t the Culinary Institute of America, because a, that was like a really long time to be in school after I’d been in school for four years and super expensive.

And so we found a small school in New York City called Peter Kumps New York Cooking School. That was like a little under six months and that included the externship. Okay. And so in July of 98, I traveled north of the Mason-Dixon line for the first time ever. 

Dana: Was that a little shocking? 

Inez: Yeah, I mean, I was so excited to move up there and I was moving in an apartment with four other women from North Carolina, but they didn’t come for the first two months. So I kind of had the apartment for July and August. I had now moved in after Labor Day around there. And I fell in love immediately. Like it just, wasn’t a hard transition for me. And I also had grown up where everybody always knew what I was doing every second of the day.And for the first time in my life, I felt so free, you know, 

Courtney: Free in obscurity. 

Inez: Yeah, exactly. And there was no cell phones, so like there wasn’t right. People couldn’t get in touch with me. And there was really great beauty in that. And so yeah, so moved up there started going to culinary school. There was a little wine shop.

That was right around the corner from or right, facing 86th street, and I would just go into that wine shop and look around and just be like, in awe of the pretty bottles they always had at five o’clock, somebody tasting, giving you a sample. And like the third or fourth day I was there the assistant manager came up and said, you know, you’d save a lot of money if you got a job here.

I mean, I would only get one bottle a day. And so I was like, that’s an offer. Yeah. And ended up, she had gone to the Culinary Institute of America, but pursued wine, which I didn’t even know that was an option, right. and she was from Atlanta, so she’s a fellow southerner and she kind of took me under her wing.

And so every day after school, I would work at Best Cellars from 5:30, till 10:30. And then at the end of school, I realized I liked to drink much more than I like to cook. 

Courtney: Did they pay you in wine?

Inez: and money, and money. It was really a sweet set up. And I loved, you know, the other part of the story is it was this gorgeous, sleek, very modern store, but every bottle in the store was under $10.

And these two gentlemen had, who were both, you know, wine lovers and wine writers had traveled all over the world to find small wineries that were not mass produced, but not supermarket, but that could come into the states and retail for under $10. 

Courtney: That’s amazing. So were they like sommeliers?

Inez: They were Josh Wesson and Richard Marmet, and Josh Wesson had written a book called Red Wine with Fish. And this is like in the mid-nineties. Yeah. Pretty cutting edge. And then Richard Marmet’s wife, one of the editors at Bon Appetit, they were, but they had partnered in, so they were legit. They were legit. And, and, and like, while they didn’t run the store, they weren’t in operations. They showed up frequently, you know? And like I knew who they were, yeah. Which is cool. 

Inez: It really shaped my wine, kind of mission. And when we opened on the square, you know, years later. We took pride in that we have really great wines starting at $7 a bottle because our whole thing is we want everybody to drink wine, right?

Courtney: So how long after graduation did you land, I know you had the wine shop and land the real first wine job and like working your way up to the beverage director at Windows on the World. 

Inez: So I graduated with my externship December, and I had called the beverage director at Windows on the World in August and like, hey, can I get, you know, anything? And she had said, There’s nothing available, fax me your resume.

And December, I still had not heard from her. And just figured, the resume got lost, right. I wasn’t proactive enough to like keep calling. And so I took a job as a head reservationist in the city, and then all of a sudden, while I’m working there, February 14th. I think she called and said, we’re opening up a small restaurant where Cellar in the Sky used to be. It’s going to be really heavily wine themed. We’re going to do a large by the glass program. And I’d like to interview you as hostess. I was like,

And I, I give my dad all this credit because he said, you know, get up there and show them how good you can be at something you don’t want to do, right, and they’ll believe in how well you can do something that you’re passionate about. So I went up for the interview and the day of the interview, she shows up with the entire beverage department.

I thought this is weird. I’m like a hostess, right. I was getting interviewed by the whole beverage department and she said, an assistant cellar master resigned this morning. Would you like to interview for that position? Yes, I would. and so I worked in that position for about 10 months then followed a guy to California, who’s not my husband 

Courtney: So many stories end and began that way. 

Inez: Yeah. Yeah. And realized, you know, early on out there, the west coast, wasn’t my thing, but I still worked in restaurants. About four months in, they called back and they were like, you know, we couldn’t, we didn’t have anything to offer you when you left, but now we have this beverage manager position and we really want you to come back, such a compliment.

Right? Yeah, totally. So that was all I needed. And when I came back, the beverage director resigned. And I was not ready for that, right, and they knew that, and so basically for the next six months I did, my title was beverage manager. Yeah, I learned and, you know, got my groove in and then they gave me the title as beverage director in January of ’01. 

Dana: That’s awesome, yeah. So walk us through it, cause I know that was like a really, obviously an impactful part of your life. It’s a very much, your book is about life after working there. And I guess for those listeners who don’t even know where Windows of the World is, where, where was that actually in New York City?

Inez: So the restaurant, it was on the 107th floor of one world trade center, which has the north tower. Right. Think about the tower that had the antenna, right. The observation deck was on the top of the south tower. And Windows was so huge, right, that we actually occupied 106 and 107th floor. So 106th floor where all the counting uniforms, we had one of our sellers on 164 wine cellars. And a few banquet rooms too.

And then a hundred seventh floor was Wild Blue, which was the small intimate restaurant, the greatest bar on earth, Windows on the World, and then more banquet space. 

Courtney: You’re the beverage director of all of that? 

Inez: All of it, what a job.

Dana: Yeah. So you probably met some amazing people.

Inez: Oh gosh. It was, we had like great people who worked there and then, you know, really great customers. I mean, you think about, and they were trying to change this, but Windows on the World was a tourist destination, right. And they had hired chef Michael Lomonaco to come in there and like make the food as serious as the wine program and the view. And he was doing an amazing job with his stuff. But then Wild Blue was where like New Yorkers ate.

Right, you know, so they had created that for New Yorkers and you know, one of the coolest things, I used to read anything wine related that came out in the paper and the Wall Street Journal had a married couple and they would write a wine column every Friday. And they would come in a lot and bring their little girls. And that was just like a neat relationship. 

Courtney: But yeah. 

Dana: So tell us a little bit about your book and kind of, I know as 20 years in the making and it’s, it talks mostly about life after 9/11, really. And maybe your story with that and just how it felt to get that out there. 

Inez: Yeah. I will say I had zero expectations about putting this book out. I put it out for myself and if people appreciated it great. If they didn’t, it would suck, but I’d get over it. And it’s just been unbelievable. Like, you know, I’d ordered a thousand books to sell in our restaurant in my stepmother’s store and the brewery. And thinking that would last me for a year and they were all out September 30th. It released on the 20th anniversary, and I did not do any pre-orders because I wanted all the sales to go into Tarboro I where we need the tax dollars. Exactly, and so my step mom, who’s had her little gift shop for 32 years, three years. She’s like, this was my best day, you know, so it was cool. And all the shops downtown did really well on that Saturday. So it was just a win for our small little town. 

Courtney: I love that, yeah. 

Dana: Do you mind sharing a little bit of your story?

Courtney: Oh, yeah. And, so obviously, you just left off that you became the director of the beverage director at the beginning of 2001. 

Inez: Yes. That’s exactly right. On September 5th, it was well, Labor Day I went up, it was a holiday and I didn’t have to work, but I am one of those people, I think there’s a, actually a psychological term for a workaholic, but I figure that I’m that. And so I decided to go up there and clean the whole office because it probably hadn’t been done since it reopened after the 93 bombing. And so, I got up in the office and just did this intense you’ve got, I mean, it was like an eight-hour day of me getting stuff. 

And when I, I went through this filing cabinet that we didn’t use and the bottom drawer, they were just like old, black and white photos of when it opened in 1976, just, just all this like history. And I got to go through all those pictures and like I found underneath all of them, a three liter of Mumm Cordon Rouge, and Assistant Cellarmasters never got like a day off.

Like, it didn’t matter. I mean, Windows on the World was open 365 days a year. And so the Assistant Cellarmasters, you came in for the morning shift and the night shift, you know, would check into the office and I showed them the bottle. And I said, when I get back from my sister’s wedding, we’re going to chill this.

We’re going to drink it together. They’re like, yeah. Great. And so Flew home. You know, one thing that I will never take for granted is that when I left on that, Tuesday afternoon, I hugged every single person to tell them just I’ll be back in a week. I hadn’t really taken any time off like this.

And, just to kind of give your perspective of the close knitness of our group, the woman who was in charge of uniforms had altered my bridesmaids dress, like just things like that. And so, flew home and September 8th was a, my sister’s wedding. Maid of honor, you know, just glorious and again, you know, I’m back in Tarboro seeing all these people I love.

And they’re so interested in hearing what I’m doing, you know, and just telling them about how much I love, you know, never leaving and I come from you know, my parents have been divorced since I was four. And if we have time with dad, we always have time with mom. And so in this case, so the wedding was with my dad’s side and my mother had said, you know, you need to stay home a couple of days and, and, and be with me.

And so on Sunday morning, she picked up. My biological sister and me, and we drive to the mountains for just like a little RNR. Yeah. And we were with her good friends, my mother wasn’t married at the time and their daughters. And so it was everybody kind of piled into this little condo. And on the morning of September 11th, she was all over me and I was asleep and she was crying and I immediately thought it was my grandmother.

My mother said, you need to come and watch the television. And so, at that point only the north tower had been hit, right. And I was just thinking to myself, what a mess. This is going to be to clean up clueless. I just, I just cleaned the office like, and started calling the office to try to get in touch with the gentleman who was working for me.

And it was just busy signal. And so then I start trying to call Steven in his apartment in Jersey City and he’s not answering. And then the second plane hits, of course, this is like, it’s happening fast, but it’s also slow motion. Yeah. And, He’s not answering, phone continues to be busy.

South tower gets hit. So I finally get this idea to call my friend who had worked at windows, had left in March and she lived on the upper west side. And again, no self. I mean, I had a pager that was that. And so I call Susan on the upper west side, she answers, she’s crying. And I was like, why are you crying?

And she’s like, this is bad. And I was just like, I can’t talk to you, you know, like, I’m not going to do this right now. We’re not going to freak out. Right. And then, you know, the towers fell and it was, I am a very emotional person and I cry when I, you know, read the giving tree are, you know, like it doesn’t take anything to make me cry, but I was, I think just in a state of shock and I said, we got to go.

We have to leave right now. And my mom and my sister and I drove back to Tarboro which is from Blowing Rocks, it was like a four, four-hour drive and get to my grandmother’s house. My dad’s step-mom are on in the front yard. And I was like, I thought you were at the beach. And they’re just like, yeah. You know, hugging, not letting go.

And then my grandmother says there is a woman who keeps calling you and she’s manic and you need to call her back. And it was Maggie. And while I had never met Maggie, I used to speak with her on the phone. Her boyfriend worked at Windows on the World and he was an assistant cellar master. And she, this is back in the days of 411, right?

So she calls 411, I don’t know how she remembered Tarboro. Maggie said, do you think Jeff could have been anywhere other than at the top of the building? And I was like, you know, Maggie, he could have, because you know, we ran routes to the port authority every day and he could have been in the bottom and she was like, then he could be alive. And I was like, he could be.

And I was so, and he was one of the last bodies found, you know, and they found the bodies. His wasn’t found until July of ’02. So most likely he was. but yeah, just that like awful day of thinking that maybe yeah. Maybe people could be alive, but 

Courtney: Did anybody make it out of Windows on the Wall? 

Inez: No one, no. Our chef stopped to get his lenses repaired in the eye center and he lived, but nobody who was there, nobody who’s up there. Yeah. And so, 

Dana: how’d you even like go back? 

Inez: I don’t know. I was Adamant that I was going back, that we’re going to go back to New York. We’re just going to be part of this whole restoration. And, I think the biggest problem for me is I took a job, I took a management job in New York, in New York, opening a hotel in times square, on New Year’s Eve 2001, like 2002. Well, its New Year’s Day, was 2002.

Courtney: Yeah. So, when did you make it back that weekend? Like when did you, 

Inez: like a week later, as soon as they started allowing people back into the city, I was there, we rented a car and drove up, you know, I don’t even think flights were still renting, but I wasn’t going to fly anyway. and it was fine. No one was fine.

And so, yeah. Steven had taken a train out of the city and I’d met him on September 12th at the Baltimore train station and taken him back with me to Tarboro. And we spent that week together, you know, and I just needed to be with him. 

Dana: Yeah, somebody who understood all the people that you lost.

Inez: Right. And everybody else, I was just mad. Like, I didn’t want people asking me about it, telling me they, you know, their prayers are with me. Yeah, I just was like really angry, you know? And now that I know it, I know, you know, the stages of grief, but so, yeah, we went back a week, a week later and probably we started collecting unemployment and I just, again, wanted to be in a workspace and I took a job.

I remember one of my friends, who’s the sommelier at Gramercy Tavern saying, why don’t you come and be a. Hmm. And I was like, oh, I’m not going to go be a runner. I mean, I think that one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made, I could have gone and worked with a family like setting at Gramercy Tavern, running food four nights a week, probably made a killing and healed a little bit.

But instead I went into a restaurant group that was like, not really family like, corporate-y and, yeah and started like managing, it was a disaster. I’m surprised that anybody offered me a job ever after that. And so, and Steven was running, a wine program for a huge retail store up in Inwood. So we both got jobs before Thanksgiving. I mean, I know like. We could have figured it out how to be able to live and not take these jobs, but we just didn’t, 

Courtney: Needed the distraction probably. 

Inez: Needed the distraction, but I do, like, I feel like that’s something that if I could share with anyone, like sometimes you just got to step back, and do something that maybe isn’t as intense is what you’ve done before. 

Courtney: Sure. 

Dana: I can imagine too. The anger would probably stem more from the frivolousness of it all, right. Like whenever I feel like there’s tragedy or something hard, and you’re looking at in your world, like managing people, I’m like, what’s the point in all of this?

Inez: Absolutely. And I remember that, like, pre-shift where, you know, one of the managers or is just flipping out on the steps of service that didn’t happen. I’m like really?

Courtney: Like in the grand scheme of things, what does this matter? 

Inez: Or like, who cares? And I definitely had that, who cares? Yeah. And so, you know, realizing that in March, I just, I didn’t even tell Steven, I just went to the manager and I said, I’m going to, I’m going to give you two weeks a month, whatever, whatever you want, but I can’t stay, I can’t do this.

And then came home and told Steven that. And he’s like, well, do you want me to, I mean, what, what are we going to do? And my parents keep saying, come home and take the summer off. Cause we’d already lined up that we were going to go work the harvest in Burgundy in August. And so my parents said, why don’t y’all just come home for the summer.

And Steven said, you know, if you want to, I will. I mean, I just don’t know how we’re going to live. And I was like, well, my parents said we could just live with them and, you know, figure some stuff out. And so, he loved his job. He really had a great work environment with a second job. And he gave them a couple months.

I had found a family run inn, in Chappaqua, that had a huge wine program that needed somebody to come and just figure out their inventory because nobody had taken care of it. And so I just consulted for them five days a week until Steven, until his tenure was up. And then we rented a truck and a U Haul, and that was the last time we ever lived in New York city. Wow. 

Courtney: Yeah, hmm. I end of a chapter.

Dana: So what, what got you guys to the point where you started On the Square and Tarboro Brewing Company? Like what was that path like? 

Inez: So literally July ’02, we’re hanging out with my dad and Maryanne. Steven, because he could not believe that my parents were just letting us stay, he cooked every single meal, every single meal. And you know, when I met him, he was a sommelier and he told me he had worked in restaurants, but like, I just knew him as the sommelier. And holy cow, he’s this incredible cook. And he was doing all these wild things.

Like at the time my parents were living next to a corn field, and Stephen went out there. He’s very interested in making us huitlacoche? And my dads like corn smut? This is huitlacoche. This is like, this is a Mexican delicacy. And so he makes huitlacoche ravioli’s and my dad’s like, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. And I’m like, try it.

You know, everything he did was, was so good. And so, we’re living with my parents, Steven’s cooking all the time and my parents told them you don’t have to, you know, he just didn’t feel right about it. And so I felt fine about it. What are parents for? Right, exactly. and so, a woman from Tarboro who owned a little luncheonette, breakfast and lunch place called On the Square calls my dad’s. Asks to speak with me. And she says, hi, my name is Francis Liberman. I hear you and your boyfriend are chefs. I want to sell my restaurant and I said, Ms. Liberman, you’re so kind, we don’t have two dimes to run to rub together, but thank you. 

Well, my dad eavesdropped into the whole thing. So he went and looked at the restaurant and there was a doctor looking at the restaurant too. My dad is like the definition of collaboration. It was like, why don’t we buy it together? And the doctor’s like, really? And dad’s like, yeah, I think I can talk my daughter and future son-in-law and say, comes back and goes, I think I’m going to buy this restaurant.

And Steven says, you’re kidding me. And he says, no, I’m not kidding. And, and Steven says, this is a culinary wasteland. Like nobody’s going to eat good food here, yeah. My dad said if you build it, they will come. And Steven says I’ll give you an 18-month commitment and we just celebrated 19 years. So, yeah.

So we moved to France. We worked the harvest. Come back in October, the closing date of the restaurant and just hit the ground running. Yeah, and then Steven, like I think we, we, we changed the smoking dining room into a little temperature-controlled wine cellar, working wine cellar.

And again, I modeled that off Best Cellars. So at the beginning it was a very like under 10, under 15. Sure. Then Steven says, I want to do night. Like, I mean, I can’t stand going breakfast. Yeah, you and I love wine. Like, why aren’t we doing? And so he says to my dad, I think I want to do a tapas style menu Thursday and Friday night.

And dad goes, I’m just going to tell you, having topless people is a lot for Tarboro and Steven is like, what are you talking about? He’s like tapas and dad’s like, I don’t know what that is.

My dad wanted to say yes to everything because all he wanted to do is get us to stay. It’s hilarious. so we started doing small plates. We changed it from tapas is to small plates so there was no confusion. Here we are living in an apartment above my step-mom’s store. We don’t have a car. We are making zero money.

Right. And I get a call from these two New York sommeliers who are consulting for the first casino to be built in Atlantic City in 13 years, and they want a wine director. They’re like, it’s you, it’s got to be you. And I was like, I don’t know. But let me talk to Steven. Of course I’m like really battling about being back in Tarboro, is what I swore I would never do.

Right, and so I go into the kitchen, it’s lunchtime. And I said, Steven, listen to this. He goes, Inez, you have to do it. He goes, this is what’s going to let On the Square last. You and I can’t live like this. We can’t, we cannot do this. But if you go up there and make salary and you have benefits and you have 401k.

He’s like, this is what, and we had not, we were engaged to be married on April 26. This was March. So I called him back and I said, I’ll take the interview. And so the next day my sister drove me up to New Jersey, spent the night, and then the next day I went to interview with the vice president of food and beverage.

When I got back to Tarboro, there was an offer letter in my email. And so we got married on April 26 and then on April 27th, Steven drove me to New Jersey. I cried the entire way, and he dropped me off for good, like that Wednesday. And they had arranged for me to live in like a residency. And they’d gotten me a rental car.

We started, we were in my parents’ car, Steven drove up in my parents’ car. And, we lived for 17 months apart. Yeah. Wow. Actually it was like 19 months or 20 months. 

Courtney: While I got this program up and going?

Inez: Well, I got pregnant. Oh, who says phone sex is safe. Nothing is safe. yeah. And but it brought you back to NC. And by the time I got back in July ’04, I was eight and a half months pregnant and Steven had shaped On the Square and I mean, he had regulars, he had eliminated breakfast. He couldn’t wait to do that. He’d gotten a point of sale; he’d hired a sous chef and everything. The food was amazing, food’s always been amazing.

The service was like, you know what all you could do for being in Eastern North Carolina, that’s not fair, but being in a small town where people don’t think of service as something as important. 

Dana: They don’t have that expectation. It should be in a nice restaurant. 

Courtney: And they’ve never really been modeled on. Just doing what they know.

Inez: Nothing, you know? And so, had Cynthia in September, September 12th, I might add like part of my healing, and just dove into the service aspect, and the wine part. And, you know, we’ve trained a couple sommeliers from Tarboro who’ve moved on, which is really cool.

Courtney: Who knew that sommeliers is or come from Tarboro?

Inez: Right, exactly. And so it’s just been a, and then we call on the Square our first baby. Yeah, she’s 19. Just barely an adult. Yeah, exactly. But to almost, or so in 2008 we bought a 10,000 square foot building two blocks from the restaurant because everybody said On the Square had outgrown the space and everybody remembers what happened 2008. Nobody wanted to invest in a restaurant period or yet much less one in Edgecombe County. Yeah, so Steve and I are just sitting on this building, I mean, bad times, and we’d always followed what Duck Rabbit was doing in Farmville, but in 2010 Mother Earth opened up in Kinston we’re like this place would be a great brewery.

And so we called a friend of mine from Tarboro, who had moved up to Philadelphia, like Franklin when you’re home for Christmas next, come look at this building and bring us meet when y’all come to Tarboro. I play sooner rather than later, gorgeous building. And it’s old brick, really charming. And Franklin is like, this is amazing. But yeah, just let me know if you raise the money. Raise the money, then, then come back and talk to me. And it took forever. And we 

Courtney: Like over a year probably. Or years, cause it was a long bounce back from 2008. It wasn’t like until like ’12, ’13, that things started getting warm and it was hard to get financing.

Inez: So we wrote the business plan in ’12. Mm. Started an Indiegogo campaign in ’13. Okay. Raise some money to get a lawyer to do like the bylaws and the shareholder agreement. And then from that ’13 to late ’14, we raised the first round of capital. Can’t start construction until you have the capital, right. So we didn’t start the construction until almost ’15.

We modeled our business plan after Duck Rabbit, which was primarily wholesale. Like, you know, we just need the wholesale assets. So we just opened up a production facility in February of ’16. No retail. Yeah. Well, the number of breweries had tripled since we write the business plan in 2012. Right? So it went from 75 to like over 215 or whatever.

And I was like, we’re screwed. We have no money. I mean, we’ve missed the curb. And so I knew the only way we could even like do anything was to now open up a tap room. And I remember sending the initial investors this email, and I was like, yeah, I know a lot more than I knew almost six years ago, but I was so ashamed.

I felt so ashamed, you know, and like a total failure. Well on so many levels, like, I’ve let shareholders down, but like I’ve let my family down. Right, and so I sent an email and said, you know, the truth is we’re out of money. We need to open up this tap room and I’m going to have to raise more money. So I just need to tell y’all that’s what it’s going to be like. 

Courtney: It’s you’re basically saying like, I’m diluting your investment. 

Inez: Well, luckily, we had reserved, okay. So it was the same price per share. But, in Eastern North Carolina people go in for 25,000, that’s a lot of their, a lot of money. And so I’ll never forget within like 10 minutes of sending out that email, I got three and, two initial investors and one like brother-in-law investor $125,000 commitment. And I was like, yeah, thanks. 

Courtney: They just believed in you, 

Inez: And that was really, you know, it was great. 

Dana: Made you feel like you obviously did something right. And that even though that feeling of shame and failure, there was obviously something so successful about the two of you that they believed that whatever you asked, they knew you would use it wisely and correctly. 

Inez: Well, definitely correctly. I don’t know about wisely. I tried. 

Courtney: Wisdom only comes in hindsight. I 100% believe. And it’s just a little bit of luck and tenacity that gets you to the point where you can even look back and have the wisdom. Do you know what I mean? You got to be a hard worker. You got to have a little bit of luck. 

Inez: And you can’t give up, I mean, last week I was like, I give up, I give up, but then I’m like, I wake up the next day. I’m like go away. No, that’s not what we do like right. We hustle, hustle, hustle. And so we got the taproom open in June of ’16.

The great part of that is we have two birthdays every year. Yeah, two anniversaries. And I left the restaurant probably, June of ’16, and just focus full-time on the brewery. 

Courtney: Yeah. 

Inez: And then we opened literally a year later, a satellite spot in the Rocky Mount Mills campus called TBC west, where we, have like a little pilot brewing system.

Dana: What a long journey, and I really love that. The story, like the authenticity of it, because I think that, and one of the things that we try to fight this, the myth that entrepreneurship and success happens overnight.

And I think that, you know, obviously a lot of life was lived in between the start and these past 19 years, a lot of healing, a lot of getting back to like who you are and kind of, you know, I mean, every, your whole life changed in an instant. You know, so I think that that’s just like a really, it’s a really beautiful, really beautiful story. And it’s such a great story of the human spirit. 

Courtney: Because you could have gone any direction, anything. A lot of people went in a really, really dark place. Yeah, you know, and I’m not saying there wasn’t dark moments for you, but you know, just that, that general like spirit and will to do and create and be, I think it’s really amazing.

Courtney: I love that, circling back 20 years and kind of sharing like your journal basically, and like your thoughts and going through that. Probably very healing for you, but very healing for lots of other people who experienced that. 

Inez: It’s, it’s been very healing. I didn’t expect it to be, what it has been. 

Dana: I think too, when you think about something in terms of time, cause time, time does help, no matter what. 

Inez: Yeah, it does. 

Dana: I mean, grief never really goes away, right, but time does help it become a little less sharp, but I think that when you are experienced something or you put something out there and you share maybe a part of story you haven’t shared before, or you share with somebody else, you like it’s even more healing happens after that.

And when you, when you, sometimes you think, oh, I thought I was over it. Like I thought I was fine. Like I thought I wasn’t going to bring these things back up, but it does. And I think it always knits you back together just a little bit more. And I think that’s what I love about memoirs is what I love about things is someone’s going to read this, even if it’s just one person that reads this book and that does that for them. It’s very meaningful, right? 

Inez: Yeah. Well that I will share and I haven’t really told anyone this, but I don’t know, seven or eight years ago when I was really adamant about getting this book out. One of my friends had just written a book, cookbook and she said, let me get you in touch with my publisher, and so she sent an introductory email and he, it was a big publisher. He said he could speak with me on like a 7:30 on a Wednesday night. And I got on the phone with him. 

And before I could even like explain myself. He was like, nobody’s going to read this. Nobody reads memoirs. You don’t, nobody knows who you are. I mean, like, it took everything in my body like, but I was like, wow, okay. And he’s like, yeah. I mean, I appreciate her making the, the thing, but she’s, she’s famous. You’re not famous.

And I was like, okay. And I will never forget. He said, nobody reads memoirs. I thought I read memoirs really like memoirs, and maybe I’m nobody, right. And I, and it stalled me. I let it stall me. And I remember thinking what if he’s right. And I didn’t come back from that until ’19, 2019. I went to a women’s leadership conference in California and was seated beside this woman who had written books on Napa.

So they’re nonfiction. And I was like, can I pick your brain? And, and I told her, I said, I’ve got this book. I really want to do it, but just I’m scared. I don’t know how to. And she’s like, you got to do it. She’s like, you got to do it. And here she is, she doesn’t know me. She could have chosen to be like, eh. She would check in with me. I met her once night, text me, hey, how’s that book coming? Hey, she would send me emails on self-publishing. She took time to tell me what the pros and cons were of self-publishing. 

I mean, and I think about like, I do give her a lot of credit in like getting me out of that hole, I haven’t thought about that man for a long time, but it did take something from it, it broke my spirit a little bit, you know, and going back to like, 

Courtney: The expert you’re talking to a supposed expert, right. So like he knows he’s in the know. 

Inez: He knows. He sells billions of books, but like, to your point, like, it doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t just, doesn’t like, you know, and just got to keep going. 

Courtney: It’s brutal though, yeah. So what advice would you give someone that’s maybe been through something devastating, but they want to start like that next chapter in their entrepreneurship journey?

Inez: Therapy. Therapy is like my favorite. Yeah. You know, and, and going back to your, the time thing, like it’s okay to step back and like do something maybe in your field that doesn’t have the pressure or the like responsibility, or maybe something like we’ve said for so long, you have to do what you said you were going to do when you’re 22 years old, and bullshit.

It’s bullshit. You can change your mind whenever you want. This brewery while I love it very much and I want it to succeed. It does not define me. Right. Like if I wanted to, I could say, hey everybody, I’m going to go teach preschool. Right? Like I can do whatever I want. I make that choice. And so be comfortable when you are grieving or when you are like dealing with something, a loss of you know, the business that you loved, right?

Like, God forbid, you know, a family member or whatever, just like be good to yourself and let yourself know you deserve this time to mourn, grieve. You know, you’re not expected to like, create something great immediately after, right. Like just be good to yourself and let yourself take the time to process, right.

I mean, and I think as women, unfortunately, we do like define ourselves more by our failures than our successes. Like I can, yeah. I could spend two hours telling everything I failed at. I could probably not think that long about what I’ve succeeded. 

Courtney: Yeah.

Dana: Well, there’s one question I’d like to ask everybody, and this can kind of coincide with maybe like, what is the hardest part or what was maybe what you consider your oh, shit moment.

Courtney: In the entrepreneurship as you’re like building the restaurant or as you’re building the brewery and you maybe, I mean, you might, you shared a little bit about the investor situation. Would that be your biggest oh, shit moment?

Inez: I think the, oh, shit moment for me in regards to the brewery, and I don’t think I would have done it differently in that, you know, I could’ve gone into a strip mall with a three-barrel system and bank finance, the whole thing. Just kind of moved a little bit slower, but we took this beautiful, old building that cost way more than we ever anticipated. And we, we created a huge system, a 20-barrel system.

We probably should have done like a 5 barrel, you know, you know, and there’s nothing to do about it right now, right. So like, I’ve just got to like laser focus on sales and yeah. And I, you know, the other shit is I had no idea how hard it was to sell. I went from people blowing my phone up for a reservation to people crossing the street.

So they didn’t have to talk to me about me asking where you put my beer on tap. And you know, and y’all probably know this too. Like all these friends that said, oh, we’re going to put your beer on tap. No. I mean, it just doesn’t work out that way all the time. Right. 

Dana: That’s like a whole another podcast. I feel like it’s I think it’s the, how relationships change when you become a business owner and especially when maybe who you thought was your biggest cheerleader actually isn’t and how things change even with people that are. Like you always say, family is complicated, right? So family business is always very complicated. 

Courtney: But you know, you’re in business partnership with your husband. 

Dana: Right, but even those relationships that time gets strained and cause in the, in the moment you’re like, oh, we can survive. This. It’ll be fine.

Like we’re sisters first. And you know, but then I think stress, I think money, I think time. It all clouds what that relationship is and yeah, but it’s hard. But I mean, I feel like that’s like a whole therapy session of like, right. 

Inez: Well people always think they could have done it better. But they’re not in it. 

Dana: They’re not in it. Right. Like they didn’t have this, they didn’t have the same information. They didn’t have the same experience and have the same circumstances. That is the problem, even like judging other people. Even for us, when you look at the like a new mom, right.

And you’re like, I wouldn’t have done it that way. Like, but you don’t know their life. Like you don’t know the circumstances of, of how that pregnancy was or that birth was, or their relationship with their spouse or whatever. Like, all you can put on is the view that you have with your life and your experience. And that’s not everybody else’s experience. So your opinion is invalid. 

Inez: It does matter. And I, I go to a lot of sporting events and so I hear all these fricking people yelling at coaches like. You don’t know, you’re not down there coaching. For me, perspective, like I can see it in so, yeah. And, and I’m a big public-school supporter.

When I see these parents ripped down teachers, admin, and just w we’re going to move to this, you know, I just think you’re never going to make it better. You just go in and say, how do I support you? How do I do you need now? Right. Like I think about it all the time, like in anything. People are very quick to get their opinion. Yeah, and to judge. 

Courtney: Yeah. It’s a bummer. It is. Well, that just confirms the are non-investor route. Cause there was times where like this would be easier than investor, but then I was like, I’d have to listen to somebody else’s opinion about this. And I don’t want to, this is enough.

Wow. Congratulations. I feel like we could talk for forever. Now. We, we were going to have to have you out again, but yes. Congratulations on your book and all the success. You can’t wait to get to Tarboro and see this beautiful building for ourselves and try the food, yes. 

Dana: But where can people get your book? How can they connect with you guys? How can they support, try out this beer? Just so you know we’re, we’re drinking home for the holidays. It’s very, very, very yummy. It would be perfect to add to your holiday menu. Yeah, it’s so good. It’s so good. Yeah. So where can they find all that stuff? 

Inez: Okay. So, if you want to buy the book, you can buy it at TBC west in Rocky Mount, or you can come a little further east to On the Square, Rusty’s gift shop or Tarboro Brewing Company. I like to promote independent bookstores, such as McEntire’s and Farrington village. Scuppernong in Greensboro. 

And then the beer, I mean, we’d love for you to come and just drink a pint with us and take home some four packs or six packs. But I’m going to give a big shout out to Peace Street Market in Raleigh for today. Awesome. 

Dana: Yeah. Well, thank 

Courtney: you so much. It’s been a great, that’s a wonderful, so fun.

Inez: Yeah. Thank you so much. 

Dana: Thanks everyone for gathering this a day to talk about the hustle. For our episode with Inez, we are drinking Tarboro Brewing Company’s new Home for the Holiday spiced ale. You can get yourself with the link in our show notes. We hope you’ll get the chance to drink it this week and cheers to acknowledging your successes. 

To learn more about Inez Ribustello and her business, visit tarborobrewingcompany.com, onthesquarenc.com or follow on Instagram at tarborobrewingcompany at onthesquare, or follow her personal at inezribustello. You can purchase and read more about Inez’s his book, Life after Windows at the list of retailers in our show notes. 

Courtney: And to learn more about our hustles visit canddevents.com anthemhouse.com. thebradfordnc.com and hustleandgather.com or follow us on Instagram @ canddevents, at anthem.house at thebradfordnc, or at hustleandgather. And if you liked the show, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. This 

Dana: This podcast is a production of Earfluence. I’m Dana 

Courtney: and I’m Courtney. 

Dana: And we’ll talk to you next time on Hustle + Gather.