In episode 56 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden welcomes the Mayor of Annapolis, Maryland, Mayor Gavin Buckley as they discuss his accessibility and his background as both a politician and a businessman, highlighting the importance of problem-solving skills in politics.
Tune in to hear more about Mayor Gavin Buckley’s journey and insights into leadership and entrepreneurship.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:10] Accomplished Businessman in Politics.
[00:13:49] Small City Charm and Growth.
[00:21:46] Coffee Shop Business Journey.
[00:38:36] Building Parks for Community Advancement.
[00:42:57] Environmental Challenges and Flood Preparation.
[00:45:27] Urban Resilience and Private Investment.
[00:51:00] Saving Land from Development.
[00:58:42] Advice for Young Entrepreneurs.
[01:01:22] The Need for More Housing.
[01:04:38] Connecting Bike Trails Behind Businesses.
[01:10:50] Electric Ferry Innovations.
[01:12:25] Embracing Water in Urban Lifestyle.
[01:18:29] Unique Spots in One Town.
In this episode, Ken Baden and Mayor Gavin Buckley highlights the success of harnessing private investment for public projects, showcasing how collaboration between the private sector and government can lead to innovative solutions and sustainable funding models for infrastructure development.
By leveraging public-private partnerships, Mayor Buckley demonstrates a forward-thinking and collaborative mindset that prioritizes the well-being and future sustainability of Annapolis. This strategy not only fosters economic growth but also ensures that infrastructure projects are implemented efficiently and effectively, benefiting the community as a whole.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheKenBaden
Mayor Gavin Buckley
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gavin4annapolis/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GavinBuckley4Annapolis/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-buckley-4a006228/
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
Gavin Buckley: https://gavin4annapolis.com/
Welcome to the kitchen table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
All right. Welcome back to another episode of the kitchen table podcast for business is done. And I know I say this every episode, but we do have a very special, arguably the most special guest that I think, and this is going to actually, uh, unfortunately sort of, sort of downplay some of our other guests. I love every single one of you all. But we have the mayor of Annapolis, our great state of Maryland's capital, in studio today. And I'm so excited about that. So first of all, thank you so much for coming down here. How are you doing today? I mean, you're dressed to the nines.
Yep, yep. I feel great. Thank you for having me on. You know, I love what you do. I love this kind of platform to get the message out, you know.
Well, thank you for being so accessible. You mentioned that. You were like, hey, I'm a pretty accessible mayor. We weren't as How can I put this? I wasn't so confident that this was going to happen because I'm like, the mayor is going to come here on the podcast. We get tons of, we've had, I don't know if you know who any of these folks are, but they're very much like the influencer types and stuff. And look, they've got million plus followers, but politicians, we haven't had a whole lot of that. So I was like, man, but you are not just a politician, not that it's to minimize what you've accomplished. I mean, my God, you're mayor of one of the most beautiful cities in all of America. You have an awesome story that I can't wait to hear. But you're also an accomplished businessman and entrepreneur.
I think that's important in politics to have people that have had that kind of experience. Because if you're an entrepreneur, you're a problem solver, right? You don't expect somebody to solve your problems. And so I think when you bring that skill into politics, it's helpful. And a lot of people that I really respect in politics haven't come from a political background. They just wanted to get in and try to make some change happen. And I think that's for the better.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I know several of your businesses. I mean, the one that really comes to mind is just Tsunami because it's one of my favorites. And I had been told by just some guys randomly that had come here and probably worked in your restaurant and worked for myself and roofing or tried it. But anyone who's ever mentioned your name that I didn't know was Mayor Buckley. I thought it was just owner of this business. And he was, oh, yeah, he's a super cool guy, super nice guy. So when I found out you were the mayor, I was like, oh, wow, is that the same guy? And I didn't connect the dots. But that's really cool that you have these businesses in the capital, in the state that you are the mayor.
Yeah, no, I love it. I feel really lucky, too, to have to be the mayor of such a great town. There's so much to work with in Annapolis. And you just needed someone to connect the pieces. And I think that that's what we've tried to do over the last six years. I've got a couple more years to finish out. And there's going to be a lot of great changes before we go. And I'll be proud of the work we've done. And I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of these things that we've been talking about for a long time come out of the ground.
Yeah. I can't imagine what that must be like. I know this is your second term. I know that you're I guess in the middle of the second term, should I say, or the back leg. But I also know that you didn't just, you know, you, I know you came over to Annapolis in 92, is that correct? And so if you guys can't tell, he's got the cool accent. But it might be a little, because it's South African than Australian. So what would you say? Is it more South African, Australian, or a little bit of both?
Yeah, I really don't consider myself South African. My dad, who I didn't really know that well, but I'm not sure what sort of podcast this is. It's as open as you want it to be. My mom got knocked up in London when she was young. And back in the day, you would go away and have kids. And that's kind of... What our parents' generation, because there's a lot of shame around that. And so my dad was a miner, and he would chase the work around the world. He was a guy that did explosives, and he would go to different sites and just live on the mine site. It was a rough life, and especially a rough life for my mom. And so my dad got a job in South Africa, and they left London, and they went to South Africa. And then my poor mom. had twins. And back in the day, you didn't know if you were having twins. There was no ultrasounds to test whether there are one or two kids in there. So, you know, my mom had second child, you know, two kids. And then pretty much my dad went into the mining and drinking beer and, you know, had to left my mom. That's a great trade. And twins, you know, in the outback of parts of South Africa. And it was a pretty, pretty big shock for her. And I think we didn't last too long there. And then We moved back to London, and then we were moving on to Australia. And then we got to Australia, and my dad took off.
Did he go back? Well, I don't know. You may not know, I guess. I guess it doesn't matter.
He took off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I looked him up later in life, but it was an interesting. He'd got a lot of baby mamas all over the world. So it was a fun story. If we had time, I'd tell you the whole story.
I'm sure that's a whole episode in itself. We might have to get you back on just to hear that one. So you don't really consider yourself, I get that. That makes total sense. So that, that's actually a really cool story because you've probably seen like, you look you up, the Wikipedia is like, Oh, you know, South African born and then Australian. But most people probably don't know that part of the whole South Africa story. So.
Yeah. I mean, I grew up in Australia. I, you know, uh, you know, went to school in Australia and then I left. Um, and I grew up in like, Not on the beach in Australia. I grew up in like a pretty working class town. And people think you grow up in Australia and you're surfing every day. Yeah, that's what I assumed. I had to catch two buses to get to the beach. And we were close to the airport, a lot of industry. So I did actually want to get out of Australia when I was young, even though I had a pretty ideal life. Because my mom spoiled me, of course. Your single mom takes care of you. But I did want to see the world. And I think that's a lot of Australians leave and stay away for a long time. I didn't think I would stay away as long as I've stayed away. But now I consider myself more American than Australian.
Yeah. So when you left, did you come straight to America? Or did you go see some stuff first?
Yeah, I did around the world stuff. And then I sort of picked up boats and did a lot of sailing. would come to America and work in bars, and then I would leave America with some money in my pocket and spend the summer in Europe and then come back to America again. And I did that a few times. And then the path that took me to Annapolis is, you know, I've I got a boat with a buddy of mine, and we were going to sail back to Europe on a 41-foot sailboat, because I'd already done a 32-foot sailboat crossing years earlier. Oh, wow. But we didn't have a great boat. So we got to Bermuda, and then we decided we wouldn't do the crossing, and we came back into the Chesapeake Bay. And then I sailed into Annapolis.
On this boat and then you know came into town and fell in love and that's so funny because when you said sailing I was gonna make a joke like oh well that explains how you got to Annapolis and then that's quite literally And for those of you who don't know that are watching this because you know, we've got a pretty diverse Demographic summer here local and some folks are in Texas right like Annapolis is the quintessential They're known for a couple things crab cakes, you know, probably boats and or sailing and Navy right like so Uh, which maybe is boats. So the fact that he mentioned sailing, I'm like, that's probably why I ended up in Annapolis, but it's quite literally why you ended up in Annapolis. Exactly. That's awesome, man. So you're an accomplished sailor. So is that something you still do?
Um, I was, you know, a crew more, I wouldn't say that I'm like some expert sailor, but I, I've done a lot of miles. And so, you know, um, But I usually was a deckhand more than a skipper. And I wasn't a racer, so I never really got into the Annapolis racing scene or anything like that. It was more a way to move around the world. And so it was a pretty exciting way. To sail across the Atlantic in a 32-foot boat is a pretty cool thing, I think. I might not do it now, I'm a bit older, but when I was young and dumb and 21 or 22, it seemed like a cool... Are you still an avid sailor or boater? I'm on the water a lot, but not sailing. Okay, you got some engines in those boats these days? Yeah, yeah. I'm like, who's got time to sail? I got a two-hour window, I gotta get in, get out.
Yes, sir. Busy man. We ever see your boat on the infamous Ego Alley?
So I have, you know, a boat that I come to work on a couple of days a week, and I... I can come to the end of my street, and I've got a big inflatable. So it's a 17-foot rig. And so it can take sort of nine people. But I try to be on the water as an example of a mayor of one of the most important maritime cities in America. And so there's a bit of controversy around the boat that I have now. the headline in the paper read dinghy gate because I upgraded my boat in the last boat show. And the place where I usually keep it is only reserved for 12 or 13 foot boats. And I got a 17 foot boat because I'm doing a lot of waterfront initiatives and pulling down a lot of money for the city's improvements on those fronts. So I need to take delegates out, DNR people, FEMA people, different stakeholders and I need to show them Annapolis from the water side. And so I made that decision. And when I deputized my boat, some people lost it, you know? Yeah.
It's not officially the right size. Okay. Oh my gosh.
First world Annapolis problem.
There you go. Yes, sir. Big time. First world Annapolis problems. We're going to measure every foot of that boat and make sure it's compliant. I just think that's so cool, man. I mean, getting to spend your days like, and it's a very, I'm sure it's a, a gross understate, like a gross, what's the word I'm looking for? It's probably making your job out to be way easier than it is. Like it's not all sailing around on boats and showing people like, you know, Hey, we need money for this. I'm sure that's probably the highlight, but you know, on a day to day, I'm sure it's really stressful being mayor of one of the, I mean, we've got one of the highest concentrations of government workers in the nation in our state. And then you have Annapolis, which is the capital of Maryland. I can only imagine how busy. I mean, you are and you're a freaking business owner. And I am a young, well, younger entrepreneur. I have a couple companies, but I've recently had to like put the balls on everything other than just this one, because we're in our scale year and we're trying to attract private equity here in the next few, uh, hopefully by the end of this year, but I just didn't have the time. So I can't tell you how much, I can't wait to ask how in the world you have the time to just have multiple businesses and be the mayor of our capital? I mean, I could listen to you teach a tech class on time management. Like, this could be the rest of the show. For me, selfishly, how do you do that?
I think that when you are elected, you have to not be involved in your businesses. So they are kind of pretty separate from my life now and probably, you know, speak to my partners. And we have amazing working partners that do the work, and that I trust 100%. And we're all still best friends. I'm going on a dad snowboarding trip we do with the kids on Friday with one of my partners. So we all stay pretty close, but I have to kind of stay removed. And so I do keep up with the numbers and stuff like that. You know, we've done pretty well. We all came through COVID. I think, you know, being a small business owner, that helped me navigate COVID for the whole of the city. I think we didn't have the vacancies that you saw in other cities. There's not a lot of shuttered businesses. In fact, during COVID, you know, the city was opening new businesses and new restaurants all the time. So, you know, we've had a good energy and I think, through COVID or maybe even through the Amazonification of the country, I think small cities and main streets are thriving because I think that they're real and that's a place to go and get human interaction and get out of your screen and ride a bike and be in a scale place and actually be around humans. And, and, um, I think that you, you do need that, you know? And so I think, and we've got a great city and a great example of that.
Yeah, we do have a great city. It's bad. It's my favorite. Uh, and I mean, I've got a little bit of a bias, but Annapolis is again, for those of you all don't know, Annapolis is very quaint, very, it's, it's this, it's old. If you've ever been to old town Alexandria, it's like a microcosm of that, but it's its own thing. It's the water, it's everything. It's just, It's the perfect mix of just the old town, downtown, but it's not busy like other places. It's not like DC, you know, I came and grew up 30 minutes south of DC and that's just like chaos all the time. My wife is an attorney. She still works in DC. It's just, it's literally just this beautiful, it's like the perfect mix of city and just, water and all the things you could want. But what it does have is a thriving, thriving, it's like, to me, the main, to me, the main resource of employment, or what's the word I'd be looking for here? The main place of employment is probably like restaurants. I mean, it just has a restaurant like every five feet, I feel like. And one thing you were able to do, and you mentioned this, was during COVID, everything shut down. Nobody knew where they could go. Nobody knew what we could do. My wife and I, At the time I was living at the James apartment complex, right there off of Admiral Cochran in Annapolis. And I had just opened my business, this business, and we were working out of, well, there was two businesses at the time, but this one was mine in my name and it was brand new. And then COVID hits and we're like, are we essential? Are we not? You know what I mean? Like, are we going to be able to do roofs, roofing? We're not really talking to anybody. So we're working out of the apartment area's basement. Uh, but my wife would come up from Southern Maryland, who was at the time, my girlfriend, because we could still go downtown. We could still go out because you very quickly and very resourcefully made the downtown experience, arguably more fun. I'm just saying like you open up the entire, you shut and I'm just going to give you all the credit because I, you know, I don't know how all of this works, but I'll have to be the mayor. So, I mean, like, I feel like, you know, your initiatives and you were, you're making happen. all these things of, you were already talking about this before the show, so I know some of these things, but what he was able to do was essentially shut down streets, move everything outside, somehow get through the logistics of being able to drink outside even, right? Like people were big fans of that. They loved that. That was a blast. And nobody wanted that to stop, right? So it was like in the summer and we were able to come out here and just enjoy ourselves. And my wife and I fell in love right there Actually, the same street that Tsunami's on, which I believe is West. We were at a little restaurant there, El Toro Bravo. I mean, I know all of it, you know what I mean? And like, we were out there and it's just like, that's the day that she's like, all right, yeah, that's when, because I was chasing her around. She was like in, out. We may or may not have dated a long time ago and I wasn't the best guy back then. So she was like, I don't know. But I personally want to thank you, one, for handling that so well, because had you not, I wouldn't have been able, I think, to score the dates that I scored with my now wife. Two, the ambiance and the atmosphere of downtown Annapolis in that time, it was just like the perfect time. And you handled that like beautifully, you really did. And you kept all, you saved a lot of people because honestly, I was like, man, how? I thought Annapolis was going to crash. I really did. Because I mean, if the restaurants went, that's 90 plus percent, I think, of the downtown heart of Annapolis. I mean, maybe 80. I don't know, do you have any ratio? It's a lot of restaurants.
There's a lot of restaurants. Um, but we were strategic. So no, no one knew what was happening. This is, you know, historic, uh, an historic event. Um, and then there was the layers of government were tricky and communication. So the governor's office wasn't always communicating with the County executives who weren't always communicating with the city. Um, but so what I did initially is because we couldn't be inside is we organized these curbside chats. So we went to the five shopping precincts in the city, and we're only eight square miles, so we went to Eastport, to West Annapolis, to West Street, to Main Street, and we got the businesses to come outside and chat with us on the curbside, because we had to be distant from either. And from that, we worked on a strategy to get people to the resources they needed. We needed to get people to CARES money, have them lay out a plan of how much money they're losing or whatever that is. And then we kept that communication tool going. And then we knew that as soon as the governor would let us reopen, that they were only going to let us reopen outside. So how could we have the businesses ready to open their outside and sell to-go food as quick as possible and sell to-go drinks and all that sort of stuff? And so one of the things I did as a business owner is I was part of starting a thing called Dining Under the Stars on West Street, which is a time on Wednesday night and now on Saturday night that we close the first block of West Street. You can see the state capital from West Street. You can see Church Circle. It's a beautiful backdrop, a very historic buildings and red brick sidewalks and streets. And so what we did is we told the businesses, we're going to do a citywide dining under the stars, not just on West Street. We're going to do it all over the city. So you need to be permitted and ready and have, you know, your seating and your expansion plan ready. And we need to see that plan. And so pretty much the day after the governor put out the notice that we can reopen our businesses, outdoors at least, we moved into action. And so I think we were leading the state on mobilizing our outdoors. And if you look around Annapolis, you'd see there's not a lot of businesses that were shuttered through that. I say this all the time. Even during COVID, instead of businesses closing down, we were opening new businesses. And I'm proud of that.
Yeah. We saw firsthand. I mean, again, at first I was like, man, Annapolis is like most restaurants, right. Or just small businesses. That's, what's so cool about Annapolis. If you walk up and down, you know, the, the, really the whole town of the downtown Annapolis, which again, depends on where you're from. And when you say downtown, right, like DC, like you can get to and from most places in downtown Annapolis pretty quick, but it's a lot of. It's not a lot of like chains or anything to me. It's a lot of mom and pop, a lot of, uh, small businesses. And so to have a mayor that is small business centric, um, it's just so cool, man. I mean, you were, and I want to circle back a little bit because of course we have a focus here on business and entrepreneurship and that you mentioned you have partners that, you know, or help you with those things. So that affords you the opportunity to be mayor, but that didn't just happen. Right. Like you came up and put things in place and delegated and did the things necessary with partners to have something almost autonomous to where you could step away. Right. And like, I know that that is a lot. That's what I'm trying to do currently. So it's easier said than done. Uh, so how long did it take you? Can you take us through that journey of, okay, I got to America in 92. Uh, was it politics first? Was it business first? Was it a mix of both? Or did you get right into it? Because you mentioned you're a bartender. Was it like nightlife and you were attracted to, okay, I'm going to open a bar, I'm going to open a restaurant, I'm going to open both. How'd that happen?
Yeah, so I sailed into Annapolis, I got a job as a waiter at Middleton's Tavern, and I didn't have much money. But when I was working at Middleton's Tavern, there was a vacant shop behind that tavern. And it's a historic tavern, it's a tavern where Benjamin Franklin's had a pint, it's that kind of history. So there was this vacant shop and there was no coffee shop in the city of Annapolis. This was before there was a Starbucks in DC or there was a Starbucks in Baltimore. I wanted to do what I would consider the first coffee shop in Annapolis. But it wasn't like a Starbucks. It was more a poetry reading, sit on the sofa coffee shop, which I love. I love those kind of place-making coffee shops. They're terrible business models, so it's not a great way to make money. But it's a labor of love. We'd have jazz on a Saturday morning for brunches. But people would also sit around with a $1 cup of coffee and get free refills for six hours. So not a great business model. But from that, I sold that business, moved to Australia for a little while with my wife. She did some grad school there. And then when we came back, we came back to Annapolis. And we wanted to start. We'd started a version of Tsunami in Australia while we were there. We sold that, and we wanted to do a similar idea here. And West Street was a place that had kind of been one of the main arteries of the city. It had its cinemas and grocery stores, but it had kind of fallen on hard times. And so even if you go to the Rams Head, which is a really popular place on the first block of West Street, There was issues on West Street. At that time, there were hookers that worked the street there. It's really hard for you to imagine in Annapolis. And it had a reputation of, this is where you'd buy your drugs and all that. And there were a lot of vacant shops up and down that street. And so it wasn't, I don't think it was that dangerous. But for some people, they would say, oh, don't go to West Street. If your girlfriend was walking down the street at the wrong time of the day, she'd get cruised by some guys in trucks and stuff like that. So it's really hard for people to imagine that now, but it was like that. And so we went to work to open Tsunami. When we did a restaurant that was really different, we didn't do an Irish bar. We didn't do a sports bar. We did a place that was really dark and had candles, and it had different music, and it didn't have a TV. If you sat at the bar, you were looking at people on the other side of the bar, you'd have to talk to one another. And everyone wore black. Back then, there was hardly anyone wearing black in restaurants. It was a different thing for here anyway. And so it was weird. But we were successful. And we were successful enough that we got to buy part of the building. And then we bought the part of the building we were renting. And then we slowly managed to buy the whole building. And then on the back of that, we started things like the first Sunday Arts Festival, trying to change the reputation of the street. from a red light district. And when I say that, it's not like, well, it's some prolific red light district. There are three or four, five, six hookers that work the street. And you would know their names. And so you would know, you know. Maybe there's more. People come and go. But so we were successful in the first block. And then the city, we're going to tear down some buildings three or four blocks away. where currently Lemongrass and Hudson Fouquet and Metropolitan, they all sit all those restaurants a bit further up the road. And they were going to knock those buildings down before we turn them into restaurants. And they were going to build a monolithic 800-car garage on the street. And if you know anything about, or you would know by just seeing it, garages do nothing good for neighborhoods. They are empty seven nights a week, generally. They're empty. all weekend long, and they really ripped the heart out of communities. We got a great example of that in Annapolis. There was a big, huge county garage that was dumped right in the middle of a neighborhood where some of the coolest people in the world stayed when Annapolis was segregated. And we had this really cool place called Cars Beach, and I could talk about that place. We just saved the last piece of Cars Beach, and we're going to do a big heritage park out there. But there was a time in Annapolis for three decades when the coolest people in the planet came to play music here. Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Little Richard, Stevie Wonder, Hendrix, they all played a place called the beach, Cars Beach. Anyway, but when they were playing those beaches, during segregation, artists couldn't stay in the hotels downtown. But out on this place where this garage is dumped right now, There was the Dixie, the West Washington Hotel, and places that those stars have stayed. Now, they all got knocked down, and a garage got dumped on that community during urban removal, which is what the people from that community call it. So I'm not paralleling what we did on West Street to that, because it was decades earlier. But we fought to stop that garage being put there. And instead, we said, you should do a smaller garage, and let us save these nice in-scale one and two-story buildings, and we'll do some businesses. And we did Lemongrass. We did Metropolitan, a rooftop restaurant. Hudson Fouquet. You did Lemongrass? Or you and your partners? Yeah, we did, yeah. It's another one you own? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then... I'm assuming Lemongrass 2 or whatever it is. Yeah, that's all us. And like all these staples in downtown, that's you? Yeah. Now you're the mayor? That's like... Okay, that's awesome.
It's a very cool story. But from that, we did other events on West Street to try to give it that arts reputation, like do murals, and do chicken sculptures, and do different things that just gave it a little bit of edge. Talk about that music history that I just talked about. Talk about how cool this area had once been. That area was considered the Harlem of Annapolis, a very cool area, West Washington and Clay. But when it had all the old buildings, it would have been cool. But instead, it's got a 700-car garage there instead. But we're bringing some of that history about. But we would talk about that history as we moved and tried to change the reputation of the street. And then from there, we've done Dining on the Stars, First Sunday Arts Festival, massive pride parades, just different things that really gave the street a different identity. And on the back of that, people knew who I was. So that when I ran for office and people saw what we've done on West Street, that really gave me an opening to say, look, I could make some change happen here too. I'd be a good mayor. And I built on the back of that to run for office, you know, so.
Oh, well, that makes sense. Like not to mention having all of those staples, which also makes way more sense, not just that you're obviously the mayor and we were talking about then and our mutual good friend, Alex and his father, but Chuck, uh, There's just some of the coolest people ever, but they own one of the best restaurants in Annapolis. There's awesome restaurants, and I'm not taking anything away. Obviously his restaurants are amazing as well, but Vin 909 is wonderful. A little spot in Eastport.
It's my favorite. I go there for my birthday. It's my favorite too.
I go there for my birthday. We went there for my bash party. That's sort of my own restaurant. And so, and he knows all about it. He got to meet Alex. I mean, it's a, come on, man. That place is amazing. But, there's no but. But has a negative connotation. And, That explains why you're kind of plugged into that nightlife scene or that restaurant scene. Cuz Alex was like, look, man, you gotta check these places out. Annapolis is so dope in that there's all these cool places coming in that aren't chains, that are doing cool things with food and different stuff. And that seems to be relatively new, and then he was like, dude, there's even newer places coming in. And we used to always, not get along for whatever reason. And now we are, and we're like all just wanting to see this, you know, I don't know, uh, change, so to speak. I don't, I suppose it's not so much a change as it is, uh, a new wave of fresh ideas and almost an element of art to that industry. Uh, but it's so cool to see that you had a place. And what I would consider the original of that, right. Coming in with new ideas, new stuff, lemongrass tsunami, which I didn't even know was that old, to be honest with you. I didn't I mean it's very like fresh you do a good job keeping it like I've known so many people that have worked there and we love that place the food's amazing what all what besides lemongrass and tsunami you've got to have a I would imagine. Is there more?
Yeah, it's a bunch of which Lemongrass has four locations. We kind of started one in Edgewater, stopped it, and then we've just restarted again. We didn't have a liquor license when we opened, and we really shouldn't have opened it without the liquor license. We learned that quickly. And then Metropolitan that I mentioned before, and then Sailor Oyster Bar. That's, you know, our concept, our building. Didn't that have like a fire or something? Yeah, it's just going to open tomorrow. So reopen tomorrow. That's what he was talking about.
He didn't say it was the freaking mayor. He was like, yeah, good friends, man, support. When they open back up, you got to try it. On the podcast, he failed to mention that.
Well, I guess. And that place is cool because it doesn't have a kitchen. So it makes all its food with a blowtorch, a really sharp knife, a toaster oven. It sous-vides a few things. But it's a really tin sardines. And what I love about it, and it's my partner's real baby. It's his brainchild. And perhaps that's who he was talking about. Scotty, yeah. And Scott and Gab, they're our best friends as well as my other partners. But what's so fantastic about it is, and I say this a lot about downtown, and it's one of the things that I said when I ran for office, this used to be a town that was famous for oyster men and crabbers and people that work the water. But if you go downtown, you can't feel any of that, right? If you go to New England towns, waterfront towns, you can tell Lobsterman work there, right? We need some of that feel back. Now, you know, Sailor's not downtown, it's uptown, but it really is a nod to Sailor's, to Waterman, you know, to Oyster's and, you know, like that. I really love, you know, the feel of the place, you're going to love the new feel, because the new sense of fire, the new rebuild is next level. And it's such a cool atmosphere. And I like restaurants where there's atmosphere, too. I think it's so important that you care about the lighting, you care about the music, just the candles and the details. And you can see that in Sailor, and you'll see that when you guys go on your next date there. Yeah, yes, sir.
He already plugged it, but he was saying that it wasn't going to. So it opens tomorrow.
Yeah. So they're doing a kind of tons of business. This is why we live in such a great place. They had this massive fire. The restaurant was full. Everyone got out with their lives. You know, there's one of the employees, he lived in a little apartment up there. All he had left was his dog and his, you know, whatever he carried out with him that night. And then there was this massive GoFundMe. It made three GoFundMes. The community of Annapolis just came out and supported this big go fund me. So all the employees could get paid for a year. And they could still work other jobs, but they still got paid. So hopefully they'd come back after the fire and come back to Sailor. And pretty much all the employees are going to come back and work there, because they have a loyalty to Scotty and Gab. Because they knew that those guys took care of them, and the community took care of them during this terrible time. And so it's going to be great. And it's something very different for the city. And I think we need more diversity in food. I love sports bars, and I love Irish bars, and all that. But a lot of our food is the same food. And so that was what was great about doing lemongrass. I joke about this. It's almost like they'd never heard of Thai food before. Gavin, that's a great idea. How did you think of Thai food? I was like, it's almost like I went to Thailand and I brought back these recipes and, you know, have you ever heard of the pad Thai? And people thought, you know, we not invented it, but so it was really great. Cause if you weren't doing the traditional stuff and you were trying to do something different, you know, I think the town was ready and we were, we were lucky to, you know, be on the forefront of some, from new flavor, you know.
That's so cool, man. That's literally the that's the one he was like, he was like, giving us insight into some new up and coming. He's like, you got to check this place out. But it's coming back. So you guys definitely got to check that out. If you're local, or if you're in town, show Alex some love pop by then 909. But also check out tsunami. And of course, And it's sailors, right? That's all he said was sailors, right? Sailor's oyster bar.
Yeah. S O B. So, um, sailor, but sailor, we just call it sailor.
That's what he was saying as well. S O B. Sailor's oyster bar. So I have a question. You're coming towards the end and I know that you, not the end, I'm pushing you out. You've got a couple of years left, right? Two and a half. And you've done all this great stuff and I'm sure you've got like, whole bunch. I can't imagine if I were in your position, I'd be like, okay, I got two and a half years and that's going to be, you know, what can I do for this community that you clearly love? What's next? You know, what's next for mayor Buckley once he's out and because it's a second term. And as far as I know, unless you figure out something, you could, you could, perhaps you're able to, uh, I just say that in jest. I know there's no third term. So what's next? Is there a future in a next level of politics or Are we going right back into the restaurants, the businesses, the entrepreneurship, or is it just riding off into the sunset?
Too young for that. Well, there's some things I've got to get finished. So if you know much about CityDoc, we are raising CityDoc. We're building a brand new park on the waterfront. And that's going to be a barrier against sea level rise. So that park on the waterfront is going to stop the next Hurricane Isabel. It would have stopped the flooding that happened one month ago, which was the third worst flooding day in the history of the city. It's not just about sea level rise anymore. It's about catastrophic weather events. Every hurricane season, we look down to Norfolk, and we're like, is it going to be a full moon? Is the wind going to be spinning that way, this way? Is water going to get pushed up the Chesapeake Bay, into the storm drains, and up through the grates, and into the streets of Annapolis? And that's what it's been doing. for decades. So we've done a short-term idea. We had roughly 60 flooding days a year. We were known for flooding downtown. And so we came up with a short-term plan that took that down to six, seven, eight days a year. But those eight days are terrible, like happened the other day. You know, eight businesses that haven't reopened since the flooding happened a month ago. So Pips, Hot Dogs just opened just the other day. We declared a state of emergency. They could get some disaster money, and they could buy new equipment. But there's Betty & Beau's, a really cool coffee shop, which is really an amazing place. Moe's, you know, the gallery is there that haven't reopened. Some of the retail shops haven't reopened. So I need to get that finished before I leave. So my main priority is finishing the projects that we're doing. And some of the big projects, if you give me two seconds, I'd love to talk about it. Oh, I would love to hear it. There's a city dock park. We're going to do a next level park, which will be built around this amazing fountain, this heritage tolerance fountain, we're calling it. And I will go into politics a little bit after this. Way into the city, there's a piece of land that we've petitioned the Naval Academy and the state to give to the city. And that piece of land we're going to make into a gateway park. And it's going to be called the Jimmy Carter and John McCain Gateway Park because people need to know a president went to school in Annapolis, but also it harkens back to a time when Republicans and Democrats could talk to each other and we need more of that right now. And I think Maryland can lead the way. I had a great relationship with Governor Hogan. I have a great relationship with Governor Moore. And we got high hopes for Governor Moore. We think he's got all the goods, right?
I think he could bridge that by the way. I think that he's just because like, I won't get into too much into politics. My wife's the one you need to talk to when it comes to politics. That's just way above. But traditionally, she explains to me and tells me my politics, which is, you know, because I don't know them. She's like, traditionally, you would be what would be traditionally referred to as a Democrat. But now, and again, this may be, but like, you know, she would look at you and say, oh man, he's this old school, like cool Democrats, which she says like, you know, like JFK, she loves the Kennedys. You know what I mean? So that's a huge, I think, compliment to yourself because I mean, the Kennedys are awesome. But she, She's right, man. It seems like, not just she, you just mentioned it, everybody knows there's this divisive, I don't know, it's so weird. What happened? How'd that even happen where we can't even, I don't know, have conversations? I think that he just seems to be such a cool guy that, I don't know, it doesn't matter what line you tow on politics, it's just like, this guy's a cool guy. I think that's what, just a normal cool guy is kind of like, It's very refreshing these days, you know what I mean?
And Larry Hogan, everything that makes him popular in Maryland makes him unpopular around the country within the party. But for Wes, he's got Kennedy style. He's got Obama charisma. He's a Rhodes scholar. He's a veteran. Loves his mom. I campaigned with his mom on the bus a little. And he's got a beautiful, supportive family. And he'll tell you, look, I went into Republican parts of the state where they'd never seen a Democrat come in there, but they'd never seen even a Republican because it was such a safe area for Republicans. And he would go to these communities and they would be like, well, you know, Wes, I want you to do a 360 degree turn Because when you turn around this room, you're not going to see one Democrat or one person that's going to vote for you. And he didn't care. He was like, that's okay. You know, I just want you to know me and you know, you can, you can judge for yourself or whatever, you know, but you know, I represent everybody. And I think that that's why I think Maryland could save America. You know why I do think it's our decade? Because I work with Republicans and Wes works across the aisle to get things done. And we do it for the people. And we do it because we're proud of Maryland and because we think, as a little state, we punch way above our weight. So I love hearing him talk like that and hopefully, you know for my political stuff, you know, I'd like to Be part of his journey people ask me what I'm running for next and I go I'm running to make our governor president Whatever that means Okay, that's exactly what I was getting at next.
So whatever that means that's a great answer And he's a very like you said you listed he checks every box in on both sides of the aisle to your point You know, he's got But, you know, for me, it's just so much less about that these days, more about like this just seems like a genuine good person. I think there's a lot of those people now that are like so fed up with all the nonsense. It's just like it's so refreshing to have somebody just seems like a real, I mean, frankly, yourself, you know, come in here, taking the time with us. You're directly plugged in to the life that you're looking to make better as far as the community and the restaurant. So it's just so cool to see that. And you were mentioning some of the other initiatives and things that you were working on, which is amazing with the flood stuff. I know exactly what you're talking about. And when he says floods, it means like real, like get a little paddle boat floods, you know, like.
I've got in my kayak on a flood day. And for anyone that's been downtown Annapolis, I've paddled from the market house to the Armadillos. And then I paddled all the way across the passes. They're two of our most busy, busy bars. And I might hit the paddle on the bottom, but I don't touch bottom on the kayak. And so that's a real issue. It's not just a real issue for us. I just took a delegation to the Netherlands to see how they handle water. I got a lot of grief for it. from some people. But, you know, America, we lead the way in so many things, but not everything. And the Dutch, Netherlands is a country, you know, a similar land mass to Maryland, right? And they're below sea level, but nobody panics about flooding there because they're prepared for thousand year storms, and we're barely prepared for hundred year storms. People move around the city on these bike paths on their electric bikes or their regular bikes. There's less traffic on the road. Um, and then, you know, they design the water to go where they need the water to go. You know, we're, we're surrounded by water. It's a real issue for Maryland, you know, and, um, and, you know, we need to be on the forefront of it. You know, we, we need to, um, prepare for it. And so, And like I said, it's not about whether you believe in sea level rise or climate, the planet warming up or whatever. There's going to be more catastrophic weather events coming our way. And so you've got to be ahead of that. And so our city dock is going to be ahead of that. When we finish that park, if another Hurricane Isabel hits Annapolis, city dock will be dry. Now, we've got the rest of the city to think about because we've got 18 miles of coast to consider for the city. But City Dock and the Historic District will be protected. And then we've got to work on Eastport, and we've got to work on parts of Western Appalachia and other places that have exposure to this. But that's what your job's supposed to be. You're supposed to be preparing for those things. And that's going to be a big legacy for us. Because we currently have this parking lot on our front, on our city dock. And we're going to make that into a park. But before we made that into a park, we built a brand new garage. And the new city dock garage has an extra 180 spaces. So no one could come at me and say, oh, you can't take away parking from businesses. Because we still need the parking, right? moved it just up the street a little bit and to higher ground. And then we used it. We did a private-public partnership on that garage. We ground leased it to a company for 30 years. And they, with us, designed it, built it. Now they operate it. And then they spun off a $25 million concession payment for future revenue. And that concession payment gave us the ability to chase more money to do the park at City Dock. So when we finish with the garage and the park, it'll be about a $90 million initiative for the city, the largest capital project in the city's entire 300-year history. We embraced the private sector. We didn't say resident good, business bad. We didn't say developer bad, environmentalist good. We said, let's harness this private investment. They have deeper pockets than us. The cost of resilience is astronomical. If you ever walk around the Naval Academy, you'll see one section that they've just finished up a project on. It's called Farragut Field. It's on the southeast corner of the Academy. It's a $36 million resiliency project. And it looks like it shouldn't be anything. It's the size of a football field and it costs $36 million. So you're not going to be able to fund resilience out of municipal budgets, maybe not even state budgets. So this has to be a moment where the private sector and government come together and make the numbers work.
It does any of this have anything to do with, uh, I know pussers is, uh, no more or will be soon. And people are up in arms about at least the local folks are like, I don't know. I'm not like I get it, but I saw the plan that they're looking to make something really nice. There's a, is this all in relation to that? Or is that just totally separate?
Well, I know a little bit about that. I had nothing to do with any of that. I did support them coming into Chop Tank because that had been vacant for 10 years. And we should have more waterfront restaurants than we do. So now we have a great waterfront restaurant that you can watch people come in down Ego Alley. You can look out to the Chesapeake Bay. You can look up historic Main Street. So it's hard to get a bad seat in that. So I supported that. The hotel, my understanding was they were looking for the tenant to do some upgrades. And I think that maybe they weren't going to do the upgrades they wanted. And so this new group have come in, and it looks pretty she-she. They'll spend money, but we'll also be able to leverage them to spend some money on resilience. So we'll be able to say, look, We're going to support that building permit, but you need to help us here. We need to get a barrier here or we need to raise this area here. You know, it's going to cost a little bit of money. We'll help you finance that. We'll have economies because we've got, we're mobilized for construction, but then they'll, they'll be, they'll help fill in a missing piece because they want to protect their milk. They're going to spend $10 million, whatever that is.
Maybe more than that, to your point. I mean, I figured it was private, but yeah. Catch all that like that. That's politics. All right, we're gonna get you in here make this nice You're gonna have to fix this and this which is also going to help everybody else. So I think it's I think it's cool I think my wife was like downtown. It's got its own ambience. I'm like It looks real nice. I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, Passa's was great and I love Rum Bar and, you know, I'm too old for it, you know, but I would go there plenty of times. Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm too old for it, man.
I get it. Trust me.
It's the busiest restaurant in the city, so I love that. You know, it's the best place to have weddings and that's the real Annapolis. St. Mary's for your ceremony. Talking about the Yacht Club? That help that whole area. Oh, yeah. Well, we're passes is in that hotel is. Yeah. We stayed in that hotel from Maryland.
Yeah. Our wedding night, we stayed in that hotel, but we didn't get to have it at the, uh, the yacht club, which is fine. Instead, we had it at the Annapolis, uh, It's the Environmental Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Oh, that's beautiful. That's great. Super cool. Super, super cool.
Do you have, well, I'm sure you're the mayor, so you've got a few things going on with, there's just so much going on here in such a small town.
Out there is where we saved that last six acres of the beach that I told you about. So that's where we're going to do this heritage. So out that direction. So it's off Edgewood Road. So you would have driven past Edgewood Road to get to your wedding venue, which is one of the most beautiful spots in a great environmental building and something we should all be proud of as Maryland, as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. But just before you go there, there's a left-hand turn to this area. And this little six acres stuck in between two developments was going to get turned into some 42 homes. But it would have had its challenges because the neighbors were mobilizing against it. We approached the developer and said, if we can find you the money up front, will you consider letting us buy the property to make it into a park to celebrate this amazing history? We're a great historic town, but sometimes I think we just tell it from one lens. I have a little issue with my hysterical foundation. And so we tell this colonial history, which is amazing, but we don't tell modern history. And so enough. And so for three decades, we had artists the same caliber for that generation of Drake or Jay-Z or Kanye. That level of artist knew where Annapolis was. James Brown met his second wife in Annapolis at Cars Beach. And so that caliber artist, you couldn't get Drake or Jay-Z or Kanye to come to Annapolis. They'd be like, where? Back in the day, Stevie Wonder would come here. Hendrix came here. They played here, which is cool. That's crazy.
Do you know who any of those guys are? You don't know who Hendrix is? Anyhow, you don't if you say maybe, but that's okay. That's all right. I know you are. That's why I'm asking. That's why I'm asking. That's why he's the youngest one in here. So camera can't see him. But anyhow, that's super cool that you're able to save that. Cause I mean, I'm big music buff myself and a lot of people don't know this, but there was a time I was singing at the, uh, Little moose lodges. Elks clubs and stuff. Mini moons ago with another local. I mean, you might know who this gentleman is. Ronnie Dove, Baltimore area. He's a 60. He's 80. And Ronnie, if you're watching this, I have nothing but love. I know he is a legend. He was a Baltimore area legend, 90. I mean, this is why I'm saying this and prefacing it. Cause I may get the age wrong. He's upper eighties, maybe lower nine, but he's still jamming. And, uh, Tassels and all because he was doing this back in like the cash days Johnny Cash days Oh, like when it was like the Johnny Cash show the Ronnie Dove show the Elvis Presley show He has the you've seen some of the pictures the guys got the tassels and everything man. Awesome guy It just so happened that I got into sales, you know, we've got a roofing focus But my background even though I installed roofs most of my background is in the in the sales end of the thing, right? I'm definitely than the labor part as well Uh, but you know, I also have some ups and downs, uh, in this, in this life of mine, you know, and so most of the time, whenever I was in trouble or things where that's when I'd come back and like save up money to get back into sales, you know, I mean, this was decade plus ago, but I mean, there was a time where I was quite literally homeless. And then everyone who watches my stuff already knows all my story, Alex is aware of my story. And some of the folks that we bring in here have similar backgrounds and we have a certain affinity for people that have kind of. come through the fire, you know what I mean? And having said that, I had a very different relationship with Annapolis. A long time ago, a long time ago, a very small section of Annapolis where I would come in, maybe on my way to Baltimore, but anyhow, we won't, Baltimore, my God. My ADHD just kicked in since I started saying that, but there was something that I was getting out of some relevance with the business, perhaps. Roger, help me, bail me out.
No?
All right, well. Music, all right, yeah, cut. No, we were talking, oh yeah, music. Ronnie Dove, Ronnie Dove, Ronnie Dove, okay. So anyhow, Ronnie is still performing and I used to perform with him. I sold, that's what I was getting into. Here we go, it came back, we're good. ADHD comes right back around every time, man. So I got my start when selling at a state farm agency, which is ironic because now we're like mortal enemies, insurance restoration roofers and insurance companies. I'll save that for another show.
My wife makes a joke about, she's like, our kids have got ADD because of you. And I'm not like diagnosed, but I'm like, I think all creative people have some form of that. Oh yeah, 100%. And then I go to my wife, okay. I said, I might have ADD, but I'll raise you an OCD. That's my joke with her. She's got OCD. Everything's got to be in a certain place. No, she says she doesn't, but I joke about that.
My wife, actually, she probably has one or two, but like you said, we all, especially creatives, but Now that I'm selling against, I guess, State Farm. I don't mean to say that in a way. We do insurance. And so insurance work, meaning if something happens like a flood, we're the guys that come in and specialize in helping to get that stuff worked through the insurance company however we can, because we can't argue policy and things like that. That's PA work. But we help them with the roofs a lot. Most people don't know they can do that, but that's where we kind of come in. And it's a love-hate relationship. Insurance companies hate us. I started way back at State Farm selling for them and Ronnie Dove was a State Farm patron. That's all. He just had insurance there. I cut a promo just like with a buddy of mine like singing some music. I'm trying to be a producer. Will you sing on these songs for me? And he gave it to my buddy who was the agent's dad. I didn't think I knew he gave it to him. He was pumping my CD in the car, man. He gave it to Ronnie and Ronnie was like, I'm going to make you a star, honey. He always said, honey. And it wasn't weird. I'm telling you, he was a cool guy and, uh, didn't, didn't succeed in the making of the star, but I did get to sing at some Elks Lodge and Moose Lodges in the local area. One time in Essex at Michael's eighth Avenue, I sung in front of like a thousand people. That was pretty cool. But I don't know what relevance any of that was. I'm certainly not in the Hendrix level or anything. I guess that was my attempt at proving to you that I'm an artsy type. I know, I know music. I don't know. Hopefully we've got all that. That's a nice embarrassing trip around ADHD town. We'll bring it right back around. Stay, stay on for a few more minutes. It'll come back. Don't worry. We won't let you down. But in all seriousness, you know, I had my little phone up here for a minute cause I had all my notes on what I wanted to ask you. And most of the time, this is very informal. We just do a few bullet points, but you know, I was a little nervous because the mayor was coming on. Uh, but we've since, Temperatures come down here. He's a very cool guy. Very nice guy. Every everything I've heard about you has proven to be true and that's in all seriousness Super cool guy big fan of all your restaurants that I didn't know. I didn't know lemongrass was you it's crazy But now I see a theme and I'm really excited about sailors that opens up tomorrow So we want to make sure that we show love anybody that's in Maryland We're gonna go in and all the Facebook groups all the local Facebook groups and go out there and support. Alex already suggested the same thing. So let's make sure we all band together and we show love and we patron Sailors or SOB, Sailors Oyster Bar and give back to our community and show those people that have had to wait a year. We still support them and go out and make sure that we pack the house. Now, I do have sort of a final thought, so to speak, or I'd really ask and digress to you. One like just for the folks listening again that are typically listening business angle and all the success you've accomplished. I can't imagine anything had been handed to you. You've been out grinding your whole, your whole life. What would be the one thing if you had to pick one major attribute attribute to say like, this is, this is what I found, whether it's stick to it, if this doesn't matter, like your parting piece of wisdom on our younger entrepreneur demographic that you could say, Hey, this is what I think is really the thing that helped me get to where I'm at. Is there anything that you can think of to kind of, in part on our audience?
I mean, I think if you just do the things that you're passionate about. So I love my job as a mayor because it's like a big, this big canvas and there's so many things that you can do. And I think that, so I would say especially local politics are really important. I mean, you can be in state politics and even county and and federal, but you can't really touch and feel the things that you do. You can't affect change, I think, as quickly. And so, you know, getting or putting pressure on local politicians to make things happen can be really effective, you know. And so, you know, I would say for me, you know, I got involved in something because I wanted to see change happen. When I leave, there's going to be a lot of different things. And I think they're going to be positive. Not everybody is going to love everything. That's the nature of change. But I would say just get involved locally. That's what I'd say.
That's an awesome piece of wisdom, both on so many levels. And I'll leave that at that. I think that's great advice. Where can we find you? or support you or any of your businesses or any other businesses or initiatives that you have that you want to shout out that we can help support, whether on Facebook or any other social media?
Well, I would just say, as a mayor, bring your businesses to Annapolis, because I'm a business-friendly mayor, and I like to get involved whenever I can help people. Because what you bring and what people bring to the town makes the city better. I never, I believe in synergy. So I don't ever, I want more restaurants. I want more retail and I want more people to move here. So, you know, that's the politics thing. You have a lot of that kind of NIMBY stuff, not in my backyard. And so we seriously need more housing in this city on all levels. And especially for young people. And we especially need to push our politicians to allow that to happen because You need to get in the game somehow. There needs to be something a person can buy, a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom or something. But when everybody's stopping every kind of development anywhere, and they're worried about traffic all the time, and they complain about this inconvenience to their life, we need people working in our restaurants. We need people working in our schools and in our hospitals. And if you push them out, and if we have to have sprawl instead going up or building stuff around transportation, having what I'm pushing, a lot of bike lane connections in between communities. When I did the Netherlands trip, they said that 60% of the trips you do in Annapolis are under five miles. And no one thinks anything of riding 10 miles to work in the rain in these countries, because we've separated people from cars. And so I'm pushing hard for that infrastructure. that separates people from fast-moving vehicles. And then I think we live in a beautiful, walkable, bikeable town. Yes, we do. But you have to make it safe. So I'm working on a lot of that. I'm working hard for a lot of housing.
I've seen that in the Ava area. That's where I live. I've seen like, pfft. There's not just, there's more apartments, like luxury apartments, which to me skew younger, but to a certain, you know what I mean? Like it's still luxury, but.
And they're not cheap too. They're going to be expensive. And I know people are worried about the traffic, but if you, we've got a corridor called the Wii that's going to connect them to downtown.
I was going to say I'm people because like Reva, I'm like, oh man, it's going to be, but at the same token, I get it. Cause I'm two, three years ago, listen, like I said, I've come, from where I would never would have thought I would own anything in Annapolis or even rent anything in Annapolis six years ago, flat broke, hopeless, homeless, strong, everything, right? Like addiction, right? Car accident, pain pill, you know that story that writes itself. But I've come back and fortunately that's all in the past. But having said that, I'm so thankful to be able to live in Annapolis. That was like my dream. So don't get me wrong. But now I find myself like the old curmudgeon, like, look at that Reva world, it's gonna be packed in there. And I know I'm a talking to everybody kind of guy. So I've got to be like close friends with the guy that owns the shell right there next to the CBS on Admiral Cochran and, well, I don't know if that's Admiral Cochran, it's the little U street, but it's right there on Reva. Yeah, across from Reva, across from CBS. But anyhow, and he's like, oh, they're putting in, it's actually my buddy, Ashley's father, Chris. with the Kumars. And so, he's like, yeah, they're putting a Wawa and all this stuff. I'm like, man, it's a busy street, man. I like that light. Time to make a left onto 301 or 97. It's a little jammed up already, but I'm sure you've got all kinds of plans for that. The bike path is super cool. I dig it, man, because to your point, those apartments aren't going to be cheap. The people that'll be filling those apartments, man, It's going to be the people that are going to want to go downtown. So I totally get it from like a socioeconomic or business, like, hey, that's the people that are going to come and patron and work at the hospitals. And they love the downtown. But are there any plans to like maybe, because technically, though, you do have Riva and two. So any plans to like do that?
Yeah, there's a connection called the WE, the West East Express. And it runs the Poplar Trail. And it runs behind Burger King and parallels West Street. And then it gets you to Double T Diner. So we need that intersection to come in. We've got to work out that piece around there. So it's a bit of a mess right now. But we will work it out. It might be some beautiful, cool bridge that just gets you over the other side of West Street. And then it's a straight run. down the Poplar Trail. So underneath the power lines there, there's going to be a beautiful trail. And then it's going to get you behind the Graduate Hotel. And then it's going to interface into Calvert Street. And then Calvert Street is the start of the Historic District. And there'll be this cool mural wall there when you go down. It'll be safe and separated from cars. And it'll be just as fast to go on it on a bike or electric bike than it will be to go down West Street during peak hour. I mean, everywhere is sort of busy during peak hour. And people complain about that. And they shake their fist at how bad the traffic is. And I'm like, have you been in DC? Yeah, that's what I say. I could show you traffic. Right, right, right. No. It's bad for 15 minutes, I'm sorry. And then if there's an accident, it's terrible. But everywhere's terrible when there's an accident. Yeah, no way.
Trust me, you won't hear that from me. Because that's why we were like, my wife and I were like, I think they think this is like traffic, traffic. This is nothing, man. I'm happy. Then we saw the building, we're like, oh. But I'm happy to see Annapolis thrive. I mean, I love this city. I love this. this whole state, but I love Annapolis. If I told her that if I was to stay here, I got big goals, man. You know what I mean? If I'm going to stay here, we got to be in Annapolis. That was the deal.
I want to keep you here. So tell me what I can do to keep you here.
You're doing it being a fan of the small businesses, man. I mean, frankly, I mentioned having two other businesses. One of them is a coaching platform for blue collar businesses called Blue Collar Ballers. And we normally have that up, but that's a different podcast. And we've got 6,000, 7,000 members in the Facebook group that just started less than a year ago. I guarantee it'll be 20 plus, maybe 30 plus. We just did a live event in Texas with a couple hundred people, but it's very diverse. And there's a lot of folks from Maryland here, but I just think there's a lot of, that's what makes America, but also Maryland awesome is that there's so many young people can start a business. way quicker than they ever anticipated. They just don't know where to start. You know what I mean? Like, they're like, what do I do? Get an LLC, get a business. You know what I mean? Like that's, it's oversimplification, but they think it's this big process. So I love that you support, you know, small businesses and make opportunities. You know, my history, I didn't think that I would be able to get the MHIC license. I was scared to try, you know what I mean? Because 10, 20, how long ago, 2010, 2010 is when everything fell apart. That one year sort of affected, like impacted the rest of my life. It was like right when I graduated and it was right when I took off the pills and then fell apart, just like all the shows. And that year I went from college grad to criminal. I mean, there was no this. Technically I did get arrested and I am a criminal, but came back nicely. But I was scared that, hey man, I've got a felony on my record. I'm not gonna be able to get that. And my wife, who's an attorney, was like, Are you sure? You know, like, let's go get the paperwork, do it. And so I'm just so thankful that Maryland is currently fighting with Virginia to get our licensing there. And now we have this business that impacts other people. People, lots of people work here, count on me and to do the right thing and to make sure that we've got Delaware, Maryland, and PA, just waiting on VA. And it's like, Maryland didn't, they were super cool to work with. There was a gentleman, Lance, that was DLLR. I don't know if, I think he's like the head of the, I don't know, but anyhow, he was very, very, uh, kind to me and understanding and patient and helped me do something that I was really, you know, six years ago, nervous. That was even something that wasn't possible. So I just want to thank you personally, like for making that available for folks like myself in the recovery community, in the, uh, I don't want to say second chance community because everybody does things that are but some people have criminal records, some people don't, some people have backgrounds and a lot of people are more affected by addiction now than probably ever. But it seems like you've done a great job with Annapolis, certainly not letting it become Baltimore or anything like that. And just being a friend to the small business man, thank you so much for that because that's what I think is the most important because people coming here, it's like young people and them being able to see like this is something that's possible. owning your own business is very possible. Annapolis, I think kind of like screams that, you know, with like all the opportunity downtown, because again, it's not changed. Yeah. I mean, it's not changed. It's you've done it yourself. So I think that's super cool. You've got the ambiance and everything else. It's a super cool town. It's the only town that I, again, it was my deal to stay in this state. It had to be Annapolis or Jay's here now. And frankly, it's, It's a wonderful area, man. And it's good for just, just about everything. It's my favorite, it's my favorite city and a city, but you're looking for DC. This isn't that, but you want the charge.
You can get to that. We've got a great airport at BWI, right? We got DC, we got New York, we got Philly when you need it. But then you've got a village here where I think, you know, it's not like everywhere. Like I feel like we have a holiday resort lifestyle, you know, that you, that, you know, We've got seasons, but still we've got the water. You've got to try to boat on the Potomac. It's a swamp. But we've got places to go on boats. You've got beaches, dog beaches. And I've got some cool electric ferry things coming in that are going to be cool. Electric ferry things? Yeah. So we just pulled down a $3 million federal grant for a little micro ferry here. And then we're looking at this kind of long haul Swedish ferry between So it brings in a lot of different things. And it'll be a, it's a, it's, it's a hydrofoil. Yeah. It's really cool. It's like a high, a small one, but the, the big long haul one is, it was showcased at the boat show last year. I got to drive it. I just got to try the small version, but we're going to go and drive, check it out in Sweden this year. And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, And what's really cool about these hydrofoil fairies is that they don't produce any wake. So in Sweden, they're letting them run through six knot zones. So if you can go through a six knot zone at 18 knots, you, you shave a lot of time off a journey, you know? So, um, um, and, and they use hardly any energy when they're on the foils. So, and they create no wake and they don't bounce in, if it's a rough day or anything, cause they're above the. It's a really cool thing, but I've got lots of other things.
So folks will be able to get from Cairn Island to Annapolis just like, and just take that as a daily thing?
Yeah. So we're working on it because we're surrounded by water. If you go to Seattle, you know, people, I think getting on the water is good for your soul, right? And in Seattle, you got to work on your water. In Sydney Harbor, you got to work on the water. We've got all this water around us, and we never really took advantage of it the way we should. It should be a big part of our lifestyle. It should be a big commuter option for us. But we didn't invest in it the way we should. We invested it back in the day before there was a bay bridge. You didn't have to drive your cars into a ferry and go across to the eastern shore. But then once the bridge came in, that stuff all went by the wayside. So we're going to true a modern interpretation of that, not a car ferry, Ferry, you can take your bike on and go ride the Cross Kent Island Trail or go to Baltimore and do Inner Harbor and down to Fells Point or come from Baltimore to the city of Annapolis and spend a day and then go home. That's super cool, man.
I mean, because especially with the bridge, a lot of people, and it's always been like mine, I'm like, I like it over there. But man, because you want to get over here. You're rolling the dice, you know what I mean? Like, you're rolling the dice, that bridge is shut. You're not getting over here, you know what I mean? That's it, you're cut off from all this beauty. You're stuck. You're stuck over there with lots of fields. This is a lovely area, but still, it's just different. So, anyhow, Mayor, it's been an absolute pleasure. Where can, again, like we do, if you have any initiatives they can support, anything that we can plug, that we can put on and put on across the screen on social media, anything like that, Anything that you want to list, any social media that we want to list where we can find you or any of these initiatives or restaurants outside of, go check out Sailor's tomorrow. SOB, Sailor's Oyster Bar, make sure you're there. We talked about that. We'll put some information on that as well on the podcast, but anything else that we can, we can mention for you?
Yeah, for me, it's just about the city of Annapolis and pumping up. people checking out the new CityDoc Reimagined. So if you go to Annapolis.gov and you just Google, you type in CityDoc, it'll take you to all these images, and it'll take you some images of some parks that we're doing, some amazing new rebuilding of a lot of our subsidized housing that desperately need some love. So there's lots of things that you'll see on the city website. Um, so please go and visit that site and, and see all the exciting things that are happening in Annapolis. And then, um, you know, feel free to like them. All right. Well, that's pretty easy.
I mean, you have a Facebook or social that we can, uh, that's probably not even something you run personally, but that's okay. Do you have anything that we can go out and find you? I'm assuming you're.
Yeah, I have that, but I don't know how they work.
We'll find the mayor of Annapolis on all the socials, and we'll go in there and like those two. That's typically what you do. Make sure that you like, follow, subscribe. But normally, like I said, we're used to the influencer types. That's all they want to talk about. All right, here's my Facebook. Here's my Insta. Make sure you go there. And here's my TikTok. So it's refreshing. You're like, I don't know. It's on there somewhere, I'm sure you'll find me. I'm the mayor of Annapolis, you'll find me, just like it. When you do, click the like. But I really appreciate you taking the time. I mean, quite literally to come down to a small business, which is also where we have our studio and record our podcast. You know, when we first did this a year ago, two years ago, was in a garage we have across the street and it was not climate controlled. And so we knew the probability of getting any guests was, nil, right? Because the mayor certainly wasn't gonna come and spend the day in one of our garages, regardless of how close it was to Annapolis. So I'm glad we did away with that. And at the time too, I had the crews, we did more, it wasn't just roofing. So I had a crew that was carpentry and went in there and made an actual studio, but it just wasn't climate controlled. So winter, really cold, summer, really hot, did away with that. Took one of the empty offices in here And so we do this usually at lunch and in the evening, but this is where Alex, actually, Alex didn't get to come into the news studio. He had to do it in my office. So it looked okay, but really it was just a corner of my office where we had a couple of chairs and yeah, same chairs, not a cool little backdrop here, but sincerely, thank you for coming to our business. literally putting your money where your mouth is, showing up to a local business here in the community while I'm in Crofton, our business was started in Annapolis and we still belong to the Annapolis Chamber of Commerce. And we really represent Annapolis. I mean, that's where we were started. We were started out of that Admiral Cochran right there at the James, you know, no one really knew that that was the address because at the time that was the only office we were getting in COVID, you know what I mean? So we're like, Hey, this is the office and shout out to the James too, man, because they let us use their, all their facilities. They let us do like, Hey man, Ikasa, Tsukasa, you're here. Use all of our trainings, everything, the whole company, which was like six or seven folks, but they all came there and met every Monday. And so it was really pretty cool. We did whatever we had to do and we got to enjoy the downtown ambiance because you made that happen. But I really appreciate you coming on. I look forward to the results of this show. I'm sure there's gonna be lots of questions. Put your questions in the comment, but go and check out our great mayor of this great city of Annapolis. and go and like all the sites and things that he said, but specifically too, make sure you enjoy our city. Go out there, explore, check out, page in the restaurants, keep this, what we have going alive. Because like Alex said last time, we really are so fortunate to have so many cool, unique spots in one town. And I appreciate you for all your efforts to do everything you can to keep everything like that going, especially through COVID, but even, you know, what you're doing for those spots that you mentioned on the beach. I've just been nothing but thoroughly impressed with you and all you've done. And again, there was only one city I was going to move to. So I appreciate you so much. And thank you for coming on.
Well, thank you for having me. And your story is really inspirational. So you should be really proud. Thank you so much. And we need people to inspire us like you. So thank you for having me on here. Keep up doing this great stuff. And thanks for getting the word out. Yes, sir.
Thank you so much. Hopefully we can have you back on again here soon and we'll, uh, we'll follow up and we have some of those big, uh, big moves that you're working on now. Maybe we can wrap some stuff up, but either way, it's been an absolute pleasure and thank you again.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show, wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. It is how new people find the show. Until next time, remember, there's always a seat at the table for business.