Southwest Flavor Ep. 161 - Jeff Saunders, Javier Avalos

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:11)
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**Janay Arenas** (0:25)
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Southwest Flavor Podcast. This is where the people and businesses and the flavor of the Southwest is highlighted. I am your host Janay Arenas, and I've got two wonderful gentlemen sitting in front of me that I consider, gosh, you guys have been in business for quite some time.
I wanted to title this like the legacy of business, meaning where we bring in the trust and value of business. Sometimes I think when people go into business, they don't often look at that before they go into business, but before we talk about entrepreneurship, but I want to quickly talk about Bisbee, Jeff. All right. So, Jeff and his lovely wife, Melissa, Ron and I, we all went to Bisbee the day after 4th of July.
As we drove into the city there, obviously, it's very vintage looking, and we started off by going to lunch first, and we stopped at this restaurant called The Table. And we had, I point this out because for somebody that's gluten-free, I hadn't asked for a hamburger, and I asked if they had offered gluten-free buns, and they did, and so I get it. And the gluten-free bun was like this buttery, wonderful moist biscuit that had a hamburger patty inside of it. Never had a hamburger like that before, but it's probably like what, 2,000 calories, but it was worth it.
And then after that, we decided to walk the streets of Bisbee. And one thing that came to my mind as we're walking through there is all the business owners that were in there, they all greeted us with just a welcoming, warm feeling. They talked about their business. And I couldn't help just think about what it's like to, as all of us, we're all small business owners, that takes commitment to open up on a Sunday and dedication. And the fact that most of those business owners were greeting all their tourists with this warm welcome, and I thought that was just beautiful. And that's what brings us to today's topic, is entrepreneurship and our commitment to that and what it takes. Anyways, Jeff, you want to add anything to that, or you just want to keep on?

**Jeff Saunders** (3:02)
Oh, no.
Well, they have to deal with all the looky-loos. I mean, can you imagine coming in on a Sunday and-

**Janay Arenas** (3:08)
Looky-loos?

**Jeff Saunders** (3:09)
Yeah, they just open up and people walk in, walk out and they don't buy anything. And that probably happens a lot. I mean, there's so many little gift shops there, and they're all really unique, and they have all this vintage stuff. I mean, I haven't been down to Bisbee in years.

**Terri Murphy** (3:24)
Yeah.

**Jeff Saunders** (3:25)
We won't talk about that story.

**Terri Murphy** (3:27)
Oh yeah, that was another story.

**Javier Avalos** (3:28)
Oh, boy, you opened up a can of worms here, mister.

**Jeff Saunders** (3:31)
Yeah, so, yeah, we had a good time, and it was warm, too.

**Terri Murphy** (3:36)
It was warm.

**Janay Arenas** (3:38)
Do you remember when we walked into, there was another gift shop, it used to be their first bank in Bisbee, and the very first bank that had opened up there, huge. They had lower level and an upper level. The upper level had a vault, and she made the lady that was up front there, she made a point to point that out, she goes, you need to go through the vault, and there's a big vault on the bottom that you need to just check out, just so you're aware.
And so we all go down to the bottom vault, and it does smell vintage.

**Terri Murphy** (4:14)
It smells like money.

**Janay Arenas** (4:16)
It does too. And that was okay, because that was just part of their feel, their vibe.
And so anyways, there was this mannequin that was hidden in the corner, do you remember this? And he was not a lovely mannequin, he was a scary looking one. And every time somebody walked past that corner and then took a double take to look back, he was like, oh, whoa. And then we saw this doll head that was stuck in one of the blocks or framed around the blocks. Or it was just a little... Because Bisbee has this ghostly story behind it.