Karin Cubbage:

Sure. So I'm Karin. We're from Kansas City. 

Steven:

I'm Steve. 

Karin Cubbage:

That's where we met. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

Okay. So let's start there. So when did y’all meet? Like what year was that? 

Karin Cubbage:

We met at youth group at church when we were kids. 

Derrick Michaud:

Wow. 

Karin Cubbage:

So we started dating when I was in what? Junior high. So middle school. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. Junior high sweethearts I guess. 

Derrick Michaud:

That's amazing. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

So what was that? 15 years ago? 

Karin Cubbage:

Pretty much. We've been married for 33 years now. 

Derrick Michaud:

Wow. 

Karin Cubbage:

So. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. And dated probably three, four years before that. 

Karin Cubbage:

Probably three. Something like that.

Derrick Michaud:

So you guys married very young then.

Karin Cubbage:

We did. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah.

Karin Cubbage:

Too young.

Derrick Michaud:

Like just out of high school. 

Karin Cubbage:

I was in high school. 

Steve Cubbage:

In high school for her. 

Derrick Michaud:

Wow. Look at you, stud. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

I don't recommend it.

Steve Cubbage:

I don't recommend it. 

Derrick Michaud:

That might not be accepted in 2021, right? 

Steve Cubbage:

It wasn't accepted then really. 

Karin Cubbage:

This might be an edit. 

Derrick Michaud:

Well, cool. So you grew up in Kansas City. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yep. 

Derrick Michaud:

What was Kansas City like growing up? 

Steve Cubbage:

Kansas City, I mean it's kind of the quintessential midwestern city. It feels like a smaller place than it is. I mean it's a full-blown city. But I mean it seems like everyone knows each other. It's very tight-knit for sure as far as the city goes. 

Derrick Michaud:

Were you on the Missouri side or…? 

Karin Cubbage:

Kansas. 

Derrick Michaud:

The Kanas side. Okay. 

Steve Cubbage:

Kansas please. 

Derrick Michaud:

Well, I'm glad I asked that because I've been to the one in Missouri but not the one in Kansas. What is it like having a city but it branches over two states? I know we have Memphis and West Memphis, but it's not Memphis and Memphis? 

Karin Cubbage:

Right. 

Derrick Michaud:

What is that like? Well, we never lived, well, not never. But like Steve grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and I lived in another county sort of like I guess you'd say like—

Steve Cubbage:

They were adjoining. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah, maybe like Corn Lake and Hernando. So a little bit further away. But I wasn't actually in Kansas City, Kansas. But people ask you where you're from, it's like here, you might say you live in Memphis. 

Derrick Michaud:

Right. Yeah, which I do. I do too. Where do you live? I go, the Memphis area. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah, exactly. 

Derrick Michaud:

If they don't know what Hernando, Mississippi is. 

Steve Cubbage:

But Kansas and Missourians are pretty territorial. 

Derrick Michaud:

I mean I would gather—

Steve Cubbage:

They're each pretty proud of which side they come from. 

Derrick Michaud:

Because I would gather that college sports are big. 

Steve Cubbage:

Definitely. 

Derrick Michaud:

I'm sure that's like a Mason Dixie line, right? 

Karin Cubbage:

Not as big as like Chiefs and Royals. Like I worked at the Royal Stadium for a while. That's really the big thing. College is much more prevalent here than it was. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah, yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

Other than the KUMU rivalry. But outside of that, people mostly care about the pro sports there. But the state line, it's kind of interesting because like I said, each side is kind of territorial. But in the end, everyone is fiercely Kansas City. Do you know what I mean? It's like—

Derrick Michaud:

We have that in common. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, I mean wherever you go, it's like where are you from? Kansas City. Rarely do you say, I'm from Kansas City, Kansas or I'm from Kansas City, Missouri. You just say I'm from Kansas City. 

Derrick Michaud:

I mean you can stay the same here. Like I'm proud to be able to live in Hernando, but we're all Desoto County. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

You know what I'm saying? I used to live in Olive Branch, and I like Hernando better. But it's Desoto County. You can kind of lump it all in like that. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

So you guys get married. Do you have kids early on or…? 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, we had kids right away. Our oldest daughter, we were married in ‘88. She was born in ‘89. So. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh wow. 

Steve Cubbage:

We had kids right off the bat and— 

Derrick Michaud:

This is why you guys are strong entrepreneurs. You just like, you don't waste any time. 

Karin Cubbage:

I guess not. We had three children by like 2000, and then we adopted two kids. So we kind of started back over again. So we have five total, and then we have three grandsons. 

Derrick Michaud:

What are the ages, the span of all five kids? 

Steve Cubbage:

A lot. Our oldest daughter is 32, and our youngest child is 16. 

Karin Cubbage:

No, she's 15. 

Steve Cubbage:

15. 

Derrick Michaud:

There you go, Mom. 

Steve Cubbage:

I don't even remember birthdays. 

Derrick Michaud:

That's quite the span for sure. 

Karin Cubbage:

So our oldest grandson or our oldest grandchild is only three years younger than our youngest child because we—

Derrick Michaud:

Spread them out and started later. Well, good for you. 

Steve Cubbage:

And all of our kids work here and work for us. 

Derrick Michaud:

Awesome. Another reason why this a cool family business. 

Steve Cubbage:

Family business. 

Karin Cubbage:

Typical mom and pop. Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

So let's try to bridge to that. While in Kansas City, were you business owners early on, later in life? What was the bridge from whatever you guys were doing? I would gather some day jobs. 

Karin Cubbage:

Sure. 

Derrick Michaud:

What was the bridge from there to entrepreneurship? 

Steve Cubbage:

You kind of talk about your background in the restaurant business. 

Karin Cubbage:

I mean I worked in the restaurant business. I went back and forth from waiting tables to managing mostly because I liked the stability of a paycheck when I was managing and knowing—

Derrick Michaud:

Not based on tips. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. And then I like the flexibility of waiting tables. So I kind of go back and forth. But I never really had any kitchen experience. I just loved sweets. I loved food. So I started teaching myself how to bake and how to cook just based on watching what they were doing and thinking like, okay, what things go well together. But never really thought about doing anything with it. And then he was in the casino business and basically just did not like working for other people. 

Derrick Michaud:

I can relate. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. I mean when we were young, I had lots of menial jobs. I was a long-haired bum. I thought I was going to be a rock star. 

Derrick Michaud:

We need to talk about your record collection. I've seen that on Facebook. I thought I was going to be a rock star. But eventually, I was like—

Karin Cubbage:

I thought he was too. 

Steve Cubbage:

It’s the only reason she married me. 

Derrick Michaud:

And then you're like, uh-oh. 

Steve Cubbage:

This ain't working out so well. So eventually, I was like, I got to get a real job. And I found the casino business was an area for someone without a college education that you could actually advance in. And so I started out on the bottom level. 

Derrick Michaud:

Was there an Ameristar Casino back then? 

Steve Cubbage:

It was a station casino at the time. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. Because I've been to the Ameristar Casino. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, but I've worked for a few casinos in Kansas City, St. Louis, back to Kansas City, Denver. So I've worked in a few. 

Karin Cubbage:

We moved here from Denver. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. I mean I started at the very bottom, just a front line casino services desk. 

Derrick Michaud:

And the family moving? 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. And as I got promotions, I eventually ended up as a director of marketing and that just facilitated a few moves around the country. And so we found ourselves here. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. Because I remember when I spoke to you earlier, you landed in the Isle of Capri casino in Lula, Mississippi, right? 

Steve Cubbage:

Yep. 

Derrick Michaud:

Did you live in that area or did you land, when you moved for your job in Lula, was Hernando your landing spot? 

Steve Cubbage:

It was because I mean when we first moved here and looked around the area, obviously, Lula is about an hour from here. Hernando, which we didn't know anything about the area at all—

Derrick Michaud:

What year was this? 

Steve Cubbage:

2013, 2012. Obviously, I'm not good with dates. 

Karin Cubbage:

It has to be 2013. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. So we didn't know anything about the area. Some people said Hernando was great. This was as far away from civilization as Karin was willing to live. So I mean we grew up in the city. 

Derrick Michaud:

Were you into further? 

Steve Cubbage:

No, I was fine with it. I mean an hour commute was fine with me. But both of us growing up in the city, I mean this is the smallest town we've ever lived in. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

It was a little shock coming from, moving to the South and to a small town combined. 

Derrick Michaud:

That's right. 

Karin Cubbage:

So it's two different things to kind of adjust to. So I was like, all right, let's get, I didn't want to move somewhere that was too rural. 

Derrick Michaud:

I moved from Maine to Nashville in ’05, and that's a leap. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

And that was just culture shock. It's totally different. And even the Midwest to the South, it's just totally different. 

Karin Cubbage:

It just is. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

But I went from smaller to bigger. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. That's an interesting transition. 

Derrick Michaud:

I went from a city bigger than Hernando but moving to Nashville, especially now, Nashville is just—

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, it's exploded. 

Derrick Michaud:

It's exploded. But I know that feeling. It's one thing to move from Colorado to St. Louis. But the South is different. 

Steve Cubbage:

I say we moved here for the scenery. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah, all the mountains and the hills. 

Karin Cubbage:

I do miss that. 

Steve Cubbage:

Growing up in Kansas is funny. Everybody would always talk about how flat it is. And I mean we grew up in eastern Kansas. It's not flat. It's not flat at all. And when we moved to Colorado, the first time I had driven actually across Kansas to go to Denver, I was like, oh, this is what they're talking about. It's actually flat out here. 

Derrick Michaud:

Very— 

Karin Cubbage:

Western, yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

But then when we moved here and I drove to Lula, I was like, I have never seen any place as flat as this in my entire life. 

Derrick Michaud:

And open, yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

But yeah, it was a transition. But I mean we moved to Hernando, and the kids go to school here. We love the schools. And eventually then when we opened a business, I mean we've been embraced by this community in a way that, I don't know if I was surprised because people here are very open and there is at this point in Hernando a lot of people who have moved here from other places. 

Derrick Michaud:

Right here. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. But people were very accepting of us from the start and didn't have that kind of closed-off mentality that oh, you're not from here or you're not from the South or anything like that. It was actually pretty nice. 

Derrick Michaud:

And it's telling. I think that's why this little market can prosper like it does. 

Steve Cubbage:

For sure. 

Derrick Michaud:

Everyone's helping each other out. Everyone's in it for the same reason. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

And be an entrepreneur, do your own thing where your passion is, and make a living and pay your mortgage. 

Karin Cubbage:

That's pretty much—

Derrick Michaud:

So let's get to Area 51. So what year did you start it and why? What was that pivotal moment that made you go like, wow, let's start a business? 

Karin Cubbage:

It was in 2013. He had been downsized. He lost his job. And at the time, I wasn't working. I was staying home with the kids. We hadn't been here that long. 

Steve Cubbage:

It was a little over a year when they got rid of all the director of marketing positions from our company. 

Derrick Michaud:

And that must be brutal when you just moved across the country for a job. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. And the kids, they were tired of moving. They had been established in the school for a year at this point. They really didn't want to move. 

Karin Cubbage:

I did. 

Steve Cubbage:

She wanted to move.

Karin Cubbage:

I wanted to move back home. So we put the house on the market. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. We had offers on the house. But something just wasn't quite clicking about it for us. And then Karin said, what do you think about starting a business? And I was like, we've always talked about starting a business. And I was like, at our ages, this is seven, almost eight years ago, I said, if we don't do it now we probably never will and we'll work for somebody else for the rest of our lives. So. 

Derrick Michaud:

You got to bet on yourself sometimes. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

You got to take that chance. 

Steve Cubbage:

And so we definitely did that. And it was a definite adventure. We didn't know what we wanted to do. We had no clue. We kind of figured it might be food related because Karin had a background in food. My background in marketing was pretty flexible. So. 

Karin Cubbage:

We thought if we took, if we opened a food truck that we could get ourselves on our feet, do it for long enough that when it was time to move back home, we could just take it with us. So we thought it's a mobile business, it's something that we can establish, and then just do whatever we want with it. 

Derrick Michaud:

You kind of chiseled away some of that risk. 

Steve Cubbage:

A little bit. Mitigated it a little bit. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

And we also thought it would be more affordable because you wouldn't have so many upstart fee, wouldn’t do a build out and everything. 

Steve Cubbage:

But Hernando came to the rescue. No food trucks. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah, that was over a weekend. We were trying to make a decision on an offer that we were negotiating on the house, and we declined it. And then Monday morning, we went to try and get a food truck license. 

Derrick Michaud:

And Hernando doesn't allow food trucks? 

Karin Cubbage:

No.

Steve Cubbage:

Not only do they not allow food trucks, we couldn't even park one here if we had it somewhere else. 

Derrick Michaud:

Like say you had one now, you couldn't have it in this back parking lot? 

Steve Cubbage:

We couldn't have it at our house because we didn't have a business. 

Karin Cubbage:

We couldn’t park at our house. 

Steve Cubbage:

So we couldn't park it. 

Karin Cubbage:

It wouldn't allow that large of a vehicle. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh wow. 

Karin Cubbage:

And I thought, well, if we're going to do ice cream, we'll have to have it parked overnight because we'll have to have some sort of refrigeration and all that. So I mean originally, we weren't even going to do ice cream. We were going to do a grilled cheese truck. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

There's some good ones in Nashville. 

Karin Cubbage:

Only because I didn't think people would, we were going to do, I was thinking about bakery. But I didn't want to open like a bakery. There was already a bakery in town. And I thought, well, people aren't going to wait in line at a food truck to get lunch and then wait in a separate line to get dessert. So we'll do something savory and then also have desserts. So that's why we were like, we’ll do grilled cheese and we'll do like brownies and cookies and things like that, cupcakes, whatever. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

And then I decided that that wasn't enough control. So I wanted to do ice cream. 

Derrick Michaud:

So you just made the leap to ice cream. That's kind of really what you landed on, ice cream? 

Steve Cubbage:

She came out of the bedroom one day and said, what do you think about gourmet ice cream? I said, okay, let's do it. And that was the decision-making process. 

Karin Cubbage:

I was very surprised. I said, don't say anything. So I tell him the whole, give him the spiel. My thing was I thought it was great because people could try the ice cream before they buy it. I can try it before they try it. I'd have a lot of control. I could taste it throughout. Where like if you're making somebody a sandwich, you make the sandwich and you hand it to them. You really don't know. Is that sandwich perfect? 

Derrick Michaud:

And you can't let them sample. 

Karin Cubbage:

No. 

Derrick Michaud:

If you're cooking a steak and cheese or like a grilled cheese, you can't like hand them a cold piece of cheese and sample it. It’s not the same. 

Karin Cubbage:

So for me it was just a way to incorporate something that I really loved with a lot of control. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. Okay. So okay, everyone has their story as far as how they kind of fall into a business. I have mine. Mine's different. Mine was softer. It was like I was already doing this and then realized, oh, I want to build from this. 

Karin Cubbage:

Sure. 

Derrick Michaud:

But what you guys did was like, I want to start a business. Now what? And you have a family and you have a mortgage. That's massive. That's a huge decision and with so many unknowns in there. 

Steve Cubbage:

It was still during the first—

Karin Cubbage:

It was a little bizarre. 

Steve Cubbage:

At that time, we hadn't fully come out of that economic situation that we were in before. So it was definitely a leap of faith for us. We decided not to take out any bank loans. We just used savings, some credit cards, and did it all ourselves. 

Karin Cubbage:

Maxed out all our credit cards. 

Steve Cubbage:

And literally—

Karin Cubbage:

I called and got the limit increased before—

Steve Cubbage:

Before they knew what we were doing. 

Derrick Michaud:

Now we have something in common. But that's what you got to do. 

Karin Cubbage:

Well, I sort of panicked a couple weeks in. I thought, what are we going to do? Because if we can't pay these credit cards off, we're going to be in trouble. Like we don't have any money left after we buy this equipment. And he was like, there's no such thing as debtors prison. 

Steve Cubbage:

They can’t send us to prison.

Derrick Michaud:

You know the saying, you can’t take it with you when you die? 

Karin Cubbage:

I don't know how much worse off we could be at the end of this than we were when we started. We didn't, besides the fact that we wouldn't have savings, that was it. 

Steve Cubbage:

A little scary for us was when we were younger and had kids very young, too young, we had gotten ourselves into bad financial situations with credit and stuff like that. And at some point after I had started working for the casino business, making a little bit more money, I say we, but Karin made the decision, we're getting out of debt. And so we got all of our debt paid off. We didn't owe any money. 

Derrick Michaud:

What does that feel like? 

Steve Cubbage:

It was very weird the first time we bought our first house. It was like, okay, let's go to the credit company to talk about getting a loan for the house. And they were like, oh, you have great credit. And we're like, what? I've never heard that before. 

Derrick Michaud:

Wow. Those two words have never been put together. 

Karin Cubbage:

I mean it took us almost 15 years after getting married and being—

Derrick Michaud:

But you got to come up with that plan. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. So for us then having not been in debt for so long other than just mortgage payment and some car payments, not having any debt, for us to go from that to just paying for everything out of our own pocket and realizing if this doesn't work, we're going to be in massive debt was a pretty scary proposition for us at the time. 

Derrick Michaud:

And again, it goes back to mortgage and children. You guys did it probably the hard way as far as making that decision. 

Karin Cubbage:

Well, and we did it fast. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah, you jumped right in. 

Karin Cubbage:

Nobody—

Steve Cubbage:

No, literally fast. 

Karin Cubbage:

Like 10 weeks. 

Steve Cubbage:

10 weeks. We said, let's do ice cream. 10 weeks later, we opened the business. 

Derrick Michaud:

Okay. Let's get back to that—

Karin Cubbage:

That Monday, so that was a Sunday that we decided okay, this is what we're going to do. We called the realtor. We said, look, we're sorry. We're not taking the offer on the house. We're pulling it off the market, and we're going to stay here. Told the kids, went to the city, found out we couldn't do a food truck. Driving around, I was just like beside myself. 

Derrick Michaud:

Were you thinking, we should have checked on the truck thing?

Karin Cubbage:

Well, I thought, we can't call these people back now because they're going to have that brand. We were already losing money on the house if we sold that soon. And so we were just driving around. We were like, what are we going to do, what are we going to do? And I was like, there's no choice. We're going to have to go to brick and mortar. So we were like driving around, and we hadn't lived here too, too long. So in my mind all the businesses were in South Haven or Olive Branch. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. And it's easy to think that when you drive through South Haven. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

You see the population, that seems like that's the place to be. 

Karin Cubbage:

So we drove around up there for hours looking at retail spaces that were for lease, making calls, finding out how much they were, thinking, is that something that we could afford, how much money would we have to make per day in order to make that rent. And we had to pick the kids up from school. So it was like 2:30, and we had just barely any time. So we came back to Hernando and we said, all right, well, let's just drive up and down and see if there's anything for lease. And we found our spot on Commerce Street down in the old Magnolia Square where we were previously. 

Derrick Michaud:

I’d gone there.

Karin Cubbage:

And we called on that, and that ended up being the space that we had. And 10 weeks later, we were open. 

Derrick Michaud:

So that Monday. So Sunday, you pulled the house off the market. Monday, no truck but then you lease the place. That's fast. 

Steve Cubbage:

Well, and we had never opened a business before. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

Definitely never opened a food business before. 

Karin Cubbage:

I didn't know—

Steve Cubbage:

I didn't know anything about opening or running a business. I mean we didn't know what to do at all. So literally within that 10-week period, Karin taught herself to make ice cream, she came up with all the recipes. 

Karin Cubbage:

We barely got up because I couldn't get a service.

Steve Cubbage:

They pulled out of the space. All that within 10 weeks, everything just kind of fell right in line. 

Derrick Michaud:

I’m trying to put that in perspective. Two and a half months. 

Steve Cubbage:

We could never do it again. Even knowing what we're doing now, we could never do that again. 

Karin Cubbage:

That's sort of how I knew that it was what we were supposed to do because even when we were doing it, I was still sad about not moving home. But at the point where it was like, okay, here we go, here we go, here we go. We're going to get open. I was like well, these kind of things don't happen. They don't fall into line like this unless you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. 

Derrick Michaud:

You can feel the spirit of it. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. I was like, all right, I guess God has other plans for us. This is what we're doing. I'm not moving home. 

Derrick Michaud:

And you're doing something that's yours. There’s so much more passion in that. It's not like you were deciding on a new job that was going to give you 20% more a year but be miserable in an office.

Karin Cubbage:

Sure, sure.

Steve Cubbage:

Or even a franchise or something that you really didn't own or feel that was your baby. So it was definitely different. We were broke. 

Derrick Michaud:

That’s crazy. 

Steve Cubbage:

The week we opened, no more savings, no more limit on the credit card. We were broke. If it didn't work, we were out of luck. 

Derrick Michaud:

Wow. 

Karin Cubbage:

We opened the 3rd of May. So we had from May 3rd to the first of the next month to make money. 

Steve Cubbage:

To pay the mortgage. 

Derrick Michaud:

Mortgage, nevermind the lease, right? Or all the other expenses. I would say it was a good time of year to open an ice cream place. 

Karin Cubbage:

It was. That was happenstance. I mean again, it was like it's like things just kept kind of falling into place. And we didn't get our batch freezer until what? Two or three weeks before we opened. So I couldn't actually start testing my recipes. I was doing them at home. But translating something that you do at home. 

Derrick Michaud:

You’ve got to scale up. 

Karin Cubbage:

It's not just multiplying it up. It was different than even I expected. I knew it would be. But we just had it hooked into the temporary electrical, and we were up there. The ground was still dug up from jackhammers. And so there were still rocks on the ground and stuff. But we had to hook the machine up there because that was the only place there was electrical, trying to see how does it work, how are we going to do this. 

Steve Cubbage:

We’d never used a commercial batch freezer or we barely know what a batch freezer was at that point. 

Derrick Michaud:

I wonder, because again, everyone has a different story, and some people dream of having a business and they know exactly what they would do. But I would say they probably overthought it. They talked themselves out of it. The way you guys did it, you put yourself in the corner. You had no choice and it was crash course and it's just like we got to go. And you just had that natural adrenaline and confidence that you just had to keep going because you had no other choice.

Karin Cubbage:

There was no time to think. Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

You had no other choice. 

Karin Cubbage:

Well, and he wanted to open a business multiple times like over the years. He's like we should go into business for ourselves. Because he had been transferred or kind of at the mercy of somebody else especially when we moved to Denver. It wasn't that we didn't want to move to Denver itself. It was just a bad timing in our family. We had just finalized our adoption, and we wanted to stay there in town. And it was like we had to. It was somebody else's choice. 

Steve Cubbage:

I turned that job down.

Karin Cubbage:

Like three times. 

Steve Cubbage:

Three or four times and said, no, I don't want it. And then my hand was just kind of forced. 

Karin Cubbage:

I didn't want to open a business because I had seen couples work together in the restaurant business and I just thought— 

Derrick Michaud:

Man, that's a whole other dynamic that I didn't even think about. 

Karin Cubbage:

I didn't want to work with him. 

Steve Cubbage:

I didn't want to work with her. I mean our whole careers, we had never worked together. There was a time when she was offered a position at one of the casinos I worked at because they knew her and what she did and they were like, oh, we would love to have you here. And I said, I'll tell her what you said, but that's all I'm going to do. I'm not talking her into or out of it. And I told her, and she's like, no, I'm not working with you. 

Derrick Michaud:

You knew. You were like, I’m not doing this.

Karin Cubbage:

Well, I had seen it in practice, and I thought, people who live and work together? I don't know. I don't think this is a good idea. 

Steve Cubbage:

At that point, we were much less mature so it probably would not have worked. Being a little bit older, I think it made a difference for sure for me. She's still a little immature. 

Derrick Michaud:

Hey, child at heart. 

Steve Cubbage:

I don't hold it against her. 

Derrick Michaud:

I mean you're making ice cream for a living. That's not going to make you age and grow up. 

Steve Cubbage:

You talk about our back being against the wall. I mean it kind of goes back to the way we were raised. Both of us grew up very poor. I mean neither of us had anything. She had lots of brothers and sisters. I had a fairly small family but we had nothing. I mean lived without, both of us had similar backgrounds that lived without electricity in the home at times or water or gas. And so I think both of us have that mentality of we're not going to fail. This is not an option. And so when we decided to move forward with the business, it was like okay, this is just going to happen and we don't have a plan B. 

Derrick Michaud:

I'm sorry. Go sorry.

Karin Cubbage:

No, that's okay. I was just going to say, I was taking little samples of the stuff I was making at home to the neighbors and dropping it off and just saying, taste this and tell me if it's any good and what do you like. 

Derrick Michaud:

Market research. 

Karin Cubbage:

And that's how kind of the word got out that we were even doing it. So. 

Derrick Michaud:

That's awesome. So was there a moment you're in your new establishment, you're bootstrapping it, you're scraping by, was there a moment that you can think of where you could sit back and be like, this is working? 

Steve Cubbage:

Day one. 

Karin Cubbage:

Opening day. 

Derrick Michaud:

Wow. 

Steve Cubbage:

We were cash positive from day one. 

Derrick Michaud:

Wow. 

Steve Cubbage:

I mean we never put another—

Karin Cubbage:

I mean not out of debt. We still had to pay everything. 

Derrick Michaud:

But people were walking through the door.

Steve Cubbage:

But we weren't putting any more of our money into the business for payroll or anything else. The business was making its own money. 

Derrick Michaud:

Aside from door-to-door sales marketing like that, what else were you doing? Were you just throwing it in papers and local ads? 

Karin Cubbage:

We haven't ever advertised. 

Derrick Michaud:

Man, that's amazing. 

Steve Cubbage:

Everything we did was I started marketing things on Facebook and Instagram. But Instagram even came later. It was almost 100% Facebook. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. Back then it was—

Karin Cubbage:

I mean we were at the soccer game with the kids, and I'd say, hey, we're going to open an ice cream shop. And they were like, oh, okay. I mean it was that basically. The week that we opened, I can't remember what day of the week we opened, but it was about a week before, Steve said, I think you need to make more ice cream to open. And it was just me. And I said, I don't know. Because our fear the whole time was we kept thinking, okay, a hundred people a day have to come in in order for us to or whatever it was. 

Derrick Michaud:

It's a good way to measure it. If we want to be cash positive, we need this amount of people. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

If we're going to make our rent payment which is what I thought, basically at that point, I was like we're just going to make our rent payment, we're going to be able to pay the electric bill. We just need that. If we can just do that, we're going to be okay. So I was like we need 100 people a day to come in. And so I was like how are we going to find a hundred people a day to come into a shop? Like that's so many people. 

Steve Cubbage:

That no one knows about. 

Karin Cubbage:

You know? And so I was like kept trying to think, how are we going to get enough? And he said, I think we need more ice cream. I think we're going to have more than that. And I was like, I don't know. And then we opened and our oldest son was… 

Steve Cubbage:

14. 

Karin Cubbage:

14? 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

We had kind of sort of got the kids invested in the business and the idea of it. They had been tasting ice cream and we had taught our son how to use the little POS system that we were using at the time because he could hit single scoop and drink and just kind of for fun at the dining table. And there were people lined up to the door and they were going outside. And it was just us and I think one other person.

Steve Cubbage:

It was just me and you.

Karin Cubbage:

I thought we had one other person. Maybe not. 

Steve Cubbage:

Because it was during the day. 

Karin Cubbage:

I thought we had Cavazos or something. 

Steve Cubbage:

That was during the day. 

Karin Cubbage:

Anyway. And so it was like, we were just like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, we don't know what we're doing. And all of a sudden, I looked over and my son had come up to the cash register just on his own and was like, can I get you a drink with that? And just started working.

Derrick Michaud:

Yet another moment of things falling into place.

Karin Cubbage:

And that was like, okay, I guess. 

Steve Cubbage:

He was our day one first employee. 

Derrick Michaud:

Could you soak it in? Were you so busy? So that's probably like, oh my God. Yes, yes, yes. But when did it sink in? Like, wow, this is special.

Karin Cubbage:

It took a while for me because the dog was walking me. I didn't have any staff in the kitchen. I didn't have, I was staying until wee hours of the night working because I had to get the stuff ready for the next because we didn't have anything. 

Derrick Michaud:

And nevermind administration, bookkeeping, and—

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. All that came later. It it clicked for me because I was working in the front of the house and I got to hear and I kept trying to translate this stuff to Karen. But all the positive comments. I mean literally we opened around a corner from an ice cream place that had been here for 60 plus years. And everybody was like, you guys are crazy. What are you doing? I'm like, well, we just don't do what they do. This is something different. 

Derrick Michaud:

You got to differentiate yourself. 

Steve Cubbage:

And super positive comments about how amazing her ice cream was and all that stuff. So to me, I was hearing all that from jump. And so to me, I was like, wow, we’re onto something here.

Karin Cubbage:

I was just like, I don't know what I'm doing. I got to figure this out. I can't produce enough ice cream. I can't get any sleep. 

Steve Cubbage:

Before we opened, I was on Facebook and trying to build the Facebook page. And I remember I got a hundred people on our page. And she was like, oh my God, that's too many people. I don't know what we're going to do. And then it was like, I was like, okay, a couple days later, I'm like, okay, there's 150. And I think around when we opened, there was probably 350, almost 400 people or something like that. And she was flipping out over that. I'm like, listen, that's not a lot. Understand that that's not going to translate into 400 people showing up on day one.

Derrick Michaud:

Small percentage for sure. Let's talk about flavors now. Do you remember what that first run of flavors that you pushed out? 

Karin Cubbage:

Oh yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

What were they? 

Karin Cubbage:

Oh yeah. Back then, we only had 12. 

Derrick Michaud:

Only. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

Well, you think of Baskin Robins. 

Derrick Michaud:

Sure. What do they have? 31? 

Steve Cubbage:

33.

Karin Cubbage:

I thought, well, this isn't very many. Whatever. And what basically what our flavors were when we started were what ended up becoming our signature flavors now or our daily flavors, we have every day. So the cinnamon snicker doodle, that's been there since day one. Bourbon butter pecan, that's thanks to the guys down at the, what was the name of that shop down there? The antique shop. The brothers owned. Buddies or something? 

Steve Cubbage:

Buddies, Buddies Antiques. 

Karin Cubbage:

Before it got, yeah. That's why we have bourbon butter pecan. 

Derrick Michaud:

The one right here on.

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. They said you're going to have butter pecan, aren't you? I was like, I hadn't planned on it. And they’re like, well, you got to have butter pecan. This is the South. And I thought, okay. So I went home and decided to make a butter pecan. The mint chocolate chip, the cookies and cream, I thought, well, if we do the things I want to do, which are kind of out of the box and a little bit different than if you just walked into a regular ice cream shop, I got to have some approachable flavors for kids that if they don't find something that's oh, I don't want to try something weird, I can try cookies and cream, I can try Dutch chocolate, vanilla, all those flavors. But I had written up, as soon as he said that day, I said, what about ice cream instead? He's like, okay. And I said, oh, oh, okay. He's like, make it happen. And he said, well, what flavors are you going to make? I'm like, I don't know. And so I started writing them down in a notebook and I still have that notebook. 

Derrick Michaud:

That's awesome. 

Karin Cubbage:

One of my favorite things that I still have is I have a little piece of scratch paper, because that was in May. June, we talked to Cedar Hill. We're like, we need some berries. We want to make some fresh stuff. He's like, okay, blackberries is what I have coming up next. So I had a little list.

Derrick Michaud:

And Cedar Hill's local.

Karin Cubbage:

Right. We wanted to work with local farm, and we knew of them because I think we had been down there at Halloween time to the pumpkin patch or something. And so we talked to them. They're like, okay, blackberries are next. So I made a little list of all the blackberry flavors I thought I could make. And there was like a dozen on there. It's like a back of an envelope or something.

Derrick Michaud:

Oh, that's interesting. So you have one produce but then just all these different things you can do with that one.

Karin Cubbage:

Right. Just brainstorming and it's just like, okay, I can do this. Can I do this? I showed Steve. And he's like, this one or this one, and one of them was the goat cheese. And I said, well, I'm going to start with the goat cheese because if I'm going to make something a little more unusual, I should start with that and then back up. Because if I start with just a blackberry ice cream, it's going to be hard to get people, to try blackberry goat cheese. Where if I make blackberry goat cheese, then I can always do something a little bit more simple afterward. And so I started making the blackberry goat cheese. I never made another blackberry flavor. Never even got through. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh wow. 

Steve Cubbage:

Because we didn't have enough blackberries to make a different flavor. with that one did so

Derrick Michaud:

But that one did so well. Yeah.

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, it's by far our, I mean it exploded really.

Derrick Michaud:

So I've never had goat cheese ice cream before. What is it like? Is it a texture? Is it like a tang to it?

Karin Cubbage:

Yes. It's both. It kind of has a cheesecake quality. So. 

Derrick Michaud:

I'm sold. 

Karin Cubbage:

That first summer and still sometimes, people that haven't been in, they make a little face. They don't want to try it, the goat cheese. And I'm like, just, just try it. 

Steve Cubbage:

If you like cheesecake, we tell them, you'll love it. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

And they're like, oh my gosh, I never thought about this. And then they come back and.

Derrick Michaud:

The word goat is probably what puts people off. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, it is, for sure. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

You could’ve just called it a blackberry cheesecake.

Steve Cubbage:

And they would've not, they would've been like, oh, this is a great cheesecake ice cream.

Karin Cubbage:

That might've been a good idea. Thanks for telling me now

Derrick Michaud:

All these years later. 

Steve Cubbage:

I think in the end it worked out better. I mean, we have to limit many people can buy, how many pints they can buy when we put that flavor out because it's so popular. It's crazy.

Derrick Michaud:

So how many years were you in that brick and mortar, that lease?

Karin Cubbage:

We just moved here January of this year. So. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh okay. 

Karin Cubbage:

It's been almost a year that we've been here. 

Derrick Michaud:

Okay. 

Karin Cubbage:

So what? Seven years? 

Steve Cubbage:

Seven years. Yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

It was a really bad timing to move as far as it was in the middle of, well, not in the middle, but about a year into COVID, things were still very up in the air. But we had been looking for a bigger location in Hernando pretty much for years. And there was nothing open that would really allow us to have the kitchen and the front of the house in the same building. We had outgrown that other space, and we'd moved our kitchen into another building. So we were having to take everything from here. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh wow. 

Karin Cubbage:

To there every day. And so we found this and we thought, oh, I know what we can do in there. You know? We could see it. And so again, we just sort of were like, all right, well, let's just do it.

Derrick Michaud:

Another leap of faith. 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah.

Derrick Michaud:

So I brought this up because of COVID. I think it's important for other business owners to hear a story of how someone else in the industry or marketplace survived through COVID, not the disease, the business, the shutdown. So you're in your original location for 2020. What was that like? When did it become like, oh my? Did the business slow down and then the shutdown came in? Or what was that period?

Steve Cubbage:

No, it was kind of a little bit of both. I mean, obviously at the beginning of COVID, no one knew what it was for sure, and it was very scary. Business really didn't pull back until they started saying that there are going to be mandates and things like that. When that happened, it pretty much was like, everything was pretty normal as far as level of business goes at the other shop. Then they started talking about closing businesses and stuff like that. And then I think that really kind of frightened people. And so there was a definite slowdown that started there. Then they said that you couldn't have people inside your business. And for us, that really just didn't work. And we said, well, we're just going to close the doors for right now. Wait a couple weeks. Because at this point they're still saying a couple weeks and a few weeks. So we said, well, we'll shut down for a couple weeks and wait it out. And so we did that. We closed.

Karin Cubbage:

We kind of opened and closed, opened and closed because it was real confusing. There was no roadmap for that. Nobody said, yes, you need to close today. It was like, we just watched the news. We're like, okay, are we supposed to close today? 

Derrick Michaud:

I mean shut down. 

Karin Cubbage:

So it was a little, it was a little jerky movement.

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. But then it got to a point where we talked to our local guy, Michael McLendon who is in the state legislature and said, listen, we have to have a little bit of relief here. Can we at least have people come into the business and leave and just not have people inside the dining room? And so he worked with the city of Hernando and got that changed to where that we were able to do that. And that was a tremendous help for us. And so once we started that, really business picked up almost immediately. 

Derrick Michaud:

So even In the heart of it? Like we're talking May, June?

Steve Cubbage:

Right in the heart of it. I mean. 

Derrick Michaud:

April, May, June. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. People were totally willing. Again, Hernando is a great place to operate a small business because people have an appreciation for small business owners here. And so as soon as we said, hey, we're going to be opened back up, unfortunately, you can't be in the dining room, everything’s going to be to go, they didn't care. 

Derrick Michaud:

I'll take the goat cheese home. 

Steve Cubbage:

Hey, we'll come support you guys. And so immediately business picked back up for us. 

Karin Cubbage:

It was a different story in Memphis. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh yeah. 

Karin Cubbage:

Tennessee, we lost our business in Tennessee over COVID.

Steve Cubbage:

You know, and it was definitely different up there. But the people down here, I mean, it was a huge blessing and it really made us feel good to know that people here not only supported us but other small businesses as well. And everybody, all the small businesses kind of felt like they were in it together. We all communicated with each other. Hey, what are you doing to with this or that to get around some of these things to work with it. So it was very tight knit feeling kind of coming out that scary part of it.

Derrick Michaud:

Sadly, that's unique. Right? 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

Even up to the local politics, like your local politician also was there doing what he was supposed to do for the people. The people helped the people, and you all got through it together. Wow. What a concept. 

Karin Cubbage:

And it's like, well, we don't have a drive through, we have a way for people, you can't really pull up to the outside of our building, have us come out, tell you what we have, go back in, get it, bring it back out. It's not that kind of business. You need to be able to just come in, pick up your stuff, and leave. And we had a lot of young people working for us. We had one, I think one employee who just opted not to come back. Kids. 

Steve Cubbage:

It was still very scary.

Derrick Michaud:

Because it was so unknown.

Karin Cubbage:

Parents didn't want them working. You know? I mean there were a lot of adjustments. It just we were supported enough that we were able to stay open through it. It was different but we came out the other side.

Derrick Michaud:

Did you have to adjust your product as far as maybe not making as many flavors or downsizing to save costs? 

Karin Cubbage:

There were just a lot of supply chain issues. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh, there's that too. I didn't think about that.

Karin Cubbage:

It was really difficult. That year was a bad year for blackberries too. They had like, it had nothing to do with COVID or supply chain. It was a weather thing. They had some plants that were diseased and weren't producing correctly. So they were down on blackberries. I couldn't get pint cups to save my life. Then I couldn't get something else. I couldn't get whatever it was. It was like, it was constantly, there was like two things we were short that we had to have. And then it was two different things. Those things would resolve itself or we'd find a different option to get those. And then it was two different things. And we still have a little bit of that now. I mean, you think about going to the grocery store. Sometimes you're like, okay, that's not going to work. We'll just do this and pretend like that was the idea in the first place. 

Derrick Michaud:

You go to zig when they zag. 

Steve Cubbage:

I mean, it's kind of like when we opened. Failure wasn't an option. So I mean, it was like, we'll just work through this problem. We're not going to throw our hands up and say, oh, just because we can't get pint cups, we're not going to serve pints. That wasn't an option. You know? So just work through those things.

Karin Cubbage:

I mean, yeah, we did some, that was a crazy—

Steve Cubbage:

You had to have some resolve. 

Karin Cubbage:

We drove to Kansas City  to get some supplies. I mean, it was… 

Derrick Michaud:

Again, no failure. You just got to do what you got to do. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. We couldn't get the dairy that we needed here from the supplier. And they said, but we have it in our Kansas City warehouse, but we can't get it here. I'm like, all right, I'll drive there. 

Derrick Michaud:

Time to go.

Karin Cubbage:

It was that or close down. I was like, okay, well.

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, I think we missed a day of business. We closed out for a day.

Derrick Michaud:

Just got to trade it off.

Steve Cubbage:

Drove to Kansas City, picked it up, drove it back. No plan B. 

Derrick Michaud:

Well, look, I'd like to kind of wrap this up with how this has made you guys as a family, but also as individuals, like the amount of accomplishments and success. Now you're in this new, amazing place. It's beautiful. You just moved here this year, right? 

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. 

Derrick Michaud:

For context, it's December 2021. When you look back through this journey and we've talked about all these interesting bullet points of your journey, how do you feel now? What kind of sense of accomplishment and comfort do you feel and pride do you feel now? Or are you still having trouble seeing the forest through the trees? Because you're just in it.

Steve Cubbage:

I have always felt this close to failing. Always. And I think Karin feels the same way, and I think that's the thing that keeps driving us. Even when we've been at the height of business and there was no COVID, there were no problems, I always felt like, oh my gosh, we're so close to not making it. I mean, we're just. And so I think that that kind of is a driver. It's not that I'm some crazy ambitious person because I'm not like one of those Steve Jobs guys who’s going to step on people's heads so I can get ahead myself. But I just always feel like I'm about to fail. I'm about to fail. So let's keep moving. Let's keep moving forward. 

Karin Cubbage:

I think I see it a little bit differently. I just know that failure is so, it's a step away. Like it's just so easy. Anything could happen. You don't know. I mean, we didn't see COVID coming. We didn't see supply chains coming. Who knows? There's just so many unknowns that it's like, you just never really feel rested, that like, okay, now we're kind of sailing or something.

Derrick Michaud:

The minute you get comfortable, then you start falling behind. 

Steve Cubbage:

But we can see the 10,000 foot view as well because we know where we’ve come from.

Karin Cubbage:

That was Food Network Magazine. That was it for me. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh, when you had an article in the magazine?

Karin Cubbage:

Yeah. Well, when they reached out to us and said, hey, we want to do an ice cream issue and we want to feature you for the state. And we had done other ones, Buzzfeed and Yahoo and some of the ones that I thought, wow, this is great. Wow, this is great. Wow, this is great. But Food Network, I was like, all right, this is cool. This is pretty cool. Seeing that in print, I thought, all right. 

Derrick Michaud:

You've made a mark. 

Karin Cubbage:

I'm good from there. But it's still, it's like, okay, what if we get shut down again? That could be it. So you just don't, I don't know, I just don't feel.

Derrick Michaud:

I think every business owner can relate to this. It's that vicious cycle. But that's what makes you an entrepreneur.

Steve Cubbage:

But you can't throw your hands up. 

Derrick Michaud:

No, you got to keep going. 

Steve Cubbage:

I mean, we've thrived as a business. We thrived through COVID. I mean, we did better through COVID than we did before COVID happened. So I mean, it's a matter of taking the situation, making the best of the situation and saying, how can I not fail? You know what I mean? Not, oh, whoa is me. Oh, these things are happening to me. Oh, it's terrible. They're happening to everyone. But you have to, you have to say, what is the thing that's going to drive me forward? What's the piece that's going to drive us forward? For us, it was opening a, a bigger shop. To me, we felt very limited in and the amount of space we had there. We found this place. The building was a total disaster. 

Derrick Michaud:

Oh really? 

Steve Cubbage:

I mean total disaster. 

Derrick Michaud:

What was here before? 

Steve Cubbage:

Lots of different things. The last thing like a t-shirt print shop.

Karin Cubbage:

And we had to start from scratch.

Derrick Michaud:

Just totally gut it out?

Steve Cubbage:

I mean, totally gut it and start completely over. But that was the thing that was going to drive us forward. And it worked. The people of this town reacted the way that we thought they would. Oh, there's more space. I'm able to spend more time with my family and bring more of our kids there and not feel like we're being confined in this smaller space.

Karin Cubbage:

That's probably the coolest thing about being here for me is before when we had to move the kitchen offsite, I didn't get to see the customers. Now I'm like, oh, so-and-so is here. I'm going to go stay hi real quick or whatever. Or we have people who've been bringing their kids in. They were in a car seat, and they were carrying them in the little carrier and setting them on the table. And now they're like running around and second grade. And I'm like, hey. 

Steve Cubbage:

Because our kids are [inaudible]

Karin Cubbage:

You kind of get invested in those people and just knowing that they they're with you. They're with you on that journey and you see them. And it's like we had one family in particular that I know that they would come in and they would fill the whole shop because there's so many of them. And it was like I knew sometimes they probably didn't come because there wasn't enough room. And now I see them and I'm like they can sit at the community table and spread out. And I like love that for them because ice cream was such a big part of my childhood, which is why I probably love ice cream so much. Just my memories around having ice cream or my dad making ice cream at the park or sitting on the hood of the station wagon, eating ice cream and watching people do that. I love it.

Derrick Michaud:

I think outside of eating ice cream in your living room, scooping it out of a pint or whatever. That's amazing. We all love ice cream. But when you have ice cream outside or in another location, it’s I would say always surrounded by a fun atmosphere as part of it. You get an ice cream cone with the ball game.

Steve Cubbage:

We love being a part of people's family memories. Because like she said, it's such a significant part of her childhood and to a lesser degree, mine. My family didn't eat as much ice cream, but her family, that was a big treat for them to go out. And so that was a memory that she's held onto. And so for us to know that we're creating those little moments and memories for people and their families, it's pretty special. 

Karin Cubbage:

And I've seen little babies take their first bite of ice cream. You know what I mean? It's like, to me, that's the cool part. Like I love the fact that people like the flavors. I love the fact that I see something in my head and I get from point A to point B and it is what I thought it was going to be. That part's really fun. But I just love watching people eat ice cream.

Steve Cubbage:

There was a couple that came into the original shop, Billy and Shelly Katgun. He's in a punk rock band. They're very cool people. And we kind of hit it off personally right off the bat. And years later, they had a baby, and they brought the baby into this shop. And I went over and was saying hi. They were like, oh, it's his very first taste of ice cream. And I was like, wow, man, that's pretty special. They will always remember that. You know what I mean? And I'll always remember that too. 

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. There's only one first. Yeah. The first of anything.

Steve Cubbage:

And they felt let's make it special by going out to an ice cream place instead of, oh, we're sitting at home and here's some Breyer’s ice cream as the first ice cream. They made it a point to come—

Derrick Michaud:

I mean, they got French vanilla. At least they upgraded a little bit.

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. Making those memories for people and us is pretty special.

Derrick Michaud:

So I want to give you guys the opportunity to promote yourself and where to find you and everything. But one last question, I'm going to get corporate on you, like a corporate interview question, standard question. Where do y'all see yourselves as a business in the next five to 10 years? Like do you have any ambitions, goals or—

Karin Cubbage:

That’s a good question. 

Steve Cubbage:

We've never really set out that kind of plan. We always said our growth will happened naturally. When we moved into the Crosstown, it happened naturally. We've had other opportunities to grow. Just things didn't click. So we're like, nah, we'll pass up on that right now. Even though financially, it probably would've been a great thing. It just didn't feel comfortable. So I mean, right now we're exploring a couple other options for expanding. We'll see how they go. If they feel comfortable and it feels like the right thing at the right time, then we'll move forward with that.

Karin Cubbage:

I think I would feel happy just, I mean, I don't know. Again, if you would've told me 10 years ago, I'd be a business owner, let alone an ice cream business owner, I would've thought you were insane. I mean, it just didn't seem like something that was going to be part of my story. But I think I would just like to kind of expand what we offer here, push out some more of my baked goods, kind of just build this into what I think it could be in this building just with more space and more opportunity. 

Derrick Michaud:

There’s something to be said of having that one thing and not branching out too much in business.

Steve Cubbage:

We definitely focus on our core. The core is ice cream. It's the star, the star of the show.

Derrick Michaud:

The ice cream. And then now you've got this new home here. It's so awesome in here. 

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah, we love it. 

Derrick Michaud:

This is the building block. 

Steve Cubbage:

When we put it on paper, it was Karin's vision. And unlike a lot of times when you expand and when we built in Crosstown actually, when we opened the original shop, we didn't compromise. This is what she saw, and this is what we were able to build, which is pretty special that we didn't have to compromise anything. So when somebody comes in and sees this, this was our vision. This is what we wanted to present to people.

Derrick Michaud:

And I'll add what it looks like on the outside too. It's beautiful. You see it. When you drive down Commerce, you don't miss Area 51. But in a good way. Not being absurd and like blinking lights and clowns.

Karin Cubbage:

When we were at our other spot, there were people, like they live in Hernando, they were like, oh, we never knew you were there. It's like, oh, okay. They’d drive up and down Commerce Street, never saw it. Now, it's like, oh.

Steve Cubbage:

Having a standalone building that we could make ours and put the kind of signage up that we wanted, kind of facade we wanted on the building, definitely, like I said, it was her vision and it came to fruition pretty much exactly like she saw it from the start.

Derrick Michaud:

Well, let's cap this off with some call to action here. And again, as I said on the front end, there's going to be a subset of audience that don't know you, that don't know the business. They’re just learning for the first time. So where is the building? What's the address? 

Steve Cubbage:

Sure. Go ahead. 

Karin Cubbage:

100 East Commerce Street. We're just across from the Desoto County Museum.

Derrick Michaud:

And how about your social platforms, website? 

Steve Cubbage:

We’re primarily on Facebook. You can find us just by looking up Area 51 Ice Cream. We are on Instagram as well. We don't, I don't know, I try not to beat people over the head with advertising. Word of mouth has been amazing for us. The ice cream sells itself. We don't have to sell the ice cream. We just try to provide a friendly atmosphere, great customer service. The kids we hire are fantastic and do a great job and they're great ambassadors for what we see as our vision. So we don't have to beat people up. So if you want to go to those places, you can find us. Look up any reviews. We're more than happy to keep our reviews on our side. A lot of people, they get a couple bad reviews and they pull the reviews off of their social media and stuff. And we're like, it's going to happen every once in a while. But so we keep all that stuff up. So if you question whether you want to come here or not, look up some of the reviews.

Karin Cubbage:

And the best thing to me, he does all the Facebook stuff. I don't do social media. But is that we post our flavors every day. 

Derrick Michaud:

I saw that. 

Karin Cubbage:

So if there's something that you're waiting to see, hey, is that one—we just brought gingerbread back for the season or if there's a favorite that you have or whatever, you can look up and see what there is. And then you know, like, okay, that's when I want to make sure I get in for. And so to me that's really cool because you get to know ahead of time what we're going to have.

Derrick Michaud:

Yeah. Well, look, I can't wait to spread the love with this podcast and this awesome interview. Thank you so much for doing this. 

Steve Cubbage:

Thank you. We really appreciate it. 

Derrick Michaud:

And this is come find us on The Real Hernando page, at The Real Hernando Instagram, at The Real Hernando. We're going to be promoting businesses like yourself and people like yourself on these platforms. And then maybe you can throw them on your pages. 

Karin Cubbage:

Absolutely. 

Derrick Michaud:

And it's just a way to spread the word. So thank you for being here. And I just really appreciate it.

Steve Cubbage:

Yeah. And if you're looking at us on social media, or you guys, to help support small businesses, share those things you see on social media. Share, like, that actually makes a big difference and helps small businesses not spend as much money on marketing and advertising. 

Derrick Michaud:

Did you read my script? It's amazing. 

Steve Cubbage:

It really does make a huge difference.

Derrick Michaud:

Well, I'm going to take this opportunity to dovetail on that and talk to the listeners and viewers that, yes, please share this episode too. Like if you're listening or watching this right now, share it on your socials. Amplify and highlight this awesome couple in business and the community that is Hernando Mississippi. As I mentioned, you can find us on TheRealHernando.com is also our website. There you'll be able to absorb and look at this content in audio, video, and text format. You can subscribe for free on the website. And as I mentioned, we're on Instagram and Facebook, both are at The Real Hernando. Karin, Steve, the story behind Area 51 Ice Cream. Thank you for doing this. 

Steve Cubbage:

Well, thank you. We appreciate it.