 Good morning everybody welcome here to Main Street Columbia downtown. It's springtime and love is in the air Actually, I take that back. That is the smell of the world's best chicken sandwiches Returning to Main Street. Thank you all for joining us today as we celebrate the glorious return of Drake's ducky And to their home down on Main Street Columbia in the Main Street district. My name is Ryan Coleman I'm the director of economic development and it's my pleasure to introduce our speaker lineup for today first We've got mr. Matt kennel president and CEO of the Main Street district. He'll be followed by miss Aisha triggers Director for the Office of Business Opportunities Followed by the honorable mayor Daniel Rick and men The honorable councilman will bring in and then finally our guest of honor today. Mr. Daniel bone and Mr. Matthew bridges co-owners of Drake's duck in and with that I'll turn it over to you Matt Well, thank you so much Ryan and again welcome to the Main Street district where the Sun is always shining So well, we appreciate that today It's so much fun to be here and celebrate with Matthew and Daniel the Grand reopening of Drake's duck in you know It's not just the businesses that come in from out of town or even new businesses in general Which make Columbia such a great place its legacy businesses where we can really celebrate the history of our city and Not look back at the past, but also look forward to a very bright future That really make this an exciting place to live and work So thank you all for coming tonight and coming today and celebrating with us This great thing and and I did have some blood work done this week and my cholesterol is good So I'm gonna be back for more Chicken sandwiches. I did have one a couple of days ago to get my fix and it was wonderful But we're just so excited to be here today and thanks to Sarah Simmons. I've got this a wonderful duck Which you hear more about ducks later But this is gonna grace the dashboard of our yellow Jeep because it's a Jeep and the Main Street district Jeep has to Have a duck so this will now be our our Main Street duck So again now welcome today and celebrate and thank all everybody that helped them We have many of our mayor our council members Aisha and others and Ryan that that make this such a great place to do business. So again, thank you all for being here today Aisha Good morning. What a beautiful day to celebrate the reopening of Drake's our office assists Small businesses, so we're excited that we were able to participate in this project Our loan officer Brett Whiting who is here was very instrumental in helping with some of the financial resources that are available to our small Business in the city of Columbia So we're excited to celebrate the reopening of Drake's and just the investment that they've made in our Main Street district and we Pray for their continued success and growth and we will continue to be a resource for them as they need us going forward So, thank you Good morning everyone It's an exciting day and on behalf of city council our city manager I want to thank you all for being here at this reopening because you really can't experience Columbia if you haven't been to Drake's duck in and this is an institution and this is what's exciting We were sitting around the other night talking about all the great restaurants that have come and gone And then you look at Drake's duck in that's sitting here reopening Reinvesting and being the part of the community and continuing to do that and we're so excited that Daniel and Matt decided to keep on going and they got a little outfit They got a little help from Sarah Simmons with a little twist to the menu I even understand that now we can have a cold beer in the afternoon with our chicken So I'm really excited about this being open, but this may be the most anticipated opening on Main Street I've heard for weeks and weeks that when are they opening back up? When are they opening back up? So guess what today? They're opening back up Couldn't agree Anymore than the mayor's great words, you know, there's there's we we we take celebrations For the investments the new investments in Columbia, but there's something special about a reinvestment That means a little bit more. It's a little bit sweeter. We'll take them all any kind of investment But it just it confirms that we're on the right path here at the city of Columbia to have wonderful owners Reinvest in a classic iconic storefront. I tell you if this storefront could write a history book It'd be the best history book of the city of Columbia Absolutely this this restaurant's been here forever and we are so glad it's gonna be preserved with a new twist Thanks to Aaron and Sarah. I want to take a quick second to thank the office of Business opportunities OBO folks raise your hand Y'all y'all do such a fantastic job Making making the the the trials and tribulations of opening a business here in the city of Columbia a lot easier And we can't thank you enough Greg Greg You're I heard from the from the guys that you were great resource to get this thing moving along a couple hurdles That we got through so thank you for being the great business liaison for the city of Columbia You know that mayor that's one position that's really working out for us. So I'm glad you came up with that idea mayor But just so excited for this for this reinvestment and Matt and Daniel can't wait for the next one appreciate it Thank you. Good morning Businesses like downtown business districts like cities Cannot remain the same forever and expect to survive They must grow adapt and evolve Drake stuck in has a unique place in the fabric of the city. It is special Generations of Colombians have eaten here and this restaurant has a bond with the community community That is meaningful and important Daniel and I respect that legacy we recognize that we have the responsibility To honor our history and that we are temporary custodians of a brand that will hopefully be around for another hundred years It was past time for an update In order to stay competitive in a growing and changing downtown and Main Street district We're proud to share with you the next evolution of Drake stuck in We believe that we have improved every aspect of the guest experience and we're excited to have you come and try for yourself and For you to eat here over and over and over again We'd like to thank Edwina tiny Harman Our general manager she's been here and dedicated her whole career if not life to this space Drake stuck in would not have a heart or a soul without tiny We'd also like to thank Chanel and the rest of the staff who have stayed with us and helped us reopen And transition twice now to our temporary location and now here to this new beautiful space We want to thank Sarah Simmons and Aaron Hoskins and their team who have helped us Execute this new vision for Drake's that we thought we needed to to reflect the new beautiful space that we have We'd like to thank Whitney Reets Eller of Whitney Reets design This beautiful new space was her design and of her mind not ours. That is not our strong suit We think it's turned out better than we could have imagined We'd like to thank mayor Rickman For all that he's done for small business We'd like to thank the city its leadership and its departments, especially the fire marshal's office and Greg Williams and our city business liaison The city's been a real partner in this effort Most importantly, we want to thank our families and the support that they've given Thank you, and now Daniel is going to come up. Thank a few more people and say a few more words Thank you We'd also like to thank Martha Fowler. She's the first one to I think people around Main Street know Martha very well Martha was the first one to give us the confidence to really take this project on and We also would like to thank the late great Tom Pryorishi who's done so much for Main Street in downtown He sat down with us early and really gave us a lot of good advice We'd like to thank Matt kennel and the city center partnership John Shearer in historic Columbia Robert Lewis Janie Campbell Chris Rogers and the Rogers Lewis team who helped us with the historic tax credits We'd like to thank Marcus and Rita for Hotel Trundle They've been great partners, and we've really enjoyed having them as as tenants here in this beautiful old building And they've done an excellent job of fitting the upstairs We'd like to thank our commercial and our residential neighbors I think we first took the facade off in 2017 so this has been a long process and I live on this block as well, and so I've heard all their advice and Suggestions over along the way, but it's taken us a while, but we've gotten there and we thank them for their patience Matthew and I are two cousins from very small towns who decided to stay in Columbia after school and build lives and families here So we would not call ourselves developers. We have day jobs, but we have an interest in food and an interest in seeing Columbia grow We were fortunate enough to be presented with this opportunity to own a historic building and an existing business On Main Street, and we jumped in head first not really knowing what we were doing or getting ourselves into But almost nine years later this block has two more places that locals will frequent and visitors will make destinations And there are many empty lots and empty buildings all over downtown Those are opportunities Opportunities to grow this city in a way that gives us our own unique identity We need more Columbia people creating Columbia places We need more Drake stuck-ins more hotel trundles more all-good books We need more places that you can only find here Those type of places that make a city a more interesting place to live and visit and That's what we want to be a part of Thank you for being here today Now who wants a delicious cheeseburger