 What is your most memorable catering event since you started the company with your husband? Or maybe like top two. I'm sure you've done some amazing ones. We've done some really cool ones, but probably my favorite was the Breaking Bad finale. Diego mentioned that. Thank you for that. Yeah. I don't know if you saw the show before you watched it. Oh, my good smile. Every single episode. We don't have a television as you may have seen. Yeah. But Breaking Bad goes down as like my favorite television show of all time. I read Brian Cranston's book that he wrote. Yeah, what was the event like? So it was like the end of the day. Was there a theme? Yeah, it was Breaking Bad. And Aaron Paul drove the Winnebago to... Stop. Yeah. It was that Hollywood Forever, the graveyard. Oh, my gosh. It's perfect. Drove it to the graveyard, and then they had the screening of the final episode. And then we had 900 people in the Lausanne Blanche and like Christophe, and then we had... Oh, my God. What an event right there. What did you serve? So how did you serve math? No. This is Start Up to Storefront, the podcast where we talk to business owners and entrepreneurs about the untold challenges of scaling a business. Welcome to the podcast. We have the ICA Cater of the Year winner for 2019, featured on the Today Show and in Vogue in an LA Weekly. A legendary caterer here in the LA scene, Kathleen Schaefer. Welcome to Start Up to Storefront. Thanks for coming on. How did you first get into food? Were you a child really into it, helping grandma? What was the... You know, she still is a really good cook. And so there was always an interest in food. And then I went to NYU. I worked in restaurants in high school and I went to NYU and studied fine arts. You grew up on the East Coast too? I did, outside of Philadelphia. And then just continued working in restaurants in New York City and quickly realized I wasn't gonna have a career in art or art history. So just kept kind of working my way up in the industry. And then I was in Tribeca and I did that for a few years. And things, I grew and I got press and was written up in the New York Times and Black Book Magazine at the time in several fashion magazines. From niche? Yeah. And so then I got, I was catering for the Conan O'Brien show and Saturday Night Live. And so it was amazing. I was screwed that way. And then got kind of tired of that. I wasn't really happy and realized I needed to do something else with my life. So I started private chefing. I'm sorry, that's not true. I wasn't a private chef. I took an executive chef position with Michael Bloomberg's private club. And he was so funny. The first day I started, he walked into the office and he said, oh, we're so happy to have you here. And he was talking to me and the golf pro and the controller and the GM are all standing around. And he goes, I'm really glad you got the job. Don't fuck it up. I love it. I want a confidence. I'm not gonna be shocked. He was coming for mayor at the time. I feel like I'm on the cliff of when you came to LA. But there's so many other stuff. So my husband and I met. Yeah, we were both hired guns for an event company in New York. So you met on the job. We met on the job. And we were catering the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden. Well, at least it wasn't the 2016 one. No, we say we were the only good thing to come out of that convention. How many people are you catering for that? So again, with Michael Bloomberg, I was hired to handle his suite and Giuliani suite. So I had about 30 people that I was responsible for feeding. And I had a whole team working for me. And Charlie, my husband had the entire senatorial delegation, so he had about 800 people to feed. So I would help him. Sure. Because I didn't have anything to do with it. Were you dating at the time? No, that's how I met him. Okay. And so I went and I was like, I'll help him. He's cute. Yeah. And then we started dating and we moved to Los Angeles on a whim without jobs. Nice. What brought you all? How did you pick? We just had like one of those kind of perfect, iconic Southern California weekends where everything was fun and everywhere we went was amazing and fun. And the weather was great. And for whatever reason, there was no traffic. So I had no idea. Wow. I just really liked to live here. During the week. Yeah. And so I got back to New York and I said to Charlie, like, you know, I want to move out there. I think we should move out there. And he was like, I will never live in Los Angeles. Wow. Bold statement. Yeah. And then he came with me and he was like, okay, we're going back. We're packing up and we're just moving here because he loved it too. Moving across the country with your significant other is like a, you know, binding experience. You know, you're both like leaving your homes, like leaving your whole family. How did you guys get here? Similar story, oddly enough. Yeah. I mean, we started in Boston. That's where we met. We bought an investment property in South Boston. It's called Southie for short. It's like where Whitey Bulger had rained. What a claim to fame. All the beautiful things you could have said. Well, no, I think it's funny because your husband said he would never move to LA. And when Diego and I were looking for another place in Boston, he had said, I will never move to Southie. And I found this little, tiny, 600 square foot condo apartment in Southie. And it was 14 foot high ceilings and gorgeous. That's a cool loft. And really cool loft. And we had, you know, I said, look, this is the place. It's the long answer to your question. It's right behind the seaport. We're getting it. We're selling it when... So we started a tech company. And then we ended up getting accepted into a program in San Francisco. But here's where I'm going with this, though, also. So we had just bought this place and we had gotten married maybe three months, two or three months after. And they got into this program, which is extremely sought after in Silicon Valley. And he was supposed to be only there three months. And then it turned out all the investors were there. They wanted to grow the company in the Bay Area. So I called him and I said, all right, are we doing this? Are we moving? Are we moving to San Francisco? And he's like, yep, okay, yeah, we gotta do this. Very, you know, in the midst of it all, stressed out. So, okay, I'm gonna quit my job, find a new job out there and rent our place out. And I guess we're doing this. So we moved and we only knew the people in the startup and I had one friend that recently moved to San Francisco that I knew in college. So I was totally different, obviously being there first being in Boston and our whole families are in Boston and on the East Coast. So it was, that resonates with me because it's such a big move. But then, so then it's like year three of the startup and Natalia's looking for a place to flip because we kind of got the real estate itch again. And she was looking all over the country. Everywhere. Like literally everywhere. And we ended up, or she ended up finding this and I'm way too busy with tech at this point. Like I'm working kind of like similar to you where it's just full on. Do or die. Do or die, yeah. And so she ends up finding a place in the Hollywood Hills here in LA. Hunted cabin with one paneling. It was cheap, it was like very cheap. It's like 600,000, which is super cheap in that area. Yeah, less than 1,000 square feet. Yep, exactly. And so she ended up getting it and I'm pretty much not involved at all. I'm like, yeah, sure, send the money, whatever. And I'm like, I'm just trusting that you've done the math and everything that works out. So I was driving down like every week to manage the cruise. Yeah, from San Francisco to manage the cruise and building this out and getting all the permits and everything. That's pretty crazy. We gutted the entire thing, brought it. She had no water. All new utilities. I was sleeping in a bedroom that had its own entrance so I could lock it and lock all my stuff in there. And like the rest of the house was just like all the framing and no fixtures, no water, no electricity. And he calls me the bougiest entrepreneur because I would shower at Equinox every morning. So Equinox, for those of you who don't know, is like the nicest gym in the world. In West Hollywood? And in West Hollywood. On Sunset Boulevard. Full of celebrities. Yeah. So Natalia's going there to shower and sometimes work out, but mostly to shower. Mostly to shower every day and brush my teeth. And then for dinner, she's going to Nora, which is a wonderful restaurant. Santa Monica Ave. And so that's... I became a regular there. That's the... I didn't have a kitchen, I couldn't cook anything and I wasn't trying to take out every night and some of their broccolini dishes or whatever. It can just be a meal. They're amazing and filling. So yeah. So I was coming down on some of the weekends and I really didn't have any understanding of LA at all. I just thought, cool. You were like the shower at Equinox. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like camping up there in the house. It's the Dave Navarro. Great. And Fabio. Kevin Hart. He goes there all the time. He goes there all the time. He's still there. He goes there all the time. Yeah. And his Porsche. Yeah. And he's just chatting with everyone. I'm like, do you even work out? He's kind of like the mascot. He's just chatting. Chatting, Cathy. He's the mascot. He talks to everybody. He's a nice... Don't lie and belong there too. We're rocky. Oh yeah, yeah. Cool. So we start coming here on the weekends and I'm like, oh wow. Kind of similar to your experience where I was like, I really like it here. And I really like the people I was meeting. Everyone had like a cool story or they were doing something so different, right? It wasn't like finance or tech. It was entertainment. And I just was like, that's amazing. Tell me about that world, you know? It's such a land of opportunity too here. I mean, for anyone listening that, you know, I was thought about moving to LA. Do it. Like, you know, your story about moving here with really no plan and no job, I think is like, it's less risky than to move to other cities with no plan and no job because everything's just so open and everyone's eager to collaborate and give opportunities and exchange value that I think it's one of the better cities to do that in. So when did you start your business with your husband? So, I role celebrities as their chef. Like personal chefs? Yeah. Okay. And so it was a full time, you know, like I traveled. What is that like for someone? There's nobody, myself included. Nobody knows what that's like. So don't name the celebrity. Or do. Or fuck to you. Is it something like, they have their, I don't know, are they usually on a quick diet? Always on a diet. So there's probably like requests of like, this is really long this week or... Are you talking to the trainer also? Like, is it you and a dietitian? Yeah, so, you know, Trinus that I was working for, she was doing the zone diet. I've never heard of that. Yeah, you have to like weigh the proteins and all of the... It's like a lot of work. Yeah. So you had to like do all that math for her? Yeah, yeah. And then package everything and, you know. So, and that was in her home. Full meal for the whole day, every day, right? Yeah. Okay. Is there a cheat? Like I would be the person to ask you for a little cheat gift every day. No. They don't do that? No. No. That's brutal. Incredibly beautiful. Cause she eats like seven blueberries a day and that's... That's the recommended amount of blueberries. Is that all it takes? Wow. I haven't had blueberries. You know, so I just, I was trying not to be judgy, but you know, it's like, okay, it's part of their job. They're regimen. They have to maintain their body and their overall appearance is part of their work. But at the same time, I would love to go home at night and eat whatever I wanted. Yeah. Cause I was like, that's not my job. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's pretty cool. You know, I landed a full-time job with an executive and I stayed with them for three and a half years. And so they had a home, you know, in Calabasas and went in Malibu and went in Hawaii and, you know, they entertained a lot. So that made the work interesting because I wasn't just feeding them and their kids, you know, I got to really sort of show off and do events for them. And then their friends and neighbors, also C-level executives would be like, hey, will you do a party for us? Sure. And so that's how we started our business. What's a budget for a party of this type? Of like maybe 30 people. Is it like a small wedding? Is it 25,000? Is it 50,000? Well, it depends. I mean, I didn't have any budgets, you know, and I didn't have to adhere to it. Well, it's kind of great. Yeah, it is great. It can be creative. And by whatever I wanted and whatever ingredient I thought was interesting. Yeah, true. And then I could also, like it was very sort of curatorial, you know, I could cure an Iberian ham and prosciutto and I was like, I'm gonna buy a heritage pig and I bought a heritage pig and then primals and cured, you know, an Iberian silo ham over two years in their wine cellar. I had like my own room in a wine cellar and I got to like... That's amazing. Yeah. And to my chuteery and stuff that I just... So you got to flex your muscles. Yeah. And do some really fun, experimental stuff. That's awesome. And, you know, whatever kind of equipment I wanted I could get, you know. So that was good. When did you guys open your location? When did that happen? We, this was 2007. And we decided we're like, oh, we're curing all these events and everybody keeps asking when we're gonna open a restaurant. So we started down the road of trying to do a restaurant. And we got really far down the road with the lease in Venice and... Did the space have like hoods and everything or would you have had to invest? Yes. Okay. That's good. So, and it had, it was grandfathered. So we didn't have to do the grease intercept or the grease trap. Surely grease trap, yeah. So, you know, we were like, we were so close but the parking wasn't quite right. And, you know, for full liquor license, it's attached to parking. So we kind of walked away from it in the 11th hour. We were like, ah, just didn't feel right. Wow. And then the economy tanked and we were like, thank you God. Yeah, if you hadn't done it. So what'd you do all that during that time? So, I was still working as private chef and then I left those guys and we just, we said, you know, this, there's part of this building that they're willing to bisect the landlord and he was gonna take the dining room side of the building and rent it out for creative like office space. Okay. And so there was a thousand square foot commercial kitchen and we said, all right, let's just go for it. And we signed the lease on that and opened events and catering. How many a year at least did you sign? Well, that was not smart. We signed a six year or are we signing a 10? Okay. But we didn't protect ourselves, which we should have. In what way? You know, we didn't have enough kind of legal advice behind us. We sort of entered into it trusting the landlord and thinking he was, you know, helping us in some way, which he was not. And you know, what we should have done is, hindsight's 2020, but we really should have made sure that we had options. To renew? Yeah. Okay. So we got first right of refusal to purchase the property and that we could transfer or sell the lease. So what did you do differently when you got your next lease? We did all those things. You did all those things, okay. So you got kicked out of the location it sounds like? No, we were there for six years and the landlord was really crazy and he was parading potential buyers in and out of our business while we were working and at this point we had employees and he was just interrupting our business. And you know, it was on Lincoln Boulevard and it was just like an encampment of homeless in our parking lot every day. And it was kind of dangerous and hard to work there. How'd you get out of the lease? I don't know. I'm one of the creative person to do it. We fulfilled our obligations and I don't really know how it all worked out. That's why I have a business partner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Deals with that needy gritty. Yeah. But we did know like going forward when we were looking for new spaces to really lawyer up and have some great representation. And so we have an awesome real estate attorney who we still work with and he just negotiated on our behalf. But your new space is huge. Yes. So you went from 1,000 square feet to? Seven. Oh, wow. Yeah, so while we were looking and we really wanted to buy something but while we were in the process of looking we had a temporary commercial kitchen in Marina Del Rey and you know, like a commercial kitchen is like a unicorn. Yes. So and it's a valuable thing because you invest so much into it with the compliance and equipment that you should be able to use that as an asset. Yeah. Commercial kitchen I think the investment can be anywhere from like 300,000 to $2 million depending on the size. I mean, it's a huge investment. Yeah. And the health department approval and everything you have to go through. Yeah, it's a nightmare. Well, just, you know, the plan and checks and the building and safety and all of the ADA compliance. The stuff I deal with. Oh, you sound like a pro. Yeah. Oh, it's insane. I'm not. You're kind of forced to be once you go through that process. It's like a crash course. It's like a crash like master's degree and real estate. Something you never thought you'd have to deal with. How many employees did you have when you I guess moved into your other look, your 7,000 square foot location? So we were in Venice for six years and then Marina Del Rey for one year and again another crazy kind of sublet situation with a crazy guy who lived in the space illegally. What? And we didn't know until we had moved in. Where'd he live? He had a loft built. So he was like in your working space in the kitchen. What? That is so bizarre. He was like the man under the stairs from David Lutterman's life. Wow. What? Like the mole people. So that was not in your contract, right? No. So did you do? So we just kept shopping around with the broker. All the while we were still running our business. Hopefully he wasn't eating the food when you weren't there. Perhaps he was. I have no idea. Yeah, but he was just crazy. And then we found a place in mid city through some professional contacts that we had in the business that a broker approached us. And so we kind of took the space and we purchased the FF&E and we were going to purchase the lease. However, the person that was operating in there did not have a lease with any kind of contingencies or anything. So we went and negotiated our own lease with the building owners and made sure that we got everything we wanted and moved in. Which as developers, we gutted the place to the studs. We rewired it. We replumbed everything. Did you get a big allowance? No. So you had to front all of that? Yeah. However, we did it in 30 days. And moved in. I know. How? With permitting everything? Well. Yeah. Yeah. Creatively. Creatively. I mean, it'd be a good general contractor. That makes all the difference. But there was so much unpermitted work in that space because the operator was there for 30 years. Sure. There was like live electricity in some walls. Yeah. I mean, crazy. Oh, good. So you guys brought everything up to code, obviously. Yes. Did it the right way. Yeah. And just tore out so much structure that was inside the space that was not. To open it up? Yeah. And it wasn't to code anything. It was really the whole building was held together with duct tape. Glow. Yeah. So we kind of did that in 30 days. And we had two events the week we were moving in. We had an 800 person dinner. And the next night, we had a 500 person dinner. And they were still doing drywall. Wow. Yeah. And we had health inspectors in there. Oh my goodness. That's hectic. Yeah. Crazy. So who was it? Were you managing that? Or who was working with the inspectors? The GC? My husband. Yeah. I'm a general contractor. Yeah. OK. Yeah. So brutal. Yeah. But he remains calm and cool. Yeah. I'm the one running around, having a hard time. That's a good balance. Yeah. And are you guys cooking while this is happening? While the inspectors are there? Or are you kind of like playing with them? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had rebuilt a brand new walk-in. And we had rebuilt all the equipment that was in there. So we had new compressors and new swamp coolers and everything. Did you get a free rent period because of this investment? We did. OK. That's good. I was going to say it, because if you're improving the value of the building, that's significantly. Yeah, we did. And it worked to our advantage, because we have exactly the kitchen we wanted and the office space. And it wasn't like a turnkey thing. We could really customize it. Make it your own. Yeah. But it's your most memorable catering event since you started the company with your husband. Or maybe like top two. I'm sure you've done some amazing ones. We've done some really cool ones. Probably my favorite was the Breaking Bad finale. Diego mentioned that. Thank you for that. I don't know if you saw the show or you watched it. Every single episode. We don't have a television, as you may have seen. But Breaking Bad goes down as my favorite television show. I read Brian Krantz's book that he wrote. Yeah, what was the event like? So it was like the end of the finale. Was there a theme? Yeah, it was Breaking Bad. And Aaron Paul drove the Winnebago to... Stop. Yeah, it was that Hollywood Forever, the graveyard. Oh my gosh. It's perfect. And he drove it to the graveyard. And then they had a screening of the final episode. And then we had 900 people in the Masonic Lodge. And like... Beautiful. Beautiful. Oh my God. What an event. What did you serve? Do you serve math? No, he did. We took isomalt, which is like a kind of stable sugar sort of glass. And we made tons and tons of sheets of it in blue. And so... Wow. We had like racks and racks of the blue crystal math. And then we had those tiles that are on the elements chart. The periodic table. Yeah. So we had the periodic table. That's so creative. The periodic table. Like cookies. And it was sitting on a pile of the crystal math. And then like our waiters were all dressed like either El Pollo Loco. Or no, not El Pollo. What was it? Yeah, that was it. The Pollo Loco, yeah. No, no, no. No, no, no. That's chicken place. That's our mom's. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Her mom is employees. So they all have those uniforms with like the red visors. And then we had, rather than having girls serving cocktails. We had some of our guys. And they were wearing tight whiteies and a green shirt. No. And like brown socks. And they were the cocktails. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we had a pizza from the show that landed on the roof. Denizios. We had like pizza boxes made that we were serving that, you know, you know, Denizios pizza, which we made ourselves. Yeah. And we had all of our other trays for the servers have bells on it. Wow. So this is named Tito. Yeah, you guys went into detail with those. How did you? We were like super fans. Yeah. We were really excited. So this is just you and your team thinking of this whole thing? Yeah. That's awesome. That's amazing. And then marketing and the designer that we worked with, Lacey Maxwell. She's from the Bay Area. Everything we threw at her, she's like, yes. Yes. Amazing. She loved the show too. And everything was edible. So all of the bars were labs and there were beakers. And she, she designed these amazing bars with, you know, like bubbling beakers and steaming things behind our bartenders. And then we had a crystal meth lab set up. And we had pastry shops wearing like respirator and mouth masks. And we were making liquid nitrogen ice cream. Wow. And yeah, it was really fun. Do you have pictures of this on your website? I think so. Okay. That's amazing. That's amazing. But that, I mean, that was several years ago, but that was like super fun. Because we were such fans. Yeah. And then he did the James Beard. We've been invited to the James Beard house twice now. Since we've been open and we've hosted two dinners there in New York City. What is that like? A whole different crowd, right? Do you feel pressured? Because these are such foodies at the top. Yeah, it's, yeah. It's like an honor to be invited there. Absolutely. So yeah, you know, we were like, oh, we gotta turn this out. And, you know, it's being filmed. And the first time we went, it was being filmed for an ABC show called like cooking at the James Beard house or something. And so they did all this footage of us in LA and then they followed us to the James Beard house. Cool. You know, so on top of just like the regular pressure that we were bobby-miped. Right. You know, so that was a little much. Trying to focus on what you're doing and pulling this off. Yeah, trying not to swear. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's a huge thing. Is it like a five course meal? What's the? Yeah. Okay. Sit down. And there's hors d'oeuvres. So people come in and there's hors d'oeuvres. And, you know, we really like to highlight winemakers that we're friends with here. Oh, cool. So we had several central coast winemakers and that's why we wanted to work with Border X to serve the stout. The stout with the pretzel? Yeah. The pretzel on top, right? Yeah. It was like, yeah. Yeah, we need to make that happen again. Yeah, sure. So the way I met Kathleen was border, you, you, obviously we were talking about Border X and then they have an abuelitas chocolate, which is like a chocolate stout they use or they make using Mexican chocolate. So you, I don't know how you guys got in touch with them, but basically you wanted to pair it with the dessert that you were serving at this dinner. Yeah, how did you find David and how did you find Border X? I knew I wanted to use a stout. And then when I started reading about Border X and what their whole statement was and who they were as a company and my political feelings got the best of me. I was like, of course I want to highlight a Mexican American amazing company and support them and hopefully bring some spotlight or attention. It's a great brand. So often we work with a lot of female lawmakers too for the same reason because it's, to me, I want people to know that there are some tremendous women in this industry that are doing some cool things. I think half of our guests have been female and also their husband or boyfriend are involved in the business somehow. But not in like the same way, you know, in like more of a support role. Yeah. Oh, it's interesting. I mean, Charlie is a huge part of our success. We would not be in business without him, you know, like he is. That's awesome. He has the vision. He has the kind of business acumen and prowess to make sure that, you know, the lights are still on and that we're maintaining our costs. And, you know, he conducts all of the kind of operations of the business. That's a good point. Yeah. Which is great. It's a good combination. Yeah. Did you feel like it from the beginning starting to work together? Did you feel like it just came naturally? Or was there a patch we had to learn about each other? You know, some fights. Yep. Yeah. It's a common place. We sought professional help. You should do that. You should do that. You should do that. Well, like the negotiation was always like we would bring all of the stress and problems from work. Oh, for sure. Right. And, you know, and we couldn't stop talking about it. And despite being told like, don't, don't bring work home. Yeah. Yeah. And so in an effort to like preserve our business partnership and our marriage, like we sought help and we learned that the most important thing was to negotiate what your roles are. And they should, they shouldn't overlap. You know, staying your lane, like do work to your strengths and relying on your partner to handle the other parts of the business that you're not. Absolutely. Or in general, I mean, even if you have business partners, same thing. Know what you're good at. Do that. Yeah. Hire the experts. Just let them do their thing. And did you suggest that or did he suggest that? And was there a conversation or were you both just like, yes, we need to do this? Yeah, we would probably fight over just the best thing. Yeah. That's outstanding. You know, we both kind of came to that conclusion because we had a massive argument. I mean, we were, we were traveling and doing an event in Chicago actually, and we had this argument and it was not going to be resolved. Yeah. So we were mad at each other on the flight home and then the next day and then we both decided, you know, we should probably talk to somebody. And would you recommend that for couples that work together? 100%. Yeah, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's because now, you know, we, we know what our parts are in the business and, you know, what we're responsible for. And we don't let any of our staff come to me with any kind of HR operations. Questions. You've delineated that. Yeah. I direct them to Charlie and charge anything creative. Anything related to food or culinary. Come to me. I highly recommend. Yeah. Counseling. Now that's great. What's next for shapers? What is the future hold? What are the secrets you can tell us? Well, we're working on a few things. A line of products. Okay. For the, okay. Something we're interested in. As shown here, perhaps. Yeah. This is an olive oil. This is an olive oil that we've had for several years now. It's not for sale. We, we give it as gifts. But it's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's produced in Santa Barbara County. Los Alivos. Actually sending this. Cool. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. And they have a solar powered mill that presses the olives. Which is cool. Oh, thoughtful. They are huge proponents of sustainability. And that's important to us. And then the salt is a solar evaporated pacific sea salt that we like. So. Amazing. And can another California product. Beyond that. So, yeah. So, yeah. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. It's organic. So, yeah. Beyond that, you know, we have several like other irons and the fire of course. We're always looking at real estate then use our somewhat interesting to ask. Like an event center around the kitchen type of thing? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to divulge, but I think that we will build out huge commercial kitchen like for an event space that's wasted money. Yeah. But that's my personal opinion. Yeah. And you're like, don't spend money on that. Yeah. You know. money on that. I agree having built one is extremely expensive for I don't know I don't know what the gains are I don't know what that looks like financially but it's years in planning. It's long-term. Yeah and you know by the time you're able to see any return on that investment you know the equipment and everything is obsolete. Right. And you're paying on that equipment. Yeah. Now you're paying taxes on that equipment. It's depreciating. Yeah. It's just like it is not a wise decision and people have asked us oh yeah we want to have an event space and we're going to build a kitchen. We always say don't do it you know. Yeah. And they keep doing it. It's bad math is what I've narrowed it down to people just I mean I've seen a lot of these models some developers show me and it's like the most hopeful model. It might as well be an Excel sheet of them hitting the lottery. But because it's in Excel they think it's true. Yeah. And it's just like then I'm the guy who has to tell them this is really hopeful and I don't know if they're hosting like sting and they're selling tickets every night to this event center because that's the only way this will work. Yeah. Right. They're bringing somebody back from the dead and they're going to perform. Well it just doesn't make sense because there's been so many advancements in mobile you know mobile catering systems and you know like a lot of times you probably just need like a couple outlets right. Yeah. Depending on what we're doing you know if we're doing a 900 person or 1200 person event you know we need some space. Yeah. But we own so much of our own equipment it doesn't like why would you pay to supply your equipment plus there's rental companies. Yep. So anything you don't own you can rent and that cost is passed along to person hosting the event. For sure. Makes more sense that way. Why would you take on that as a cost. Working people find you tell everybody where they can find you and your company. We are at shaperla.com. S-C-H-A-F-F-E-R-L-A.com and we're located in the city in Los Angeles and you can find us on social media. Shaper underscore LA. Look Kathy thanks for coming on the show. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your story. I know I talk a lot. Oh it's great. We have a counseling session in the plan. Yeah thank you. Thank you so much. Great to have you. We here at Startup the Storefront would love to hear feedback from you. Reach out and let us know what you think about the show. Make sure to give us a rating on iTunes. Anything over five stars is the only way to go. 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