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In this episode, we chat with Jennifer Martin, executive director of Shop Local Raleigh, about her journey from Florida to Raleigh and her mission to support local businesses. Jennifer discusses how she and her team partner with various local enterprises — from restaurants and boutiques to media companies and health spas — to help them thrive. She highlights the importance of shopping local for the community and economy and shares insights on how Shop Local Raleigh aids businesses in marketing, strategy, and networking. Additionally, Jennifer touches on major events organized by Shop Local Raleigh, like Brewgaloo and Falling for Local, and offers valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start a business in the area. Join us to learn more about the vibrant local business scene in Raleigh and the efforts to promote and sustain it.
00:00 Introduction to Local Business Champion
01:29 Jennifer Martin's Journey to Raleigh
03:55 The Importance of Shopping Local
09:36 Supporting Local Businesses: Challenges and Strategies
12:53 Future of Raleigh's Business Landscape
19:42 Starting a Business in Raleigh
22:10 Shop Local Raleigh's Major Events
25:28 Craft Beer Delivery Challenges and Industry Trends
26:36 Expanding the Festival Footprint
27:38 Creating Family-Friendly Events
29:13 Planning Massive Events
32:04 Rain or Shine: Event Resilience
33:24 Local Favorites and Personal Preferences
37:45 Supporting Local Businesses
40:03 Finding Shop Local Raleigh Online
Creators and Guests
What is What’s Up, Wake?
What’s Up, Wake covers the people, places, restaurants, and events of Wake County, North Carolina. Through conversations with local personalities from business owners to town staff and influencers to volunteers, we’ll take a closer look at what makes Wake County an outstanding place to live. Presented by Cherokee Media Group, the publishers of local lifestyle magazines Cary Magazine, Wake Living, and Main & Broad, What’s Up, Wake covers news and happenings in Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and Wake Forest.
005 What's Up Wake - Shop Raleigh
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[00:00:00]
Melissa: I'm chatting today with the area's biggest champion for all things local. She and her team at shop local Raleigh partner with local businesses, restaurants, boutiques, coffee shops, health and wellness, spas, media companies, and other nonprofits to help these entrepreneurs navigate the world of small business.
You name it, if it's a local business, she's gonna be your cheerleader. [00:01:00] In today's world, a big box shopping from home. Jennifer spends her days promoting and supporting locally owned independent businesses. She also hosts some of the triangle's biggest, most anticipated festivals and events, one of the most popular, which is coming to downtown Raleigh this month.
So we'll definitely chat about that. Welcome executive director of Shop Local Raleigh, which is a brand of Greater Raleigh Merchants Association. Jennifer Martin. Hi. Thank you, Jennifer. Hi. Thanks for having me. So I read that you're from Florida, is that right? Correct. So how did you end up in Raleigh?
Jennifer Martin: Fun story. Okay. Five 40. My husband's company actually was one of the contractors selected to help build five 40 Oh. From Terry to Holly Springs.
Melissa: Okay. I enjoy five 40 very much . You and me both. ,
Jennifer Martin: maybe not the tolls,
Melissa: not the, I was gonna say not the tolls, but I haven't been paying attention to that. I like to happily ignore that part.
Yes. Because I love it so much. It really does cut out some, some travel time for me. Yeah. My
Jennifer Martin: time saving is worth it on that. [00:02:00] Yeah. So. Also, I'm, I might be a little bit biased on that. Yeah, you are. Yes, . So we, it, we brought us here and a lot of times with those jobs when you come to a project, if it's a three year project, five year project, whatever it might be, you end up staying for the project and then getting transferred to the next project whenever it, you know, the next location.
Well, we were very fortunate that after that ended, there was a project called fortify, where they redid Highway 40. Depending on how you felt on that. Oh, okay. And so we have now been here 15 years just because of different, various projects that have been based like this has been our home base. He may travel to other jobs, but, and then I fell in love with a job here.
Melissa: Okay. So that leads us into shop local Raleigh and. How you came to be a part of this?
Jennifer Martin: Yeah, so it was a fun story. I worked for Susan g Koman down in central Florida when we were living down there. And before that I worked for the Boy Scouts of America. I actually lived in St. Louis for that job. After college I left and had an opportunity to go there.
So I packed up um, with my little U-Haul and tow and slept on a coworks couch. So [00:03:00] two very well
Melissa: known. Organizations? Yes. Okay. Yes. So I was
Jennifer Martin: very fortunate. It was a great opportunity. Mm-hmm . So I packed up and moved, and then when the opportunity came to go to Central Florida to work for Susan g Komen, moved back to Florida.
My first time living in central Florida though, and then when we got the opportunity to move here, it just sounded like a great. You know, a great next step. We didn't know anything about Raleigh. We didn't know anything about North Carolina to be truly honest, other than there was this sports team called the Tar Hills, and we had some friends that were fans and decided that, you know what?
Let's try it. My job, unfortunately didn't transfer, so we came to this area and I, if anyone knows me, they know that I love dogs, big dogs. So I had a Bull Mastiff and his name was Bubba. And at the time, and we did everything together and after a couple months when I realized I was talking way too much to Bubba, I needed to to get serious about finding a career here.
Melissa: Okay. Alright. So, yeah, I'm gonna mention your dogs later. Uh, lightning round. I have a question about your big dogs. let's get into shopping local, and what I'm curious [00:04:00] about is how, how does shopping local and supporting local businesses affect our local economy as a whole?
Jennifer Martin: Sure. It's, it's massive.
Just to put it in a quick, easy, simple word, but to give you more of a story about it, you know, when we look at small businesses across the country, small businesses are their largest single employer. In terms of size, if you put every small business together and add up, how many people work for small businesses?
They're the number one largest employer. However, they don't compete with big boxes as far as purchasing power. They're not able to compete a lot of times with health benefits and programs that a big box may have or a corporate entity may have. But at the end of the day, they're the ones that are truly keeping our local economies.
As far as having places to eat, having places to shop, having service providers, you know, to do things, repairs on your home, build homes whatever it might be. And so with that, they are creating character in our community. And so people, when they travel different cities, that's some things they look for.
And Raleigh's no different is what's local, what's unique to this area, [00:05:00] because while we all know the big boxes, and to a certain extent, you need them. It's something that, how do you, how does a community identify itself with their unique items and products that they have?
Melissa: how would you describe the uniqueness of Raleigh?
What makes us different than other big cities?
Jennifer Martin: You know, I think one of the things is that there's still some small town charm. You know Raleigh? Mm-hmm . Is what, half a million people now. So you've still got your downtown area, just like our other municipalities, whether you're going to carry an apex, and all of them right now are working on their branding and their identity as far as what their downtown has to offer, what kind of charm they have.
But with Raleigh, we've got, you know, the tech area out . Kind of spread out throughout. You've got so many small businesses, there's a lot of makers here, whether it's doing manufacturing and sea, or it's making chocolates. Are they coffee makers? You know, producers? Are they making different textiles? And that's one of the things here that I think we see a lot and a big theme about is really in that community of that space of the makerspace of what [00:06:00] really helps identify entrepreneurship that's maybe different that you won't find everywhere else.
Mm-hmm .
Melissa: Okay, so when I think about shop local Raleigh, I've always kind of looked at it like a chamber of commerce. But you guys are solely for supporting local businesses, whereas a chamber supports all businesses, including hotels and chain restaurants. Is, is that right? Does that sum it up?
Jennifer Martin: Pretty much similar.
So we are very similar to a Chamber. It is a membership based organization. We've got about 888 members right now throughout Wade County. Okay. Businesses pay anywhere from 125 to 2 75 a year to be a member. So there is that due structure, just the same as you would with a chamber. With our membership base, it is locally owned and independent businesses.
So you now, some of your hotels, they may have local ownership, for instance for a lot of the hotels downtown, they're locally owned hotels, the rooftop bars or local ownership, but they buy into that bigger name to have that product at that hotel. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, so fun fact, a lot of them, when you look around town, you'll actually realize that the owners [00:07:00] live here locally and they might be part of a restaurant or group or hotel group, like Summit Hospitality is a great example that has a lot of different hotel properties and then all their restaurants are their own brand and concept that they develop.
We'll work with the independent side. We might work with Summit Hospitality, but we may not work with the Marriott side of what they do.
Melissa: Okay. Yeah, I did not realize that, that it kind of worked like that. I just assumed that, you know, Marriott, Mr. Marriott, would own, you know, each location. I didn't realize that.
So it's kind of like a Chick-fil-A has its own . Individual owner type of thing. Yeah, I did not realize that. Yeah, there's local
Jennifer Martin: ownership for those and it's, I mean, obviously there's certain products that are the same, like for a hotel they're offering same, you know, your rewards members, you're having the same standard of quality within what you come to expect with rooms and things like that, that these hoteliers buy into.
But they do have local management that buys into the product and what they're doing. So very similar with restaurants, though. We'll work with restaurant groups all the time that, you know, maybe they only have one [00:08:00] location. Maybe they have six locations, different brands or varieties underneath their arm of what they do.
But they're all locally owned, independent to this area. So we're not looking to go work with the Applebee's, if you will. Now, Applebee's may have local ownership because those are franchise models, but that's not really kind of our target market of who we're working with.
Melissa: Yeah, you're, you're working with
Primarily you know, the, the smaller names,
Jennifer Martin: right. And, and more unique, I guess, kind of boutiquey, if you will. Yeah, when I say that and kind of what they're doing, there's there, I guess too, when we define a small business by the small business administration, their numbers are probably much, much higher.
Right. I should say. I know they are much higher than what we have as far as our members. We may have a small business though that'll have 800 employees. That's kind of an example, but it's more that's a service related business and a lot of their employees are only part-time. So most of our people though, depending on again, what industry retail, they're probably having anywhere from one to maybe 15, you know, employees, things like that.
Restaurant skewed very different. And [00:09:00] depending on how many locations they have. Also a coffee shop in within that same vein is gonna have a lot, much different number of how many people they have. But then you've got. The B2B type services that we work with, maybe it's the CPA, you know, that's a staff of one A, you know, a firm of one that's helping people.
Maybe it's a plumbing company. Again, they have a different size of crew of what they're doing, but we try to work as long as it's local and owned and independent, whether it's brick and mortar, non brick and mortar, or if it's B2B, B2C. We're trying to connect and touch with all of them and really figure out how we can connect business and community together.
So
Melissa: tell me. What you do for companies, you said you help with their marketing and strategy,
Jennifer Martin: that type of thing. So a lot of times they'll come to us for different reasons. Part of our membership program, if you're, what we have to offer is, you know, they get their listing, their directory on the website, which for those that understand SEO, that includes a back link, which is great for helping to boost your reach organically.
They're also coming to, we maybe potentially, we [00:10:00] have educational seminars, teaching businesses how to use Canva. You know, what is the future of ai, how to use it within your business. We'll do things on, what are tools that out there that businesses need. Every year we try to do in the beginning of the year about new tax laws.
What are the new laws that are affecting small business and business in general in North Carolina? so that they can be aware of those things. So those are those monthly educational touch points. Then we've also got the monthly networking events where we try to go around to a different member location and try to give an activity of something to do.
So it's, when I say networking, I prefer to call it more connections. 'cause I know sometimes with networking, I think one, it's changed a lot over the last few years. But also in people here networking, they think I have to wear a suit or I have to, you know, really dress up. Mm-hmm . Our event last month was at a pickleball facility, which obviously, as you know, is huge and they all got to connect with each other, have fun on the court, something a little different. The month before that, we volunteered at a local nonprofit they have a food insecurity program and they also do clothing for those in need.
And so we just simply hung clothes for an hour [00:11:00] and talked to each other and got to learn more about each other's business while we were hanging close as a service project.
Melissa: Yeah, and that sounds like the, the perfect opportunity for others to kind of compare . Notes, give advice to each other as fellow small business owners too.
Jennifer Martin: A hundred percent. Whereas I
Melissa: hear the word networking and I kind of think, oh, I'm gonna go pass out my card and try to sell something, you know? Right. But you're right. Connection is more of trying, trying to learn something from others and. Yeah, hang out with people with common goals and, and, and dreams.
Jennifer Martin: Well, and we wanted them to feel too more that they could, it's more informal that it's not the pressure of networking. It's not that you have to feel uncomfortable or you're walking into a room where you have to go shake a bunch of hands. If you're that, we can really just try and connect each other and we, as event hosts during those meetings, try and identify if a new guest is there or if we know someone's in a certain industry to connect them with someone.
That might be a good. Source for them. So it's really important for us too, to know kind of our membership base, what services they offer. [00:12:00] But then in addition to all that one, we're producing our event series, which I know we'll talk about that more. But also if a business needs help, we want them to know that they can use us as a resource.
We'll get calls all the time of . I just need someone to listen to what's happening or give me some ideas I need. We, we don't understand there's money coming in, but we don't understand why we're not getting new business as far as too much money is going out. You know? How are mm-hmm . What are we doing different things.
We'll talk with them about, obviously all confidential. I. We have to have a good trust relationship. And sometimes people just come to us and say like, Hey, I'm, I'm really not making ends meet and I don't know, is there grants? Is there loans? Who do I talk to? And maybe sometimes too we can look at them and say, you know what?
I don't think a grant or a loan is your, your issue here. Here's what other alternatives are. Let's talk about let's, what's really happening and let's look at your business as far as where you're at today so that we can help you figure out the next steps of navigation.
Melissa: Where do you see the future of Raleigh businesses?
would you consider our growth to be on par with similar [00:13:00] cities?
Jennifer Martin: No, that's not something I, I'll be honest, I don't measure as much, kind of more like an tourism bureau would or mm-hmm . An economic bureau would. But what we see though is that entrepreneurship here is still very strong. One thing we see the most of with entrepreneurship is, you know, a lot of times too, if you're looking for a brick and mortar space, or if you have a brick and mortar space, prices have increased significantly here.
Yeah. So, I mean, our, our property values have gone up, which means also real estate property values for commercial real estate has gone up. And when those tax reevaluations come through, those tax evaluations, yes, they're passed on to the owner of the property, but they're also passed down onto the tenant.
Which means really that brick and mortar space is absorbing those costs just as much as well. Mm-hmm .
Melissa: And I would think that that really has become a hardship in terms of, of of small business being successful and being able to. Stay in business.
Jennifer Martin: Absolutely. Especially if you're getting a couple thousand dollars of an increase, you know, without knowing that this is what it's going to be.[00:14:00]
'cause now you, you've got your budget for the year. You've done your forecasting. We had a member recently reach out about new tcam fees. TCA is a variable fee that'll happen a lot of times when you're in a commercial property. It could vary from, you know, things like HVAC needs or landscaping. Maybe it's taking care of ice snow on the properties that they have and that a business will be charged and that can vary and fluctuate.
Well, if they get an increase of 2,500 to 3000, now that's all of a sudden another 2,500 to 3000 they have to come up with and figure out how am I going to increase my revenue? And that may sound very minimal, but for some of them, if they've already had other increases, maybe in their pricing of their products or goods, their supplying cost of labor, cost of insurance has gone up again because of everything else.
You add those up? We've talked to some businesses that they're facing increases, you know, in the tens of thousands of dollars. They're trying to figure out how do they make up from last year when they thought they gave it everything they could to do the best they can. Wow. Yeah. Now they're having to come up with an additional tens of thousands.
How are they going to make up that difference? [00:15:00]
Melissa: So, not to get political or anything, but this is leading me to ask, do you find that our local leaders are working with, with small businesses and trying to find solutions to not raise our taxes and, and raise, you know, the . Real estate and everything that comes along with all this inflation.
Jennifer Martin: You know, we work very closely with the city of Raleigh. We've worked with some other municipalities. I do think we can probably do a better job of that and having more outreach and connecting to advocate. We also try to work with the county a little bit to advocate because the county ultimately is the one that determines those rates.
Okay. You can challenge your increase. When you get it. You can't challenge it annually. It's like once in so many years. You can challenge it if you disagree with your margin. That has increased and kind of go back to the county on that. And then talking with them. You know, right now, a lot of times what's happening is we're hearing it's because of the cost of increased services, there's more people moving here.
So with that, there's an increase for additional, [00:16:00] you know, roads, parks, service workers whoever runs your municipality operations, if you will, but also at the county level. And that's, you know, also. Combating hunger issues in our community. You know, education, working with different kinds of things like that, that have happened, and how do you still provide basic services and if their labor costs are going up, if their costs are going up on certain things.
But I also challenge them a lot of times to say, if we have more people moving here, that also means there's a lot more money coming in. So a lot more money coming in. Let's look at really, are there ways where we can help make it affordable for people to still live here and stay here that have helped built this area that may be on fixed incomes, but really in general just quality of life issues.
Because if all that extra revenue is coming in, 'cause people are moving here, then there should in theory, be money to also continue to pay for some of those services without having to continually tax everyone over and over.
Melissa: You would think so, but it does not feel that way. , no , and I'm sure it doesn't feel that way for small business owners who I, I feel like are getting the brunt of.
This [00:17:00] type of thing that we're talking about.
Jennifer Martin: Well, even as a resident too, I mean, I, I'm an Apex resident. My electric water just went up 27%. Mm-hmm . And it's included, not including what your property taxes went up. And think about that too, if from a residential, you know, a person that lives in the community, that affects my budget now too.
If, how much I can go spend. Very true, true. How much I can shop, how much I can eat out, you know? So I think all around, and our business owners are residents too. True. So we're all, all feeling it on our budget right now.
Melissa: Yeah, that is very true. So in terms of engagement that business owners can engage with customers today is all social media.
I mean, it's just a social media environment. So how do you tell businesses or advise businesses to engage with potential customers today?
Jennifer Martin: One, diversify. Mm-hmm . So, and I, I mean that with the most honest, I think sincerity I can, as far as I tell people all the time, email marketing is not dead. Having a website is not dead, and [00:18:00] having your business listed only on social media is only at a detriment to you and here's why.
One where a lot of people are at social, the algorithms, the way they show and the way they look, it's dependent on when someone opens their platform and they're scrolling, there's a good chance they're probably not going to see a majority of what everyone in their, their like box, if you will, their field that they're liking or sharing is posting.
And so with that also, I go back to TikTok here recently, if you remember, they shut down for what, a day and a half or two days or so, and we had a lot of content creators and a lot of people that were totally dependent on that platform for their income and for their sharing source of revenue or how they were getting their message out.
None of us own those platforms. We don't own our followers on those platforms. And what I mean by that is when those platforms go down, a lot of people were panicking not knowing what to do. But if you have an email database list, if you have another way to reach your customers, should that, you know, those social media platforms all of a sudden go down overnight, you still have the ability to market to your customers.
That's what I caution [00:19:00] people to do is look at, you know, the importance of having a website. Yes, having your social media profiles, but also have that email newsletter is, are you doing loyalty programs? Do you have text marketing campaigns that you can reach people? What are other things out there and tools that your resource, so should a TikTok go down again or something similar in that nature, you're not completely starting over.
Melissa: Yeah, I know personally, I always look at websites and, and I would rather click on a website to look at than just a, a Facebook page because to your point, you get a lot more information directly on a website than you would. On one single page.
Jennifer Martin: Absolutely. And a lot of times too, if you message someone through a social media profile, you never know who's kind of answering that.
Mm-hmm .
Melissa: Yeah. Okay. Let's say I want to start a business. For this example, we'll just call it a gift shop or some sort of small boutique in downtown Raleigh. I would not even know where to start. Could you give me some tips?
Jennifer Martin: Sure. So there's a lot of great organizations out there. Like we're just one of many, and I believe [00:20:00] downtown Raleigh Alliance, if we're speaking just about downtown, for instance, downtown Raleigh Alliances, they're part of a bid district, and it's that business improvement district.
It's funded through a taxation process where the people within those boundaries are taxed and extra percentage. The funding from that goes to help support the operations of that nonprofit. What their job is in specifically downtown is to one, help market promote downtown. Retail recruitment and development, things like that.
Business development also connect with residents that are living in those areas, but they do have someone that you can reach out to directly for retail. You know, there's grant opportunities that they have, whether it's a, A building upfit grant, which is also done through the city of Raleigh based on certain areas that have been identified.
You've got the downtown Raleigh Alliance grant, but more than that, there's someone that can kind of help . Navigate what's available? What are you looking for? What type of business are you looking to operate? Things like that. The city of Raleigh, their special their economic development department.
They're great at working with helping kind of a business plan. Here's a, you know, step-by-step guide if you're thinking [00:21:00] of opening a business. You can also go to score, which is another great mentorship resource. It's a nonprofit in the area. Wake Tech has a small business program. You can take different courses and classes.
Again, they can help walk you through some setup setups, you know, start step by step. Ways to start your business. Where we get a lot of people that come to us is not necessarily they're looking to start, or if they're starting it's maybe they have a 10 by 10 vendor booth set up with an idea of a concept of a product they're making.
They'll start small with us and incubate in hopes of going to, you know, a brick and mortar studio later. 'cause our events are so impactful as far as, you know, the really true small micro business. And then going to the bigger, the bigger brick and mortars that we have within our network. But I think one, it's the Internet's your friend.
Don't be afraid to Google kind of what resources are out there, but also just reaching out to our different groups. Midtown Raleigh has an alliance. Obviously we cover all of Raleigh Wake County. Then there's, you know, Hillsborough Street, they have another bid district, so there's a group there that can try and help navigate and kind of help people.
So there are a lot of resources out there. It's just [00:22:00] using that internet, reaching out to people like us or other associations to find out who might be able to help you and help you network and connect to those people. That can be a resource.
Melissa: Shop local Raleigh hosts several huge events each year, like the Raleigh Christmas parade, which I didn't know that this was the largest Christmas parade between Washington DC and Atlanta Falling for local festival at Dick's Park.
I love that one. That's what, that's in the fall and it's, you know, pumpkins and food trucks and all that. Carolina Hurricanes fan fest. I have not been to that one before. Holiday markets, food truck rodeos. But one of Raleigh's most popular events is coming up in April, which happens to be the 2025 Wake Living Reader's Choice Award winner for best local event or festival.
Can you tell us about Boogaloo and how this event came to be?
Jennifer Martin: Sure, sure. So Boogaloo, a fun story is every, when we were first starting and young as an organization, the Greater [00:23:00] Merchants Association's been around since 1940. Old story of it was actually in downtown Raleigh. It was the Merchants Coming Together, which formed this later Merchants Bureau and then eventually re transitioned to shop local Raleigh, which is our doing business as our trade name.
For everything that we do, reminding people to shop local, buy local, invest local. Anything they can do, can they shift at least 10% of their shopping and spending to local? Well, with that, we were talking with some breweries back in the day. You know, you didn't see everyone back on grocery store shelves.
You didn't see as many bottle shops around the area as we do now. And I'm talking, you know, 14 years ago, 15 years ago. And what we are finding is that the old model was that when you went to a beer festival, all the breweries were donating their product. And to do that, that's how they had access to the festival.
They may also pay a vendor fee, and that was considered part of their marketing, if you will, to try and get people to try their product. And they came to us and we were having these conversations about the cost of how much they were spending going all these festivals. By the time they sent staff, they [00:24:00] donated product, and then they were dependent on people coming back to their brewery to buy their product or to
Enjoy more. And that model was just becoming very expensive and costly and from a business owner perspective. And when they came to us, we said, well, what if we were able to produce a festival, an event that was a, a beer festival, craft beer festival, and we were able to be able to pay for all the product that was consumed.
And so as you know, product for those things can be off. Also very costly as well. Mm-hmm . And we were a very small organization. And we said, what if we had this idea where we start this festival? And at the time someone said, well, you can use our property in Fuquay. And I said, no one's gonna drive to Fuquay and then drive back to Raleigh afterwards.
That's
Melissa: true. After, you know, inhaling a bunch of beer .
Jennifer Martin: Well, and we didn't have Uber then. There wasn't, Lyft didn't exist. Yeah. And so, you know, again, we're, I'm dating myself with all this information now. But with that, we learned, we said, what if we can do this and make it to where simply you just get paid.
People can hear about your product, you can sell your merchandise for an opportunity to make [00:25:00] additional funding. Sign up your email list. Again, this is almost, you know, early days of social when we were doing this and we said, you can try and work to connect with people and really market yourself this way.
And so long story short, here we are. This will be our 14th year this year. To where we started as just City Plaza to Davy Street. Just this, what we thought might be a thousand to 2000 people coming out, ended up being 4,500 for the first year. Mm-hmm . We were running out of beer in the middle of the event before it was over, and we knew we had a big problem.
So figuring out how to get more beer delivered to downtown's a good problem, though it was a great problem to have at the time. It didn't seem great.
Melissa: No, I'm
Jennifer Martin: sure.
Melissa: And .
Jennifer Martin: So trying to pull all . All resources of how do we get more product and get it here fast and now otherwise we're gonna have a, a problem on our hands in downtown.
Mm-hmm .
Melissa: And, and Raleigh's craft beer scene has exploded in the last decade or so, and
Jennifer Martin: not just Raleigh, North Carolina. Mm-hmm . I mean, the whole scene. I know trends right now, a lot of places you're showing that craft beer is trending down. You know, people are switching to healthier drinks or maybe going [00:26:00] non-alcoholic, or they're switching to tequila even.
Mm-hmm . That's a, you know, the highest, fastest growing alcohol . Liquor line right now is the tequila industry. You've got people looking at doing seltzers. They're doing THC infused drinks, and so . For this many breweries to still be sustainable and to still say that we have 50 some thousand people coming to this festival.
Is it
Melissa: that many?
Jennifer Martin: It is.
Melissa: Wow. It's,
Jennifer Martin: and to me, it shows me that we do support our local industry here, the craft brewing industry. We do still enjoy the product. We do enjoy supporting them. But more than that, like we have some really talented people here.
Melissa: So you guys have beer breweries from all over the state, is that correct?
Correct. Just North Carolina. Just
Jennifer Martin: North Carolina. And when we started it was just kind of Wake County Triangle proper, and then each year we grew it to the next block, and then we did a next block. And then at year five we did the block party on Friday night. And so, because again, it just kept growing. Now we're in a situation where we're landlocked.
We don't have additional room to grow just given the current [00:27:00] footprint because you stretch
Melissa: from the capital all the way to . Memorial Auditorium.
Jennifer Martin: We end at City Plaza. Okay. Which is right before, like right where Marriott is, if you will. Okay. Yeah. There's an unspoken agreement or a handshake agreement with the city that you cannot close down from City Plaza to Memorial.
Oh, I didn't realize that. Well, that
Melissa: actually explains a lot though, . Yes. '
Jennifer Martin: cause we had, we've tried for so many years, we had ideas of putting all the ticketing down at that end, having everyone enter through that, and they kind of mm-hmm . Walk their way, if you will, from . Downtown Raleigh up to the state capitol, part of the footprint and just all kinds of ideas of how we can expand, but we are landlocked, which is actually what prompted us to start falling for local.
We realized that people were coming out with their kids earlier in the day because there's free music, there's all these bands, and so you know, moms and dads are dads. A lot of dads we would see with strollers were coming out and getting a beer and then going in front of the stage and just kind of, the kids were dancing and having fun.
And we figured, well, wait a minute, if we could create a family friendly event that could still feature [00:28:00] an opportunity for parents to have a beverage in a safe environment and give programming for kids, and then maybe, maybe it would even alleviate some of the foot traffic from Boogaloo, which it didn't end up happening that way.
Mm-hmm . But we went and created Falling for Local, which is a truly family friendly event as far as inflatables, hay rides, pumpkin patches, dog rescues. There's 150 local businesses that set up, it's almost like a B a business trade show because we have people that are selling B2B type services, but also B2C services and B2C might be your local plumber, might be your local home repair person, but then you can also go shopping at a boutique.
You can learn more about orthodontics from an orthodontist. Mm-hmm . You can learn about med spa services. Everything that you can think of is there, including 50 food trucks on top of that and eight bands on two stages, and the entire thing's free. Except, and it's really cool
Melissa: being out at Dick's Park too.
Jennifer Martin: It is. That field is massive If you haven't had a chance to go out there, there's so much room, and I think that's the one thing, each event we produce is so unique and they're so [00:29:00] different from each other. But again, they all come back to just about community and about bringing people together and really trying to have people help, have a good time to help promote our small business community.
Melissa: Speaking of all of the events being so different. There's a lot that goes into planning these events. I can only imagine. I mean, I have anxiety thinking about the checklist of to-dos and or something just like bru. So how do you guys go about planning? Such massive events.
Jennifer Martin: A lot of spreadsheets. No , a lot of spreadsheets and caffeine and I'm sure
Melissa: a lot of teamwork.
You know, we have to, but you have a small team, right? We are.
Jennifer Martin: We are a small team. There's three of us and we have to, one, we have to respect each other. Mm-hmm . Unconditionally, no matter what. Mm-hmm. We all work together. We have to like each other. That's super important. 'cause we spend a lot of time with each other.
And honestly, two, we try to have fun with each other because if it's not fun at the end of the day, you're not gonna wanna go. You're not gonna wanna be a part of it. And I preface to people too, events are not for everyone. You have to truly love what we do to be a part of, to enjoy what we do. 'cause when you're out there at two [00:30:00] 30 in the morning on Fayetteville Street in downtown, probably still cleaning up.
That may not be the fun part of the day, especially since you've just worked an 18 to 20 hour day and you've worked also the same amount of hours the day before. I mean, you're, there's a, you've got to really love what you do.
Melissa: Do you guys work very closely, I guess with the, the city to do, to pull off these events?
Jennifer Martin: The city does a lot of the permitting process, but these events pretty much are pretty much all independent. Like they're, it's as you're an independent producer and independent . Independent planner, you know, there's, they do the operational side of, you know, telling you how much security you need to hire and you'll do contracts with them to hire off duty police.
There's doing the trash program, ordering additional trash bins from city, you know, things like that. We work with them. But as far as the logistics of load in, load out, what vendors collecting insurance, anything and everything that happens with those events, that all comes back on each individual event producer.
Melissa: Wow.
Jennifer Martin: So, but we have a good time with it again. It's, and you guys are great at it. I mean, well, thank you. Yeah,
Melissa: thanks. I think we still, it, it feels seamless. I mean, as, [00:31:00] as a person that's attending the events, it, it's seamless. That's
Jennifer Martin: what we want you to see. .
Melissa: Good, good. Well, it's working. So Boogaloo, tell us the dates for this year.
It's
Jennifer Martin: April 25th and 26th Downtown Raleigh. Friday night is six to 10:00 PM That event is your traditional, what used to be the original old school, if you will. Beer sty, beer style festival. It's four hours. It's you get a cup. It's unlimited sampling. Saturday is from 12 to eight. That is what's different about that event is you can actually do sample size pores or you could do full pints.
And so with that it's, you get tickets when you arrive. You can prepurchase tickets, buy tickets on site. Think of it as like going to the fair. You've got your tickets to go and redeem with a different beer vendor booths, and you can sample what you. Want that way kind of tasting up and down the street, but then in between, enjoy some great food trucks.
I kind of say eat your way through international, because every cuisine, like we have every different variety. I think that's out there is represented at the event and just really go enjoy that event, but then listen to the great bands, [00:32:00] go do some shopping and just all around kind of have some fun.
Melissa: Do you guys have a, a rain plan for these big events like this?
We do. We are rain or shine. Okay. So yes,
Jennifer Martin: we do. We had two years ago, I wanna say it was pretty much almost a monsoon, which we've never seen. Like I feel like that's why I'm
Melissa: asking because I do feel like I remember that one. Yeah. Yeah. I
Jennifer Martin: felt like we were in a different country. We had so much rain. Yeah.
But the thing about it though is, you know, again, as long as we don't have lightning or thunder, as long as it's safe mm-hmm . Because with those things you do have to delay. But as long as it's just some rain and people can go out and we saw people just dancing in the rain. And from an event producer side, you know, obviously you're looking at safety, you're looking at, you know, making sure that everything is still going well.
Do we need to look out for anything? But then you kind of look around and you realize like people are just having fun. We saw grown adults just dancing and having a great time in the rain, and I think that's when you kind of . The stress of the daily hustle and bustle of life and you're running all the practices or you gotta go get the groceries, or [00:33:00] how are you gonna put your next meal on the table?
At that moment, it seemed like those people could just put that aside and enjoy some that little moment of life.
Melissa: Okay, well, we'll just keep our fingers crossed for no rain, but that
Jennifer Martin: would be great .
Melissa: But if there is rain, then we'll just deal with it, throw in our ponchos and our rain boots and, and go have fun.
Jennifer Martin: I mean, beer's made with water anyways, so yeah, ,
Melissa: you might as well hydrate the outside of your skin, right, as well. , I like to end my episodes with a lightning round, and this time I'm gonna call it the loving Local lightning Round. I know this is gonna be hard to answer these questions because it's like asking which of your dogs is your favorite.
So I'll add a disclaimer to this and say that this is your personal list and you're not speaking on behalf of Shop Local Raleigh. So what is your favorite local date? Night?
Jennifer Martin: Well, first I will say I do have a favorite dog. That is so easy. Oh no. And I'm not afraid to say it. So
Melissa: and I think they, , you've got three big dogs, right?
We do. Okay. Yeah, we had
Jennifer Martin: four at once and I, I love them. But all but for what they have. But [00:34:00] yes, I'm not afraid to say I do have favorites there. You can call out your favorite dog then. Yes. Yes. So, but with local date, you know, I feel like one, that's a trap question. 'cause I always get asked, what's your favorite or what's, and I mm-hmm
You prefaced it so well. So thank you. However, I think for me it . It's not necessarily the place, but it's the vibe. So if I've worked, it's not uncommon to work 80 hour weeks, especially, you know, leading up to event season, and there's just a lot of hours I like going somewhere, right? Just don't have to dress up.
I'm known. I love wearing my feet hurt all the time. I'm a runner and I'm just active and I love wearing anywhere I can go with jeans and a t-shirt and tennis shoes and not have to worry if my makeup's done or my hair's done. It's my favorite kind of place.
Melissa: Okay, so the, the breweries would fit that.
Jennifer Martin: I gotta have food.
I gotta have food. . Yeah.
Melissa: Well most of them now have food trucks that come. Yes. Yes. So that is, I think that's a neat part. 'cause I don't drink beer, but my husband does. So I'll go for the food truck and the vibes. And he enjoys the beer.
Jennifer Martin: Yeah. And you know, we're big. I'm also, I. Maybe terrible about this, but we're big on takeout, picking up from [00:35:00] a local establishment.
Mm-hmm . Taking it home. I, I don't shy that I work out for one reason. It's 'cause I love food . Friday nights I want pizza and that's just what it is. Yep. So we'll try and pick up something on the way home and I just love, you know, kind of enjoying some really good food and. A Netflix or you know, whatever else, I can sit down and not have to do anything.
Melissa: Well, you do. You don't only host your events, you go to a lot of events in town. I see you at every single one of them, so I, I don't blame you. You just wanna chill out and be at home. Okay. We've covered that. You're a big dog lover. Where is your favorite local place to take the dogs for a walk?
Jennifer Martin: Oh, you know, I don't really drive far to go for walks.
I stay pretty local. We're Apex. Mm-hmm . And we have the Apex Nature Park right by near us. Oh, nice. And I mean, I can, again, with big dogs, I don't have to walk them far. We can go, you know, a couple blocks in the summer 'cause the heat's too much for them. Or during the winter I can take them up to three miles.
Okay. And I love just sidewalk walking, which just sounds weird and I guess I don't know what it is. I think I can just kind of zone out. Sometimes I do a podcast, [00:36:00] sometimes I don't. Mm-hmm . And just try to get on the, the route and go and look at the changing scenery and take it all in. Okay.
Melissa: Okay. Favorite local coffee shop?
Jennifer Martin: I don't drink coffee.
Melissa: Uhoh. Okay. So
Jennifer Martin: FYI, but I do Any
Melissa: favorite local shop like that?
Jennifer Martin: Yeah. You know what I do love is a really good, I've gotten kind of to enjoy a little bit more, like some chai or things like that. I recently had a meeting at. ALAH on Hillsborough Street and the person had ordered the wrong drink and so they said, here, do you want this?
It was ordered wrong and I got to try it, and I actually really liked it. Okay, so you
Melissa: accidentally got a, a new drink ?
Jennifer Martin: I did, and I think it was more cream than it was coffee, but I, yeah, probably . It was great though. Yeah. Yeah. So I love a, I do have kind of had an acquired taste lately for some matcha, so if I can have like a Boba matcha drink or something, I've tried matcha.
It's cha house on Hillsborough Street has. The my first matcha that I got to try and it was, I think it might be an acquired taste at the beginning, and now I, if I go to Lucky Tree, I usually just order a matcha. [00:37:00]
Melissa: Okay. I will try that. Favorite local food truck? Speaking of all these food truck rodeos you host,
Jennifer Martin: I have a big confession.
Because we work so many of these events, I don't eat the food . Oh. 'cause I don't get a break. Yeah, that's true. So that's
Melissa: very true.
Jennifer Martin: I have tried very few food trucks. Same with breweries. Again, because we work the event, we don't drink at our events. And so I've tried very, very little food on a food truck.
Notorious for if I do eat, I'm only ordering fries. Okay, because I need something that I can keep going. I can eat on the go walk, walk and eat. Yes. And I can snack as I do it. So that is probably to my demise and my health that I eat. pizza, French fries. Yeah. I, the walkable foods, yes. I eat very basic
Melissa: So you're sending a North Carolina themed gift basket to an out-of-state friend. What local merch do you add to the basket?
Jennifer Martin: Sure. So we've done this a couple times. We've been asked or done gifts for people. One, I think it's nice to always include local chocolate. [00:38:00] The dairy, I'm not a huge chocolate person either.
I, I'm weird. I know. I don't do coffee, I don't do chocolate, but they have this sea salt one that I think tastes really great. So we're looking at doing that. I think North Carolina, I'm also unique because I'm not native. I do like ketchup based barbecue sauces, so don't I do as well. And I am a native . So, I think for me it's finding don't come at me.
People , right. Finding a really good barbecue sauce to send some people to enjoy. Something. And there's a, there's quite a few local hot sauce makers, which is really awesome because again, I don't like things hot, but I love gifting them to people. 'cause most people do like them. There's, salt company, local salt company, nons salts that she does.
Pinching salts, which is kind of a cool concept that unique. I have not heard of
Melissa: that one. Okay. Yeah,
Jennifer Martin: so things like that. I think jams and jellies you can always do, but I'm more looking at some food items than I am. Anything else? Just some really unique. Little things that you can kind of send to people that one will last for a little bit.
You know, for stealth stability, things like that, that I'm always trying to find or kind of just share with. Sometimes I can find some great local hand creams [00:39:00] or you know, Logan's Garden Shop or if you're going to Atlantic Garden. Yeah. Mm-hmm . They've got great gift shops that you can shop in Nofo at The Pig always has great items.
I was gonna say
Melissa: Nofo has great local items. Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Martin: And I dunno if you've ever been to Gingham and Posh. No, I haven't. She's on Oak Park Shopping Center over in Glenwood. She's got a, she does a gift basket skit service, so you can actually, whether it's corporate gifting or if you're doing, like, let's say you have a wedding party, you can call her and she'll put together kind of a customized gift basket and deliver.
Oh, that's a great idea.
Melissa: For a business.
Jennifer Martin: It's great, especially at corporate gifting at the holidays, they do a lot of stuff there, but then she's also got the retail side where you can go in and shop and just see some really neat things. Zest up in north Raleigh, they've got a really cute little gift shop in their cafe.
That's also too how I learn about a lot of local products. But another one of my favorites to gift is local candles. Mm-hmm . So I think, I don't know who, I'm a huge candle person. I love candles, so I think that's an easy one to gift.
Melissa: Great ideas. Well, thank you so much for coming today and sharing about what local shop Local Raleigh is all about.
Can you tell us where to find out more about Shop [00:40:00] local Raleigh and upcoming events like Boogaloo?
Jennifer Martin: Absolutely. Find us obviously online. I'm a huge proponent having online. Yeah. On the website we do have a website shop local raleigh.org. 'cause we are a nonprofit, so it's dot org. You can also find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Instagram, you can find us on LinkedIn, you can find us on, what am I forgetting? TikTok. We are not active on TikTok, though I will own it. I, I think that one's, I just, I say to people, I'm old , so I haven't done that yet, but
Melissa: I'm not, I'm not on the TikTok either, so yeah. I don't have
Jennifer Martin: it on my phone.
I don't have alerts. Mm-hmm . But I, we are pretty much readily accessible. Anytime you send an email to contact us, it comes to our team. We're happy to respond, we're happy to help, and really just be there as a resource of how can we, you know, help you and your business succeed. But also as a consumer, if you're looking for certain products or items or looking to navigate where to find things, we're happy to help with that as well.
Melissa: You guys do, I will give you a shout out. You have a great website. Thank you. I was on it this morning doing research for this interview and every company that you do business with is on there, but is very categorized for what you're looking for. And [00:41:00] also your events page is fantastic. Thank
Jennifer Martin: you. We, you also have a
Melissa: weekend events.
What, like an article or something? Yes. That you put on the website every week. S that's talking about what's going on for the upcoming weekend.
Jennifer Martin: Seth in our office is great. He works really hard to compile. Local things, local events happening and every week, not only is it posted on our social media, but it's also posted as a blog.
So in case we learn of other things after the post has gone out on social, it's continually listed on there just of, you know, kind of what are you looking for, things to do, looking to get out, looking to explore your community there. We try to get a really good comprehensive list of all the local things.
Melissa: Well, tell him I said he's doing a great job with that, especially now that winter's over, we had a cold, wet winter spring. We wanna get outside and figure out what we can do this weekend. So.
Jennifer Martin: We're ready and this, it should be nice this whole spring. I think everybody's looking forward to it. I hope
Melissa: so. Yes.
Fingers crossed.
Jennifer Martin: Thank you, Jennifer. Thanks for having us. [00:42:00]