The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Phillip Riese Joined Jerry Miller Live On The I Love CVille Show!

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Phillip Riese, Owner of Unlocked History Escape Rooms, joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Thank you. media, and podcasting platform possible, a show that tries its best, I think we do a fairly good job, to just talk about a community that we love, Charlottesville, Alamo County, and Central Virginia. Just because we hold the community accountable and ask very analytical, I think fair, maybe targeted questions and try to challenge the narrative does not mean we don't have a deep passion

for Charlottesville and Alamo County. My wife and I are raising our two boys here. We live in the county of Albemarle and we work 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week in the city of Charlottesville. There would be nothing more that I would like and I don't want to put the pressure on them because they're six and nearly two years old, that they continued this business and it turned into maybe what Charlottesville Sanitary Supply has, Judah. A 60-year business. We'll give some love to our partners, Charlottesville Sanitary Supply on East High Street, 60 consecutive years of business. That's absolutely amazing.

John Vermillion's parents started it 60 years ago after moving from Richmond with an idea of opening a sanitary supply store. Today, that business is being passed from the second generation, Mr. John Vermillion, who I have tremendous respect for, to his son Andrew Vermillion. Charlottesville Sanitary Supply, now with a fantastic e-commerce website online at charlottesvillesanitarysupply.com.

Judah, today's interview is an exciting one. This is really the reason we have our business downtown is this happens all the time. I'll set the stage of what happened. Was it yesterday? Two days ago, I think. Two days ago. I am walking out of the post office where we've had a PO box for, I don't know, 15 years. And as I'm walking out of the post office back to the studio on 4th and Market, a gentleman says, Hi, Jerry.

And I stop and I say hi back. And this brief conversation leads to a Facebook message thread. And today, 48 hours later, we have an interview that I think you, the viewer and listener, is going to find extremely compelling. Phil Reese is in the house. He's an entrepreneur and a business owner. His brand is one I want you to patronize, Unlocked History Escape Rooms. He has spent 16 years in the defense sector, including seven years at Rivanna Station north of town.

I'm going to try to ask him some questions on what he thinks the true economic impact. We know it's $1.3 billion. That's what the white paper commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce, Albemarle County, Greene County, and the City of Charlottesville in conjunction with Weldon Cooper assessed, a $1.3 billion yearly impact. But maybe we can get a little more details on that. We're also going to talk tourism. We're going to talk what it's like to run a business locally, whether this is a community that's welcoming to launching a business, Challenges, trials, and tribulations. Grab your iced coffee, your hot tea, whatever your drink of choice is,

and sit back and enjoy. Judah, if we can go to the studio camera and then a two-shot. Phil Reese, you are now on camera. We're going to start with a question. We start with every guest. Introduce yourself to the folks that are watching the program.

Thanks, Jerry. Thanks for inviting me in today. Our pleasure. It was kind of a pleasant surprise to kind of go from hello on the downtown mall to being invited to come into your show. So thank you for that. So my name is Phil Reese, owner of Unlocked History Escape Rooms. We started, I guess officially the business started in 2017, but we opened our first escape room in 2018.

It's a Monticello, Thomas Jefferson-themed escape room, so very local history. So we've been going on for about six years now. So I've been running this business as a side business for about four or five years, trying to get it to a point where I could do it full-time. So I was able to get a leave of absence at my old job, the Defense Intelligence Agency. I've been an intelligence officer there for 16 years. So I was able to get a one-year leave of absence, you know, unpaid, and allowed me to kind of test my foot in.

Can I do this full time? Can I make enough money? Can it also be, you know, efficient enough where my wife and i can depend on this this income for for our uh to pay your bills pay our bills yeah you know have a life yeah i got three kids wow uh 12 11 and three you know i kind of have a little similar dream as you and your kids as and same in the sanitary supply with uh you know uh hopefully one day you know you don't want to force them into it, but hopefully one day, either my son, my one of my two daughters, or perhaps more than one might decide to carry on this business, you know, 10, 15, 20 years from now. So we'll see. We'll see I over the summer,

my two kids, they were helping me we did this like 3d printer stuff for some of these new props for this new escape room that's coming out. Those are cool, the 3D printers. Yeah. A, it saves money, it saves time, but it also allows us to build some sturdier props too. So that was my son and daughter's first dabble in actually helping the business. Okay. So I'm pretty excited about that. But yeah, glad to be here, Joe.

It's great to have you. I have so many questions. Where do you want to start? Why escape rooms? Why escape rooms? So let me take you back to, let's say, 2014. So I was still working for DIA. I was working at AFRICOM.

That's Africa Command. So that's the U.S. military's headquarters for all things Africa. So that's located in Stuttgart, Germany. Back in 2014, 2015, escape rooms were brand new. So it's still a relatively new industry, but we were traveling to Prague, Czech

Republic, and I was looking on TripAdvisor for things to do, and the number one thing on this list was this thing called escape rooms. I was very curious. How old are you at this time? How old are you now? I'm 40 years old. This man's aging well here. I didn't appreciate it when I was very curious. What is this? How old are you at this time? How old are you now? Can I ask you that question? I'm 40 years old. Okay. This man's aging well here.

Thank you. Yeah, okay. I didn't appreciate it when I was 18. Because you're getting carded all the time. Yeah. I looked four or five years younger than what I did for many years. But now, I'll take it. But yeah, so we tried an escape room.

My wife and I, my son was maybe one or two years old. And it wasn't the best escape room, but it was a lot of fun. It was brand new. And I knew at the time that when we moved back to the U.S., I knew I wanted to start a business. I don't know if it was going to be a real estate investment or what. But I knew, you know, you kind of get that itch. There's just something that just sort of that drive. And I had that.

And I just didn't know what the industry would be but when we did that first escape room the light bulb went off and uh so i started preparing for it i still had another year or two in germany to kind of finish my tenure there and uh when we were moving back you know i had a choice i had partial choice uh moved back to dc where we were originally was working at DIA. You know they have other locations Tampa, Colorado, but Charlottesville was the number one on my list. It was like the perfect sized city for what I was hoping to do with an escape room. So not a huge city where there'd be a ton of

competition, but I also knew you know a small business owner you don't know if it's gonna work out so I just wanted to kind of lower risk, like rent's a little cheaper here compared to DC. But I was successful in moving to DC and shortly afterwards started the business. And yeah, I guess I worked on it as a side business for four or five years until I could do it full time. So the viewers and listeners, bear with me as I'm fighting a cold for my two-year-old. I'm literally, I don't think I've ever done this on the show before, taking cough syrup

live during an interview on the show. Down the hatch. Okay, I have so many questions here. So you go from the Defense Intelligence Agency where, maybe I'll ask you this question. You don't have to give me the answer. I would imagine you're compensated

extremely well. Yeah, I would say so. I'll be open with it. So I've been a GG-13. And so for folks who have not been in the government service, I have no idea what that means. So there's different like pay grades. So it's either called the GS or GG. I won't get into the differences. But it's a GG13, which is basically an analyst without supervisor management. It's one step below supervisory management. Okay. And so, but I guess maybe about three years ago, I did go into

the, I became a supervisory intelligence officer, so I had a branch under me of five to seven analysts. But yeah, so a GG13 in Charlottesville. Right now, I looked it up this morning because I thought this would be a good topic to discuss. A GG13 in Charlottesville at Step 1, which basically it's your first year as a GG13, makes about $100,000. Okay, so let me put a perspective and throw it back to you.

Yeah. 2023 HUD median average household family income, $124,200. This is 2023 number, HUD, their number, average median family household income. This could be combined income for a family, $124,200. So you said that number in compensation was right now? So yeah, so in 2013, me personally was making, you know, I was like a step five, so I was making about $120,000, maybe $125,000.

I don't remember exactly what it was. There you go. I would say the average salary at INGIC and DIA would probably be closer to $90,000, because you're going to have some junior analysts and so forth. So these are pretty good, well-paying jobs. You're not going to get super rich, but you're not going to be wanting either. You can afford decent housing. It's just a typical middle class income, but it's a healthy income.

And then combined potentially with a partner or spouse's income. And you can see how this particular family is significantly ahead of the median family household income, Charlottesville metro area. I'm going to throw it back to you. I'm going to add a little color first. I mentioned the Northrop Grumman facility coming to Waynesboro, about a quarter million dollar facility, quarter billion, 200 to 250 million, the false church company is going to spend. They're going to hire 300 engineers and manufacturers and average annual salary for this Waynesboro facility of $94,000. So a little bit more color here. I'll follow your lead here.

I find your commentary compelling here. Well, I think, you know, here's the – so that is a healthy salary. But I also give a little perspective of what – you know, so NJIC, pretty much all of NJIC is located in Charlottesville, with a few exceptions. Okay. But, you know, 98% of their employees are here in Charlottesville at Ravonna Station. DIA is different. DIA, it's located all around the world.

We are the intelligence. A lot of times when you hear Pentagon intelligence, it's DIA. DIA is essentially Pentagon intelligence. But as I mentioned, we were in – I worked in Germany, so that's sort of the headquarters for Africa, headquarters for the Middle East is in Tampa, headquarters for Europe is also in Germany

headquarters for Northcom which is basically the North America that's in Colorado and then of course you have the headquarters for DIA which is probably 60% of the workforce for DIA is up in D.C. But in D.C., obviously the cost of living is more.

And so when the government, they save, the DIA and the government saves a lot of money when they essentially have good portions of their workforce in cheaper cost-of-living areas. So Charlottesville is kind of perfect because, A, they save 15% on payroll right off the top because the cost of living is cheaper here than D.C. But because we're just two hours away from D.C., if I need to go brief, again, this is my previous job, not anymore, but if I needed to brief at the Pentagon or at headquarters or the State Department or something like that, I can get up. It's a long day. Get up at 5, travel two hours, go do the briefing, do some meetings, and I can come back and have dinner with my kids.

So it's kind of a perfect spot for INGIC and DIA. It allows the government to save money, but it still allows them to kind of do when they do need to be in the DC area, they can do that. And just as a day trip, you don't have to do a hotel, don't have to do lodging, don't have to do per DM for the most part, you still do some mileage, but it saves the government a lot of money to have, uh, have a good portion of the workforce here. Um, you got questions and comments coming already quickly. Um, John Blair on LinkedIn, tell Phillip that our son had a birthday party at his business, and the kids absolutely loved it. What a great entrepreneur this man is. That's from John Blair over on LinkedIn.

Thank you, John. Stephen's watching on one of our Facebook pages, and he says, the escape room that they offer is excellent for kids. Jerry, on yesterday's show, you were talking about stuff to do for kids. Here's a perfect thing to do. Andrew Sides, giving you some props right now. Viewers and listeners, if you want to give the man some love, put your comments in the feed. I'll relay it live on air. We'll also highlight, is it Gene Anderson Coy?

Yeah. Sean Mandelkorn, giving you some props right now. Multiple states watching the show. Why does a man, Logan Wells-Kalela, hello. Vanessa Parkhill, hello. Why does a man that's got a lot of, and I think I know the answer to this, vertical potential, earning potential, job security, jump out of that path into entrepreneurship in Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Central Virginia?

So I absolutely loved my job as an intelligence officer. I mean, it took me, you know, I got to see the world. I started off right out of college, went to Syracuse University, and within a year, for better or for worse, but for me it was better, I got to deploy to Iraq, right? So right off the bat, you kind of feel like you're doing something for the country. You know, I decided to get in this business because of 9-11. That had a deep impact on me. I've got to work with our partners and allies all over the world. That is a fun job. The reason why I made the switch is because if you have the drive for it, there is nothing like being

able to work for yourself. I like to say that I work twice as hard and I make half the pay. Now, the benefit of a business is the ceiling is a lot higher. There it is. With the government,

I loved it, but, you know, it is a huge bureaucracy. And, you know, it can get frustrating. I went from the largest employer in the U.S., the Department of Defense, to essentially the smallest employer, myself, right? But just sort of the autonomy, the independence, to be able to take a day off and I don't have to ask permission from somebody. And frankly, just the excitement to come into work on Monday mornings, you can't put a price on that. And of course, I want the business. The business is making enough money where we can very comfortably live on. But it's not a business I'm probably going to get super wealthy off of,

but it is a much more fulfilling work for me. And again, I love my job, but I love being a business owner, and specifically a business owner of an escape room business. I get to make fun escape rooms. I kind of view it as like a movie director, where I get to make fun escape rooms like i kind of view it as like a movie director where i get to create my own stories yeah you know i i have a i have an edgar allen poe themed room so i get to really delve into edgar allen poe and his stories and his time at uva so i kind of use

the local history i did a world war ii spy escape room um obviously i use my background as an intelligence officer uh to uh to make the puzzles for that. It's got an Enigma machine and a telegraph, so you actually get to play with these things in the escape room. And now the newest one that we're opening here next Friday, a week from tomorrow. Are these the photos that we should put on screen? Yeah, you can post those photos, Judah. Those are about 90% done because we're putting the finishing touches on this escape room but it is a Leonardo da Vinci themed escape room. That's awesome.

Now it's going to take place in 1502. Okay. Uses all, you know, we have like 12 of his paintings that we use in the escape room and, you know, I'm a big fan of like Indiana Jones type movies, you know, where there's some sort of secrets with this type of

historical stuff or paintings or, you know, that type of thing. So it's so much fun for Da Vinci. I was looking at all of his paintings and I'll give a little hint to one of our puzzles. Da Vinci was so fascinated with, he would, so many times he would have paintings of people pointing. Okay. Right. He was just fascinated by drawing and painting the hand.

So I can make a puzzle out of that. I have like nine or ten of his paintings, and they're going to point to something significant. So I'll leave it at that. Okay. But just something simple where you can kind of take that history and make a fun puzzle out of it. And so it is a really fun job. I'm fascinated by this personal and professional evolution.

Do you have a game plan to potentially try to scale the business to multiple locations and or franchise? Because I can already tell with your makeup, your DNA, that you're a big picture guy. If you haven't read the book E-Myth Mastery. I haven't. Of course haven't read the book E-Myth Mastery. I have read it. Of course you've read the book. Anybody who's a business owner should read the book E-Myth Mastery.

Just a tip and a suggestion there. How do you scale this business? What's your plan? I know you have one. So we are actually in the process. This new escape room is actually stage two of scaling this.

So as I mentioned, we're on Allied Lane. We have had one space, but when we finished our third escape room, that's all the space we had. Okay. And fortunately, the building right next door became open for lease right as I finished that third escape room. And, you know, I was talking to my wife. My wife helps me with this business, too. She's there every day building these things.

We kind of hemmed and hawed, but we just decided to lease the space next door. So it kind of doubled our size. Okay. And so this business, we're at escape room number four. We have room for seven escape rooms. Okay. So we're going to build one. It's usually been taking me two years on a part-time basis to build one escape

room now that i'm working full-time my wife is working part-time to full-time and i'm starting to hire more staff okay who are actually helping design these so we can build these faster okay so we will eventually have seven escape rooms hopefully in about three years okay and at that point it's sort of fully scaled out. We will probably change over and switch some of our earlier escape rooms to new ones. Okay. But at that point, I definitely, it's sort of open.

Okay. Because at that point, you've done proof of performance. Yes. You've shown that the concept can work. You have data. You have years of P&Ls. You show that the concept can work. And at that point, you're almost at a crossroads. Yeah. Look, we are cash flow positive, which we should be at this point. But the big costs are payroll and rent. And so right now, the rent is

not going to go up more as I build more escape rooms. Woodard family, your landlord? Yes. Okay. And I'm happy with them. So certainly becomes more profitable, the more escape rooms we have. And then what's next? I don't know. It becomes more profitable because your labor is essentially fixed. Yeah. And you're able to monetize multiple times in a given an hour because you have more, dude, I love this model. I love this model here. I'm getting excited. You know, the, one of the reasons why I like this business a lot, there are certainly upfront capital costs to building an escape room. Right. But once you have it built, you know, look, escape rooms are not the cheapest thing. I'll be the first one.

It is, you know, it's about $32 a person. I get it. It's not, it's, it's not available to everybody. We're trying to find ways to make it cheaper on certain days. We're, we're working through some ideas, but you know, $32 a person for how long? For one hour. Okay. For one hour. And, but, but the, the benefit of the business is unless they break something, there's really no cost except the staff that I'm paying and my overhead. So it's not like we're not creating merchandise. We're not selling food. So there's not some of those standard fixed costs.

And the staff consists of a gatekeeper at the front, a check-in person, right? Yeah, it consists of what we call a game master or host. So they're the ones that invite them in, but they're also monitoring them over a camera, over a microphone. If they need a hint, they'll push some hints to them. Their number one job is to make sure they have fun and hopefully be successful. People

enjoy escape rooms a lot more if they finish the escape room because they get to see all the puzzles and so forth. So we try to have most groups be successful. It's just more fun that way. So the game master is in charge of making sure that they're having fun. Kirk Bigger, give you some props right now. You've got a radio station

watching you here. Rob Neal says, I took a team of 10 there as part of a corporate team building day. This is a great option for team building that will provide good takeaways and team dynamic observations. Rob Neal, thank you for watching the program. Thank you, Rob.

A lot of folks watching you here. Let me throw this to you, the labor piece. Have you found it challenging to fill labor? Because a lot of people are saying that right now. Yes and no. Here's one advantage we have compared to, I think, other companies. I think it's a more fun job to have. Like, so we're competing against maybe a restaurant

or, you know, someone working at a Walmart, that type of thing. And so you're coming, you're hosting, and people are coming here to have fun. So it is, I think it's a fun job to have. And it's not tiring, like physically tiring. I think the tiring part is, you know, if we're busy, you know, it's going to be group after group after group.

All right? So it's just sort of, it's tiring in that way. But we don't have a hard time getting applicants. That's not the hard part. But, you know, not everyone is suited to be a game master. So we want, we're looking for bubbly personalities, people who are able to create rapport with folks, people who are easy to talk to

and can handle a 60-year-old grandfather and an 8-year-old kid and be able to relate to them in a positive way. So I think it is getting easier to find labor but we do have a big advantage it's a fun job to have compared to other ones in the same the same pay scale I would say Mandy Newberry giving you some props right now a lot of comments coming in Kevin Yancey I'll get to your comment here in a matter of moments I'll throw this to you you feel Charlottesville was set up for well for the launch of your business.

Here's a different way of asking that question. I ask a lot of entrepreneurs this question, and the answers vary. Is this a good community to launch a business? Reasons yes and reasons no. Well, A, I don't have anything else to compare it to because this is my only business. But I'll say this. I think when I first started started i was really nervous about getting all the legal you know the llc and having all the permits and of course you just you learn that as you go yeah right it's not it's not hard that ends up being the easy part it's yeah that's the easy

part um here's what i'll say with charlottesville so i think i think we have definitely a lot of fans in charlottesville okay one of the things I've had to work on with this business is we do really well with tourists. Obviously, we have history in our name. Charlottesville gets a lot of history tourists going to Monticello or Monroe's home or maybe Madison's home.

We do really well with folks. They go up and do Monticello during the day and then they get to do a Monticello themed escape room at night and then they go out, you know, they go out to eat. So we do really well with tourists, but what we what we kind of think we struggled with and what I'm trying to work on is getting our name out there to the locals because on Allied Street, I think it's a great shopping plaza, but it's not a it's not a walkable shopping plaza. You're not it's not one you're typically like window shopping with compared to something like the

downtown mall and so we're you know in some ways we're a little hidden over there but I think I think once you do an escape room at one of our escape rooms you become a fan because they are a lot of fun if you look at our Google reviews I mean we have a perfect 5.0 rating with over 800 reviews. That's awesome. Right? And we have, we get about,

we probably average a three or four star review once a year and probably 100 or 200 five star reviews. Congratulations. And we're not paying for those. Yeah. But I think if people try it out, they become a believer

and it is immersive entertainment. So it gets kids away from the tablets, the screen time. It's an entertainment option where grandma and grandpa can have fun with their 9- and 10-year-old grandkids, and both are having a blast. That's awesome. So it's a good multiple generation type entertainment. So yeah, I think we are positioned to succeed in Charlottesville. I think it is the right city, the right size for what we want to do for the business.

Your mom's giving you some props. Oh, thank you, mom. She says, I love you, Phil. I mean, if your mom doesn't appreciate it. Well, Gail, thank you for watching the program. Uncle Dan's giving you love you, Phil. I'm so proud of this guy. If your mom doesn't appreciate it. This is your mom. Amen. Well, Gail, thank you for watching the program. Uncle Dan's giving you some props, too. He says, this guy is someone we're so proud of. He's smart.

He's driven. His priorities are in the right place. Our family is so proud. Thanks, Uncle Dan. You've got folks in Richmond, Fluvanna, Orange, Green, Culpeper, Madison watching the program right now. Short Pump, hello. Some Northern Virginia watching the program. What did you make of the article in the Daily Progress that came out? And if you didn't read it, I'll give you kind of like the night graph.

Go ahead. Yeah. So $956 million tourism impact in Charlottesville and Albemarle County in 2023. $956 million. Tourism supports more than 7,000 jobs in the area. What I tried to do earlier in the week was compare the 956 million economic impact with tourism and the 7,000 plus jobs with your former line of work, the defense sector, that has a 1.2 billion yearly impact. And interestingly, roughly the same amount of jobs, 7,000 plus. The point I made, and you're a brilliant guy, I can tell here. The point I made was the jobs that come with the defense sector are jobs that

are six-figure jobs. Let's just say six-figure. I know they're not all, but let's just call them six-figure jobs. The jobs that come with tourism, a lot of them right around minimum wage. So I try to compare and contrast the impacts of a booming tourism industry with a booming defense sector industry all here in Charlottesville and Elmore County. Anywhere you want to go on this. Yeah, I mean, I think it's healthy for Charlottesville to have different sectors and not so dependent on one. And I think you're absolutely right. Like the defense sector, you're going to have very healthy incomes. But, you know, one advantage with the tourism industry

is it's a lot of outside money. So it's money coming from Richmond, D.C., North Carolina. They don't tax our roads. They don't tax our schools. They give us their money and they leave. Exactly. You know, and there's a lot of lodging taxes. And so that pays for, you know, the city and the county get a lot of money from those lodging taxes. And so there's definitely some benefits there. And look, for a healthy economy, you need jobs at different pay rates. Like you can't have, it can't all be in one sector. It's not healthy. It creates resilience.

With tourism, I do have a concern with historical tourism. What's your concern? Charlottesville, obviously Monticello is a big draw. I won't mention who, but you look at Colonial Williamsburg and you, you know, I grew up in Williamsburg. The numbers of people doing historical tourism, they are dropping. Big time. And in Charlottesville, obviously not as affected as Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown, but, but, you know, it is concerning. And one of the reasons, when I created the escape room, I didn't go in wanting to do necessarily historical escape rooms,

but I saw how good it would be to have a Monticello, Thomas Jefferson-themed escape room. It was just smart marketing, frankly, to kind of tie into that. And then I decided to brand around it. Like I could use the Edgar Allan Poe and his time at UVA. And I kind of mix and match between local history and U.S. history, and now I'm branching out to world history with Leonardo da Vinci. But I think one advantage my business has is that it does make history fun.

So my number one goal has got to be fun. And if you learn a little history, great. Sometimes these historical museums, they can get a little boring for kids. Stodgy. Yeah. I went to Monticello. I did a team building activity a couple of weeks ago with my staff. I had a blast. I think Monticello does a great job. But you have an affinity for it. I do have an affinity, but I've, I've done some historical attractions and I got a history background. Yeah.

I'm kind of bored. And so if I'm bored, what does that mean for someone who's not as much in a history as I am? But, uh, but with something like an escape room, it, uh, it makes history fun and it makes you kind of, you feel a little smarter like not only did I have fun but I learned a little bit about the Jack Jewett ride

so we use that as the story when they were coming to capture Governor Thomas Jefferson and his wife and Edgar Allan Poe he gets you, oh mate, that escape room was really fun I want to read The Raven I want to read The Black Cat or The Cask of a Montalado

or Virginia Hall, our World War II spy escape room. She was our top spy in France during the war. And there are a lot of good books on her. There's some halfway decent movies, but it allows you to kind of take pride in your country again. Certainly the British are coming and the Allied spy. So I try to make history fun again. That's what I'm trying to do.

I want to ask you this question. This is going to be the hardest question I ask you. Why do you think the affinity or the participation in U.S. history in some cases may be dwindling with interest. Before, I want to get to some comments here because I think you're going to want to think about this answer, and then I'm going to follow it up by saying, you mentioned Jack Jewett, a lot of American history being whitewashed from history. What you and I learned, we're roughly

the same age, in AP U.S. history is going to be very different than what your three kids and my two kids learned in AP U.S. history. Bill McChesney, for my wife's birthday, we went. There were six of us. The person that was our guide was extremely helpful. The only problem we had were some people were too rowdy, and the guide asked for that group to hold it down. But then again, we were a group of 70-year-olds, he's saying, watching the program. Vanessa Parkhill is watching the program. I was just talking with my daughter the other day about one of the things that differentiates entrepreneurs from other smart folks who do not make that choice. A huge factor is risk tolerance. Also, even if you're a lawyer, engineer, or doctor, doing those things on your own without an IT or HR or marketing department

adds a huge layer of complexity to your work life that can look very scary and outside of your area of expertise. Big props, she says, to small business owners out there. She's in the payroll and bookkeeping and accounting business for small business entrepreneurs. So the history question for you. And then Kevin Yancey's got a defense question for you about Peter's Mountain and Keswick. If any perspective you can offer about Peter's Mountain, I would be learning from that as well because I'm not sure what he means by that. I don't know what Peter's Mountain...

If he's able to provide some more context, maybe I can chime in. I think this is what is almost... I'm sure it does exist, but like a defense compound that's very under the radar here, but I don't know much about it. But history question for you. The changing nature of history, participation with history,

and the whitewashing potentially of history. Let me share a story. When I was in Germany, obviously the Germans with World War II history, they're ashamed of the Nazism of their country. And I remember I remember we visited Luxembourg and we visited a military cemetery, you know, and it's just sort of powerful. You just take a lot of pride in your country when you see all the people who sacrificed for it to give you the freedoms you have. And I remember there was another nearby cemetery with Nazi soldiers and, you know, where they were buried. And, of course, you know, Nazism is terrible.

Everyone agrees on that. But what struck me is that it's kind of sad. It was kind of sad for me on one respect that they, you know, even though what they were defending was wrong, they were still fighting for their country. I don't want to be taken out of context here because Nazism is the worst thing. I fully condemn it. But it was kind of sad that the Germans, the only time they could get excited for their country was around soccer matches. That's it. That's about all the patriotism I saw when I was living in Germany.

And we're not nearly like that in the U.S., but I definitely see the patriotism and just sort of the pride in one's country. We all agree with the problems we've had,very, civil rights, and all that. Look, no one is wrong about that, but you see all the people that want to come to our country. When you've seen other countries, when you've been able to live in third world countries, and I lived in Egypt when I was in college.

I studied abroad in Egypt. And you see how good our country is. I think sometimes we take that for granted. And it's kind of sad that we don't really have the same patriotism that I remember growing up in the 80s and 90s. I think that's 100% true. We did a show on this. I've been here 24 years. And in the 24 years that I've been here, where I went from troublemaking first year at UVA to now a father, business owner, homeowner, two kids, wonderful wife. Like it's, I became a, you know, still trying to figure out how to become a man, but became a man here in a lot of ways.

24 years ago, 4th of July, awesome parade at McIntyre Park. Fireworks, patriotism, community zest, community passion. Dogwood Parade was awesome. Went right down Market Street. We would watch a decade plus ago from our office upstairs. The

First Night Virginia, the family event on the downtown mall that celebrated New Year's Eve that was not booze centered. It was kid centered. All these are going away. They're going away. I've said that there seems to be a lack of commitment

to community. Maybe part of that is that the quality of life in our home, Charlottesville, Namur County, is so wonderful that it's attracted a lot of transplants or new folks to the area that may not have the same commitment to buy local shop local even if it costs a little bit more than online or volunteer for the dog

parade we've had nonprofits say that volunteerism is down jenny who who watches on twitter says volunteerism is down she's involved in a lot of that stuff. It seems to me that there's this missing commitment to community anywhere you want to go on this topic. And why is that the case? Maybe why is that the case? Well, I think our natural selves are selfish. Natural selves are selfish. That's so true.

I'm a person of faith. Me too. I think the natural tendency for just human nature is to be selfish. And so if there's for whatever reason, we're always going to be angling toward that. I think it's just just our nature. But, you know, look, I mean, it's it's sad that it's sad that fireworks on July 4th is not happening all over the country. And, and, and you don't have organizations who are either donating it or people who

are like, I'll do this. This is, you know, this is worth doing just to, just to contribute to it. I think that's sad. I,

you know, my kids are in public schools and I, you know, I asked them, you know, what are you learning in school and look I'm I'm 50-50 with the public schools

right you know I'm keeping them in there but of course I have concerns look I think you know I want to be careful here because I don't want to throw anyone under the bus including my kids but often times like with the social studies or the history, I ask, well, you know, what are you learning about?

I'm trying to remember what the specific issue was. But it's so many negatives about the country. And, of course, we should be teaching why, how we can improve. Absolutely, we should be teaching that. But I think it's swayed so much to it's like 80% negative and 20% positive when it should be closer to 50 50 and and i think uh i don't know it's just sort of the the cultural trend that we're in where it's it's easy to to put down our country i remember like i mentioned earlier 9 11 had a huge impact

on me were you just before college or freshman college i was Syracuse? No, I was, I think, a junior in high school. Okay, so just before you go to Syracuse. Yeah. And I remember that day I told my mom, I'm like, I want to go in the military. Wow. And now I had asthma as a kid and a teen, and so that route didn't go. But I still ended up working for a military organization deployed around the world, still doing defense,

and so I still was able to fulfill that dream. But I lament that it might take another 9-11 to create that unity up in D.C. between Republicans and Democrats, but not just between politicians. It's sad that that's what it would have to

come to. And now I don't even know if that would be enough. I mean, of course, I don't want that to happen, but I remember the patriotism. I didn't live through Pearl Harbor, and I didn't live through a lot of proud moments in our country, but I'll never forget how unified our country was after 9-11 and how willing people were to sign up for the military, to sign up for public service, to give back to something

besides themselves. Dude, you just gave me goosebumps. I didn't think the interview was going to go in this direction. I 100% agree. I've said on our show, our oldest is in a private school, and it's expensive. And the decision was made in a lot of ways because some of the stuff that you're saying. And I understand that the schools are doing the best they possibly can with what they got. But it's a curriculum. You know, when the governor, when Terry McAuliffe, who was running for governor, says that parents should not be involved in their kids' public school education, not once, twice, but three times, while trying to win the top seat in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I was flabbergasted.

He lost the election because of that statement. But that statement embodies a lot of what folks think, and it disenchanted us, my wife included, to the point where we are making this decision of where to put our oldest and eventually our youngest. I'll close with this. 45 minutes in on this interview. Would you do, if you had your druthers,

would you have done this business, this escape room in the Charlottesville, Alamo, Central Virginia area again? Well, you know, now that I know... Because you probably could have done it. Yeah. You know, here's the thing. now that you know how much work it takes yeah there's of course a part of me like man i remember how easy my saturdays were or you know life was in many ways a lot easier but i would say absolutely i would do it again i think i think I think this is an incredibly fun ride.

Of course, I have some big aspirations for the future. Not exactly sure where I'll end up, but I would absolutely do it. I mean, it's a fun business. It's a growing business. It is a way to provide entertainment that's clean, that's family friendly. Screen free. Screen free. Most appealing thing for me, the screen free with our kids. Yeah. And you don't have kids. You don't have kids asking, hey, mom and dad, 30 minutes in the escape room. They want to come and do another escape room. They're not asking about, hey, can I

get on the iPad and watch some Netflix or something my kid asked me this is terrifying on a regular basis can I get an iPhone 16 he's 6 years old asked me that yesterday said how do you even know about this it's through ads on YouTube it's sad the screen free is incredibly appealing

VP says thank you Philip for your service to our country patriotism may be waiting around here, but it's alive and well in surrounding counties and throughout our country. Multiple people saying thank you for your service. Thank you for what you're doing. Steve Belcher, thank you for watching the program.

Closing thoughts. Please plug the business. Please plug location. Everything. You crushed this dude. Yeah. You can find out more at unlockthistory.com or just search for Unlocked History Escape Rooms and it'll

show right up. We are opening Leonardo da Vinci's escape room next Friday. Black Friday is one of our busiest weekends of the year. We will sell out probably of all of our escape rooms both on Friday and Saturday and probably a little bit on Sunday. We're close to it. you can book online right now um we are look we're going to be

around for several years and we're we're going to be building new escape rooms both local history world history i think uh we're leaning towards a local murder mystery that happened in 1903 do you ever hear about the uh the mayor's wife who died on Park Street? Did you ever hear that story? The mayor's wife died on Park Street? Mayor McHugh was the mayor of Charlottesville. Is this Frank McHugh? I'm thinking John McHugh, but I have to look.

Is this of the McHugh Center? Well, I know there's a lot of McHugh family members, and we're leaning towards this, but his wife died, and actually the mayor was found guilty of the crime. Okay. So we're thinking of making that, you know, make it family-friendly, but kind of like a clue, murder mystery. You're police detectives, and you kind of have to crack the case. Love this.

So allow people to kind of enjoy some of the local history, but in a fun way. You know, we don't want it too dark. So we're going to hopefully start that come the new year. But, yeah, if you haven't tried it out, I ask everyone, give one escape room a try. And if you don't like it, you don't have to do another one. But, you know, I'm convinced that if you've done one, you're going to want to come back. Phil was absolutely fantastic, Judah. Judah Wittkower behind the camera.

His name's Phil Reese and he carried the show today as I battle whatever my kid brought home from daycare. His brand is something we should support. I support any business owner that is getting in the small business game, the local game, and I want you guys to support Phil Reese and what he's doing over in McIntyre Plaza. Thank you. A random encounter, is it a happenstance encounter? Judah Wickhower on the downtown mall and it leads 48 hours later

to this interview and it's one of the things I absolutely love about Charlottesville, Virginia, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. For Phil and for Judah, thank you kindly for watching the I Love Zebo show. So long. Thank you.