Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Toronto Mike'd Partner Update: Toronto Mike'd #669

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

>Mike checks in with Toronto Mike'd partners who help fuel the #realtalk to learn how their business has adapted to the physical distancing order since episode 601. Conversations are had with Troy Burtch from Great Lakes Brewery, Anthony Petrucci from Palma Pasta, Austin Keitner from The Keitner Group, Shem Szot from StickerYou.com, and Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home.

Welcome to episode 669 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Palma Pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Garbage Day. Weekly reminders for garbage, recycling and yard waste pickup. Visit GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike to sign up now. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos and decals for your home and your business. The Keitner Group. They love helping buyers find their dream home.

Text TORONOMIKE to 59559. And our newest sponsor, CDN Technologies. Your IT and cyber security experts. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And this week, I'm going to touch base with the partners of Toronto Miked and find out how their businesses are doing three months into this new normal,

this pandemic lockdown, this social distancing order. Call it what you will, but things radically changed a little over three months ago. Now, we won't hear from Barb Paluskiewicz at CDN Technologies in this episode because just last week on June 9th, I had a one-on-one with Barb Paluskiewicz and that is episode 663.

And in that episode, we covered in great detail what has changed at CDN Technologies since the COVID-19 social distancing order. So if you want to hear more Barb and why wouldn't you, it is actually a great episode. Don't be fooled and don't sleep on the Barb Paluskowicz episode. Listen to episode 663. Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots Ruined your black tie fair Last one to know, last one to show I was the last one you thought you'd see there And I saw the surprise And the fear in his eyes, and I took his glass of champagne

I touched a goose Fear in his eyes And I took his glass of champagne I toast to you Said honey we may be through And you'll never hear me complain Cause I got friends In the old places Where the whiskey browns And the beer chases my blues away. I'll be okay.

I'm speaking with Troy Birch, Marketing, Communications, and Experiences Manager at Great Lakes Brewery. How you doing, Troy? Not bad, Mike. Not bad. I feel like that title got longer since we spoke last. Is it possible? Well, I have two titles. Depends on where you look. Some of them are Marketing and Communications Experiences Manager, or it's just straight up Marketing and Communications Manager. Okay. I grabbed this one from the homepage.

Yeah. There we go. Gotcha. All right. So we're speaking on, I got to timestamp this because, you know, things change so quickly, but we're speaking the morning of June 17th, 2020. So like as of this moment, how can somebody get their hands on some delicious, tasty, fresh Great Lakes beer? Well, now, multiple ways still. You can go to over 350 LCBOs throughout the province and find Canuck Pale Ale or Octopus Wants to Fight IPA, Pompous Ass English Ale, Sunnyside Session IPA. So those are all out there in LCBOs.bo's grocery stores across the the province again we're 380 or so uh and that's canuck pale ale pompous and octopus you can come to the brewery and buy it brewery curbside pickup so our patio garage door we open that up between 11 and 6 uh seven days a

week you can buy online and we'll pick it and have it ready for you or you can just simply walk up tell our crew what you want and tap a card and go enjoy it we're not doing mix and match right now though so you can only do a minimum eight pack okay we have a a regular mal furious is a regular toronto mic listener who keeps hearing us talk about electric circus and although no one can see us I won't open it because this is an older can I have a can here of the

electric circus with the cowboy Kay Pompei so I have a few questions one is he thinks it's like Pokeroo I don't know if you remember Pokeroo for sure. Tell us when and how someone could actually get a case of electric circus.

And then I need you to tell me about the great picture that I shared on Twitter that you guys tweeted of the cowboy, Kay Pompey, of Summertime Summertime fame and his son, former Toronto Blue Jay Dal Kay Pompey, of summertime, summertime fame, and his son, former Toronto Blue Jay, Dalton Pompey, sitting on the GLB patio recently. Tell me everything about this. So the first part, how do you get cases or cans of Electric Circus? It's part of our seven-barrel series. So we brew a smaller batch.

We release it. When it sells out, it sells out. And then it's gone for a bit. our seven barrel series so we brew a smaller batch we release it when it sells out it sells out and then it's gone for a bit then if we decide to do it again same deal we brew it on the seven barrel system it comes and goes the very last batch that we did we announced that we were teaming up with Ken Pompey and Dalton Pompey and Ken's no weight medical foundation, which supports, it acquires and secures personal protective equipment for frontline healthcare workers.

And so we released the beer sold out in about 35 minutes through the online shop for home delivery and our brewery curbside pickup. And we were able to donate $1,800 to Ken and Dalton to go out and buy some of that equipment. We are going to be doing it again soon. We have brewed another batch. It is currently sitting in the aging tanks. This time we're doing something a little differently. We've reached out to Ken again and we'll be donating a portion of the proceeds to the Jean Augustine Center for Young Women's Empowerment here in Etobicoke. So in conjunction with Ken and the No Wait Medical Foundation and Jean Augustine, we're going to be making a big donation to help that center. And, you know, we like to support the community a lot, you know, kind of the work we do here. We don't really brag about it,

but we thought day and age let's reach out. And so with Ken's blessing, we're going to be doing that this time. Well, that's amazing. But I got to ask like, like, you know how, when the tragically hip tickets on the final tour went on sale and then we, they were all gone in like i don't know 35 minutes and then there was all like we almost had a public inquiry i think i think there might be a an inquiry into this because uh like can't you make this is a dumb question but can't you make more so it lasts longer than 35 minutes so we have five year round beers, Hayes Mama,

which I forgot to mention it's available in lots of the else videos, but Hayes Mama, Octopus Wants to Fight, Blonde Lager, Canuck Pale Ale, Pompous Ass, and Redleaf. And so those beers we're putting out there to all of Ontario and to some

other provinces. And so when you do that, you need the tank space for those, those brands. So the seven-barrel system is the smaller batch size. We could continuously brew it so that we have more volume, but we like to diversify our portfolio. So this week, for example, the week of the 15th, on Thursday the 18th,

we're releasing four beers on our online shop. Full Nelson, Half Nelson, Dad Body, and Miami Vice. So those four beers wouldn't happen if we continuously brewed brands like Electric Circus for mass consumption. And is this a collaborative discussion? I know Mike Lackey is the uh what's his title he's the brewing operations manager well that sounds fancy okay so yeah he's a great guy too say hi for me yeah i miss that guy so mike lackey like is there like is there a discussion i i

envision like a a meeting where you're there i envision peter bullets there and mike lackey's there and you're discussing what goes in. Like, like who makes that call on, on that? Like what, what you make that beyond the all year. So that's the great thing about Great Lakes is,

you know, it's not, we're not a marketing company and it's not a bean counter that's saying, Oh, we need to produce this, this and that. So it's the brewers that say, okay, they come up and for example, morning they both nick perry uh who brews uh on our seven

barrel system uh and lackey they both came into the office and said this week we're brewing these three beers and um are these three brands and how are we doing on these three and we're going to get some more this is you know kind of our future intent here on these other ones. So they discuss amongst themselves of what they want to brew and they brew it and then we market it and sell it. So Peter once promised me he'd never sell out. Like I don't care if Molson Coors has a Brinks truck

pulled into the driveway or whatever, because what you're describing there is something very unique to being an independent brewer brewery like that's that sounds amazing to me so we're we're one of a kind yeah no amazing so keep keep it that way will you all right i have another thing you guys have done and then i want to get real with you uh not that we're not real right now but uh tell me what's the deal with great lakes brewery sanitizer so uh right when this was uh when covet hit um one of peter's father peter's father one of his lifelong dreams was to um produce spirits um to to get a distillery and so when covet hit peter said this is a great time to invest in one.

So he reached out to our friends at Muskoka Brewery in Bracebridge who had a smaller still. They purchased that, or we purchased that still from them and started dumping all of our kegs into the still. They did that for two months and were able to produce some hand sanitizer. So we just launched that June 5th. We've been selling a good amount of it. We've donated some to frontline and emergency workers and it's been quite

successful. No, again, awesome. Awesome. So can people like, is that something you can do in the curbside pickup as well? Like you can get hand sanitized? Yeah. So yeah, if people order a $50 or more of our beer for free home delivery, we'll donate or we'll deliver, uh, we'll deliver a bottle if they, if they purchase it.

Um, and if you just walk up to the brewery for curbside pickup, you can also buy one while you're here. And if people don't know, they should know, it's 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard. I always describe it two ways. I'm like, it's close to Royal York and Queensway, but it's down the street from the Costco. No, Costco is down the street from Great Lakes. Yeah, 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard in glorious Etobicoke.

Yes, absolutely. Glorious Southern Etobicoke. I guess, Doug Ford, I know that some parts of this province, you can go on the patio and have a drink, but not Toronto yet, obviously. But is this something I know, are you ready for the, I mean, it's coming soon, I think, I hope. Are you guys ready to open the patio

and how will it be different? Yes and no. If they announced that we could have reopened for this Friday, in all likelihood, we would have kept the patio closed for another week, likely. A lot of people say you have a lot of time to prep. Why aren't you going to be ready to open? But a lot of people think we have all this time to prep,

but we're actually doing everything we can to get the beer out the door, produce the beer. And so it's a juggling act. But when we do reopen the patio, it'll be spaced out. We will be putting people into the grass area by the front of the brewery, roping that off with picnic tables. So there'll be a little bit more room. The tap room probably won't go all 12 taps right off the start. We'll probably do cans and just let people enjoy.

There will be no food from our wavy wall food truck. We'll either be encouraging guests to bring in their own food, snacks, ordering from the Pie Commission in Notovico here, Dino's Pizza, 850 Degrees Pizza. Bring the food here and or we'll have some snacks available, but it won't be the same experience that people had before. But it's still something to look forward to i feel like now that we're and the reason i wanted to talk to you in the first place is we're three months into this whatever this is so everything changed a little over three months ago and we did check in early like a week in i think we talked

in that episode uh you can find i was scared shit scared shitless. Well, I wanted to ask... This is what I wanted. This is the real talk. I was asking Anthony Petrucci of Palmapost to the same thing. And now that we're three months in, firstly, I don't know. I guess be as honest as you can here. But how stressful were those closed-door meetings

or phone calls, I guess, or Zooms or whatever they were? And how optimistic are you now? Have you made it? closed doors meetings uh or phone calls i guess or zooms or whatever they were and like how optimistic are you now like like have you made it just just tell us about that aspect of being an independent brewery during a pandemic uh well to have all the bars and restaurants shut down overnight that takes away 40 of your business right away uh so yeah, we had to adapt and we had to adapt quickly. And not just me, but everyone here at the brewery, it was very stressful. The uncertainty of what is the next step,

the uncertainty of how do we work from the office? How do we keep brewing while social distancing? How do we make contactless delivery? How do we make home delivery? So we worked really fast with the AGCO to get our carrier license. We talked with all the staff to ensure that they all understood that we have to do this together as a unit, as a team, get the beer out as fresh as possible, as fast as possible, and as safe as possible. And we all, we banded together and worked a lot of hours right off the bat to get things up and running. And we've continued to adapt every week. It's getting a little bit more streamlined as the months go on, but every week there's something new. LCBOs are starting to get back into a normal rhythm.

Bars and restaurants across the province are starting to open up patios, which means we now have to take those sales reps and bring them back to get Bureau to the market. Then we have to look at our CAG operations. We, you know, we suspended that because we were putting everything in cans for home delivery. Now we have to go back and say, how much are we going to devote to bars and restaurants versus home delivery and curbside, LCBO, grocery channel? So a lot of stressful decisions about personnel and everything as well, too.

And you need a vacation, right? Well, I have two kids. You know that. And so I'm working and my wife's in healthcare. So we have a schedule that when I'm working, she's at home. When she's working, I'm at home. So three

months we haven't been together for a day with the kids. So it'll be nice when that finally happens and we can have a chill day without worrying about how much volume we have going at the door and do we have enough staff

to get the beer out the door. Well, I mean, I'm stressed just listening to you talk about that there. So you talk about day one, it's like, okay, 40% disappears because the restaurants, like the restaurants that serve Great Lakes, their doors are closed. But then I also know that you guys did some amazing work on that back room and for events.

Like that event room is so different from when we first started working together years ago. And events disappeared overnight too, right? Like we don't know when you can actually. Yeah, we lost wedding receptions. We lost our Geeks Who Drink trivia on Wednesday nights. We lost Food Truck, or not Food Truck Friday, Live at Five on Friday. And we just lost, you know, the birthday parties and the Sunday mornings where we'd have Liam Kearney come in and do children entertainment.

Man, so I can tell you, you didn didn't lose tmlx it was just delayed until until we can have tmlx there but troy thanks for uh another update and we were all we're all rooting for you guys uh love you guys family run independent brewery fresh local craft beer you guys we root for you guys and and we drink Great Lakes beer here and thanks again for your time, man. Thank you. You got to say that the city of Toronto and Scarborough, Mississauga,

and glorious Etobicoke, the residents of Etobicoke have really supported us through this. We're one of the lucky breweries that have been really busy since COVID hit. We've not slowed down. We've ramped up. You know why? It's because you guys put yourself in the community.

You don't just open the doors and say, we sell beer. You guys are truly, you mentioned it kind of humbly off the top there, but you guys are embedded in the community. So what the community gives back when nature strikes and things like this beyond our control happen,

the community will return the favor, if you will. So it's, it's all good karma, if you will. Maybe you should brew a beer called Karma Citra, which sold out in 25 minutes a couple of weeks ago. So yeah. Well, thanks Mike. I appreciate it. Thanks man. Talk to you soon. Cheers. When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore. When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine, that's amore. Anthony Petrucci, I always forget your title at Palma Pasta.

What's your official title over there? President and CEO. And Chief Bottle Washer. Chief Bottle Washer. Last time we checked in, it was almost three months ago, early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you give us an update? How are things going at Palma Pasta right now?

And what's the current status of how we can buy delicious Palma Pasta food? I think things are getting back to somewhat normal. I don't know what's normal now, but we've extended our hours, and now we're reopening again on Sunday. We were always open, but I limited the hours just to save the staff because they were burning out in the initial stages because a lot of people stayed away. A lot of people, just their parents or whatever, didn't want them to come into work for some of our part-timers. So we were limited in our staff and in order to save them and to

save everything that we were doing, I had to shut down one day and we shut down Sundays. I trimmed back two hours and we closed at five because no one was going anywhere anyway. So there was no business being done between five and seven. So I decided that we would go from nine to five and it worked out perfectly. As things started to get warmer and people wanted to get out, we noticed that there was more traffic between the four to five hours. So I extended to six. So Monday to Saturday were open nine to six. And now Sunday, as of two weeks ago, we're open from nine to three. And what about, uh, like the restaurant sit down part?

Like, is that, is we're waiting for, I guess we're waiting for, uh, Doug Ford to say that, uh, Mississauga can have people, you know, actually sitting in a restaurant again? Mississauga and Toronto, I think that need to happen. I think you can have patios and I don't think you need a special permit or anything like that. They're giving you some slack on that. And you could do that. I don't have an area that I could designate as patio area other than just putting out some picnic tables in the front. We're limited on space in the front. That was also a plan that we wanted to do for 2020, but when COVID hit, all planning

and everything else stopped. So you can. We're not open in the front at Palmer's Kitchen as we did when you had the Christmas party there. TMLX5. TMLX5. TMLX5. And unfortunately, that has not been opened up. I don't know what their parameters are.

I'm assuming that they're going with the standard one that's across the province, and I think it's half capacity. So we're working towards that. We're getting ready for that. I think that they'll drop that pretty soon and allow all restaurant businesses to be open again. So since we last talked on this podcast, there were a couple of big events, but the big one is the 35th anniversary, right? You guys turned 35.

35 on May 16th, which coincidentally is my birthday. So we had that on the 35th. We were going to plan a... We were starting that in January, believe it or not, going to have a big celebration. Right. And again, when things unraveled, we put everything on hold. And I need to know, how are your parents doing? My parents, believe it or not, are all well.

They've basically bunkered down. No one's been into their house, believe it or not, and they have not been out of their house since March 16th or I think in and around that time. So they're safe. They're well. I think they're going a little stir-crazy. Other than just getting out in the back patio,

they've been inside and been safe, and I think it's the best thing because both have some... You know, my dad's 96 and my mom's 89, so the age is against them, and they have some health concerns as well. But, I mean, that's a great age, and that's a sign of... Basically, it lets you know how good it is for you to eat Palma pasta, right?

Yes, you'll live past the age of 90. Listen, honestly, Anthony, if you told me I can get to 96 and be as, you know, and then lo and behold, when things again went down, again, he had to stay home. I forced him to stay home. He still wanted to come, and I said, you can't. You cannot. He's got... So he listens to you.

He's got the one issues, too. So you know what? It was better for them. They were safe, which is good for all, right? No, absolutely. So happy 35th anniversary to Palma Pasta. Happy, is it your 70th or your 75th birthday you celebrated that day?

Okay, so that's a joke, obviously. Don't age me by 53. But you have, I mean, I got to bring this up too because I just yesterday had my anniversary. So I went to look at some wedding pictures and there you are. to look at some wedding pictures, and there you are. You were at my wedding, and you looked good, by the way, seven years ago,

but you looked about 80 pounds heavier. I was. Well, not quite 80 pounds, but the camera does that to you. But I lost 40 pounds since probably that time. And you've kept it off because I haven't? Sorry, I don't mean to talk. Kept it off for a year, buddy. I was going to say, I haven't seen you in a while. I don't think I've seen you since February, maybe.

Yeah, I think you rode your bike out here one time when it was really mild. I think you came out, that was probably February. Yeah. We had a nice lunch, and that was the last time. But I was, was again 40 pounds lighter at that point and still kept it off. Knock on wood, been doing it.

Not dieting, not avoiding anything other than just your sugars and natural or added sugars. The good stuff. Now, the last in-person guest I had, excluding Monica who made a rare appearance on Saturday. She was episode 666.

Excluding her, the last guest I had in person was way back on March 13th. And that guest, David Ryder from the Toronto Star, he got a lasagna from Palma Pasta. And then I saw he went on Twitter to say, I believe the quote was something like, this is the best lasagna I've ever had. And that's no joke.

This is what David tweeted on Twitter. But since then, I think I've done, I don't know, 70 episodes. So I just want you to know, I've kept a list. We owe 70 lasagnas. We owe 70 lasagnas. I guess you're going to deliver them on your bike. I think I can do four at a shot from how much I could fit into my backpack or whatever. But yeah. Well, no, no problem, my friend. As long as you hand deliver them and take pictures,

that would be awesome. Actually, no, we're not giving them out because I think Stu Stone and Cam Gordon themselves would get like 15 or 16 each. So forget that. I will, though, put it in order now. This is the order desk, right? We need four more meat lasagnas at you-know-where at TMDS Studios. Head office, absolutely, Russ. And I haven't forgotten about you. It's good talking to you and catching up.

I know that we haven't spoken in a while. We usually touch base more frequently, but it's just been with everything going on, I think that I've worked, no exaggeration, probably twice as hard that I did pre-COVID. Post-COVID, working twice as hard and sort of spinning our wheels here. There's so much attached to this.

It's incredible the amount of work that is behind it, trying to keep your staff safe, trying to keep your clients safe, trying to make sure you're following guidelines. It's not been an easy track, especially for food service. My heart aches for all businesses. I'm very small business oriented and grassroots. When we started this business 35 years ago, it was just my mom, my dad, my sister and myself. So I understand small businesses when it's a family driven organization and for them not to be open and for some to lose their businesses, some to, their businesses, some to whatever, not being able to open up again, not being able to earn. It really breaks my heart, especially for all businesses, but especially in my line of business, the food service industry, it's been decimated.

And I don't know what's going to happen coming out of this. I hope most survive. The stats are against most of them. I just hope that there is some grace period that governments at all levels, federal, provincial, municipal, have to be able to understand this is not going to be a thing that's going to resolve itself very easily. And there has to be some form of hopefully debt forgiveness in the sense of whether it be taxes or property taxes, something that they can grab onto. Because if not, Mike, I mean, you're going to see a lot of them,

especially in your neck of the woods, those nice little restaurants that you had there. Some of them won't be able to survive if they're not open. You can't, you can't live on half capacity. Honestly, I hear you loud and clear. I think I read some stat, like, I don't know,

half of the independent restaurants were in serious trouble. The stats are always about two to three because they were always in trouble. So two to three, this thing will basically eliminate them. So your bottom two will be gone. Then what you're going to dive into is the middle ground. So top restaurants will always survive because they have financial backing, maybe even then. But the middle ones, that's what I'm concerned about. I'm not talking about chains because some of them will be here, some of them will be gone. But those middle restaurants that were, again, single owner

operated, husband and wife, family, whatever the case may be, that's where I'm concerned about. And if it does, I mean, the economy is going to take a hit because you're going to lose a lot of people, not just the business itself, not just the family who's going to take it on the chin, but those that they employ as well. Now, real talk, Anthony, you know I like the real talk. Was there ever a moment at the beginning of this crisis when you thought you might be one of those statistics? Absolutely. I think that that has to drive you. I think that you have to worry. You have to think like that. You have to think that this is going to be the end. Now, confidently, no, but in the back of my mind, that's always there. The initial stages when they were thinking

about shutting everything down, I mean, my God, it was like the end of the world was coming. So to walk out of there and grind this thing out for all businesses. It's not been an easy thing, Michael. And again, do you think about that? You have to think confidently, but it's always there. It's always lingering. And it's something that you have to be fearful of. Listen, if people lose their jobs, Michael, if businesses and just people out, whatever,

in offices, anywhere, lose their jobs, it's going to affect everybody, including myself. So this, it's not just that it will affect just those who are involved. It'll affect everyone, and that's concerning, right? So I think the government has to play a big role, and they have to understand that, again, all levels have to be in this. And I know that there's a lot of lip service. We're all in this together.

Now as this thing starts to unwind, I hope that they put their money where their mouths were, promising a lot of checks, a lot of cash. I just hope that they live up to their end of the agreement. Here, here, well said. Do you know you call me Michael? Do you know that? Yes, that's true. you know you call me Michael? Do you know that? Yes, that's true.

What do you want me to call you, Booner? I don't know. I literally go by the handle Trotter Mike, so some people might call me Mike, but may I call you Tony, or does it have to be Anthony? No, no, my mom would kill you if she's listening to this. She'll kill you if you call me Tony. Well, Palma is your mom's name, right?

Palma. Palma is my mom. Actually, a funny story behind Anthony and everybody has to call me Anthony. I think I was in grade five or six and my mom went to a parent-teacher interview and my teacher ended up calling me Tony. and my teacher ended up calling me Tony. So my mom came home that night, and she goes upstairs and brings down a piece of paper in her hand. She goes, what's your name?

And I said, Anthony. She goes, look at your birth certificate. What does it say? Anthony. She goes, I didn't call you Antonio. I didn't call you Tony. You make sure every teacher and every person calls you Anthony. So when the teacher was calling me Anthony, I said, sir, you know what? We're going to have a problem here. You have to call me Anthony.

What did you call me? Tony. I'm sorry. I didn't know that was a thing. I think it is a thing. It's a funny story, but it's, uh, your mom means business and, uh, yeah. So I'll get her after you. You can call me Tony. No, I trust me. I want, I want no problems with your mom. Trust me. I don't know. There might be a cousin Guido at play. I don't know.

I don't want any trouble. No trouble. Mama, mama, Palma is all you need. All the trouble you need, buddy. Well, I'm, I'm glad that like things there's light at the end of the tunnel here. Things are starting to open up a bit and this will hopefully help Palma Pasta. I do know the listeners of Toronto Mike. we talk about palma pasta often and even today several fotms uh let me know that they were getting palma pasta today so kudos to you for getting this deep you know three months

deep for for surviving this long and may long may palma run, your great partners of Toronto Mike, and the most delicious Italian food this side of Italy. That's wonderful. Well said, Michael. Honestly, and again, if I can say this, you've always been a big fan. I appreciate the support, especially in times like this. We definitely need the support.

If anyone is looking to come to Mississauga or if they're living in Oakville or if you want to shop online, by all means, you have curbside pickup for those that are still skeptical about coming out. Our stores are always disinfected. We have sanitizer at the door. We have gloves at the door. So, again, if you're unsure and you want to do the shopping online, it's palmofpasta.com. And again,

I want to thank you and your supporters and your listeners for all the support. It's been overwhelming. You know what? And especially in tough times, it's really comforting to know that you have a lot of people behind you. And if the laws of the land permit it,

we'll do some kind of, whatever's permitted, we'll figure out a TMLX whatever in December at Palmer's Kitchen. Absolutely, and I want to see you come by one time too, and I'm going to give you, well, I can't give you a kiss anymore, but I'll give you a nice big hug or a high

five or an elbow, whatever we can, my friend. I'd like to see you again too. I'll be there in a half an hour. Just stand outside the door and I'll be there in a half an hour. Just stand outside the door and I'll be there tomorrow morning. Thanks, Anthony. Appreciate it, Mike. Hold on

to me as we go As we Hold on to me as we go As we roll down this unfamiliar road And although this wave is stringing us along Just know you're not alone Cause I'm gonna make this place your home Settle down, it'll all be clear

Don't pay no mind to that Hello, Austin. Hello, Mike. How you holding up these days? Don't pay no mind to the game and save you Hello, Mike. How are you holding up these days? Really well, Mike. How about you? Can't complain, you know. The weather is a big part of my newfound optimism. Like, I just, the fact you can go outside without freezing your butt off like it's

it's just it opens up things so nicely like just to go on safe walks or uh or bike rides or just to get out there play a little soccer with the kids or whatever it just changes everything right yeah because you and me have really young kids so we know that every layer of clothing in the wintertime can be up to 10 minutes per layer. And that's because sometimes we're moving those layers, or you have to start from scratch. And my friend, the gloves, the hats, the boots, it's a whole thing. The resistance, sometimes they don't want to go. And it's not fun for us out there like you know after 15 minutes of standing outside and like you know minus 10 degrees it's like i don't enjoy this anymore but

nowadays like you know i could spend my whole day outside it's just it just changes everything yeah i'm loving the summertime too buddy and uh is it and this might be, I should know this, right? Is this the first day of summer? When's the first day of the summer? The 20th? What day are we on here? This is the 17th of June, but the summer's coming soon, I guess.

Yeah, I think it's this weekend. Woo! We're just in time for Father's Day. So happy Father's Day to you. You got three little ones, right? Indeed, you too, buddy. Father's Day to you. What are your guys' plans right? Indeed. You too, buddy. Father's Day to you. What are your guys' plans?

I know we're not supposed to be spending the whole time catching up on our personal lives. Maybe we'll do that another time. Well, you are a human being, Austin. It's important that the Toronto Mic listeners know you are a human being. But no, I don't have any plans. I would be happy if maybe I barbecued something for everybody and we went for a nice walk or something like that would be nice day. I don't know about you guys. Yeah.

Well, you know what? We're I'm doing a bike ride. I know it's short notice, but tomorrow my buddy and I are taking his truck up. I think somewhere outside of Orangeville. Really, really long on trafficked roads. No potholes. It's amazing. Oh, good for you.

Let me know how many clicks you end up piling up there. I always like to know how many kilometers people do when they go on these long rides. I can get nice and jealous. So it's been a few months. So Austin, we talked like a week into this pandemic shutdown, whatever you want to call it. So it was kind of still March.

It was like, I don't know. I guess everything kind of changed on March 13th. And then about a week later, we chatted for an episode of Toronto Mic'd. And here we are like three months deep into this thing. And there are signs, of course, things are starting to open up. And I'm just wondering,

well, before I get into the minutiae here, on Friday's episode of Toronto Mic'd, I had Stu Stone and cam gordon on and we started coming up with this plan as to how we can all pitch in and buy that uh lakefront home that's available in long branch so is that is has that been sold yet the lakefront home in long branch there are three people right now circling it, figuring out their, you know, getting their ducks in a row and,

and, uh, and how they could make it happen and what they would need to do to make it happen stuff. But, uh, yeah, it's still available. So you guys,

uh, you guys have a fair opportunity at, uh, being the ones. Well, you know, I, I literally bike by that property every day.

Cause that's a Lake Promenade. And, uh, man, I'm, i gotta go make a right after this i gotta call stew and cam and say it's now or never because these waterfront uh lakefront properties they don't open up every every day this is a it's special when there's one available to buy yeah the last one was in uh 2018 and that sold in six days so wow. Okay. So let's, let's now let's get into the rules for open houses and such and how you operate.

Have they started to loosen up since we last talked? Still like we've always, we've been deemed, if you will, an essential service from the beginning. Obviously we had to have some pretty strict protocols. Still, to this day, we're signing waivers for every single showing. Our buyers are signing waivers. You might be going on six different showings and your buyers and you are signing six different waivers for those showings. So a little bit more administration and bureaucracy, but it's for the interest of everyone's health and safety. So I'm all for it. And, uh, everybody's been very compliant and,

and agreeable to. So. Now, uh, this is Radix. So, so I guess specifically like what would be different, you know,

this week as opposed to how things would operate pre pandemic, like specifically, is it, is it simply that you don't, is it just that you don't have the open houses? There used to be, you know, Saturday at 2pm, there'll be an open house at this house available from the Kytner group. And then anybody could kind of come in and check it out. Is that the big change that that's not happening? Yeah, Mike, that's a great question. We're just getting more

calls from directly from buyers on our listings because they can't go and view the open house so they're mostly calling the listing agent but probably because they just don't have like a trusted real estate advisor that they would call on to have them show the house so yeah we're just getting more calls directly from the consumer and they're checking out our listings online at a higher level there the marketplace is really adapted very quickly to the technology that we were already using. They're just embracing it more. So the 3D virtual tours, you can actually be, it's like you're in the house, but on your computer,

you can look at every direction and look up and down and panoramic type view. Right. And then I guess qualified buyers, there's special arrangements made and then the masks go on and you don't touch anything. And basically, you're extremely careful. pandemic, if you will, or at the height of the lockdown or at the highest level of uncertainties, down by 80%. But now we're down only by like 50% to 60% from the year before. So the inventory is also down by about 50%. There's usually twice as many listings on the market right now, this time of year, but there's also usually 40% to 50% more sales happening too. Well, yeah. So I'm lucky enough to be on the Keitner Group virtual open houses that happen periodically. And on that note,

I should just give people a couple of calls to action here. One is, however you get your podcast, so however you got this episode of Toronto Mic'd, search for Your Key to More by the Keitner Group and subscribe to that because we are literally recording these virtual open houses you got this episode of Toronto Mic'd, search for Your Key to More by the Keitner Group and subscribe to that because we are literally recording these virtual open houses and they are packaged up as these convenient podcast episodes. So search for Your Key to More by the Keitner Group wherever you get your podcasts. But I'm on these, so I see the charts and I see

the numbers and I can see that the number of listings, as you just said, the number of listings are way down. But it sounds like they're slowly coming back. But you're talking about transactions. You're not talking about the price. So what's going on with home prices in the GTA right now? Yeah, so it was with prices too, but not nearly to the same extent. So prices at the beginning of this year, pre-pandemic we'll call it, were up 20% from the year before on average.

Once the lockdown started within 30 days of that, prices were down 20%. So they had gone down to the level, to the same price point that we were at the same time the year before. So that's a decline in prices, but not nearly as sharp as the decline in the number of sales. 20% drop in prices from the beginning of the year, which were already way higher than they probably should have been that time of year. Like a 20% increase year over year, Mike, isn't sustainable right 4.4 is the target that's what you want to see in terms of healthy appreciation so we were already way too high it came back down to reality if you will but it was obviously predicated by the lockdown and people losing their jobs left right and center who knows what the zombie apocalypse has started we don't know what's going to happen uh we're just not going to do anything that's what

80 of what the people who would have otherwise transacted started saying. And that had an effect on price. Sellers weren't all of a sudden fire sailing their houses and panicking and taking whatever somebody would give them. They were holding tight. We had offers. We didn't get seven or eight offers leading up to the final time that we got an offer that was acceptable on certain properties. So people were looking for deals, bargain hunting, throwing in low ones, also unsure of where it's going. So nobody wanted to overpay, which is reasonable. And that is the line that the buyers and sellers met at. We don't know what's going to happen, but we're not going to fire Salem Pan.

I mean, here we are talking in late June and just even just how it feels now in late, not that we're out of this, you know, Ontario, you still can't go on the Great Lakes patio and have a beer. We're still not there yet. But just how it feels now in late June compared to like that feeling you had in like late March, early April, because a lot of that was simply, we don't know what this is or where it's going. Like the, the unknown is really scary. Like, and when you're scared like that, that you might say, okay, I was going to list my house and buy a new house, but I think I'll wait a little bit and just see where this goes because it's so unknown. And now it just

seems less unknown. And I feel personally, I feel less scared. I wear a mask when I'm in my no frills. And I try to keep six feet from people I don't live with. And I know if I do that, the odds of me getting COVID-19 are minuscule. So it's just less scary right now. Yeah, the market, we've learned a lot. We've adapted. It's amazing how well so many people have adapted in a variety of industries. And I know you're talking to a lot of people in a lot of different industries. And we're already seeing, going back to the market and what effect this optimism and this adaptation is having.

The prices have gone up 10% from 30 days earlier, like we talked about in the most recent. It's really like a virtual open house, but it's a market update. We want to be the voice of value during this whole thing. And we personally have an interest in real estate and what's happening in the market and what effect these things are doing to real estate. Because we all have real estate or clients all do, and it's our profession profession it's what we do

um so we're seeing that prices are back up so not going up dramatically but we're already up 10% from the lowest point of this so it hasn't caught up to where we were at the beginning of this year yet but it is definitely going in that direction and we're up 10% from the year before too so that's uh there's there's definitely pent up demand and buyers are feeling good and feeling optimistic and they want to get in and they feel like there's some urgency right now because things are moving very quickly. It's all coming back. Now, if people want to get a hold of you right now, they can text Toronto Mike to 59559 and engage you. You're like Batman. You see the symbol in the,

uh, in the sky and then you, you get, get ready to rock. I wanted to give you guys at the Kiteener group, uh, some props here because I, I tweeted about this special episode of Toronto Mike and I just dropped a few of the,

you know, Toronto Mike partners I'd be talking to. And I mentioned you and I mentioned Great Lakes Brewery and Palma Pasta and the Franklin Horner Community Center, uh, tweeted about the fact, fact and oh yeah and Ridley Funeral Home too I don't want to forget the good people at Ridley Funeral Home Brad there but they tweeted about like on my it just the list on my list of partners are a number of tremendous supporters of this community and including the Franklin Horner Community Center so I they, they made note of that. And I just want to just tell you on behalf of the community,

like thanks for all you do for this community. It would be one thing to just, you know, help buyers, help people find their dream home. Like that would be enough, but you guys actually embed yourself in this community and, and make a difference. So thank you for that. Yeah, it's our pleasure. That's actually my next meeting. I'm going over there to meet with Laura, who's the senior director there. And they're putting together together with us, we've got some administrative support, they've got a lot. And we've got a lot of people in our database,

a lot of people that we communicate with regularly and have relationships in the community. So we're trying to get as many people involved in delivering food and supplies to people who need it. Like they're a seniors community center for the most part. Like that's where most of the funding goes towards. They, they, they charge other places money. And a lot of a lot of businesses like us in the community give money to

fund the seniors programs. Cause otherwise these seniors are isolated. Sometimes they're adult children either don't exist or they're just too far away and they're otherwise lonely and somewhat neglected. So it's a really great place to to invest in our community because there's just so much need for it. And we're putting together a program to deliver some, some needs, some,

some food and supplies that are otherwise difficult to get, especially during these times and for the highest risk population. So. Amazing. Awesome. That that's amazing. So thank you for that. And thanks for being such a tremendous partner of Toronto Mike and take care.

Have again, have a great father's day with the three little ones. And again, when I say three kids, young kids, like what's the range in age? They're all within three years of each other or something, right? Yeah, they're all under five.

So it's all hands on deck. Oh, man. I always think I have it bad if a couple of young kids, but you got three kids that are even younger. So that's tough enough when they shut down the daycares and the schools and all that. But thanks for this, Austin. We'll touch base again soon. This was very informative and I enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Yeah, and we'll get them all together

again when that's reasonable and safe. Can't wait, buddy. Thanks again. All right, brother. Talk to you. Bye. Bye. Bye. I'm coming up only to hold you under And coming up only to show you wrong And to know you is hard when we wander To know you, all wrong, we wonder Ooh, ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh Really too late to call So we wait for Morning to wake you Is all we got

But you know me As hard as you can? Brad Jones title over there at Ridley Funeral Home? I have a few, but I guess the best one is just the funeral director, I guess. Funeral director. Okay. I got a quick question before we get to the serious business. When you were in high school, did anyone call you Rad Brad? Not that I can recall. Not that I can recall not that i can recall i had some uh interesting uh nicknames i think the worst nickname i got was when i was playing football and our coach didn't tell us what our nicknames were until we ran out for the pep rally and uh my nickname was crazy legs jones i i don't know about crazy legs jones but but I always thought when I was younger, I always

thought, oh, if my name were Brad, people could call me Rad Brad. And I distinctly remember thinking that was pretty cool. Yeah, that would have been cool. It would have been a lot better than Crazy Legs. Trust me. I can call you Rad Brad if you like. I don't know if that works being a funeral director, but it's a doesn't hurt all right let's get serious here now we're uh three months into this um social distancing order covid19 global pandemic help us understand exactly i guess the state of the union at ridley funeral home like what is different at ridley funeral home compared to normal to normal times? And what's the current lay of the land for those who seek your services? We have, I guess, a meeting once a week with the Breedmen Authority of Ontario, who is our regulatory body.

And they send out directives that have been making us hop and change and do things differently from arrangements. I think the first month was strange. Everyone was trying to figure out how to do things and feeling their way around. But I think it took us probably around three weeks to realize that, you know, as long as we took safety precautions, some of our things didn't have to change. So we, you know, we're still had our doors open, we were welcoming families into the into the funeral home and we'd meet with them to make the arrangements and what we were discovering was most families had lost all human contact they were shut in they couldn't go to the nursing home they weren't even allowed to go to the hospital to visit with their with their loved one which you know could have been a spouse could have been a parent and we even had a couple that were even younger than that. So we found that the

families really appreciated the human contact, you know, even though we weren't shaking hands or hugging, being able to sit across the table from somebody and, and talk to them was a lot better than doing things over a phone. I'm sure you've probably even noticed that with the podcast, when you have a guest live in your audience or live in your studio, it's a different vibe than when you're doing it on a Zoom. Without a doubt, absolutely. So that was one of the biggest changes. But we just got a new directive that came through today, and we had our conference with the Bereavement Authority and we're allowed up to 30% capacity now. So for us, our chapel can seat 150 people and 30% capacity with social distancing works out to being around 42 people in our chapel. Other visiting rooms can accommodate anywhere from 10 people to 30 people. So it's getting a little bit back to what normal was. But I'm not sure if we as a society really want to get back to what normal was.

I think it'd be a great time to figure out what our new normal is and different ways that we've been doing things that may be better. is and different ways that we've been doing things that may be better. Like, for example, cycle more and drive less? Well, yeah, and walk. My wife and I do a lot of walking. We were doing probably around eight to 10 kilometers in the morning and another eight kilometers in the evening. Good for you. That's some serious kilometers.

That's great. Yeah, that's been great. And I actually started riding my bike again for the first time in years. So I've done two bike rides in the last week and a half. And I was surprised I was able to walk afterwards, but I did pretty well. I will say this quick tangent that if I take a long time off of biking, and this almost never happens, but it just happened with my broken wrist. But let's say I take a long time off of biking and this almost never happens, but it just happened with my broken wrist, but let's say I take six weeks off of biking the first two rides after my long break,

uh, my butt hurts. Like it's a, it's a phenomenon. So my, my like, I don't know my glutes, but glutes,

whatever my, my, yeah, my rear end is like tender and sore for a couple of rides. And then I never feel it again. But I remember this feeling when I took actually 15 years off of biking. And I remember when I first got on a bike, it's almost enough to make you think,

oh, I can't bike, my butt hurts. But it only lasts like two rides. And it happened again after the first two rides after the wrist injury. So I don't know if you're feeling, if you have that going on. I definitely have that going on. So I'll report back in, uh, on the weekend, how it goes. Good. I need, I need to know. I need to know, but good for you. That's a, that is a, you know, this, this whole, uh, this event that has happened to us is an opportunity to reset some things. Like I literally have a car in my driveway right now that I'm getting, I'm getting rid of because

this event is sort of like a catalyst for me to realize I don't need a hunk of car in my driveway right now that I'm getting rid of because this event is sort of like a catalyst for me to realize I don't need a hunk of metal in my driveway that I rarely drive. Yeah, yeah, it definitely, it makes you look at how we do things and the way we're doing things. And some of the stuff that we do here now have been streamlined, which have been great. But I think the hardest stuff is, you know, and we're still seeing it in the retirement homes and the nursing homes where people can't go in and spend time. And, you know, I've told lots of people, my dad died a year ago this May that just passed. And, you know, it was a powerful experience to be there in the hospital with him and held his

hand and, you know, tell him it was time for him to go and, you know, almost give him that release. But it was a powerful experience for me. And seeing so many families that just don't have the opportunity to have that experience, it's devastating to watch people walk through this process that for years I've been able to walk through with families and, you know and guide them and spend time with them. But now I'm seeing there's a void that they're having to deal with. Totally. I hope that's going to be lessened now. I hope now that they're starting to let families at end of life spend physical time there, I hope. Yeah, they're easing up some of the restrictions in hospitals, which are good,

but the long-term cares still have the restrictions in place. That's where I think it's almost, I think I heard it was 79% or 80% of the COVID deaths have been in long-term care homes. So they're still in the restricted zone. Well, there better be an independent uh inquiry into that because uh that's that's so grossly unacceptable uh to have that happen it sure is it sure is but you know i think um you know things are starting to come back online right across the province but i think uh with the funeral industry it'll be you know another

couple months of uh uh, doing things a little bit differently. But I think when people have an opportunity to, uh, to come and have more people at a guest at a service or at a visiting, I think it's going to bring some comfort to families. So your doors are open. You can, you know, social distancing, you can, you can meet with people and talk to people. Uh, What about like, okay, are there any rules? Like when people attend a funeral at Ridley Funeral Home, like do they have to wear masks or is there any of that going on? Yeah, that was actually one of the things in the directive today that all guests at a visitation or a funeral need to wear a mask.

And I think, you know, more and more we're finding people were showing up the last couple of weeks and they were wearing masks automatically. But now if they don't have them, we're going to provide them for them. Okay. That's great. It's, it's a strange, it's strange to see, but, um, I think we're becoming more used to it. Absolutely. Uh, and I saw a young man walk by behind you on the zoom here. So, uh, remind us, I know that, you know, cause I, I constantly remind myself whenever I think, uh, it's tough to have four kids and this is going on that going on. I always say, well, Brad at Ridley has, uh, has six kids. So, so how many are there like hunkered down, uh, with you? Um, anywhere between five and six. Um, anywhere between five and six.

Oh, all of them sometimes. Yeah. Our oldest, um, he goes back and forth between here and Hamilton. He does some, uh, some work for us. So when he comes in, he'll, uh, sometimes spend a night or two here with us. Um, a lot of times it's just to eat and then head back. But, um, all the other ones are all still living here. Cause you know, they, they recently said, okay,

you can have up to 10 people in your pod. And I was thinking, well, I'm already six. Okay. So I guess that's four more. But you, like you're already, you're almost at full capacity already. Pretty close. Pretty close. But, you know, it's in some ways it's nice to have them all home. And sometimes I think Jody and I look at it

and it would be nice if some of them were back at school or doing what they were doing beforehand. But it's been good. And everybody stayed safe and healthy, which is the most important. Exactly, yeah. Brad, if anybody wants to call you up and talk to you, give us the best way, the best coordinates to reach Brad Jones.

You can call him Rad Brad. I think I might start calling you Rad Brad, but don't call him Crazy Legs Jones. But how can people reach you? I might have to get a sticker you made that says Rad Brad, and I'll put it behind me. I know the people. I'll get that cooked up for you there.

Best way to reach me, I guess, is either by email. They can go to our website and get to us that way, or they can email me directly, bradjones at ridleyfuneralhome.com. And they can always reach me here at the funeral home, 416-259-3705. Or as I say, the door's always open, so feel free to walk in. Come say hi. If you have questions, we're happy to answer.

On that note, door being open, I got to just say thanks because, as you know, recently, my friend Mark Carey ran around the city, 137 kilometers for Red Cross Relief. He actually wrote a long-form piece about it, which I shared on Twitter, in which it's kind of neat to see him

write about the experience. But I met them at Marie Curtis Park, and I let them know that your doors were open, and if they needed a washroom facility, they could use yours. So very generous of you. That was late at night, too, by the time they made their way to South, uh, South Etobicoke.

Yeah, no, I was following around as he was, uh, it was doing his run. I was watching from your, uh, your Twitter feeds where he was at. And it was interesting to see that I can't imagine running that far and that fast. I can't imagine running, forget 137 kilometers. The way my legs feel these days, I don't, I mean, I bike a lot, but I don't think I could run seven kilometers.

So no, no, neither could I. Brad Jones, thanks so much for, uh, having this conversation with me and, we'll,

we'll keep in touch and maybe, uh, further down the line, we'll do another, another update episode where, uh, we chat once again on the recording. Sounds good. Well, thanks very much for checking in and we'll talk to you soon. Take care. You too. We've had some fun

Yes, we've had our ups and downs Been down that rocky road But here we are still around We thought about someone else, but neither one took the bait. We thought about breaking up, but now we know it's much too late We are bound by all the rest Like the same old lovers

All the same friends and the same occasions Yes it's true I am happy to be stuck with you, it's true. I am happy to be stuck with you. Yes, it's true. Yes, it's true. I'm so happy to be stuck with you. Joining me from StickerU.com is Shem. Hello, Shem.

Hey, Mike. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Doing really well. Thank you. Working out of my home office. As we all are. And we've been doing so, I guess, for a little over three months. So I wanted to check in with the Toronto Mic'd partners. We did a check-in like a week into this thing. So mid to late March.

And at that point, there were so many unknowns and companies like StickerU were adapting as quickly as possible. But let us know, how have you done? How have you adapted three months into this social distancing order? Well, from our perspective, the transition has actually been very smooth. One thing that we are lucky is that we are an e-commerce company. Not only are we an e-commerce company, but we're a customization company. So if you think of a lot of companies that are perhaps doing e-commerce, but they're threatened by the juggernauts in the industry, like Amazon and those types of things, because we do customizations and the products are really designed by the customers, there's

really nothing out there like it. So the one area where we really had to adapt is, first of all, dealing with the workforce working from home. But we are also a manufacturer. So obviously, you can't manufacture from home. So we had to put a lot of procedures in place to ensure that our manufacturing facility is up to par. So things like sanitization protocols, et cetera.

So those were put in place, which was really good. And the team has adopted that really, really well. They're, we're, you know, we're continuing to do that. We have social distancing, we have dedicated workstations where people are working with spaces and those types of things. So, so the transition was really good. And we're finding that people are,

have actually adopted working from home a lot smoother than we anticipated. think in our company a lot of people didn't really have a lot of experience working with people working from home in my past role i actually managed latin american canada so obviously have a lot of experience working with people remotely so to me to me wasn't such a big thing but a lot of people were really you know that was something new to them but we've adapted really well and from from a customer's perspective, I mean, we did see a dip in ordering when everything froze, but it wasn't, you know, what you would have expected in some other areas. It was just a dip. And then we certainly saw a very strong recovery post that. So we're actually doing well. If anything, what's happening is that customers

are just ordering different types of products. So we're seeing a lot of, you know, Floridica, those types of things. Yeah, I was going to ask. So I was thinking that when events were canceled, that would be one kind of sect. Like if you were having a wedding or having a big corporate event or convention or something,

that, you know, my first thought is, oh, we need to order some stuff from StickerU. No one can see it but you. But like, for example, at TMLX events, you know, we always gave out something, be it a Toronto Mike sticker or the great magnet badges and temporary tattoos. So tell us, as time evolved over these last three months, what types of products kind of surged to the forefront that maybe compensated for the fact a lot of weddings were postponed or canceled? Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, the majority of our orders are from businesses. We have a mix of both consumer orders and business orders, but the majority is business orders.

What you would expect is that, yes, event-based products would have gone down. For example, we saw a vast decline in temporary tattoo orders because businesses aren't ordering that. But floor decals, there was a point in time where you couldn't even get any laminates. If we were trying to laminate floor decals, it just wasn't out there. We were lucky that we had enough stock that we didn't experience that. But I know that when we were reaching out to suppliers, nobody had any floor laminates in stock because everybody was doing non-slip floor decals for indoor and outdoor use. Right. So we saw a lot of those types of orders. And, you know, things like iron-ons are certainly surging in terms of people doing their own things and on masks and those types of things.

Oh, so people will order, you know, if you have a corporate logo, you would order the iron-ons from StickerU.com and then you would put them on to the masks, the cloth masks. Is that what I'm hearing? Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, my God. That makes so much sense. Yeah, of course. Of course. Yes, so we're seeing a lot of that type of demand.

So people love to show off their brand, right? If you're a small business and you've got a brand, you love the various ways in which you can get that in front of customers. So masks is big. We've also released some new products. During all this craziness, we've released our new holographic stickers, which have just been doing fantastic. Customers are loving it. And we're going to have a few more new products launching soon. And so there's certainly

a lot of customer interest in new product introductions, even during this crazy time. And is that the old adage? I often quote it, but like when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Like are you simply using this? You know, what is it? The other quote I keep reading

is never let a global pandemic, or I can't remember the exact phrasing, but never let it go to waste. Like never let a disaster go to waste. Yeahasing but never let it go to waste like never let it yeah never let a crisis go to waste okay thank you never let a good crisis go to goes to it go to it i think you hear that a lot of a lot of financials right uh if you're listening to a morgan stanley or uh or somebody like that then you're probably gonna hear that uh they will always try to figure out a way to come out of things. And I mean, it's the right approach.

I think what separates a successful business from a non-successful business is how you pivot. No business ever starts off with a 100% clear vision of how they're going to be successful. But it's your ability to pivot is what really makes you stand out. Shem, did you ever listen to Andrew Witkin kicking out the jams on Toronto Mic'd? I did. That was awesome. You guys did a great job.

I wanted to check in on what you thought of his jams. Did you dug his jams, or is it a man's jams or a man's jams, and you can never judge? I think a man's jams are a man's jams, but I think he's a Radiohead guy, if I recall correctly. Oh, yeah. Well, he's a cool guy, so he likes the cool music, sure cool music sure yeah so you know what i actually thought it was quite interesting like he had a lot of different stuff on there uh which was which is pretty which was pretty awesome and actually

i'm you know not being back in the day like a big radiohead fan but listening to hearing some of those uh some of those uh songs was like hey you know what these these tunes have actually grown on me over time yeah So it was good. You got a spin. Okay. Computer during a pandemic. Absolutely. So kudos to you guys for, I mean, you, like you said, you were an e-commerce company to begin with. So that always helps you out when all of a sudden, you know, I just talked to, you know,

Anthony from Palma Pasta and Troy from Great Lakes Brewery. And as you can imagine, those retail stores had to radically change because of social distancing orders. You were always stickeru.com. So in that sense, it was always something, you know, done over the internet and then safely delivered to your home.

So, or your home or office. And that's good on you for adapting and launching the new, did I hear that right? Tupac Shakur hologram? Is that what I heard? Remember when Tupac was... That's so funny.

Tupac holograms? I'm hoping Biggie's not listening because he's going to get upset. Well, that's right. Don't let Puff Daddy. He's still around. He'll take care of you. Now, one last request before we say goodbye.

When it's safe, I guess whenever the rules allow for the sticker museum to open, can you make sure that there's a Toronto Mike sticker in the sticker museum? I'm sure there's room on that wall for a sticker. Oh, you know what? That's a customer made wall. So if anybody wants to put a sticker up there, we're always welcoming customers. wall so if anybody wants to put a sticker up there we're always welcoming well is that right yeah but i i'd be more than happy to put a put a toronto mic uh branding on our wall absolutely as soon as it's safe for me to get down there just let me know and i'll bike over and slap a toronto mic sticker on the wall yeah and actually we've opened up the store uh so i think this last

really actually yeah we actually had a few days where the store was open. We were testing it out. We put out the, the shields, uh, for, for our cash registers and those types of things. We've got our social distancing, distancing decals on the wall.

And I'm also hearing Vaughn Mills is opening where we have a kiosk. Oh, maybe this weekend we're going to have, uh, Vaughn Mills or maybe. Oh, because Vaughn has different rules in Toronto, right?

Yeah. They're in that zone two zone one thing. I'm not sure. I'm not really following that, but it's different zoning. Different zoning. Well, Shem, thanks for this. Again, congrats on making lemonade out of the lemons and continued growth and prosperity at StickerU.

You guys have been fantastic partners of Toronto Mike. And long may we prosper. Thanks for doing this, man. Thanks so much, Mike. long may we prosper. Thanks for doing this, man. Thanks so much, Mike. Have a great day. And that brings us to the end of our 669th show. I want to thank all the Toronto Mike partners. We didn't hear them on this call because it didn't make sense for the context of this call,

but I want to thank Garbage Day and I urge everybody listening to go to Garbage Day. And I urge everybody listening to go to GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike to sign up for the notifications, weekly notifications, as to is it Garbage Day Recycling? Is it Yard Waste Pickup?

Take the guesswork out of Curb Collection. Sign up at GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike. Fantastic people. Fantastic people. Fantastic service. I want to thank Troy Birch from Great Lakes Brewery. You can follow

Troy. He's well, Great Lakes is at Great Lakes Beer. I want to thank Anthony Petrucci from Palma Pasta. They're at Palma Pasta. I want to thank Austin Petrucci from Palma Pasta. They're at Palma Pasta. I want to thank Austin Keitner from the Keitner Group. They're at

the Keitner Group. I want to thank, who else will I pick on? Shem from StickerU.com. They're at StickerU. I want to thank Brad, or as I would like to call him now, Rad Brad Jones

from Ridley Funeral Home. They're at Ridley FH. And we didn't hear her on this episode, but she has an episode all unto herself last week. Dig it up and listen. Thank you, Barb Paluskiewicz. She's from CDN Technologies, and they're at CDN Technologies. See you all next week.

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