"What the heck is going on?"

Do you ever find yourself saying that when you look at your social media feed? You post something you know is great. It’s funny. It’s interesting. It’s intriguing. It’s sexy. It’s original. It’s got everything to make a popular post – in fact it’s so dang good it could even go viral and get hundreds of thousands of views.

But you’re staring at your feed in disbelief. You’ve gotten 12 views and 3 likes. And two of those are family members. That’s frustrating enough when you just want some attention for your cat or your sourdough bread that’s like the greatest loaf you ever baked – but if it’s your business you’re trying to promote on social media, and you’re failing time after time to get any traction – well that’s a far more serious situation.

Maybe you’ve tried using AI to get some tips on getting your business found on social media, and that hasn’t worked either. So, what does work, exactly? That’s what we find out on this edition of Out to Lunch.

Aerial Payne is the owner of Maranta Copy Co, a social media marketing company here in The Panhandle.You’ve probably heard that these days you can go online and hire an expert social media manager from anywhere - someone who has specialist expertise in getting small and medium-sized businesses outsize attention on social media. Well, Aerial Payne is one of those people.

At Maranta Copy Co, Aerial has around 20 employees and she could, if she wanted, live in LA, New York or Silicon Valley, but she’s a Panama City native and chooses to live here.

If you have a small business, you’re kind of conditioned these days to believe that the only way you can promote yourself is social media. The truth is, though, you have choices. For example, TV.

Yes, there are still people watching TV! And if you have a small business, the answer to your next thought is also “yes” – you’re right, you probably can’t afford to get a TV commercial shot by a production company and placed on a network TV station.

But you can afford to get a commercial shot by 30A Media and played on 30A TV.

30A Media is a production company and 30A TV is an independent network of 20-plus channels distributed on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, smart TVs, and iOS and Android devices — with syndication now reaching major cities. Both the production company and the network are owned by Paul Vizard.

Entrepreneur Of The Week

Our Out to Lunch Entrepreur of the Week is Ryan Eaton.

Along with his wife, Jenn, Ryan is Co-Founder and Co-owner of Big jerk Soda Company, a soda company in Pensacola that makes healthy, carbonated drinks – and you can find them at a bunch of stores up and down The Panhandle, including over 60 Circle K’s from Destin to Panama City.

Big Jerk Soda is made from real fruit with no artificial colors, dyes, preservatives or caffeine. There’s Ginger Beer, Lavender Lemonade, Blueberry Peach, Cherry Limeade, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and Crystal Clear Root Beer. What hot, thirsty person looking at that lineup in a cold refrigerator in a store would say, “er, no” and pick out a can of Coke instead? Ryan explains the mental machinations of the soda purchaser and mechanical literal machinations of the soda manufacturer.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Around 75,000 people live in Walton County. That’s the same number of people who live in a beachside city in France, called Cannes.

There are 85 other cities in France the same size as Cannes, but you probably couldn’t name them. You know about Cannes because it’s home to the world’s most prestigious film festival.

It costs Cannes around $6m a year to stage the festival. Its economic impact to the city is around $200 million. And the festival generates around one billion dollars worth of film industry business.

What if we had a film festival here? That’s the question Kevin Elliot asked. Kevin is a film maker and the owner of film production company, Wewa Films. And he’s the founder of the Redfish Film Festival: a festival of documentary films in Panama City that had its world premiere in 2024.

The reason a lot of us love living in this part of the world is the natural beauty of the place. And the advantage of living in a community that’s small enough to navigate, without the stresses of big city living. On the other hand, when the sun goes down we’d like to be able to enjoy the kind of nightlife that typically comes with a larger population. For example, comedy clubs.

Jason Hedden has solved the population vs comedy club conundrum by having no comedy club and a whole bunch of comedy clubs at the same time. Jason’s comedy company, Panama City Comedy, produces standup comedy shows, not at a single comedy club but at a wide range of different locations up and down the panhandle.

You got a pizza restaurant? A bar? A theater? An oyster shack? You want Panama City Comedy to stage a show at your location? No problem. This business model has been making people laugh, and making Jason money, since 2019.

Entrepreneur of the Week

This week's Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Daniel Henderson. Daniel lives in Panama City and he’s the co-owner of a company called BFG Productions.

BFG stands for Boogie Funk Groove and was originally a band. Now it’s much more than that. Now BFG books gigs for other bands and for DJ’s, and arranges all kinds of entertainment. Daniel describes himself as a secret weapon in the local entertainment business, working quietly behind the scenes to make events happen.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you live in a small community and you have big ideas, you have two choices. You can move to a city with a population large enough to support your dreams. Or you can stay home and try and make the impossible happen.

If you're a theater actor and you'd like to appear in a Broadway musical or a professional production of playwrights like William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, you could move to New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. Or you could do what Nathanael and Anna Fisher did and found the Emerald Coast Theatre Company.

In 2013 Nathanael and Anna had a traveling troupe, performing wherever they could find a suitable empty space. Then in 2016 they moved into their now permanent home, on Grand Boulevard in Miramar Beach. Today Anna is Emerald Coast Theatre Company’s Associate Artistic Director, and Nathanael is the company’s Producing Artistic Director.

If you love music - from classical to jazz and funk to punk - and you want to go to a record store like you’d find in the East Village in Manhattan, on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, or the French Quarter in New Orleans, you could pack a bag and go traveling. Or, you could do what Tom King did.

Following the blue-sky “Field of Dreams” business model –“Build it and they will come” - Tom opened Central Square Records in a space above Sundog Books in Seaside. That was 2003. Today, Central Square Records is a destination for music lovers who visit here from places like Los Angeles, New Orleans and New York.

Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Connie Prather.

Connie was a CPA – otherwise known as an accountant - for large companies and corporations before she decided to walk away from doing the books for big business and focus on clients with small businesses. Today she has a one-person accounting and bookkeeping business based in Panama City Beach called Coastal Accounting.

We all have great ideas. How many times have you been sitting around with friends or family and one of you says, “You know what somebody ought to do?...” The difference between successful people and the rest of us is, successful people follow through on a crazy idea and actually do it.

Nathanael didn’t sit around waiting for someone else to start a theater company. Tom didn’t sit around waiting for someone else to start a record store. And Connie didn’t sit around waiting for someone to offer her a job that suited her better. They're all examples of the contention that one person can make a difference.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m going to start out today’s show by making a generalization. I know I’m not supposed to do that, but I’m pretty sure you’ll agree with me. So here goes: "Previous generations were a lot more dedicated to their work and their careers than we are today."

Our parents and grandparents used to talk about “getting your priorities right.” When it came to work, that generally meant sacrificing whatever else might have been going on in your life, to getting ahead. Even if that meant sticking it out at a job you didn’t love while you waited for a promotion. Or even the total disruption of being transferred to another city.

Today, we’re focused on what we call “work/life balance.” “Balance” is the opposite of “priority.” A priority supposes one thing is more important than another. Balance is only achieved when the things being balanced are equal.

Dr. Prudence Farrow Bruns has been way ahead of this game. Since the 1960’s Prudence has dedicated herself to teaching Transcendental Meditation. TM, as it’s widely known, is a form of meditation that draws on roots from Ancient India and is modified to adapt to our modern lives. Dr. Bruns studies the texts of Ancient India to bring the wisdom within them into the 21st Century. Her goal is to help each of us find balance and harmony between our inner spiritual selves and our physical selves. Prudence may have unwittingly been one of the creators of work/life balance.

How we live our lives is to some degree dependent on where we live.

Most of us live in cities or towns. For many years we contrasted these urban collections of buildings with the natural world, which we called “the environment.” The environment was beautiful and unspoiled. The human dwellings we built on top of it were steel, glass, and concrete. Functionality and utility beat out beauty, hands-down, every time.

Today, things are different. Especially up and down our coast here. We make an effort to balance the human and the natural world. We don’t contrast human habitat with the natural world these days. Instead, we talk about “The built and unbuilt environment.” In other words, we’re not trying to conquer nature and subdue it, as much as work with it and embrace it. And we acknowledge that a utilitarian building can also be – and should be – beautiful.

This urban planning philosophy has developed as the result of the visionary design work, teaching, and writing of a school of architects and developers under the banner of New Urbanism. One of the leading proponents and practitioners of this movement is Dhiru Thadani.

Entrepreneur Of The Week

Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week is Tricia Veldman. Tricia is a speech coach. She has a company called Powerful and Poised, focused on overcoming humanity’s number one fear: public speaking.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, it's Fletcher Isacks, host of Out to Lunch. When you listen to a show like this you expect a person in my position to give you verifiable, factual information. But it turns out that statisticians are not collecting information about every subject I'm interested in.

I'm interested in the structure of businesses owned and operated by couples. That is, people who got married because they fell in love with each other, and decided afterward that they were going to run a business together. So, absent any factual information, we're just going to have to go with my anecdotal, impressionistic perception.

Some businesses are founded by couples who are equals – I’m thinking of recent guests who started a retail store together, and another couple who launched a swimsuit company. There’s another type of couples’ business, and that’s one that’s centered on the skills of one half of the couple. For example, one of the partners is a doctor or a plumber, and the other partner handles administration and book-keeping.

Now, this could be a result of my own poor memory and cultural bias, or it could be factual and the result of our patriarchal society, but it seems to me that in most of these types of businesses, the principal partner is the husband.

It seems much less frequent the other way around, where the wife is the practicing professional. Which is why I want to introduce you to Wendy Mignot and Lauren Pingree.

Lauren is Co-Owner of the Hidden Lantern Bookstore in Rosemary Beach.

This is how she’s described her current business arrangement: “This gentleman walked into the bookstore and asked me out. Two years later, we got married. And now we run the bookstore together.”

Wendy Mignot’s business, Mignot & Co, in Grayton Beach, is focused on Wendy’s creations of pearl and leather jewelry, and her business is supported by her husband, Jean-Noel, and their two kids.

Entrepreneur of the Week

My Entreprebeur of the Week this week is another woman in local business, Lauren Newton. Lauren's business is everyone else’s business. Lauren is the founder of the Found Marketing Firm in Panama City. If you live on the Emerald Coast, you might not know it but you’ve probably seen or heard her work.

The national Chamber of Commerce estimates that right around 40% of small businesses in the US are owned by women. In Florida, that number is higher. Here, around 46% of businesses are owned by women. And here on Out to Lunch today, that number is 100%.

Talking with Wendy Mignot, Lauren Pingree, and Lauren Newton, is statistically and personally a rare treat.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you ask people about the benefits of living in this part of the world, the first response you often get is about natural beauty. We typically assume “the natural beauty of The Panhandle” refers to the white sands and turquoise water of our beaches. People sometimes also refer to our lakes and piney woods.

These appreciations of nature are primarily visual. We love how the appearance of the natural setting makes us feel. But few of us stop to appreciate the life that these seascapes and landscapes support.

The sea, of course, is teeming with fish. We all know that. But how many of us who live here, or the millions of tourists who sit on our beaches, are aware that a few miles behind the white sands there are families of black bears?

Nobody around here knows that better than film maker Arix Zalace. Arix is the Co-Founder of film production company AZA Productions, and director of the feature film, The Paper Bear. In a unique combination of live action and animation, and documentary and drama, The Paper Bear is a love letter to the black bears who live alongside us, but are unseen by most of us.

One of the reasons we like to go to movies is, they take us away from our everyday lives, make us sit still, and give us an opportunity to think about more than our daily obligations and routine. That’s also the reason people smoke cigars.

People who smoke cigarettes are mostly looking to replenish the level of nicotine in their metabolism. People who smoke cigars are doing something quite different.

You can, of course, smoke a cigar while you’re doing something else, but most cigar smokers don’t. For most cigar smokers, sitting down to smoke a cigar is either a part of socialization and conversation, or it’s a form of solitary meditation.

Nobody around here knows more about cigar smokers and cigars than Paul Copeland. Paul is the Co-Owner of two stores, both called Shore Thing Cigars, one in Gulf Shores Alabama and the company’s flagship store, here in Watersound.

Paul’s partner in the business is music icon Luke Bryan. Luke’s enthusiasm for cigars is the inspiration for some of Shore Thing’s exclusive custom blends, but it’s Paul who has the cigar cred, going all the way back to working at Franklin Cigar in Tennessee, a store he got fired from and later bought. 16-plus years later, Paul has won awards, including like Tobacconist of the Year, and he’s a three-time Davidoff Golden Band Award winner.

Entrepreneur Of The Week

Out to Lunch Entrepreneur this week is Ross Flick. Ross is a Fragrance Consultant with Scentsy. It’s a fragrance company that sells through independent reps instead of stores. Ross works out of her home in Panama City. You can visit her Scentsy store there, buy from her online store, or catch her at markets, pop-ups and other events up and down the coast.

If there are three things that are somewhere between difficult and impossible to convey on the radio or a podcast, it’s the sensation of smoking a good cigar, the experience of seeing a good movie, or the scent of anything. So, congratulations are due to Paul, Arix, and Ross – for having successful businesses and for managing to pull off the impossible and describe them on today’s show.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a pretty good chance that by now you’ve checked your calendar today. There’s stuff you’ve got to accomplish this week, there are things you have to show up on time for during the day, and if you break it down even further, you can plan and account for your time minute by minute.

Life is, after all, a series of fleeting moments.

The moments that are the happiest and most memorable to most of us, are the ones that don’t show up on a calendar. Maybe it’s enjoying a delicious meal. Or a night out with friends, sipping drinks and sharing stories. Or a magical date at a bar overlooking the gulf.

But these memorable moments are only possible because they’re on somebody else’s calendar. Somebody has to show up to work to make that delicious meal. Somebody has to hire and pay staff, and do the hundred-and-one other tasks to open and run a bar. Around here, one of those somebodies is Dave Rauschkolb.

Dave is the Owner/Operator of Bud & Alley's Restaurant Group, and Managing Partner at Black Bear Bread Company in Grand Boulevard and Grayton Beach.

These fleeting moments that add up to the highlight reels of our lives come and go. That, of course, is the very definition of a “moment.” But, since the creation of social media, we now have a way to document those moments - and share them with our friends, and with hundreds of thousands of people we don’t know at all. From pictures of our hamburger to a carefully staged, or maybe even reconstructed, marriage proposal, fleeting moments of happiness are captured forever. Or at least until you quit paying for backup storage.

Most of us would not claim that our photos on Instagram rise to the level of art. So, amid this sea of images, it can be startling to see a photograph taken by an actual photographer and be reminded that, in the right hands, a camera is a tool for artistic expression.

Photographer Chandler Williams creates works of art in photographs that celebrate the beauty of the natural world, principally here on the Emerald Coast. Chandler works under the banner of his business, Modus Photography, and he has a storefront gallery, Modus Art Gallery, in Grayton Beach.

Our Entrepreneur of the Week on this edition of Out to Lunch is Jenna Hall. Jena is the Owner/Operator of a unique transportation business she founded in 2019, based out of Panama City Beach, called Hallin Hearts.

Jenna has three buses – an extended cab hi-rise that seats 14, and 2 shuttle buses. The company employs four people, including Jena, and is focused on providing transportation for local residents, not tourists. The bulk of Jena’s clientele are women who want to go out and have a fun excursion and don’t want to be responsible for anything - from driving to planning the day’s activities.

Hallin Hearts is also the go-to provider of transportation for a number of local businesses

If you drive down the beach a ways, to the Florida-Alabama line, you get to a shack-type barroom on the beach called the FloraBama. One of the ways you could get there would be to take an excursion with Jena and turn the trip into a Hallin Hearts adventure.

When you get there you’ll find the FloraBama is a hugely profitable business based on low overhead – it really is kind of a shack - and high volume sales aimed at a younger crowd who like to drink.

At the extreme other end of the hospitality spectrum there’s Bud & Alley’s in Seaside. Everything about Bud & Alley’s, from it’s architecture to the experience of dining and drinking there, is a reflection of the joy of living alongside the beauty of our beachside surroundings.

And while you can leave Bud and Alley’s with a memory – and maybe a selfie – Chandler gives locals and tourists alike a chance to hold onto a slice of that beauty forever, in a spectacular photograph.

Like the sea, skies, and piney woods that all contribute to the singular experience of living here, Jena, Chandler, and Dave's your businesses are likewise threads of the tapestry of life on the Emerald Coast.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.