https://youtu.be/3kNuGzotg78

Logan and Taylor Amstey, founders of Love Lamp Matcha in Austin, Texas, join us to share how they turned a simple dream into a thriving business.
After a two-year permitting journey, they opened their unique pottery studio and matcha shop in early 2025 — and within just six weeks, launched a second location. We talk about overcoming red tape, building an authentic community without paid ads, and partnering with creators and city officials to bring their vision to life.

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Handling the Heat, a podcast all about the stories of resilience, creativity and growth behind today’s most inspiring food businesses. This podcast is all about how people handle the heat and stay successful in their own kitchens, whether those are actual kitchens, test kitchens, or offices. We’ll be talking with chefs, operators, entrepreneurs, and others shaping the future of the food and hospitality space. My name is Zach Sherman and I’m the Director of E Commerce and marketing at RestaurantEquipment bid. I’ve spent the majority of my career working alongside restaurants and food businesses, helping them navigate challenges and seize growth opportunities. I’m excited to bring these stories to life straight from the people who truly live them. This week we’re going to be talking with Logan and Taylor Amstie, founders of Love Lamp Matcha in Austin, Texas. What started out as a dream of opening up a pottery studio led them down a winding path of permitting challenges before they finally opened up their combined pottery studio and matcha shop in January 2025. Within just six weeks, their unique concept and strong community support helped them launch a second location upstairs at Wanderlust wine company in downtown Austin. During our conversation, we cover their two year battle with permitting, how they built an authentic following without paid ads, and their creative partnerships, from content creators to mobile companies to city officials that help make their dreams a reality. Let’s dive in.

Logan and Taylor, thank you so much for coming on Handling the Heat. Super super excited to have you on the podcast and talk about Love Lamp Matcha. Before we get started though, I want to ask you, what’s something you’ve eaten recently that’s really hit the spot for you both?

[00:01:48] Speaker B: I was at my parents in Dallas and my aunt brought over her friend’s macaroons, which are from Ma’s Macaroons and they were amazing. They were so good. It’s like butterscotch flavor.

[00:02:01] Speaker A: Shout out Sweet tooth. I guess that kind of plays with the matcha. The matcha theme. Sweet Tooth Macaroons and matcha play well.

[00:02:08] Speaker B: I mean, I would have thought it out myself, but you know, I’m going to give it to them.

[00:02:13] Speaker A: How about you, Logan? Maz Macaroons and well, Taylor made me agree.

[00:02:16] Speaker C: Macho, but that’s like too self indulgent.

I had tacos from a place called Discada recently that actually kind of like inspired our business a little bit so that I feel like that’s like, that’s just like fitting for this podcast that. Yeah, we have these. The reason they’re inspiring for our business is they just make tacos they make this one type of taco called descado, which is just like a type of taco, and they’re like mini. And instead of asking, like, what type of taco do you want? Like a normal taco truck, like, it’s just, how many tacos do you want? Because there’s only one type of taco.

[00:02:51] Speaker A: Efficient.

[00:02:52] Speaker C: Yeah, efficient. And, like, we make one thing, and it’s, like, really good. And I love that place. And I go all the time. And that’s, like, kind of what inspired the business too.

[00:03:00] Speaker A: It’s like, well, that’s as good of a transition as ever into.

Into. All right, so Matcha. What inspired the matcha? And obviously there’s the ceramics component as well, but I think matcha in particular. Why are you so passionate about matcha, and why this one thing as good as possible?

[00:03:22] Speaker B: I started drinking matcha, like, 10 years ago. I think Logan also drank it in college. I’m pretty sensitive to caffeine for a lot of different reasons. So the coffee anxiety spikes that really happen really hit me. And sometimes I. I still did it to myself. Cause, I don’t know, you’re. I get a little crazy. But Matcha really just gives this really nice, easy caffeine dose that sustains a lot longer, and it, like, gives you this, like, really good boost of energy. There’s already. There’s also, like, so many other benefits to amazing green tea, like the antioxidants and all these things. But making it into fun drinks is also really fun. So respecting the tea ceremony mixed with, like, the modern latte of it all with fun flavors is kind of just what we like. So just because I don’t, like, can’t really have coffee, or I have maybe a decaf latte every once in a while, you know, it’s fun to still have a really nice drink to go out and get because it’s like, the best kind of sweet treat paired with. So that like, any place, even like, In N Out or Discata or anywhere that just does one thing really well is, like, why we stuck to only doing matcha? Because so many coffee shops, like, throw on matcha and it’s maybe kind of an afterthought. We. And, you know, like, I don’t. I would never have coffee as an afterthought. So it’s kind of like, yeah, stand.

[00:04:40] Speaker A: Up for the matcha drinkers of the.

[00:04:41] Speaker B: World coffee, you know, And I want to respect the thing.

That’s why we only have matcha.

[00:04:47] Speaker C: That’s such a good point. We never thought of like so many places do Matcha as like, oh, we just have to have that where like we never did like just coffee because you have to have that. Cause there’s so many like coffee snobs.

And we’re seeing this like new generation of Matcha snobs that are like popping up around the United States.

[00:05:05] Speaker B: People want good stuff and that’s okay.

[00:05:07] Speaker C: I like that. Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:08] Speaker A: It’s interesting because there’s the component of the more even caffeinated experience. But to your point too, Taylor, of the ability for Matcha to play that role for people, the ability to like make new drinks and have that be your afternoon, you know, pick me up or lattes or whatever else. The art of it all I think is, is interesting and it’s super well documented for coffee. But for Matcha it’s pretty culturally significant in certain places. But then in others it’s just kind of, you know, the, the Starbucks ification of Matcha, which I think maybe is. But also potentially that was a benefit of it in the first place to bring it to a lot of people’s attention. So like where was your first Matcha, Taylor?

[00:05:47] Speaker B: Sure. My first one was Starbucks.

[00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:05:49] Speaker B: And I love the Matcha lemonade and it is so sugar and it’s like homestyle lemonade mixed with like sugar cut Matcha. But I still was like, this is delicious.

[00:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:06:01] Speaker B: And we have now made our own Matcha lemonade that is. This has agave and freshly squeezed lemon juice and matcha and water. And it’s delicious in a different way but like refreshing and feels like healthy. Yeah, I guess. I don’t know, it just like it’s refreshing in a way that you’re like not like about it afterwards at all.

[00:06:22] Speaker A: Well, that’s a good feeling.

[00:06:23] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It just feels just nice. Especially in the Texas heat.

[00:06:28] Speaker A: No, for sure. So I guess if that was your introduction through Starbucks and through like you know, other big chain Matcha, maybe getting a little more specialized. What prompted you both to take. Take this on as something that you actually wanted to bring it to the world as opposed to, you know, I like Matcha. Maybe I could get some high end Japanese grocery store equivalent in my house versus I want to bring this to the world and share my passion with other people.

[00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. Well, so something Logan and I have, and Logan even started on his own before me is like a whole giant list of restaurant concepts. So like starting something was always going to happen probably between both of us, everything we at the beginning of January 2023, because we had remote jobs. We were in Mexico City. Logan really did not like his old job. And we. He was like, I just want to have a pottery studio. And simultaneously, I was getting this matcha frozen matcha every day that I was like, this is spectacular. Austin needs this. Like, I want this for myself every day. I know I could do this. We could do an amazing job. And it sprung out of that. It was like, what if we could have a pottery studio with a matcha shop? And we really just, like. It kind of just gave us, like, these beautiful sparks in our mind and fireworks, and we’re like, we have to do it. And we stuck to it. Is that right?

[00:07:51] Speaker A: I guess what’s super interesting, though, is a lot of people have those ideas, right? Like, I don’t have my notes app of potential restaurant concepts, but, you know, I’ve thrown some things out there to friends or to you both, maybe, of. How about this? This. This sounds interesting. How do we do this? So what do you think made it more real? Was it the pushing away from Logan for you, the job that you were in at the time, or, you know, was it something that you wanted to do together? Because it was, hey, we’re building this life together as, you know, potential new newlyweds at the time, and we need to take that and bring it into the world, into a more enterprise kind of way. Or are you just both, you know, entrepreneurial and that’s the differentiator think.

[00:08:31] Speaker C: I think we didn’t originally think of it so much, like, as a business, even.

[00:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

[00:08:37] Speaker C: So at the same time of, like, work going weird, I was secretly doing my job from this pottery studio called Laguna Gloria here in Austin, which is really beautiful. You’ve been there because you were there for our wedding.

And pottery around the same time got really popular. So no longer was it, like, this, like, safe haven for me to, like, secretly do my, like, virtual job and throw pottery and hang out. So I was looking for, like, a warehousey space to do a pottery studio. Studio first. And then could this perfect space have this, like, 100 square foot auxiliary that we could just, like, build a bar and sell, like, matcha drinks out of would be perfect. And so we were, like, daydreaming about that, like, every day. Mexico City. And afterwards, maybe like a couple months after we got back from Mexico City on Craigslist, I met our. Our crazy landlord. George is this, like, eccentric Frenchman, and he had this warehouse space kind of like in a somewhat populated area in Austin, but a little, like, kind of around a corner. So it Would definitely take some marketing to get some people there. But the flip side of it, it was already built out essentially as a pottery studio with electricity and the spacing, and had a separate door to do like a matcha bar out of.

[00:09:54] Speaker B: There’s an office in the back.

[00:09:55] Speaker C: Office in the back bathroom. Like, it seemed kind of perfect at the time. And again, us, like, not thinking like, oh, we’re not even like a restaurant. We’re just doing drinks to then quickly learn about that. Like, you’re serving ice, you’re serving a food product to Austin, people of Austin. That’s what then, like, you know, you just, like, you just. You kind of gave it away that I told you that we started doing this in 2023, and now it’s April 2024. We’re only a couple of months into it. Like, that’s when, like, the challenge started.

[00:10:25] Speaker A: We just like, yeah, no long time coming in terms of, like, hey. But it sounds like it was a perfect storm of, hey, we have this idea. We want to do something. Hey, this space is exactly what we dreamed up. And now we’re too far gone to turn our backs on it.

[00:10:41] Speaker B: We thought about, like, honestly, we thought about it a few times throughout the past two years, like, yeah, is this worth it? And we, like, chose obviously, first to our invest in ourselves and, like, do this business. And also just to. I. I don’t know, to that. We thought it was going to be really good. We wanted the pottery studio. We wanted it. But the financial burden of those two years was definitely unexpected of, like, permitting and like, the rent of two years before being an open business and everything like that. It was definitely unexpected. And again, we just kept choosing to believe in ourselves.

[00:11:19] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that’s great. The conviction of it all is amazing. And I think that that’s probably the differentiator. It’s like, you could be as enterprising as you want, but if you don’t really think that it’s something that could come to fruition and something that will bring people in, it’s like, that’s the, you know, what’s the point? But I think that’s a super good transition into now, this permitting process. And like, okay, we have the idea, we have the space. That’s exactly what we dreamed up in Mexico City. When we’re daydreaming about what does our life look like if we have something like this? What was the two year hiatus like? And I know, Logan, you and I have talked a little bit about the. The permitting issues and how that came to be but could you talk a little bit more about that elongated period?

[00:11:59] Speaker C: Yeah. I think, like, how did it possibly take that long? Right.

[00:12:03] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:12:03] Speaker C: And I think that the answer is, like, you don’t know what you don’t know. Right. And when you’re doing something as, like, a project like this from scratch, it’s kind of like, what is the next thing? So, like, calling the city. What’s the next thing I have to do then? Getting sometimes wrong information and then just going down this rabbit hole. And honestly, like, getting to a point after, like, maybe nine months into it, where I’m looking around thinking, wow, I. I don’t think I can, like, figure this out anymore by myself. And the reason for that is that so many people are just saying no, and they’re not giving an alternative. I think that that’s a problem with, like, the state of Texas is that as open business as they are, they’re totally not. And it’s. There’s no great resources for people to, like, be entrepreneurial like this.

[00:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:12:52] Speaker C: I think what’s really fortunate is we had a lot of friends in, like, the restaurant space. And a lot of our challenge one is that we’re, like, opening this, like, warehouse space. It’s not already permitted to be a restaurant. So, like, that was a big, big problem. That’s such an important part of, like, going into, like, any business is that you need to have friends. Like, you can’t just be a lone wolf. And without friends like that, like, I don’t think we would have a business today.

[00:13:14] Speaker A: Just straight up, that’s amazing. That’s great. And I think that’s something that I see a lot of, honestly, in my world is a lot of people know what they want to do, have no idea how to do it. And I think it’s commendable that, you know, that community that you’ve built over time in Austin allowed you to bring that together and you were able to identify, hey, this is an issue. Hand up, I need help. And how can I get through that with the community that I’ve built, as opposed to, let me just close the door and turn around and just.

[00:13:43] Speaker C: You gotta ask for help. You know, that’s true for anything in life.

[00:13:47] Speaker A: I am curious, given the permit issues that you went through, if you could change how these municipalities do their permit. And maybe it’s not even the process, it’s just, like, resources and materials that can be used by small business owners to identify what the next step in the process is or alternatives when things don’t work. What would that Be. And do you think that that’s something that is in the works at all, or is that just, you know, a pipe dream maybe?

[00:14:15] Speaker C: I think that they have, like, a portal, right. That, like, they’re trying to do something like that with. And you could see how it could take that next step of, what do I need? And then, like, I do this thing, it goes to this next step, and you can see that timeline from start to finish. Yeah, but, like, there’s just, like, so many, like, stupid little things, right. That popped up along the way that people are like, well, why don’t you have this? It’s like, well, nobody along this way, including, like, the commercial overseer of this whole thing, mentioned this once. And, like, two weeks away from being done with this after, like, almost years. Like, like, what are you talking about? You know? And, like, no point in that portal along the way was that told. Like, did somebody say that? So I think that just, like, having a timeline and having, like, a stern list of what you need to do to open a business is, like, so important. And I’m sure there are, like, some types of resources out there, but nothing that’s, like, so linear, right?

[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:15:16] Speaker C: And it’s a lot of figuring it out on your own. And, yeah, if. If I could, like, have any change in how business is done in the state of Texas or really anywhere in the United States, it’s how do we, like, remove those barriers of education so more people can, like, lift themselves up? Like, we hear all the time of, like, in, like, politics of people, like, lifting themselves up. But, like, how do you even get started?

[00:15:40] Speaker A: Like, on top of all the permits that you have to pay for, too.

[00:15:43] Speaker C: Exactly. Which are so expensive. Like, I have to pay the city, like, thousands of dollars. Right. Just to, like, for them to come in and say that this is safe. It’s like, I’m not against having, like.

[00:15:55] Speaker B: Like, we need a fire check. Like, I want.

[00:15:57] Speaker C: Yeah. There should be a health department. Like, they’re keeping us, like, but, like, could they be transparent? And actually, I do want to. I want to have another shout out, actually. It’s.

[00:16:07] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:16:08] Speaker C: You see in a movie of, like, who is, like, the villains, right? In, like, opening a restaurant. It’s never like, the, like, any of these other people. And it’s always like, the, like, health inspector and, like, Carolina, who’s like, our health inspector was amazing.

[00:16:24] Speaker B: She was like.

[00:16:25] Speaker C: She was the helpful person that’s, like, I want to keep people safe. Like, we want to. Like, these are the things that you need. And then we did These. And she’s like, great. Good job. Like, that was it, you know, so that’s great. There are people like Carolina who want to keep, like, people in Texas safe. And, like, we just need more systems in place to, like, empower people like Carolina to do that in, like, our fire department, in our commercial building and everywhere.

[00:16:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Just a, you know, rule book, guidebook. Here’s where you start, here’s where you end, and then you’re. You’re open for business. Yeah. No, I mean, it sounds super straightforward, and it’s surprising that it’s not already available to all these people who maybe do have that notebook or notepad app of, you know, here’s all my business ideas, my restaurant ideas, and. No. All right. So we got through the headaches of permitting. Right. And at what point were permits fully. Fully completed, Ready to rock? Everything was situated in December.

[00:17:19] Speaker C: Yeah. December 2020.

[00:17:20] Speaker A: Wow. So, Bill, I guess you had those two years to build out all the other components of the business while you were doing the permitting in parallel.

[00:17:27] Speaker B: We did a lot over that time.

[00:17:29] Speaker C: Yeah. We weren’t just chill, like. Yeah.

[00:17:31] Speaker B: We tested a lot of matchas. Logan found one specific one from a distributor who’s Right on the farm in Aji, Japan, and he had two for us to choose from, and they were our favorites. And we tested so many matchas. Like, that was so cool. So then we ordered a huge amount, thinking we would be open, I guess, probably the end. For the end of 2023.

[00:17:53] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:17:53] Speaker B: That’s what we tried to. Then we did, like, a huge first order, just thinking, like, yeah, this is when we’ll need it.

[00:18:00] Speaker A: Right.

[00:18:01] Speaker B: We were not open then, so we had. So there was, like, a lot of things that we should have waited on, probably. These are a lot of lessons learned. That was probably one of the bigger ones of a lot of watcha went bad, unfortunately. So then once we.

We did not make a large order until we were actually open. We did a tiny order, and then we did a large.

[00:18:24] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:18:25] Speaker B: So, you know, we learned from our mistakes. And I hate food waste, and that’s something that I’ve always been passionate about. I actually studied environmental management, sustainability. So it’s like, going forward with the restaurant, I’m like, I try to be as conscious of food waste as possible and waste in general, but that was a sad thing that we did.

[00:18:43] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it’s. It’s tough. But were you able to use any of that to perfect your drink recipes?

[00:18:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. We used a lot of it at our house, and then we made it for our friends and we did it. But there were, there was a lot.

[00:18:57] Speaker C: Of cups of matcha or like match.

[00:18:59] Speaker B: Or shipped in like bags. It’s, you know, it’s everything, it happens on the farm. It’s, it’s like, you know, grown, picked, steamed, dried, ground and packaged all on that plate so it stays as fresh as possible and it gets shipped giant silver bags.

[00:19:16] Speaker C: But if we were to buy like, if we were to buy like 100 grams of matcha, which makes like 50 ish drinks right, of matcha from the sky, it would be, it would be extremely expensive and that’s what people are spending at their home. But because we’re buying it by like the kilogram, like many kilograms, we’re able to like really reduce down the cost. Because, like, essentially you’re negotiating directly with a farm instead of like a business, right, Where a little tin of matcha can cost like 40 to $60.

So because we have that negotiating power, that’s then like the whole point of the business, right, is we can get the best quality matcha, but then also sell it and like a reasonable cost back to the consumer so that there’s no way you could have done this at your home. And it’s still worth going out to eat, right, and getting a matcha from us. And so that’s like the. Yeah.

[00:20:11] Speaker A: I think what’s really cool to see from the outside looking in is not only are you so passionate about the quality of the matcha, but the community that you’re building too around it, which is a function of the pottery space. But also maybe the lead up was helpful in getting the word out there that, hey, Love Lamp is coming. We have all this merch, we have awesome branding, we have super high quality matcha. And when it was actually open, there was that appetite from friends. And then pretty quickly, right, Growing into two locations, I guess, before we get into the second location, getting opened in a month after first location opening. I’m curious if you could talk a little bit about the partnerships, because I think, you know, you’re talking about the quality, you’re talking about the community, you’re talking about your passion for something like this and obviously the nuts and bolts of permits and whatever else. But I think one thing that you’ve all done really effectively is getting the word out there through the right channels. Like, for example, your partnership with Helium Mobile that they did for, I think it was south by Southwest. And I think that that’s something that small businesses generally have trouble doing, right? It’s. They have potentially the right products, they have what they feel to be is a good representation of what they want to bring to the world. But then getting new people outside of their little sphere, the partnerships are key to getting the word out there. And I think it’s super cool given especially one month in having all of these pretty big name partnerships coming to the table. So can you talk a little bit about how you did that and facilitated that and then how they’ve worked out for you?

[00:21:41] Speaker B: Our first collaborations definitely have to do with the Austin content creator community.

[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:21:48] Speaker B: And I, you know, have such respect to them. I’m like, I try to do one video and it’s so ugly and it’s like, they’re so cute. Our first one being Tiffany, who is also known as Cloud atx, who came and I think when one comes, other follows. And that’s so amazing. A bunch of people newly into Macho Daily Devon, who’s so nice and just supports us so much.

And then there was a pastry truck that what I found in like early 2024 that I never, never not thought of again. It was called My Swedish Friend. And he has a very dedicated following. His name’s Anders and he has some of the best sweet treats in the whole city. And he came to our. I reached out to him like right, like right before we even opened to be like, do you want to sell treats at my thing? Do you want to come pop up here? Anything possible? And he did both of our. And bring in a lot of really good crowd. And I think like the content that we drummed up is what made something like Helium Mobile who wanted to do a South by Southwest party at one of our locations, like why they wanted to work with us is because we can make good content or like the content looks really good from there. And I think that’s really, that’s such a big part of it. Just in the world of 2025. Yeah, definitely is the Internet presence.

[00:23:10] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:23:10] Speaker B: And then Helium Mobile reached out. A friend of a friend worked there and it was so nice that she thought of us and it was just really cool. They. It was our first time doing like essentially a full day buyout where they, they also pushed so much marketing, which was really nice. And we got to promote it so heavily. Like it is free for everyone and everybody wins because so many people signed up on their email list and got a lot of information about the company, Helium Mobile. And so many people since then have come and been like, wow, yeah. I first tried it at the Free South By Event.

[00:23:45] Speaker A: That’s amazing.

[00:23:46] Speaker B: It’s so huge. So to get people to come one time is just. So it’s a lot harder than getting people to come back.

[00:23:54] Speaker C: I think, like, a big part of that too is like, actionably like. Like Tiffany. Right. Like, the first big influencer that came came because Taylor reached out to Anders, my Swedish friend, to pop up at our grand opening. So, like, we stocked our grand opening. Like, you know, everyone we’ve ever talked to about, like this business for two years who, like, we got to like, follow the Instagram, even strangers who we, like, met in the street. Like, Taylor and I are talking to strangers all the time, right. And just like promoting Love Lamp and it’s a fun thing to promote. And so because Anders popped up there, Tiffany followed Anders.

[00:24:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s the social media waterfall, you know.

[00:24:32] Speaker C: Exactly.

[00:24:32] Speaker A: Just takes one. And then it kind of.

[00:24:34] Speaker C: Exactly. Because she posted. So then other ones are like, oh, she’s posting. I have to. I have to go check. I have to check it out. And then I think what’s like was really affirming about our business is that like, Tiffany, for example, drinks a matcha every day and posts that on. On Instagram and says she really likes ours. That also led to ATX Matcha Club, which is like a. And obviously that’s so perfect, but I.

[00:25:00] Speaker A: Was going to say clubs for everything nowadays.

[00:25:02] Speaker B: She’s amazing her pattern and she does such amazing macho events all around Austin.

[00:25:08] Speaker C: Tapping into like a niche community like that. Like Catherine, for example, like, she has, I think like maybe under 3000 Instagram followers, but, like people who have like a hundred thousand Instagram followers as people have come learning from their posts than her posts because, like, she has a small community. But they’re so like, they know she knows what she’s talking about and she hypes those up saying it’s good. And so, like, it’s just really cool that this person is like affirming that are, like, what we’re doing is good. And then at the same time, people then trust her, so then have come on their own and it’s grown like kind of a spider web in that sort of way.

[00:25:45] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that’s amazing.

[00:25:46] Speaker C: One kind of is the answer.

[00:25:48] Speaker A: And the quality versus quantity, I think is interesting too, of the followers and of the people that are, you know, actually interested in this particular thing. The Austin ATX Matcha Club. That’s. That’s super cool. Okay, so one month we have all these cool people coming. We have crazy content. My Swedish friend is there. He’s slinging out pastries they’re so good. Why a second one one month later? What was the reasoning behind that? And did it have anything to do with the permitting of the second location?

[00:26:15] Speaker C: Sammy, who owns Wanderlust Wineco, we’ve, like, known him for a long time. We did our rehearsal dinner for our wedding, like, at his. His east side, like, event space location, which is, like, amazing. And he does, like, drag brunch there. It’s great.

And so he came to the grand opening, and I actually didn’t even know that he came to the grand opening because the line was so long. Like, a lot of people showed up but didn’t get a drink because Taylor and I are making 200 matchas for the first time ever. So some people just came and hang and we didn’t see them because we were like, head down making matcha balls, you know. So, like, not only was he, like, you know, like we knew him and like, we’ve, like, have, like, been like, friendly with him for a long time. He. He saw that we, like, generated some hype in our first day and then another big part of it. And you, like, going back to, like, what you were talking about branding earlier is that all of our colors. For every. For anybody who’s listening to this who doesn’t know anything about us, it’s like this blue everywhere. We have, like, big murals on our, like, walls that say love lamp. So we, no matter what piece of content is, like, coming out from this, right, it’s gonna be in our colors because it’s gonna be that blue because it’s everywhere. There’s gonna be, like, our logo somewhere in there because we’ve put it everywhere. So when influencers then post about us and like, ask us to, like, share, like, collab post, it’s already kind of in our branding already. So they’re kind of doing that work for us. So again, Sammy is seeing, like, all these people show up, all of this, like, great content that, like, is our brand because these people are forced to do our brand. And so he had this empty coffee bar already built out on the second floor of this, like, incredible wine cave experience that he has. And the idea was to have a coffee partner serve coffee during the day, and then at night have it turn into a wine bar. And they’re kind of similar to us where they don’t do beer, they don’t do liquor, it’s just wine. So it’s like, one thing really great, right? Kind of like the love lamp ethos. And so we had to pitch it hard, though. We had to pitch it hard that.

[00:28:20] Speaker B: There wasn’t going to be.

[00:28:20] Speaker C: I was part of the pitch. That was part of the pitch.

And so a lot of really amazing places in Austin put in a bid for it and we ended up winning. It’s in a prime, prime location. It’s not the warehouse space like in North Austin like our other location. So it’s like, okay, let’s go. And so Taylor and I were just there for two weeks. Her dad came down and helped paint and we just painted the building blue after it was like this like rust colored, like silver.

[00:28:50] Speaker B: Well, it was just metal.

[00:28:52] Speaker C: It was just like metal colored metal. We made it like love lamp blue but in like a massive way.

And then open it up. And we partnered with Heyhire and they helped us like staff up really quickly and we have this like incredible staff that all worked at places like big high volume coffee shops or Starbucks or things like that. So like just making matcha all day is like, and working for me and Taylor instead of like a corporate job is like a much better life for these people ideally. So it wasn’t so hard to find great staff. But now we, our staff is so good that like we can, we, we are holding onto that. I know, I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like actually, they’re actually so amazing. Yeah. Like, and we just had to stand it up really quickly and we did that. And luckily like from all the learning from two years, like I already knew all the equipment. I already knew the ice machine that was going to be there. Taylor already knew like the tea kettles, the bowls, like the, like the every little thing was kind of, of those kind of details was figured out. So it’s like, okay, what did we buy for the other one? Let’s just, we just have to buy it again. And then now we have two locations. So that was.

[00:30:00] Speaker B: Yes, it was obviously already all permitted.

[00:30:03] Speaker C: It was already all permanent. Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:04] Speaker B: If that wasn’t clear, it was already permanent because it’s.

[00:30:07] Speaker C: Because it’s his wine bar. Right. So we are essentially just like a vendor in his space. And again like going back to like the health inspector, like I called Carolina to be like, hey, like this is the situation, like do I need my own health inspection, whatever. And she’s like, no, you’re good. Like as long as it’s like a inspected place, like you’re good. But like I went out of my way to talk to the health inspector because like I trust that he’s like going to give me a good advice which is really cool.

[00:30:32] Speaker A: So yeah, And I think that kind of plays back into a couple of the things that you’ve talked about over this conversation, which is, you know, you bump your head and then you’re hyper aware of these potential issues that could happen. And as an entrepreneur and a small business owner, that’s potentially one of the most important things. They say fail fast, you know, but that’s really that in motion, right? It’s like, hey, these permits in this other place totally, you know, elongated the process by multiple years. Now let me just double check and.

[00:30:57] Speaker B: Make sure because it felt, you know, to start that quickly.

[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it was 10, two years to 10 days.

[00:31:04] Speaker B: It was 10 days staying up so late every day, painting, getting it ready, doing so much stuff while also working out the other one.

[00:31:15] Speaker A: Taylor’s got two full time jobs too.

[00:31:20] Speaker B: And I’m like, now I’m just like making watches somewhere else. I’m like, this feels crazy.

[00:31:25] Speaker A: That’s awesome. No, I mean it’s kind of the dream. No, it’s like your first one went so well and you have the right people around you, you have the right community, you have the right marketing, you have the right influencer base. Now you have two of them. So no, that’s, that’s awesome. What do you think is next?

[00:31:42] Speaker B: Now something else that I have always dreamed of and I think Logan is to have some sort of grocery store product. But literally as soon as we had the idea of Matcha is like I want Matcha in the grocery store because that I don’t like any. I don’t like like the one option that exists right now and there are so many things about it and there’s already a lot of research we’ve gone into it because Match Matcha is such an interesting, you know, thing. It’s very. As soon as like the powder touches air or water, it oxidizes and it gets worse. Like having it and whisking it fresh and like making your drink freshly every time is actually so important to the taste as well as the experience and the respect of Matcha in general. So there’s just all the interesting ways we could think and hopefully will do in the future of making a really good to go matcha drink. And I will always say that it will be the second best option than whisking yourself. It will never be the best but a grab and go item where there’s so many coffee options for all the coffee lovers and non energy drink people. We need a nice Matcha.

[00:32:42] Speaker A: I love it. That sounds great. Put Love lamp in every home.

[00:32:46] Speaker B: Yes, that is on the agenda semi soonish. Not, not, not around the corner.

[00:32:52] Speaker C: But we, but like, but we’ve like started doing it so it’s like in the same vigor we have now. Two matcha shops. We’re getting at it.

[00:33:00] Speaker A: Potentially a CPG product going out.

[00:33:02] Speaker C: I mean it’s a completely different business.

[00:33:04] Speaker A: Yeah.

Awesome.

[00:33:06] Speaker B: And I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from that as well.

[00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah. No permits or maybe, I don’t know.

[00:33:12] Speaker C: A lot of different. Different.

[00:33:15] Speaker A: Awesome. Okay. So to end this off well, thank you very much. Logan and Taylor, very much appreciate your time. Your story is amazing. I think the world that you’ve built out for yourselves is super cool and the community has agreed with that in the way that they’ve supported you and been around you and are helping you grow. And two locations within two months is, is unbelievably impressive. What advice would you give to somebody who’s thinking about opening up some kind of food and beverage small business?

[00:33:45] Speaker B: I will say we were, we are very lucky. I think when we went into it that I had my dad who has his restaurant that I worked in, I worked in another one for a long time and I saw what it takes to run and operate a restaurant from my dad. Logan saw what it takes to run and operate a restaurant by selling people toast for six years. So we had a lot of knowledge going into it which like that helped immensely I think. You know, having a really good idea, having a really good product, all these things are so important. But I think being able to focus on, you know, the really good recipes, the new syrup, the, the smaller things that make it extra special rather than just like making sure we’re running it all. I think that’s really nice. So any. So the advice I have I guess is like, you know, learn from current restaurant owners, like the actual operations and then you can go into having your own idea. What do you think?

[00:34:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, I think obviously that’s completely true. The, the other thing is that I like your concept. Really as figured out as you possibly can ahead of time, which then can help you create non negotiables like where it would be so much easier when we’re doing an event yesterday where 200 girls are gonna walk up all at once, right. And Taylor’s gotta make a matcha by hand for every single one of those girls. If we had pre batched 200 matchas, if we had done that, the product wouldn’t have been good. And then like what is the point of us even having a matcha shop to be quick in with. Right. And so like even though we’re doing it the hard way, it there’s, that’s the reason for the business is that we’re creating a great product for somebody. And so where you’re always thinking about operational efficiency in any sort of business it’s just don’t sacrifice that quality to the point that it’s no longer the reason you’re doing the business anymore and it’s just for business business. I think that like you could be as like capitalistic in any, in any way possible but like people don’t like inauthenticity and we really see through that in so many ways now. And I think that like customers will come because you did it the right way start to finish.

[00:35:59] Speaker A: That’s great. Well, thank you both. Appreciate the time and looking forward to seeing Love Lamp on shelves near me soon. Awesome.

All right, thank you all.

[00:36:11] Speaker C: Thanks Zach. See ya.

[00:36:12] Speaker A: Thank you.