Host (00:10)
Are you from Kelowna?

Adam (00:11)
No, I'm from Vernon actually. So I've been in Kelowna since about 2009.

Host (00:15)
2009. What was it as a kid growing up in Vernon?

Adam (00:18)
it was amazing. mean, it was a lot of fun. Anybody who lives in the Okanagan knows it's kind of a playground, right? We grew up on Cow Lake and Silver Star Mountain. And, you know, the shoulder seasons was just having a great childhood in the suburbs of And then when you turn into about a younger, you know, adolescent, you're looking to get out because it's there's not much to do for that. You know, when you get into your teenage years and we did move away for a while. So ⁓ I did spend, you know, a lot of time.

traveling and in different cities. I did my time in Vancouver, Toronto up back here for a job. Didn't think I was ever going to move back to the Okanagan, a job that looked pretty great. And then actually I really hadn't spent much time in Kelowna. So when I moved here, I wasn't, I didn't really care that I was in Kelowna. I moved here for the job. And after about a year of living here, I realized how amazing Kelowna was because I grew up.

in Vernon and by the time I left it, didn't really like it anymore. So I assumed I wasn't going to like Kelowna either. Yeah. So I didn't, I didn't come here wanting to be in Kelowna and it totally won me over.

Host (01:13)
interesting.

wow. Can I ask what job you had in Vancouver? Yeah. And then what was the job that brought you back?

Adam (01:23)
Well, actually I was, geez, I was all over the place. spent a good number of years in South America and that's a

Host (01:29)
Okay,

wait, we gotta slow down here. So the main gist of the podcast is for digging into your all these good details of jobs you've had and places you've been. And then at kind of the very end, we get into your business sort of thing. And it connects the listener and even.

Other it's interesting because a lot of the podcasts they'll be like friends listening to their buddy on the podcast I didn't know that about you. So let's roll it back a bit and sure So you're in Vernon. You're going obviously a pretty active You're a very active kid. Yeah, like into sports and all that. Yeah, and then did you have any jobs when you're in high school?

Adam (02:06)
Uh, yeah, yeah, there was actually, um, Jesus, it wasn't, it wasn't the company lush, but it was something like that. There was a factory not too far from our school. And so I had a job for a couple of years making those like bath bombs. Did all the different assembly line job. Like you'd mix the powder and then you'd be making the balls, putting it in the oven, shrink wrap and a packaging. It was a big assembly line thing, which actually turns out I excelled at it. really good at just, I don't know if that's a.

Host (02:18)
get out. Like on the line sort of thing. yeah.

Adam (02:33)
a good thing or a bad thing, but I was really good at just doing one task efficiently for hours. Wow. And so I always really liked assembly line work. I guess you just kind of zone out and get into a groove. But yeah, I did that for a bunch or a couple of years anyways and worked at the airport a little bit, just like cleaning old engines of airplanes and just rent random jobs. Oh, my dad is a pilot. And so he had a

Host (02:53)
How'd you get that?

Adam (02:57)
a little airplane that he kept at the Vernon airport, just a little Cessna and he knew some guys and we're always looking for work as kids. And yeah, they'd bring us into to just clean random stuff. Or my uncle uh, or still has a mechanical company in Vernon has land mechanical. And so he'd bring us in anytime they needed, you know, plumbing line put into a house, he'd hire all his nieces and nephews and we'd go in and dig the ditches. So did a lot of ditch digging and lots of dirty work for, you know, plumbing jobs and all sorts of stuff like that.

Host (03:24)
your father was able to take you up in this plane when you yeah.

Adam (03:28)
Yeah,

we'd fly every once in a while. Yeah, he would, he would fly up and he would, you know, he would joke around with us like he'd shut the engine off, pretend that we're falling like freaking us out falling down to the earth. And then he'd turn the plane back on and zip around, he could do barrel loops and stuff. Didn't do that too often, but enough that is memorable. And you know, every once in while, if we're going to Vancouver, we'd fly in his little plane instead of drive. And so was pretty.

Host (03:44)
I know that it's memorable.

what amazing memories to have. that's

really cool. And then when it's when you were in high school, were you What subjects kind of were you drawn to?

Adam (04:02)
that's a hard one. I think I liked, ⁓ social studies and history and math. Obviously PE was fun. I liked being active and that was always, it was nice to be outdoors and run around playing sports. Actually, woodworking and art was some of the, favorite ones as well. I, you know what? I think I liked them all. It was a, it was a fun time. really liked. that's cool. Yeah. I really liked, I liked, ⁓ most of school. I hated having to go, you know, like I think most kids hate that you have to go to school.

But then once you get there, I love the classes. think getting in high school was a lot of

Host (04:33)
Yeah, I ⁓ as an adult I still feel that about life where I like don't want to go out but then once you're there, yeah, I'm like I feel you. Yeah

Adam (04:41)
Yeah, it's,

know, most days, even for myself, you running my own business. know, I'm in the shower in the morning. It's early. Don't feel like going to work. You're walking to work. And then by the time you get there, you're like, oh, this is actually pretty great. And it's nice to see everybody and get into your tasks.

Host (04:55)
That's pretty cool. Okay, so then where did life take you when you graduated high school?

Adam (04:59)
Well, I so part of part of high school grade 11 and 12 was when my family and I we all moved down to South America actually my dad So he flew for Air Canada. So he had some really good flexibility. He could you know fly himself to work And he he wanted a change for everybody. So he actually moved us all down to Ecuador in South America for a number of years

Host (05:21)
What was that like? Especially as a... Like that's a hard social time to leave your friends and stuff.

Adam (05:27)
grade, 11, grade

you know, right when at the end of grade 10 is when you've got all your friends and you've, you're really getting into the groove of high school. So that's where we picked up and left. And I was obviously a little bit nervous, you know, embrace the new school and the, mean, it was like a whole new world down there. It's, ⁓ I mean, if anybody's been to South America, it's, it's very different. It's very different culturally. So that was interesting to adapt to and, and learn all about. And I had friends, I went to an international school down there. So.

the friends that I met were from every part of the world, which was neat. And everybody spoke like three languages. So it was, you know, the bar was set high and you kind of just had to rise up to that, which was really neat. So it was a challenge. School was a lot harder. These were very serious kids. I remember in grade 12, a lot of my friends were applying to universities and literally the kids were saying, you know, where are you applying? I'm applying to Harvard. I'm applying to

Oxford, I'm applying, Yale, all these schools. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go back to Vernon. I'm going to work at the lumber mill. And that's literally what I did. but it was, was neat going to school with those guys. difficult. But I knew that, you know, moving on into like a university style environment, like that wasn't for me. I, there's nothing that I really wanted to, I just, didn't want that life.

And I knew I was just going to figure out my own thing and I didn't have the money anyway, so.

Host (06:49)
cool, so you came back to Vernon and how long did you work in the mill for?

Adam (06:53)
Yeah, so while that one, was just kind of like a part-time enough, when I got the job it was meant, it was a weekend job and it was meant for students. So I worked there over the summer when I finished graduating grade 12. I moved back, my family all stayed down, back down in South America. So I was kind of by here by myself with one of my brothers and yeah, working at that lumber mill. It was funny that it was intended for students.

so that they could save money for school and, you know, pay for tuition. And I couldn't afford to go to school, so I got the job. And then when school came around and they asked, you know, September, October, and they started asking for my report cards to prove I was in school, I said, well, I'm not going to school. And they said, well, you can't work here. And I said, well, I can't go to school because I can't afford school. And so it was kind of funny that I actually had to leave the job because it was intended for students to have money for school, but I didn't even have money for school. And they said, well, you can't work here anymore. wow.

Yeah, anyways, I had other jobs and I worked at a controls company in Vernon, still operating there, called Techmar. I worked there for a while. And funny, getting back into assembly line work, production, know, soldering little simple sensors and microchips and assembly packaging.

Host (08:08)
stuff.

Adam (08:08)
So then my brother and I, again, a little bit tired of Vernon, so we made our way for the big city. We went to Vancouver for a actually it was neat that there's a lot of different opportunities in Vancouver and there's a big film scene. So I actually got into the film industry a little bit, just trying to break in, went to auditions, worked background work. You people, you know, they call it being an extra, but in the industry it's called being a background actor, which is just a nice way of saying you're an extra.

it was a lot of fun working on film sets and you can make some good money at that time. I did get, you know, a couple of little minor roles here. know, you're the guy that got shoved or like blood splat on your face. Not, not really a lot of speaking stuff, but just like a couple of little things here and there enough to make a little bit of money and kind of give you some hopes and dreams of getting into it. But there's the competition was just crazy. Everybody.

Everybody wants that job. Everybody wants to get into the industry. And I remember going to auditions and standing in a lineup of 40 guys that look exactly like me. really? yeah. They're just be like, just lined up. We all look like a carbon copy. They all have the same color hair, the same hair length, just everything. And I just remember thinking, this is ridiculous. I'm going be doing this forever and I'm not going to get anything. So, I think, where did I go after that? I think I made my way to Toronto after that.

and wanted to try the industry out there, see if it was any different. And it really wasn't. I didn't have, again, I didn't really have any money, so I was kind of couch surfing.

Host (09:37)
Did you have, did you make connections in Vancouver that drew you to Toronto?

Adam (09:41)
No, not really. I mean I had a friend who had left Vancouver had gone to Toronto She was in an agency and basis. Basically she just vouched for me. Okay, and got me into that agency So I gave Toronto a try for a little while and actually it was promising things were moving and I was actually starting to get some more jobs, but I left it because I Don't know. I think I think I saw enough of the industry and I didn't really want it It didn't look as glamorous once you get on the inside

And Toronto wasn't for me at that age and not having a lot of money. Like Toronto was really cool, but I had no money and I was young. I was about like 22, 23 or something like that, somewhere around yeah, I just didn't like the vibe of Toronto. mean, coming from Vancouver to Toronto was a bit of a culture shock as around at that time, my dad was retiring from flying and so he's still living in South America.

Host (10:20)
Like mid 20s at this point?

Adam (10:38)
And his passion has always been mining gold and looking for gold. So he's had gold claims all over BC. yeah. And we, so we grew in the summers going to the gold mine in Nelson and just going through the, going through the gold, the shaft, you know, taking them old mining carts into the, into the shaft and the mine and chipping away at gold and just kind of grew up around gold. So that's why he went down to South America. One was to

Host (10:43)
Get out.

Adam (11:01)
get the family into a really neat experience, but also he was passionate about gold and there was a lot of gold projects down there. So yeah, I was living in Toronto the jobs were picking up, but I just, I felt like it wasn't for me and I thought I should make a change. He was retiring from flying commercially for Air Canada and I knew he was going to just go into gold full time. And I knew he was just going to be going all over the jungle, you know, that I had some experience in when I was in high school.

And so I just messaged him and said, Hey, do you need a partner? Like I'm kind of done with being up here. He said, yeah, come on down. So I went down, flew back down and lived with him. we found that we got a little apartment just outside the capital city as a jumping off point for storing everything. And then we just, we drove and hiked all over the country for two years, just looking for gold and living in the jungle and adventuring.

Host (11:52)
Do you have some, like what are some of the standout memories of that time? That's such a unique experience.

Adam (11:56)
Yeah,

⁓ stand out. mean, just literally being in the jungle was, was that was, that was everything for, for two years. I mean, we'd there the amount of times that we put on these 70 pound packs and pointed on a spot on a map, heard somebody say they found some gold there and looked pretty promising or we'd look at old records or you just try to do whatever research you can to, mean, there's kind of gold littered throughout the country, but what I learned is gold is where you can't get to. Like it is.

Gold is valuable because it's very hard to get. And so if there's a really easy spot to get to, it probably doesn't have a lot of gold, because if it does, there would already be a mine site there. ⁓ So if you, it just kind of works out that way. Like gold comes out through the mountains, right? Like it's, when it forms or when it's coming out the earth, it pushes up through the mountains. So gold is in the mountains, which is treacherous and hard to get to. So we were placer mining, which means

know, millions of years of wind and rain and erosion erode those mountains and the gold will erode out of the rock of the mountains into the rivers. And then millions of years of being in the river, you can go dredge or pan it out of the river. we would be going into these rivers deep into the mountains, which is hard to get to. So we would have to, you know, if you could drive close and then hike, that was great. Or if you could, know, however you could get there, but usually it was some, some form of intense hiking.

Host (13:18)
⁓ man, are the jungles thick there?

Adam (13:21)
Yeah, I mean, we're we're right in the Amazon jungle. we were.

Host (13:25)
bugs and it's humid and wet.

Adam (13:28)
Yeah, we were we were a little bit higher altitude. So we were just coming off of the Andes Mountains So before you really level out like towards Brazil We were I don't know what the the elevation is But it's a couple hundred meters higher than like the deep deep deep jungle of the you know, Brazilian Amazon So it was a little bit cooler at night, which was nice made for you know Nice sleeping and you weren't just absolutely roasting but yeah thick thick jungle lots of bugs snakes scorpions all that stuff

Host (13:54)
What's your longest, what was your longest, if you can remember roughly, your longest number of days you spent on a hike in there?

Adam (14:03)
Yeah,

hiking. mean, we usually would set up a camp. So I don't think we usually had to hike more than just a couple of days to get to a spot where we could set up camp and then we could sometimes we team up some of the other guys that we knew. just started to, or my dad had quite a relationship with the other people in the area, the other mining groups, because there were a lot of Ecuadorians and Colombians and they couldn't get really good equipment down there. So.

Whenever he was up in Canada, he would always bring down like really good masks or gold pants, whatever kind of stuff they needed. So he was like their way to get. Yeah, their supplier, know, like there wasn't Amazon or cell phones or things back then. This was around 2005-ish. And yeah, so he would bring down stuff just to help everybody out. And so everybody loved him for that and he had a good reputation. And so we worked with them a lot. So sometimes we would form

Host (14:39)
supplier.

Adam (14:57)
we would situate our camps near other mining camps. And it was kind of like safety in numbers, in a sense. And then we could all go in on hiring a cook and paying guys to bring in food.

Host (15:08)
about

to ask did you hunt for your food?

Adam (15:11)
No, you

have to. No, I never hunted for food in the jungle. That would be a whole nother thing. I would even know where to start. I've never hunted and I think hunting in the jungle would just be ⁓ next level. we would pay ⁓ pay workers to bring in food and there would be a camp cook. And yeah, so you get you get used to eating some pretty gnarly food for sure.

Host (15:31)
Okay, and I have to ask, like, did you find gold?

Adam (15:35)
found some, a little bit, not a lot. have enough, you know, I have my little shaker that when I decided to leave and come back to Canada, my dad sent me off with a little bit of gold just enough to, you know, kind of pay the bills, nothing to, nothing to retire on. So it was after doing this for about two years or so that I realized, well, well, I was visiting Canada and I actually broke my knee and accidentally I was just,

screwing around on a little scooter and not paying attention and not treating it like it's a vehicle that can go fast, treating it like, it's just this dumb little scooter anyways. It wasn't like the Lime Scooter thing at Kelowna. Please be careful on those. You can hurt yourself even at running speed, right? If you're not looking, you're not paying attention. So anyways, I broke my knee and it kind of forced me to stay in Canada for a little bit and met a gentleman who worked for Cal Tire and

Host (16:11)
It's like the Lime Scooter thing of Kelowna.

Adam (16:29)
Basically, you he found out I was in mining and that I spoke Spanish and, and, uh, thought there was a good opportunity for me there. When I went back down, I was just thinking about it and having a really great time in the jungle, but realizing there's not much of a career here. And at some point I need to get serious. Cause I think it was around 23, 24, something like that. And, uh, so decided to come back to Canada and it went back to Vernon and I worked for Cal Tire for a while and, uh, for a year and.

the idea being getting into their mining division because they have offices in Chile and they sell mining tires to all over the world. So obviously they're a big part of their businesses, you know, just regular tires for regular cars, but then they have a whole mining division that sells large tires. Yeah. The tires that are like 15 feet tall and $75,000 per tire kind of thing. So I was going to get into that

Host (17:13)
I

Yeah.

Adam (17:22)
I realized as I was doing it, loved it. loved the company to this day. It's still one of the best companies I've ever worked for. I really have a lot of love for Cal Tire, but I just felt like I never, there's other things I'd never really tried for. So I was talking to ⁓ the president of the company. said, I'd thank you for the opportunity. I'd love to come back if this doesn't work out, but I want to go shoot my shot somewhere else first. And he said, yeah, go do what you have to do. And if it doesn't work out, you can always come back. And I applied to work at the.

Recently acquired Disney office in Kelowna It was the Club Penguin game that was acquired by Disney and I always had a love for art animation cartoons video games so I spent about six or seven months just developing an art portfolio and ⁓ Ended up getting the job. So that's what I moved to Kelowna for just thinking great I got this job and this is fantastic. This is what I came here for and I didn't really care that it was Kelowna and then after living here for about a year really

won me over and I had a great time and I spent about seven years there.

Host (18:21)
need. Yeah. What were your positions in that company at the same age? did you?

Adam (18:25)
No, I started as an artist and I was an okay artist, but some of the people that work in there were exceptional. And, you know, the, the gentleman in particular that I started off with as like one of my partners on some of the projects that I worked on, he is just one of the most talented artists. And I remember a couple of days into the job drawing next to him and just thinking,

the moment there's any kind of layoff, I'm the first to go. Like I shouldn't be here. I don't know how I got this job. So I slowly just started picking up extra tasks, trying to make myself more valuable. And I remember hearing artists complain about not enjoying typing up documentation and things. And I've always been a strong typer and, and Excel did that. So I said, look, I'll type up everybody's documentation. That's fine. It takes me no time. And then, you know, some of these artists, they're, they're

they can be introverted because they really, I mean, just that's their personality type. And part of the job also was pitching ideas to leadership teams and executive teams, pitching ideas for video games. And I didn't have a problem with that either, because I had a lot of experience acting on film and, you know, going for auditions where there's five people you never met and you're acting out a scene you've never, you know.

Host (19:45)
for analyzing everything you do.

Adam (19:47)
So I

had a lot of experience, you know, kind of making a fool out of myself in front of people and being okay with that. So I said, look, I'll pitch the ideas and we'll see if we can get some of these fun ideas through. And that started to go well. So all of a sudden I found myself pitching more ideas and communicating between the leadership and the artists and typing up documentation and still drawing. And slowly that turned itself into a producer role. So I started as an artist and became a video game producer.

And funny enough, in other aspects of that company, there were other people doing similar things in a different... What's the word? Yeah, sorry, like a different... Like we would have a friend of mine was a web designer or a programmer for the website and she found herself doing the same thing and became a producer from the website perspective. And I became a producer from the artistic perspective. And then we had another friend who was...

Host (20:20)
capacity.

Adam (20:39)
A programmer and he became a producer from a programming. absolutely. But when you look at video games in particular, you can go to school to become an artist. You can go to school to become a developer or programmer. You can go to school for a design. You can go to school for all these things. There's no schooling to become a producer. So you're basically the lead of a project. So you start with a discipline, whether that's art or design or.

Host (20:41)
as the company was growing.

⁓

Adam (21:08)
programming, whatever it is. And then you acquire these skills of working with people and developing projects. So it's just something I think most places, most video game companies, you either hire producers, people that have experience, or you become a producer through working there. So it's this really funny role of leading people, developing ideas. ⁓ You're responsible for the financial success of the project, but also just making sure that the project is fun and enjoyable.

⁓ It's an interesting role and it translates into a lot of different things in life and translated well into starting your own business because you have to wear all the different hats.

Host (21:46)
I was just thinking that you're almost like you're a little business owner of that section.

Adam (21:50)
Yeah, you become the business owner of your aspect of the video game or whatever department or project you're on because you have to run, you have to speak to every discipline and you're responsible for the whole thing. That's cool. Yeah.

Host (21:56)
mentor.

So then when did you leave?

Adam (22:07)
That was it was around so I started there I moved here in 2009 when I got the job and I left in 2016 so I was there for about seven years decided it was time to move on to the next thing and You know, I think it was around maybe it was a year or two prior to that decision. This was around 2014 or 2015 a friend of mine Him and I obviously both really enjoyed craft beer and we were he was talking to me actually about

you know, there's this craft beer movement that's going on in Vancouver. It's crazy. They're popping up everywhere. And he said, you know, there's nothing like that here. The, I think the Tree Beer Institute, which is now just the Beer Institute, ⁓ it had just opened recently and we were looking at it like, that's basically the only place. There's the tree brewing, which is now across the street from Redbird, or the old tree brewing.

And then the Tree Bear Institute that had opened up and that was really it. So we were talking in around 2014 about maybe opening up our own brewery and we thought, well, this is a cool idea. We started looking around, started looking for places to do it. And then it kind of fizzled out because I had a full-time job and he had his own full-time job in business. know, just kind of, it just never came to fruition. And fast forward about a year and a half, I decided to leave my job at Disney.

And I remember I was chatting with him in his living room and he's, you he asked me, what are going to do? And I said, well, you know, they were talking about legalizing cannabis. I was like, maybe I could start up in that, but I knew it was like almost impossible to get a license. And he just looked at me and said, why aren't you doing the brewery? And that just hit me like a bag of bricks. Like that just echoed in my brain. I could just hear it. Like it felt like I was in a movie. It was just like, why aren't you doing the brewery? Why aren't you doing the brewery? And I had no good excuse for why I wasn't. I had.

You know, money saved up. had ⁓ purchased, you know, a rental property. was, you know, renting out, you know, a condo and a house and, you know, generating some income there. And I had, you know, no kids. So I thought, well, yeah, why aren't I doing this? So the next day I went down to the museum because I wanted to come up with, well, I decided right there. I was like, well, I've got to do a brewery then. This seems like the logical next step.

So went down to the museum because I wanted to find something rooted in the history of Kelowna. I wanted the name to have meaning. I didn't want to just come up with some random name of something that I enjoyed. I wanted it to resonate with I spent the whole day in that museum. I think I read everything in there, just literally everything I could read. Went through all the different books in the gift shop. And there was this one ⁓ photo that stood out when I opened up. They just had a bunch of old photos and ⁓ some books that were...

sitting at the front and when I opened it up, it was this picture of this old boat and it said Redbird of Kelowna. And it had all these people, old timey people. think the photo is from like 1920 or something like that. And it just was a very interesting photo. And now since we have it up on the wall and I just thought Redbird, that sounds nice. That's easy to say, easy to remember. Good opportunity for a logo. And I went home and looked up. There's no Redbird brewing. There's no

Redbird, I mean, there's lots of different, if you look at Redbird, there's like, you know, Redbird matches and all sorts of Redbird stuff, but there's no Redbird brewing anywhere. So I purchased that URL and just started coming up with a business plan. It took me about, oh geez, almost a year. I probably spent six to seven months full-time just doing research, developing a business Some of that research was fun. It was like going down to Vancouver and just going to every brewery that I could.

Host (25:45)
Yeah, yeah.

Adam (25:46)
buying a ticket to go to the Craft Brewers Guild and the beer competitions and just attending and meeting people. And I did make some good connections and some guys showed me around their breweries and, you know, talked about the pitfalls and the, you know, the good and the bad and got a really good picture of, of what it was going to take to open a brewery. So yeah, that, that was, yeah, seven months of just developing the business plan and about a year of just looking and scouting and it takes, it takes a long time just to get ready. Yeah.

Host (26:12)
up until this point, had you done any brew, like home brewing or Oh yeah.

Adam (26:16)
I

should mention that. Yeah, years prior, I remember going to my uncle's house and he visiting an uncle in Edmonton and he handed me, I had never really had a Grosch beer, you the ones that the green bottle with the pop top. So he'd handed me one of those and I'd never really had one. So I had nothing to compare it to. And I thought it was really good. I was just kind of blown away. I was like, wow, this beer is really crisp and delicious and very nice. And I was like, what is this beer, Grosch? I've not really had a Grosch before.

And he said, no, that's just the bottle. I made the beer. And I had that, that blew me away. This was, yeah, again, I don't know, 2009, something 2008, 2009 is right before I started my job at Disney. And, um, I just said like, what do mean you made the beer? Like, how do you make beer? What are you talking about? I had never really heard of people really home brewing too much. So he took me in his basement. had this quite elaborate setup and he'd been doing it for years. And so he'd got

really quite good at it and the beer was exceptional and he just used these Grosch bottles because it was really easy to repackage them because they had these pop tops and you didn't have to get a, you know, a can crimper or a bottle crimping mechanism. so ⁓ that kind of piqued my interest. So as I, you know, had moved to Kelowna and was starting my new job, I thought, well, I'm going to try my hand at making some beer. And I did ⁓ some home brewing and it was fun and the beer was terrible.

But I had a good time, but it was very difficult because I did it in an apartment So, you know, I couldn't really spill anything was on the second floor. And again, you're in an apartment So it had to be very careful. There was not really good temperature control So when the beer was firm after it was done fermenting, I couldn't really cool it very well Anyways, long story short. I had fun home brewing I was never good at it, but I thought it was really neat and I was like well one day if I had the proper equipment and proper cooling Maybe I can make some good beer. So the thought was in my

brain years prior to opening a brewery. I never thought of myself as the person who's going to brew the beer. I always knew that I was going to hire a professional for that, which has always been the case from day one.

Host (28:19)
Okay yeah I'm always curious about when the idea first starts to percolate and all that and and how it kind of evolves through time is so fascinating. So you've spent a year doing this business plan and what was the next step moving to move it forward?

Adam (28:35)
Mm-hmm. Well, that's actually and so you'd interviewed one of my partners Peter Glockner So he's one of the owners of cellar tech in town, which is a company that services the beverage industry So they sell tanks filters all sorts of equipment anything you could need if you're in the wine cider beer or distilling or coffee ⁓ business ⁓ That's who they supply to so when I was

researching and developing and trying to figure out how to do this. I just started looking up companies online that would sell brewing was two in Kelowna. So I called the first one and the number was out of service. So that was that. I called the second one, which was Sellertech. I asked to speak with somebody about brewing and I spoke with Peter Glockner and he said, well, why don't you come down? I looked at the address. was funny. It was ⁓ two blocks from my house because I live downtown Kelowna. And I thought, well,

this is insanely convenient. One of the companies that I would need to do this entire project is right downtown or close enough downtown. So I went and met with Peter and I probably sat with him honestly for like three hours and just told him the whole plan and the idea what I wanted to achieve with the business. And it was really neat because he was really passionate and helpful. And it was like he was as interested in my project as I was, which was really neat. He has a lot of enthusiasm. You've met Pete.

I spent, I probably saw him or somebody from his team, but mostly him like weekly, just developing and like, what do you think about this and what tank size and where's, know, what kind of processes and what, what's cutting edge and what are they doing now? And how do we make this better and better? I spent a lot of time with him and some of his friends and associates and really developing this plan. was going out pitching my business plan to banks, to potential investors. I had a site.

lined up. was originally the spot I was looking at was downtown and if you recall when they extended the library parquet they put some commercial on the bottom and that became well now I think it's like a pizza place.

Host (30:34)
Yeah, it was it now. It's like a patina e

Adam (30:36)
Yeah, so it's been like a couple things. So that was actually going to be the spot. And ⁓ I mean, I think it still could have been a neat spot, but it would have been very expensive rent. And I'm just I don't think we would have captured obviously the same vibe that we have now. the project size was quite large. I think my budget was, you know, a million and a half dollars or something for the Spuri, which I think still sounds about right.

Host (30:39)
turns over.

Adam (31:03)
And obviously I didn't have that money since I was, I was pitching and trying to get investors and things. I was dealing with the city to secure that location and now it was time to start putting down deposits and the bank. Wasn't really making me feel like they were going to be following through. They were very hesitant. Some of the investors I had lined up all of a sudden I started asking for checks and like it's time to incorporate it's not, well, it is already incorporated, but it's time to start collecting money and get going.

they started being a little shaky and asking more questions. Meanwhile, the city's asking me for deposits, non-refundable on this space, and my Spidey sense just started going off and I thought, I think I'm in a world of hurt here. I don't think this is gonna go smooth, and I think there's too many people involved and this is maybe a little more ambitious than it is, or than it should be. So I decided to scale back.

in that moment and I thought to myself, I'm just going to fund this entire thing myself. I'm going to start much smaller and I'll just build it slowly. I think it's going to be a much safer way to go and I want everything in my control. I don't want to be beholden to the bank or investors. So I felt really bad that I felt like I'd wasted all of Pete's time and Cellotech because I had been meeting with them for like months and so I wanted to go and break the news to him.

and sort of apologize and thank him for his time. And just the funniest little, it's just the perfect little coincidence that had this not happened, Redbird probably wouldn't exist. So as I was walking in, his other partner of Cellar Tech is Perry Maxfield. So the two of them own Cellar Tech. And as I was walking in, I had met Perry just maybe once said, hello, I was meeting Pete upstairs and.

He said, what are you doing here? I said, well, I'm actually just going to go meet with Pete. And I knew he was one of the partners and one of the owners of the business. So I felt like it was, I should thank and apologize to him as well. So said, well, why don't you join us upstairs? And that was the moment that, that, if I hadn't have done that and if he hadn't joined us, I don't think Redbird would exist.

Host (33:09)
serendipity.

Adam (33:10)
Yeah, it was just perfect and it's perfect that I said you should join us and it's perfect that he had time to join us and he said yeah I'll come upstairs so they're both sitting upstairs in this boardroom there's a window that looks down into Richter Street and I said I'm really thankful for all the time you guys have given me and but I've decided I'm gonna change the project I'm gonna start small I'm gonna fund it all myself and the tanks that I'm looking at I don't even think you guys sell like we're talking very small small tanks

They were both very receptive to that. got it. And actually Perry said, you know, I thought your project was actually really risky and kind of a, kind of a big move. Like wasn't so sure how it was going to work out. So I think this is actually a really good idea of yours. And I thought, well, that's reassuring to hear that somebody thinks this is a good idea that I should start small. And I said, yeah, I just need to, you know, the liquor license is already like in progress. I've already applied for it based on that other locations address.

And I said, yeah, the next thing I need to do is find a look, a new location, a smaller spot and just kind of re redo the whole project just with smaller equipment and smaller costs. I don't think I'd really lost a lot. just needed to scale down. said, I just don't know where to go. And Perry had not, not long ago, or maybe a year prior, it was recent had just acquired the building across the street.

⁓ I guess the guy there was getting pretty old and wanted to sell it and Perry was his neighbor and he said, yeah, we'll, we'll absolutely buy that building off of you. So he purchased the building and maintained the renters in there and was just making payments, et cetera, and, running that as a commercial landlord. So he pointed at the building across the street where redbird currently is. And we, we just, it's not actually called this, but we just call it little bird and big bird. There's the little one and the big one.

So he pointed to where little bird is and he said, why don't you go in there? He said, I own that building. Why don't you go in there? So I said, well, let's go take a look. So we, we walked in, I looked around and said, are these load bearing walls? Can I tear these down? He said, yeah, you can tear these walls down. Cause it was three rooms. So tore the walls down, turned it into one room you know, on, on paper toward those walls down and uh, everything looked like it was great. We get a 30 seat tap room. We could put a little brewing system in there. And I said, this looks great. Let's go.

So I signed the documents and a couple months later I was in there tearing everything apart, changed the address on the document that we submitted to the Liquor Board, just changed the address to this new spot. I don't think I lost my line in the queue. And that was about it. So that's how I started much smaller.

Host (35:34)
Isn't that incredible? That moment, man.

Adam (35:38)
Yeah,

if because, know, if I had just gone up and seen Pete, you know, that's not it wasn't at the time it wasn't Pete's building. So he would have said, you know, probably, well, good luck and let us know if you need anything and if you need help. And but who knows if I would have found anything that worked. And it was just honestly, it was the perfect location, as you know it now. It really is, you know, it's one block outside of downtown. And shortly after I just started ⁓ getting into it, Kettle River had opened up across the street.

which I thought, well, this is great. There's another one right there now. I thought I was going to be the only one. So Kettle River opened up. ⁓ BNA had been operating for almost a year or so, I think, which was also really inspiring. Kyle Nixon was very supportive and helpful to chat with when I was first starting. He was giving some good advice and very, what's the word? He was very, you know, passionate and helpful, I guess, about the industry.

So, uh, yeah, started, started building. And the funny thing was, I think it was just a couple of days into construction and Perry walked in just to check on how everything was going. And he said, you know, if this goes really well, we would be interested, you know, to potentially invest with you and expand the business. Cause I, you know, the whole idea was to start small and grow and expand. And I said, great. said, you know, run it for, you know, we'll see, you know, how long it takes. Maybe you have to run it for a couple of years, but slowly build it. And then when you get to a point that you're ready,

you know, maybe we can all push this forward together. and he was implying that, you know, the bill, you know, there's more than just this spot because I just had a small part of that, that building. he said, you know, we could take over more of the property. So in my head, I was thinking the rest of that building. So as I was building and tearing down walls and, and, building up the brewery within even the first 10 days, I started doing sketches of.

How could this expand in the future? So maybe we could tear down this wall and it wouldn't affect the layout and we could move some tanks into the back. We could have more seating and we could take over this whole building eventually. That would be really neat. So I was showing him a couple of days later, these designs and sketches. I was like, Hey, this is how I think we could expand. You know, when the renters in the back are out and we could take over the whole building and it could be multi-story. And he just kept on shaking his head and

It's going no, no, no. And I was kind of disappointed. was like, man, I spent all night on these drawings. Like this is a great idea. What don't you like about this? And he pulls me outside and he points to the building next door and he says, that building. And I didn't realize that it was all one property and that those buildings are all situated on one parcel of land. I didn't even know that that building was in, that that was part of it. So he said, that building, that's where we expand.

Holy smokes. Because you could see the whole frontage and you go, wow, that could be quite a patio. We can have a little parking lot. I mean, if we could do it, if the city would let us, I would have had no parking because we could just have this amazingly even bigger patio. it's still great the way it is anyway.

Host (38:35)
Well, in the future, feel like that's where the city's

Adam (38:41)
The great thing of what the city's done is they did grant us a license over top of that parking lot. It took a very long time, but currently 30 days a year we're allowed to use that parking lot for liquor license events. So we do that with our nest fest, our backyard sessions and larger concerts, family days, mother's day, father's day, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that was a big moment when he showed me that building and I went, ⁓ my goodness, I don't even have to move. Like this is perfect. And obviously there was

there was a business in there at the time, so I wasn't going to say anything. didn't want to freak them out. And maybe it wouldn't go through anyway. So there's, I just kept my lips sealed and quietly operated the business for about two and a half years. then

Host (39:23)
What was that like? This is your first time as a business owner. What was it like in that role in that capacity now? hiring your staff and running it and brand and your brand is so good. Your logo is incredible. You can go to cooties and go all over the place and people recognize it just by the logo.

Adam (39:43)
Pretty neat, yeah. I mean, I get people, friends who'll be traveling, they're in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, doesn't matter where, and they'll send me photo somebody wearing a redbird hat. It's pretty neat. And I think it's just because...

You know, that logo just stands really well by itself. so it's a, you know, when somebody gets the hat or the shirt, they want to wear it. It's not just like this little souvenir that collects dust. They like it and they want to wear it they do. And it's really neat to see these people wearing it all over the country and that it gets recognized. And the neat story about that is, I've maintained a lot of friendships and relationships with the people that I worked with at Disney. A lot of them are still in town and they're all great folks.

And when I started the brewery and decided on the name, I had one of my old friends from Disney start on some sketches of some logos and designs. And it was the guy that I sat next to. The guy I sat next to when I first started at Disney that intimidated, the art intimidated me so much. thought, my God, I've got to do some other skill set. So that is the guy who designed the logo.

Host (40:37)
was just about to say, don't say it's the guy you said.

Adam (40:51)
created the art for all the murals on the building and does all the artwork for the cans. ⁓ wow. How cool is that? So it's really neat when people are like, your branding is so good. I'm like, well, there's a whole team of Disney artists, and designers. I've had, I've poked, you know, the old ⁓ writers from Disney designers, artists. And so there's a really fantastic team of people.

Host (41:04)
feel like a kid.

Adam (41:17)
that made that studio special. And I'm happy to say that I'm still friends with and get to see them somewhat regularly. And yeah, they're a big part of Redbird.

Host (41:28)
I feel like the logo could win like a logo competition if there's such a thing. I feel like it would be

Adam (41:33)
I think

we submitted at one time, I don't know what really happened there. I think we submitted to a beer logo competition thing, but I don't know what kind of biases are in place there. But ⁓ I do feel that it's pretty special. It's pretty fantastic. did honestly 200. That was like number 200. It's a lot of work to come up with a logo for any.

Host (41:52)
That

was 200 designs of the logo? Oh yeah.

Adam (41:56)
You spent months on it.

Host (41:58)
it's so important.

Adam (41:59)
It's so important. It's the first thing. It's the first thing I did. That's why the name was so important. I wanted to spend all day down at the museum and not leave until I had the right name. And then I wasn't going to settle until the logo was just right. I mean, we went. When I say we, I mean, he was doing the drawings, but, you know, I was meeting with and reviewing with him and kind of chatting through all the different ideas and honing it in. And yeah, it was a couple hundred.

Host (42:24)
That would be kind of cool to see like the development of the logo, like the different sketches.

Adam (42:29)
Yeah,

one of these days I'll show that I've still got some of the sketches on the computer.

Host (42:35)
With some anniversary or something.

Adam (42:37)
Yeah,

we tried to make that we started by trying to make the logo a boat because it's named after a boat But we still I knew that if we made the logo a boat everybody was gonna say why is it a boat when it's called redbird? And I was gonna get tired of that question, but I thought it'd be like a neat Conversation to have and then we just couldn't make it look great and we gave up I said screw it just make it a bird Yeah, and then that that went by very fast and soon as we decided to make it a bird It didn't take long to land on something great

Host (43:03)
That's pretty cool. So what was the progression in when you finally found out that you could move and develop Big Bird? Or is there, I miss, am I jumping ahead?

Adam (43:14)
Yeah, that was uh, well the the business was doing well. We were we were busy whole area was busy So we had opened up, uh close to a year after around a year I think after kettle river had opened up and then a year after we opened up vice and virtue opened up So all of a sudden it was becoming this brewing community, which was really neat And uh, yeah, everything was going well. Everybody was happy and I think all the breweries were doing a great job We had uh, we had partnered with surfside.

Host (43:41)
The food.

Adam (43:41)
food trucks

so they were parked outside. You know people really wanted food and that was always the point I'd seen that in Vancouver that a lot of these breweries just had food trucks and it was a way to not have to have a kitchen which is obviously very expensive and to keep cut down on labor and so it was a really great relationship they sold tacos and I sold beer.

Host (43:59)
And you had the tent there for a while. Yeah.

Adam (44:02)
Yeah,

well, the the big wedding tent. mean, now that was that was part of Covid, which threw a whole wrench into things. But yeah, so things were were going well and the lease was coming up for the building next door and.

had mentioned to the people like, we're gonna take the space back. So you'll have to find a new lease. So that had been announced. I had the partnership group buy into the company about, yeah, close to two years and a bit after opening, because things were going well. The lease was coming up in February of 2020 to move into the new building. And so starting February, 2020, my dad and I went in there, started demolishing the walls, taking all the old shingles off like...

One of these days I'll release a photo of what the building used to look like and then what it does look like today. Cause we very much transformed it, broke it right down to it's basically just four walls when we were done with it. So we had a, a demolition company come in and do one side of the building. And then my dad and I did kind of the other. so I guess I kind of skipped over that part. He actually helped me build a little bird, which was.

Host (45:10)
I'm like, he's back in Canada.

Adam (45:12)
Yeah,

he so he eventually did leave South America after I don't know how many years. Geez, he was I don't even know 15 years or he was down there for a long time. I don't I don't know how years so he had, you know, was traveling around BC, had gold claims and he's just retired kind of tootling, seeing friends looking for gold. And he had heard, you know, I told him about this project and he walked in day two of me.

Little Bird and getting ready. And he just looked around and he said, how are you do this? And I just said, I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I'm just gonna do it. you could just see the amount of work and I was by myself. And he said, do you want help? I said, yes. And that was it. So he worked with me every day for about six months. So that was great because I didn't even have a car at the time.

He's like, how are you going to get lumber? And how are you going to go these things? I'm like, I don't know. I'll beg, borrow and steal. I'll borrow friends cars. I'll, I'll walk to get wood. which was totally unrealistic, but I didn't care. was like, whatever it takes, I'm going to do it. And he said, well, I've got a friend who's got a truck he doesn't need. So we borrowed his friend's truck and we use that truck for a couple of months. during, during construction, we probably, you know, as like any project goes, you're at Rona three times a day. Cause you go there and then you forget, we need these screws. And you get back.

Host (46:07)
determined.

So true.

Adam (46:23)
Yeah, you just always at Rona. You always you need the truck run our Home Depot or whatever So anyways, yeah, he was there with me every day building it. So that was really special. That was Really great father-son project. We got to spend a lot of time with each other We definitely got on each other's nerves a lot and we wore ourselves down to the bone. I mean we were doing 12 to 15 hours a day easily just labor because we had to cut up the floors I was trying to save

as much money as possible. like there's days I should have rented a jackhammer, but instead I bought a sledgehammer. So we were sledgehammering concrete, rolling it out by hand with wheelbarrows, digging ditches for plumbing. Like it was insane. We pushed ourselves absolutely to the brink, but we got it all done. And fast forward a couple of years, dad was getting a little bit older. I could see him slowing down on the next demolition in Big Bird. but for that one, we didn't.

Host (46:54)
my goodness.

Adam (47:13)
you know, myself and my dad didn't do a lot. we did the demolition and then it was professional crews and contractors coming in to build it because obviously I still had a red bird to, to operate. But, yeah, COVID threw a wrench and things because February, 2020, we took over the space, started renovating it. And a little over a month later, COVID happened and everything was closed and you know, business can't operate, not allowed to do anything, no salary rent went.

times 10, you know, cause I was paying rent on this little space and now we're paying a mortgage on the big property. Right. So rent was tenfold. and income went to zero. So that was very hard and things moved very slow. was very slow to get, ⁓ people signed up for work. there was this weird lumber. don't know it was like a I don't know if it was a fake lumber shortage or not, if that was like a gouging mechanic or not, but

Lumber went through the roof at perfect timing just as we were buying all of our lumber. So COVID really upped the costs of that project and slowed it down. So it made the whole thing very difficult and expensive. you know.

Host (48:09)
my

Did you ever have a moment where you're questioning whether you could get through it?

Adam (48:25)
No, I think, you know, we are all the there's four of us and we're all the same guy We we were gonna do it one way or the other. It was not not gonna make it. We had such a great vision for it and funny actually some of the concept art that was done for it also another great Disney artist and So we could all see what it was gonna be and this patio and live music had been going

really well and we just, knew what it was going to be. So we had done a lot of tours. ⁓ you know, we'd go down to Portland, Seattle, Nashville, Austin, Denver, just checking out what, what they're doing in those, those bigger cities. so, no, nobody was going to let this not happen. And we get that, ⁓ people talk about that a lot. They say like, wow, this is, it's very unique. There's not much like this in Canada.

And I think that's the truth. think there's, there's not a lot like it in Canada. And we took a lot of inspiration from those, those breweries that we came across in those bigger cities down in the States. I mean, really it's the property that makes that place. There's, a lot of things that make that place. The team is fantastic. We have an incredible, we have an incredible team that runs it. have a great brewing team, front of house, back of house. We have a great community. You know, that place is nothing without the community. would just be an empty building. So that's great aspect to it. And then the property.

the uniqueness of the property that the building is back set like that and we have this amazing area for a patio because Canadians want to be outside. So just the layout and the one block from downtown were close but we're not too close we're just a little bit off the beaten path. I think the stars have aligned and made that place really really special.

Host (50:02)
Yeah, well, what's the progression of bringing in, because now it's like a music venue. Was that always in the original business plan that you had created or did that evolve?

Adam (50:13)
No, well that came about, we'd been operating, I'd been operating the original Little Spot, I want to say for maybe a year, maybe a little bit under a year. And the winters, as everybody knows in Cologne are quite slow and quite dead. And a good friend of mine is a local musician and has played in a bunch of different bands in town. And so he knows a lot of the musicians. He knows the music scene. I'd never even really thought about music, live music at all.

And he could, you he'd come by the bar and I'd be behind the taps and it would be slow. And he said, well, if you ever thought about putting in live music. And I just thought, no, I mean, I'm happy to try anything. Like, let's just get some people in here because it's so dead in the winter. It's, it's a tough town for that. So we booked some live music and it started to do well. That community of musicians that wanted to see music and then of

of non-musicians, people that are just live music lovers or music lovers started to come out and it did really well. And you know, there was a, at the time there was a handful of places doing it. So, docs, the grateful fed, yeah, you know, some, some, a couple of downtown places. Yeah. The NNZ still does live music downtown. so we just kind of added to that list and it, it went really well. I was very surprised. I didn't expect it to be such a hit and it was such a small space.

Host (51:18)
It's splattering.

Adam (51:29)
the tap room was tiny and I did get in trouble one time because we had more people inside than we were allowed. And I remember, you know, I was, I was aware of it. I knew that we were over, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal. And it is a big deal. So I found that. Well, it's your liquor license capacity. mean, fire code is tied to that, but you're only allowed so many people inside. Now the funny thing is, there's a fire capacity and it's different from the liquor capacity.

Host (51:44)
with the fire code or something.

Adam (51:57)
Usually those numbers match up, but they don't always. So my capacity was low because I only had two toilets.

Host (52:04)
Oh, oh, you know, you could have from a rail side for telling me about the toilet thing. Yeah, you only had two.

Adam (52:05)
So

Yeah. So I didn't feel, you know, in the end, I wasn't endangering anybody that there was more people in there, but there weren't enough toilets. So my liquor license wasn't very high. the liquor board, you know, came down on me for that and I got a fine for doing that. but it was a great learning. I never did it again because it's very, it's very serious. You can lose, they can pull your liquor license for things like that. I immediately.

tore down a wall. talked to the neighbors who was renting the back part of the building because I asked them, can I please, for the love of God, take eight feet by eight feet of your space? And they said, that's fine. That was very nice of them. So I broke down a wall and just like nonstop was working in there. Business was still operating. I was still serving beer. I was going in at night when we closed at 10, I would get in there and I was, and I built a third bathroom.

So that we can get our capacity up. just by adding that third toilet, the bar space didn't change at all. And this is what I mean about the fire code. So we got the capacity up to 60 instead of 30. it was just because of a toilet and it actually could have even gone a little bit higher, but anyways, got up to 60 people. And I had one in there, where we got 60 people in there and I didn't have to worry about being in trouble for doing that. And then it was the next week that COVID hit.

And I just was like, spent, I don't know, $12,000 on building this bathroom. And all your time. I made the deck and all the time. And I got one concert out of it.

Host (53:34)
But I think you probably got more out of it because you knew you were on to something.

Adam (53:38)
Well,

what it did was it increased my overall capacity. got my capacity from a total of 40 to a total of a hundred. So the patio went up to 40 and the interior space went up to 60. So I had a total of a hundred. And what happened is during COVID they said, cause those two capacities are separate from each other. if you have an upstairs and a downstairs and it's a hundred and a hundred, well, you can't have 200 people upstairs.

You can only have a hundred. So you have to keep your, supposed to keep your capacities separate. But during COVID, the one thing that the government did that was very helpful is they said, you can use, if you have the space, you are allowed to use your interior capacity outside because they wanted everybody outside. So by doing that, it wasn't wasted because now instead of having a total capacity of 40, I had a total capacity of a hundred. And we, the parking lot next door where we were just starting to renovate Redbird.

about Big Bird. There was no business there anymore because we had taken over the space. So I purchased the wedding tent, set up the tent. We purchased our own food truck because Surfside had moved on to other things. And so now I was allowed to have a hundred people outside instead of 40 people outside. during COVID for about the two years of construction, yeah, we were, we were having a hundred people and we were having full.

kind of concerts in a sense, I guess. And it just kind of continued to gain momentum and gain traction. And we're getting better and better artists and more and more consistent and a great turnout from people. And all of a sudden, when we were looking at the design of the next place and as we were building it, we went, maybe we'll make that stage a little bit bigger. You know, we had a certain stage and went, I think this needs to be bigger. And so we really, we knew that live music was going to be part of it. But as we were

operating during COVID, we realized it was really going to be of it. even since finishing, we've now, we've continued to improve. We've even torn up the deck and made the stage bigger again. So we made the stage much bigger compared to what we thought we were going to need. And it was still too small based on some of the acts that we've been able to bring in now, which has been amazing.

Host (55:48)
And what was it like getting the proper sound system?

Adam (55:52)
Oh yeah,

that's a money pit as well.

Host (55:57)
Just with the podcast, the amount of hours I spent just trying to figure out this little thing. I can't imagine when you're not in the scene. Tell me what that process was like.

Adam (56:07)
Well, it

starts with spending money on some speakers and then it never stops. So you, you know, I remember the first time I did held live music in little bird. think we rented a speaker cause I wasn't sure. I didn't want to spend, you know, 2000 bucks on something and it went well enough that I said, you know what? We'll, we'll buy the speaker. So I bought it. then soon enough that turns into, well, you really do need another one. So then I bought another one and then that turns into, well, you really do need monitors.

for the artists so they can hear themselves, speakers on the ground facing back at them. So we go, okay, well then we have to buy more. Well, you really do need some microphones. You really do need some cords. You really do need a mixing board. You really do need all these things and they just kind of keep going and you buy what you need and then you expand and you go, well now we need a bigger mixing board. Now we need even more microphones and now we need a bigger sound system. So we bought a bigger sound system and then that sound system.

still wasn't big enough. So after a couple of years, we bought a bigger sound system. So you kind of just keep going. I think we're in a really good place now. we've got a fantastic team of sound technicians. Corey Janko.

Host (57:15)
higher, so you have actually a accent.

Adam (57:17)
Yeah, yeah, we have

professional sound technician. So when it when we first started it was just Mitch So my good friend Mitch who now he's been booking all our music since day one he was that friend who that we try live music and Since then he's now He's been working with Redbird since then finding acts booking acts it's been great now We've got great relationships with agencies. Obviously we book a lot of local bands, but now we have agent

Relationships with agencies and that's how we get some of the bigger So him and I had been you know doing all this set up ourselves and he's not a sound technician although he's he's Familiar with it because he's worked in it as a performing artist but when we got to The new place we knew we needed help. So he had worked with some sound technicians around town and We found you know, there's a number that we work with but one gentleman in particular his name is Cory Janko

And he's been with us since we've opened the new location at Big Bird. He's been our sound technician since then we've brought on more and more sound technicians and some up and coming sound technician technicians that we've been training under him and now, and now they're, even more and more competent and can handle shows by themselves. And so we've got a team of people now, which is fantastic, Then it was just me, Mitch and Corey and Corey was running the sound for basically every show

that guy worked his butt off, worked a lot of hours. So we had to, out of necessity, get some more people involved so that, you know, he could have a Saturday off or he could go on vacation. So that's, yeah, these are the things it takes. So I know I hear other businesses sometimes say like, maybe we'll try live music. And I think it's great, but I don't think most people know what you're signing up because you don't want to do, you don't want to put on a live music performance and not invest the right amount and have.

not great speakers, not great sound quality. And if you don't have a sound technician, that can also be, you know, an issue. So we always treat everything we do in our business that it needs to be the best quality we possibly can. We don't want somebody to sit down and listen to a great band, but have, not great pizza or not great beer. So we want to have the best beer we can make. We don't have the best pizza and food we can make. We want to have the best ambience we can make. We want to have the best staff and best service. And we want to have the best sound and the best.

sounding music that we can so part of that is a huge investment into the equipment and the people.

Host (59:33)
Yeah. And just now that you have as your band and the sounds getting better, you're probably having to invest in like, what do you call it? Sound buffering or.

Adam (59:41)
Yeah,

you can sound dampening. So we've done a lot of that on the interior. There's work to be done on the exterior as well, which we haven't tackled too much yet. We haven't having too many issues. And again, we have a really good team of sound technicians that account for that when we have our shows. But we just this last couple of months finally built a roof over top of the stage because there when we were building, when we were expanding.

You know, there's just, you always run out of money and we ran out of money and we didn't get to the roof over the stage. and which was fine because it doesn't rain that much in Kelowna and the weather's pretty great. Although when it does rain, it's catastrophic. You know, we can't, we can't set up a band and then tear down and put them inside. You have to make that call ahead of time. So that would hamper, some performances where we just couldn't.

Host (1:00:15)
you

Catastrophic.

Adam (1:00:31)
We can't commit to a band or we can't commit to the amount of tickets that we want to sell because the weather looks bad.

Host (1:00:37)
and the weather forecast is so inaccurate.

Adam (1:00:40)
And there's been times where we, move forward and just so luckily the clouds go by and we are able to maintain the show or I'm calling a tent company and I'm just saying, please, can you get down here and set up a tent? So we've done a lot of performances with artists under tents, our own tents or rented wedding tents. which is okay. And I'm very appreciative of those people to, to play and perform in that scenario, but I know it's not always ideal. There's some, there's sometimes you get to a level of artists and they're, you know,

They're not going to play under a tent. That's just not what they're. Well, it's just they have a level, they have a bar, you know. You know, Sam Roberts, for example, we had him play and I don't, you know, luckily we had our roof and everything, but I don't think you can call up an artist like that and say, hey, I'm going to put up a tent in a parking lot. And they're going, no, I play stadiums and I play certain venues. And, you know, they've they've done playing.

Host (1:01:12)
⁓ it's ruined, sir.

Yeah, that's fair.

Adam (1:01:35)
small venues. They've done playing in the rain. They've done playing tents. And so I think some people have just, they've gone over that. And have to hit a certain level. You have to have a level of a sound system. have to have the expert sound technician. You have to have these things or there's certain artists, they're just not going to play there because there's other options for them.

Host (1:01:54)
Have you been blown away by some of the artists that have come?

Adam (1:01:57)
Absolutely.

it kind of came out of nowhere. It was one of the most amazing opportunities to come up. Amanda Marshall was opening for Brian Adams at Prospero place. And we were able to get in touch with their team. think the radio station, K96 had been working with her and their team about, they wanted to just do a surprise pop-up show. And they were talking about doing it on Bernard or in a park or something.

Which I think could have been really neat, we were able to get involved and say, we have a plug and play environment. have a plug and play venue with a great sound system. again, so now we have these things to entice them. say, there's a roof over the stage. There is a large stage. Here's our sound system. Here's our capability. Our liquor capacity is 500. we can fit a lot of people and this would be, you don't have to worry about setting something up on Bernard and something going wrong.

We were able to entice her team to come over to Redbird, and we had a surprise performance Amanda Marshall and it was maybe one of the craziest days I've seen.

Host (1:02:56)
I grabbed my kids from school at 2 30 and we rushed. Clearly we didn't make it. We just loitered down our like on the street to hear a couple of songs and then we, and then we came home, but I was like, it was so cool. there was this, you, you would have missed this, but the energy in the neighborhood.

Adam (1:03:03)
There's a lot.

Host (1:03:15)
of there was actually like a swarm of people and you and you just looked at each other and you knew you were all going to Redbird and then there's this tall guy on the other side of the street wearing his Amanda Marshall tour shirt. I'm like we know where you're going and then we all just kind of came to the to the queue that was there and yeah it was such a cool it was such a cool vibe it was really neat.

Adam (1:03:27)
cool.

I'm really glad to hear that because I saw a lot of people outside and you know you feel bad because you want everybody to come in but we just we didn't have room we were full.

Host (1:03:46)
Yeah, it's that's a free concert. like, you know, and you could hear it on the street and that's kind of the fun of it is that, ⁓ yeah, it's okay that you don't get everything, you know, it's okay that you didn't get it. It means that it's a successful event that's happened.

Adam (1:03:48)
It's a free concert.

Yeah,

and Amanda was really great about that too, you know at the end of her set and she could see all the people on the street so she'd poke her head out and wave like she was very aware of the people that were hanging out around outside to hear.

Host (1:04:12)
And then you

know what we all did? We all went to supported the other local venues around because you're all there. So we went and stopped at a couple of places on the way home and you know that there is probably a little bump for everybody in the neighborhood.

Adam (1:04:26)
I think

so, I hope so.

I see that happen. we, we were speaking with the previous ownership of the vice and virtue team and they would say that, when you guys have your big concerts and the big cell of concerts, there's spillover all over the neighborhood, which is great. Cause it's driving a lot of traffic down or there's times people come down and they don't realize that it's a ticketed show, which, you know, we have to do in order to pay for the artists. And, and so they just say, great. Well, I'll just go to one these other places that are around, around the street. And we see that now, as we're operating the vice and virtue space, that when we have those.

events or a ticketed event, it spills over across the street. ⁓ But yeah, that day was incredible in that I've never seen the place fill up so fast. That was very fast. And then we had a lineup and it wrapped around the Badminton Club, think. So it went, it was very long lineup. So, you know, we've had long lineups for our Ness Fest and some of our performances where

Host (1:05:11)
yeah, that's where we were.

Adam (1:05:20)
Business is full and there's like a bit of a lineup outside. So that's maybe, you know, 700 people, but there was 500 people inside. So we were totally full. And then I don't even know how many people are outside, but it was a couple hundred.

Host (1:05:32)
There was a lot. Yeah. And then we weren't sure because when we had came around the corner Human nature you see a queue and you just like we got to get in the line. Yeah, everybody's coming right? Yeah, but then we're in the line and we're and we're all everybody's really nice We're all chatting and we're like, well, is this the line to get in like is it at capacity? Yeah, and we're going to get in or early when my try say is it have they not opened the doors?

Adam (1:05:56)
Yeah.

Host (1:05:57)
And we're just waiting in line because we're around the corner so we couldn't see. I'm like, or are they at capacity? Because if they're at capacity, why are we standing here in the side? We are not getting in. So then one of the ladies went and checked. They're like, no, they're at capacity. I was like, OK, let's just. We'll just listen to a couple songs and then mosey on.

Adam (1:06:12)
Yeah

I did have, there was a good number of people that came up to me and they asked me, Hey, so my friends in the lineup and, I just had to shake my head and they're like, so are they, are they going to get in? said, I don't think so. You know, if they're about in 50th place, you're going to need 50 people to leave. And no one's leaving Amanda singing. And, ⁓ you know, I'm familiar with Amanda's music. was a, probably a teenager or so when she was, big in the, in the mid nineties and.

Host (1:06:31)
And no one's leaving.

Adam (1:06:44)
You know, back then, I don't know if I listened to a lot of her music. wasn't maybe my cup of tea, but she's very popular and we listened to a couple of songs leading up to her coming. But then when she sang live, ⁓ it was really incredible. It was like, yeah, her voice aged like fine wine. she was somehow better and. it's just her songs were amazing and her passion was amazing and her performance was amazing. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it.

nearly as much as I did.

Host (1:07:11)
Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What an experience.

Adam (1:07:15)
Yeah, so we've I mean, yeah cool stuff has been happening like that, which is really great. And then, but then there's, there's little things like we have, you know, tournaments that we've been doing since day one every Monday. And now there's this really great crib community of, people that play together and there's great prizes and it's a great way to meet people, know, especially if you're new to the city, while you come in, sign up it's free and you get to play a card game with a stranger and you make new friends. So there's also the little things like that, that I think make it really special or like.

The Mother's Day or, you know, we do a lot of face painting for kids on, you know, Sundays and different, you know, family style events. So the concerts and the music. Yeah. And we have the, Easter bunny comes every year. I don't know how we've been able to get that Easter bunny every year, but the Easter bunny's there every year. Santa Claus. So we do all those kinds of things. I think they get overshadowed a little bit with the live music, but they are ⁓ pretty special. You know, our free family events ⁓ is really...

Host (1:07:53)
you

Adam (1:08:13)
Something I think people appreciate, but also it's really cool to see the place come together and there's a different energy there. Like Father's Day, for example, we get the Kelowna Fire Department bring down a fire truck and all the kids love climbing all over that. I think it's fun for the firefighters. It's a bit of a fundraiser for them. I think all the dads love it too, because I'm sure everybody's always wanted to be a firefighter at some point.

Host (1:08:32)
Absolutely. ⁓

Adam (1:08:32)
⁓

So and it's just it's a cool way to see the community come together and I think that's again talking about the space I think really that's part of the magic is that it is a space for people to come together because we have the room so we can get a couple hundred people together for whether it's music or You know crib or Father's Day or whatever it is. It's a it's a great comfortable space for people to come together

Host (1:08:55)
Do you have you taken a moment recently to just reflect on how far you've come and like is right now redbird It feels like it is one like a hub of a community. when you think of Kelowna a lot of times you you associate with redbird and you think that? Boat brewing community. It's red, you know redbird and the music redbird and it's when you think of downtown even though you're technically north end, but still

Adam (1:09:10)
Really great to hear.

Host (1:09:20)
everybody who doesn't live in downtown they consider it downtown. Yeah, yeah, I think downtown's spilling over, you know? but yeah, have you taken a moment to just reflect and be like, like you've developed this.

Adam (1:09:24)
Yeah, feel it's starting to feel like down.

I

don't think I have. I maybe every once in a while I did have a customer come up, a customer, a regular, who her name's Sheila, and she's been coming to Redbird since day one, and she paid a really neat compliment similar to that. She just came up and said, you know, I remember walking by and you and your dad were staining the deck.

at Little Bird and building it and my dad was speaking with her and said, this is gonna be a craft brewery and come back in a couple months. And she did and she's been coming ever since. And she said the same very similar stuff and she actually wrote in an email. It was really neat to hear her say, she said, I wrote you guys an email today, something came over me and I just really wanted to send you that and say, thank you for this. And we're all so proud of what it's turned into. And it was really neat to hear that because I think,

You know, it's not, you know, I didn't do this by obviously I also have partners in the business who work and think and breathe the red bird every day, but also the community again, like if nobody came there, it would just be four empty walls. And it's really the people that decorate the space. So as much as, I mean, I'm very appreciative of, the support and the praise, but it's something I feel like we all did together. Again, if nobody came, it wouldn't be And.

actually I have this conversation with my brother-in-law. I always tell him like you vote with your dollars. So every time you go to a small business, you're voting for them. And it doesn't, maybe people don't realize that. don't, they don't think that, but you are every time you have a pizza, you're voting for more pizza. You're voting for more beer. If you go to an event, you're voting for more events. And if you don't go, that's fine. But if you don't go to the business that you say you enjoy, it's going to struggle.

people have been very supportive and have been coming, which has been allowing us to do these things and expand and build a roof over the stage to make a better experience and constantly repair the fire pits and constantly repair the building because what I've learned is that this entire thing is just maintenance. It is crazy. It's just maintenance on everything, which is a lot of work. But again, it's all part of it and we have fun.

Host (1:11:44)
Yeah, this feels like a nice natural conclusion. Do you have anything else you'd like to add or should we wrap her up?

Adam (1:11:52)
guess just a big thank you to everybody who loves it so much. I appreciate the words and I feel like I've heard that from a number of people it's really it's an indescribable thing to hear and know that from people that they love it this much that they come and and you hear people you know it's neat I can be out in the town somewhere and

You know somebody doesn't know that I'm associated with redbird and I can hear them talking about it in the lineup at the grocery store and so yeah We're going to redbird today and so I love that place Yeah, they had this person but and they're talking about it in a really positive light and that's like maybe one of my favorite things to hear is just like the totally unfiltered Compliments of that they're having a great time. They're not talking about, you know, oh, it's the cool place they're talking about how great of a time they have there and that they enjoy going with their family and friends and

Yeah, that is just never lost on me and I appreciate it.

Host (1:12:45)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. Pleasure to hear your story.

Adam (1:12:51)
Whoa, it's been a ride.