[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelley. Shelley is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and changemaker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. All right, thank you both for being with me today. If you don't mind just introducing yourself with your name, pronouns, and a bit about who you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, I am Lindsay Gaudette, she, hers, and I am a co-owner of Goldilocks Bagels in beautiful Medford.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am Ed Phil, pronouns are he, him. I am the other owner of Goldilocks Bagels.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. Well, thank you. I will say this is a much anticipated interview for me because, well, I love your bagels, but also the next question that I'm going to ask, we ask everybody, which is their favorite place to eat in Medford, what they like to eat there. And the rosemary salt bagel comes up all the time from Goldilocks. So, but I'll pose that question to you. It might be a little controversial, but are there other places in Medford that you guys like to eat and what do you like to eat there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I think we would both say Chili Garden, we love. And then I would also say Colleen's, we love. And Pikaichi, we love. I'm probably forgetting things too. But yeah, we're like once a week Chili Garden people. It's so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I second all that. Pikaichi's great. He's also, seems like he takes quite a bit of time off. So he's creating some hype for himself too. But yeah, I love it all.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah, you two were so we're part of the reason we're meeting today is to celebrate your fifth anniversary of Goldilocks being open. And we were chatting a little bit before about kind of the, you described yourself as burnouts from life. So I think demonstrating a work-life balance is really nice and important. It sounds like those folks are doing that as well. But yeah, so to celebrate your anniversary, I was wondering if you guys could talk a little bit about how you decided to start Goldilocks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I'm a lifelong bagel lover, um, grew up on frozen Sara Lee's from the, you know, with a little butter and cream cheese. And, um, I think we finally got a Bruegger's when I was like 10 or 11, but, uh, yeah, so we were always looking for a good bagel around and bagel source closest one. There's still like 2.7 miles from us. Um, and Ed is a. Gifted chef, baker, everything. Um, and so just sort of kind of started playing around. He did some cooking school and was sort of trying some different techniques and started playing around with bagels. And we just. kind of worked on a recipe for a few years. And then we were both sort of, as mentioned, burning out on our previous careers. So we were able to sort of transition away from that, find a space that happens. The shop is four blocks from our house. So we were kind of looking for commercial spaces, which is a really, that's a whole separate issue. Finding commercial spaces that like are good and you can actually like get, it's a whole separate issue. But The universe loved us and yeah, we found a place four blocks from our house and sort of did a lot of work and got set up in there for, in 2019 we opened. I'm talking a lot, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, it's good. That means I don't have to. Yeah, definitely burnt out on life, career. What was I gonna add? Sorry, Mondays are hard. You love cooking. Yeah, no, I've always been passionate about food and at my previous job, I got to go into a lot of kitchens. I was working for a mozzarella wholesaler and I got to meet lots of people in various kitchens in and around Boston, Metro Boston. when I saw what these people were doing. And, you know, I could always tell the minute I walked into a kitchen, like who was serious, really serious about the craft and who wasn't. And it was definitely like inspirational to see like what some of the people were doing and just the vibe. And I was like, I, you know, I could do this. I was like, I want this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're both serious workers.
[SPEAKER_03]: You could even say workaholics.
[SPEAKER_01]: Try not to be. It's nice to be a workaholic for yourself. I'll give it. That's much better.
[SPEAKER_03]: For sure, yes. Working for yourself is... Very lucky. Yeah, that's the way to do it. If you can. Not everybody has the luxury.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I will say that bagel, we are really excited about a good bagel place in Medford. My wife was in New York before here and she was so always like really looking for a, we've been to Bagelsaurus, but it's still a little too far, but she loves the Bate Your Bagels. And I mean, so do I, but it's a nice like weekend treat.
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah that's what we like make it a treat and we have lots of folks new york and new jersey folks are like our favorite because they're always like i'm from new york i'm from new jersey and i'm like let us know what you think and then they always i'm not always but most of the time they come back and they're like that's a good bagel so that's always a little bit of an extra like an asterisk bonus when we get that compliment from them
[Danielle Balocca]: And I just remembered that I have a friend, Leilani, when the place first opened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love Leilani.
[Danielle Balocca]: I actually thought she was an investor. I was like, because she was always posting about the bagels and cookies.
[SPEAKER_01]: She has a child walking around now that was literally like eating our bagels in her belly when we opened. So weird. What's up, G?
[Danielle Balocca]: That's a good measure of time there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is. Raised up cinnamon raisin, that baby. So it's very good.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. So I did want to, I noticed that you do like on your menu, you have the locks, locks of love. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. So we, we love, as I said, we live close to the shop. We love our community and we love sort of we like putting bagels out into the world, but also some, some good, good vibes and good stuff. So we started in 2020, we started the locks love program and we basically pick a different group or organization. Sometimes we do schools, sometimes we do teams, sometimes we do local charities, organizations, whatever. whatever we can find that needs some love and pick them every week. And then we take $0.25 from every breakfast sandwich we sell and any additional donations that our incredibly generous customers want to give. And we give that to a different group every week. I probably give once a month because I do them in batches, but it's a weekly organization. And it's, yeah, I think we're up to $50,000 since 2020 that we've donated. Yeah, it's awesome.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's incredible. Yeah. And yeah, part of the part of the mission of the podcast is to sort of focus on community. And that seems like a really community focused effort. And yeah, we, you know, we were talking about balance and like, you know, being open and you shared that some of your criticism you get sometimes is that you're only open a few days a week. I will. Yeah, I mean, I will say that I went in before COVID and it was so overwhelming to try to get in there. And then you're always hoping you'll get the bagel that you want that like during COVID, it was nice to be able to know like I can order exactly what I want, go and pick it up and like still the same way. So I appreciate it. And we were talking about how they're kind of like a lure of something that's hard to get and delicious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, limited edition, right? weekends well we always say big as bagels are for weekends so um and definitely like saturday and sunday we were previous to the pandemic we were open wednesday through sunday i think and we definitely had people were going to the office and school and stuff more obviously before 2020 so we had like a decent amount early early but then it would kind of like be a lull and like there's only so much we were a brand new shop too there's only so much you can clean there's only so much you can stock there's only so much you can stamp so um it wasn't the greatest use of everyone's time and so we really took Not that I ever want this opportunity again, but we really took the pandemic as an opportunity to sort of pare down our menu and make sure we were offering what we wanted to offer and in the times to just really make the most of what we had to give to folks without any extra stuff that maybe was sort of sucking up resources. And that was that was a that was one silver lining that I don't know if we would have, I think we probably would have just gone gone gone until we
[SPEAKER_03]: hit the wall. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. You started fast and furious. You're right. It was like when I think about it, such a, they almost seem like two different shops. Like it was such an overwhelming experience. Like we were so, we knew it would be popular. We knew people were excited, but like, we literally like Medford was so welcoming from like day one, but it was, it was a line. And we didn't know how to do inventory yet. So we learned so much just on the job. I'm a preparer, but there's just so much that you can't learn until you actually do it. And it was definitely, again, not nice to be isolated at home, but it was nice to be able to take a pause and figure out how to do things more the way we wanted to do stuff. That was just such a lot. And yet ordering, we do allow folks. So yeah, that's another thing that people don't know. You can definitely come in and order now, but we started that two years ago again, I think in 2022. But yeah, ordering ahead, you definitely, if you really want a poppy bagel and you're not sure we'll have one, you can order it on like Tuesday and pick it up Friday. So I love that model.
[Danielle Balocca]: Wonderful, yeah. Any other kind of takeaways for you guys from the first five years?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, There's a lot. I guess the main thing would be is as a small business owner and working with other people, having employees is definitely the biggest challenge. So being a boss is hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we were never bosses before.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I know a lot of people don't have sympathy for the boss man, but it is definitely a hard role and it is hard to It is hard to learn how to be an effective leader and a boss and... While doing the whole job. While doing the job and not coming off like a raging a-hole sometimes. So yeah, learning how to manage your personality and be a decent human at work. It can be challenging when you're, you know, you've got, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's got their own stuff going on. Pressure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. And also just, I think one thing that I've actually, I was thinking of this, this weekend, like I was definitely, I worked at corporate before for like a thousand years and such lovely people. I always had a good team, which is why I stayed at it for so long. But also you see a lot of like, ugh, like the world, ugh, like what's going on there? Like just like sort of cutthroat blah, blah, blah. I feel like our customers, again, there's like the 2% that I want to punch in the face. Not really, I'm not a violent person, but you know what I mean? But like, you see how many good, like just everybody's just really doing their best coming out in the world. They're like making, yeah. And to our shop on a Saturday is a treat like they look forward to it they like our stickers like it really did sort of reinforce my faith in people which was nice because I didn't realize how much I kind of lost that. So I I've appreciated that and like we didn't know like one of the super bonus of having this in our neighborhood like we know our neighbors now like we didn't know we knew our immediate like for. But other than that, now we're like, oh, we live on Orchard Street. It's like, oh, I live on Dearborn. Oh, I live on Winthrop Lake. And we're like, oh, wow, all these people live near us. And everybody's just like, we see them out now. People shout at our dogs when they see us because they know them from Instagram. So that's been a really, really nice thing. And also, people are very particular about their food. I did not realize. I have a couple of friends who are very particular. I thought they were outliers. That's not true. People are very particular about their food. But I think that's why they like us. We definitely try to do our best to accommodate anything people are asking for, if we can do it within reason. But yeah, especially in the morning too. Morning food is very, very specific, but now I'm an expert.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I think I remember when I had to go, I had to cut out dairy for like a little while and I was able to like text something or was this true or call and to see if any what didn't have dairy in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have we do. So that's a good thing about out there. We do have an allergen page. So that usually is updated with everything. We do have a vegan cream cheese for non-dairy folks right now both our specials we have pretzel and cherry chocolate chip. They're both non-dairy. We outsource gluten-free bagels, we get them from a little shop in Canada, keep them frozen, so that you know if there's a group and somebody can't have gluten or is trying, there's a lot of times people are on sort of temporary diets as well. So we try to do our best, that's kind of why we keep our menu small, because it is definitely challenging, but yeah we want everybody to be able to have a good bagel on a weekend morning.
[Danielle Balocca]: So, and I was lucky enough at Oktoberfest to try your pizza because I feel like I've tried, but how do people, how can you get pizza? Like when do you guys make it? Where can people find it?
[SPEAKER_01]: So right now it's Saturdays. So we make a small amount of, we do a pepperoni and a cheese pie on Saturdays. So you can order those starting, ordering goes up online every Monday, yeah, Monday morning, maybe Sunday night if you're lucky. And yeah, Saturday is the day for pizza. We'd like to, again, if we could maybe get a couple more team members or figure some stuff out, move some stuff around, we'd like to offer it more. But right now it's Saturday mornings. And yeah, it's a big, beautiful slice of Sicilian pan pizza. It's really, really good.
[Danielle Balocca]: And occasionally Medford Brewing?
[SPEAKER_03]: What, I'm sorry? Occasionally Medford Brewing?
[SPEAKER_01]: We did, we did have a thing going on with Medford Brewery for a while, but yeah, we kind of, we were doing, we did a lot of say yesing this summer, which I admire so much folks that do like farmers markets and events every week. I don't know how you guys do that. That is, whoo. So we did that a lot this summer and definitely tried a lot of things, met a lot of people, glad to do it. We're taking a little break from that for now, focusing back on the show. on the shop for fall and winter. But yeah, and we do have pizza bagels every day too. That's a good point. That's on the app. That's not a separate thing. Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. Well, yeah, thanks. So it sounds like, you know, you've learned a bit about what it's like to be bosses and connecting with your, you know, your immediate community as well. Anything that you kind of would reflect on in terms of like appreciation for Medford or kind of our community of our city?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so for our five year, I like, of course, put together something insanely way too long, way too many words, slideshow for the internet, because that's my specialty. But just looking back over 2019 until now, it has been, I think we've had two slow days. It's really very, is heartening a word? It's very heartening just how much we're appreciated for like, we sell one thing, you know what I mean? So it's just been very nice. People are so generous. They bring our bagels on planes to see their families when they go home for the holidays. They bring them to like, birthday parties in the park, like the office, like they're always a treat, like somebody's always like, I'm bringing these to the teachers today on Fridays, which is like, so nice. Everybody's very patient. We had some, some delays this weekend, and nobody like yelled at us or barks at us. Occasionally we get the one star review. Those people have thoughts about that. That's a separate podcast. But yeah, just how welcoming and like consistently supportive everybody has been. I'm not surprised, but it's just been very nice to experience. So yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stole the words right out of my mouth. Yeah, no, I definitely appreciate the community aspect of it. And, you know, in the morning when we're baking, sometimes like people just come to the back door and just say, hey, I just wanted to say hi. So it's we are very blessed to be in the neighborhood that we're in and have so many wonderful, loving customers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And their dogs.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I get lots of visits from dogs at the back door. Backdoor cookie hookups for dogs. So yeah, we love Medford and we love what we're doing and hopefully we can keep this going for a while.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: We all hope that, too.
[Danielle Balocca]: Great. Thank you. Anything else you want to mention or plug before you wrap up?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. I did want to say one thing that I personally have been enjoying about this, and that is the mentorship of youth. Right now we have, we've actually been working with the Medford Vogue and we've had a couple people come through who've been, everybody so far has been great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shout out Madison, Sophie, Josera, and Patty.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, lots of great workers have come from our high school and they're all in the Vogue. But yeah, I really think, You know, people should not overlook mentorship and trying to like teach you know our youth, a skill and a trade I think it's hugely important, and just how to exist in the world. Yeah, just, just how to be social in the workplace and what the rest of the world but yeah it's. It's been not only eye opening, but also very rewarding to like teach young people new skills and watch them grow. You know, like we've had a lot of these youngsters in our shop since they were like freshman, sophomore in high school. And now three of them are seniors. But it's been it's been really cool to watch them grow as humans and become fully functioning, sassy little adults.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, you have to mold them the right way, right? To get to that outcome. Yeah, wow. That's cool. I didn't know that you guys did that. That's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, it's, you know, it's hard to find good help. And I think people who are young, you know, teenager age, like, You, you essentially have a ball of clay and you can, you know, you can impart your, your good work practices and habits and attitude and that, you know, there's good energy. Yeah. You know, they're like a sponge, you know, soaking it all in. So if you, if you can create a, you know, a good, fun, you know, yet. hard-working productive environment they're gonna pick it up and like I've had youngsters go other places and be like I worked at this place and they're like you know what a crap show that was like you guys have it together so.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have been fooled. Just kidding.
[Danielle Balocca]: No, it sounds like you've taken your experience of what doesn't maybe work in terms of managing your life and your work and what you expect of your employees or what was expected of you and you've used that to create a work environment that You know, you're seeing works for people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, we're definitely both like 80s babies. So like capitalism, consumerism totally drilled into our heads. And like, I think we realized a while ago, like, oh, like, you don't just have to work your whole life. Like, it's obviously important. We both love working. We both value hard work. And you know, But yeah, there is just, there is a balance and there is like treating people properly and paying people properly and just doing, it's like, and again, we definitely come from a place of privilege, but just like doing the right thing as a business owner and a boss, like it's definitely challenging, but like you can do it. And we're hoping to continue to be able to do that.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Anything else before we wrap up for today?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I think we're good. Yeah. Thank you for having us on. 02155.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you, guys. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Keshaman. Music is made by Hendrik Irenys. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites!