Ep 99- Building a Business Through Resiliency with Bobby and Janice Jucker

Transcript

Transcripts are generated by machine learning, so typos may be present.

Chris Hanslik: All right. Well, I’m excited about today’s episode to have Bobby and Janice with us from Three Brothers Bakery. So please, let’s just start off, just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what the company’s known for. Okay. We have a order. Ladies first. Okay. I’m Janice Juer, co-owner of Three Brothers Bakery.

Janice Jucker: I married the guy with all the dough and and I’ll let Bobby go next and he can. Tell you a little bit about the bakery. Bobby Juer, co-owner, three Brothers Bakery with my wife. my family started Three Brothers Bakery here in Houston in 1949. they were bread bakers. the bakery has been in my family for 200 years this year.

Chris Hanslik: Wow. they had a [00:01:00] bakery in Poland.. They learned the bakery at a very, very young age. There was a strike in Poland and my dad and his and his twin had to drop outta school and learn how to do the bakery. They were 10 years old. then when he was 16, 17 the Germans came and my, my dad escaped and went to what’s now Ukraine was Russia.

Bobby Jucker: went to go work in a coal factory and a coal mine. Got black lung woman, brought him back to health and went to go work in a bakery in Russia. He didn’t have any money. He was living on top of the oven. no shoes. Burlap sack, burlap sacks were his shoes and his mother sent for them to go get him.[00:02:00]

Bobby Jucker: What we call coyotes today. Okay? The third time they found my dad in this bakery said, let’s you go. Your mom wants you to come home. And they left. Germans came into that town when sun came up, rounded up all the Jews, shot ’em in a shallow grave. So my dad turned himself into the, into the Nazis when he came home.

Bobby Jucker: Again, the short version and. He was in a, in a, a work camp for four plus years. He was in eight work camps. Wow. Wow. the, the most incredible part about the three brothers is they had a sister who was in one of these camps and she married the head Jew at this camp. So she got a really good job in the office.

Bobby Jucker: The Germans kept such meticulous records. She found her brothers and she [00:03:00] forged some signatures and had her brothers brought to the camp that they were at where she was at, and two of them were almost dead. my dad tells us the story that his twin was in such bad shape that when they did roll call, they would pick him up.

Bobby Jucker: Put a mop in front of him so he could hold on. They would grab him on each shoulder, hold him up, and then once roll call was over, they would put him down and sneak him away. Hide him so he could rest. Hmm. So you know, after my dad got sent out to another camp, he was in charge of waking everybody up and he was late, didn’t give him alarm clock.

Bobby Jucker: You stay up and you make, wake everybody up. He was late overslept. They said one time through this, through this cold, wet mud, until we tell you to stop or somebody’s gonna get [00:04:00] shot killed. So my dad rolled through the mud for an hour and it affected him through his entire life. He could never really sleep.

Bobby Jucker: He always slept with one eye open almost. Mm-hmm. Yeah.. He was in charge of that. So he woke up early and the German guards were gone and he found some wire cutters and he cut the gates open and took that, that first breath of freedom. And here comes the Russians with all of their, their snacks and goodies for all the, all the POWs in this camp.

Bobby Jucker: And they’ve not eaten anything. So my dad was so sick, he couldn’t even eat anything. These other people that ate all this food, they just died right there. He said he was watching him just die. Wow. So they sent my dad to the hospital and after the war the sister [00:05:00] moved to Houston and the three brothers were coming here to go to Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Bobby Jucker: And the sister writes ’em and says, no, no, no. Come to Houston. The streets are lined with gold. So they come to Houston and they start Three Brothers Bakery. you know, this, this group of Holocaust survivors. You know, they, they were already working before they got here. Sure. So the tailors were making clothes for people on the side.

Bobby Jucker: My dad and his brothers were baking on the side and selling on the black market, selling it, you know, so that’s kind of when the three brothers really kind of started. And then they went to go work for a company called Hanky plo, which became Kroger’s. My dad tells me the story that this place was so hot that [00:06:00] they were working, that they were literally making the bread on the table.

Bobby Jucker: And he said it was 106 in this warehouse and they were sweating in the bread. Nice. Salty bread. Salty bread. The bread taste. Yeah. So so they said, you know, we can do this on our own. So they, they there was a bakery. right across from Beth Israel, which is on Holman Street in LA Branch. it’s part of HCC now.

Chris Hanslik: Okay. there was a bakery there called Mascot’s Bakery, and they bought it from ’em. they spoke new English. They didn’t know anything. they didn’t realize it. You, you need more than one parking space to survive in use. They had one, yeah, they had one parking space. So in 1955 or 54, 55, [00:07:00] they, they moved to Alameda and they started doing really well.

Janice Jucker: In sophomore. In sophomore. And they started doing really well and they saw the Jewish population was moving.. Away from this area. So they were following the Jews. Mm. And they moved to Braeswood where we are currently today. The beautiful Braze ba it right next to this river behind the right. This beautiful river flooded us three or four times and I’m sure we’ll talk more about that.

Bobby Jucker: Yeah. So it was and so that’s kind of how the bakery started Now, me. that was my babysitting. So when my mom wanted to go somewhere, she would drop me off at the bakery and she would leave me there. So I, I kind of learned stuff at a very early age. just being around it. Just being around it.

Chris Hanslik: Yeah. Yeah. [00:08:00] Well, it’s an incredible obviously story the family story, and you’re clearly the oldest business that we’ve ever had on the podcast. I mean, 200 plus years is amazing. And we’re probably the oldest people that’ve ever been on. No, I’m, no one’s keeping track of that. Janice? the I don’t think so.

Chris Hanslik: maybe top five. oh, thanks. But then, you know, obviously the, the, the story of the family and, and moving over and all that is, is. To say it’s compelling is an understatement, but yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s get a little more into maybe the, the current generation of leadership, which is the two of you. I know you maybe grew up in the bakery, but that was not your first profession.

Chris Hanslik: so tell us a little bit about, I guess, how you evolved from I think being in the energy business to becoming a baker. So I went to college and got a petroleum land management degree. And I was [00:09:00] ready to go work in the oil patch industry. And 1983, the bottom just fell out of the oil business. I really didn’t want to go to hoa, Oklahoma to go work.

Bobby Jucker: Right. And I had, one of my friends was working there and he basically said, come, come you, I got a job for you, you know? And I said, no, there’s no women there. There’s nothing in there. I don’t wanna go do that. So my family said, Hey, you already know this business. You know we need you. Come, come work here until, you know, something comes up.

Janice Jucker: And he’s been a temp ever single time. So temporarily I’ve been at the bakery for 42 years. That’s great. what about then you, Janice, I mean obviously did you, you didn’t start working, I know, until much later after you were married and another career, but then what brought you into the bakery and.

Janice Jucker: So I [00:10:00] always say out of everything bad comes something good. So I was selling multimillion dollar communication systems to the oil patch, and when Katrina hit, you know, they were all hit. So I couldn’t make my quota because they’re trying to regroup at that time. So I got fired. Yeah. And so at that time I, we talked to our accountant and he said, okay, now’s a good time for you to go into the bakery.

Janice Jucker: So that was in 2005 right after Katrina. Okay. And been there ever since. And ironically, my great-grandmother and great aunt were bakers in Russia. Okay. It was Ukraine. but when I came to the bakery, women didn’t work in the production area. There was one woman that worked overnight, but it was a man’s world.

Janice Jucker: Interesting. You know, so I’m. Which is fine. So I’ve been more behind the scenes [00:11:00] and in the beginning I helped run the front, the counter area. And then in 2009 after Hurricane Ike, we went to a dinner and we met a business coach and he came and he said, I’m just gonna talk to you. Bobby’s like, I’m not gonna buy anything.

Janice Jucker: Okay. Three hours later, you know, we had signed up and we learned two valuable lessons work on not in your business, and we’re terrible managers. So we took the money, we were paying the coach, and we hired someone to run the business. And we worked diligently to work ourselves out of jobs because we learned that your business is more valuable.

Janice Jucker: When the owners don’t do anything right, other than just say, drink coffee. And it’s a great, it’s a great point that not all entrepreneurs understand and get, ’cause the, the business is the baby, right? And, and to let someone else [00:12:00] raise it while you watch it, it can be challenging. So I want to kind of maybe go a little more there.

Chris Hanslik: I love what you said. I think it’s true. Every terrible managers Well, that part too. I I, I’m gonna let that one go. Yeah. But work, the work on the business, not in the business is a very powerful like mindset to and to get around because it does take you out of the day-to-day to do it. Right. So, I mean, I guess tell me, how did you get, how did we evolve?

Chris Hanslik: How did you evolve and get over that hump? To feel comfortable that you were doing the right thing. So let me say, so we went to a seminar and one of the speakers was a professor that I had at UT who became the head of the MBA program at ut. And we went and talked to him and he, he basically told us that when you’re ready to get out of the business, this is what happens to small businesses.

Bobby Jucker: They get dinged so [00:13:00] badly. Because you, you’re so important to the business. And we decided that we were going to work ourselves out of the business so that when we do decide to do that, yeah. we don’t get dinged like what he’s talking about. Yeah. So that’s kind of how that evolved. So, go ahead.. It all started really though, with that business coach and and then Bobby read about this program in the newspaper Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.

Janice Jucker: And I read that you told me to apply for it. Okay. And let’s just, he’s really good at the baking and the mechanical and he’s really good with his hands. I’m good at paperwork. Okay. Yes. So so I was the perfect team. I was the natural person to apply. And so you. It was an 18 page application. I mean, you have to be good at paperwork.

Janice Jucker: Seriously. Now it’s down to eight I think. And [00:14:00] so I applied for the program and I got in in 2012. And I remember there were 20 of us in our cohort. And this program, it’s funded by the Goldman Sachs Foundation and they the whole goal of it was. If we can train 10,000 small businesses and they would add an average of five th five people, that’s 50,000 more jobs in America.

Janice Jucker: Oh, wow. And so they teach you, this is not how they describe it, but they teach you how to be a real business because we make it till we make it, you know, a lot of us. Sure. But, but I, I’m a, yeah, we’re a firm believer here at this farm, you know, entrepreneurs and, you know, private held companies. Who we represent, that that’s what is the engine to our economy, right?

Chris Hanslik: It is. And so the, I hadn’t heard of the Goldman Sachs program, but Oh really? I love it. No. Oh gosh. So we can do a whole thing on just that. So anyway, I, I did the program and you have a growth [00:15:00] plan. And so my growth plan was to add a store, and when we add a store, we’re adding eight to 10 jobs. So since then we’ve added two stores, but our business has grown.

Janice Jucker: So I think I had, we had 37 employees when I did it. Now we have 75. So we surpassed the the five and there’s different modules and like there’s a sales module, there’s a finance module. Okay. I have a degree in social. I have a master’s in consumer affairs and I didn’t speak the language of business I, and so we had to take a quiz on financial stuff.

Janice Jucker: There were 20 of us, 19 flunked. The only person that passed had a degree in finance, so then we had to go to like after school tutoring in the program. So we would work on it. And it wasn’t, it took a long time for me to learn that, not just in the program, but over the years and. So that was really important because now I know the language of business.

Janice Jucker: I can look at a, you know, I can look at a balance sheet, [00:16:00] I can determine if something’s worthwhile. And I think a lot of small businesses, you get into something because you’re passionate about, you’re passionate about baking. Well, there’s a whole nother thing, you know, you gotta know about the numbers.

Janice Jucker: And then the other really big thing that I got out of it was how important the people are. Yes. And there’s a module called it’s about the people. And so they ask, well, tell us about your corporate culture. And I’m like, we’re a small business. We don’t have a corporate culture. And then I was like, oh yeah, we do.

Janice Jucker: It’s just toxic. Well, that. You’re just saying right. Is, is whether you have a culture, whether you know it or not. Right. That’s a, that’s a, so you better get on top of it. That’s right. So in 2012, that was 2012. So it’s like, you know, let’s turn this around. And luckily the gentleman that we hired to run the bakery, he, he is amazing.

Janice Jucker: And if it had been left up to me, it would’ve been really sorry about that. It would’ve been left up to me a bit hard to change that. But he’s really good [00:17:00] and we. Now it’s about the people and we have a 401k, we have healthcare. You get paid maternity, you get a ba, a car seat, and just all the yes, you know, a bunch of little things that make free donuts for the kids and, and make sure you go to your children’s assemblies or you know, those are things that are important.

Chris Hanslik: Well, I would say that, you know, you mentioned this a minute ago, a another hurdle for entrepreneurs. They typically start outta something outta passion without maybe business experience. Mm-hmm. And, and it’s easy to fail because you’re not paying attention to business fundamentals. so you either have to learn it or hire someone that has that skillset that you trust, that you trust.

Chris Hanslik: And that’s a big one too, right? Mm-hmm. Mistakes can be made there. We see that a lot with clients. And the other thing though is, and I think most people that I talk [00:18:00] to get there, obviously people at different times and stages, but once you figure out that it’s really about your people, that’s the key to the kingdom, right?

Chris Hanslik: Because that’s who’s taking care of the product or the customer or whatever. So if you’re not taking care of them. If they can’t take care of what’s gonna propel your business, it, it makes me. Feel good that the people that work for us are memory makers. They say they like working for us, you know? And in 2012, I’m not so sure that anyone would’ve said that.

Janice Jucker: I don’t know though. But in when the pandemic hit a lot of my small business friends, your employees were asking to be laid off because you made more money on the unemployment. Not one person at Three Brothers Bakery asked, not one kudos to you. And that made me realize. I don’t know when the change happened.

Janice Jucker: That was seven years after I went through the program, but it happened. Well, I think cultures evolve, right? And so there, there’s probably [00:19:00] not a date where it’s like right then, but if you’re, if you start doing a lot of little things right, over time it just happens, right? And you wake up and you look continue and you look back and go, that was seven, eight years ago.

Chris Hanslik: I don’t know when it happened, but it was somewhere along that journey. Now the challenge is to continue and mm-hmm. Perpetuate it, right? Mm-hmm. Nurture it. Mm-hmm. which is finding ways to continue to take care of your people. I think people like working at through Brothers because we are a family business and we treat you like family.

Janice Jucker: Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about, you’ve, you’ve talked some in that story, that is a story of evolution, right? You evolved into a, a business person, and I’m asking, focusing on people. What, what other, when I think about maybe whether it’s technology or some innovation that you feel like has evolved in the bakery since you’ve kind of taken over the reigns to get you to where you are, whether to be more efficient in how you operate you know, processes.

Chris Hanslik: I’m just wondering, you know, where does, where does [00:20:00] technology come into play, if at all? and how have you tried to incorporate that? You wanna tell your Guerro story? This is a long time ago, but this was like the beginning of that. So we used to make Kai’s rolls by hand and to make a Kai’s roll you, you literally have to spin it and cut it with your hand.

Bobby Jucker: So my dad had like this giant callous instead of my uncle, and they would make Kai’s rolls and I think I’m the last person to, to know how to make ’em. Mm-hmm. And I had a salesman who came to the bakery and said. You know what, I’m gonna leave you. This equipment. This is a Kaiser roll machine. I said they’ll never use it, they’ll never let me use it.

Bobby Jucker: And I’m gonna give you a rye bread machine. I’m gonna give you this former that does, you know, egg rolls and strips and everything, okay? But I’m not gonna use it. Just keep it here. And if you end up using it in the next six months, send me a check. Those were the days. [00:21:00] So this was a long time ago. I got these guys sitting and my dad goes to Europe to go to Poland to see, you know, what’s where he lived and what was what’s left.

Bobby Jucker: And I’m in charge and my uncle says, Bobby, come over here to make Kaiser rolls with me. And I go, uncle Saal. If that ain’t happening, I got this machine, we’re gonna use this machine. And my uncle just went crazy on me, Bobby, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. They’re not gonna eat that goddamn shit.

Bobby Jucker: And so he just went crazy and I pulled the machine out and we started putting dough in and figuring it out. And the Kai rolls came out. Beautiful. Right. So that’s kind of like, that was the last time we made Kaiser rolls by hand. we started doing it on the machine and the machine was amazing. [00:22:00] So my uncle was very happy.

Bobby Jucker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Learning to get away from the old ways and trust, so there’s always some, there is some. Technology like now with cookies, we don’t have to necessarily always draw the graphic. You can print with edible ink. you have. we just bought something called recipes. Okay. So it, you put your formulas in there and then whoever’s doing it can’t go forward if they, it’s tied to a scale, okay?

Janice Jucker: And they can’t move to the next step. So ’cause you know, idiot proof. Kind of, yeah, maybe I could use it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. That’s awesome. So, you know, you alluded to some things earlier, but I know you’ve had your challenges along the way. What are some of the things that, because I think, I think we all learned from mistakes or challenges, usually overcoming them, right?

Chris Hanslik: Those lessons we never forget. what are some of the [00:23:00] challenges y’all faced that you, you know, maybe thought this is gonna take us under and, you know, how did you overcome that and what were the lessons learned? We have just pick your top two. We don’t have all day. Well, well, I think, I think No, we have, because you’re looking at me like the list is long.

Janice Jucker: Yeah, yeah. The list is long. So then we call ourselves the king queen of disasters because we never wanna be dethroned because that means you’re worse off than us. But we’ve been through four floods of fire, two hurricanes, pandemic, freezing direction. King and Queen of Disaster. I love it. And we We got an award for that.

Janice Jucker: Yeah, we did. We got, did you really? Not the king and queen, they called it the Phoenix Award for Small Business Disaster Recovery. It was from the SBA. It was a national award we went to, we went to Washington, yeah. Mm-hmm. Congratulations. And I applied for that. Yeah. Yeah. I applied for that because I thought it would give us credibility talking to lawmakers about what small businesses need to recover from these disasters and.

Janice Jucker: Oh, I [00:24:00] didn’t tell. I told Steve I got invited to be on a four person virtual panel to brief the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in about a week. Oh wow. Whether it happens or not, I don’t know, but, and it’s three insurance professionals and me and they wanna know how do you get through these? It’s good to hear that.

Chris Hanslik: They maybe at least wanna listen to the people that are in the trenches about what, what are these policies, you know, how do they really play out in real world? I’ve gone and met with three of them before and they really. Listen to us. Mm-hmm. One of them, we actually had made her kids’ birthday cakes. All the kids’ birthday cakes I found out.

Janice Jucker: But but another one, like I was telling her at the time, the restaurant industry was down 15% nationwide. And she really, there were two foodies in that meeting of, there were four of us. Mm-hmm. Five of us. And she really honed in it. She goes, I wanna go back to that. I really wanna understand. And, and when you say that 15% down, are you talking about during the pandemic or, no, [00:25:00] this was after, after.

Chris Hanslik: Okay. And you know, we, so again, I know y’all have been through some floods and fires. Kind of, I guess if you had to say, here are the kind of the top three things that we learned when having to deal with that dis a disaster, if you will. What did number one, payer people. Okay.. Not every small business can do this, but you have to have some cash in the bank because you can only pay them with cash.

Janice Jucker: You cannot put payroll on a credit card, and you’d be so surprised how many people don’t know that. so pay your people have the best insurance that you can afford. And I used to say with the lowest deductible, because you have a cash crunch. When you have a disaster. Yeah. But now I say the highest deductible you can afford.

Janice Jucker: And that means. How much can you afford to give up when you have that disaster? So we’ve actually, we used to have super low deductibles, but I’m not gonna make a claim now ’cause they’re gonna [00:26:00] cancel me at those low deductibles. I used to make claims all the time for stupid stuff, you know? Right. But not anymore.

Janice Jucker: And then what’s the other thing? I don’t know. Your lawmakers, I mean, I don’t, you, you need to know your lawmakers because sometimes you need them. Like with Harvey, we could not get, we. We were approved for the SBA disaster land, like within three weeks of Harvey. And couldn’t get, the district couldn’t get the money.

Janice Jucker: And so I told finally after like almost two months, I told the case manager at the SBA, do I need to call my congressman? And he goes, yes. I go, I can’t just threaten. And he said, no. I was like, okay. And I had been there, we had been there. We talked about soybeans with them and stuff, so they knew who we were.

Janice Jucker: And so I picked up the phone and called and two days later we had our money and had to do it again a second time. Wow. Very good. Yeah. So sounds like y’all divided up roles, [00:27:00] to help kind of focus on your strengths. How does that translate it into kind of the actual leadership function in the bakery?

Chris Hanslik: And with your people. And how would y’all describe your leadership skills? How have they evolved? That’s easier question. That’s a good question. Oh my God. So we used to deal with each other all the time. Like when I came, before I was in the bakery, it was the three brothers. Someone said that their dad used to bring them every Sunday to get a corn rye and watch the show.

Janice Jucker: What was the show? The three brother? Two, I think it was Your dad or his uncle would yell at the, would yell at the customers in English, or they would yell at each other in Polish and then they would turn around and yell at the customers in English. Okay. That’s what it was. And. So we yelled, right? And that was the culture.

Janice Jucker: That was, that was the culture. And then the gentleman that [00:28:00] runs the place, his name’s Thomas, he had to train us. And so we had to change. And now since we don’t really do anything and like if we want something, we have to convince him to let us get it. Mm-hmm. You know, so we really work for him.

Janice Jucker: And I think the people at the bakery think of us more like a mom and dad or grandma and grandpa. Probably they would, they, I like, I try to work with. Some of the women, you know, like if you wanna raise you, come practice what you have to say with me, I’ll, you know Yeah. I’ll listen to that. Someone of a mentor, because I don’t give the raise, you know?

Janice Jucker: Right. But I can help you what you’re gonna say. Yeah. And I encourage, encourage them to vote, help ’em find a reason that voting is important to them. Yeah. You know, little things like that. Yeah. Well, so yeah, I guess your aunt. [00:29:00] Convinced your dad to come to Houston ’cause the streets were covered in goal laced in goal, whatever.

Chris Hanslik: Mm-hmm. Let’s talk about what is it, you know, that decision to kind of set the company or the family and the family business on a course to be Houston based. you know, what’s it been like, do you think the advantages of being a Texas based business or Houston based business that you’ve seen based on your own experience in the last 40 something years?

Bobby Jucker: You know, we’ve seen the ups and the downs in the oil business, and it has affected our business too. we, we did a lot of business with a lot of the oil companies, and so we saw that, but we’ve continued to kind of drift in this upward momentum, if you will. Yeah. for the last 70 years. And. Even when there’s really a downturn in the [00:30:00] market, people still come to get bread.

Bobby Jucker: They still come. We are, we make people happy. You know we’re a happy place and, and people like to come to the bakery and, you know, our selection is, I, I haven’t been able to find a bakery quite as unique as, I don’t wanna like tout, but it has the kind of. Selections. We have depths that we have. Yeah.

Janice Jucker: You know, they either make 10 cupcakes or they make five croissants and that’s it. And they sell some drinks. You know, we we’re, we’re doing Danish and coffee cakes and bread and bagels and rolls, pies, and. Pies and pastry and you know, the pecan pie that we have here on the table, the award winning pecan pie, award-winning pecan pie.

Janice Jucker: And so we’re doing a lot of different things and there’s a lot of things going on in the back. Yeah. [00:31:00] And it’s constant rotation of things to make all these products. So we’re a bit inefficient about that. And our labor costs are pretty high. Like I told my gm, you can’t really change that. You know, we can sell more stuff, but you can’t change that culture.

Bobby Jucker: People want to want to come to the bakery. They want to see this. Yeah. Well you’ve created that expectation, right? So you mean, I guess full service bakery, we, it’s called full Line Retail bakery. Full what? Full line retail bakery. Full line. Okay. But like, we’ll, we’ll travel and we go to bakeries and you walk into this bakery and it’s maybe it’s four o’clock in the afternoon and I got four cupcakes.

Janice Jucker: And that’s it. Mm-hmm. They are like, and I guess yeah. That works for them, you know? Right. We, we donate our bail to the, those who are hungry. And and that was taught to be to me by my dad, who, you know, [00:32:00] being a Holocaust survivor and being in a camp and being starved to death. Right. And watching people die because they didn’t get enough to eat.

Bobby Jucker: My dad understood that that was very important. So whatever we have left over in bread or roll, we donate to the homeless. Yeah. And is there a particular charity you donate to or? we do several. So, well, right now, emergency aid coalitions kind of like the main one. And then they have a, a network distribution network network.

Janice Jucker: And then there’s a gentleman named Jay Hamburger and he’s been coming for how many years? 35. 35 years and he just goes out on the street on Sunday and he brings them our stuff plus some other stuff. And we went out with him one time. And if you wanna have an amazing experience, go out with Jay Hamburger because yes, it is about feeding people, but it is also about connecting with people.

Chris Hanslik: Sure. And I think a lot of people think [00:33:00] that those who don’t have homes are invisible. They’re real people. Well, I, well, they’re definitely real people. I happen to be very involved in our homeless response system here in Houston, so I’m very aware. The issue, what do you, here, let me interview you. What are you in?

Chris Hanslik: I, I am on been very involved past chair of the board for Search Homeless services. So you may know Shelly Cypress. And I’m current. I actually started with her. I’m currently the chair of the board for the Coalition for the Homeless. So I would say they’re not invisible. I think people choose not to look at ’em.

Chris Hanslik: And there’s a difference. I think people look away invisible. You look and see right through and don’t see anything. I think people with our homeless population that don’t know, look and turn away. And for me, there’s a, there’s a difference. Maybe, maybe not to you, but for me, that’s a difference. That’s a I choose not to.

Chris Hanslik: But I think we’re doing a lot of great things in Houston and I didn’t know the all were that involved. If, you know anyone needs anything we’re No, I love hearing that and, and absolutely will. And what do you think, let me interview, so what do you think about Mayor Whitmore’s? like basically a [00:34:00] hub. He wants to create a hub with ancillary services.

Janice Jucker: I’m very aware for homeless, very aware of all that. Do you like that? they do it in San Antonio. It’s a haven for hope is different. Mm-hmm. In San Antonio the, the numbers would suggest is not very successful. It depends what your goal is. Mm-hmm. Our goal here is to actually get people into housing.

Chris Hanslik: Right. Sustainable housing. I think. Where the city of Houston’s trying to go with the Super Hub is a good start. Here’s the biggest problem. There’s, as far as I know, as we sit here today, there’s no funding for it. Problem. You can’t do anything without funding and that’s a huge problem. So hopefully those in the powers that be and the people that I’m working with, our staff at the coalition I know is trying.

Chris Hanslik: You know, to solve that problem. So you know, we’ll do better. We’ve been very successful ’cause we’ve worked together, city county. that’s part of why the coalition’s there and what we call the way homes been very successful, very proud of it. [00:35:00] But to continue to be successful, gotta continue working together and it takes funding and it’s gonna take not just government funding, but philanthropic type funding.

Chris Hanslik: Yeah. and what the, the, the terminology that’s used, I think makes sense is. We wanna make homeless, rare, brief, and non-reoccurring, right? People will still end up house homeless, but we should have a system that gets them into housing, right? And, and then figure out what service. Lift them up, figure out what services they need to help them maintain a job, you know?

Chris Hanslik: Deal with mental health or whatever, whatever they may be. Everyone has a different story, so that’s so nice to know that about you. Yeah. Well, thank you. So I’m very proud of the people that do the job. I, they get the credit. we have some great, great people in the city at all those agencies, you know, working in the right direction.

Chris Hanslik: So what a great story y’all have and, you know, been to the bakery before but never knew the true story. And it’s, it’s really inspiring and really cool. And I can tell that, I mean, the passion y’all have for it’s [00:36:00] obvious. So kudos to you. The question I have for Bobby is, what’s your favorite thing to make bakery pastry?

Chris Hanslik: What is it to make or eat? Make first? wow, that’s a, you could go by category, I guess. I mean, I used to be like, when I used to come to bakery. I had to eat it Claire, like every day. And that was either an e Claire or a chocolate rumble. were kind of my, my go-tos that we make. But I’ve always been a real chocolate, you know, chocolate person that I, chocolate and but I think on the baking side, you’re really more of a bread person.

Janice Jucker: What’d you say? I, I don’t think there’s one thing that I, that [00:37:00] I just like, oh, I gotta make this. Okay. you know, I think the bread pudding was probably my favorite thing to make. Mm-hmm. That was good. coming up with how to make the pump of apple, that was the pump of capital was, was was interesting.

Bobby Jucker: Had to come up with how to make, so are you still in the back baking? No, I, they don’t want me to even, okay. You’re answer the phone. Okay. Okay. They don’t even want me to like, whatcha going home? Whatcha doing here for Right? Two and a half hours. What, what, what’s going on? You know, just sit and talk to the guest so they don’t.

Bobby Jucker: They don’t want me to like interfere and answer the phone and Gotcha. Cause too much problems you have. Okay. Okay. Well this has been, again, such a great conversation. Really enjoy it. The last thing I ask my guests and I wanna know from y’all is, do you prefer Tex-Mex or Barbecue? Barbecue Tex-Mex. [00:38:00] Yeah. I love it.

Chris Hanslik: I was gonna guess. I was gonna guess. Y’all gonna answer different, so oh. Yeah. What do y’all like? Well, it’s funny, so I’ve, I’ve, I’ve guests have turned that back around on me. It’s a tough one, but I think you have to gauge it off. If I’ve been out of town, what do I crave when I get back? The answer would be Tex-Mex.

Chris Hanslik: But I do enjoy now that some places incorporate barbecue, so like a brisket, brisket, nachos, or brisket tacos. I think you get a little bit of both. There’s some places around town doing that. So. I’ll go with Tex-Mex. So you and I go at Tex-Mex, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and wait, I have another question. Okay.

Janice Jucker: What’s your, it doesn’t have to be ours. what’s your favorite baked good pastry, cake, pie, whatever. It’s gosh, that’s a good word. So. favorite baked good is, is a chocolate chip cookie count. Yeah, we have some, we brought y’all some too. Okay. I, I love a good chocolate chip cookie. We, I love pecan pie.[00:39:00]

Chris Hanslik: and we ship all over the country and, and I am, I, I, I’ll say this, I do like good bread. I just don’t eat a lot of it these days. So yeah, I get that. I didn’t eat bread for a while, but now I’m back. Okay. I’m back at it. And then maybe I’ll, maybe I’ll have a second Renaissance on bread. Have you ever, do you eat gingerbread then?

Chris Hanslik: Oh yeah. Yeah. Let’s try one. Alright. You need to drink the tape. I know that. Can you? My girls will love those too. I don’t know everyone. There we go. Can’t afford that nail. That’s right. All right, here we go. All he kind of ran. I’m gonna have a gingerbread cookie and we are going to close this out.

Chris Hanslik: Yeah. Janice Bobby, thank you for being on the building Texas business. And that’s it. Thank y’all.