Show: Insight Station: KNCO File: 9:17.mp3 Air date: 2026-09-17 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 98.6 MB to 12.3 MB --- transcript --- Welcome to KNCO Insight, Nevada County Action, KNCO's local issue talk show. This is your chance to gain insight into issues affecting Nevada County. Be a part of the show. Call with your questions or comments. The number, 477-5626, that's 477-KNCO. The opinions expressed are those of the hosts and callers and do not reflect the opinions of the advertisers, staff, or ownership of Nevada County Broadcasters. Now, here is your host, Tom Fitzsimmons. OK, NCN Newstime, just about 907, 56 degrees, yeah, nice Thursday morning underway, and yeah, nice, pleasant temperature, so if you've got to get some stuff done outside, yeah, take advantage of a little bit cooler temps, kind of warm up as you get towards the weekend. But no matter what you're doing, if it's weed eating, using power equipment outside and stuff, just really, just be cautious, OK, because any spark, even though it's cooler, a little emitted in the air, that does help things, but it's super dry out there, so just be cautious, all right? And yeah, welcome to KNCO's Insight, Jerry Serino in the house for his monthly visit. Good to see you here, Jerry. Thank you, good to be here. It's a beautiful day. Yeah, beautiful day, isn't it? A little cool over in Cedar Ridge this morning, by the way? It was this morning, yes, but the minute you drive five minutes, you're in the tropics again. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, isn't it? You just give it a few hours, the sun does its work, warms things up nicely, and you have Sarah Johnson with you, and now Sarah Johnson, our listeners got to know about because of Jerry Serino, because you did a Mill Street Minute with Warren Wild, her store. That's correct, that's where we met. We met several years ago, and I have trouble thinking of the exact time, probably- I think it was Christmas. Yeah, it was Christmas, but it was four or so years ago? 2022, maybe 23. Okay, so four years ago, and Donna enticed me to find this store. She says, everybody knows about this store. Yeah, downtown Grass Valley. So I walked in, and it was around Christmas, so you had that Christmas buzz going on, and the store was packed, and she was in a real reclusive location next to the Chamber of Commerce right across from the City Hall. I walked in, and I started talking to the women that were there. The women customers that were there? The women customers, yes, and thank you. All the women knew of Sarah before the store, and I couldn't put that together. Well, she's a good-looking young lady. No doubt about that, but she's also a very smart young lady, so she had an online presence. At that point, she told me, when I interviewed her, that she had 80,000 Instagram followers, and a year later, when I came back to see Sarah, she had 200,000 Instagram customers. What the heck? That's right, that's right, and I'd like to introduce Sarah Johnson. She's the owner of WarnWild, and let me add one thing here. At that original interview, she told me that because she is so overburdened with working out of her home, and all of the packaging that she was doing online, that she was thinking about moving to Placer County, and my heart dropped, and so at that time, I was conceptualizing the Hidden Grove Project, and she was a big influence in that. Her position was a big influence in that. So when she said she was thinking about moving to Placer County, it just really affected me. She is the type of person we need here. She has four lovely children, and one of her sons, by the way, is number 50 on the Bear River Football Varsity team, Jackson Johnson, on his shirt. Jackson Jackson? Yes, that's the guy. Hey. Hello, hello. Hello to you. He's a rowdy little kid, you know that? There might be a different Jackson. I'm not familiar with the action Jackson, but no. Is he number 50? I haven't heard that. Well, I said it the other night, yeah, for the first time, so I got to say that. Oh, okay. There we go. Yeah. But first off, thanks for coming in today. Yes, thank you for having me. It is kind of an interesting shop-worn wild, because anybody that has boys and girls, and you're raising them, and you're going shopping for them ... See, I had two girls. So just as it goes generically, you can go into pennies. It's a vast array of girls' stuff. Now I have a grandson for the first time, and you see very little out there for boys. Is that what you found years ago? That was our main focus and our goal when we first started. You can go to any big box store, and there's 30 racks for girls, and maybe three for boys, and it's usually covered in dinosaurs and fire trucks and all of this. Dinosaurs. All the Disney characters, which is great. Of course, you want to have a little bit of fun, but where's the good basics and the everyday stuff that they want to wear on repeat that are staples, the ones you want to invest in that. You don't have to have the matching socks with the matching shorts and the matching shirt to complete the outfit. I want to jump in here, and I want to alert all of the grandparents that are out there, because we remember quality of goods. We remember it wasn't such a problem to find quality apparel, and when I was at the store the first time, I bought a jacket for my granddaughter. A couple of years later, the younger grandchild came out with this beautiful jacket on, and it was a brownish tweed, real quality, and I said to his mom, Katie, where did you get that nice, that's a beautiful jacket? She says, well, you should know. You bought it two years ago, and so the point is, Sarah specializes in real quality goods that will last for child to child, and they're specially made. Go ahead, Sarah. Everything that comes into our shop has been tried and true by my children. I don't want to support anything that's not going to last, withstand the time. My younger boys, which were my motivation behind this store, they're five and six years old, so the hand-me-downs are on repeat. I wanted to invest in brands that were going to be able to go from child to child and throughout the family, and then to cousins, and quite literally, all of our hand-me-down goods go to their cousins after they've gone through both of my boys, and they've been in great, great shape. Wow. Well, that's very exciting stuff. Now, okay, you could have this idea, though, that it's tough to find clothes and then take it to a step to open up a business. How did that all develop? Well, we were in the thick of COVID, and I was homeschooling my older two boys. We have four boys, hence the boy boutique. Wow. Wait a minute. You have four boys? Four boys. You look this calm? Well. That's pretty amazing. All right. Rare morning, I suppose. And so COVID, they're at home. Wow. Homeschooling. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. And I was pregnant with my fourth, and my husband, he was traveling a lot for work because we were on the one income, and I was home with all the kids but myself. So I was getting ready to pull my hair out, hiding in the laundry room with the door closed some days, and I decided I needed to do something, create something that was going to be worthwhile for our family, teach our children the value of grit and determination, and to be able to make something for yourself, and create a business that nobody can take away from you. Yeah. Okay. And in the thick of COVID, people were losing their jobs left and right, and I decided to start online. And I started on social media, and posted a few things, and applied for some wholesale accounts for my favorite brands. And before I knew it, I had a website that I fully designed myself. You designed this website yourself? I've done everything myself. Was it called Worn Wild, the website, originally, too? Yes. Worn Wild. Everything's been Worn Wild from the beginning. We've redone our logos a couple times just with evolution. But yeah, so we started, it took about a month to start marketing itself, the brand, and mostly on Instagram, a little bit on Facebook. And we're now, after six years, we have almost half a million followers. Half a million followers. Right. Congrats on that. Between Facebook and Instagram. That's awesome. And we are doing quite a lot. We're sending out about 100, 150 packages per day, which is fantastic. I've just gone from one full-time employee to four full-time employees. Congratulations. Wow, that's huge, too. Yes. All scary, but worthwhile. Yeah. It's scary, yeah. And now, the reason why we were considering Placerville, or moving down the hill maybe to Roseville, was because the volume, we blew up so quickly, and the space that we were in on East Main was just too small for us. And I knew that if we went anywhere in the county other than Mill Street, it wasn't going to be lucrative for foot traffic. And there was no sense in really going to work every single day and taking myself away from the family if I couldn't have that work-life balance without the storefront providing a lucrative income. So we almost closed our doors and completely turned down the idea of a storefront until I heard that Mill Street had an opening. And I said, okay, I think this is our shot. I think this is our one chance. Wow, okay. So a year ago, if you would have asked me what direction I was going in, knowing my lease was expiring and knowing we were no longer fitting in that space, I was ready to move home and be with my kids and run the business, the online side, just from home with my family. Oh, that would be tough, though, too, right? Oh, yes. We did it. We ended up producing our own line of t-shirts and graphic tees just in May to kind of fund this move over to Mill Street. And I wanted to stay home with my family over the summer and not put my kids through childcare. So I brought the boys home. Everybody was home for summer. We juggled sports because football, you start in spring. Running the business from home, doing production of all the t-shirts out of my kitchen and my children running around. And let me tell you, I'm just so glad the school year started. It is teacher appreciation day. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And see, Tom, this is being done. This is being duplicated all over Nevada County. That's what I'm here to expose to your listeners, is that we just don't realize it. To be able to qualify in this accelerating world of pricing young people out of homes and the escalation of the price of everything, people have to get a side gig. And Sarah has turned her side gig into a real successful business. It's very, very difficult to do because they're under the cloak of illegalism. They're all illegal working out of their homes. We need to change that. These people, entrepreneurism is always ahead of the local government or the state government or the federal government, always. So the government needs to stand up. Our supervisors need to listen to this and they need to change the way the codes are written. We'll get a little bit further into that later, but this is a great example of what is going on in homes all over. I'm glad you kind of chimed in because I have to take a break. I get so into this, you know, in talking, I forget. Yeah. I take a break. We'll take our first one here as we have Sarah Johnson in the house from Warren Wild and continue her story when we come back. What if you could spend less time on chores and more time doing what you love? At Eschaton Village Grass Valley, that's everyday life. Nestled on 42 beautiful acres in the Sierra foothills, Eschaton Village Grass Valley is a nonprofit senior living community designed to help you live fully. And as a nonprofit, we reinvest every dollar into creating a vibrant, supportive community for our residents. 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Spend an evening with one of the defining voices of a generation. Paula Cole, October 6th at the Center for the Arts. Get your tickets now at thecenterforthearts.org. Don't worry about me. I'm here. KNC Newstime, 922 and 57 degrees. Sometimes KNC Insight, the show continues during the breaks. Again, there's a little thing that happens here, but as Jerry Serino knows, I'm very forthcoming with my listeners. Just what happens behind the scenes. I go from one show to another, and I never even got to meet Sarah, so I got to say hi to her in person. I go from three hours of news to our talk show and stuff, and so we were just talking about remarkable stuff that out of COVID. I love that part of the story, Sarah, that out of the stress of being a mom and COVID, the stress of raising children, the stress of meeting bills, and the love of your kids for that matter too. That's the other side of this, is that you want your family to be strong, you want to provide for them and all that stuff, and you want them to be beautifully clothed and stuff. Absolutely. That was like a big thing too, right? Yes. It was a little bit of everything. I wanted to teach my kids that you can really do whatever you want to do. You could be whoever you want to be. You can work as hard as you want to work or don't, and you can also set up a life that you want to work for yourself and not work for the man and not clock in and clock out every day. Let me tell you, I haven't missed any school events. I haven't missed a single weekend. We prioritize vacation. We're actually not opening up our new storefront because I have two weeks of vacation planned with my children, and it's when we should be opening, but I'm choosing not to because the vacations are more important. Equally, I wanted to create something for my family, something to raise them to be able to provide the life that we wanted. My whole life, I've worked. I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I was a hairstylist. I had my own hair salon. I dabbled in real estate a bit, and I was truly not in love with anything I was doing up until this. My husband and I had decided that I was going to take a couple of years off and just be a stay-at-home mom, and that's when COVID happened and the homeschooling. While I totally respect the moms that do do it, it was just not for me, and I knew I wanted more for my family, for myself, for my husband, and all of it, so that's where it came from. Within two years of fulfilling orders, I had hired my mom. I was hoping my mom was helping me package during the day. How was that dynamic, hiring your mom? Did it work out good? It was interesting. She's not local here, so she'd come up and stay a couple days and then go home and then come up a couple days again and then go home, so it was nice for both of us. We'd spend some time together. She'd spend some time with the grandkids and then help me package, and then we'd have our personal space back over the weekends, but it was good. She did that for a couple of years, but the drive got to be a lot. She's about an hour and a half away from here. You know, Tom, listening to this, this is the culture that I keep talking about. For decades and decades and decades, people have moved here, come here, made changes in their life for their family, and that is the culture that we have here. So even if Sarah comes from a different place originally, she has the values that makes Nevada County great. We are a family-oriented county. We get a little lopsided with the demographics after COVID, because a lot of people were able to move here and outprice our local families from housing, and COVID changed everything. COVID changed Sarah's life. I've said ever since COVID, COVID changed everything. They forced people, with the increase, like I said, in prices of everything, they forced people to change their lives all across the board. These are the type of people that we want here in Nevada County. These are the type of people that I would love to have as a neighbor, and this is the type of person. You know, when I mentioned my project to Sarah, just think about living upstairs and a workspace downstairs. I'm talking about the Hidden Grove Project. What did you tell me, Sarah? You said... That would have been life-changing. That's it. Wow. Yeah. Well, from my perspective, he came in several years ago and threw the idea at me, and it was something that I was thrilled about. Well, and I felt privileged, too, because I had just started this storefront, right, and we were growing very rapidly, and I knew that it wasn't going to be my final resting spot for the business. Yeah, because it was going to be too small if it kept growing the way it was. Right. But I wanted to get my feet wet, and that's exactly what we did there, but I was excited about that because I want to be with my children. I don't want someone else raising my children. I don't want to send them to daycare every day. I don't want them in after-school care until 5 o'clock every single day when they get out of school at 2. And in the younger years, I started this business when I was pregnant with my fourth from home, right? So he's now in kindergarten, and he's watched me scale this business his whole entire life, and if he could have been under my wing and if I could have help and he's on-site with me, that would have been the most preferred, to be honest. And this last summer, bringing the business home, working out of my kitchen, making sandwiches, cooking lunch, working with inventory and apparel, having to take all of my inventory out of the kitchen just to be able to make my kids lunch and then put it all back, there was no separation of work and home. Yeah, that's very tough. And that was the most challenging part for me because I've had this workspace, and then we were busting at the seams. I wanted to be home with my children. I had to choose. I had to either choose that chaos or insanity or send my kids to daycare for the summer and pick set hours and pick a set schedule. I didn't have control over how I wanted to spend my summer with my kids. So I chose to live through the chaos and work through home and work in my kitchen. And while I am thankful that they did go back to school and we are moving into our new location, I have a lot more peace of mind, but I would have loved and would have thrived to have an opportunity to work in a situation with this hidden groove. Yes. Yeah. It's, you know, I just, I don't know why the entire world can't see this. I, yeah, I think they're kind of hung up on this light industrial term. Right. Am I right on that? And that's true. That's true. That's scared. That's scared everyone. And unfortunately, that's the fault of our county. Our county needs to have different categories to facilitate the contemporary businesses that are today because Sarah makes no noise. She doesn't have toxic chemicals. She doesn't have a great deal of traffic. She doesn't have, you know, it's, it's, it's a soft business. And six of the, of the, of the top businesses that young people wish to go into are similar types of businesses. They don't, it's not light industrial, but to fall into the land use, uh, vernacular, if you will, terminology is, is light industrial. That's all they have because past supervisors have not taken the, taken the hard work and sat down and contemporized these codes. That's the problem. And it leaves it vulnerable and to be with, to have a family, to be with your children and run your business, you're not only saving the, the enormous amount of money of daycare, but you're culturizing your children into the business culture. That's absolutely essential. Yeah, it really is. These are the type of children that she wants to raise hardworking, um, stick to it kids. Nothing does better than watching mom and dad work. You know, and, and, and there's something even, even more special. Those boys are getting a view of a strong woman that is working hard. You know what I mean? So that's a great thing too. And my husband, my husband, uh, he, he's an elevator mechanic and he's, he's pretty high up in his company and he travels all over. Today he's in Reno. Yesterday he was in Sacramento. Last week he was in Oakland. So he's all over the place and he'll work 40, 50, 60 hour weeks and then he's coming home. He's picking up the kids from school and bringing them to our new spot. And I have pictures this whole last week, he's drilling holes in our walls, putting up shelves. And I mean, the both of us are constantly moving until 8 PM at night from the moment our feet hit the ground in the morning until the moment they're in bed at 8, 8 30 at night, you know, we don't stop moving and the kids get to see that. We're not, we're very, very, very strong and, and confident that we want the kids to see us work as hard as we can. And tell me residents of Cedar Ridge that you wouldn't want this family as a neighbor. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's all American type of family. Absolutely. And I imagine, Sarah, and I'm just assuming this, that once you're a young entrepreneur, you get to meet other young entrepreneurs just by doing business, right? So it's not totally unique what you're trying to do. Yes. We'll see. And that's a beautiful point. Actually. There's so many like me. There are so many like me and the brands that we choose that we bring into our store are all mom and pop brands that have started moms in their kitchens, designing clothes, designing clothes. Wow. Isn't that cool? That's very important. There's not one brand that we carry that is a big box, huge brand. It's all small businesses that we support. And so we're, we're all this small community working together. I mean, some of my favorite brands, they've just scaled their businesses over the last couple of years and gone from a $500,000 business to a $7 million business annually. And they just got their first warehouse, which we're, we're not interested in a warehouse. We do small in-house shipping, but, but these brands that are creating the clothes, I don't create my own clothes. I'm just a boutique. I'm a supplier, a retail location. However, the brands that are facilitating and creating their clothing, I mean, they're growing on a scale and they started just like I did in my kitchen, you know, and that's just so great. See, Tom, we've never seen a renaissance of ambition like this from young people. Well, it's a totally different world. COVID changed everything and it is a different world. Well, I was just thinking about the people in, in the government positions do zoning, do labeling, do whatever they do, right? I don't know if they're a bunch of old guys, you know, that are in those positions. They very well could be. So their mind's not even kind of equipped to know what business is now. That's what I'm here for. It's evolved. Right. That's what I'm trying to do is expose these young people. They're just phenomenal. They're absolutely phenomenal. And they are the future of Nevada County. Well, they're, they're making it go. I mean, when you hear about somebody that's, you know, a mom that's on her kitchen table designing clothes up to like, you know, $7 million sales, sending out, distributing stuff and stuff to places like Sour's, that's, that's big time stuff. And that's what the ERC talks about all the time. Am I right on that too? Correct. You know, as far as having a great businesses and being a place to be, we already know it's a great place to live. Anyway, we have to take a news break here. So let's get a news break in. Weather forecast. We'll be right back. Good morning. I'm Paul Haas with the KNCO Local News Update. Recreation mitigation funding for a fourth project, which had been delayed, has now been approved for Grass Valley by Nevada County supervisors. It's nearly $76,000 for the town to create a skate spot. It's also known as the Centerville Bike Park Skate Park Addition Project. It's on a three acre parcel at Idaho, Maryland and Centerville Roads. The county's recreation program manager, Shavati Karki Pearl, outlined some of the details to the board at its Tuesday meeting. The county began collecting recreation mitigation fees in 1998 to support park and recreation capital projects that enhance leisure opportunities and improve community amenities. It provides big enough friendly and geographically accessible wheeled sports options. It builds on existing city investments in restrooms, parking, park infrastructure. It's part of the recreation plan, as well as these dollars are merely being leveraged for a plan that's already in action. There will also be matching money from the city. And what's described as essential information for new and renewal FireWise community applications will be available at two upcoming workshops being hosted by the Wildfire Ready Coalition of Nevada County. Joanne Fites-Kaufman is the group's president and is also a National Fire Protection Association FireWise USA regional coordinator. She says renewal applications for existing FireWise communities are due on November 20th, but she says getting them ready and submitting by October or early November is recommended by CAL FIRE. She says CAL FIRE and the association usually have changes in applications and requirements every year. So if you haven't done one in a while, you may need some help with that. Every five years you have to update your assessment and every three years your action plan. She says these workshops will also cover the new mapping system, which hasn't been changed in a long time. Workshop features include how to write a new application or update an old one and it's hands-on, so bring your laptop. Fites-Kaufman estimates that the county now has around 130 FireWise communities. The workshops will be held this Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. and then on Tuesday, September 29th from 5 to 8 p.m. in the Gene Auba room at the Madeline Helling Library. Join us for our next local news update at the bottom of the hour. For news, traffic and weather anytime, visit knco.com. Hi, this is Jerry Serino. Thank you for voting Serino's at Main Street the best of more times than any business in Nevada County. If you can't join us for lunch or dinner today, stay tuned to On the Town and we'll keep you informed of the great changes taking place at Serino's award-winning restaurant. Remember, Thursdays, lunchtime, KNCO, Serino's at Main Street in Grass Valley. African-Americans are the most likely to die from colorectal cancer, so please get screened starting at age 45. Now, Medicare and insurance companies are required to cover not only colonoscopy, but also less invasive exams like virtual colonoscopy. Talk to your doctor about your options. For more information on virtual colonoscopy, visit radiologyinfo.org slash virtualct brought to you by the American College of Radiology and the Radiology Health Equity Coalition. This is from the KNCO B&C ACE Home and Garden Center Weather Center. ACE is the place. Here is your forecast on KNCO News Talk 830. Sunny with today's high in the upper 60s and a light south wind. It'll be clear overnight, low in the upper 40s near 50. Sunny and much warmer on Friday with a high in the upper 70s. Friday night's low in the mid to upper 50s and then warmer on Saturday with a high in the low 80s. For weather anytime, click on the Weather Center at knco.com. I'm meteorologist Ann Holliday on KNCO News Talk 830. I'd be here on time, KNCO News Time, 938, 58 degrees. Welcome back to KNCO Insight. As Jerry Serino's in the house for his monthly visit and with her, with him is Sarah Johnson. Sarah Johnson, the owner of Warn Wild. If you remember Warn Wild from our Mill Street Minutes that Jerry did a while ago, Jerry bought a jacket for a grandkid and of course, just like most of us guys, we don't really pay attention. Thank you, Sarah. And so I saw it on another grandkid and said, boy, that's a fabulous, what great taste you have. Right. And it was your taste after all, but it was actually Sarah's taste to begin with to get something of high quality, like you said, and something that looks nice. But it looked brand new. It looked brand new. And these are some rough kids living out there in Penn Valley. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And, well, you got Bruin family here. They're a bunch of wild kids. That's the Warn Wild part. It's the wild of the Warn Wild. Poor boys. Wild. As wild as it gets. Yeah, it is. It is. Well, Jerry, how many kids in your family, Jerry, growing up? There was nine. Oh, boy. Yeah, nine kids in my family. Yeah. Oof. Yeah. So, yeah, we understand wear and tear. Oh, yeah. Wear and tear. Oh, yeah. And even hand-me-downs and all that stuff. It happens. It happens. It happens. But we try to get the highest quality of things so that that doesn't. And you can pass them down from child to child. And we should tell... So, your storefront is closed on... East Main, yes. East Main. We closed last month. And we are taking our time to reopen the new spot. We've done a ton of renovations, really upgraded the building. And we're scaling our product line. So before, we really... Our dynamic was, like, zero to five for boys. At the new spot, we're going really heavy on the newborn collection. We're doing a lot of gender neutral so that everyday shopper down on Mill can come in and get any kind of baby gift they need, whether it's a girl or a boy. Nice. Okay. And we're going all the way up to the age of 18, which I'm really excited about. Wow. All right. Well, that's cool. So, yeah, we're capturing a lot more, hopefully, capturing a lot more of our customers' needs. And like I said, grandparents, this is the place to shop. I mean, you can't... It's so hard to find quality stuff in anything. It's hard to find just good-looking stuff. I don't know how else to put it, because like you said, you could always go and get the dinosaurs, because my grandkids, eight months old, great example, right? And it's all those type of things. But your point on, Jerry, is that you can go into a Target up... They're up in Portland, so Fred Meyer, whatever. This isn't put down in any store, by the way. But you could tell, a little thinner fabric and all that stuff, you go, okay, you know. Yeah, definitely. A lot of the stuff that you can find in the stores won't stand up to time and several kids. Yeah, exactly. So if you're... Yes. Okay. Maybe a jacket costs $35. However, that jacket can be used for several years through several children, several cousins. My best friend, she gets all of our totes of clothes, and she says some of these things don't even look like they've been worn. Yeah, exactly. And I'm excited to offer a lot more for our customer base. And for the grandparents, too, we get a lot of grandparents coming in that really don't know what to get. So our staff is really great on selecting outfits, helping them put things together. We have beautiful gift bags, we have beautiful cards, so you can come in, one-stop shop, get everything that you need, and have a gift ready to go and give. You don't have to package it, and we even ship for you. So if you're buying for a grandparent or grandkids that are in Southern California or out of state, we can ship the gift for you as well. And are you the purchasing agent? I am. That's my favorite part. Yeah. So that's your favorite part? Because I was just thinking, it's a lot just to do the clothes. When you're talking about all the accessories then and stuff, too, that's a lot of stuff. Oh, yes. So that's part of our business, too, is the retail side of it, we accept all these packages, we put together our customers' orders, and then we send them out. The fulfillment is just a very small sliver of what I do. I mean, I do our website design, I do our marketing, I do our store displays, I do all of our purchasing, staffing, I manage everything, I help with order fulfillment, I mean, I'm even our house cleaner. So there's really no end to what we do, but the purchasing is by far my favorite part. But none of this, none of those activities create, would create, if your store was in a neighborhood, it would not create a problem for the neighbors. Not at all. No issues. We're very quiet. I mean, maybe you'd hear our music that we have playing in the background, but the extent of our business is receiving packages and sending out the packages. And I personally don't like to inconvenience our routes, because I know that our FedEx and our UPS drivers, USPS, their trucks are already packed, right, because it's so rural out here. Absolutely. So I personally drive to the post office to drop them off every single day. It's a very rare occasion that we have pickups. So there's not even trucks going in and out. I mean, obviously, I know that that's unique to our business, but it's very quiet. Absolutely. Absolutely. And think about it as an economic unit. Think about that type, this type of business that you created from nothing as an economic unit. All you do is bring money into the county. And that is enormous when you think about it. Your business is a magnet for bringing dollars into this county and spending those dollars into this county that rotate many, many times. You have four employees, you said? Four employees. That's phenomenal. It is phenomenal. No doubt about it. That's very impressive. So you have a lot of full-time employees. Has the community embraced you? And by that, excited to see you get to that storefront? For the most part, yes. A lot of the people on Mill Street, because we were kind of in a weird location before, it was really just to kind of get my toes wet and learn. I've never ran a retail store before, so I had no idea what I was doing. That's a very gutsy thing to do, Sarah. Well, you know, it's all or nothing, right? Yeah, I guess so. So I wanted to get my toes wet. And with the experience I learned, I hired a couple of employees, had some great experiences, had some not so hot ones. We decided to move to Mill. And I think over the years, a lot of the businesses on Mill Street have gotten to know that we are heavy hitters in the social media world. I mean, our ad spend for Facebook is $1,000 a day. So the volume that that brings, the people will travel from Tahoe and Reno, from Sacramento, and they say, we take the long route just to stop at your store. Really? Oh, yes. And that's a common, common, on Fridays and Sundays. Some of our only shoppers are people who are traveling in, at the old location, of course. So I'm excited. I told you the first, I'm going to interrupt you here, because this is too important to pass. Yeah, I'm trying to wrap my head around this. This is not a tourist shop. This is a clothing store that people need. These aren't candles and ceramics. These are items that people need. Sarah is bringing people to Nevada County for one specific purpose, to shop at her store. And when they're here, they're going to look at other stores, and they're going to spend money, and then they're going to leave. And those people do not need to be police. They don't need the fire department. They don't cost us anything as a community. This is a huge renaissance. And it is very complimentary to know they're going past a lot of storefronts. That's what I'm just wrapping my head around, going, you know, they're coming that distance. They're going through a lot of places. Yes, I was just talking to my employee about this yesterday, and she said that she normally gives people directions. Okay, where do we go? We've never been here before. And she'll say, oh, you know, go try Serino's, or go to the, you have to go to the Chocolateria, and then go over to the Mercantile. She says, do you know where Mill Street is? And these people have no idea where Mill Street is, and it's so bizarre, because we assume locals here, everyone knows. But these people coming in don't even realize that we have this cute little pedestrian shopping area where they can shop it up and spend their whole entire afternoon. And I love that we're going to be able to offer them that now. We don't even have to give them directions, we're just going to be right in the middle of it. That is very awesome. And you want to know another thing that's really cool is when I walked down to see Sarah, I was amazed at what they've done to the building. The building is right next to the old Union Building, which is cake is in there now. And just one door down from Foothill Mercantile. And so here's Sarah opening up a different brand type of business as far as its structure. One door down from Foothill Mercantile that's celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. Absolutely. Several doors down from the bookseller that's celebrating their 50th anniversary. That is so cool. And Brewers is back in the house, you know what I mean? So it's like great names down there and stuff. Yeah, there's longevity on Mill Street, and then there's the excitement of entrepreneurism and this new marketing scheme. You said you were kind of embraced well. Was there some things that didn't go well? Well, I've gotten a little pushback from both customers and others in the area. I don't want to get into the specifics on that, but I think that they're worried that we're losing our old town charm. And it's been some of the people who haven't really supported the changes on Mill Street. Personally, I think it's been fantastic. I know a lot of the businesses are thriving from it. And it's feeding back into our city, it's feeding back into our county. And I personally think it's great, and I couldn't imagine a better spot to be for the retail side of things. Well, and I have to admit, your shop is like the old-time charm. Am I missing something there? No, you're not. You're not at all. Because it's a clothing store. Correct. Correct. You're absolutely correct. But there's always going to be people that can't take change. And the perceived lack of parking on Mill Street, it is a change. But it's an evolutional change, because young people are walking the streets, old people are walking the streets in the morning. It's wonderful to go down and just get a cup of coffee. Yeah. Oh, goodness. We were there Tuesday night, just installing the shelves, and we were there until 8 o'clock at night. And I had the door open, I had the music on, and I was welcoming people in. Come take a peek. I mean, it was busy. And usually on Tuesdays, everything's quiet on Mill Street. And I was surprised. And we're going to try to change things a little bit. We're going to try to stay open seven days a week and hopefully urge the other businesses in the area to expand their hours a bit. But there's a lot of people down there at all times of the day, every day. Yeah. And for those people, I'm totally honest about this, I was not too excited about it when it first happened, because I always loved, this sounds kind of crazy, I always loved driving through the town, because I love the town so much. And so especially if I was out of town on a vacation, even if I came back one in the morning, say from a Hawaiian vacation, when I used to take those, my wife was around, we would drive down Mill Street just to look at the town. Just go, what a great place to be back in. And that was kind of gone away. Once they put it in, it looks fabulous. It's absolutely one of the best things I've seen. So that's been great, no doubt. Right. And it is not a tourist trap at all. Not at all. Those stores have phenomenal goods. And I'm going to be, once we get past this, the Hidden Grove project, I'm going to be back on the street, exemplifying that and focusing on that, because there's just so many goods. And we're getting ready for the Christmas season. Christmas season. I'm going to be right in the midst of that. Oh, I'm going to be a regular there, because I have this grandson. So you're going to be like my go-to person, because I need somebody to help. I'll even wrap it up for you. It is great to know somebody that has the whole, can do all the shopping almost for me. I know it's going to be good stuff. And not only can they wrap it up for you, they can ship it for you. Now we're talking. Yeah. Now we're talking right up there to Portland. Time for a break. Yeah. We're down the home stretch here. Okay. See you inside. So a quick break. What if the care team you trust today could be there for every step tomorrow? At Partners in Care, that's exactly what you get. We provide compassionate in-home care to help with daily needs like meals, transportation, lighthouse keeping, and personal care, along with the companionship that means so much. And if your needs change, you don't have to start over. If hospice care becomes necessary, you already know your caregiving team, and we can add the support of skilled medical professionals such as nurses, social workers, and spiritual care at no additional cost. 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Yeah, she's totally great, and really got into the atmosphere and stuff. For people out there, it's nothing like Friday Night Lights. It really is. It's the best. It is the best, isn't it? It's always wonderful to see the moms and your wife find out about it, because it is just an eye-opening experience. That's why I do it. I've been doing it for 31 years, so yeah, excited about Friday Night Lights. Nothing better than those local flavors of our life here. That's what grounds our kids, and when they do have to leave for school and what other activities, careers and whatnot, they never forget that, and they seek that, and they come back home. That's the foundation that Sarah is building with her boys, with her business. What we have to do is make sure that the Sarah Johnsons of the world, because there's other ones, as you mentioned, Sarah, there's other ones just like you. They need to be embraced. They have to be embraced and nurtured, and know this is a welcoming atmosphere for their businesses. Correct, and we start with public relations like this, allowing people to come in and tell their stories, so that your listeners can hear, as well as, most importantly, speak to your supervisors, speak to the people in the county government, because they want to do what's right. The county government people want to do what's right. It's very difficult working through those archaic, cumbersome situations to change codes, to change wordings, to where the nomenclatures apply to contemporary times, but we've got to make that happen. Sarah was just saying that she's very concerned about some of the businesses not having the retention of some of the businesses, because they don't have children to pass them on to. They don't have people stepping in. I know Gil Matthews speaks about that on ERC all the time, and it is a problem here in the county, but we need to make it easier for entrepreneurs to step into these businesses, and we need to really lead on a government basis, rather than follow. Sarah is leading. She's way ahead of our government, and so are the other people, so many other people that are working in their homes. We're going to make it easy. Lisa Swarthout, Supervisor Swarthout, has promised that we're going to get a business license for home businesses. That will help them get loans. That will help them get grants, and we need to just make it easier for them, code-wise. Right, Sarah? Absolutely. Absolutely. Will it happen in our lifetime? Maybe her lifetime, but our lifetime, you and me. You know what? I'm wondering about that. Things move at a snail's pace. That's what's tough about it. I know that, but we've got to set the... You know, if I don't do this, I would be like the answer that I got from a government official. Well, it takes so long to, quote, unquote, to take so long to change these codes, I don't know. Jesus. Businesses like this didn't exist then. Right. Yes. We started this all online. Amazon didn't exist like this. All Shopify, websites, online shopping, everything needs to pivot, and that's what I would like people to understand as well. And they need to pivot quickly, because this is a dynamic world we live in, where things change rather rapidly. Entrepreneurism goes where it is treated the best. Investment goes where it isn't treated the best. That's why Texas and Florida are doing so well, and we can be different here in Nevada County. We live in California, a very tough place, very, very hard business state, but we don't have to follow suit in the county. We do have responsibilities, and we do have control. Your husband. What's his name? Grant. Grant Johnson. Grant. He must be very proud of you. He is. Does he talk about that a lot? He doesn't talk much. Yeah. I married a very quiet man. Yeah. I think I do all the talking for us, but he is. He is proud of me, and he's my biggest supporter. I don't tell a lot of people this, but I actually started the business on a dream, sitting in our backyard with a glass of wine, and I said, I want to do this, and he looked at me like I was nuts. I mean, he said, who's going to shop at a boy's boutique? This is crazy. You know what? And I would be worried with him. Yeah. To tell you the truth, Sarah. And he said, but I love you, and I trust you, and here's a credit card with $5,000. Do it. All right. You lost me there. Okay. Yeah. And that's how this all started. He gave me his credit card, and he said, run with it. That's so cool. And here we are. That's it. Yeah. You know, it's based in love, and it's based in work ethic. That's pretty phenomenal that you have, Sarah, in particular, but both you guys do. Yes. You know, raising your family, and being successful, and going to be successful in downtown Grass Valley on Mill Street. So excited to see Warren Wilde down there. Thank you. Yeah. And when's your opening date? To be determined. We're hoping November. Okay. But I'm going on vacation, and I don't want to stress myself out, so we're still taking it. Don't stress yourself out. It's chaos. Just relax. We'll be announcing it. All right. We'll be supporting her. And I'm proud to know her. Yeah. No doubt. I'm proud to have her as a citizen here in Nevada County. Great to have you here, and it was great getting to know you first with Mill Street Minute, and even better knowing you today. Thank you for having me. Yeah. My pleasure. And I'll see you at the football games, by the way. Wonderful. Yes. We'll be down there in East Nicholas tomorrow night. All right, Jerry. Great job today. Thank you, sir. All the best to you. I'll see you on the town. Yes. All right. --- end of transcript ---