Brian: 0:11

All right, well, welcome back to the Vero Beach podcast. I was gonna say interview again. Like you're in here for a job. No, this is our part two.

Shawna: 0:18

It is an interview. Yeah.

Brian: 0:20

Got the job. So I'm hired. You're hired. But we're sitting here with chef Melisa, which I had to say it once. She just really wants it. I'm just gonna call you from Melisa from now on. But we're here with Melisa from the Treasure Coast Culinary Tours. And I'm excited to learn more about what does it look like running this business? Like what does it look like for you day-to-day?

Melisa: 0:43

So not every day that I have to focus on it. Um, it's pretty much seasonal, like a lot of the things around here. Like during season, it's pretty busy. Yeah. The summer, pretty slow. So what does it look like?

Brian: 0:59

I don't know anything about cooking. So I I'm just I stay away from it. So, what are all some of the processes that you have to prepare to prepare for these tours or these cooking classes, stuff like that?

Melisa: 1:11

So when somebody buys a ticket for a tour, I contact all the restaurants and let them know when we're coming and how many people we're gonna have. I order mostly all the restaurants, I pre-order what we're gonna have and then let them choose like the bear of wine that they want. But there's some places that they get to choose. So it just depends on the tour and where where we go. Okay. So I just have everything organized. So the tour is all set, everybody knows we're coming, they're all, you know, eager to welcome us.

Shawna: 1:45

I bet I can ask a couple questions because I haven't looked at the website yet. So I'm like completely new to the um even concept. Oh. So when you do a tour, is it usually multiple restaurants?

Melisa: 1:57

Yeah. Okay. So let me break down what a tour looks like. You buy a ticket for a tour, the day before a tour, you get an email, you get a text that tells you where we're gonna meet, what time, all where to park, all that good stuff. So we meet at the first location. We have a little bit of sampling of their food, and some of the places include alcohol. Then we take a little walk and we go to the next place, and we do that about five times in the two or three hour tour. So you get to taste like the highlight of the restaurant, some something of their specialty. And because I have a really good palate, I will go and sample all their foods and pick out the best one that I think. Oh my gosh. And it's always worked out good because everybody likes goes crazy for the things that I choose from the restaurant. Oh, that's right. A lot of them are things they've never had before and would never order. I like to pick things that are different that, you know, something different the restaurant has, not like lasagna. Like you can have that anytime, you know? Yeah. So if I have the option to choose something special on the menu, I do. And people appreciate that, you know. They're like, oh my God, I would have never ordered this and I'm gonna come back and get it next time.

Shawna: 3:12

So are the tours themed in some way, or is it just the places that are like close together that you love?

Melisa: 3:18

How do you do that? Yeah, it's mostly by location. So I have tours in Stewart, Fort Pierce. I have two in Vera, I have one downtown and one on the island. Oh, nice. And I have a tour in Sebastian as well.

Brian: 3:31

Okay, wow. So, how many tours would you say you have, like on average?

Melisa: 3:36

I think I have about eight in total. Okay. Um, I have a few different, I have a ghost tour with Larry from Indian River Haunting.

Brian: 3:46

Yeah, we just heard about Larry's.

Melisa: 3:47

No, we just heard about Larry. Um secret garden, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Brian: 3:51

How are the the food tours? How are they different?

Melisa: 3:54

Well, the city's different. Um, so I kind of customize the tours depending on who's with me. So I can give you a lot of history about the treasure coast. Um, if you want that, you know. Some people love it, some people they just want to party and have fun, you know? Yeah.

Brian: 4:14

So, okay, so you gauge it by what kind of experience people are looking for. How many people are are able to come to like to how many? I guess there has to be like a limited amount of people, probably, for like a to do a food tour, or so I my minimum is four for the general tour.

Melisa: 4:29

You can play an upgrade for a private tour, and it could be one or two people.

Brian: 4:34

Okay.

Melisa: 4:34

Um, I get those a lot. Those couples that want to just do their own tour. But my minimum is four for the group tour, and I have no maximum. I have done tours of 40, 50, 60 people. Oh yeah. If the group gets really big, um, I have a few tour guides, so I'll I'll split them up.

Brian: 4:53

Who is this for?

Shawna: 4:54

Like what yeah, like who's your ideal customer?

Brian: 4:57

Yeah, ideal customer, like uh, because this might be like a cool thing to think about for like certain birthday parties, anniversaries.

Melisa: 5:06

I have a lot of women celebrating life together, just girlfriends going out. Yeah.

Brian: 5:12

So I guess you can really fit it into anything.

Melisa: 5:14

Like you talked about like a food, probably when you have family in town and you're like, what are we gonna do while they're here? Um, my tours are in the in during the day, like in the mid-afternoon. They start around 1:30 or 2, depending on the city. Smart. Um, so it's all afternoon. So you don't have to worry about lunch, you don't have to worry about dinner. Oh, wow. So it's a great thing to do when you have company, you know, and you just want to take up an afternoon and not have to worry about paying the bills, tipping all that stuff, ordering, like it's just like you don't have to think. You can just drink and eat for three hours and just enjoy yourself. Okay.

Shawna: 5:54

So have any dishes or stops made an especially big impression on your guests that surprised you? You don't have to tell us what the exact stops were, but have you ever kind of added something like on a whim or whatever? And then it was like a really big hit for people.

Melisa: 6:50

Yeah, there is one place I go to in downtown Vero that is a big hit with everybody because nobody would go to this restaurant and order this dish. I love it. And everybody goes crazy over it. But I'm not gonna tell you where or what it is.

Brian: 7:07

Oh my gosh, it's killing me. You have to book the downtown Vero tour.

Melisa: 7:11

The downtown Vero tour, yes.

Brian: 7:13

Can you give us any hints at all? Like any like, or maybe even tell us about the dish.

Melisa: 7:17

Just tell us the cheese in it, there's fruit in it, there's dairy in it, there's pasta in it.

Brian: 7:25

Wow. Well, I'm interested. Like, if any of the listeners like if you guys have if the listeners have guesses, please text them to us. You can use that in the show notes. You can click that text us a message, send us your ideas where you think it might be.

Shawna: 7:36

Yeah, I love that. Or what dish you might think you could put those things together. Yeah, the fruit, that's a big yeah.

Brian: 7:44

And you can also message it to us on Instagram at myburobeeach.com. Just spell it out.

Shawna: 7:49

Please do.

Brian: 7:49

All right, so let's step into the your your cooking classes. Uh I'm really excited to be able to experience this tonight here, though, especially since there's no cooking involved. Yeah, uh, I'm excited to join the it's a sushi class. So uh tell us a little bit about what the classes are like.

Melisa: 8:07

So honestly, like this is a very rare thing that you guys are experiencing because I usually hire chefs to do cooking classes. Um, but they Michelle and Joe asked me to do a cooking class here for their for their house party. And I was, you know, I was trying to think, I don't like to cook and teach. When I cook, I kind of get in a zone. It's like a meditation for me. Same for me. I don't like to like I don't like to talk while I'm cooking, I just like to do it, right? So I was like, oh, I don't know, guys, because I don't really like to cook and talk. But then I thought of I've been making sushi since I was 20 years old. And I was like, oh, not many people have actually made sushi or even thought about it, but it's so easy to do. So I was like, that would be super fun to teach people how to make their own sushi. Yeah, right.

Brian: 9:02

We're really excited about that too, because we love sushi. We love sushi. Yeah, it's so easy.

Melisa: 9:06

It takes no cooking skills, like anybody can do it. Yeah, right. You just get the ingredients, and if you have a rice cooker, you're you're all set.

Shawna: 9:15

And we've even bought ourselves a sushi making kit before, and we still haven't done it.

Brian: 9:21

I think we lost it. I don't even know where it is. I haven't.

Melisa: 9:23

Well, now once you do it and you actually see, like, oh my gosh, this is easy. I could do this all the time. Yeah, yeah, it's cool.

Shawna: 9:31

Which is very exciting. Yeah. Because it gets expensive if you want to go out for sushi lot. Very expensive. So it's nice to have that in your pocket, you know. Yeah, and you can make anything you want.

Brian: 9:42

So you don't enjoy the teaching part, right? Because you like to be in your zone and meditate. Like, who are some of the people you work with? Like you said, you have other chefs and stuff that you bring in to help.

Melisa: 9:52

Yeah, I'm I'm actually in the market for a new chef. Okay. Um, the chefs around here are very busy.

Brian: 9:58

Yeah.

Melisa: 9:59

Oh, yeah. Maybe you'll find it through this here.

Brian: 10:01

What's the best way they can reach out to you? Because they might be listening. I'm like, hey, well, how do I call it?

Melisa: 10:05

Yeah, look at my website. I have a phone number on there. You can text me, call me, send me an email. All right.

Brian: 10:11

And what's your website address?

Melisa: 10:12

Treasure Coast Callin Everetours.com.

Brian: 10:14

There you go. Well, this has been an exciting episode. So I'm I'm looking forward to getting to part three where we're going to talk about Vero and Treasure Coast. Uh, I got some questions lined up for you on that. So hopefully you'll give me some insights into things. But as we get ready to wrap up this episode, Melisa, which do you tend to do more? More the tours, more the classes? Tours.

Melisa: 10:33

Yeah, my tours are big head.

Brian: 10:34

For those that have never been on a tour, have never even considered or thought about what is a food tour, what would you suggest they give a try the first time?

Melisa: 10:44

What do you mean?

Brian: 10:45

Like if they're starting a good place to start. Yeah. If they're thinking, like, do I want to do a food tour? I don't know. Like, what if they're picky?

Melisa: 10:51

What if they're picky eaters? Everybody needs to do a food tour. I mean, it is the best way to get to know a city. I think anywhere you travel, like, first thing you should do is a food tour because the tour guides know all the hot spots in the city. They know the history, they know everything about it. So you're not just eating, but you're getting to know the area.

Brian: 11:13

That's I think that's something that I kind of miss. Like, like, what all like when you do the tour, it's not about just like, okay, this is where you guys are, this is where we're gonna go, and then they just go and eat. There's so much more involved in, like you said, sharing the history and stuff like that. That's the things that you do.

Shawna: 11:28

I love the idea of starting first wherever you live. So if someone's listening and they live in Vero, start with a Vero. If someone's listening and they live in Stuart, then start with Stuart. Because isn't it true that we get like kind of caught up in our ruts and we go to the same places? We do. So I'm super excited about it because I know there's places in Vero we haven't experienced yet. But then after that, I want to branch out.

Brian: 11:54

This has been great. I'm excited to get into the next episode where we're gonna talk about Vero Beach, Treasure Coast, learn more about the community, what you love about this area, and also the future, like what your vision is for the future. So if you guys have enjoyed this episode, make sure you click subscribe and leave us a review. And don't forget, send us some of your guests on some of these secrets that he means guesses. Guesses that Melisa is sharing with us. Make sure you send them to your ideas to us on our Instagram at myvirrowbeach.com.

Shawna: 12:23

And with that, later, neighbor.