Ep. 170: The EVEREVE Story with Megan and Mike Tamte

[00:00:00] Mall of America, it's home to world-class shopping, great dining, and amazing attractions and events. And these are our stories presented by Bloomington, Minnesota Travel and Tourism. Hello, Mall of America fans. Welcome to So Much More. I am Jill Renslow, your host for today's show, joined by Keri Charleston, who's our leasing lead. So thank you, Keri, for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Well, we are joined by Megan and Mike Tamte. We are the co-founders and co-CEOs of EVEREVE,

[00:00:27] from building a national-recognized fashion brand to creating a company centered around empowering women. Megan and Mike have a unique perspective on entrepreneurship, leadership, retail, and customer connection. We'll talk about the journey behind EVEREVE and how the retail landscape continues to evolve and what's next for the brand. So Megan and Mike, welcome to So Much More. Thank you. Glad to be here. We're so happy to be here. We love MOA. Well, we love you guys. I love this place. I walked in today and I said to Mike, I love it

[00:00:56] here. It just feels so elevated and so fresh and modern. It just feels really good. So thank you for having us. Oh, we love hearing that. Yeah, it does. We are big fans of your brand. You guys have believed in us here. You had a store outside of Nordstrom for many years and you've recently opened your newly remodeled space on North Level One. It's gorgeous. And Keri and I frequent it often. We do. So we love it. The dangers of our office in here. During your lunch break. That's lovely.

[00:01:24] Oh, during lunch, after work, on the weekends. So it is great. So we would love for you guys to dial back time and talk about the beginning of EVEREVE, how it got started, what was the spark, the energy behind it, and let's just hear the story. Yeah. Do you want me to start? You start, Megan. Yeah. It all started. I was a young mom, busy, juggling family, work, doing it all, and was looking for a place that would help me move forward in my fashion. I was feeling

[00:01:51] stuck in life and stuck in my fashion at that time, a little overwhelmed. And so I went shopping at a favorite department store, which I'm not going to name names, and ended up, instead of finding what I was looking for that day, I ended up crying in a dressing room. I was looking for fashion that was modern, wearable, versatile, that just had a little bit of edge to make me feel less like a mom and more like a woman. I was also looking for an experience where people

[00:02:19] would talk to me, get to know me, help me, ask questions that would help them understand what I was looking for, and help me really interpret trends, because I wanted to stay modern. And instead of finding what I was looking for, I ended up crying. After about 10 minutes of crying, I decided to get in the car. I had my daughter with me. She was crying too. She's a baby. Mom's crying. I should cry. Y'all were crying in the dressing room. And I got into the car and drove home, and it

[00:02:48] was on the drive home from the department store that I began to reimagine what that experience could be. And by the time I got home, I called it a name, and I had really created what is now every today. Mike and I have always been entrepreneurs, and when we were dating, we were actually very loved to talk business, loved to talk ideas. Mike is a CPA by trade, very entrepreneurial,

[00:03:17] has always wanted to build something. So when I came home and started talking about this concept, he really nurtured that. He really, instead of saying, that's a dumb idea, he really was like, that's interesting. And he really helped from a marketing perspective. He really believed that if I was feeling this way when I was shopping, there could be other women who maybe feel the same way. And he was a big believer in the world not needing another fashion

[00:03:45] brand, but there could be another opportunity for us, a white space, to really develop a brand that made fashion accessible to women like me. And he thought that was really interesting. He thought there was a good, right space. And so he really nurtured that. And for about five years, we dreamed about it together until finally one night, he challenged me to pour all my dreams onto

[00:04:08] paper and to get all of the ideas out. And I did that and then gave him all the dreams. And he's a businessman. He's a strategist. He's a CPA. He put the numbers to the dream, and he created the business plan from that dream. And I'll let you take it away from there if you have anything to add. Megan is full of ideas. I'm married to this woman who has one idea after the other, and not all the ideas are great. And Megan accepts that, which is great. But this one I loved. I loved the idea.

[00:04:37] The original name was Hot Mama. And I was like, that's an identifiable consumer group. And I can see how we could position this and we can, from product curation, from a store experience, confidence to the brand name. I felt like I had a confidence that this idea of Megan's head legs. Yeah. We definitely together felt like, wow, there's some emotion in this brand too.

[00:05:01] This is something that women could connect to. It's something bigger than just fashion. Because for me, I was trying to figure out this balance between taking care of myself as a mom and taking care of my family. And questions like, am I worth it? Should I bother with this? Is fashion important to me now that I'm a mom? I mean, these were the real things I was wrestling with. And I was inspired by my neighbor at the time, who was a woman I looked up to. And she was the mom I wanted to be.

[00:05:30] And behind her back, I called her Hot Mama. We were living in California at the time. It was that we were living in Santa Cruz, California, which is like the surf capital of the world. I was raised in Chicagoland suburbs. Mike was raised in Minneapolis. We were two Midwestern young adults living in California. And my neighbor, I would watch her get up every morning, even though she had young kids, and she would go surfing. She would put her surfboard on the top of her VW bus and she would

[00:05:57] leave her kids at home, her young kids, and she'd go surfing. With her father, of course. Yeah, of course. Not alone. And I just was like, that's amazing. To me, she was a hot mama. She took care of herself. She had a great sense of style. I saw her go on date nights with her husband. And I just saw her love her family fiercely and at the same time, take care of her beauty, her needs, her passions. And I thought that was really cool. And I called

[00:06:24] her Hot Mama. And that is how the first name Hot Mama for the company kind of came about. And so the deeper message of the brand was really just to inspire women to, as they run their busy lives. And they have children and families and they take care of other people. I always believed it's so incredibly important to balance that with taking care of ourselves. And that's really what I wanted to accomplish through Hot Mama. So there was emotion there. And we just felt like we had

[00:06:54] the bones for what could be a really, really relevant brand. So you guys were in California then. We brought you back to Minnesota to open your first location on 50th and France. That's a good question. We did a lot of the dreaming out there. I did a lot of the fashion inspiration out there. Our brand is definitely rooted in California casual fashion. But we decided when it came down to the moment where we had to decide, are we going to do this? For me, and Mike

[00:07:24] might have a different story, but for me, I really went back to wanting to raise my kids in the Midwest. And from an affordability perspective, to be able to open a brand and do something as big as that, I just knew that we would need to be close to family. And I also knew California, it was hard. We didn't pay ourselves a lot. We didn't have a lot of money at the time. It was an expensive place

[00:07:50] to live. So those were some of the things that drove me back. Do you have a different story? No, a similar story. We originally incorporated it in California. There's a great shopping center out there called Broadway Plaza. That's where we wanted to open our first store. And trying to pitch it, it just didn't work out. And then we said, well, maybe there's a second location near Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek, California. And Megan and I were talking about the economic model. And I remember

[00:08:20] saying, we're about $6 per square foot off. And I said, here's our last pitch. This will be a sign. If the landlord rejects it, we're moving to Minnesota. If the landlord accepts, we're going to start our first store in Walnut Creek, California. Of course, we're in Minnesota, so you know that the landlord rejected it. That was like one of the first of many rejections. For you wannabe entrepreneurs out there, get used to a lot of rejection. Get used to rejection, yeah.

[00:08:48] We were surprised at how much rejection. Not necessarily from a landlord perspective, although we got that too, but even brands that we wanted to bring into our store, there was just constant rejection. But the other thing for wannabe entrepreneurs is, I'm a CPA by trade. I'm not in the fashion. I wasn't in the fashion industry. Megan wasn't in the fashion industry either. She's a third grade teacher, stay-at-home mom, but she had something.

[00:09:13] She had a taste that she wanted to offer to others. And ultimately, when it comes down to it, it's not only just passion, but it's a skill set that one might feel she or he has. And that's what we felt. And I was confident that Megan had. When I, believe it or not, this is almost embarrassing, but Megan used to dress me. 27 years ago, after we had started every, she was like, I'm no longer

[00:09:39] dressing you anymore. But when we would go shopping, I was amazed. She would go through and just look at every, like a rack of 20 items. And she would say, no, no, no, no, no, no. So quickly. And then all of a sudden, that's the one, that's the one. And that's a skill level, skill that I saw in her is that curate, the ability to curate, the ability to edit based on a certain taste level. And ultimately, I think that's one of the reasons why EVEREVE has been a huge success is because of that curation that customers have come to expect from us.

[00:10:08] Okay. So you have your first location here in Minnesota. What was it? What was that moment that you guys realized you have something here? There's something very special and we need to have more stores. And how did you pick their first location? Did we, well, how did you pick? We moved back to Edina. I wanted to move my family to Edina, which is, you know, again, I'm a Chicagoan, but I had done all the research. I had little kids and I remember thinking, I want to get them in a really good school system. So we moved back to Edina

[00:10:36] and I had actually had gotten a job for the U of M working as in a, for a grant in reading. And Mike had gotten a job working for a bank. So we decided when we moved back, we were going to put the EverEve dream on hold and get, get grounded in, in Minnesota, get jobs, kind of get our footing. And then we would someday later start Hot Mama. We sort of said, give it two or three years. Give it two or three years. Live in Minnesota for two or three years.

[00:11:02] Yeah. I remember being at Starbucks for coffee, which is so interesting because neither one of us drank coffee. We were probably getting a Frappuccino or something. I don't know. It was like a Saturday. I remember being there and I saw a for lease sign on this beautiful store right at 50th and France that was right across from Lund's grocery store. And I just looked at that and I knew. I looked at that. I was like, this feels like the perfect place. And I don't really remember the details

[00:11:32] other than I know it happened really fast. And before Mike took the number and I just, all I remember is we were in, next thing I know we're in the space. We're falling in love with it. It all seems like kind of a dream and a nightmare all mixed in one because there was so much fear because we had to sign a personal guarantee and we did not have a lot of money at the time. But I know we went to a bank. I remember being in a bank and I just remember really a lot of,

[00:12:02] I don't know, it was very scary. It happened all very fast and quick. And we signed a lease. And I just remember at that moment being terrified, sitting in that first location. It was, it used to be, it was a Birdwick and Tweed, which was a local men's suiting company. And I just remember standing in that space with this horrible, terrible, sick feeling in my stomach. And I remember everybody that would walk by that store or on the drive home, I would look out and see people in cars.

[00:12:29] And I remember thinking to myself, I wish I was them. I wish I was not me right now because I was terrified at that moment once we committed. You know what, Megan and I don't have great memories of the first year because we lived that first year. There was a lot of fear every single day. Is this going to work? Are people going to show up? Are we going to get the product right? I think we were confident that we were going to get the styling, the service right. But other than that, we were living in constant fear.

[00:12:59] We were living in fear. I remember on the drive home from signing the lease, we drove home and I just remember sitting in the parking lot with Mike and I just was so scared. And I said something to him to the point of like, do you know how to do this? And he was kind of like, no. I have bad news, neither do I. I mean, that was like the conversation we had. And I do remember the next day or the

[00:13:25] following day, you'll get a kick out of this because you're from Minnesota. I went to Southdale Library in Edina and I went in, you know, I'm a teacher, third grade teacher. I asked the librarian to show me a section. I told her that I had just signed a lease for, you know, I don't know, it was a million dollar personal guarantee. And we're opening, I was opening a new store with my husband and I asked if she could show me the books, like the section, the section in the library where I could

[00:13:55] maybe read up on this because I didn't know what I was doing. And she like walked me to like this amazing section of the library. And I remember looking through, I'm like, oh, that looks like an interesting book. And at some point I got my hands around a book called The Hug Your Customers by Jack Mitchell. Jack had built a really well-known brand in Connecticut called Mitchell's. It was a family business and he had written this beautiful book about how retail can be so much more than just

[00:14:24] selling clothes. It can be an expression of love. And I read that book and it was, it literally was like a playbook for how I could interact in the store and create that experience that is still happening today. But all that to say, we were just really good students. I mean, we just, we didn't really have any experience. So it was every day we were both learning things and trying things.

[00:14:52] It was very scary. And we don't like to think of, you're lucky we're talking about it because we have a little post-traumatic stress when we talk about it. First of all, by the time we moved to Minnesota and we signed the lease, it was just two months. We had planned it to be for two or three years, but it was two months. So what's fun about being a startup is we could dream on how we wanted

[00:15:21] to create the experience from day one. It was truly a blank slate. And our original name was Hot Mama. We knew we were going to serve moms and we were thinking, how do we provide an experience where the child is going to enjoy the experience as much as the mother? And we had two young kids. And so we thought, okay, what would Ryan want? Oh, he wants a toddler train table. That will entertain him. He also wants toys in the dressing room. Allison wants computer games to play with. And so literally

[00:15:47] that first store, we had not only toys and toddler train table and computer games, but we had graham crackers. And what was fun about this manifestation of this idea is that the mother was done shopping before the child was. And I remember shopping with my mom, I'm tugging on her sleeve within two minutes, but literally 45 minutes, the child is still entertained while the mom got to shop. So that

[00:16:14] was sort of fun. And as a, it's probably a challenge for all of us who are no longer entrepreneurs. Every day we have the opportunity of looking and saying, our business can be a blank slate. How can the experience get better? How can we improve it? What needs to be adjusted? And it's fun for us to go through those exercises. Yeah. I think one of the things we're looking forward to in this, I know you were going to maybe talk about the future. Oh, I have so many questions

[00:16:42] for you guys. We're going to be here all day. We just hired a really great new chief marketing officer. She is just incredible. And so we've really had some great time to, to, after 21 years in, like, what can we do better? And one of our recent conversations is how much, how much, how excited Mike and I are to rebuild that customer experience, to get in there and do what we did 21 years, not

[00:17:09] yeah, 21 years ago. That was so like, literally we designed that experience and to think, what if we go in and what if we together again, 21 years in, continue to take what's working, but also let's dream again. Let's, let's, let's, let's dream again about what this experience could be. So we're really excited. And I, both of us are, I think really passionate about this work of

[00:17:37] redesigning what that customer could experience could be. That feels like really fun, creative work. And so that is something we are going to be working on together with our team, which you'll have to just wait and see. Well, it is really exciting. That does surprise you. I think that's why we all love retail because it's constantly evolving. Yeah. And you have to look forward to figure out what's next for your customer. I tell my team, if you don't like change and movement and,

[00:18:04] you know, growth and you don't, don't get a job at Evrave because we're in fashion and retail and things are always changing and evolving. And we need people who are excited about that. I know. I was going to ask too about how do you guys continually evolve to remain relevant with all of, all of the new demographics out there, the new shoppers, the now new moms or moms that are now back to their careers. Right. There is constantly changing. There is so much changing. And I think

[00:18:33] what I hear there is like fashion is always changing. So first and foremost, we always have to get our fashion, right? And that's what we really, you know, that's what we really have to pay attention to. And the speed of, of fashion is changing quicker and quicker and quicker with social media and trends and all this. So I think we really have to be on it and move fast, faster than ever on trends

[00:18:59] and things that women are interested in. So we spent a lot of time in trend. Trend. Okay. I was just at a trend meeting today talking about trend for summer and like, what's happening? What are we thinking? And, and building a way of working in our company where we were always talking about what's changing, what's new, what's exciting, and really integrating that into the way we work together. So trend is, I tell my team all the time, trend is a conversation that

[00:19:26] we're never done. Like we are always talking about it. It's not like, oh, we did our trend work. It's done. It's no culture is always changing. So we have to constantly be talking about that. So fashion changes. And then, yeah, I think really getting clear, we're doing some work right now. We're really getting clear on our customer personas and the different kinds of women who love every, whether it's the young mom with young kids. We have a lot of, a lot of young moms with young kids who

[00:19:54] shop with us. We have a ton of women that shop with us who are, we call them campus moms. So their kids are in college and they do a lot of girls trip with their friends, like you just mentioned, right? And really understanding what their needs are. There are a lot of women that are like me, an empty nester. You know, we're a little more free. We don't have any kids on our budget,

[00:20:21] you know, on our payroll right now. We have a lot of time, more time than we've ever had. So there are these different groups of women that are like us, that we have to figure out how we're going to communicate with them, what their needs might be. And we're really doing a lot of work around these personas that love us. Oh, that's great. And I think you guys have nailed it when it comes to customer service. And I think we've, you know, back in the day, it's always been the department store delivering that special

[00:20:51] customer service, but you guys have figured it out. And whether it's in-store experience, if it's the Trendsend subscription, that opportunity, you've done a great job of content creation online and really connecting with a variety of customers. So kudos to you guys for really nailing that. And I think that's the part you're talking about as well is like, how do you evolve what that looks like so you can be where the customer needs, you know, what they're looking for? Well, I want to just say we have the best women that work, women and men, the best employees.

[00:21:20] They, they, I mean, it amazes me that that vision that we had for that experience so many years ago is still alive at EverEve. Like that is, that is hard to do. And that is not because of us. That is because of the, the, the teams in our store. They are committed. They are committed to making, they respect our brand so much and the vision for the brand. And they have such great respect for Mike

[00:21:47] and I, and just that vision of not wanting a woman to be in the dressing room crying, right? Like they respect that and they know that's their job to make sure that doesn't happen because that's why this company was started. And they, they love, they genuinely care. They love fashion. They, the women who work for us in our stores and men love fashion and they love people more. They,

[00:22:14] they really love fashion and they really care about the people that walk through the doors. I was going to say, you can feel the passion when you walk in. I love that. We are so grateful to the thousands of employees that, that do that every day. I think the secret formula is that, um, the styling experience, that's what we call our customer service, but the styling experience was born from Megan's personal issue, personal situation and her

[00:22:41] experience. And then starting with that first follower and all the followers, those first managers, um, they were customers. And so they experienced that from Megan. And so when you experience something as a customer, you also, once you become an employee, you want to bring, you want to do that. You want to train your team to do, to offer that. And they go and often they, they hire, um, our customer too.

[00:23:09] And so it is, it's, it's deeply rooted in not only Megan's original experience, but their experience as a customer and they just want to pass it on. So that is probably the most, I think one of the, the reasons why we've been able to replicate that customer experience. Yeah. Is that deep respect for the brand and for the woman in the dressing room. One of the things that I'm most proud of is when we get customer feedback, we, it could be from any

[00:23:35] store around the country and it's, it's consistent. Um, of course, I mean, we'll get a couple, sometimes like we're not always a hundred percent, but for the most part, we get this customer feedback from Seattle to LA to Boston to Florida. It, it, it's usually the same thing that you're going to get here in Minnesota. Which is fantastic. Yeah. So we talked about you have over a hundred locations. So isn't that just crazy to look back that you started right here down the road. I know. Minnesota.

[00:24:03] You're over a hundred. What's next? Ooh, what's next? Well, we're going to keep on opening stores. Um, so we feel like, uh, we're still early on in our journey as a brand. Um, we're very excited about, uh, obviously some of the investments we've made to grow digital. We are prioritizing that. Jill, you mentioned transcend, which is our online styling experience. The idea behind that was how do you take that in-store experience and how do you deliver

[00:24:33] it in a digital way? Sure. So those women who, and I always say it's the easiest way to shop for those women who want to, um, who don't necessarily want to come to a store, but they want that store experience. You fill out a customer profile and then our stylists, and you can even choose which store styles you, that stylist will then look at that profile and your purchase, uh, um, history and deliver outfits.

[00:25:01] And one of the things that we get a lot of praise for as a brand is we're always going to push, we're going to always put something in there and a look or an item that, that just dares you a little bit. And that's what customers expect from us. And you're going to get that in the transcend box as well in the, in store. I'm shaking my head cause I'm a transcend customer. And I do love that because there are things that I'm like, yep, this is me, this is me. And then also I'll try on something. I'm like, Oh, I wouldn't have normally tried this on, but I love the fact that the stylist was like,

[00:25:29] give this a try. So I love it. And it makes it very convenient as a busy working mom to be able to have those items come to my doorstep and real. And now the convenience of being able to bring it back to the brick and mortar store. I don't even have to go to the post office. I literally can bring it to the store. It's how it all works together. Very convenient. So you guys have listened to your customers and I appreciate that. And I'm super excited about what's to come. So what would you say you're most excited about for your future? At work? At work? Sure. Um, I'm excited because

[00:25:58] I'm back into a creative space again. I think, um, when I think about the beginning of the brand and, um, just the dream, the vision, the creativity, and then, um, I think the different evolution of the brand, you know, then I had to learn how to scale, scale the thing, the success. And then, then it was like, wow, this is a big company. I'm a CEO now. And I, I, I feel that the stage of life

[00:26:22] I'm in right now, we have, um, we're in a creative stage. And so I feel excited because we have a really great team, a really great executive team. And, um, because of that, I can be put kind of back into a space that is really where I belong is just leading the company creatively. So I'm excited about that. Um, we have, and what that looks like is, um, is through, like I said, redesigning the

[00:26:48] experience, maybe revisiting the experience in the stores we've been working on, um, together with our team on just the new store design that, that seems to be a really fun place. So we're excited about some new designs. Um, I'm really excited about just continuing to, um, refine our assortment and to make sure that it continues to be really exciting and relevant and just like

[00:27:14] really delightful for our customer and building our own brand, uh, Evereve. This is our number one brand in our company. It's revenues are well beyond any, um, the performance of any other brand in our stores. It's a very, very high. And you guys have grown that too. It seems like there's a larger selection. Yeah. We have a team that's leading that and building that. And there's a lot of

[00:27:36] opportunity to continue to grow that brand and just make, make that really even more fun and exciting. So that's really exciting for me as well. But for me, it's just getting back to being creative. How about you? Did you answer? No, that's, let's go with Megan's passion. I love that. Okay. So I need to know what is the fashion trend right now that you're just

[00:28:02] absolutely loving right now. Color. I'm loving color. Um, I just got out a trend for, um, summer and spring and it is going to be next year. And it's going to be so bright, so bold, so colorful. We've been in a very quiet season of fashion for the last couple of years. And that's kind of, not that that's over. People still want quality. They still want luxe pieces that they can mix and

[00:28:29] match and that look, um, feel good on the body, but they do and are creating a little more like me creativity. So I always find it interesting. Like what I'm craving, you know, usually the signal follow your guts going on with other women. But, um, I do believe women are craving a little more creativity. So we're going to see that a lot come through in color and also interesting color mixes.

[00:28:55] So not just wearing a pop of color, but you know, really maybe mixing colors together in interesting ways. So that's what I'm excited about and that's what's coming. So don't tell anyone. Just wait until next year. No, you can tell people. We love that. We'll start stocking up now. Start building your color. I know. Start giving your pop of red. You'll see, you know, and color. I mean, we just opened up a, a, a marina pop-up shop in Wayzata. So we decided to take our Wayzata location

[00:29:23] and turn it into a, a, a marina experience. And so we just loaded the store up with like Mediterranean fabrics and linen, lightweight linen. So like lake life kind of. Lake life, but more, yeah, water, but a little more of like Mediterranean. So lots of colors and stripes and linens. And, um, we just opened that up and there's so much color in that. Oh, that's really fun. We'll have to go check that out. We'll go check it out sometime.

[00:29:50] So to wrap this up, what would you hope that people say about Ever Eve in 20 years from now? How would you hope? Huh? I would, I think they, they nailed the fashion, but they love people more. Like they love the fashion. The fashion's amazing, but the, the feeling I get in that store is, is a feeling of love of like being seen, taken care of.

[00:30:20] That's what I hope they say. Which goes back to that, what you were looking for in that first experience. Yeah. Like that's the best, that's like success when you have a vision and, um, you know, you, and then people say that. I always feel that when people repeat your values, your vision, even when they talk about your competition, like how much better you are than your competition. I think that when, when, when the customers are repeating that, the vision back to you,

[00:30:49] I feel that that is, that's the most exciting thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ultimately what I get the most proud of is that you're delivering, uh, trend, right product and you're sort of pushing me out of my comfort zone. And so you're moving me forward and, Oh, I just love the team, the stylist, that experience. Um, so I think both, and it doesn't have to be just a historic experience. You know, we have a warehouse right here in the twin

[00:31:17] cities, uh, where we fulfill about 50% of our e-commerce orders. Um, it's a, it's a team of about 300 people. And I think there's only one guy, it's 299 women at this warehouse, at this fulfillment center and the care in the folding and the care of the fabrics in the packaging, it's done with a woman's touch. And so that, that, that, that feel of love that Megan is talking about, it doesn't have to be expressed only in the store. It can be also through a trend send box

[00:31:45] and delivery, or it could be through an e-commerce order. So that's what I'm really, uh, would want people to talk about 20 years from now. Can I end with this? Two years ago, we ended up opening that Walnut Creek store at Broadway Plaza. So we, it just, it just took 20 years. Yeah. It was like a homecoming moment. Yeah. Full circle. Proud to be a Minnesota brand though. That is fantastic. Yeah. I mean, another, another great moment I think for us too is, you know, one of our,

[00:32:13] our competitors is now a business partner. So, um, I don't know if you're familiar with Jackson Gray. Oh yeah. Men's company, you know, Michael Dreskin has done such a beautiful job. I mean, he is such an incredible merchant. And at one point was like a fierce competitor of ours, but it's so fun that he and Mike together have built Jackson Gray, which is this amazing men's store, um, that, um, that's been so fun too. So sometimes those things in life that maybe you see as a challenge or,

[00:32:41] um, you know, maybe feel hard. It is fun when you can, um, end up, the story ends a little differently, but that's a really fun relationship. Well, we know people in case you want to look at Mall of America for another Jackson Gray story. Right. Yeah. You know people. Well, congratulations to both of you on an amazing journey for being here at Mall of America and for telling your story. Well, thank you. We are so proud to be here and, uh, we're just grateful. I love it. So for all of our listeners and viewers, thank you for joining us for this episode,

[00:33:10] episode of so much more. What a great story. Come shop every here at Mall of America and at over a hundred locations across this country, check out the information online, follow them on all the social channels. It's great content. And like Megan said, start stocking up on your color because you want to be in style as we head into 2027, but thank you for joining us. Definitely rate us, follow us wherever you find your favorite podcasts and we'll see you again soon. Thanks for listening to so much more. I'm all of America podcast. Subscribe wherever you find

[00:33:39] your favorite podcasts. This show is presented by Bloomington, Minnesota travel and tourism.