Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w Bazy, Coston's
Speaker 1: Me Radio.
Speaker 2: Dan, thank you very much, my friends. Okay, now we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about the future of in person shopping.
Speaker 2: And I had an experience the other day. I was
Speaker 2: with my wife and my thirteen year old daughter going
Speaker 2: on eighteen, and they needed to go to a mall.
Speaker 2: We went into the Prudential Mall here in Boston and
Speaker 2: I actually enjoyed it, and that's why I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about this. So I said, who's an expert in this?
Speaker 2: Cousin Todd. Cousin Todd is an expert. Yes, full disclosure,
Speaker 2: that's what we do on the show. I like to
Speaker 2: have friends and relatives on this show as much as possible.
Speaker 2: And my cousin Todd is Todd Fernard, CEO of Fernard Properties,
Speaker 2: and this has been his family's business for three generations.
Speaker 2: So let's just where are we right now as far
Speaker 2: as the situation with in person shopping versus online shop
Speaker 2: Because based on my experience, I still think people will
Speaker 2: want to go into stores, but it's just going to
Speaker 2: be different.
Speaker 3: Your thoughts, well, I'll start off by saying this, of
Speaker 3: course they want to go to stores. We're social, we're
Speaker 3: social creatures. We want to be around other people. We
Speaker 3: want to I mean, food courts may have died a
Speaker 3: long time ago, but the whole idea of a place
Speaker 3: where teenagers, senior citizens everyone in between want to go
Speaker 3: and kind of uh, you know, be in a control,
Speaker 3: a climate, controlled environment with other people. I think in general,
Speaker 3: that's kind of a a concept that isn't dead. But
Speaker 3: my goodness, you're you're asking a wildly complicated question and.
Speaker 2: You got an hour, We got plenty of time.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, all right, well then let's go.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, if you look at every different area
Speaker 3: within sort of the world of real estate, whether that
Speaker 3: a mall that you visited, whether it's an office building,
Speaker 3: whether it's a shopping center, a hotel, every part of
Speaker 3: our sort of world of real estate is under some
Speaker 3: sort of attack. Retail is, you know, arguably a sort
Speaker 3: of the online concept. And how will that compete offices?
Speaker 3: I mean, who wants to go to an office? What
Speaker 3: is an office building all about?
Speaker 2: Today?
Speaker 4: I mean, hotels.
Speaker 3: Are they kind of roared back after COVID, but Airbnb
Speaker 3: and vrbo are kind of, you know, attacking from each side.
Speaker 4: On hotels.
Speaker 3: So the funny thing about real estate in general today
Speaker 3: is it's all kind of in flux, and so I'm
Speaker 3: not shocked at all that you went to the mall
Speaker 3: and had a great time. They are folks at Boston
Speaker 3: Properties and some of the other bigger, better sort of
Speaker 3: mall owners in the country are doing everything they can
Speaker 3: possibly do to make this entertaining and make it interesting
Speaker 3: and make it compelling enough for you to get up
Speaker 3: off the couch where you can just shop on your phone.
Speaker 2: You mentioned a good point about it being a place
Speaker 2: to gather, because I'm not quite in the mall walking
Speaker 2: mode yet. Okay enough, but I do yes, yeah, thanks pal,
Speaker 2: But I do have a thirteen year old daughter that
Speaker 2: wants to be dropped at them all of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now that that's I mean, the retail is a
Speaker 3: pretty inventive, imaginative place, the sort of the landscape of retail,
Speaker 3: and so we within the business of filling retail space
Speaker 3: are looking to all kinds of different sort of entertainment
Speaker 3: ish uses. And that could be pickleball, it could be
Speaker 3: you know, ping pong. There's a ping pong place right
Speaker 3: near the garden. The other night, it's just wild looking.
Speaker 3: It could be music, it could be whiskey bars with
Speaker 3: with you know, live music. It could be a karaoke bar.
Speaker 3: But they're doing whatever they can do to find uses
Speaker 3: that are you know, entertaining.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: I think specialty stores are are very important. For example,
Speaker 2: one of my kids, i mean van sneakerhead, and so
Speaker 2: the types of sneakers that kids want to buy now
Speaker 2: you cannot you you can't buy on Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: you can go. I mean if you if you need
Speaker 2: a pair of running shoes or whatever you're gonna and
Speaker 2: you know the kids size, but I mean I'm talking
Speaker 2: about the sneakers that they don't take out of the box.
Speaker 4: Right right, right, right right.
Speaker 3: I mean I mean there's the you know, the hidden
Speaker 3: bodega in Boston is famous, uh for the you know
Speaker 3: the back room, which.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, yeah, I've been dragged there too, but you know,
Speaker 2: to me, it's those type of specialty stores todd where
Speaker 2: you don't get the same feeling when you're online, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, like like my wife the other day, she
Speaker 2: wanted to try on a pair of sneakers, but h
Speaker 2: they weren't the type of sneakers. Of course, as you
Speaker 2: would know that you would get a DIX. I won't
Speaker 2: mention the brand, but Golden was in the name. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you can't buy those on them. I mean you can,
Speaker 2: but that's that's not part of the experience. You want
Speaker 2: to go and you want to have somebody with I mean,
Speaker 2: customer service is more important than ever and staffing is
Speaker 2: a problem, right, I mean.
Speaker 3: That's listen, Yeah, that's that's a whole other category of issue.
Speaker 3: But you know the thing of it is, we spent years,
Speaker 3: decades trying to fill our shopping centers with the highest
Speaker 3: grade tenant we could get our hands on, the highest
Speaker 3: grade credit tenant we could get our hands on, and
Speaker 3: then the bigger national brand, the better because your lender
Speaker 3: would look at you and say, well, that's a valuable tenant.
Speaker 3: They're going to pay their rent. And you know, if
Speaker 3: you want to have a credible mall, then you got
Speaker 3: to have a radio shack or that went away, and
Speaker 3: then you got to have a gap, and then that
Speaker 3: went away, and then you got to have I mean,
Speaker 3: that's just been what it's been. But today and you
Speaker 3: were this is where I thought you were going. The
Speaker 3: one of a kind, the unique. You can only get
Speaker 3: that here. That's like that's gold today, and so it's
Speaker 3: in some ways it's it's kind of poetic because it's
Speaker 3: gone back to being a local business with with you know,
Speaker 3: if they if that butcher does it better, well, I'd
Speaker 3: much rather go there than you know, with all due
Speaker 3: respect to the you know, the the butcher counter at
Speaker 3: Roach Brothers or something like that.
Speaker 2: So do you think that the space or do you
Speaker 2: think that malls will decrease but rent will decrease, rent
Speaker 2: will increase, so there will be fewer malls. However, the
Speaker 2: malls that are still in operation will hire have a
Speaker 2: higher level of service or a more specialized service.
Speaker 3: It depends, as the answer I mean to say, the
Speaker 3: mall is you know, the the the the experience that
Speaker 3: you'd have at the Prudential Mall or the experience you'd
Speaker 3: have at the Natick Mall is wildly different than the
Speaker 3: experience that you might have at the Solomon Pond Mall
Speaker 3: or the Greendale Mall in Worcester was a mall that
Speaker 3: its best days were behind it. Our company purchased that
Speaker 3: mall and we ended up constructing something very different there.
Speaker 3: But you know, there are malls that have died or
Speaker 3: or are on their way to dying, and then there
Speaker 3: are malls that are you know, in some ways the
Speaker 3: ownership group has had the capital or the or the
Speaker 3: connectedness or the or the leasing prowess to turn some
Speaker 3: of the spaces and evolve them as fast as they
Speaker 3: possibly can evolve them. So, I mean the prew is
Speaker 3: a great example. It was it was it's a new
Speaker 3: enough ish product, but they've been filling that with innovative
Speaker 3: uses sort of, you know, as quick as they can
Speaker 3: find them.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the Greendale Mall in Worcester, maam man. That
Speaker 2: is a flashback for me. I think there's a leech
Speaker 2: Mere there at one point when I was starting in Worcester.
Speaker 2: I don't want to put you on a spot. What
Speaker 2: did you end up doing though, Did you end up
Speaker 2: constructing another type of building or did you kind of
Speaker 2: reinvent it.
Speaker 3: Admittedly, we had thought about reinventing it, and the plan
Speaker 3: that we had put together in twenty nineteen was wildly
Speaker 3: disrupted by COVID, by COVID, by COVID. But it's a
Speaker 3: valuable site. It's a great piece of land, and the
Speaker 3: folks at Amazon determined that it was a great place
Speaker 3: to put a last mileth distribution facility, and so we
Speaker 3: built that for them.
Speaker 2: So here's another thing when you talk about for example,
Speaker 2: I had I had to go to a couple of
Speaker 2: stores today and I was looking. Sometimes, especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to technology, right, I don't want to buy something online.
Speaker 2: I get it, you know, I need to have somebody
Speaker 2: tell me.
Speaker 3: There are a lot I mean for everybody individually. I
Speaker 3: think there are a lot of purchases that sort of
Speaker 3: categorically you'd say in that area, I want to touch it,
Speaker 3: or I want someone to explain it to me or
Speaker 3: or I mean, we were talking one time about trying
Speaker 3: to sort of find all of the unamazonable uses that
Speaker 3: that we feel like are sort of Amazon proof, you know,
Speaker 3: and try to fill your shopping center with Amazon proof concepts.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, I mean electronics. It's funny for you,
Speaker 3: it may be electronics for someone else. I mean, I've
Speaker 3: seen people buy electronics out of vending machines now.
Speaker 2: Oh I know. Yeah, it's crazy. Like I was just
Speaker 2: looking for printer cartridges, you know, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to buy I don't. Well maybe I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 2: the vest.
Speaker 3: Exist No, it's not I'm not laughing at you. I'm
Speaker 3: just laughing at the fact that that's like the biggest
Speaker 3: racket on the face of the earth. That's another another minute.
Speaker 2: Wait, a printed cartridge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's a printer for seventy five bucks, but
Speaker 3: then it's like fifty bucks every time you want to
Speaker 3: change in the incame you pro.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well that's true. And I found that out
Speaker 2: today is I had to go to two locations because
Speaker 2: one of the problems because they expect people to buy
Speaker 2: it online, they don't have the inventory in.
Speaker 4: The store, right right right.
Speaker 2: That happens all the time. So I don't feel so
Speaker 2: for some of these retailers. And I'm talking about just that,
Speaker 2: you know, the the office retail store where you can
Speaker 2: buy things online. I'll go in because I want to
Speaker 2: see it, feel to touch it. They don't have it,
Speaker 2: but I can buy it online. It's just going to
Speaker 2: take me three days to get it. So there must
Speaker 2: be a whole You may not have the answer to
Speaker 2: this one, but like, there must be a whole formula
Speaker 2: for companies to decide how much they keep in the
Speaker 2: store in inventory, and how does that work.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're you're now in an area where you are.
Speaker 3: Into logistics and computer it's not computer science, but it's
Speaker 3: the science of logistics that you're talking about. Is way
Speaker 3: way above my pay grade. And I'm sure there's a
Speaker 3: professor at one of us fabulous schools in our.
Speaker 4: City that would that know all about it.
Speaker 2: But like, but it's a thing. It's a thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a thing. It's a science.
Speaker 3: I am certain of it.
Speaker 2: All right, Tody, can you hang around? Cousin Todd's gonna
Speaker 2: hang around. I have more questions. I also want to get, yes,
Speaker 2: get into the vacation side of things too, the leisure
Speaker 2: side of things, and how sometimes I like a hotel
Speaker 2: better than an Airbnb. That's coming up next on wbz's Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back Gerry Tank Weave for dance and I we're
Speaker 2: talking about the future of shopping and I like to
Speaker 2: get out of the house. I do. I like to
Speaker 2: get out of the house. Cousin Todd is joining me here.
Speaker 2: He is the CEO of in our properties. Their generation
Speaker 2: family has been doing it forever. They know what they're
Speaker 2: talking about. What about stores just using their their storefront
Speaker 2: as a billboard. This guy's obviously in the news a lot.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the hell he's doing there the
Speaker 2: you know, managing. But like you see a Tesla store,
Speaker 2: you see a Tesla in the middle of the mall,
Speaker 2: and I think he was ahead of that, you know,
Speaker 2: like you would go on the mall and you just
Speaker 2: see like three Teslas in a mall space. Does that work?
Speaker 3: I mean, in the beginning, I will not comment on
Speaker 3: anything Eli Musk related time. I will say this though, no, no.
Speaker 4: No, no no.
Speaker 3: But the in the beginning, they were really pioneering. They
Speaker 3: were taking kind of like, you know, a storefront that
Speaker 3: didn't have, you know, a vacant storefront, and they would
Speaker 3: kind of go in and fill it in and it
Speaker 3: was sort of a It wasn't right away that they
Speaker 3: made it a centerpiece type you know, billboard, as you say,
Speaker 3: But I think there are plenty of companies that have
Speaker 3: many of evolved out of the retail kind of footprint
Speaker 3: to then take on bricks and mortar storefronts, you know,
Speaker 3: and the ones that have been most successful, and you know,
Speaker 3: whether that's like a viewery type kind of lifestyle kind
Speaker 3: of clothing company or in some case, is it's cars
Speaker 3: where you know Rivian is now setting up at its
Speaker 3: bricks and mortar presence, uh in the Samuels development lyric
Speaker 3: right over the mass Pike. I mean that's kind of
Speaker 3: you know, you're you're going to see more and more
Speaker 3: of the you know, do you buy it online or
Speaker 3: do you visit in the showroom and then buy it online?
Speaker 3: I mean that's anyway, that's that's the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Could you ever buy a car without driving it?
Speaker 3: It feels so weird to think like about that. I
Speaker 3: just in in twenty years, Yeah, I would. I would
Speaker 3: guess that you're gonna that that may be a thing
Speaker 3: one day.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, can't you do it now? I mean
Speaker 2: you can have built for Carvana or one of them,
Speaker 2: or I can't keep track of all of it.
Speaker 4: But that's a weird. It's a weird.
Speaker 3: That's a weird concept where they're you know, they stack
Speaker 3: these cars and it's like a vending machine, right, and
Speaker 3: it's kind of entertainment but also kind of weird. I
Speaker 3: don't I don't know, I don't know how to look
Speaker 3: at that or how sort of understand that. But but
Speaker 3: but I do think though that like in a few years.
Speaker 3: Whatever that means, you're you know, you're you're the way
Speaker 3: you think about cars or owning it or buying it
Speaker 3: or uh, servicing it is. I think it's going to
Speaker 3: be wildly different than it is today.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's going to be tough to change brands. Example, like,
Speaker 2: if you're a Chevy person, you know, you got the Chevy,
Speaker 2: you want the Chabby, you know the type of car.
Speaker 2: It's easy to just simply reorder it. But if you
Speaker 2: want to change it up, you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, although couldn't You could imagine a situation where
Speaker 3: like six brands get together and you buy into a
Speaker 3: service where you get a car and you can switch
Speaker 3: the cars throughout the course of the year and they've
Speaker 3: got you for life. But at the same time, sort
Speaker 3: of subscription service, you get a car, but it's not
Speaker 3: always the same car, and sometimes you want a big one.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I could see that happening.
Speaker 2: That's a an idea, that's a that's a very good idea.
Speaker 2: That's why you have more money, all right, Anyways, listen,
Speaker 2: I want I find banks fascinating because at one point
Speaker 2: in time in my life I used to sell velvet ropes. Yes,
Speaker 2: It's true, folks. I did. When I was doing the
Speaker 2: radio thing, you know, figuring it out, I did sell
Speaker 2: the velvet ropes, Naga hide tweed. Would you like a
Speaker 2: brass hook? Would you like a stilling silver hook? And
Speaker 2: believe me, the markup on that stuff was unbelievable. But
Speaker 2: I see that, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And as
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, this is inside baseball. But who
Speaker 2: cares the family that owned the company that we bought
Speaker 2: the ropes from. I went to camp. So there you go,
Speaker 2: Laurence Stancheons. There's another story for.
Speaker 3: An other time.
Speaker 2: Okay, everybody's like loosening to the radio, like what the
Speaker 2: hell are they talking about? You know, and you know
Speaker 2: something I don't really care. But the bank thing fascinates
Speaker 2: me because I was in my early twenties when I
Speaker 2: was figuring it out. I was selling things to banks.
Speaker 2: I was selling rate boards and check desks and nameplates
Speaker 2: and all that stuff while working radio part time and
Speaker 2: trying to get going. But then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: Internet banking hit, right.
Speaker 4: I mean I I.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I go onto the branch in Sudbury because I
Speaker 2: just like the people. You know, obviously, I have too
Speaker 2: much time on my hands, but.
Speaker 4: No, I mean keep them.
Speaker 3: No, I was just gonna say that going into a
Speaker 3: bank branch. There was another thing you mentioned earlier. I
Speaker 3: mean reading the paper like these are all indications of
Speaker 3: you know, yours and my age in a way where
Speaker 3: those are things that we did. But my goodness, banking
Speaker 3: the notion that banking uh is can be very easily
Speaker 3: made to be a completely online, pure utility, transaction, pure utility.
Speaker 3: Kind of put it in an app, put it on
Speaker 3: my desk, don't bother me with it. It's just all
Speaker 3: going to be handled seamlessly this way. To me, that
Speaker 3: one makes all the sense in the world.
Speaker 2: Well it does, there's no doubt about it. And I
Speaker 2: can't even get to the point now where if I
Speaker 2: get a check, I just cash it on my phone.
Speaker 2: My kids do it, you know, they just but I
Speaker 2: still go to the attainment deposit it. And I don't
Speaker 2: know why I do it. I don't know if I
Speaker 2: feel like if I get a SAG check from a
Speaker 2: movie I did one hundred years ago, and it's two
Speaker 2: dollars and thirty two cents, and after taxes it's now
Speaker 2: one dollar and one cent, I still go and deposit it.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I don't. I guess so. But
Speaker 2: the point that I'm trying to get to is, like,
Speaker 2: I see TD banks right, and I was reading an
Speaker 2: article where their philosophy is we want big bright banks
Speaker 2: on corners with high traffic. So it's the philosophy kind
Speaker 2: of like Tesla if you or Carvana or whoever, of
Speaker 2: putting a bank and using that as a billboard. My
Speaker 2: bank branch cost me five million dollars or whatever, but
Speaker 2: it's a billboard because I want people to see it.
Speaker 2: I want people to go online and then use the
Speaker 2: bank online after they see the branch.
Speaker 3: Thoughts on that, sure, sure, Well my thoughts are that
Speaker 3: people are comfortable, uh with the concept of their money
Speaker 3: being close to them, whatever that might mean. And so
Speaker 3: if you feel as though that's your neighborhood branch and
Speaker 3: that's just a familiar color and that's where you maybe
Speaker 3: it's where you pay your home mortgage to, or maybe
Speaker 3: it's where your deposits sit, there is something comforting about
Speaker 3: that being kind of around the corner. I'm that is
Speaker 3: a bit of a guess.
Speaker 2: But we'll think about it. And I'm talking, I'm completely
Speaker 2: talking out of my butt, but if I if I
Speaker 2: have a branch, if I have a building that costs
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm picking numbers. I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: five million, three million, whatever. In my advertising budgets are
Speaker 2: the same, and I know that the track fit pattern.
Speaker 2: I know, so many eyeballs are going to see my
Speaker 2: logo between the hours of blank and blank, as opposed
Speaker 2: to spending it on social media, or as opposed to
Speaker 2: certainly spending it on you know, more traditional media, which
Speaker 2: people are doing less and less. But of course they
Speaker 2: spend money on the iHeartRadio app. As we all know.
Speaker 2: It kind of makes sense, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of eyeballs in those high
Speaker 2: traffic areas. Take a look at the McDonald's m I mean,
Speaker 2: logos still matter. It's brand, it's brand advertising, it.
Speaker 3: Is brand awareness, it is sort of the reinforcing, it's
Speaker 3: the it's the eye catching color, it's it's all of
Speaker 3: those things. I would it would be wild to know
Speaker 3: where that branch is sort of allocation of marketing dollars.
Speaker 3: How much more of their dollars are online driven and
Speaker 3: they're running you know, ads on the top band of
Speaker 3: WZ Radio's website or are they, you know, running inserts
Speaker 3: in the local paper. Still maybe I again an area
Speaker 3: that I'm not smart enough to a Pine on. But
Speaker 3: the notion that's sort of the way we shop, the
Speaker 3: way we consume advertisement is kind of some of it's
Speaker 3: on our phones and some of it's live and in person,
Speaker 3: and so you know that's the that's the balancing act.
Speaker 2: Today, Oh Pine Away, are you kidding me? I have
Speaker 2: Fox News in MSNBC and CNN on here in the studio.
Speaker 2: Nobody on those three networks know what the hell they're
Speaker 2: talking about. Either. I need you for one more segment
Speaker 2: because I want to talk about food. Let's do it, okay, right,
Speaker 2: Todd with as CEO for our properties, as we talk
Speaker 2: about how we shop and how we shop for food
Speaker 2: is next. WBZ.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
Speaker 1: news Radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Garien for Danton, and I'm talking to Todd Fernard.
Speaker 2: He is the CEO for our property. So and just
Speaker 2: about the way we shop, the way we consume, and
Speaker 2: what lies ahead for us. Todd, I want to get
Speaker 2: the food next, because I remember when some very smart
Speaker 2: people got together and they said, you know what food
Speaker 2: delivery is going to be back.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: There was you know, what's old is new again. There
Speaker 2: was a time where I remember the milkman would come
Speaker 2: to the house and no jokes here, no jokes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the milkman would come to the house and yeah,
Speaker 2: we had the bread guy. We usually had a bread
Speaker 2: We had a bread guy come to the house, and
Speaker 2: you know, in good old Rumford, Maine. So then there
Speaker 2: was this theory that we're going to start delivering groceries
Speaker 2: and they set up this huge company with warehouses strategically
Speaker 2: placed kind of like Amazon, right, the Amazon of food
Speaker 2: at the time failed miserably, failed miserably because when I
Speaker 2: buy a steak, I want to go into my place
Speaker 2: and I want to look at it. Yep, yep, and
Speaker 2: that's look.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think no grocery has had its own sort
Speaker 3: of evolution. And that's actually an interesting conversation. But restaurants in.
Speaker 4: General in terms of how they view, you.
Speaker 3: Know, their relationship between sort of their grub Hub, Uber
Speaker 3: Eats type sort of customer.
Speaker 4: And there, you know, they're there.
Speaker 3: There are all kinds of restaurants that have grappled with
Speaker 3: by by servicing an online customer that has come at
Speaker 3: the expense of their in store experience. You may sit
Speaker 3: in an empty restaurant, don't know IF's ever happened to you.
Speaker 3: You sit an empty restaurant and the food still takes
Speaker 3: a half an hour because they're busy trying to churn
Speaker 3: out their their kitchen for their online orders or the
Speaker 3: delivery orders, and it can be a complete nightmare. So
Speaker 3: they're all still trying to kind of find the balance.
Speaker 4: And those those that did.
Speaker 3: You know, going you know, as we sort of entered
Speaker 3: the COVID era, those that you know adjusted fastest and
Speaker 3: we're really good with sort of their own logistics. On
Speaker 3: a more micro scale, they're probably still doing well today.
Speaker 3: People's habits just kind of had to change.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things I won't do is I
Speaker 2: will not pay for a delivery service because I'll tell
Speaker 2: you right now, they're killing it. I mean, my god,
Speaker 2: when my son, I mean, we have kids, and I'll
Speaker 2: see in the charge that to get the food delivered
Speaker 2: was more than the food painful. What did you do?
Speaker 2: What I didn't want to get out of bed? Oh
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of money has been made off of lazy,
Speaker 3: off of a lazier people than van.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's it's bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean too so as far as the grocery
Speaker 2: store and and and the Trader Joe's and the shopping
Speaker 2: experience that'ople still want that, you know. No, I mean
Speaker 2: there's some food delivery services like just for the for
Speaker 2: a milk, or for eggs or just the staples, but
Speaker 2: people still want to go into the grocery store.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, if I don't know.
Speaker 3: In our house, I think we have four different methods
Speaker 3: of sort of grocery consumption, and they involve some online
Speaker 3: and some in store. And I think part of it
Speaker 3: is I don't want anyone picking my grapes but me,
Speaker 3: and I don't want anyone picking my steak but me,
Speaker 3: And so there's that part of the experience. And there's
Speaker 3: also something unbelievably satisfying about Costco dropping off, you know,
Speaker 3: a palette of toilet paper, you know, and they used
Speaker 3: to come with eggs, but we can't get those anymore.
Speaker 3: But you know, those things would now coming to your door,
Speaker 3: you know, without the process of sort of the warehouse
Speaker 3: club experience. Thank you, we'll take that. That's a great one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Costcos, how are they still.
Speaker 4: Doing as spectacularly.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that's one of the one of the
Speaker 3: most interesting retail stories sort of in our country in
Speaker 3: terms of how they've scaled there, have gotten to a
Speaker 3: scale and how they've made their decisions on their real
Speaker 3: estate has been brilliant. They don't pay they do not
Speaker 3: pay monster rents because they they don't mind being in
Speaker 3: the back of the industrial park because people will go
Speaker 3: out of their way to go find them and they
Speaker 3: know that. So their whole model has been huge, just
Speaker 3: wildly successful.
Speaker 2: And obviously they buy in large quantities and that's how
Speaker 2: they can pass along the savings correct.
Speaker 3: Massive, massive, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And and if you notice, I mean there is no
Speaker 3: build out in their stores. There's there. Their their merchandise
Speaker 3: is the buildout. It's just stacked on top of itself,
Speaker 3: right somehow in that environment you don't need you know,
Speaker 3: there is VCT floor, you know there is you know,
Speaker 3: there's no ceiling fixtures, the lights are industrial. It is
Speaker 3: a no frills kind of build out experience in a
Speaker 3: massive box. But they're just they're smart at every turn
Speaker 3: and how they and how they kind of operate.
Speaker 2: Does that give you the feeling that you're saving money
Speaker 2: as opposed to going in to say, like a Whole Foods,
Speaker 2: where you know, the milk is in the back of
Speaker 2: the store or the eggs in the back of the
Speaker 2: store and you have to go through the greenery and
Speaker 2: so forth to get there. But if I go into Costco,
Speaker 2: I'm in a warehouse, So I think I'm saving money,
Speaker 2: even though I may not be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I do.
Speaker 4: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I think that that there is some of that, like
Speaker 3: it feels like I'm getting But even Costco though, like
Speaker 3: you know Costco and there they are sort of strategic
Speaker 3: in how they hand out sort of samples and they
Speaker 3: keep that part as part of the experience. But what
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say is that the supermarket experience, they're you know,
Speaker 3: if they're evolving like they should be evolving, then you
Speaker 3: know they're going to make it worth your while to
Speaker 3: come into that store and to you know, see their
Speaker 3: prepared foods and their prepared food section has grown because
Speaker 3: you know, people don't have as much time and they
Speaker 3: want to sort of be able to know and but
Speaker 3: they've gotten better at all of the parts of their
Speaker 3: game as well, you know, the ones that are succeeding.
Speaker 2: You mentioned you have the delivery services right like door
Speaker 2: Dash and so forth, do families still eat out? Those
Speaker 2: numbers up are down?
Speaker 4: I think they're up.
Speaker 3: I mean, I, to be completely honest, I have no
Speaker 3: idea how many people.
Speaker 4: How it is that so.
Speaker 3: Many people can afford to go out to eat so
Speaker 3: many nights. I mean, I don't have to, it's it's
Speaker 3: an old stick. But but the price of what it
Speaker 3: costs to go to a restaurant right now is so
Speaker 3: absurd and so but and yet you know, go to
Speaker 3: Burlington on a on a Wednesday night at seven thirty
Speaker 3: and try to find a place to sit down. It's
Speaker 3: it's not easy. People are are are making that part
Speaker 3: of their you know, part of their annual budget.
Speaker 2: Well, I also think with the exception of our house lately,
Speaker 2: you know, both spouses work, you know, both parents work,
Speaker 2: you know, so they don't want to come home and
Speaker 2: they don't want to cook the dinner, and they don't
Speaker 2: want to go into that. They don't want to make
Speaker 2: that effort. So therefore they'll go out and they'll do that.
Speaker 2: And and it seems that I thought maybe the door
Speaker 2: Dash would put a dent in that, but it hasn't
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 4: I mean, in a way, a lot of those restaurants.
Speaker 3: Are are are doing well and and door dash is
Speaker 3: part of it, right, right, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So that's that's part of what's driving that energy. But
Speaker 3: but to your point, I am back to some one
Speaker 3: of your original points, the idea of going out to
Speaker 3: dinner and having a waiter or a waitress bring you
Speaker 3: your food and and if it's a great experience, even better,
Speaker 3: if it's a local experience, even better, if it's a
Speaker 3: place where you feel familiar and they and you feel
Speaker 3: comfortable and you see them on Wednesday. And I mean,
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to be a fancy restaurant that we're
Speaker 3: talking about. It just has to be a restare it's
Speaker 3: well executed where the experience of being there is a
Speaker 3: warm experience that still wins the day.
Speaker 2: You know, you talk about customer service, and I mentioned
Speaker 2: when I was looking for, you know, a printer thing,
Speaker 2: somebody came over. They helped me. They knew that I
Speaker 2: was an idiot, they knew that I needed help. They
Speaker 2: gave me exactly what I wanted. Is there an age
Speaker 2: where that doesn't matter, like if you're thirty or younger,
Speaker 2: or if you're thirty five or younger, that customer service
Speaker 2: doesn't matter anymore. You're just as happy to buy it online.
Speaker 3: God, I don't want to live in a world where
Speaker 3: that doesn't matter. No, I feel a little bit like,
Speaker 3: you know, the way that a twenty seven year old
Speaker 3: consumer and the way that a fifty four year old
Speaker 3: consumer wants to experience things, there is some overlap, right,
Speaker 3: Like you want to talk to someone who's smart, who
Speaker 3: you know, if I can't figure this out, please help
Speaker 3: me figure it out. You know that that does matter,
Speaker 3: But I you know that they're like anything else, these
Speaker 3: retailers are trying to figure out how to staff, how
Speaker 3: to do more with less, how to operate these stores,
Speaker 3: you know, with as as in some cases, as few
Speaker 3: employees as possible. But you know, for those that have said,
Speaker 3: you know what, no, we're not going to go that direction.
Speaker 3: We're going to make this experience. You know, walk into
Speaker 3: an aloe or walk into some of these other sort
Speaker 3: of newer brands, and there's there's there could be twelve
Speaker 3: people in the store and ten of them are you know,
Speaker 3: would appear to be working at the store. So I
Speaker 3: think there's different ways to go about it.
Speaker 2: When you talk about not being able to staff a store,
Speaker 2: is that because they don't want to pay the money,
Speaker 2: or the labor force isn't there, because from when I'm
Speaker 2: getting the labor force isn't there. For example, I went
Speaker 2: into a restaurant and they said half the restaurant is
Speaker 2: closed because we don't have waiters tonight. Well yeah, blow
Speaker 2: my mind. I mean, I know what happens in the
Speaker 2: food service industry. Is it happening in retail? And I'm
Speaker 2: not talking about high end retail. I'm talking about just
Speaker 2: going in. I need to go buy a printer. I
Speaker 2: need to go buy a printer cartridge, you know, and
Speaker 2: I can't find anybody to help me. And I wonder
Speaker 2: what are they cutting costs or they just don't have
Speaker 2: the labor pool.
Speaker 3: Well to some degree, And I mean Staples is a
Speaker 3: good example. Staples online sales are are astronomical and they
Speaker 3: still have a bricks and mortar presence. But how they
Speaker 3: staff the stores I think is still uh uh, you know,
Speaker 3: an equation that they're figuring out the balance of and
Speaker 3: so you're you're going to get that kind of experience
Speaker 3: maybe that that you got, you know, Chipotle is is
Speaker 3: right now famously in the middle of a of a
Speaker 3: of a really difficult time finding people to work their stores.
Speaker 3: And if you look behind the camera, but Chipotle, man,
Speaker 3: they're busy, they're they're they're cooking, they're chopping, they're serving
Speaker 3: there there, it's it's like a convey air belt of activity.
Speaker 3: That's not that's not an easy job whatsoever. And they're
Speaker 3: finding it impossibly hard to staff that. So, you know,
Speaker 3: part of this conversation gets into our labor pool, it
Speaker 3: gets into what people will work what jobs. Right, there's
Speaker 3: there's a whole there's there's a bunch of different conversations
Speaker 3: that are sort of intertwined with the one we're having.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to talk about airbnbs, and we're also
Speaker 2: going to talk about the dispensary business where that is
Speaker 2: and that's coming about around here with Todd Fernard Properties
Speaker 2: Cousin Todd on WBC's Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Cousin Todd Todd Fernard, CEO for our properties here rappings
Speaker 2: up as we talk about real estate and what's going
Speaker 2: on in this world right now here on WBC Gary
Speaker 2: Tangway for Dan, Right, Todd, let's talk. I want to
Speaker 2: I hope I get the pronouncia pronunciation right. Ready, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's talk about ready, tell me all about it. And
Speaker 2: it's a dispensary. And where is that industry going?
Speaker 4: That's wild?
Speaker 3: I mean a lot like real estate, it is sort
Speaker 3: of all over the place. But a bunch of years ago,
Speaker 3: some friends that I grew up with went to kindergarten
Speaker 3: with We got together and we decided that we were
Speaker 3: going to open a cannabis business. And so we went
Speaker 3: through the process to get licensed in Newton on Route
Speaker 3: nine in Newton Upper Falls kind of Newton Islands area,
Speaker 3: and then also in Natick out in the clover Leaf
Speaker 3: Mall where Total Wines is located.
Speaker 4: But we are shop.
Speaker 3: Underscore ready it is.
Speaker 4: It's just it's a.
Speaker 3: Locally owned cannabis dispensary and it's a wild business. But
Speaker 3: but yeah, I'm happy to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so where is the business hat because
Speaker 2: there was a concern I remember you and I had
Speaker 2: talked that maybe there was an oversaturation in the mar Yeah.
Speaker 3: And and look, I think we're in the first inning
Speaker 3: of a long baseball game here. But the first round
Speaker 3: of licenses came out and many of the towns and
Speaker 3: cities kind of, you know, met their sort of obligatory share,
Speaker 3: which was twenty percent of their liquor license count they
Speaker 3: had to sort of award in cannabis licenses. And so
Speaker 3: certain towns and certain cities have more certain have less
Speaker 3: certain certain many voted no in the twenty sixteen election
Speaker 3: and as a result were not obligated to open any stores. So,
Speaker 3: you know, Newton was was one of the early ones
Speaker 3: to sort of start figuring their way through it from
Speaker 3: a from a real estate perspective, which was sort of
Speaker 3: what my involvement in the in the operation was to
Speaker 3: help find the location and permit them and and and
Speaker 3: and so yeah, I mean it is you know, all
Speaker 3: of the fears of sort of what this business we're
Speaker 3: going to be, uh, you know, the element that came
Speaker 3: with dispensaries has been sort of completely It was it
Speaker 3: was a miss. I mean, it is a non issue.
Speaker 3: This is retail no different than liquor stores, retail no
Speaker 3: different than you know, any other kind of retail. And
Speaker 3: so it's still kind of figuring its way out. If
Speaker 3: the market is still sort of figuring out who who
Speaker 3: is a consumer, who's kind of coming to it for
Speaker 3: some people later in life. For some people they're young
Speaker 3: and cannabis has sort of always been a part of
Speaker 3: their their lifestyle.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that has been a.
Speaker 3: Really interesting My interest in it was really in part
Speaker 3: because I think one day it wants to live within hospitality.
Speaker 3: It wants to be sort of in a setting like
Speaker 3: a restaurant or like a hotel, or like a music venue.
Speaker 3: But it's a it's a form of hospitality, no different
Speaker 3: than you know, the reason you'd want to have a
Speaker 3: glass wine.
Speaker 2: Or a Look, it's a medication. It's to relax. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's all the same thing anybody who said, as it
Speaker 2: is and it's just being every great does it do
Speaker 2: you think in twenty years, thirty years that does it
Speaker 2: rival alcohol?
Speaker 3: H Yeah, I mean I actually do happen to think
Speaker 3: that in the course of the next decade or to
Speaker 3: the way that the next the next generation of person
Speaker 3: that wants to relax, I think will view alcohol and
Speaker 3: cannabis on a very equal footing. And so just in
Speaker 3: terms of what it does to your body, how you
Speaker 3: wake up the next morning feeling, how you sleep for
Speaker 3: a hundred different reasons. I think cannabis sort of can
Speaker 3: and will become far more mainstream. It's it's listen, I
Speaker 3: grew up with Nancy Reagan, and I was a just
Speaker 3: say no person until I wasn't.
Speaker 4: But that that was.
Speaker 2: But it's like Reverend jem on taxi. You know, you
Speaker 2: do Todd came home one day stoned some evenings.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so you know this is this is a
Speaker 3: whole conversation in and of itself in terms of where
Speaker 3: it's going and how it's going to evolve. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I do very much think that to your point, this
Speaker 3: all falls under the umbrella of mood management, and that
Speaker 3: that includes some of you know, the things that are
Speaker 3: prescribed by your doctor, and includes some of the things
Speaker 3: you drink at a pub, and includes some of the
Speaker 3: things you buy it ready and bring home.
Speaker 2: So but here's the thing, which is which is which
Speaker 2: sells better the gummies or the actual cannabis.
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: It's that is an ever evolving equation. But I would
Speaker 3: say to you that the gummies are are certainly the
Speaker 3: fastest growing part. People don't I mean, in general, I
Speaker 3: think people don't love the idea of many people don't
Speaker 3: want to burn something and inhale it into their lungs.
Speaker 3: And I completely understand that perspective. There are many more
Speaker 3: people who would rather drink a you know, calorie free
Speaker 3: seltzer with five milligrams of THHC and you know, find
Speaker 3: that sort of relaxing wavelength that it might take three
Speaker 3: drinks to get to, but you know, one to five
Speaker 3: milligram seltzer probably gets you feeling, you know, nice and
Speaker 3: relaxed and you know, ready to ready to put the
Speaker 3: kids to better whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: So well Todd, fascinating conversation. We are at a time
Speaker 2: we were we were going to get to Airbnb's and hotels.
Speaker 2: The one thing I will say, I still love a
Speaker 2: great hotel. I still love a great hotel.
Speaker 3: Waking up in someone else's bed is still a little weird.
Speaker 2: But and this is gonna sound so bad, and you
Speaker 2: gotta make it. What a jackass thing to say. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I mean my mom right now she is
Speaker 2: rolling over what you never make your bed anyways, Gary
Speaker 2: Todd for CEO for our properties. Very good, very educational. Todd,
Speaker 2: thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. And again and
Speaker 2: the ready locations are where again.
Speaker 3: In Newton and in Natick Shop Shop Underscore.
Speaker 2: Ready all right, Todd, be good, talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you, all right, Todd. For properties, it's fascinating. I
Speaker 2: mean I was never really into real estate. But why
Speaker 2: people shop, why people leave the house. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: a whole new world out there, it really is. I
Speaker 2: mean when you see pickleball courts at the Natick Mall,
Speaker 2: I'm like, what excuse me? But that's it. I mean,
Speaker 2: go play pickle ball and go pick up a donkey.
Speaker 2: That's the world we're living in. We are going to
Speaker 2: talk about football movies, the best football movies coming up
Speaker 2: with my guy Tory Champagne from espn uh and that's
Speaker 2: next on WBC.