Unveiling the Magic at White Branches: A Wonderland-inspired Experience”

 

Matthew White [00:00:00]:

The more I started rambling on to the owner. He's like, you need all of this space. I'm like, I do need all of this. It's.

Scott Cowan [00:00:26]:

Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here's your host, Scott Cowan. Hello, friends. This is Scott with the Exploring Washington State podcast, and I'm welcoming you to episode number 224. This episode is a conversation I had recently with Matthew White. Matthew is the owner and head visionary of a business in Mount Vernon, Washington called White Branches. Beyond that, I really don't know how to describe it. It's a tea room, it's cabaret, it's theater. It's so, so much more. This guy has an imagination that is out of the world. You need to listen to this episode. It's pretty fascinating. Before we get started, two requests. Number one, if you haven't signed up for our newsletter, please do. We've got a link in the show notes. And number two, if you be so kind as to share this and give a review, we'd really appreciate that. So let's get started. Enjoy.

Matthew White [00:01:27]:

I'm ready.

Scott Cowan [00:01:28]:

Well, Matthew, welcome. Thank you for taking the time to be here. And I'm going to turn it over to you. Why don't you tell us about your journey and how White Branches came about?

Matthew White [00:01:40]:

Okay, well, thank you for having me. This started back when I was working with Tiara Zenzani as their merchandise director. And within that time frame, about 2015, I took over Brainstorming, my business for White Branches, and that was for events and doing weddings and various things like that that started growing larger. So I was going to leave Tiara and Zani, and then the owner asked if I would like to take over the retail and become partners with them. So the aspect the branch of White Branches went into retail mode for quite some time, doing tiatra Zenzani, and then we launched the Fifth Avenue Theater is also my location. And then we opened up the Chicago location, and within that time, this kept going. So the event side started taking on its own legs again. And this past year in August, I was talking to a friend through mutual acquaintances and just asked me what I'm doing and what I'm looking for. And I was talking about needing a headquarters for all of the locations for the retail. And then I want to get back into the event side and doing the theatrical productions. And I live in Arlington. This is in Mount Vernon. It's about 20 minutes away from my house. And said, yeah, I think my friend who owns a couple of businesses may have a building that you might be interested in. So I came here. Bill Grenio had just been taken over by Bill Constantine downstairs. So that's a bit of business that's just been a turnkey business. He pretty much walked into it, and everybody knows Il Grenio. So that's the whole bottom floor of the old town granary, and then the second floor is different compartments. It used to be the chamber was here before. There was a church group, there was a riverbell theater, there was a tea shop, all of these different things. So when they brought me up to look at the space downstairs for just my headquarters, for the retail, I started doing my rambling and they said, oh, we may have something upstairs you might want to look at. So I was looking at just this space that's a little small use of the church group and little workshops or what have you. So I was looking at that and going, okay, all right. And the tea shop that was here before was still here. So I'm kind of doing my look around and thinking, okay, how can I work with this? How can I work with the existing tea shop and bring my madness into this level without disturbing their business? So the more I started rambling on to the owner, he's like, you need all of this space. I'm like, I do need all of this space. We basically took over the entire second floor. And it just so happened that again, the tea shop didn't really know that I was coming in. When I signed the lease, the owner called and said, you're not going to believe this. They just notified us that they're moving to Burlington. So they've got a nice tea room up in Burlington. So they're like, the tea room is yours too. I'm like, Great, bring it on. Yeah. It's been since October, December. We opened up for a little holiday market type of thing. This is an old building, a very old building, lots of character. But let's just say there was a water feature that we weren't expecting, maybe.

Scott Cowan [00:05:46]:

Like an indoor waterfall type from the roof.

Matthew White [00:05:50]:

Yes. So we're like, oh, we could just call it a feature. Yeah, lots and lots of roofing issues, lots of air conditioning and heating and all the things that go with a wonderful old building. So there was a lot of moving forward and then stepping back, moving forward and stepping back. So we had the retail aspect of the holiday market open in December, and then we shut everything back down to try to secure and not have to have buckets throughout the whole space every day. So, thankfully, all of that has now in the past and we were able to open April 1, and I wanted to be open on April 1, so my anniversary could be said. That no fooling. We opened and then, yeah, we've been kind of going full steam ever since. The tea room is now running Thursday through Sundays. We'll add more days as we get a little bit more bandwidth for that. But that's been great. It's a full tier tea room. It has a wonderland room inside where you can rent up to a party of ten, which has specialty fanfare to that. And in the midst of all of this, creating the events, and we're working on the theater right now. I have five retail partner venues that are opening throughout the country and in Canada. So it's a busy, busy night.

Scott Cowan [00:07:29]:

I don't know. Only five. Only five?

Matthew White [00:07:33]:

Yeah, only five.

Scott Cowan [00:07:35]:

If you said six, then it'd be, like, pretty busy. I'm on your website while we're talking, and first off, your website is unlike what we typically see in websites these days, which is a compliment. There's a lot of sense of story and of this fantasy. Whimsical. Look to it.

Matthew White [00:08:05]:

Thank you.

Scott Cowan [00:08:06]:

But here's the question I have.

Matthew White [00:08:09]:

And.

Scott Cowan [00:08:10]:

When we talked on the phone before, what you're doing on the surface, it doesn't connect to what I perceive Mount Vernon. Right. It's just there's this there's this disconnect of my perception of Mount Vernon. And I think when we were talking on the phone, you were quite optimistic and pleased with the support and the turnout of the local community.

Matthew White [00:08:42]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Cowan [00:08:44]:

It's been amazing to put you on the spot with a really this might be the hardest question of the whole episode right here. Just get out of the way. When they handed you the quote unquote pen and said, okay, here's your lease, sign it, were you not nervous that Mount Vernon might not be a market match?

Matthew White [00:09:05]:

You know, there really wasn't, because I came to the space probably about eight times after the initial viewing, just to walk the space, feel the space. I walked the town, went into the shops, kind of felt the vibe of the city, and for me, it was just that, wow, this is really a pretty magical space that you wouldn't think would be so open and supportive. All the businesses, the community, everybody's very supportive. I went to they do a show at the Lincoln Theater, and it's a drag show. And I thought, oh, drag at Mount Vernon? Okay, we need to see this. Like, I need to see what I'm dealing with. The place was packed. It's not a typical drag show. They have a couple of main performers, but the main gist of the event is to allow someone who's always wanted to have this moment, that freedom of having that moment. And some of the acts were okay, but that's not what it was about. It wasn't about the quality of the act. It was about the love and support, a safe space, a sense of community. Yeah. People were on their feet, clapping and going nuts and kids and family, and I thought, okay, we're somewhere that people are moving away from the city, or they've already been established here. I've lived in Arlington and Granite Falls for about 16 years now, and I would commute back and forth to Seattle for my different businesses and for events and such. And it's something I'm happy to say that when I signed the lease, I really didn't have hesitation because I thought, this is your leap. I've had many opportunities like this, as we do in life, that we hesitate. And I've learned throughout my years that you can't hesitate. My whole business is about opening doors and portals and walking through them, and that's literally what this space is. And for you to do that with yourself, so I have to believe that in myself. Right. So, yeah, I really didn't have hesitation because I felt like I knew this was going to be a little challenging year just to get everything up and going. Now we're in the swing and to have Mount Vernon Chamber and the Downtown Association and the businesses all come to me and say, we've been waiting for you.

Scott Cowan [00:12:08]:

That's very cool.

Matthew White [00:12:09]:

That's pretty amazing.

Scott Cowan [00:12:11]:

Okay.

Matthew White [00:12:12]:

Yeah. I don't think I would see that in Seattle. I feel like I'd be lost in the mix. So this has become a destination already.

Scott Cowan [00:12:23]:

And the thing is that Mount Vernon's a reasonable drive from Seattle. I can't believe I use the word reasonable drive in Seattle in the same sentence. But no, all kidding aside, it's not much of a drive out of Seattle. You're close to bellingham. Vancouver is a little bit more of a drive, but once again, you're kind of in between two very large metropolitan areas in Seattle and Vancouver. But you've got Bellingham, which is the uninformed. Bellingham is actually a very cool place and there's lots of really cool things happening in Bellingham. So I could see that audience being down here, too. Okay, yes, you weren't nervous. All right. But you also didn't know you're renting a leaky roof. Okay. So I love to ask questions like this. Everything was simple, there was no problems. No, I kid. Really? What sort of challenges have you had? And I love to hear how people solve the challenges and move forward. So you already disclosed you had kind of a, you know, you got an old building, you've got heating and cooling challenges, you've got a roof. I'm going to guess that. Well, how much remodeling did you do to that? Upper so the upper floor? Everything?

Matthew White [00:13:57]:

Yeah. It took us from August to October to just clean.

Scott Cowan [00:14:02]:

Okay.

Matthew White [00:14:03]:

Sink clean, like scrub down clean, clean, clean. Because, I mean, it's an old building and there is lots of areas to this. When I took over, it was just the tea shop, which is in the back of the building. But how many square feet are we talking space? Let's see, three does this probably 7000 maybe here, because downstairs my office space is almost 3000. So, yes, it's a big space, probably 9000, I guess, with everything. But there's pockets and rooms and we've created this sense where you can go around. We're going to be having an event coming up, ghosts at the Granary, which is October 30. And it's one of the things where you pay a set price. You come up, there's drinks and food and stuff that you can purchase, but there's going to be these pockets of performances throughout the space, but it pretty much is. You explore, and if you want to go in this room and here's a magician or here's this, then you go into this room and there's something else happening. So it helps people. It's a sense to be able to go through all these portals and this magical space without a set agenda. You get to set your agenda, which is kind of what I see people do when they come in here. They just want to explore. And the space itself, it was bare bones. It still felt like the granary. So I just started from the front back, and here we are. We're still working on some things. We're working on the theater right now, but that's a 98 person theater.

Scott Cowan [00:15:53]:

So share with us an unexpected obstacle that you had besides the leaky roof, because old buildings we almost kind of have to that wouldn't have shocked anybody. But was there any sort of like, oh, I didn't see that one coming?

Matthew White [00:16:15]:

Not really. I kind of knew what I was coming into as far as the space itself. Like I said, I came about eight different times. And walking through, there's a tower, old Town Granary. That's actually a part of Mount Vernon's logo is this tower. It needs love. It's a five story tower on the inside, kind of picture rapunzel tower. When you walk in, there's just little staircase that goes to this giant loft and then another staircase to another giant loft. It goes on and on. I talked to the owner. He sees all what I'm doing here. Very excited about this project and about where this is going. Like you said, people from Seattle, I'm loving that they're coming here and going, wow, this is like a getaway for us. And then, of course, people here, oh, we don't have to go all the way into Seattle to have something. And then you've got the islands and you've got Canada, all these different aspects. So with the tower next year, that's another project. I'll be working on that. So this is unexpected. Not as an obstacle. It's just one that I wasn't thinking about. The space that is also mine in the lease, so I can construct that to be a VIP experience with full aerial act or I mean, the ceiling is like, 20ft tall and, yeah, pretty amazing. And then have a photo studio or an art studio or a circus training. All of those will happen next year as, like, white branches, the granary artists and residents type of program. So that's unexpected. It's not a bad thing. It's just like I didn't know that that was there.

Scott Cowan [00:18:16]:

You mentioned the theater. You're working on the theater. What is your hope for that? You've converted a space into this. I mean, you've retrofitted. There wasn't a theater already in the loft or in the upper level, was there?

Matthew White [00:18:34]:

There used to be, yes. This was the riverbell Theater was a dinner theater way back in the day. And when I came in, there's no stage, it's just the room itself. So the venue had used that before as like, reception area or something very bare bones. So I've converted that. Now you used to walk into the space and just kind of go straight into the stage. So you're walking and there's your seats, and then your stage is right in front of you. We've kind of turned it on its ear. When you walk in, you're walking through the stage, and then the stage connects in itself afterward to give you this topsy turvy moment, but also give you this moment that everybody's on stage, we all should shine in the spotlight. And I really believe in empowerment and that sense of having somebody leave here, not just with, oh, I just had tea, I just did this, I just did this. They're leaving here talking and communicating, and their mind is buzzing. It's exciting for me to have guests come here and go, oh, my gosh, you could do this, and this, and this. They're coming up with all these ideas because they're so excited about the space itself. So it's been really amazing. I'm sitting here right now in my cabaret room, which is our boutique emporium in Cabaret. So we have a bunch of cabinets that open up for my retail, the same as my partnering venues. But when they close, some of these cabinets are portals that characters may come out of and do wonderful, magical things. So this is a really fanciful circus vibe type of room. And we just had the other day a women's worship group. It was a church group. And I said, well, did you want to have it in the tea room? Oh, no, we want to have it in the cabaret room because it's all about life and it's about living and excitement. It was just so incredible to me that I'm like, wow. I mean, I find that really interesting. Like, don't put someone in a bubble of what you think when they say something, let them breathe, let them see if this melds with what you're doing. And I think that's what we need right now. We need everybody to communicate. And I hope that's what came out of the pandemic to some extent, that we realize that we need each other and we need art and we need laughter and we need experiences.

Scott Cowan [00:21:21]:

What do you anticipate using the theater for? What do you have in the vision for that space? You mentioned that it was a 98 seat. Will that still be the case? Just right at about 100, folks?

Matthew White [00:21:35]:

Yeah. So it was more for the Riverbell. They actually had more seating. But the sight lanes, I can't see how they did that, because there's posts, we've got these giant beams. This was the granary. So all of the posts will have like, F Twelve or H Eight. That's where the granary was, that was the bins where you would go and get these things. So I've redone the space so that the 98 seating has a little VIP area, but the sight lines are really great. We could probably add one more level, but it has a full band stage inside. And then we are going to be doing some events coming up. There's going to be a fairy tale event that we're going to be having as an ongoing production. And that is a full tea tiered tea service. And then you're brought into it's only for 48 guests. It's as many that we put in the tea room. Then those 48 guests are brought into the cabaret room. Characters present themselves, empowerment, magic, all of these things. And then we're brought into the theater space where another moment happens, and you get all of the spectacle for the venue use. There's a choral concert that's coming up. There's a one woman show. There's going to be bands. We're going to be doing swing dance, belly dance classes, all of these things. The room is being built on a design that I have created for a play. And it's the magician coming to town, bringing his entourage. It's a shadow play where you realize very shortly within the story that the Magician's shadow is in love with the assistant and chaos ensues. But it's about stepping into your light, stepping into your shadow, not being afraid of your light, not being afraid of the shadow. Life, death, things that no longer serve you. All of these moments that happen within it. So a lot of circus art, magic, live music, that sort of thing. So that's what I'm building the space on. So when you see the space, it's very magical. We have a very special moment that happens when the train goes by, because the train is literally right outside our door. I knew that coming in, so that wasn't really an unexpected moment. I just was thinking that when I'm signing, that at least like, okay, in the tea room, it's actually pretty magical. The train goes by, things rattled, and it's fun. And you feel like you're on the train during a play or during some wonderful key moment where you might have a hoop artist or something happening, and then you've got the train go by. It kind of upsets the balance a little bit. So we've come up with a really cool thing that happens during that time where guests are going to want the train to come by.

Scott Cowan [00:24:46]:

Okay.

Matthew White [00:24:46]:

Which is really fun.

Scott Cowan [00:24:48]:

How many trains go by?

Matthew White [00:24:53]:

It can be several.

Scott Cowan [00:24:55]:

Okay.

Matthew White [00:24:59]:

Usually it's just about one or so a day, but there have been times at night where there's three trains that go by, and I'm like, okay, so we've got these moments that happen that become magical and part of that experience within the play. Yeah. So no matter what performance we have, whether it's something that I'm presenting or something that I'm working on with another partnering artist or band or something like that. I would still have those moments in play for them and to let them know that when this happens, this is what happens. And that way it's not like, oh, we're in the middle of performance and this train just went by. I give them that magic moment too.

Scott Cowan [00:25:45]:

Okay, wait, I want to get an open loop out there. Nicely done. Nicely done. My gosh. Yeah, because I want to ask you, and I know you're not going to tell me you got to come experience. Here's a question I have so recap. You're in Mount Vernon. How many performers does white branches need to fulfill these experiences?

Matthew White [00:26:26]:

Well, I mean, it really depends on what the event is. Right now. We're going to be coming up with the Villain Queens Cabaret for October. We launched it in June and it was very successful and people wanted more of it. So I thought, okay, October is a great time to do that. So there you're talking about a cast of five people that are doing various things to that usually. I mean, like a cast of five or six, you're good and then you're banned that take on different aspect roles. But we're always looking for artists that either are okay with travel time or that live up toward this area. I'm trying to pull more local. I feel like there's a lot of untapped people here. Not necessarily. Just the bellingham circus crowd. There definitely is a pool in there too. But I'm looking for people that are singers and dancers and actors that want to come on audition. And you never know who you're going to see out of that. I've found the most exciting people of those who aren't just constantly got a gig going on. The ones who are really hungry for it, who want that opportunity, are the ones who are going to bring the most out of it. So, yeah, I'm keeping it open. I've got my list of people that I can pull from, but at the same time, those people are in the industry and they've got lots of other things in the fire that they're working on as well. So we're always open. And again, this is year one. This is me barely even scratching the surface. Everything that has been here has been word of mouth. It really has social media word of mouth, and it's been incredible. So now we're starting to launch our actual marketing. So coming into November, December, it's going to solidify. We're here. We're here to stay. It's not just an event. You can come by anytime. Well, for instance, the Chamber, they had their volunteers and they said, give us just a 32nd little deal of what white Branches. And all the volunteers were laughing because they were all here. And I said, if we're talking about the Chamber, the tourism where you come in for just the tourist center. I said, if somebody's coming in, what's there to do in Mount Vernon? Vernon you go through the things. There's wonderful things. And then make sure to stop by white branches. If it's a Wednesday through a Sunday, just tell them to come up. What is it? Well, they've got a tea room. They do events and stuff. It's free to walk in. You just need to walk in. And they have. And we've had so many people just walk in and be like, where are we? What's happening? I want to know everything about it. So, yeah, it's been really cool.

Scott Cowan [00:29:36]:

So when a random person is walking in and let's say it's a Saturday, how long are they typically in the building? How long is it captivating people for? If it's a random person not coming for an advance or anything, well, what's this place? Let's go in and look. Boom. They walk in the doors and this.

Matthew White [00:29:55]:

Hits them at least an hour. At least an hour? Yeah. They come in because we've got the boutique. They come in and then they're like, oh, we usually nine out of ten. Oh, my gosh. If we've got the tea room going and we've got availability yeah. Would you like to have yeah. So then they experience that and then it's going to get a little shorter because unless we have really a low day, I have been giving a lot of secrets away. So if you came in, I would show you the cabaret room and show you kind of some of the hidden portals and show you what I'm working on. Just build up that excitement, because, again, this is all a lot of word of mouth for people just to talk about what's happening now. We're solidifying pretty much everything that surrounds the theater, which theater will be done within the next couple of weeks. I want to keep some of those secrets so that what is behind the doors, where you'll have to come back and see. So we're getting to that point. So if they want to see the hidden, they need to start coming now, because we're going to keep our secrets a little tight, and that way you're experiencing them instead of seeing the process, which I think is kind of a cool place to be right now.

Scott Cowan [00:31:34]:

Yeah. I'm a coffee guy, so I'm not anti tea, but I am blissful. I'm blissfully talked about tea. How's that?

Matthew White [00:31:53]:

You need to try our signature tea. It's Creme de la Earl Gray, which is an Earl Gray tea with notes of vanilla. Every person I've had many of that same response, like, guys, I'm not really a tea drinker. I'm a coffee drinker. Like, try this. Oh, my God, we've got you covered. Put it that way.

Scott Cowan [00:32:23]:

You'll like, did you open the tea room because there was a tea room there, or did you open the tea room because it fits really well with everything that else. You're doing well.

Matthew White [00:32:41]:

Again with the tea room that was here. When I was thinking about the space, I was already in my head kind of noodling how I could talk to the owners and if they were open, to kind of creating an, umbrage, office sort of vibe in their tea room with cat plates that are moving or that sort of thing, adding some magic to their vibe. So I'm already thinking about these things. And then when they actually found their location, which is great, it made sense. Okay. I'm already kind of thinking about how I want this space to to look and to talk to these, you know, the the past owners. So why not just melt it? I had a gallery and cafe in Florida before called The Shark Who Loved Me, and that was really pretty great. And I know how to do this. And I'm happy to say that it's extremely successful. When people ask, how would you describe this? I'm happy to say that I can take what other guests are saying where they're saying it's magical, it's amazing. This is such an incredible experience, all of these things. They love the scones and the whole tiered tea service and everything that we're doing. The sandwich combinations, DA DA DA. The biggest thing that I've been thrilled that we heard once, doing our preview, and then my team, they tear up, which is really sweet. I've got an amazing, sweet, wonderful team here. But we get very emotional because it's like we're not just providing whatever to the world. This is important. There's a power here. And for the guest to say many times over, you've created something I didn't know I needed. That's huge for us. That's huge. So it really makes us teary eyed. We had a guest here that we're doing a Wonderland event. There's a big moment with whoever is the guest of honor. There's a moment with that. There's a separate room. But when the Wonderland character appears, if you're in the tea room and having tea, you're going to get that moment too, because they love applause. They love so the Tea room was full, the Wonderland party, so they're hearing all of this commotion and stuff outside of their room. So when the room opens up, they're having that, well, now you're hearing all the stuff that's going on in that room. So we come back out that the guest of honor has this moment. The whole place stands up. Claps. Amazing. Incredible. And this one family that was off on the side, and it was a woman that was probably in her eighty s. And then I found out that was her son and daughter that were about my age, and you could see they were just entranced and it was just so amazing. And I tell the guests, I want you to look around for the Wonderland room because they're like, oh my gosh, this is so incredible. Blah, blah, blah. I. Tell them to look around the room. I said, look at what you just did. You being here and celebrating and being you. Look at what you've done for these people. It's really quite powerful. And these one guests came up to me, and the woman held my hand, and all of a sudden I felt this wave come over me because, I mean, we have incredibly emotional moments here, which is really quite amazing in such a short time, I feel like, okay, we're doing something right. But she took my hand, and I just immediately was welling up with tears. I felt this emotion. Her husband had passed away that morning, and it was long coming, and they just thought, we just need to be together. Let's go find a tea room. So they randomly picked me, and she said, you don't know how much, like, we were meant to be here. That's really incredible something. I'm thrilled of what I'm doing and doing this, but that's where we're circling back to Mount Vernon. There's a purpose here. It seems like everything is kind of folding into where it's meant to be, and the guests contribute to that amazing welcomeness, and you have a sense of safety and connectivity to whatever that may be to each other, to people that we've lost, to just being in the moment. Wow.

Scott Cowan [00:38:09]:

Okay. Since you're obviously very good at open loops and not disclosing too much, which I applaud you for, not really, because I really want to know it's working.

Matthew White [00:38:29]:

What.

Scott Cowan [00:38:33]:

What'S next? What what's on the horizon that you're willing to share with us a little bit two years from now? What do you want the space to be doing that it's currently that it's not doing yet? What does this look like?

Matthew White [00:38:58]:

Yeah, so circling back to the Magician entourage, that's going to be something I'm really looking forward to. That's been in my brain for many, many years. And what's exciting so far, like, within my circus and entertainment world of friends and stuff, they get very emotional coming here because they've known me for so long, and they're like it's surreal to them. It's very surreal to me because it's all coming out. These things that I've talked about and doing, I'm able to do here. The owner has given me really free reins to. He bought this space because he felt it was a magical space and that I'm doing these things. He's thrilled of what I'm doing. I try to keep the integrity of everything as well as just bringing the magic out. So the Magician play is a big piece for me. That's going to be something that will be an ongoing performance, and then we're going to be doing more, I guess, routine. That's what I'm hearing. More from the community. They want to know what I'm doing Friday and Saturday. Not just the events, but they want to know I can go there Friday. Saturday night, it's a nightclub. It's this it's, whatever it is, that's going to be something I'm excited about for next year. That will be an ongoing thing that, you know, every Friday, Saturday is this. Unless there's event, then that may shift for that day or that time. The other thing that I'm working on that was going to happen in October, but now has shifted to December because of all the things, the side part of the retail continues. Vancouver is coming too, and all these things. But we're working on a mystery event. And this was something that was brought to me from a guest and we started talking and then I talked to a story board friend of mine that does lots of the gamings and actual physical games. Anyway, it went much further than what I was projecting. My mind goes a lot. But then when I released it to the Downtown Association and to the different merchants, everybody is wanting to be on this. I'm like, okay, this is much bigger than what I was originally kind of constructing. So that's going to be a really cool thing because that could be an ongoing type of event. And there is a murder mystery, I say with quotes because there's always a twist. I don't want anything associated with white branches. As far as the venue here to be dark, there's going to be oh my gosh moment, right? So that's coming up. That's going to be exciting because that'll be an ongoing thing. And then next year, aside from the other retail markets, I'm already being hit up by several more Broadway theater companies and stuff for the retail aspect. As long as I have people running those that are great, I know how to do it. But I'm looking at now of doing a haunt. The owner of the building has lots of other spaces, so we may do a full month of October haunt. That's a whole nother aspect, but the space, it really is. It keeps changing. There's going to be things that are key. And then I think the exciting part is that you may come here and there's going to be this quartet or there's this band, or there's this happening or this just to have something that is a continual, if that makes sense, that's not just the event, but something that's ongoing. Like the Tea Room, you know, it's open from ten to four right now, Thursday through Sunday, that, you know, every weekend there's something and you can bring your friends and family, you can come up here and it's open to what have you. So that's really where I'm trying to gear at for this coming year. Just trying to do as many of the productions and things I'm excited about for this year and then let the space kind of take on its own. And that's kind of what's happened. Even with the decor, it's really told me white branches is a fine line of adding things and then I can put this one thing and be like, no, that needs to be taken out. Or oh no, I need four more of those. I ride a fine line every time I'm doing something. So I think that's what the the space itself has kind of lended itself to me like that. Like, okay, this looks great. And the staff can tell you that the lobby has changed twelve times because it's like, okay, you see that? It works great for this reason, but now we're to this level. Okay, now it has to change. So I think that's where I'm at for the other spaces for the venue.

Scott Cowan [00:44:56]:

I'm on White Branch's Facebook page, and I'm going to read something here. We had my granddaughter's birthday there today. It was fabulous. We had so much fun. It was absolutely perfect in every way possible. Top quality in all areas. Thank you so much for putting this together. That's got to make you and your staff feel very happy.

Matthew White [00:45:24]:

Oh, it's thrilling. I'm happy to say we get that all the time. I'm thrilled. It puts a smile on beaming as I scroll through. It's amazing.

Scott Cowan [00:45:34]:

I have more questions. First off, white branches.

Matthew White [00:45:38]:

Sure.

Scott Cowan [00:45:38]:

Is there a story behind the name?

Matthew White [00:45:44]:

Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:45:45]:

Are you going to share that or are you going to leave that as an open with us too?

Matthew White [00:45:48]:

Okay, yeah, it's really pretty simple. Our logo is the White Rabbit as a jackalope. His antlers are the branches. And there has always been for me a thing connection with Wonderland. And with that, it's kind of like, oh, I like Nutcrackers, and all of a sudden everybody's giving you Nutcrackers. I don't like Nutcrackers that much. I don't like Alice in Wonderland that much. It's just there happens to be a connection. I don't know what that is. So everybody will associate Wonderland to me, for me, when I'm in doubt of something, when I'm truly in doubt something from Wonderland. And this is an honest, no kidding, this really does happen. I can sit there and go, gosh, I don't know if I should do this or this. All of a sudden there will be someone dressed as the Mad Hatter that comes and sits down right next to me. Or when I was thinking about tiatra Zenzani, for instance, I don't know if I should do this because I was doing some other things at the time, blah, blah, blah. And as I'm in this interview, here comes the character dressed as the Wood Cream and does this whole moment like, right? I'm like, okay, it leads me right? And it's just a way and I think everybody has that with them. If you just look for what you want for a sign, give me a sign. Give yourself a sign that if I see this, this means something. So with that, the logo is the White Rabbit. I am the White Rabbit. I'm constantly late. I'm constantly chasing Wonderland, all of these things. And then my last name is White, Matthew White. And the branches came from people going, okay, so you're doing retail. You want to do the events, you want to do theater, you want to do this? What do you want to do? I want to branch out and do everything like branches. All right, there we go. So there's branches of the business. That's what my team is always like. Okay, so this is another branch of what we're doing. You got it.

Scott Cowan [00:48:12]:

And as I scroll, I'm seeing a lot of costumes. Those are what readily available at the store down the street. Right. You just go pick them up.

Matthew White [00:48:27]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:48:34]:

Is your team creating the costumes? There's a lot of intricate work here. There's a lot of stuff going on. How does that get brought to life?

Matthew White [00:48:52]:

That's another aspect of being in the Rabbit. I work really fast and rapidly, so when I have an idea, I just kind of put it all together. So as we grow, I'm needing to reach out. It's not that I want to do it all myself. It's just that when you're starting a business, you do all the things. With a budget, you do all the things. So for me, like, even the masks and stuff that I do for the other venues, a lot of those most of those are either ones that I'm creating in house here, or they're pieces that I've worked on with companies and then doing all the embellishment stuff here. So I'm doing that on my end with the buying, with the painting, with the construction, with the service, creating the costume, like, upcoming for the upcoming billing. Queens. I'm building three of the costumes right now. It doesn't stop at white branches. It's always something.

Scott Cowan [00:50:01]:

All right, so in your copious spare time, what do you like to do for fun?

Matthew White [00:50:11]:

Well, one of the things my partner that I've been with for Eons now, we can't believe how it's been 19 years now. Him and I met, and he actually travels. He has a whole thing, which, at the beginning, with my kind of fast brain mode that I have, he likes to visit every county in the country.

Scott Cowan [00:50:41]:

Every county?

Matthew White [00:50:44]:

Yeah. So there's 3143 counties, and he's visited 71% of those. So he's visited 2006.

Scott Cowan [00:50:58]:

How long has he been working on that?

Matthew White [00:51:00]:

Every county? I don't know when he started with that, because, of course, he did all of the counties in Washington first. Those are 39. And he actually has a blog that he started called Four on the Road, like F-O-U-R like fourwheelsontheroad.com. And he had a four part series about the best places to see in each county of Washington. That's been a thing that he's been doing. And when we went to he drove the truck to bring the cabinet and all of the merchandise and stuff to Theater Under the Stars, which is my new Broadway venue partner in Houston. So we drove from Washington to Houston and then flew straight back. So it was 600 miles every day, so 11 hours a day. And it was incredible. It was incredible for me just to not be on my phone, just sit in the passenger seat. He loves it so much just to be on the road and to be on that open road. And that was the first time, I think, for the entire trip. Now there's been pockets that I've been able to go and then there's things like, oh, we'll be there in a couple of hours. Oh, no, we're going to be there 4 hours because we have to hit the county. That's wavering that literally has nothing there except for a marker that tells you the counting. But this was really incredible and it made me realize that what I'm missing because I love all of this. I love being in the action. I love being a piece of everything. But there is something to be said about just sitting back and watching and taking life in. And that's what happened just this past week when we went to Houston and I realized that's more of what I want to do. I want to have things running where I can give people these areas, just like my retail. I have incredible people in these other states and coming up in Canada, stuff that are so excited to pretty much I give them ownership of what this is and they put themselves into this. And it's exciting to me that we're working together as a team, but I can step away from it. And that's what this space is going to eventually be. I'm going to be doing the events and stuff. We have a wonderful team and people that will take this energy and just keep building this so that my free time is me just kind of soaking things in. I'm always doing something. So I think what I'm missing in life is just sitting back and enjoying, enjoy the ride. It's been great. It's a great partnership because that's his mode and my mode and it melds very well together.

Scott Cowan [00:54:27]:

I actually loaded up his website and I'm on because this is the Exploring Washington State Podcast. Every other state is dead to me at this point. I'm just kidding. But I'm looking at his Washington State stuff that he's doing and great photography. So kudos there. This is really nicely done and you could go along for 29% of the counties and help him complete it. Now how are you going to do that in someplace like Alaska?

Matthew White [00:55:09]:

I don't know if he has Alaska already done or if there's might be one. There might be a couple of counties. Now the biggest thing is the Hawaii we were supposed to go. So my partner's name is Tracy Wickham say that he's really incredible, but before the Pandemic, he got us a trip to Hawaii. Oh my God. Incredible. Well, catch to that. You know, because county so but the county is actually where I can't remember the island right now, but it's where the old leper colony was that you have to fly in, and that's a county in Hawaii that he wanted to get. But it's actually an incredible experience now that things have opened back up. That area still isn't opened up. We paid for everything, but it's still on the waiting list because the community is so small, very elderly, that they're taking all precautions that they can. But it's things like that he finds out, like, okay, how can I get this point? His map is really hysterical because you look at a map and somebody filling in the colors for the state. His map is a map of counties.

Scott Cowan [00:56:27]:

Yeah. Washington State's got 39 little boxes to color it.

Matthew White [00:56:31]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:56:31]:

Okay.

Matthew White [00:56:33]:

Yeah. So he's done washington. Yeah. It's really okay. Crazy.

Scott Cowan [00:56:42]:

That's very cool.

Matthew White [00:56:46]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:56:47]:

So I have to ask because I ask every one of my guests this. Do you drink coffee? Are you a coffee drinker? Okay.

Matthew White [00:56:53]:

I do.

Scott Cowan [00:56:55]:

Share with me a place or two in the Mount Vernon Arlington area that's got good coffee.

Matthew White [00:57:01]:

You know what? I haven't found that.

Scott Cowan [00:57:05]:

Really?

Matthew White [00:57:06]:

I'm going to be honest with you. There is one place that's on the Strip. I'm not going to name anything that it was. Okay. It's pretty much the only coffee shop. I don't know if it was just an off day, but it's just not for me. I'm an older gentleman. I like things that are what we try to do here, even though it's got a sense of fantasy to the space and stuff. It's all about your customer service, and it's all about welcoming and stuff. When I go into somewhere that's a little too trendy, that doesn't vibe with me. Fair. Because I I get it, you know, so, you know, I'm I'm going to be really honest. I haven't found that yet.

Scott Cowan [00:57:58]:

Well, then how about Seattle? Is there a coffee shop in Seattle you like?

Matthew White [00:58:06]:

Diva.

Scott Cowan [00:58:06]:

Diva Espresso.

Matthew White [00:58:08]:

Okay. Yes. Okay. Love it. Creamy. Yeah, that's been one of my favorite go to and then also oh, my gosh. What's the other one? A queen Anne. I can't think of the name of it, but I can see the logo. Can't think of the name, but Diva Coffee was really one of the best because their coffee was consistently just rich.

Scott Cowan [00:58:33]:

What is the coffee beverage of choice for you? What do you order when you go get coffee?

Matthew White [00:58:40]:

Usually either just an espresso or sometimes I do if I'm feeling rich, but.

Scott Cowan [00:58:52]:

Still keeping it quite keeping it really quite simple, traditional. You're not putting in a kid. I'd like half oat milk, half hemp milk with a twist of a splash of splendor and three pumps of apricot syrup. I'm just making that complete garbage job.

Matthew White [00:59:20]:

That's the whole thing. I mean, I go in there, I'm.

Scott Cowan [00:59:21]:

Like, yeah, I need to get espresso. Breva, black coffee.

Matthew White [00:59:27]:

That's it for me. Okay. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:59:29]:

All right, so help me out. I'm going to come up to Mount Vernon area for the day. Where should I grab something to eat?

Matthew White [00:59:41]:

Oh, gosh, there's lots of places here. Of course. Ilgrenayo downstairs. It's a great Italian fanfare. There are a couple of Thai places that are really great. And then there's oh, my gosh, I'm blanking on the name. There's two Mexican restaurants that are incredible. One has a great happy hour, and they make the it's right on the strip. Our little town is a street. I mean, it really is. The town expands. But my main focus is this main strip, and we are two blocks off the main strip. So you just walk this strip, and this is going back to people from Seattle, like friends that are coming here. And I'm like, hey, let me walk you downtown. Let me kind of show you the vibe of this. And they're in awe, magical awe of, where is this place? It really is quite incredible. And they're like, you can breathe here. It's so welcoming. And there's like, oh, my gosh, this is incredible. Yeah, so the street Tacos are one of my favorite. So you go there on Tuesday. It's Taco Tuesday, and they're like a buck 50 or something. It's insane. And they're incredible. So, yeah, we've got even the co op is great as far as, like, a luncheon thing. And then of course, there's white branches.

Scott Cowan [01:01:22]:

There we go.

Matthew White [01:01:22]:

Experience is incredible.

Scott Cowan [01:01:25]:

I've seen a review or two that says that it's quite outstanding. We're going to wrap this up. There's well, two questions, and it's a question, but you're going to give a statement. So first off, this is a very important question. Every time I do this, I admit I've stole this question from another podcast guest or host. And she was a guest on the show. We had technical challenges, so we've never been able to publish her episode, so she's never going to get full credit yet. But here's the question. Very important. Cake or pie and why? Okay.

Matthew White [01:02:09]:

Cake. Yeah. Well, oh, my gosh, that's a hard one. That's like going to Denny's and being like, do I want breakfast or lunch? I'm a cake guy. I'm a sweet tooth guy. That's my downfall. But I like cakes that are very light. So like a coconut cake that has the the light cake that is just almost like a Krispy Kreme donut. It just tears, you know, when you eat it like that. But pies give me a good banana cream or a really good apple. It's tough. One that's tough. I would say cake.

Scott Cowan [01:03:00]:

There's no wrong answer here, by the way. See, that's the beautiful thing. There's no wrong answer.

Matthew White [01:03:04]:

Yes.

Scott Cowan [01:03:04]:

Okay, next question. What? Didn't I ask you that? I should have.

Matthew White [01:03:15]:

I think it's kind of I think we hinted at it, even though you didn't ask of just what guests can experience here outside. We've had a challenging time of marketing. Like, people have come here who are in the marketing business that are so excited to, oh, my gosh, they've seen the website, they want to talk to me, dah dah dah. And then they get here and they all go because it's hard. They want to group it into one thing. Basically, there's a daytime event and there's a nighttime so there's a daytime white branches and nighttime white branches. Daytime. You can't come in here, you don't have to have a ticket, you don't have to have anything. You can just come and walk into the boutique and see what we're about, talk to us all of these things. We do have the tea room, we do have some daytime experiences that are going to be happening, that sort of thing. But at night, things transform. So the same space is going to be very different of how you're viewing the space or how the space is becoming more of this nightlife sort of experience. So that's important because that's something that people are like, what am I going to experience when I get there? And that's kind of how with my loose answers of some of the questions, you really do need to experience it. It's one of those moments and that's what I'm looking forward to. So the people are going to be able to come again. It still creates a challenge for the marketing aspect, but I feel like you market for the daytime. Those people come here, gosh, we have the little ladies that are having their tea that are celebrating their 89th birthday and stuff. Oh, well, are you going to do burlesque? I'm like, well, yeah, we will be doing oh, my gosh, when is that? It's so exciting and thrilling and amazing. So things like that, where they're interested in the night events and then you do the cabaret events and they're like, oh my gosh, you do tea service and you do this. When is that? So we separate it and then those two will meld. All right, yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:05:31]:

Last one. People want to find out more about what you're doing and all of that. Where can they find you?

Matthew White [01:05:38]:

Whitebranches.com? We have everything set up there. It's a fun website that you can play around with it or you can just go to the top header and I want to know what the menu is. Click top header. But if you want to enter the cabinets and you want to go through the little rabbit hole and play, that's an aspect. Eventually, once we get into the mystery events and all of this, I am looking at doing mystery package things that will be mailers and more interactive. There might be something that happens where you're getting something and you get a specific code or something that you on the website nobody else really sees, but you're like, oh my gosh, if I click this and then somebody might. Come on. Hello, Scott, I've been waiting for you to contact me. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's going to be really quite amazing things that are happening coming up.

Scott Cowan [01:06:40]:

So that's kind of matthew, thank you so much for go ahead, cut you off. Go ahead.

Matthew White [01:06:47]:

I was just going to say I want to also make sure that with certain packages and stuff we are giving to people that aren't able to physically come here as well, that we're extending this out. I do have on my website, you'll see a program that we've started that's called The Gift Of. And the Gift of is something that is just the generosity of others for people in need that are either going through financial or physical or emotional state that need some hope and some light and some magic in their life. And this is a way for people to donate into this fund that we use for different charitable event or organizations that we have around Skadget to be able to bring families, individuals, such to these different things, whether it's a tea service or whether it's a fairytale event, whatever it may be. And that also goes into play with guests that may not be able to be here in person. So if someone is in the hospital or if someone is homebound for whatever reason, it may not mean that we're physically going there, but we're going to give you this experience that's catered to you. So that's really important to me. That's something that we're building now that's going to keep taking flight this coming year and stuff. But that's something I wanted to mention with that because I do feel like again, with everybody, just the pandemic. People understand that people need this. They need to breathe a little bit and to be out of their cells for a moment. So, yeah, that's an important program that I want to extend and make sure everybody's aware of.

Scott Cowan [01:09:06]:

Sounds awesome.

Matthew White [01:09:07]:

Thank you.

Scott Cowan [01:09:08]:

Well, thank you for taking this time to sit down with me and leave a bunch of open loops. I'll curse you for that. But very interesting. And I do encourage everybody to take a look at your website. Like I said, when we got started, it's not like a traditional kind of 2022 era website. It's got kind of more of back in the late 90s when people were playing around with websites, there was this more people were being artistic and creative and trying to put their stuff up there and it didn't work. Sometimes it did. And as we've advanced and everyone uses WordPress, right, so everything has the same general navigation and feel to it, if you will. Your website doesn't.

Matthew White [01:10:05]:

Thank you.

Scott Cowan [01:10:06]:

And that is not meant to be a backhanded compliment. That's a direct compliment. I encourage people to go take a look at it because whoever put this together, whether you did it or you had somebody do it for you, a lot of creativity a lot of stuff going on.

Matthew White [01:10:26]:

Thank you.

Scott Cowan [01:10:27]:

Thank you. And it looks like I need to get to Mount Vernon pretty soon.

Matthew White [01:10:32]:

Yes, please. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on.

Scott Cowan [01:10:49]:

Join us next time for another episode of the Exploring Washington State Podcast.