Thomas Family, September 6th, 2022

Thomas Family, September 6th, 2022

In this interview, the Thomas family talks about their family business Sweet Potato Sensations and the company’s beginnings.

Detroit Historical Society

Detroit Historical Society

en-US

Thomas Family—Cassandra, Jeffrey, Jennifer and Espy.

Cassandra and Jeffery Thomas are a married couple who founded the legendary Detroit business Sweet Potato Sensations. They currently operate the business with the help of their two daughters.

Lily Chen

Detroit, MI

9/06/2022

58:25

Taylor Claybrook

Lily Chen [00:00:01] All right. Hi, this is Lily Chen. Today is Tuesday, September 6th. It is 12:02 p.m. and I am conducting an interview for the Hustle at the Detroit Historical Society. We are so excited to have one of our 36 honorees for this project here with us today. So we are joined by the family firm, sweet potato sensation. So we're going to go down the line, go ahead and state your name, spell out your full name, and then we'll get into talking about your business. So who are we joined by today?

Cassandra Thomas [00:00:34] My name is Cassandra Thomas.

Jeffery Thomas [00:00:46] Jeffery Thomas.

Lily Chen [00:00:52] Awesome. Oh. Go ahead.

Jennifer Thomas [00:00:59] Espy Thomas and Jennifer Thomas.

Lily Chen [00:01:12] Okay, so we have Jennifer And how do you pronounce your name? Espy…Perfect. And Jennifer and Espy are the daughters. Okay, awesome. Okay. So tell us the name of your business where you guys are located and how you came up with the name for your business.

Cassandra Thomas [00:01:35] Well, we are Sweet Potato Sensations. We incorporated December of 1987. Wow. Uh, we started, um. We were married. Our anniversary's coming up soon. September 11th, before there was a September 11…1976. And shortly after being married and serving our first Thanksgiving dinner, I did not have candied yams on the menu. And my husband is a candied yam fanatic. And he had to tell me that his mother always had candied yams for holiday meals. And I personally did not grow up eating candied yams. My parents would bake sweet potatoes, but not candied yams. I didn't like I did not like sugar…sugary food on the plate with my dinner. I'm a savory person.

Lily Chen [00:02:32] Mm hmm.

Cassandra Thomas [00:02:32] He's sweets. So in order to satisfy his desire for these candied yams that I did not care for…

Lily Chen [00:02:40] Mm hmm.

Cassandra Thomas [00:02:41] I came up with the recipe for a sweet potato cookie. I said, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a sweet potato cookie.

Lily Chen [00:02:48] Mm hmm.
Cassandra Thomas [00:02:49] And that's kind of how this whole thing got started. So I made a sweet potato cookie, and we would make it for family and friends who come to visit us. We're both from Ohio. Uh, I was born in Mississippi. He was born in Georgia. We met in school at Ohio University. That's where we went to school. And then we both came to Detroit after graduation. With jobs here. So. We would make the cookie. People say, Oh, these are so good. Can I have the recipe? Sure. I'll give you the recipe. Just never did. Being a procrastinator. So during the time when Famous Amos and Mrs. Fields were popular in the malls across the country, her husband said. We should see if our cookie is marketable. So we set up a table at a garage sale in Rosedale Park. And at a friend's
house. Matter of fact, Donna Shine was our friend and they have a 30 block garage sale the end of June every year. So as we said, nobody else may like these cookies but us. So let's do a market test. So we had 125 bags of cookies. We had lots of samples and surveys.

Lily Chen [00:04:06] Mm hmm.
Cassandra Thomas [00:04:07] And during the course of the garage sale. People were tasting the cookies and they start walking down the driveway to go to see the garage sale stuff and they turn around and say, Boy, those are good. Are you selling any? So we weren't really like pushing it, but we wanted just to see. Yeah. And in less than 3 hours, we had sold 125 bags of cookies.

Lily Chen [00:04:31] Wow. What year was this?

Cassandra Thomas [00:04:33] Uh, that. That had to be…

Jeffery Thomas [00:04:39] 86. 87.

Lily Chen [00:04:40] Okay, cool. Yeah. So that's right at the beginning of your journey. That's kind of how it got started. Wow. So let's take it all the way back. So you said you're both from the south and then you came up to Ohio.

Cassandra Thomas [00:04:54] We were just born in the south.

Lily Chen [00:04:56] Okay. But raised in Ohio.

Cassandra Thomas [00:04:58] Yeah. Most of our life was spent in Ohio.

Lily Chen [00:05:00] Okay. And what did you go to school for?

Cassandra Thomas [00:05:04] I have a degree in clothing and textiles, fashion merchandizing. I did work at Hudson's in the buying department. I did some years at the downtown store original and then at Southland Mall as a manager.

Lily Chen [00:05:17] Okay.
Cassandra Thomas [00:05:18] And then back downtown. And, uh, after then, uh, we started our family. And after Jennifer was born, I decided to be a stay at home mom.

Lily Chen [00:05:28] Yeah. Um, so you have a real Detroit story. I mean, you worked at Hudson's and everything. So when did you come here to the city?

Cassandra Thomas [00:05:38] 1975 when I graduated from college.

Lily Chen [00:05:41] Okay. Gotcha. And what did you go to school for? Jeffery Thomas [00:05:45] Business administration and political science.

Lily Chen [00:05:47] Oh, awesome. Okay. So you have you both have kind of that educational background to start a business and run it successfully. And have you have you
seen that come into play? Um, has your education kind of, um, impacted the way that you run your business?

Jeffery Thomas [00:06:03] I think so. I think that when you go to school, it shows what you can be. And as you get out of school, you can grow and learn. Grow with your business and a lot of things that you learned in school, you can apply it to your business. But I think the biggest thing is. Detroit had a lot to offer later on. As far as. SBA. And there's other. Affiliations here that can help you grow your business. Yeah. A lot of classes. Retired from corporate America. Okay. Tremendously.

Lily Chen [00:06:45] Okay.
Jeffery Thomas [00:06:46] My daughter was in the Goldman Sachs class. I was in the E 200 class and. Those kind of things really help you.

Lily Chen [00:06:52] Yeah. That's really good advice for other business owners, too, that are trying to get started. Um, let’s have you sit a little closer to the mic.

Cassandra Thomas [00:07:01] Like and you asked about how he came up with the name. When we first started out, I was a stay at home mom and I was doing daycare, so I had children other than my own. And they could not say, Thomas, they would call me Mommy T or Mrs. T because it was easier. So. We had the name Mrs. T's sweet potato cookies, but that kind of limited us just to cookies. And so my husband went to sleep at night and had a dream and woke up and said, Wifey, I've got it. Sweet potato sensations, the greatest taste in the nation love it. And I said that would work. Because that way we do everything. Sweet potato. Because we have wanted to do everything we could possibly imagine out of sweet potatoes. Continuing the legacy of Dr. George Washington Carver. Dr. Carver did... Most people know what he did about the peanut, but he did a lot with sweet potatoes as well. He was very talented, very gifted. He was a musician. He was an artist, a botanist. A great cook and professor at Tuskegee. So we kind of. Uh, he's like our. Our hero.

Lily Chen [00:08:21] Yeah. I mean, it's amazing to have that kind of legacy, you know? And, um, some of our just historic figures. They have taken something so simple like a peanut or the sweet potato and just made a real legacy out of it. So it's really cool to see that. So. So you graduated with a degree in business. Both of you were in Ohio. Um, you said at Ohio State.
Cassandra Thomas [00:08:46] Ohio University.

Lily Chen [00:08:47] Ohio University.

Jeffery Thomas [00:08:49] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:08:50] Because coming to Michigan and you say you from state, they're like… .

Cassandra Thomas [00:08:55] Excuse me, Ohio University, not Ohio State. I know it's…

Jeffery Thomas [00:09:00] Like 66 miles southeast of Columbus, Ohio, which is Ohio State.

Lily Chen [00:09:05] Okay.

Cassandra Thomas [00:09:06] And Jennifer also graduated from Ohio University.

Lily Chen [00:09:10] Oh, wow. All part of the family. So you guys fell in love in school? Yes.

Jeffery Thomas [00:09:17] Yes.

Lily Chen [00:09:18] Do you want to share…there was an eyeroll there, by the way, to say, do you want to share a little bit of that story? Because, you know, Sweet Potato sensations is so much of a family business. It's so much about the two of you and your journey. So, um, yeah. Anything special that you want to share about. About falling in love. Second eyeroll.

Jeffery Thomas [00:09:44] Well, we've met. Well, I don't know how much... We met really met our senior year. I knew her from my freshman year.

Lily Chen [00:09:56] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:09:56] And we got together my senior year.

Lily Chen [00:09:59] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:10:02] From there, we just. We had a…I had a group of guys that I hung around and we weren't in a fraternity, but we were like an interest group.

Lily Chen [00:10:12] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:10:13] So they used to call me Mr. Pooh, and I think he called me Pooh Bear or something like that. Oh. So I didn't like Pooh Bear because it seems like your common self, you know.

Lily Chen [00:10:25] Mhm.

Jeffery Thomas [00:10:26] So I started calling myself Dr. Pooh

Lily Chen [00:10:31] That makes it better.

Jeffery Thomas [00:10:33] And so we had these t shirts with brothers on the lodge and Dr.
Pooh. But we were together and. She ended up getting an offer here in the Motor City with Suzy's casuals at Northland, when there was still a Northland. Yeah. And I kind of followed her up here.

Lily Chen [00:10:54] Wow.

Jeffery Thomas [00:10:55] And started selling coffee for an outfit called School Coffee Service. It's the family owned business on and Troy did that for a few months. Got another offer with SS White Dental Supply Company. And I saw also applies to all of the minority African-American dentists in the city of Detroit.

Lily Chen [00:11:15] Wow.
Jeffery Thomas [00:11:17] I left there and got into automotive sales with Rockwell International.

Lily Chen [00:11:22] This is in the eighties.

Jeffery Thomas [00:11:24] This is in the late 70s…I graduated in ’75.

Lily Chen [00:11:30] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:11:32] And from there. We got married in 76. Prior to…So a couple loose jobs. And. We decided that. I suggest sweet potato cookies. This might be our future. Let's do something with this cookie. And so that's when she came up with the cookie and we changed the name to Sweet Potato Sensations, and she was a stay at home mom. So after the kids got to be five or six years old, going to kindergarten. We decided to go in to business.

Lily Chen [00:12:12] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:12:12] And so we wanted to revolutionize the sweet potato. And so that's when we changed the name to Sweet Potato Sensation because. Kind of revolution there. Then we wanted to model behind George Washington Carver because he was kind of carrying on his legacy. Yeah, because even though he did a lot with the peanut as my wife was saying, he did like 150 different things, which was. About 300.

Lily Chen [00:12:41] And. Wow.

Jeffery Thomas [00:12:43] Wow. Life goes on. And so we started off with a sweet potato cookie. So that was kind of like cyclical. Because it was like fruitcake. Do you like fruitcake? But anyway.

Lily Chen [00:13:00] No comment.

Jeffery Thomas [00:13:03] We love fruitcake. But I like a serve. Yeah. And you don't want it all year round. It's a that's what the cooking people didn't want it all year round. We had to come up with something to bridge the gap. Bridging the gap with the sweet potato pie. Sugar. What a sweet potato pie. From her mother. Grandmother, my mother, grandmother, aunts and uncles. Recipes.

Cassandra Thomas [00:13:25] I interviewed a lot of people about sweet potato pie who I admired and tried is kind of a conglomeration. And my mom was ill in the hospital and I was talking to my aunt and she told me how my grandmother made sweet potato pie. And she said one thing I said. That's it. So I say it's my grandmother's recipe, even though I didn't get it directly from her. Yeah, because I'm from the recipe generation. I recipe half a cup, two teaspoons, whatever. The older generation of cooks. I don't know how it might be in your family, but. “Well, chile, I take this pan. And I put in three eggs, and then I put so much flour in…” There's no measurement.

Cassandra Thomas [00:14:07] Now I'm trying to interpret what they're saying and put it down into some kind of form where I can translate the language because. Different generation. Yeah. And so that was the interesting part of it. So I was able to pull that together and. It makes pretty good pie recipes. So it's my grandmother's and we have a lot of customers that will tell us, Boy, this reminds me of my mom or my big momma or my auntie or so and so. So it's…

Lily Chen [00:14:37] Yeah, I love that. Um, you know, it is from your grandma, and it's also influenced by so many different generations and different people in your life. And a lot of, you know, women that have perfected their version of the sweet potato pie. So it's amazing. Um, but you're totally right that earlier. I mean, it's like pinch of this, half a handful. What is that?

Cassandra Thomas [00:15:00] It's like this, you know, they show you and it's just like, okay, let me try to figure out.

Lily Chen [00:15:05] But yeah, so now you have a, you know, um, a working recipe that that is kind of part of your sweet potato sensation's legacy. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, this is in the now we're in the early, this early eighties, eighties. And you have you already have the cookie. It's you know, the cookie is experiencing success. You've incorporated this business name and you have two daughters.

Cassandra Thomas [00:15:37] Yes. They were born and she was born…Espy was born in 1981. And Jennifer was born in 1982.

Lily Chen [00:15:48] Wow. One year apart.

Cassandra Thomas [00:15:51] 17 Months.

Lily Chen [00:15:52] Wow.

Cassandra Thomas [00:15:53] So many people have asked, are they twins?

Cassandra Thomas [00:15:59] So because I would dress them alike a lot of the time.

Lily Chen [00:16:01] Both of your daughters were born in Detroit. Yes. Okay...

Cassandra Thomas [00:16:10] Well, actually, the hospitals in Southfield. Still in Michigan…

Lily Chen [00:16:13] Yeah. Um, and did you guys live on the east side or the West Side?

Cassandra Thomas [00:16:17] West side.

Lily Chen [00:16:18] Of Detroit?

Cassandra Thomas [00:16:19] Okay. We live in a community called Rosedale Park.

Lily Chen [00:16:21] Yeah. Okay. All the way up northwest side. Right? Northwest. Yeah. Um, okay. And at the point at which you're starting your business, your daughters are four and five younger. Mhm. Okay. And did they influence you?

Cassandra Thomas [00:16:38] Well we have pictures of them licking the beaters of the mixer and they've been involved with it from the very beginning. Yeah. Uh, when I used… before we had a brick and mortar and I was selling the cookies to different retail locations and they would be in the back of a van putting stickers on the cookies or whatever. So they have grown up in the business.

Lily Chen [00:17:08] Yeah. Um, today, you know, how how big is the business. How many is it still just the four of you guys?

Cassandra Thomas [00:17:19] Well, at one point we had like 15, 15 of us all together including us. And then the pandemic hit.

Lily Chen [00:17:27] Yeah. Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:17:28] And everything changed.

Lily Chen [00:17:29] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:17:31] And, uh, right now, it's just. How many people do we… Lily Chen [00:17:42] Let me turn this mic on…

Jennifer Thomas [00:17:50] Yeah. So right now we probably have about four, four concrete staff and we have some friends that come in and help at Eastern Market and things like that on the weekend. On a contract basis but with these just for us that people right now.

Cassandra Thomas [00:18:04] Other than us.

Lily Chen [00:18:05] Us. Okay yeah um. So I mean, everyone had to adapt to the pandemic. A lot of small businesses had to be very creative and really resilient. So tell us about kind of working for that change.

Jennifer Thomas [00:18:24] I can. Well, it's been it's been interesting. It's very it's been interesting to watch other businesses that have been around for a long time close their doors because they just couldn't make it. I think we've been very creative and just really put it on our back and just carried it through some of the most difficult times of business that I've ever experienced before. And I mean, we have we went through a whole recession that was very problematic and was hard on a lot of businesses as well with the pandemic, really. I mean, just it just stressed you in all different type of ways. It's something that I mean, you're concerned about your health, your staff's health, your mental health, your safety… business, your livelihood. I mean, you're questioning so many things that you're experiencing during this time and still trying to keep things going when business as we know it has changed. Yeah, it really has changed. And I'm not sure if it's going to cycle back like if we're just in a phase right now, is going to cycle back to what it once was or people have just decided if we just live in a new life right now. So it's definitely has has been a challenge to how we run business. But I know that we've just made a conscious effort to keep going.

Lily Chen [00:19:39] Yeah.

Jennifer Thomas [00:19:39] And because we've been around for so long, going on 35 years of the support of our community of Detroit as a whole really is like, Please, I don't want to go anywhere. I'm coming here just the way that you to give a hug to buy something. And that's really is a I don't even know the word for that, just like the amount of support because we're really a family focused like family facing company. So we're not like a company that you don't know who the owner is. Is some mystical person behind somewhere? People see us. Yeah, and they really want to see you. And so it's super adult that they that they want to support and find different ways to help out in all different kind of ways. Yeah. Even in terms of like trying to get staff, we like our friend. My friends just show up like I got you one day here, I can do this, that and the third I think, is because it's a it's a
testament to how we represent ourselves as a family and what we are to the community that people just want us to still be around.

Lily Chen [00:20:41] Yeah, absolutely. You guys are the. So you have a brick and mortar. Yes. Is that the same place that you've been the whole time?

Cassandra Thomas [00:20:49] No, we started it. We're still on Lahser in Detroit, right across the street from the Retford Theater, which is historical on the historical register state of Michigan. Yep. But previously we were on the same side of the street with a theater and a small, smaller location, which is actually part of the Redford Theater. They were our landlord.

Lily Chen [00:21:12] Wow. Okay.

Cassandra Thomas [00:21:13] All those years. And, um, that's where we first started out in 2004.

Jennifer Thomas [00:21:21] 1994.

Lily Chen [00:21:22] Oh.

Jennifer Thomas [00:21:23] I'm sorry, 1994.

Cassandra Thomas [00:21:25] 1994, ten years off, we moved there and.

Lily Chen [00:21:29] Lahser Wow. So 1990… before 1994, you guys are baking out of your own kitchen.

Cassandra Thomas [00:21:36] Well, we were at home then. We also I can't forget this. We rented the commercial kitchen at the North Rosedale Park community house. We have lived in Rosedale since 1977, and I forget what year it was, but I was on the board of directors for the Rosedale Park Civic Association, and I asked permission if I could use their kitchen.

Lily Chen [00:22:04] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:22:05] Because at that time, nowadays the college law will allow you to start a business in your kitchen. But during the time we started, that was not a thing. So they said you would have to go to a school or a church or somewhere that had a commercial kitchen or a pizza shop asked to use it during their off hours. So I asked the board and they gave me permission to use their kitchen. So I was licensed through that kitchen, so I would transport everything there and do my baking and then transport everything out. And that was such a hard thing to do, you know, taking everything there, then taken everything back and into the back and forth. And I said, Oh, Lord, we've got to have a, you know, a place to go.

Lily Chen [00:22:49] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:22:49] And, uh, I had prayed about it, had put in ads in the paper looking for a commercial location, and the rents were like astronomical. Well, Lord, I guess I'm not supposed to do this because I can't find a place to go. So I was driving my husband to the YMCA on Lahser and seven mile and ran across the building that we started out in it was right at the Redford theater and I had a for rent sign in it and when I called the number, I was trying to contain myself on the phone because the rent that he gave me was exactly
what I could afford and what I had been praying for. So I said, Lord, I guess you don't want us to quit. We got you going. So we were able to move in there. The Red Theater was so accommodating. I told him, uh, even though I had signed the lease that we needed to do some renovation in the building before we could move in, they were like, Oh, we'll just wait. Whenever you get ready, you can pay us when you start. I'm like, They were so accommodating. That was just wonderful. And even though we are not in that property right now. We were at total we were moving across the street.

Lily Chen [00:24:10] And they were like, Oh, we really don't want you to go. You're such a good tenant.

Cassandra Thomas [00:24:14] And I actually have a key to the Redford theater. Lily Chen [00:24:16] Wow.

Cassandra Thomas [00:24:17] Because I would let the person in and let the Pepsi guy in the popcorn people. So they trusted me. And even though I'm across the street, I still have a key. I still. I was given the came to return the key back to… Oh, no, no, no. You keep it, because we still might need you to let people in. I'm like, okay.

Cassandra Thomas [00:24:37] And then we also sold our cookies in the Redford theater at the concession stand. They would order cookies and sell them during, you know, intermission.

Lily Chen [00:24:46] Wow. I mean, it's amazing how different community members and community organizations come together to create, you know, a successful business. And, you know…

Jennifer Thomas [00:24:55] Well, the section of Detroit that we're in is called Old Redford. And it's still Detroit, but it's used to be part of Redford.

Lily Chen [00:25:05] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:25:05] And then it was annexed back to the city of Detroit. And we are very community minded in that area there. There's Motor City, Blight Busters, the Redford Theater. We're kind of like the anchors and Sweet Potato sensations. And we really are a community and we look out for each other.

Lily Chen [00:25:26] Yeah. It's. It's wonderful. Absolutely. So what year did. So you were baking primarily. What year did your husband and, you know, leave corporate America to join the business?

Jeffery Thomas [00:25:43] Well, I left corporate America in 2009.

Lily Chen [00:25:49] Okay.

Jeffery Thomas [00:25:50] And I retired at that time and I said, we've got to take this business to the next level.

Lily Chen [00:25:55] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:25:56] And then that's when I started taking classes. On how to grow the business because our business was growing maybe by. Five, 10% a year. And I said, this
is not. There has to be some different things. Of course, some of the ideas that I came up with and what they were wouldn't necessarily agree with everything because I'm just kind of a person where if this doesn't work, we'll do something else.

Lily Chen [00:26:23] Mm hmm.

Jeffery Thomas [00:26:24] So the first thing we did was we put an ice cream parlor. And the ice cream parlor was all right. But it wasn't… complicated. So the next thing we did is finally, after a lot of talk and persuasion, we added hot food. And we had a sweet potato pancakes. And waffles. We were growing by leaps and bounds. When the pandemic hit. We are still growing, but not at the level. Yeah. Because now we're open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday three days a week because it's hard to find.

Lily Chen [00:27:09] Yeah.
Jeffery Thomas [00:27:10] We were open Tuesday through Sunday. It's been a challenge since the pandemic. But we're you know, we're a family. We spread a lot of love. People know us. Like people will come in and I might be working on something in the back and they'll want to talk to me. And I said, Who is it? Well, you know, so-and-so, so-and-so. I used to play basketball with you at the YMCA to come out. But we spread a lot of love. So we get a lot of love.

Lily Chen [00:27:42] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:27:43] It's a neighborhood. Really we take care of one another. Yeah, but some of the undesirables in the neighborhood. Look out for us.

Lily Chen [00:27:54] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:27:56] So it's been good.

Cassandra Thomas [00:27:57] It's been good. And we, um. We purchased a building across the street. Was it? 2000.

Jeffery Thomas [00:28:04] 2007?

Cassandra Thomas [00:28:06] Six or seven.

Jeffery Thomas [00:28:07] Two or three years there.

Cassandra Thomas [00:28:08] Yeah. Took us three years to renovate it. And, um, Motor City
Blight Busters helped us with the demolition on the inside. We had 100 MBA students from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan that came that particular weekend and helped us tear out the ceiling, bring down the walls of tile.

Lily Chen [00:28:30] Wow.

Cassandra Thomas [00:28:31] And then we had a big dumpster in the back and the kids had a ball. They were just… Everybody had their mask on and we were just demoing everything because that was helping us to save money if we demoed ourselves and we just took our time and renovated the building. So it doesn't look anything like it did when we bought it. So it just took time for us to do that. So we, we just moved across the street. We go
anywhere, we stayed there. We just really felt this is where we were supposed to be. Yeah. Because we did have people that ask us, Well, you could come out to the suburbs or you could go downtown, or you could go where? No, we're supposed to be right here.

Jeffery Thomas [00:29:11] And this is where? In the city of Detroit.

Lily Chen [00:29:13] Yeah, absolutely. So you went across the street, I'm assuming for a bigger kitchen. That's my guess.

Cassandra Thomas [00:29:19] Yes. The original location was 700 square feet. Lily Chen [00:29:23] Oh, wow. That's small.

Cassandra Thomas [00:29:25] This one is…So we went from 740 square feet to about 5000 square.

Cassandra Thomas [00:29:31] Yes.

Lily Chen [00:29:32] I see.

Jeffery Thomas [00:29:34] That's why it took three years to renovate that building. Yeah, three years and a lot of money.

Lily Chen [00:29:40] Yeah, because it was.

Jeffery Thomas [00:29:43] It was kind of in sections.

Cassandra Thomas [00:29:45] Yeah, it was a microfilm processing building in a lot of offices. Cubbyholes and dark paneling and just not. Nothing that was there that we could move into than what we were going to do was not a restaurant, not like an old restaurant or something like that.

Lily Chen [00:30:06] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:30:06] Something completely different.

Lily Chen [00:30:08] Well, of course, though, you essentially built your home base from scratch.

Jeffery Thomas [00:30:14] Yes.

Lily Chen [00:30:14] And today, you know, for listeners. Can you guys describe what you you know, if you walk in the sweet potato sensations, what do you encounter?
Jennifer Thomas [00:30:24] So I would say it feels like your auntie mama's grandma friend’s house. So you just, it just feels like home to people. And when I'm dealing with the front of the house, our front of the house team, I always say you want people to feel like they're at home. So some people might say it feels like cheers. People come in as like, Hey, Miss Patrice. Hey, Mr. George. Hey, Miss Henry. Hey or hey. It is just we just talking to everybody. I also say I also coined, it's the Cracker Barrel in the hood. So have you ever been to Cracker Barrel before? Then you can buy, like, spices and seasonings and stuff for your lawn and a t shirt and some other stuff. But it's really an authentic black experience. When you walk here, you get you can get t shirts and spices and seasonings and other things and you can get pie. Yeah. At the same time, we're a place where the community gathers for different things. I host a grief support group at the bakery, so we're not just a business that opens up and closes when we're done. We do things that are for the neighborhood and for the community as a whole, because that's what we believe in as a whole. So we serve more than food. We're family, tradition, home for people. There's been people that have had different ailments and say, I can only eat sweet potato pie while I was in the hospital. I could only do this well, I could only eat your food while I was battling cancer. A bit different things like this is honest what people have said. And so there's so much. So people feel like they're a part of our process that when they when they come by their support, they're not just they could go buy food from anywhere. They just choose to buy it from us because I feel like they're a part of it. So when they come in the door, they're enveloped in what feels like they're part of the family, which is really true.

Lily Chen [00:32:13] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:32:15] And if I could piggyback off that, I think the one thing that's so beautiful is that our decor, we have like orange towel on the floor. We have like a pale orange… So it's a soft, inviting décor.

Lily Chen [00:32:33] Yeah. And.

Jeffery Thomas [00:32:35] Cherise also added a boutique area. So one time I was so proud I was sitting just watching the people. We had the music. Going on to and people were buying sweet potato products. And they were buying her clothing, too. And they were just dancing. And she knows them on a first name basis. So it was just a warm atmosphere.

Lily Chen [00:33:03] Yeah.

Jeffery Thomas [00:33:04] Environment. And people love it. And sometimes when you have that. That that soft. I mean that that that decor that people so so inviting to people being at the music going on in the background they don't care how much it costs they just buy.

Lily Chen [00:33:22] That's amazing. I mean, you're really fostering an environment more than anything, right? Rather than just, like, transactions, right? Right.

Jeffery Thomas [00:33:30] Mm hmm.

Lily Chen [00:33:31] Um, so you started with a cookie. It sounds like it's much more than a cookie now. What kinds of things? Um, can you. Can you get.

Jennifer Thomas [00:33:41] Pies, cookies, cheesecake, ice cream cobbler, candied yams, muffins, cupcakes, cornbread, chicken, waffle pancakes, grits, black eyed peas, collard greens, soup and sweet potato muffins, lemon chess pie.

Jeffery Thomas [00:33:55] And every third weekend, we have savory sides, mac and cheese, candied yams, collard greens, rice and gravy to go along with our turkey chops, catfish, chicken wings and salmon croquettes.

Lily Chen [00:34:12] Wow. So, I mean, it's really expanded now because we're not talking about just dessert anymore. We're talking about the whole meal and the whole meal.

Cassandra Thomas [00:34:23] And the thing about people, when they think of sweet potato. Most people will think of sweet potato pie.

Lily Chen [00:34:28] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:34:29] So the sweet potato cookie is something different. And so many times, people are just, uh, they just stay what they're used to. And my daughter told us about this. An old Chinese proverb…a Japanese proverb. Okay. I'm sorry. That if you try something new, it was as 75 days to your life. And people are creatures of habit, you know. Oh, I don't know. I don't want to try the cheesecake and just pie. Just try the pie, you know. And we're a foodie, so we like all different kind of ethnic dishes or whatever. And it was trying to get people because in the black community, sweet potato pie is a staple. But when you talk about a cookie, they say a cookie. Oh, I don't know about that. Or cobbler. Well, cobbler is kind of okay, but yes.

Cassandra Thomas [00:35:22] Yeah. So some things is trying to convince people and that's what we were trying to do is to convince people that you can have sweet potatoes all year round, not just Thanksgiving and Christmas. Right. And we do have those customers that we only see during the holidays when we're trying to say we're here 365 days of the year, don't wait to just Thanksgiving and Christmas. I tell them the DTE bill comes every month. So you know that's that's the challenge also is trying to get people to be adventuresome and try different things.

Lily Chen [00:35:56] Yeah.

Jennifer Thomas [00:35:56] And I think part of the menu expansion is customer base. So your customers will ultimately tell you what they want and it's up to you to decide if you're going to actually give them what they want. People will always tell you how they want to spend their money. And so we first move to the bakery. We have all this seating area. It's just open. And people are like, Oh, you got sandwiches? Do you have soup? We're like, No, these are baked goods. And after a while it's like, Well, people keep asking for soup and sandwiches. Let's make a soup and a sandwich. Yeah, this is it was just a no brainer. And so then people started asking for more things, which is why we have the breakfast food, which is why we have the savory food. People are looking for more things. And when we're kind of in a little bit of a food desert where we're located, we're in an underserved community that needs some other food options besides fast food restaurants. Yeah. And so with that being said, we decided to add some additional things to whatever our capacity is to be able to offer those. They the last one of the third weekend was we had to offer for people to get actually real cook food doesn't come out of the can. Yeah. So they have that option if they want to have that option. But, but our customer base is like you don't have candied yams. I want chicken. What can I get this? And it's like, well, can I make some macaroni and cheese? Can I make these greens? Maybe we can. And so they really show us what they want from us. And they show up. When the third weekend happens, they showed up and supporting, like, never before.

Lily Chen [00:37:18] Yeah. So you guys have at this point a, you know, kind of established, successful business. Are you still…do you still enjoy the cooking? Do you still kind of get your hands dirty in it?

Jennifer Thomas [00:37:30] We're definitely still in the kitchen. Yeah. And I think that's part of when we when we look at what's next for us, it's really trying to figure out how to how to capture some additional talent. There really has a love and a passion for this. We're home
cooks. And I don't really I will help bake from time to time. That's not my forte. So I do more of the front end things. But my sister and mom are home cooks and so they do stuff the way your grandmamma, your mama used to do it. And so we're just looking to potentially capture the the the likes of someone who is interested. And really that's what they do, that they want to perfect those recipes so we can get out of the kitchen a little bit more and work on some of the other nitty gritty things to take the business, too, to the next level. But right now, we all are in the kitchen. We're peeling potatoes, washing potatoes, washing dishes, making deliveries, doing what necessary in order to make it happen. But yeah, we would love to have some additional hands on deck so that we can do more R&D and bring more products to the table and figure out ways to do different partnerships and whatnot so we can expand our operations.

Lily Chen [00:38:35] Yeah, well, it definitely is is part of that next step, but it's so cool. I mean, how rare is it where you actually get to meet not only the founders of the organization, but that to know that the founders, other ones that are trying to feed you, they're like the ones that have their hands in it, you know. So that's amazing. Um, so I will say I have tasted some of your pies the other day. I had, they were like mini pies, sweetie pie. Oh, they were. Oh, like…

Jennifer Thomas [00:39:12] Which one did you have?

Lily Chen [00:39:14] I had the there was a pecan one, you know, there was a regular sweet potato one. There was a third one, but I think I was allergic to something some other way. I am allergic to coconut.

Jennifer Thomas [00:39:31] We didn't have coconuts or.

Cassandra Thomas [00:39:32] We didn't have it here.

Lily Chen [00:39:34] I don't know what it was, but…

Cassandra Thomas [00:39:36] Unless. Did you have it here?

Lily Chen [00:39:38] Mm hmm.

Jennifer Thomas [00:39:38] Okay. It was lemon chess or cheesecake.

Lily Chen [00:39:42] Yes. I can't have cheese, that's for sure.
Cassandra Thomas [00:39:46] Cheese.

Lily Chen [00:39:47] Yeah. Okay. People need to come out and taste your food. I mean, they do in the masses already, but. Oh, man. And I just kept walking back and forth and just. I'll just take another pie.

Cassandra Thomas [00:40:03] Did you try the lemon chess?

Lily Chen [00:40:06] I can't.

Cassandra Thomas [00:40:07] I was yellow. Looks a little yellow.

Lily Chen [00:40:09] I don't think.

Cassandra Thomas [00:40:10] So. We use fresh lemons.

Lily Chen [00:40:12] Oh, wow.

Cassandra Thomas [00:40:13] Squeezed with my hand.

Lily Chen [00:40:15] Wow. Really?

Cassandra Thomas [00:40:16] We do a lot. Everything is…

Jeffery Thomas [00:40:19] Labor intensive.

Cassandra Thomas [00:40:19] Very labor intensive. It makes a difference when you use a fresh meat. We get the big jumbo yams, we wash them. Yeah, we cook them. We peel them by hand. And we. my daughter mashes those and everything is made from that. There's a difference. If you used a can sweet potato, it would not taste like that.

Lily Chen [00:40:40] Yeah. Well, better than any pie I've ever had in my life. And that was I mean, and then it was also just like also the cutest pie ever.

Jennifer Thomas [00:40:52] They are. I think they sell themselves. But I just look super cute.

Lily Chen [00:40:55] They are really cute. Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:40:58] So people were easy to regulate.

Lily Chen [00:41:00] Oh, look at these little kids are like, oh, Marie, look at this. It's like, yeah, it's like it's like a tiny little pond. It's so cute. Um, it's so. I mean, it's so wonderful to have to see your business flourishing. Um, I want to, you know, of. Of course, it would be amazing to see those wishes come true, to see you expand and to kind of have those opportunities to grow. So, you know, any kind of major lessons learned or advice that you have for other young entrepreneurs that are trying to get started, you know, maybe that are hitting the lows and not hitting the highs yet. What would you have to say?

Cassandra Thomas [00:41:37] Well, first of all, whatever the business is, it has to be your passion. Because so many young people are people just starting a business. They think they're going to be rich overnight and there's no such thing.

Lily Chen [00:41:55] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:41:56] If you do, it's probably not going to last. So you have to be ready for the ups and the downs and other obstacles that may come. But if you really believe in it and you really want to do it, you have to have the strength and the fortitude to stick with it. And for me, I am a praying woman and I just trusted and stayed and stayed prayerful and trust in God. And any time I was up against an obstacle and I thought, well, this is it, the Lord said otherwise, yeah, things would happen, that things would come through. I tell people that God is the best PR man you can ever have. I was on the cover of Detroit Hour magazine, some years ago, and people were asking me, how did that how did I get on the cover and how did I do this? I said I didn't do anything. How did you get on the Food Network? I didn't do that. Uh, I sit and, um, when I tell people that I have a public relations firm, they look at me and they start naming actual companies. Oh, are you with Ernst and
Ernst? Are you with this person? I said no. And they keep talking. I just let them talk. I says, you know, my PR man name is Jesus. And they kind of step back and look at me like. Excuse me.

Lily Chen [00:43:21] Mm hmm.

Cassandra Thomas [00:43:22] I said no. I'm a woman of faith, and that's the only way I've been able to survive. Because it has not been easy. It's been rough. You have people. When I initially started, I had people that told my parents they wasted their money. Send me to college. Wow. She's wasting her college degree. I says, no, I'm not. Instead of merchandizing clothes, I'm merchandizing food.

Lily Chen [00:43:46] Yeah.

Cassandra Thomas [00:43:47] And I've been cooking since I was a little girl making the Nestlé Toll House cookies on the back of the chocolate chip recipe.

Lily Chen [00:43:53] Yeah, so.

Cassandra Thomas [00:43:55] And there are many people who have had other types of professional careers who have just decided one day I'm going to open up a restaurant or whatever their passion that they have. Yeah. So and the thing is, if you try and it doesn't work.

Lily Chen [00:44:11] It's okay.

Cassandra Thomas [00:44:12] You can always go do something else. So it's not the end of the world. So you have to, uh, not be afraid and be like Harriet Tubman.

Lily Chen [00:44:22] That's what I was going to say.
Cassandra Thomas [00:44:23] Came up here. I don't know how many times and brought the slaves to freedom and would go back and get more and kept going. She didn't quit.

Lily Chen [00:44:32] Yeah.
Cassandra Thomas [00:44:34] And when they got discouraged and thought they were going to turn around and go back, she pull out her gun and say, Oh, we not turnin around. We are going to keep going.

Lily Chen [00:44:43] So.

Cassandra Thomas [00:44:44] It's just part of our history of being able to make something out of nothing and just keep moving forward no matter what the obstacles are.

Lily Chen [00:44:55] Absolutely. Yeah. I definitely want to mention, you know. Partly also inspired in inspired by your beautiful earrings. You know, traditionally cooking is so tied up with this gendered concept that women, women cook and women, you know, something that we've seen over the past century, which is amazing, is that women have now, and especially women of color, have now taken that power and turned it into, you know, success and in many different ways. And so all these, you know, this idea that women have to do this or have to do that, they've actually flipped the script. Right. And they've
said, yeah, I can do this, and I'm going to be amazing at it and I'm going to build, you know, a big business. And it's so cool to see that. And it's also beautiful that you kind of have that legacy of. You know that the women of color that have come before us that have kind of guided us, including influencing your recipes and, you know, guiding you on your journey. So it is beautiful to see. So I do want to mention, you know, you have your two daughters with us. I know we should. I know we only have the the one mic. But I do want to kind of give credit to your daughters because they were young when you started and they've been part of the journey all the way through. So I'd love to hear from both of you in terms of, you know, your perspective on the business and what it was like growing up through the whole the whole process.

Jennifer Thomas [00:46:32] You can... My sister is kind of shy, so sometimes I talk for us as. As twin power.

Lily Chen [00:46:38] And one.

Jennifer Thomas [00:46:39] Of the. Okay. So what I want to answer your first question. So about what would you tell another business owner that's just starting so similar to my mom's answer, I will say passion over profit. So if you're passionate about something, the money will come at some point. And to not give up if just to not start something because it's going to be a moneymaking situation if you don't have the drive or the stick towards even to put the work in to make it happen. I would suggest that I would also say position yourself in a way that you don't have to work in it. So when you're starting your business, you're you are position it not making a job for yourself. You're actually creating a business. So you're looking at it with an exit plan like, I need whatever this is, I need cashiers, I need general managers, I need an accountant. I need all the things that you need. So you're not positioning yourself unless that's what you really want to do, but positioning yourself to be an owner and not to be… not to actually work in the business. Yes, you should know how to navigate all those things in case you have to do that yourself. But actually creating a business on a company and not just the job for yourself. I would definitely say that building the proper team, so knowing exactly where you shot, if you're amazing as a cook and you want to be the executive chef, you do that. But make sure you have the people. If you have an attitude problem, you can't deal with people in the front of the house, you did have an amazing person that could speak for you. They could be the voice of your business because that's not what you do. Well, you're staying in your length so that you know what you do. Well, everybody does what they do well. And there is so that we can all move together. And I think sometimes there's some ego involved where people want to do everything and they have a problem with with that not being where they shine and little somebody will shine there and just say, I don't you know, I don't cook. Right. My sister does it, but she does and she's great at it, but I don't need to do that. Right. So it's like I know where I move. Well, let me shine, where everybody else shines, where they shy. So those will be a few things that I would that I will recommend or give as maybe some advice to somebody who was just starting out and even like there's like now when my mom and dad first started, there were no business incubator programs, there was no tech town, no prosperous, no Goldman-Sachs, no N200.

Cassandra Thomas [00:49:06] No kind of help.

Jennifer Thomas [00:49:06] There was there was nothing there was no there was no you can really sit down with to say this is what I'm doing. The there was no pop up. You were the first pop up right at a garage sale ever. Right. There was no pop ups. Now businesses have so many opportunities to benchmark and to see if people really want it. In addition to
that, you might not have to have a business that operates in a brick and mortar. Maybe your business is you only operate out of your home or out of a warehouse space. Just because you have a business does not mean you have to have an actual storefront. Success does not mean a storefront. That is another level two business to me. And so it's really understanding what your why is in general, why do you want to do this? Do you want to have a storefront, say you have a storefront or can you operate out of a cubby space somewhere and not have that additional overhead? So you have to ask yourself a lot of questions on what makes sense for you and why you're doing what you're actually doing, because it may not make sense for your actual business just to have, as I know people, that one of the storefront that went through class and was like, you know what, you guys want a wholesale product, maybe either with one storefront and those business incubator programs help you to look at your business in its totality to find out if it's necessary for you to actually operate in that way. Maybe it's not. And I think now that we have, like I said, the tech towns and the prosperous and all the different Goldman-Sachs public programs that are going on now, you can really take a deeper dive in your company and your thought process and understand if your product like at this moment, at this stage really garners or warrants you to have the things you may think you need to have. And you have people that have this expertise now that can kind of culture and help you in that direction. So that's just some thoughts I would give to somebody who is just starting out and then expanding. Like like I've had people who people come to the bakery at a time and say, Can you try my product? I want to open up a store out of the bakery. One product is typically not enough. You're going to have to diversify. We had cookies for a long time. Cookies did well for a long time, but then it didn't. And so if you just have one, I just can't sell water. You have to have you might have a cup, now you have ice, you have the the the the coconut water. Now you have the the cucumber and the so now you're expanding. So in order to I think in this I could be wrong or whatever. But I think diversifying what your offerings are, which is what we've continued to do, has helped expand the business. It has also helped capture different people. And so, like, we have everything out, as we said. We also have my sister's line of cakes. She has chocolate cake, marble cake, orange velvet cake. So was it a peacock cream cheese pancake, which is our Never Lilas recipe. So then you get people to come into the shop and they say, Oh, I want sweet potatoes, but I like that cake. So now you're a couple other people because you've diversified what your market is. And so I think that when you just make one thing, it's good to have other things on deck that you might end up creating so that you can sustain through the long haul. Because it is not I'm not saying you can't do it. You can do what you put your mind to, but it could be helpful to have some additional products. It's just like coffee shops don't just all sell coffee. They sell coffee and they sell supporting items cake, chips, fruit, sandwiches, other things to support what their business is because it's tricky to make it off with just one item. Yeah. So I would say that. And then just as speaking. So growing up in the business.

Jennifer Thomas [00:52:36] I don't know. It's, I think something you asked earlier. I think my mom, she really because I think you asked something about did they inspire you? Like, did me and Jennifer inspire her to keep going? And I think that my mom took motherhood very, very seriously. And I know she told us when we were younger that she used to read books and really wanted to be the best mother. And I think part of that was being able to stay home with us and just kind of facilitate our our upbringing. And as a result, I think that she wanted to figure out additional ways to be able to stay home. And this business was part of that for her to be able to spend this close, intimate time with me and my sister, as well as everybody else, and who she watched the kids when those mothers want to go back to work. And so I think that it gave us an opportunity to learn the business, if you will, and to know how to operate in it as as young as babies. Weird as that sounds. As babies?
It is like you said, we're looking the I mean, looking the better off and labeling cookies. I think it gave us work ethic. I really think so, because for me, it just it just helped me to see that I don't necessarily have to go work for somebody else I can create. I know as as a child, I created babysitting. I had a babysitting business. I had a graphic design business, card business.

Cassandra Thomas [00:54:02] Babies, bottles and bibs, babysitting service.

Jennifer Thomas [00:54:05] So I would make, um, I would make fliers and may use for Coney Island's and…

Lily Chen [00:54:17] Oh, go for it.

Jeffery Thomas [00:54:19] You're right. Oh, snap. But I'm sitting here trying to get a word again, but it's just like.

Jennifer Thomas [00:54:30] So I think it just inspired us to keep going into just doing it says even additional astronauts. It goes. And just I don't know, it kind of I don't want to say train, but it just kind of showed us another way to do things. And even my sister out of the bakery, when we moved over to the new expanded bakery, we started the choice lot as Gavin, a black woman and natural hair style called Naturally Fly Detroit, which is where the brand of the store comes from. So there's been so many things we've been able to do because the bakery gave us that platform where people love us, they trust us, they understand, they want to be a part of it. So I think that it just made us super close. Like my sister and I are very, very close as I'm talking for her now. But it just made us very close. It made our family.

Cassandra Thomas [00:55:22] Birthed another business.

Jennifer Thomas [00:55:26] Yeah. So just made us it made us close. And I'm kind of happy about that because just, I mean, we work together all the time and it's not always like shits and giggles, you know? I'm saying sometimes it's intense. Sometimes we got to buckle down and figure out how to get it done. We have differences of opinion sometimes, and we're trying to figure out like the best way to make it happen. But at the end of the day, the common goal is the same. It just could be the way in which we go about doing that. So I'm definitely I think that it's been a cool thing, I guess you could say. Being involved in a family business and just seeing like the like all the behind the scenes things and just knowing some people don't get a chance to see that, so they don't know how it actually works. We've been on ground zero. We've been looking to pop out or it could be better to Mrs. Moore's house. And as far as the house we went in our basement, we still have the original oven from our whole basement. As a child was converted over to a commercial kitchen with red Formica countertops. Even our original phone number is number the bakery like our bakery phone number is our house number when we were kids.

Lily Chen [00:56:33] Wow.

Jennifer Thomas [00:56:34] So there's so much legacy. Everything we do is the honor of our ancestors. Even our menu items are named after grandparents and aunties and uncles and things like that, like everything we do. So I think it taught us like a deep rooted history of what is important to us as a family and our legacy has to go on. Yeah, hopefully that. And you want to say something?

Lily Chen [00:56:58] Okay. I love your dynamic. I mean, and thank you for everything that you've added. I think it's so beautiful to hear. Um, and it's very obvious that you're, you know, like, you're able to communicate what your parents want, to kind of speak out. So it's kind of cool.

Jennifer Thomas [00:57:16] And also, I guess I'll say one more thing. I also think that even what we've been able to do with the shop, I feel proud of that too, because a lot of that is my sister and I’s energy for like the next level, you know, I'm saying like keeping it interesting, keeping it appetizing, keeping it new and inventive, keeping it fresh is what the things we've added. My sister and I have just I mean, we're younger, we have a different thought process. And so we've been able to take the step of sort of what our parents have created and just add a little twist to it. And people feel that they say, I happen to have done it because I could see Nazi up in the air. I'm like, okay, so it's not necessarily like an overt thing, like look what we did. But people just see…

Lily Chen [00:58:01] Yeah.

Jennifer Thomas [00:58:02] That, that there's another level of generation adding like they're, their own funk to the mix.

Lily Chen [00:58:08] Yeah, absolutely. Well, um, I want to thank you guys for spending the time to talk with us and, and to be part of the kind of be part of the museum and the Hustle project. So, um, I'm going to stop there.