A Rundown of the 2020 Tropical Fruit Season So Far with Robert Moehling of Robert Is Here

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MT: Hi, everyone, how are you guys? Welcome to Seasonal, Season 1, Episode 4 , I hope everyone is doing well, even though realistically, I know that many of us aren't and shouldn't be. But for me this year has definitely been a year of learning and growth and of change. And I hope that instead of us all looking at this year in a negative way, that we should all be grateful for these important shifts that are taking place and also focus on that extra time we've been given to work on ourselves and to learn and to read and to cook and to reflect-- =and all of these things are necessary for personal growth. So I just want us all to just take a moment and remember that we should be grateful because gratefulness is one of the most important things for our physical health and our mental health. Okay, so now it's time for my weekly fermentation update. I know you guys are all super excited about it. So as some of you know, I've become addicted to learning about fermentation over this quarantine because it not only creates delicious food and unique flavors, but the process of it itself is just so fascinating to me, you're dealing with living things. So it adds a completely new dimension to cooking that I had never experienced before. So because the yeast cells are active living creatures, they're greatly affected by time and temperature. So it's been kind of fun for me to experiment with that and see how different time durations and different temperatures will affect the end product. And it's just super fun to kind of get creative and just play around with it. And I mentioned in the previous episode that my loaves have been coming out flat and not keeping their structure. So it's been kind of frustrating. But this week, I can say, I'm so excited that that has changed. I realized I had actually been over proofing the dough, just like I had thought last episode, but like I said before, I've been following a recipe verbatim from a guy that lives in Portland, which is pretty much as far as you can get from Miami, so we have extraordinarily different climates. So once I shortened the final proofing time, I was able to get beautiful loaves with height and a gorgeous crumb and they held their shape and the taste was amazing. So needless to say, I was super excited when they came out of the oven. I screamed and I jumped around my kitchen and it was a beautiful moment for me. So also with my kombucha I've still been brewing kombucha. This past week's batch was delicious because I flavored it with all local produce. So half of the batch I flavored a mango lemon turmeric flavor and the other half was beet ginger lime flavor, so they were both super good. Also, I just want to mention to everybody to please please show your support for the podcast. by heading to anchor.fm, searching Seasonal, and clicking support so I can keep this podcast alive and going. And I will also have a link up in the show notes so you can access it there too. Okay, I'm super excited for this episode today because we have a very special guest. He's here to answer all of our burning questions about tropical fruit season 2020. So without further ado, let's hear from our guest, the man, the myth, the legend. Mr. Robert Moeling of Robert is here.

MT  0:00  Robert is the mastermind behind the family owned and operated fruit stand down south in Homestead called, Robert is Here. And they're known for their rare tropical fruits and their delicious smoothies. So Robert is Here has now become a tourist destination, which I think is an amazing thing because it's just increasing the general populations awareness of these rare fruits and kind of exposing them to these new flavors, which I think is super important. And it's just another way for people to get to experience Miami's culture. So thank you so much, Robert, for joining us today.

RM  0:36  Oh, you're welcome. I often feel like an educator because I do. It's my mission to educate everybody that comes in my market.

MT  0:43  Yeah, for sure. And I think that's kind of what I'm trying to get across with this podcast is just exposing people to the rare and exotic produce that we have in Miami because so many people aren't aware of it. And you know, I'm a I'm a dietitian so that's kind of my background so it's not only beneficial nutrient wise but also it you know, benefits our economy and our environment and there's just so many things.

RM  1:12  And they explode wonderful taste on your palate. 

MT  1:14  Oh my goodness. Yes. For breakfast this morning I had a little plate of mamey, mango, nispero, and, what else, passion fruit I think and I took a picture and my family was like, What are you eating? Because I'm not from Miami originally. But yeah, it was I love I love it. The flavors are just yeah, they explode in your mouth. 

RM  1:36  Yeah, we're just missing. The first part of June is the start of all the wild and crazy stuff that comes in. Yeah, that a big explosion. But you're missing that because we're not large enough to put a whole bunch of people in the market like a public surge or large grocery store.

MT  1:51  Yeah, and that's kind of what I wanted to ask you about. But um, can you first by telling us a bit about the history of Robert is Here. I know That you've been in operation for over 60 years. So congratulations for that. But just tell us a bit about how you got started and what your mission was first and what it's kind of turned into now. 

RM  2:13  Yeah, well, when I was six years old, my dad was a farmer down here for a few years already, and he harvested his cucumbers in '59, the first crop of cucumbers, and as things go and you're a farmer, you generally fall in bad luck, and he found himself financially embarrassed and he couldn't even buy boxes to harvest the second picking of cucumbers, and he went back to the broker that's selling the cucumbers and ask for a little front or maybe a payment on his first cucumbers. To get him through this rough time. Mr. Hennington told my dad that they hadn't sold because a market is flooded with cucumbers in the markets just dirt cheap and didn't foresee selling them, they're probably going to dump them. And my dad said, no, don't dump them, I'll come back with my truck. And he came back and got the cucumbers, it was 400 bushel cucumbers and that produced 400 empty bushels that he could pick his second crop of cucumbers in and bring them back to the market. So he had all these cucumbers that he dumped out and he didn't want them to go to waste. And so he put this little six year old kid out in the corner where we are right now, and it happened to be a Saturday and I sat there all Saturday. I can't remember. It's just what everybody tells me a lot of neighbors were around then saw and my mom and dad of course told me, I sat there the whole day and not a single person stopped. So the next day, dad stuck me back out there again, but he and my mom had a conversation that evening that maybe that people traveling by didn't see me there so he put up a big sign that said to the public, I was there, Robert was there. I sold out and walked home that Sunday. He didn't have a lot of cucumbers out there for me to sell but I got in trouble for walking home, a six year old kid I can't be walking down the street, but I was back out there the next Saturday, the next Saturday and Sunday, the next Saturday and Sunday until Christmas vacation came along and during that if they didn't put me out there every day and by the time I was going back to school on the first grade after Christmas break well I was established. My mom used to set up with little coffee cans for people to throw the money in while I was in school and they'd buy their produce and throw the money in the can. I would get off the school bus in front of the fruit stand instead of at my house, walk across and take care of the little coffee can have money and then help by customers. And that's what we set out to do is raise a little money to keep our head above water and it turned out to be everyday was a little better, a little better, a little better. And we just grew. All the way through junior high school, elementary school and high school and my dad got out of farming about when I was 14 years old and I started farming I bought my first piece of property at 14 and I started farming when I was 15 on that property, planting tropical fruit, avocados and mangoes and such. And I've been farming ever since. And now the farming is rough with the hurricanes and the freezes. Andrew completely destroyed us in '92 I think it was, and we had a bad one three years ago that wasn't nowhere near and Andrew hurricane. My mango trees and avocado trees was blown over and I had to stand them all back up and Andrew, we had no trees that we had to start over back, that was a 15 year recovery. It was just completely and utter annihilation buildings, trees, everything everything was gone. Irma was three years ago and the last two years of mangoes were, it was strange, loaded up like crazy, but not very big size. Trees weren't strong enough to really support all this, but they did and we got the trees growing pretty good. And this year, we figured holy cow, it ought to really hit good three years after but the trees refused to bloom. I guess they figured they did their big massive production right after the hurricane and that what nature wants to do when it gets set back like that is reproduce, and they reproduced, trees weren't big. They were cut back stood up but nature wanted to reproduce in case they never reproduced again. And we had fruit it was small. It wasn't as big as usual. tastes wonderful. But anyhow, this year, the trees are looking-- I hate to say it because they're right in the first part of hurricane season. It looks magnificant. But with no fruit on him right now we should be loaded with fruit then we have this Corona and he's just about to kill me. Shut off my hope we had too many people my market is got a lot of people. It's 60 years of tradition people coming in, you know, I'm educating people, it's not just a fruit stand it's not such a farm stand. The people come in there from around the world looking at stuff they haven't seen anywhere in their life and grow and if I don't grow it, I get it from somewhere where it comes from which some things we can't grow here. It's just, it's a combination of my passion versus their wanting to gather some knowledge, and it makes it just wonderful. And gosh, the last days we were open, we had people calling and complaining. We have people outside I wouldn't let him in the store. I guess they were standing too close. And I had people calling and complaining. I'm terrible at this and that and then my family. We work as a family at this place and I'm inching close to 70 now and they're talking 65 and older are at risk. My family doesn't want me there. And the one place I want to be is there. 

MT  7:09  Right, just to get your mind off of things. 

RM  7:12  Just working it. And life is just horrible, right now. Just my wife and my daughter in law and my sons. They don't want to open up. Apparently, we don't know how many people they'll let in. Yeah, you can have so many people in your store. Now I got 60 employees, not all at one time, but.

MT  7:29  Yeah that alone is it takes up the capacity, yeah.

RM  7:32  You know?  It might be 20 at a time don't need them now. But I want these employees working.

MT  7:38  And it's a shame that we're transitioning into this tropical fruit season. And you want to make sure you're still getting that fruit out to people and that people are still able to take advantage of it. And it's it kind of takes that whole personal connection out of it.

RM Yeah, it's just so weird. We had a drive by. Well, I put myself, let me tell you what I did. We have three lanes coming off the road and they go into one lane that I stack into three lanes inside my property. And at the end, we have three tents that we ran an ethernet cable out there somehow and we have computers out there and that takes the orders of customers get waited on by my counter staff, which are educators in their own right. They know what they're talking about. They've been with me three to five years. The ones I have on the cash registers. It's not just ringing up the cash register. They have to explain everything. At robertishere.com. I have my menu that we are working on. The customer drives up and they looking off that menu, and it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. It's just, I can't with a mask on. I can't uh

MT Yeah they can't really make out what you're saying. You can't really hear as well.

RM  8:48  Yeah, really horrible. I get through. And I tell them how I really appreciate the individual customer. This kind of effort to come out to my farm and my farmstand.  And I apologize because they can't come into my farmstand they can't come out to my farm where I grow up my sunflowers, the sunflowers are right there, but they can't get out and walk on them, they can't come out to my Animal Farm that I keep there because just I was there as a little kid I had on my farm animals.

MT  9:15  And people can enjoy that. Yeah, I mean, thank God for your loyal customers that you do have but there's so many other aspects of your business that bring people so much joy that just can't happen right now. 

RM  9:32  But it's just, I hope we can get back open sometime soon. 

MT  9:36  So you've been doing the drive thru? Have you  been selling your produce at any of these other I know some of there's some other farms that are doing like delivery boxes and stuff and pickup locations can people find your produce there too, or only at your drive thru at your site.

RM  9:55  The thing about it is other entrepreneurs put up a $25 box or $35 box. You don't even know what's in there. It might not be zucchini and you like zucchini you don't like this. I don't know why but you get a box you're helping out the farmer that's got to get rid of this stuff, but right after this all started when it first started happening they couldn't even give their stuff away even to food banks because everybody had so much, nobody would take it, couldn't get rid of this stuff, and other farmers had squash and beans and zucchini you get 40 pounds of beans and 50 pounds of squash and one guy was selling them for $10 a box. Like what do you do with it? 

MT  10:31  Yeah, I've heard a lot of complaints about those boxes because

RM  10:35  Yeah, who uses 50 pounds of pickles and who uses 35 pounds of squash. Yeah, but you know people bought it and it was good stuff excellent produce stuff that we raise here. But what we decided to do is have my customers come into my property make an order of what they want, including the milkshakes, including the tropical fruit, including all the tomatoes they want to buy all the beans they want to buy not a bushel not 2 bushels, 2 pounds, one pound, whatever they want, and it would all meet them at their car within a few minutes after they ordered.

MT  11:06  Love that. That's super easy for them.

RM  11:08  Yeah. Now it turned out to be a lot a lot of people on Saturdays and Sundays and oh god, it was so long of a line.

MT  11:16  I mean, yeah, people need their produce.

RM  11:18  And I'm a worry wort, I don't want anybody to be disappointed. And we were making a them stay because they paid for stuff or they're in the line. It was so hot and so miserable. And I stood out at that turnaround where the three lanes went into one lane, and I presented myself to every single customer and thanked them personally, apologized for all the mess. There's no other way we can do and, and I'm still doing it. I was out there all this weekend and it poured down rain. We must have had 8-10 inches of rain with winds and we operated all of our computers out there in that rain and tents and two or three of them blew down. They said an old man has got no business standing out there. But there I am standing out there getting out of the rain as well, these people need to know that I really want them here. And I appreciate them. 

MT  12:07  Yeah and it's important to you and it's and it's a shame because you want them to know that this isn't your choice either. And it's not ideal for anyone but we're just trying to make it happen the best way we can. It's not like you want it to be this way.

RM  12:23  Yeah, every 10 minutes I'm crying I honestly almost listen to you now I break into tears. It's just sad.

MT  12:30  Yeah, it's it's it's really sad, especially when just in farmers markets in general around here that it just brings people so much joy and it's such a strong sense of community and people people meet up with people that they love to see every week and it's everyone's smiling faces every week and we just don't have that contact anymore. And it's, it's really sad for a lot of people.

RM  12:56  I made sure that I greeted. If I didn't get 90% of them, I'd be surprised, and it's just really tough. My crew working inside is working so hard. 

MT  13:06  Yeah. And you know, it's really, I'm sure it means so much to them that you're out there. 

RM  13:12  By the end of the day, I walk in and we do our close down and these people are beat tired and they don't want to do no close down. They just want to leave.

MT  13:22  Yeah, especially in the rain.

RM  13:25  We are building a pole barn as we speak right now. We've ripped up what we already had for our temporary tents and move them across the lane and we're working ridiculously stupid right now. Hopefully by Friday we'll be in a pole barn taking orders instead because I guess my son didn't foresee us getting like we want to.

MT  13:46  Yeah, and especially a place like that where everyone's touching everything.

RM  13:53  Yeah, I know everybody's getting sick from Coronavirus. 100,000 people died so far. Here in this country. But I don't want to bring something to somebody else and then they die.

MT  14:06  Exactly. And that's kind of the thing too, everyone's kind of treating it differently. Like some people are extremely afraid and extremely cautious and some people aren't and then it creates tension between people. So that's another aspect that's really difficult because I mean, even at the I went to the supermarket a couple of times, and people are like getting mad at people for standing too close to them, and then it creates this hostile environment and you don't want that either. So But anyway, okay, switching to a lighter note. So I kind of wanted you to talk to us a bit about since Miami's primary growing season is coming to an end right now, can you tell us what we can expect to be in season in the coming months? I know we already were talking about some of the tropical fruit but what should we be expecting?

RM  14:58  The lychee crop this year is really really poor in volume tremendously so it's one of the weakest sets of lychees I think I've ever ever seen. I think it has something to do with the hurricane three years ago, because the last two years we were not too bad, we were pretty much all we wanted to sell. Mangoes are going to be very poor in volume as well. The mangoes were starting under a variety that comes in normally the end of June and we've already picked some it's called the Florida Red, very similar to the Kent mango size and color and taste and texture, but they're already started, and we'll probably have a pretty good amount of those. The Kent mangoes, which are the best mangoes of all, there's hardly any of those compared to what it should be, and there's hardly any Kitts. And that's the last varieties of mangoes, Kents, Kitts, and Florida Reds. And we're pretty much done with all the early stuff already little or nothing, probably good because we didn't have any access to that many people. Yeah we've got the drive thru we sold a few Florida Reds already and some Zils and Glenns and some Haydens we just have one more palette of Mexican Haydens that I gotta sell. I just got them last Friday but we didn't bring them in yet. We ordered them because there's just not that many mangoes but we've already been into the mamey, the mameys are absolutely gorgeous.

MT  16:21  Oh my god, so good. 

RM  16:23  We're hoping we'll have some we've been picking jackfruit so we still can't so hard to sell a jackfruit when people don't know what they are, and you want to show them the impressive fruit. I got a tree out back loaded with fruit this year. And the customers see it on the tree, then they want to buy some you know,  but we whole, have we have halves, we have pieces right now. I got it hole and in the cup and people don't know what it is.

MT  16:45  Yeah, and they're not gonna Yeah, like on the tree maybe they could identify it but

RM  16:49  It's just hard to impress someone right now cuz you know, everybody doesn't know where their next paycheck is coming. They don't know if they're gonna make it to get enough money to pay for a car payment. You know, there's a lot of people out of work.

MT  17:01  Yeah and you can't be there chopping up samples for them.

RM  17:05  I'm such a good salesman, I don't have to give, like the guanabanas are blooming like crazy. We should have a good crop of guanabana. We picked a few today, but it's the best tasting fruit in the world and you have to try it. I'm not going to give you a sample. We sell it for $11 a pound. And it's just it's it's so good for you. It kills cancer at an alarming rate. We got I got hundreds and hundreds of customers, I tell them about this and they come back after using the tincture and the tea from the leaves and the fresh fruit. People go in for their operations they're supposed to have under cancer, and they gave me three or four weeks to get started on eliminating the cancer and the doctors can't find the cancer and it's gone.

MT  17:44  That's incredible. Yeah, I am. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm a I'm a dietitian, and I've written some articles about cancer fighting foods and really what fights the cancer cells are antioxidants. And so all of these different fruits and the different pigments and the fruits and the different flavors act as antioxidants that actually attack those cells directly so

RM Yeah, it makes the bodies kill the bad cells.

MT Exactly. And if people aren't you know eating these fruits that they've never had before they're missing out on all of those health benefits that you can't get from you know, other commercial fruit that we that people typically eat.

RM  18:22  Well it's all good, you've got asparagus especially supposed to be good for leukemia, broccoli. 

MT  18:27  Yeah, that whole family of veggies, yeah. That's incredible though, wow. So for this season in Miami--

RM  18:36  Canistels will be coming in, that's the yellow sapote, the sapodillas will be coming in now and they'll be coming back again. They're not completely out of season yet. That's the chico brown sapote, mameys are the red sapote. The yellow ones are canistel which makes the best milkshakes of all- it's so good. And then you got the longans, longan season really is a lot like than it used to be because they learned that they could put some kind of an acid on the roots from gunpowder and it makes them bloom anytime they wanted to bloom because it used to be they all come in at one time. So they've taken half their trees and make them bloom at odd season and they're not producing when everybody else is producing so they're actually really, really good, I love longans, but they're brown and it's a fruit that if it was any other color, but brown they would sell like crazy.

MT  19:29  Haha, yeah, it's aesthetics.

RM  19:36  Every time you turn around is you know, all kinds of stuff we get in from Guatemala like rambutans,  it's like a lychee with hair on it. 

MT  19:42  Oh, yeah, I've seen those.

RM  19:44  They want to be a little warmer in the winters. And the mamoncillo, Spanish limes, they're orange inside with a real heart seed, green skin. When you go to Key West they are growing everywhere. It's like a lychee, a poor man's lychee, they're ripe in the middle of August and they're blooming now. So they'll come in in August to Sugar Apples, I never have enough to sell even with this drive by market we'll be sold out because people buy them and ship them just I can't ever

MT  20:12  I mean good that's that's refreshing to hear though that people you know like them and know what they are at least.

RM  20:18  Oh yeah they it's such that's the biggest, one of our biggest sellers. I don't have to put a single fruit in my market. 

MT  20:24  So out of these fruits that you just mentioned which one is your personal favorite and what's your favorite way to eat it or use it in the kitchen?

RM  20:35  I like mamey just straight up. I like a mamey shake but not my favorite. the canistel, the yellow sapote, I like to eat them, but I love them in a shake and that's my favorite milkshake. The guanabanas, I think is the most elegant and most magnificent tasting fruit of all fruit grown, and I like it anyway you get it. But it doesn't have much shelf life, it gets ripe real fast. But you can freeze them, in slices and then hold them in your hand and let the skin get a little bit warm and pull the skin off, or you can freeze it after you take all the seeds out of it and make milkshakes out of it, or smoothies with ice. You don't need anything else but ice cream and the fruit or ice and the fruit. It's strong enough and heavy enough flavor to overpower. Yeah, and my mangoes are still probably my favorite fruit of all fruit grown, because you got so many different, there's over 1200 or 1300 different varieties and they all taste different, some I don't like and some I do some I absolutely enjoy and rave over and some look magnificent and they're horrible, like the ones you buy stores are called Tommy Atkins and they're just stringy and they have a pine taste. There is a way you can eat a Tommy Atkin and it's not too bad as you eat it just before it gets ripe, cut it was a good sharp knife so all the fibers are cutting off the seed and they don't get caught in your teeth because they're so kind of crunchy little bit. That's the only way those are good. There are so many different varieties that are so much better. I've eaten one or two Tommy Atkins in the last 10 years or so.

MT  22:06  So, there was one that I tried at the Fruit and Spice Park a few years ago and it tasted like carrots. And it was so crazy because my friends and I were like, what is this taste? It's so familiar, but we couldn't figure it out. And then a few hours later, we're like carrots. This tastes just like carrots. I don't know the name of the variety, but it was amazing. It was so good.

RM  22:28  And every variety of mango is nothing but a seedling variety, that someone had said, Wow, this is a good mango. And they took that tree that they got the fruit off of they took the bud wood and grafted on to the seedlings and the guy's name might have been Mr. Kent. Any name. Now somebody named Glenn grafted a mango and the Glenn mango is now named after him. The Glenn mango is another seedling that he found and he loved it and people love Glenn mangoes and they're wonderful, no string. Yeah, there's a Valencia Pride why they call it Valencia pride? I don't know, but it's kind of a long, real long, odd one and it's a purple ish yellow when it's ripe with red tints and the skin is gorgeous. Yeah, it's really pineapple-y and wonderful. I've got 60 trees 70 trees of them I bet you I won't have any fruit this year and they usually produce terrific and the tree grows magnificent. They didn't make any fruit this year, Yeah. And avocados we have a problem with Laurel wilt. It's a Ambrosia beetle that invaded the avocado trees. They bore into the tree and lay their larva in the tree and they excrete a substance that becomes the food for the larva when it hatches out. They eat that but that excretion that they put in the tree is 100% fatal to the tree after three years. Yeah, and we've lost probably 90% of our avocados that we grow here. All dead. The trees are dying. 

MT  23:56  Oh my god. Yeah, I was wondering why I haven't been seeing them that much.

RM  23:58  There's only 1 cure, and that's the plant a new tree in the spot and hopefully the Ambrosia beetle won't be around when they get big enough to support the Ambrosia beetle larva.

MT  24:08  That's such a shame that's so sad. Would they be in season now?

RM  24:15  They're just starting to start picking them this week or next week. Yeah we don't have any ready to pick. It's not in the fruit, the bugs don't go into the fruit the bug goes in the tree and lays its larva right in the branch and that excretion is tremendously poison. I mean, dead, the tree is dead in three weeks.

MT  24:32  Man, and those trees are huge. That's insane.

RM  24:35  Huge. We've been cutting down in our Grove and planting new ones and all the the younger you grow the better chances you're not going to get the problem. My grove is really old. I planted mine, God, I think I was 14 years old. 

MT  24:50  Aw. And doesn't it take like five or six years before it even bears any fruit?

RM  24:55  Yeah, you can get fruit off an avocado tree in three to four years. Production of a seven year old tree will start paying for itself. Yeah, yeah same with mangoes.

MT  25:05  Okay so I know you were already kind of discussing the mangoes that we can find in the the supermarkets here but why do you think we don't see any of these deliciously, juicy, beautiful rare fruits in our local supermarkets?

RM  25:22  If you had no one in the store to convince you and tell you, no samples, someone's got to be there to tell you what to do with it, how to do it, what it's going to look like when it's ripe. Why is this one green and it's ripe and ready to go, and why is that one red and it's not ready to go, you know, and you're spending pretty good dollar for this stuff because the tropical fruit is a lot more expensive. Although you see what tomatoes are- going crazy. Now tomatoes are catching up. Good tomatoes are $2 a pound, easily. Was never able to get that kind of money for them, but you know, people who don't know and have someone there that's just putting it up on the shelf, and he hasn't made it his life's mission to educate everybody he talks to about them, because that's what I do, I'm the educator, man, I want you to leave my place with knowledge and really have an interest in learning more.

MT  26:10  Yeah, well, actually the first time I ever tried an mamey and jackfruit was Robert is Here. And I love mamey and I  always have it in the freezer, I freeze it I had some this morning.

RM  26:26  I like it ice cold cut the day before wrapped in a little piece of plastic, because we set up in the morning and when we're normally setting up, and I have these cold ice cold mamey and I take out a cooler.

MT  26:38  Oh my goodness. It's just like it has this like caramelized flavor to it. 

RM  26:43  Have you ever noticed the energy you get off of that piece of fruit? I don't drink those energy drinks, but this gives you a natural shot of vitamins and minerals that your body reacts. 

MT  26:52  That's true and the fiber and it is So good for you too. So it sustains the energy instead of like, if you were to just drink a fruit juice, it raises your energy, spikes it up and then drops it down. But the fiber and the fruit is really important.

RM  27:12  Yeah. Hopefully I'll get back to it. WE haven't even put up the plexiglass windows at my counter. I said don't waste your time. I can't get enough people in there to make it worthwhile. Ya know, you can't come into my store and stay there, two minutes, three minutes, five minutes.

MT  27:28  No, it's like a few hour thing. 

RM  27:31  Saturday, when we were really busy this last Saturday, we estimate it was about 300 people and hour, just driving by getting their milkshakes getting their tropical fruit or tomatoes.

MT  27:41  I mean, this is an exciting outing for people now because we can't really go to the beach or anything. So it's like a it's a fun trip.

RM  27:49  But it's gonna get old soon.

MT  27:51  Yeah. So do you think that I know you guys are itching to open back up. But do you think this whole model that you have created with the online ordering. Do you think you can see that lasting post COVID? 

RM  28:09  I hope not. It's not really online ordering. You're looking at my menuon your phone. And you go up to my attendant to give you the spiel, I try to talk to you before you even get to them. And introduce you to me again. And what I have and what I could have. Yeah, and I have to do it quick because I got people waiting to get in. But we have to go back.

MT  28:29  We really do. It's just like that community that's just so rich in this area, the agriculture and farming community, it's just like kind of just diminished that whole social aspect of it and like learning things from each other and sharing things with each other.

RM  28:44  Yeah, they want to put asphalt and concrete everywhere. And they're gonna get that opportunity now because farming is it's just, it's sad.

MT  28:52  So that's it for me, Robert, thank you so, so much for your time.

RM  28:57  Very good. And hopefully one day, we'll be able to- as you're coming into my place and introduce yourself.

MT  29:03  Yeah, I definitely will! 

RM  29:04  I'll probably know who I'm talking to but you know what I mean. 

MT  29:07  Yeah, of course of I would love to. Hopefully I'll come in person and I could hang out there for a bit. Okay. Well, thank you, to you and to Brandon for setting this up. I'll be in contact with you guys.

RM Thanks so much.

MT Sounds good. All right. Have a good one. 

RM  29:23  Be safe. 

MT  29:24  All right, you too. Bye.