Jayma Cardoso: Founder & CEO of The Surf Lodge Hotel and Restaurant in Montauk

Episode 126

Jayma Cardoso, Founder, and CEO of Surf Lodge created one of the most fun and creative spaces in The Hamptons. She brought community and creativity to Montauk and opened the Snow Lodge last winter in Aspen. Hear from this incredible entrepreneur how the pandemic has really impacted the hospitality industry and how she has pivoted during this challenging time. You need to hear this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow!

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Transcript

Kara Goldin  00:00

Hi everyone, it’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin Show and I am so excited to have my next guest, Gemma Cardozo. She is an entrepreneur and founder and CEO of the surf lodge out in Montauk, you’ve may have met her, although she’s so modest that I think you, you might see her around there. But you wouldn’t even know she’s she is the person that she is. And they’ve expanded, of course into Aspen, which I will let her talk to everybody and share a little bit more details about that. But just so you have a little bit more info on Jamie as well. She’s a fixture in the hospitality industry lives part-time in Tribeca as well. And she founded the surf lodge in 2007. And it’s just this iconic destination that has not only a hotel, but a restaurant, and it is the Hamptons place to be. And we’re exclusive guests and star-studded weekend performances. And one of our investors, john legend has even played there. And so, so amazing. And as I mentioned last year, she created a publication in Aspen called the snow Lodge, which I was also lucky enough to be able to go and visit and had an amazing lunch there. It was so much fun. And so I’m very, very excited to have you, James. So thanks for coming out.

Jayma Cardoso  01:36

Thank you for having me. And I am blushing. Although you can see,

Kara Goldin  01:42

you are just so sweet. And so modest. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about your background and hear just a little bit about your journey.

Jayma Cardoso  01:51

Sure. So I travel to New York City for school and started in New Jersey at Rutgers. And when I moved to New York City, was a lot more expensive. And so that’s how my hospitality sort of journey started. That my roommate in school at the time said, Hey, I have a friend named Rocco, who owns a restaurant in Soho, named Boone. And I can make the intro, you know, and I said, Okay, well, Katya, what’s her name? And I said, Katya, do you know what positions are the ones that make really good money? Because the sort of, I’m struggling, right. And I need to balance school. Yeah. And so she said, I heard bartending

02:41

is the way to go.

Jayma Cardoso  02:43

So I said, Okay, great. Katya. You know, set me up. And so the next day, I had an interview with Rocco. And I said to him, Hey, Rocco, I’m looking for a bartender in position. And he said, You have experienced that said, Yes. You know,

Kara Goldin  03:00

I’ve made drinks before.

Jayma Cardoso  03:03

A couple of drinks before myself. Anyway, fast forward. He put me on a training session the next day, which I came in. And, you know, he said, Oh, you’re gonna do service bar, you know, like, that’s how we train our bartenders. And I thought, Oh, my God, no, how am I going to manage? And by the way, this is my journey. Do not try and do not, I’m not saying to start it. And so anyway, Rocco and his entire staff realized really fast, that wasn’t the best bartender. But I think that Rocco saw me that there was, despite maybe my skills not being the best, that that the guests loved it right, and that I was super hospitable. And sort of, he said to me, Look, I don’t think that you can be a bartender here, but I think if you want, we can give you a hostess position.

Kara Goldin  04:04

So you became the hostess,

Jayma Cardoso  04:06

I became the hostess eventually, I did learn how to bartend. And, and sort of, you know, that’s kind of where you know how I got my hospitality sort of started.

Kara Goldin  04:20

I love it. I was one of the things I just launched a book a couple of months ago. And one of the things that so many people have, have come back to and shared how much they love this chapter. I talk about my waitressing days. So I grew up in and Phoenix and Scottsdale and I worked in this amazing still amazing Mexican restaurant. It’s I always I feel bad calling it this. But this is a great dumpy Mexican restaurant that’s over 100 years old, and it’s called TP and I learned so much there but I also met so many people and that’s ultimately why I ended up launching into how I got to New York just by meeting people and talking to people. And I’ve always really enjoyed people, I think you’re very much like this. But that’s how I ended up just through hearing stories. And I, you know, wasn’t a kid that I went to Southern California a lot. But that was kind of it. We didn’t travel as a family very much. And so I would meet people, and I’d hear they were from Chicago, and I’d want to know, oh, what’s it? Like, if I go there? Where should I go? And I was just curious, I wouldn’t. I would, and I would make all these notes. And then finally, when I was deciding to go, and, you know, graduate from college, that’s, I would go back to those and then I couldn’t decide. And because there were so many great options out there. And so I bought a plane ticket and went all over the US for a month. And I you know, Kevin? Yeah, and it was, and I still, when I speak on college campuses, I tell that story that I had no idea what I wanted to do, I just wanted to do something that I loved. And that was, and so I just kept telling people to do and asking people, because I do believe that, especially people who are maybe twice your age, when you’re in college, you start sharing that you you know, you’re ambitious, you’re, you want to do what you love, they’ll help you, right, hotel, introduce you to people, and I’m sure you’ve been introduced to people too, that might want to get into hospitality or whatever. And you need help, as long as you’re willing to start at the bottom. And, you know, and work hard. And I think that that’s really the key thing. So but I love so how so you’re working there. You’re in the hospitality industry doing your thing as a hostess and

Jayma Cardoso  06:46

what happened then. And so he was opening up a place in the Hamptons, I ended up going there. Ended up eventually learning, you know how to waitress well, like how to bartend and all of the different. Yeah, and just fell in love. I mean, it was like, that guy feel good around people with maybe it’s the sort of the Brazilian in me of always trying to take care of people like a mom. And so I just fell at home. And you know, while I was in school, I was like, Look, this is something that potentially I can see myself growing into. And then eventually I yes, I open up my first restaurant, my bar, another bar, another buffer. And then eventually, I came across a real estate broker. And I said to him, hi, Steven, I’d like to make to do a hotel now. You know, I’m getting older. I already have had a couple of bars and restaurants. And he said Jayma impossible, New York City impossible. And I said, What do you mean, you know, because, I mean, at the time, we opened, actually surf lodge 2008. And so at the time was sort of booming the markets, right and in the city itself. And I said to him, I said, Okay, fine, maybe not in the city right away. But what about the Hamptons, you know, I always go to Montauk, I come across all these little cue motels that I feel like if you paint them white, they like we can charge a lot more than the $99 they’re getting right now. And he said to me, okay, let me think about it. If I come across something, sort of like this, and yeah, like, soon enough, like, not soon enough, but maybe six months later, he said, Hey, I think I have something for you. And I’ll never forget, it was maybe seven weeks to Memorial Day weekend. And you know, that surf lodge? And I’m thinking, Okay, how can we obviously have to open Memorial Day weekend. We don’t want to miss the season. And that was like the craziest timeline. I think anyone has ever had to take, like a little sort of beaten-up motel. You know, it transforms.

Kara Goldin  09:12

And what was that? Actually? Was

Jayma Cardoso  09:14

it a little beaten up motel or so was partially The rooms are mostly staff housing. Mm-hmm. And then the restaurant and bar were kind of like, local divey sort of bar, but the rooms were like, I remember it was a tough timeline to get it all done. But we did.

Kara Goldin  09:40

That’s crazy. Did you feel it? Especially since it was your first hotel? Right? And did you feel Were you afraid?

Jayma Cardoso  09:49

I don’t know if it was enough. It’s just I’ve always been this person that no task is big enough, right? Like we can figure it out. So I think it was more like excitement. I had a great team of partners, Rob McKinley, who designed the hotel and, you know, made it so beautiful. So it was more like, it was more like the timeline. You know, we have guests also raising the money, right? Like, forget about all this, this, the fluffy thing is in the beautiful part of the business, but also we had seven weeks to find investors raise the money, convinced the landlord to give us a no technology, you know, all of the fun stuff that comes with

Kara Goldin  10:38

writing. And this was your first time doing that.

Jayma Cardoso  10:41

That was the first time raising that type of money into a hotel because I had raised money before for

Kara Goldin  10:50

the restaurant and

Jayma Cardoso  10:52

a bar. But you know, it’s also most of I had, like, done pop-ups in Southampton, and I think or, or even done events in East Hampton. But when I remember sitting with investors that you know, and going through the slides on the deck and saying, Oh, so, you know, this is the project that they would be like, oh, excited in the location is in Montauk. And I could see they were like dying to run out of the office. Like you’re wasting my time. Nobody’s gonna drive the additional hour and a half and, and I’m like, No, no, no, we’re building this. For Montauk. There’s this great community of artists, and there are great people there. And then, of course, the people from Southampton. If they want to come it’s still good. I could see they’re like,

11:40

Oh, my God, I

Jayma Cardoso  11:41

just got you to know, another call.

Kara Goldin  11:45

Well, and for those of you who aren’t familiar with the Hamptons, it’s like when Jayma came out there I mean Montauk was really it. I mean, it seemed a lot. It seemed far. Right. It was really, I mean, kind of the furthest you went was East Hampton. Right? Totally 100%. And then you go and Dan McGann said, but even Amagansett was like on me like that. It wasn’t, it wasn’t. Right. And so it’s it. And so but, but you were really sure logic was the draw, because you really did understand not only how important great food is, but also entertainment. So how did you obviously you had run a bar you had run, you knew this other industry? And it really is they’re not the same industries, they really are different. They may seem the same. But so what was kind of the first things that you thought about, in addition to raising the capital, but

Jayma Cardoso  12:43

yeah, and, you know, once we sort of accomplish all of that. I think the idea was, how do we build a project that is true to Montauk, right. And Montauk is, besides being this amazing sort of fisherman village, it was very much about music and art, right. And so from day one, we’re like, you know, what, in also what type of music would be true to this community? Because we didn’t want to come out as this new york city people now trying to make Montauk glitzy your city people were, you know, and, and so it was super important for, for me, especially in my partners at the time, how do we make this the type of music, the type of food, the type of vibe that is so true to the community so that the fishermen can come in on a Sunday and listen to reggae, or you know, like, we’ve had like Willie Nelson keynote, and I love in a sort of, like, feel good. And then also the city people because like, to me was always like, you know, Southampton still feels like you haven’t left the city because people are dressed up and you go to like St. Ambrose and all these cool restaurants, but, but you bumped into all these people that sort of just saw on Thursday and I wanted to kind of it was okay if you showed up on your surroundings and flip flops, it was almost like, didn’t feel organic, if you showed up in high heels, because, you know, and I remember I’ve since removed the sign. But like our first year, I had a sign that they had no access to high heels. Like, this is like the place that you know, a hedge fund manager should be able to come in the fisherman and you know, just all worlds can sort of colliding, relax him yourself and just, you know, drink a beer, listen to great music, talk to people meet people. So that was super important to us. And that’s how the music came in.

Kara Goldin  15:05

What was the probably when you think back on those first couple of weeks? What were the things that you learned that you were surprised by?

Jayma Cardoso  15:12

I mean, like, Well, a couple of things. One, we had never done a project that big, right. And our expectations were because of Montauk. And I think because of all the struggles of like, how we even acquire the property, we thought it would take a little time. So, you know, we were going to all the hotels, dropping out postcards, and like, came Memorial Day weekend, and it was way more than we probably could handle or expected. And I think part is because there have always been tons of great restaurants in Montauk. And that community is just always been amazing. But I think that it was something different. And it just people was curious. In fact, I think, you know, at, like, we’ve looked back and said, like, I wish we had more time to sort of build because the craziness brought also, I think the community was almost in shock. They’re like, What happened here? Right. And so like, looking back, it’s almost like, we, you know, it was too busy, too fast and too soon. And so, you know, in every project to always learn something. And I think, you know, it’s not that we, you know, we just irresponsibly made this place, a success from day one. And you know, and people ended up parking, there is not enough parking. So like, I think we’ve learned a lot about, you know, the community parts, sort of

Kara Goldin  16:57

right, embracing the community. And I know, you’ve had to, you know, do that over the years as well. And things have cropped up. And I think that’s a really, really important point that it’s not just about building a business, but it’s also about who else is around there. Right? Yeah. And I think it’s certainly and how much I think entrepreneurs don’t realize a lot of that. I mean, we’ve, as you know, I’m in the Bay Area. I live in Marin County, but our business is in San Francisco. And we’ve had to deal with San Francisco on many things around our business over the years. And it’s and so whatever, the local governments actually, you have to pay attention. All right, and it’s not that you don’t want to just sometimes you’re just so in your own business and trying to do the right thing and service your customer, but I totally get like sometimes the community and then in sometimes like the fame, yeah, that you didn’t even ask or, or one, you know, can harm your, your sort of relationship price. So

Jayma Cardoso  18:05

it’s like, along the way, we’ve fixed and now have a really great relationship with the community. But you know, it’s at first I think that the popularity hurt us more than the sort of helped us you know, in that.

Kara Goldin  18:20

Yeah, definitely. Well, I think that but that is a that’s a super good lesson for people who are listening to and then as you and you continue to grow and evolve and update and you have an inside the shop, I always, every time I’ve gone out to the Hamptons have also been really excited to go into your store, because you have such a good eye for bathing suits and all the stuff that is people are like, wait, what are you doing? You’re going out there? And I said, No, they just did I am going to shop at the surf Lodge. It’s always so great. So then you went and built this amazing pop-up and Aspen. How did that come about?

Jayma Cardoso  19:03

Yeah. So I mean, we’ve always since the beginning the sort of image or the dream or you know, the lone goal was to build the surf Lodge, the sunset Lodge, this low Lodge, right. And I’ve done like several pop-ups in Park City, and we looked at tons of other spaces throughout the years because it was, you know, that’s something that we want to do and couldn’t find, like, I’ve always pictured that our snow lodge place would be the surf lodge with snow like so the same deck with people listening to music, but instead of like the sun, it would you know, it would just be like, and nothing felt like all the spaces were either part of like really big complexes that were to you know what I just said? Didn’t feel organic and a friend had told me about the space and Aspen. And I started talking to the landlord, maybe a month prior to us actually acquiring. And he said to me, he goes, listen, you know, they’re from New York. So he said, your project sounds amazing, but I’m talking to a really big operator. And I think I’m going to make a deal happen, you know, and every three weeks, I would say, Hi, Jonathan, just checking in.

Kara Goldin  20:34

Good, right.

Jayma Cardoso  20:36

squeaky wheel tacking in, you know, it’s like, to the point that at one point, he was like, I think it’s like, at the last leg, you know, it’s happening. And I said, Okay, great, you know, but just, you know, keep me in mind if things don’t, you know, work out and I kid you not, I think it may be ended of October. Yeah, I was probably like, around my birthday end of October, he called me He says, You know what, Jayma, space is yours. And I said, Why? It’s impossible. Like, we don’t even have, you know, I would, if I did this project, I would want to redo it. And, you know, we don’t really have enough time. And he’s like, No, you do you know, it’s a turn-key. Like you, you can just walk in? And I say, Look, I don’t, I don’t know that we can do it that fast. But I’ll take up, you know, the journey to Aspen because I’ve seen the space a month ago, I want to just refresh. And so I got there beginning of November. And I’m like, you know, it needs a lot of work. But I think the bones are here. And if we can come up with a deal that it’s very fast, because sometimes the deal itself takes two months forever. Yeah. And, and so long story short, it, you know, it, it, we made it work, and we open and make very little, you know, changes, like painting the furniture that was there. And it had a snow lodge last year, which was amazing. And obviously got cut short in March because of COVID. But it was Yeah, was that another challenge? I don’t know what this timeline seeing.

Kara Goldin  22:27

It’s crazy. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs out there who have an idea? Right, and that just doesn’t really know where to begin, though. I mean, there’s, there are a few lessons, I think that you plopped into there. But

Jayma Cardoso  22:40

yeah, I think I think you, you sort of have to, you know, understand, first of all, understand your industry. You know, it’s like, you know, it’s not that you can’t take risks, but like understand, you know, the, what it is that you’re good at? And then you know, go to market for it, you know, raise the money to the hard work. I mean, there is no, you know, at least for me, there’s no sort of easy way to the top right. It’s like hard work, determination, motivation, and knowledge, right, I think but

Kara Goldin  23:17

you’ve learned also in all of these businesses, all different aspects of the business, right? I mean, I think what you love to do is really being on the front end, right? You’re there at motive, right? And but the other thing that I always share with people is that I’ve done pretty much every job inside of hentai, I now have an amazing CFO and you know, somebody who runs our direct to consumer business, but I actually know how to code a little bit, I can actually run our bottle at the factory and you know, I could do it, I there’s people that are way better than me, but I’ve actually taken the time to go learn it because that’s how you are able when things get hard, and you know, that you’re able to know kind of what’s going on with the business and I know you’ve done that, and, you know, communicate with your teammates, your staff, your co-workers, because you’ve done it. You know, like I’ve been a cocktail waitress,

Jayma Cardoso  24:18

I’ve been a bartender, the one thing that I need to learn is DJ because a lot of times I bet you would be a great DJ by tongue with the DJs it’s like change their music changing. Not like oh, I gotta be nice. So don’t kill his vibe, but I want to kill him. Understanding you know, like, I remember a couple of years ago at surf Lodge, it was for yaks. And we were closed on a Tuesday and I said I don’t want to lose this dinner because it’s like, you know, a good one and it’s you know, friends and I said, You know, I don’t. I know my chef needs a day off, I’ll do it. I’ll cook, you know, it’s. And so it’s always like, I think, understand all the different positions that, you know, your bartender doesn’t show up, you can jump behind the bar or you know, you, you can speak their language and they get respect to because you know, you’ve done

Kara Goldin  25:23

and be helpful to tribal

Jayma Cardoso  25:24

and jump behind the bar would it mean?

Kara Goldin  25:28

Yeah, period, and super common sense. But I think so often, it really, it so bothers me when I hear entrepreneurs saying, Oh, that’s someone else’s job. Yeah. And I, it just is, and, and I think the ability to jump in, you don’t do it every single day. But when you have to you just you know how to do it. And you know, how to find the problems, you know, how to help when you need to help. And I think that’s what I really admired about you. So, so then we jump into the most wonderful year that we’ve all had 2020. And so you’re rolling into the summer of 2020? And what do you do?

Jayma Cardoso  26:12

So it was tough, right? Because we had just sort of left Aspen two months earlier than we expected. And we’re like, with hospitality, and especially a feel like the surf lodge or snow lodge just so much about people, right and gatherings and in this community. And it was super, sort of, you know, what’s the first of all, what is the responsible thing that we can do right? here where we don’t know, we knew we couldn’t operate at the level that historically we had. And so I met with my partners, and we sort of said, Okay, can we do this? Can we do this safely? can we protect our co-workers and ourselves, and me included, and we just couldn’t figure out how to do that, on the food and beverage part, we knew that we could do it in the rooms and sort of shift away from two days or three days because our model is pretty much, you know, either you’re there for the weekday? And it’s more of a wellness sort of vibe, or you’re there for the weekend, you spend very little time in your room, and it’s all about the food and beverage. But you’d never really stay at the surf lodge for a week or two or a month, historically. And so we thought, why don’t we try to shift the rooms to a 30 day, live with us and hang out with us for 30 days, and not open the food and beverage because it’s just a territory that we don’t really know how to do it safely. Or we did it for like two days, grabbing go when the parking lot got filled super fast. And we were like, We just can navigate through this. So it’s a really tough decision. Because we obviously have 144 employees who, you know, not all of them live there. They’ve had rented homes. So it was not only, hey, we can we’re not going to do this because, you know, we don’t feel like it’s safe. But at the same time when we have this pressure of our entire staff that relies on us or work for the seeds and then go live somewhere else for four months. And so it was really tough, but I think, you know, it was the responsible thing to do. Because it was a hard territory. And to me, I feel like there’s never it’s just not my personality. There’s no task hard enough. There’s no hard territory. And but sometimes the decision like there’s it’s a lot harder than actually say let’s open and I’m glad that I have these amazing partners that supported me. And that helped me through the hard times that you know, of not opening the food and beverage, which is the core of our business, not just financially but it’s like what brings the whole thing together.

Kara Goldin  29:28

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that that, that is something that, you know, people always say don’t look back. I think that 2020 for so many smart people will you know, there’s an imprint. This has been part of your journey. I don’t think anybody will forget about 2020 but it’s also about you know what you didn’t do right? What you guessed was going to happen that didn’t or what you did right along the way. I mean as I shared with our team, we are in a Central product. And so while everybody was being told to shelter in place, I mean, we’re by the government work were labeled as water an essential product. And I didn’t even know that term. Of course, I knew what the Webster’s dictionary term was for, you know, essential, but that meant that our factories were going 24 hours a day in case, water was needed. So there was a huge responsibility to make sure that we were running. And we did a lot of things right prior to the pandemic, including automating a lot of our factories. But again, I did it for other reasons, not because I thought a pandemic was coming, then I had to, you know, share with our team, that while everybody’s sheltering in place, you’re actually working. Yeah. And so and, you know, I had a few of our employees say, Are you trying to kill me? And they were serious. I mean, they really and, and so, you know, you really rely on your gut, and you’re gonna go try, and I think anybody is absolutely lying. If they say that they, you know, did it all right, made no mistakes along the way, and you did your best right to make decisions along the way. And I think that that is, clearly you know, what I’ve seen you guys do as well, and it’s, but I, you know, it’s something that I think everybody will look back on in 2020. And hopefully, we’re all going to look forward to 2021, and the vaccine, and we’re gonna, you know, we’ve got a new president coming into all very exciting. And so that’s the best we can do. And so, so in terms of, you know, the business models, and just more than anything, obviously, you had to transform that, what would you say, as is kind of the biggest lesson that you learned from this, from this whole time?

Jayma Cardoso  32:00

It’s, it’s a, I would say, challenges, I think, helps us keep things fresh, right. And so, you know, I think it wasn’t about just looking at like, the negative, right, and saying, like, wow, this is just, I don’t know, I think it’s like, you almost have to like to change your mindset, and, and make it more like, how can we better right, how can we step up? Because now, more than ever, with hospitality, it’s not just about the experience in the place. It’s like, Can we do you know, the food to go Can this work for us? Can this work for us? Can we do a ghost kitchen? Can we do several different cuisines? How can we keep the lights on, so that we can be better next year? Not like, how can we make it all work today? It was more like, let’s try to survive, do lots of it and help the community too because I think I remember, we had just received all these hoodies from Aspen that they we closed. And I thought to myself that you know, they said the snow Lodge and it took forever to arrive. And it was like towards the end of February. And I and I thought to myself, you know, like, we don’t know how long that’s going to be. So we took all the hoodies back to Montauk. And, you know, I remember me looking at like this hoodie that said the Snow Lodge, and I said, You know what, let’s call the Montauk pantry. Let’s ask them. If everybody that buys a hoodie, if they’re willing, like, basically you buy a hoodie that says the snowflake, even sort of fun. Yeah, that $100 can go into the pantry. And so that we can help. I think there was like this sort of, look, we’re okay, we’re healthy. I’m lucky enough that I have partners that are able to help us get through these hard times. But there’s a lot of people who are not lucky and they don’t have food. And so how do we as in I just saw my team, like everybody on the team is like, Kj Ma, do you need help? So I think it was really interesting to see how, you know, they were struggling to write, they could use that $100 they didn’t have a job and it was really special to see my team come together and help others while they were struggling too and I think what I’ve learned a lot like about, you know, the things that that are so important. are, you know, not what I thought was, and certainly as changing gela my mindset, not just on a business level, but I think long term. You know,

Kara Goldin  35:05

I love that. That’s, that’s super true. And I think you went back to the community, too, and how really trying to figure out when maybe it’s even when things are super tough, it’s actually at and it’s at a time when you can support, maybe other people aren’t in positions to support. And I think that that’s really what you’ve shown that you’re able to be creative and think of these ideas, but also lend a hand to which you guys have clearly done. Yeah, so I love that. So last question. So one thing I probably should have mentioned, if you all don’t know this, but I think you’re one of the few female-founded hotels. Right? And is that right? I was, as see, there are very few women CEOs of hotels, is that correct? I mean,

Jayma Cardoso  36:04

I think there is. There’s, there’s one amazing one, Liz Lambert, I think she’s a Boss Lady, but I mean, I personally never think of my industry as it’s completely a male dominant one. Because, you know, although the head honcho may be a man, there’s like, so much behind the scene, there’s those, you know, filled with this incredibly strong smile, you know, boss, ladies, as we call them, yeah, that makes, you know, they’re behind the scenes that really make the whole project a success. And so, then I feel like there’s, at least for me, the males that I have worked with, and sort of all my peers, you know, they’ve really helped me grow and, and helped me in my journey. And so I, I guess, you know, it is a very male dominant when the, I know, behind the scenes, there’s, there’s this whole, you know, another world that, that without them, they would survive.

Kara Goldin  37:14

Yeah, well, I think it also you’re, you’re so modest, but I think it also points to the fact that you weren’t gonna allow that fact to stop you. Right, from doing what you ultimately wanted to do. And people have always said that to me. I mean, there aren’t very many women, who are leading beverage companies, and, and people always ask, was it tough to raise money as a woman? And I’m, like, I’ve never been a man. So I don’t really, I don’t know. I hate raising money I hate you know, and I do, you know, I own it, I do it. But I also say, look, at the end of the day, it’s what I needed to do in order to really do my business. And that’s what you’ve done. And so and the resilience clearly shows and anyway, I wish you all the best for 2021. And I’ve definitely been thinking good thoughts for you. And I think about you often we had a little partnership, not this last summer, but the summer before that. And I just

Jayma Cardoso  38:21

do it again this summer.

Kara Goldin  38:22

Yeah, exactly. And I love it. And if you and next year, because you’re not doing Aspen this year as well, right you

Jayma Cardoso  38:31

so we ended up doing we were gonna do an Aspen with Shawn George, ABC v. Finally, we had the time to redo the property and make was and with all the restrictions, we decided it just not viable to do the surf the snow lodge as we wanted to be with john George. And so I called a very brave friend of mine, Linden, and his wife, Natalie, see, there’s always a woman. Yes, exactly. And, and I said to them, I said, Listen, I can do this knowledge, the way that we envision right? would do, but I do think that Dante it’s more of a cocktail, pre-bottle cocktail concept. They’ve navigated brilliant, through the pandemic, and I said, I think you guys would kill it, you know, are you in and he, you know, to my liking? He said yes. And so I’ve been supporting them and it’s called Dante at the Snow Lodge. So I’m still keeping my flag there. And I’m very much involved with Dante and in like this also, I’m able to keep you know space until next season where we can do what really deserves to be.

Kara Goldin  40:02

Well, another thing that I always say that I think you are just such a perfect example of is what can we do? A greatly what now what can you do? And that is what great entrepreneurs in every single industry do. They don’t allow things a pandemic or anything to stop them. They figure out what can they do? Yeah,

Jayma Cardoso  40:21

I call it how do we keep the lights on?

Kara Goldin  40:24

Yeah, absolutely. But I think you are just, I mean, it makes you stronger, too. Right. And, and I think you’re still you can’t see Jamie’s face, but she’s smiling and she’s still you know, here and doesn’t count her out because she has got the resilience and the creativity to do more great things. So well, thank you so much. And for everybody, thank you so much for listening and give Jamie says her episode, high marks, and come in tune in every Monday and Wednesday where we talk with founders and CEOs and authors and great people who are just doing awesome things. So thanks, everyone.

Jayma Cardoso  41:10

Thank you guys so much. Thank you Kira for thinking of me

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