October 19, 2025 • 18 mins
What if the side dish is actually the business? We sit across from Josh, the force behind Sunshine Pickle Co, and trace the bold leap from Cleveland’s late-night hustle to Florida’s bright, briny mornings. He started as a chef, ran a nightclub, opened a gourmet sandwich shop, and then watched customers fall in love with the thing meant to ride shotgun: the pickles. That spark turned into farmers market sellouts, a 100-case retail order, and a decision that changed everything: close the restaurant and build a brand with crunch.
The road wasn’t smooth. Josh talks candidly about renting a kitchen, selling by day and producing by night, and the emotional toll of leaving home each evening with a newborn on the way to make product until sunrise. He opens up about taking investor money, the promise of scale without the playbook, and why a shift to the refrigerated set became a strategic unlock. Fewer competitors, fresher flavor, real ingredients, and a snap you can hear—these are the choices that set Sunshine Pickle Co apart on crowded shelves.
We explore the entrepreneur’s mindset that propelled him from Cleveland to Vero Beach, including how to gauge product-market fit, when to abandon a model that no longer serves you, and why perspective trumps panic when the grind intensifies. Josh’s biggest takeaway lands with clarity—believe in the thing you’re building, cut noise, and go all in. If you’re navigating a pivot, wrestling with a partnership, or deciding whether to bet on the product that people can’t stop talking about, this story gives you both a map and a nudge.
Love stories like this and want more builder-level insight? Follow the podcast and share this episode with a founder friend! Connect with us on Instagram @myverobeachdotcom
Presented by Killer Bee Marketing
Helping local businesses in Vero Beach connect with their neighbors.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian (00:00):
All right.
Well, welcome back to the VeroBeach podcast.
I'm Brian.
Shawna (00:03):
And I'm Shauna.
Brian (00:04):
And today we are sitting across the table here with Josh
from Sunshine Pickles, correct?
Correct.
Sunshine Pickle Co.
I know we're going to get intothis throughout the episode, but
he also brought us some giftshere.
So, Shauna, you want to talkabout some of the stuff that he
has brought?
Shawna (00:18):
Yes, we've got three different varieties of pickles
here.
We've got classic dill, hothorseradish dill, and sweet hot.
Now I've already tasted classicdill, delicious, crunchy.
And then we've got pickledcabbage.
I'm very excited about that.
I like to like put togetherbowls, you know, with like
different components.
And I always like addingsomething pickled to it.
(00:39):
That's gonna be delicious.
We've got a couple seasonings.
Can't wait to try this.
This is um smoke and chipotle.
And then another product Itasted today is dill pickle
premium brisket beef jerky.
Brian (00:51):
Yeah, that is delicious.
Shawna (00:53):
Delicious.
Brian (00:53):
Thank you.
Shawna (00:54):
I will be ordering more of that.
Post haste.
Brian (00:56):
Yes, yes.
Thank you so much for bringingus.
Thanks for having me, guys.
Well, Josh, we're glad thatyou're here.
So why don't you take about 30seconds?
Josh (01:03):
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well, my name's Josh,obviously.
Um, we live here in Vero Beach.
I'm married.
I have uh a wife and twobeautiful children, Cannon and
Copper.
They um we homeschool.
We moved here to Vero Beachfrom Cleveland, Ohio, about
three years ago.
I was a chef and I rannightclubs and I ran bars and I
opened restaurants and I starteda pickle company uh somehow
(01:25):
along the way.
And there's several couplefactors happened, you know, over
the course of several years towhere it led us down here to
Florida.
Brian (01:33):
So your journey with pickles started in Cleveland?
Josh (01:37):
Yes.
Okay, tell us a little bitabout that.
I guess backing up even beforelike the pickles came along is I
started cooking and I realizedthat I wasn't really good at
anything else.
So I went to college and gotyou know my degree in
hospitality management, and thenI started working in various
restaurants and I got a jobworking in Cleveland at a
restaurant.
And you know, we always hadkind of an entrepreneurial kind
(01:59):
of bug at us.
My my father was anentrepreneur, he ran a
successful entertainment weeklyup in Cleveland.
So, you know, working forworking for the man was just
never something that I wanted todo, but you know, I always had
a great work ethic.
So anywhere I did work, Ialways ascended pretty quickly
and you know became a uhintegral part of the team
anywhere I worked.
So I did that, and eventually Igot a lucky break with one of
(02:22):
my friends where we ended up wewere able to buy a nightclub.
Did that for about five years,and then we were able to sell
that business.
I had an opportunity to buy aum a bar on the west side of
Cleveland.
I was operating um this reallycool restaurant.
We were making scratch madefood and I was taking my fine
dining skills that I learnedalong the way.
But after a few years of notonly the nightclub, but then
(02:43):
running this smaller bar, thethe lifestyle, you know, as a
young man, it starts to wear onyou a little bit.
And that's where I eventuallyhired my what would become my
wife as a bartender.
And she started, you know, sheworked with me for a long time,
and we decided, you know, onceit got a little more serious and
we started this life together,we're like, you know, the bar
business is not the where wewant to go.
And we're like, we're gonnaopen up this gourmet sandwich
(03:05):
shop and we're gonna take allthe things that we were doing at
this gastro pub, or we're gonnado it in downtown Cleveland at
this over-the-counter setting.
So, what do we call thisgourmet sandwich shop that we're
gonna do?
And we thought about iteventually.
Some people are like, we'regonna call it the pickle, the
Cleveland pickle.
So we opened uh in that wouldhave been in 2012.
We opened up Cleveland pickleon the corner ninth in Euclid,
(03:28):
and right in the middle ofdowntown Cleveland.
There's tumbleweeds blowingdown the street though at the
time in downtown.
So it was a little bit of astruggle at first, but you know,
it caught on and we became verypopular very quickly.
So we're like, okay, we so wegotta make some pickles with
these sandwiches that were thatwere given out.
So the skills, my picklingskills that I learned along the
way of working over a guy namedMichael Simon.
Like, all right, I'm gonna takethese recipes that I learned
(03:49):
and we're gonna start makingthese just one flavor of pickles
and we're gonna start givingthem away for free with on the
sides of our sandwiches.
Eventually, we we became verypopular at the sandwich shop.
We were winning, you know, bestsandwich shop in Cleveland and
winning all these awards.
And where I really saw, youknow, people were loving our the
sandwiches that we were that wewere making, but where I really
saw people's eyes lighting up.
(04:10):
And as this is where as anentrepreneur, I kind of saw an
opportunity come, were thesepickles that I was giving away
on the sides.
I was like, wow, like peoplewere coming in and they were
wanting to order largerquantities of these pickles.
I was like, wow, like not onlydo I have this love for pickles,
but it seems like a lot ofother people do too.
So I was like, you know what?
I'm gonna I'm gonna create acouple more flavors and I'm
gonna go hit some farmersmarkets in the area.
(04:32):
People start tasting them andwe're sampling them, and I'm
just basically scooping them outof buckets into like plastic
containers and selling them forat the time for five bucks.
Before I know it, I have theselines of people and then people
are like trying to reach theirway around other people to get
the samples.
And I was like, I'll I startedcalling it the pickle riot
because people were literallylike there were fights happening
(04:53):
with people trying to maketheir way to our table to get
these samples.
I was like, holy shit, this iscool.
But I'm working these farmersmarkets in our first shop, it
was only 750 square feet.
A good day was maybe 1500 bucksin sales.
We were open from 11 to 4.
It was five hours of hustle tomake that 1500.
Going to these farmers markets,and I'm, you know, I think I
(05:14):
made four or five differentflavors, and the farmer's market
would start at 8 a.m.
I was selling out and we weredone at noon.
At the end of the day, I had$1,500.
I was like, wait a minute.
Just made I just made the sameamount of money working outside,
talking to people and you know,having a good time.
So we got the retail jars.
We had a beautiful grocerystore in Cleveland and
throughout the state calledHynan, and they're very
(05:35):
supportive of local businesses.
And we happen to have one rightacross the street.
So I walked over one day withmy jar of pickles and I went and
talked to Jeff Hynan, who wasone of the owners.
I was like, hey Jeff, we're nowmaking pickles over at
Cleveland Pickle.
And I was like, Would you liketo carry them here at Heynans?
He looks at me and he looks atthem and he tastes them and he
pauses a minute and he nods hishead and he goes, I'll take a
hundred cases.
(05:55):
Whoa.
Oh, that's kind of cool.
So 100 cases, you know, it'slike that's 1200 jars.
I made the delivery and theygot on the shelves.
And a couple weeks later, I gota check for $5,000.
We are five years in and thepickle business was growing and
things were going good.
And so I'll never forget ourlease was coming up.
Two people called off at theshop, and I'm working the line,
(06:17):
and it's the end of the day, andI'm scrubbing, you know, a
cooler and I'm on the floor.
And I was like, you know what?
We have a way out.
I'm gonna close them all.
We're gonna take Clevelandpickle and we're gonna we're
gonna pivot and we're gonnabecome a brand.
And we hopped in the car and wedrove to Florida and we came
down and visited my my in-lawsat the time were down here.
And then, you know, after amonth we went back home and we
(06:39):
reappeared and we did a bigsocial media push and like, hey,
here we are.
We are now Cleveland Pickle,the pickle company.
Brian (06:46):
I want to ask you when it came to from the
entrepreneurship side, was itchallenging for you to come to
the point to decide we're gonnaclose the doors?
Because I mean, I liked whatyou said.
You saw there was a progressionhere, but did it initially come
off as a progression, like thebusiness was progressing into
something else?
Was it hard to step away fromthe restaurants because that's
(07:06):
where it started?
Did you feel like you'rewalking away from something,
giving up on something?
Josh (07:10):
As much as I would normally be normally saying yes,
I it really wasn't because ofour just where we were mentally.
More than my wife, I would sayI could move on easier from
something.
Well, I really learned it atthe bar.
It was called Redstone, whereyou know, I mean my partners
were were clashing.
I opened it, but I brought insome partners.
(07:31):
And when when I was like, Allright, it's you know, we're it's
time to move on.
She's like, we cannot let theseguys get our place.
This is our place.
But then I was, but what I hadto explain to her is like it's
just a bar.
It's just, you know, eventhough this is our world, let's
just let's just move on to thenext thing.
I I was ready to to move on atthe time.
Brian (07:51):
I love that you shared that because I feel like I know
there's been times for me as anentrepreneur that's been hard to
walk away from something likethis is the way we've always
done things, or and and it canbe a challenge, but I can also
see that probably becomes moreof like it's a challenge because
it becomes more of youridentity and you're willing to
walk away from it because you'relike, hey, like you said, this
is just a business, like this isthis is just one model of it,
and now it's shifting andchanging.
(08:11):
So I love that.
I think that's really cool.
It's inspiring.
Shawna (08:13):
I think it was smart too that you took a month to come
to Florida because Florida, evenwhen we lived in Ohio, was
where we came to like recover aswell.
Like whenever things wouldhappen, we'd come to Florida.
It's just a good place to likejust kind of put yourself back
together, like this is wherewe're going forward, you know?
Brian (08:29):
Yeah, there's there's an optimism in the air.
Another question I have foryou, Josh, is making this
transition into pickles.
I mean, you saw that the peoplein the area love the pickles,
like so you knew there wassomething there.
Did you ever get any likefeedback from people like really
pickles?
Like there's so muchcompetition in pickles, I would
think, but I don't know.
Josh (08:46):
Yeah, well, at the time, there like there was the artisan
quote unquote pickle was notreally a thing.
There were a few brands kind ofcoming up, but like you had
your commodity brands, yourclassics and your clauses that
you see in the store.
But what was kind of startingto to establish itself was that
artisan gourmet pickle.
And I'll quote McClure's pickleout of Detroit.
(09:08):
Um, they were kind of the firstones that kind of said, okay,
we're gonna charge $10 for forthis, and you're and people are
gonna pay it, and it's gonna bedelicious, and people are gonna
like it.
Shawna (09:17):
Okay, so you were saying that when you were selling in
retail at that point, was thatglass jars?
Josh (09:22):
That was glass uh shelf shelf stable glass jar.
Shawna (09:25):
Okay, that's what I thought.
So, you know, one of the thingsI noticed when I tasted these,
your sunshine pickles, is thewonderful crunchiness of them.
Can you get that texture from ajarred like shelf stable
pickle?
Josh (09:36):
The shelf stable pickle is a whole different experience.
All right, so now you're thesunshine pickle.
Once we became just the picklecompany, you know, even though
the profit wasn't there, the therevenue was there.
So we lost the revenue.
So that was a very difficultfirst couple of years.
So I rented a kitchen and I wasliterally out during the week.
I was out hustling our retailstuff, and then I would go into
(09:59):
the kitchen at five o'clock atnight and I would work pro
usually till five o'clock in themorning, you know, making
making the week's products forthe farmers markets and then and
the shelf stable stuff.
So it was it was I'll neverforget that I get emotional.
Shawna (10:16):
That's okay.
Take the time.
Yeah.
Josh (10:19):
Thinking about it.
Um I always do this.
I get choked up right at thisright at this spot.
Uh leaving at my daughter wasjust born.
Damn.
Oh, you're fine.
Um, and I remember like I hadthis newborn baby, and then I I
would always have to leave fordinner every day and go make
(10:40):
pickles, and I would leave, andI would just I would sob because
of just the emotions.
I I was so run down and sotired and having to leave my my
newborn baby and going in andjust working my ass off.
And then it was just it was areally hard time and thinking
about those emotion.
That's what it brings it backto me.
And that whenever it's funnywhen that when that part of the
(11:02):
story comes up, I was tellingthat story to the wall to our
Walmart buyer, and the samething happened.
I start I start getting chokedup and tearing up, and that
passion and that emotion is whatgot us into our first Walmart
account.
So it's always so fun.
Whenever I whenever I say it,it's I can't help it because
those emotions just come back toyou.
(11:22):
Yeah.
And so, you know, a coupleyears into it, I was like, okay,
what we can really scale thisthing.
Let's let's go out and findsome money.
Very serendipitously.
My a friend, a high schoolfriend of mine was cutting some
guy's hair, and uh, she'stalking to some guy in the food
business, and uh, she's like,Wow, you would really get along
with my friend Josh, and youshould meet him.
So I met this guy whointroduced us to another guy,
(11:44):
who in turn introduced us toanother guy.
And before we know it, we'retalking to this very wealthy,
very well-established, not inthe food business, just group of
business investors.
They were shrewd businessmen tosay the least.
They knew what they were doingand they had an opportunity to
buy another bigger picklecompany.
But then here comes our littlehundred thousand dollar a year
(12:06):
pickle company at the timecoming along, and they saw some
wide-eyed, hungry kids um whoneeded the money.
They saw an opportunity to getin cheap.
So I made a deal with theseguys, and it was a bad deal.
But what I was reallyinterested in was these guys
helping me scale.
And because they were they werewinning these, what was called
the Weatherhead Awards, whereyou were the fastest growing
business in Ohio at the time,um, and they their whole wall
(12:28):
was filled with theseWeatherhead awards, and they
were they were pointing to thiswall, like, that's what we're
gonna do with your company.
So we made the deal and wesigned the papers and we got the
money.
And as most relationships, theystart great, and you're on this
honeymoon, and everything'scookies and butterflies and
rainbows, and um, but then aftera while, I was just doing a lot
of the same stuff that I wasdoing.
And even though you know themoney was there and I had the
(12:50):
money to, you know, create, wecreated a couple other brands.
I saw an opportunity in thefresh space where I was going
into the center store where ourpickle jars were, and it was
completely crowded with allthese different brands.
But then I was walking over tothe refrigerated section, I was
saying, wow, there's only two orthree brands on these pickle
sections.
So I was like, we're gonnalaunch a new brand and we're
(13:11):
gonna call it the pickle co verygeneric, and we're gonna launch
this fret and we're gonnalaunch into the fresh pickle
world.
So the money's coming in.
I had the freedom to launchthese new brands, but these guys
had no idea what they weredoing within the food business.
I, you know, I was doing what Iwas doing, but my intentions
were to I wanted you guys tocome in and tell me how to scale
(13:32):
and tell me how to become, youknow, go from a hundred thousand
to five hundred thousand to amillion to five million.
And that's that's was the valueI saw in this part in this
partnership.
But they wanted me to basicallyjust do what I want to do.
And I was like, that's not thedeal I made.
I was becoming disenchantedwith it because I wasn't the
owner of my company anymore.
I wasn't gonna see any profitbased on the deal I made.
(13:54):
I was getting, you know, asalary, but it was you know, it
was great at the time, but itwas a measly salary, and I was
like, just isn't working.
And you know, head startedbutting, and you know, we had
these three different brands,and publics came calling to us,
and we had all these meetingsscheduled, and things were going
good, but I was like, this justisn't isn't working, and it
went south as a lot of thesepartnerships do.
It got it got to the pointwhere my wife and I are like,
(14:17):
all right, we can take this as avery valuable learning lesson.
And again, this is where mycompartmentalized kind of
mentality comes in, and we werelike, you know what, let's let's
just walk and let's sell ourassets.
I had a couple rentalproperties, let me think that
was in January, it would havebeen right around you know, the
end of 2021, and we drove downtwo cars with a U-Haul trailer
(14:40):
and our two dogs and our twokids.
And because I wasself-employed, they didn't, you
know, getting a loan was alittle more difficult.
So we were literally we didn'tknow if we were gonna be able to
close on our loan.
We were driving to Florida,knowing we had a house that we
put an offer in and the offerwas accepted.
We went in and out ofqualification because of the
whole self-employment thing.
You know, eventually it allworked out.
(15:01):
Found some uh a manufacturerdown here to help us with.
We moved in June and welaunched Sunshine Pickle.
Our first farmer's market wasat the Fort Pierce Farmers
Market on Christmas Eve of 2022,it was our actual launch date.
So we're coming up on threeyears here in a couple months of
our launch.
Brian (15:20):
Yeah, congrats.
Yeah, this has been anincredible story.
Like I'm excited to learn moreabout the pickle process.
As we get ready to wrap up thisepisode here, Josh, I want to
ask you, you've gone through alot.
I was gonna ask you what's beenyour biggest lesson, but
there's a lot of lessons you'vealready shared.
So, what I would like to askyou wrapping up this episode is
what is one piece of advice youwould give to someone who might
(15:40):
be listening and be like, Man, Iknow, like I'm going through
hard times right now.
I don't know what to do.
Like as an entrepreneur, whatwould you say to them?
Josh (15:47):
Don't like shut down, get out, and get different
perspective.
I think is important, but Ithink the most important thing,
and I'm even going through thisright now because you just gotta
believe, man, whatever it isyou want to do, you got just go
out and do it.
Be the best pickle company youcan be and just go all in.
That's what we're doing.
Brian (16:04):
That's awesome.
That's what we're doing.
Hey, well, I'm excited to getinto part two where we're gonna
talk about the pickle process.
I'm curious about this.
Uh, and I've I still haven'ttasted the pickle, so I'm gonna
have to try one because it's sothey're very crispy.
During the case, no, I think Igotta crunch it right in the
microphone.
People can hear how crispy itis.
Okay.
Yeah, we'll see.
Josh (16:21):
And they they crunch while in a mic.
Brian (16:23):
Yeah, so yeah, so we'll we'll try it.
So if you're looking for thecrunch, you better wait for the
second part.
But hey, if you guys haveenjoyed this episode so far,
make sure you click subscribeloose review.
Shawna (16:33):
And with that, catch you next time, neighbor.
All right.
Well, welcome back to the VeroBeach podcast.
I'm Brian.
Shawna (00:03):
And I'm Shauna.
Brian (00:04):
And today we are sitting across the table here with Josh
from Sunshine Pickles, correct?
Correct.
Sunshine Pickle Co.
I know we're going to get intothis throughout the episode, but
he also brought us some giftshere.
So, Shauna, you want to talkabout some of the stuff that he
has brought?
Shawna (00:18):
Yes, we've got three different varieties of pickles
here.
We've got classic dill, hothorseradish dill, and sweet hot.
Now I've already tasted classicdill, delicious, crunchy.
And then we've got pickledcabbage.
I'm very excited about that.
I like to like put togetherbowls, you know, with like
different components.
And I always like addingsomething pickled to it.
(00:39):
That's gonna be delicious.
We've got a couple seasonings.
Can't wait to try this.
This is um smoke and chipotle.
And then another product Itasted today is dill pickle
premium brisket beef jerky.
Brian (00:51):
Yeah, that is delicious.
Shawna (00:53):
Delicious.
Brian (00:53):
Thank you.
Shawna (00:54):
I will be ordering more of that.
Post haste.
Brian (00:56):
Yes, yes.
Thank you so much for bringingus.
Thanks for having me, guys.
Well, Josh, we're glad thatyou're here.
So why don't you take about 30seconds?
Josh (01:03):
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well, my name's Josh,obviously.
Um, we live here in Vero Beach.
I'm married.
I have uh a wife and twobeautiful children, Cannon and
Copper.
They um we homeschool.
We moved here to Vero Beachfrom Cleveland, Ohio, about
three years ago.
I was a chef and I rannightclubs and I ran bars and I
opened restaurants and I starteda pickle company uh somehow
(01:25):
along the way.
And there's several couplefactors happened, you know, over
the course of several years towhere it led us down here to
Florida.
Brian (01:33):
So your journey with pickles started in Cleveland?
Josh (01:37):
Yes.
Okay, tell us a little bitabout that.
I guess backing up even beforelike the pickles came along is I
started cooking and I realizedthat I wasn't really good at
anything else.
So I went to college and gotyou know my degree in
hospitality management, and thenI started working in various
restaurants and I got a jobworking in Cleveland at a
restaurant.
And you know, we always hadkind of an entrepreneurial kind
(01:59):
of bug at us.
My my father was anentrepreneur, he ran a
successful entertainment weeklyup in Cleveland.
So, you know, working forworking for the man was just
never something that I wanted todo, but you know, I always had
a great work ethic.
So anywhere I did work, Ialways ascended pretty quickly
and you know became a uhintegral part of the team
anywhere I worked.
So I did that, and eventually Igot a lucky break with one of
(02:22):
my friends where we ended up wewere able to buy a nightclub.
Did that for about five years,and then we were able to sell
that business.
I had an opportunity to buy aum a bar on the west side of
Cleveland.
I was operating um this reallycool restaurant.
We were making scratch madefood and I was taking my fine
dining skills that I learnedalong the way.
But after a few years of notonly the nightclub, but then
(02:43):
running this smaller bar, thethe lifestyle, you know, as a
young man, it starts to wear onyou a little bit.
And that's where I eventuallyhired my what would become my
wife as a bartender.
And she started, you know, sheworked with me for a long time,
and we decided, you know, onceit got a little more serious and
we started this life together,we're like, you know, the bar
business is not the where wewant to go.
And we're like, we're gonnaopen up this gourmet sandwich
(03:05):
shop and we're gonna take allthe things that we were doing at
this gastro pub, or we're gonnado it in downtown Cleveland at
this over-the-counter setting.
So, what do we call thisgourmet sandwich shop that we're
gonna do?
And we thought about iteventually.
Some people are like, we'regonna call it the pickle, the
Cleveland pickle.
So we opened uh in that wouldhave been in 2012.
We opened up Cleveland pickleon the corner ninth in Euclid,
(03:28):
and right in the middle ofdowntown Cleveland.
There's tumbleweeds blowingdown the street though at the
time in downtown.
So it was a little bit of astruggle at first, but you know,
it caught on and we became verypopular very quickly.
So we're like, okay, we so wegotta make some pickles with
these sandwiches that were thatwere given out.
So the skills, my picklingskills that I learned along the
way of working over a guy namedMichael Simon.
Like, all right, I'm gonna takethese recipes that I learned
(03:49):
and we're gonna start makingthese just one flavor of pickles
and we're gonna start givingthem away for free with on the
sides of our sandwiches.
Eventually, we we became verypopular at the sandwich shop.
We were winning, you know, bestsandwich shop in Cleveland and
winning all these awards.
And where I really saw, youknow, people were loving our the
sandwiches that we were that wewere making, but where I really
saw people's eyes lighting up.
(04:10):
And as this is where as anentrepreneur, I kind of saw an
opportunity come, were thesepickles that I was giving away
on the sides.
I was like, wow, like peoplewere coming in and they were
wanting to order largerquantities of these pickles.
I was like, wow, like not onlydo I have this love for pickles,
but it seems like a lot ofother people do too.
So I was like, you know what?
I'm gonna I'm gonna create acouple more flavors and I'm
gonna go hit some farmersmarkets in the area.
(04:32):
People start tasting them andwe're sampling them, and I'm
just basically scooping them outof buckets into like plastic
containers and selling them forat the time for five bucks.
Before I know it, I have theselines of people and then people
are like trying to reach theirway around other people to get
the samples.
And I was like, I'll I startedcalling it the pickle riot
because people were literallylike there were fights happening
(04:53):
with people trying to maketheir way to our table to get
these samples.
I was like, holy shit, this iscool.
But I'm working these farmersmarkets in our first shop, it
was only 750 square feet.
A good day was maybe 1500 bucksin sales.
We were open from 11 to 4.
It was five hours of hustle tomake that 1500.
Going to these farmers markets,and I'm, you know, I think I
(05:14):
made four or five differentflavors, and the farmer's market
would start at 8 a.m.
I was selling out and we weredone at noon.
At the end of the day, I had$1,500.
I was like, wait a minute.
Just made I just made the sameamount of money working outside,
talking to people and you know,having a good time.
So we got the retail jars.
We had a beautiful grocerystore in Cleveland and
throughout the state calledHynan, and they're very
(05:35):
supportive of local businesses.
And we happen to have one rightacross the street.
So I walked over one day withmy jar of pickles and I went and
talked to Jeff Hynan, who wasone of the owners.
I was like, hey Jeff, we're nowmaking pickles over at
Cleveland Pickle.
And I was like, Would you liketo carry them here at Heynans?
He looks at me and he looks atthem and he tastes them and he
pauses a minute and he nods hishead and he goes, I'll take a
hundred cases.
(05:55):
Whoa.
Oh, that's kind of cool.
So 100 cases, you know, it'slike that's 1200 jars.
I made the delivery and theygot on the shelves.
And a couple weeks later, I gota check for $5,000.
We are five years in and thepickle business was growing and
things were going good.
And so I'll never forget ourlease was coming up.
Two people called off at theshop, and I'm working the line,
(06:17):
and it's the end of the day, andI'm scrubbing, you know, a
cooler and I'm on the floor.
And I was like, you know what?
We have a way out.
I'm gonna close them all.
We're gonna take Clevelandpickle and we're gonna we're
gonna pivot and we're gonnabecome a brand.
And we hopped in the car and wedrove to Florida and we came
down and visited my my in-lawsat the time were down here.
And then, you know, after amonth we went back home and we
(06:39):
reappeared and we did a bigsocial media push and like, hey,
here we are.
We are now Cleveland Pickle,the pickle company.
Brian (06:46):
I want to ask you when it came to from the
entrepreneurship side, was itchallenging for you to come to
the point to decide we're gonnaclose the doors?
Because I mean, I liked whatyou said.
You saw there was a progressionhere, but did it initially come
off as a progression, like thebusiness was progressing into
something else?
Was it hard to step away fromthe restaurants because that's
(07:06):
where it started?
Did you feel like you'rewalking away from something,
giving up on something?
Josh (07:10):
As much as I would normally be normally saying yes,
I it really wasn't because ofour just where we were mentally.
More than my wife, I would sayI could move on easier from
something.
Well, I really learned it atthe bar.
It was called Redstone, whereyou know, I mean my partners
were were clashing.
I opened it, but I brought insome partners.
(07:31):
And when when I was like, Allright, it's you know, we're it's
time to move on.
She's like, we cannot let theseguys get our place.
This is our place.
But then I was, but what I hadto explain to her is like it's
just a bar.
It's just, you know, eventhough this is our world, let's
just let's just move on to thenext thing.
I I was ready to to move on atthe time.
Brian (07:51):
I love that you shared that because I feel like I know
there's been times for me as anentrepreneur that's been hard to
walk away from something likethis is the way we've always
done things, or and and it canbe a challenge, but I can also
see that probably becomes moreof like it's a challenge because
it becomes more of youridentity and you're willing to
walk away from it because you'relike, hey, like you said, this
is just a business, like this isthis is just one model of it,
and now it's shifting andchanging.
(08:11):
So I love that.
I think that's really cool.
It's inspiring.
Shawna (08:13):
I think it was smart too that you took a month to come
to Florida because Florida, evenwhen we lived in Ohio, was
where we came to like recover aswell.
Like whenever things wouldhappen, we'd come to Florida.
It's just a good place to likejust kind of put yourself back
together, like this is wherewe're going forward, you know?
Brian (08:29):
Yeah, there's there's an optimism in the air.
Another question I have foryou, Josh, is making this
transition into pickles.
I mean, you saw that the peoplein the area love the pickles,
like so you knew there wassomething there.
Did you ever get any likefeedback from people like really
pickles?
Like there's so muchcompetition in pickles, I would
think, but I don't know.
Josh (08:46):
Yeah, well, at the time, there like there was the artisan
quote unquote pickle was notreally a thing.
There were a few brands kind ofcoming up, but like you had
your commodity brands, yourclassics and your clauses that
you see in the store.
But what was kind of startingto to establish itself was that
artisan gourmet pickle.
And I'll quote McClure's pickleout of Detroit.
(09:08):
Um, they were kind of the firstones that kind of said, okay,
we're gonna charge $10 for forthis, and you're and people are
gonna pay it, and it's gonna bedelicious, and people are gonna
like it.
Shawna (09:17):
Okay, so you were saying that when you were selling in
retail at that point, was thatglass jars?
Josh (09:22):
That was glass uh shelf shelf stable glass jar.
Shawna (09:25):
Okay, that's what I thought.
So, you know, one of the thingsI noticed when I tasted these,
your sunshine pickles, is thewonderful crunchiness of them.
Can you get that texture from ajarred like shelf stable
pickle?
Josh (09:36):
The shelf stable pickle is a whole different experience.
All right, so now you're thesunshine pickle.
Once we became just the picklecompany, you know, even though
the profit wasn't there, the therevenue was there.
So we lost the revenue.
So that was a very difficultfirst couple of years.
So I rented a kitchen and I wasliterally out during the week.
I was out hustling our retailstuff, and then I would go into
(09:59):
the kitchen at five o'clock atnight and I would work pro
usually till five o'clock in themorning, you know, making
making the week's products forthe farmers markets and then and
the shelf stable stuff.
So it was it was I'll neverforget that I get emotional.
Shawna (10:16):
That's okay.
Take the time.
Yeah.
Josh (10:19):
Thinking about it.
Um I always do this.
I get choked up right at thisright at this spot.
Uh leaving at my daughter wasjust born.
Damn.
Oh, you're fine.
Um, and I remember like I hadthis newborn baby, and then I I
would always have to leave fordinner every day and go make
(10:40):
pickles, and I would leave, andI would just I would sob because
of just the emotions.
I I was so run down and sotired and having to leave my my
newborn baby and going in andjust working my ass off.
And then it was just it was areally hard time and thinking
about those emotion.
That's what it brings it backto me.
And that whenever it's funnywhen that when that part of the
(11:02):
story comes up, I was tellingthat story to the wall to our
Walmart buyer, and the samething happened.
I start I start getting chokedup and tearing up, and that
passion and that emotion is whatgot us into our first Walmart
account.
So it's always so fun.
Whenever I whenever I say it,it's I can't help it because
those emotions just come back toyou.
(11:22):
Yeah.
And so, you know, a coupleyears into it, I was like, okay,
what we can really scale thisthing.
Let's let's go out and findsome money.
Very serendipitously.
My a friend, a high schoolfriend of mine was cutting some
guy's hair, and uh, she'stalking to some guy in the food
business, and uh, she's like,Wow, you would really get along
with my friend Josh, and youshould meet him.
So I met this guy whointroduced us to another guy,
(11:44):
who in turn introduced us toanother guy.
And before we know it, we'retalking to this very wealthy,
very well-established, not inthe food business, just group of
business investors.
They were shrewd businessmen tosay the least.
They knew what they were doingand they had an opportunity to
buy another bigger picklecompany.
But then here comes our littlehundred thousand dollar a year
(12:06):
pickle company at the timecoming along, and they saw some
wide-eyed, hungry kids um whoneeded the money.
They saw an opportunity to getin cheap.
So I made a deal with theseguys, and it was a bad deal.
But what I was reallyinterested in was these guys
helping me scale.
And because they were they werewinning these, what was called
the Weatherhead Awards, whereyou were the fastest growing
business in Ohio at the time,um, and they their whole wall
(12:28):
was filled with theseWeatherhead awards, and they
were they were pointing to thiswall, like, that's what we're
gonna do with your company.
So we made the deal and wesigned the papers and we got the
money.
And as most relationships, theystart great, and you're on this
honeymoon, and everything'scookies and butterflies and
rainbows, and um, but then aftera while, I was just doing a lot
of the same stuff that I wasdoing.
And even though you know themoney was there and I had the
(12:50):
money to, you know, create, wecreated a couple other brands.
I saw an opportunity in thefresh space where I was going
into the center store where ourpickle jars were, and it was
completely crowded with allthese different brands.
But then I was walking over tothe refrigerated section, I was
saying, wow, there's only two orthree brands on these pickle
sections.
So I was like, we're gonnalaunch a new brand and we're
(13:11):
gonna call it the pickle co verygeneric, and we're gonna launch
this fret and we're gonnalaunch into the fresh pickle
world.
So the money's coming in.
I had the freedom to launchthese new brands, but these guys
had no idea what they weredoing within the food business.
I, you know, I was doing what Iwas doing, but my intentions
were to I wanted you guys tocome in and tell me how to scale
(13:32):
and tell me how to become, youknow, go from a hundred thousand
to five hundred thousand to amillion to five million.
And that's that's was the valueI saw in this part in this
partnership.
But they wanted me to basicallyjust do what I want to do.
And I was like, that's not thedeal I made.
I was becoming disenchantedwith it because I wasn't the
owner of my company anymore.
I wasn't gonna see any profitbased on the deal I made.
(13:54):
I was getting, you know, asalary, but it was you know, it
was great at the time, but itwas a measly salary, and I was
like, just isn't working.
And you know, head startedbutting, and you know, we had
these three different brands,and publics came calling to us,
and we had all these meetingsscheduled, and things were going
good, but I was like, this justisn't isn't working, and it
went south as a lot of thesepartnerships do.
It got it got to the pointwhere my wife and I are like,
(14:17):
all right, we can take this as avery valuable learning lesson.
And again, this is where mycompartmentalized kind of
mentality comes in, and we werelike, you know what, let's let's
just walk and let's sell ourassets.
I had a couple rentalproperties, let me think that
was in January, it would havebeen right around you know, the
end of 2021, and we drove downtwo cars with a U-Haul trailer
(14:40):
and our two dogs and our twokids.
And because I wasself-employed, they didn't, you
know, getting a loan was alittle more difficult.
So we were literally we didn'tknow if we were gonna be able to
close on our loan.
We were driving to Florida,knowing we had a house that we
put an offer in and the offerwas accepted.
We went in and out ofqualification because of the
whole self-employment thing.
You know, eventually it allworked out.
(15:01):
Found some uh a manufacturerdown here to help us with.
We moved in June and welaunched Sunshine Pickle.
Our first farmer's market wasat the Fort Pierce Farmers
Market on Christmas Eve of 2022,it was our actual launch date.
So we're coming up on threeyears here in a couple months of
our launch.
Brian (15:20):
Yeah, congrats.
Yeah, this has been anincredible story.
Like I'm excited to learn moreabout the pickle process.
As we get ready to wrap up thisepisode here, Josh, I want to
ask you, you've gone through alot.
I was gonna ask you what's beenyour biggest lesson, but
there's a lot of lessons you'vealready shared.
So, what I would like to askyou wrapping up this episode is
what is one piece of advice youwould give to someone who might
(15:40):
be listening and be like, Man, Iknow, like I'm going through
hard times right now.
I don't know what to do.
Like as an entrepreneur, whatwould you say to them?
Josh (15:47):
Don't like shut down, get out, and get different
perspective.
I think is important, but Ithink the most important thing,
and I'm even going through thisright now because you just gotta
believe, man, whatever it isyou want to do, you got just go
out and do it.
Be the best pickle company youcan be and just go all in.
That's what we're doing.
Brian (16:04):
That's awesome.
That's what we're doing.
Hey, well, I'm excited to getinto part two where we're gonna
talk about the pickle process.
I'm curious about this.
Uh, and I've I still haven'ttasted the pickle, so I'm gonna
have to try one because it's sothey're very crispy.
During the case, no, I think Igotta crunch it right in the
microphone.
People can hear how crispy itis.
Okay.
Yeah, we'll see.
Josh (16:21):
And they they crunch while in a mic.
Brian (16:23):
Yeah, so yeah, so we'll we'll try it.
So if you're looking for thecrunch, you better wait for the
second part.
But hey, if you guys haveenjoyed this episode so far,
make sure you click subscribeloose review.
Shawna (16:33):
And with that, catch you next time, neighbor.
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