Life is made of moments, most of them come and go without much notice. Then occasionally we pause long enough to ponder, to think deeply and to make a conscious decision, then to act on that decision and evolve. Last week here in beautiful, sunny and unique downtown St. Pete, Florida was Localicious, a celebration of everything deliciously local. We hosted the KSPL “Local Meltdown” here at NOVA 535 Unique Event Space on Thursday October 16, 2014, and because of all the work and efforts that surrounded that event, plus my frequent conversations with Keep St. Pete Local founder Olga Bof, well a moment of clarity happened.

Thursday’s are normally reserved for the Entrepreneur Social Club, an incredibly fun group that helps and connects Entrepreneurs and business owners from across our beautiful planet, and meets here at wedding and event venue NOVA 535 weekly on Thursday evenings. A group I founded back in 2009, based upon Ben Franklin’s Junto Club, to help, share, connect, inspire and have fun with my fellow Entrepreneurs. We are different, we’re the glass is half full types, the solvers, those who make the world a better place. Part of that bettering works best if you support those local businesses, made up of local people – your neighbors, your friends and schoolmates.

See if they are providing much of your goods and services, then quality should be better. You can go an look that person in the eye, you can be clear about each other’s expectations, and you might just feel more obligated to give a hoot and continue to improve whatever it is you do. Because you’re gonna run into your customers and clients and if your products / services suck then you’re gonna have to deal with real people. You can’t hide behind a 1-800-Kissmyass phone room located a 12 hour flight away. See we American’s got drunk on “low-pricing” and many of you all forgot about value and quality. Yes it takes more time, effort, design, skills, money and love to create something great, but then it tastes / lasts longer. Products used to have a warranty that lasted YEARS not months. You could return something and look the owner in the eye and he / she’d want to make it right because they want to stay in business. And generally speaking, people who take time to create something usually feel proud of their accomplishment and they want people to like it. To buy it and enjoy it. Those creators who really get it they also want their clients feedback on how to improve EVERYTHING. Here at NOVA 535 we live by continuous improvement, we call it The NOVA Way, and it’s working wonderfully!

Here are two of the delicious beers we carry from across the Howard Frankenstein Bridge, over in Ybor City, at Cigar City Brewing.

Keep in mind that money spent locally multiplies 3X versus money that goes bye bye. That’s 3x more $$$ for local people to then spend on YOUR good and services. See the groovy math here. win-Win-WIN!

Now back to that moment of clarity, well it happened right about here. See I was visiting long time pal Mike Harting at his newly founded 3 Daughters Brewing here in downtown St. Pete. We’ve been trying to catch up, both of us exceptionally busy, but today well it finally happened. So I wandered around his brew room for a bit before we connected. See Mike’s a really smart guy, coming by the way of Outback Steakhouse years ago.  He really really understands food and the service industry. I see Mike as another of my mentors. A leader and someone I’m DELIGHTED to buy beer from, because he knows if things aren’t done in a 5 Star manor that I and many of his other clients will speak up, though Mike is the kind of guy who LOVES TO GET IT RIGHT. The nice thing about local is it’s like competitive team work, we all want each other to create extraordinary goods and services that we ALL can enjoy, plus brag to and share with those people visiting from elsewhere.

This gorgeous, unique all metal KSPL logo was created and donated by the insanely talented, and local Frank Strunk III, metal master himself. Thanks again Strunk!

So here is to Keeping St. Pete Local, and to all of our fellow local business owners, employees, contractors, staffers, workers and so on. Thanks for stepping up and creating Localiciousness right here in downtown St. Pete, Florida. We LOVE ST. PETE and if you do too, then here’s a great way to connect with others who do too.

DISCLAIMER: If one of our clients prefers any beers from around the world, or any spirits, wines, etc, we are delighted to special order them, as long as they come from our legal distributor. Our bar at NOVA provides about 1/3 our revenue and so all beverages come from us and again yes we’re happy to special order just about anything…..

Just another wonderful afternoon here at NOVA 535 Unique Event Space. People always ask “Is NOVA open to the public?” and I explain that 98% of the time NOVA is closed for private events, Weddings, Receptions, Mitzvahs, Film Shoots, Corporate Parties, Fundraisers, Birthdays and such. If you or a friend is looking to rent NOVA 535 for an event, please click here. Thank you and good luck to us all!

What about that 2% you may ask? Well we do open up occasionally for PUBLIC Events…some truly unique and amazing ones, like NOVAWEEN, NOVA NOEL, Sunscreen Film Festival and more.