Interview With Ashley Albert – Season 2, Episode 4 – Brooklyn Made
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Interview With Ashley Albert – Season 2, Episode 4

So my business partner, he’s one of my best friends and my holiday gift to him in 2011 was to become certified barbecue judges. So I flew us down to Florida to get our meet certification, it happens all over the world but it just so happened that the one that we picked was in Florida and I’m from Miami, I grew up there. So we went to the middle of nowhere Central Florida, and while we were there he said I won Florida we’ve got to play shuffleboard, he remembered playing with his grandparents at century village in Palm Beach when he was a kid. And so we did some research and we found the world’s largest shuffleboard club in St. Petersburg Florida, and on a lark, we rented a convertible and we drove the three hours to go to St. Petersburg and play this a city-owned Municipal Park.

And it turned out that once a month, like a handful of St. Petersburg hipsters would get together and play on these yawns courts, and they happen to be there the day that we were there. And they shared their beer with us, and they taught us how to play, and they were playing music and we were like this is the coolest thing ever and this was still in Brooklyn. But we both had great jobs, we weren’t looking for a new job I was doing voiceover living my life of leisure, and we came back up to New York just for fun, mostly pretending because we didn’t think we were going to find a space big enough and affordable enough and then a good enough location in New York to do this.

 

[00:02:57] That is fascinating, that's cool. How did you come up with this idea?

[00:05:43] I mean shuffleboard in New York, so how popular is it?

[00:07:17] is it a bar where you can play shuffleboard or is it shuffleboard where you can get a drink?

[00:08:46] How do you get a business plan from going from Florida to this humongous conglomerate that you've got running now, I mean you must have an amazing team.

[00:08:56] The mayor's office in New York City told me that it was the second-best business plan they had ever read, and I was like huh really what was the first business plan?

[00:14:32] Well you know I'll tell you that I just brought 75 of my League members down to Florida to play in a shuffleboard tournament down there, we had so many people that we outnumbered the Floridians who were there playing

[00:16:04] You're inspirational, I mean do you go into everything with this heart and this passion?

[00:19:03] I mean with a mature audience interested in shuffleboard and everything, I mean does it take athletic skill, are you burning calories?

[00:20:55] I mean what do we need to know do I need to have special shoes, is it like walking into a bowling alley, do you rent the stuff when you get there?

[00:27:07] You don't have to be Jewish to eat it because they sound really good, where can I get them?

[00:27:52] Actually I'm serious I feel like we're just scratching the surface

Interview With Ashley Albert - Season 2, Episode 4 1
Ashley Albert
Founder Of: Royal Palms Shuffle

So my business partner, he’s one of my best friends and my holiday gift to him in 2011 was to become certified barbecue judges. So I flew us down to Florida to get our meet certification, it happens all over the world but it just so happened that the one that we picked was in Florida and I’m from Miami, I grew up there. So we went to the middle of nowhere Central Florida, and while we were there he said I won Florida we’ve got to play shuffleboard, he remembered playing with his grandparents at century village in Palm Beach when he was a kid. And so we did some research and we found the world’s largest shuffleboard club in St. Petersburg Florida, and on a lark, we rented a convertible and we drove the three hours to go to St. Petersburg and play this a city-owned Municipal Park.

And it turned out that once a month, like a handful of St. Petersburg hipsters would get together and play on these yawns courts, and they happen to be there the day that we were there. And they shared their beer with us, and they taught us how to play, and they were playing music and we were like this is the coolest thing ever and this was still in Brooklyn. But we both had great jobs, we weren’t looking for a new job I was doing voiceover living my life of leisure, and we came back up to New York just for fun, mostly pretending because we didn’t think we were going to find a space big enough and affordable enough and then a good enough location in New York to do this.

We were just on the weekend go look at real estate, you know just pretending that we were interested in opening a shuffleboard Club and we walked into our space and I turned to Jonathan my business partner and I said okay, if we’re serious about this we have to take this space, that if we don’t take this space then we know we’re not serious about this. Like this is how we know whether we’re kidding or not, because this space at this price in this location is just not going to be here if in three months.

And we go you know what maybe we should open a shuffleboard Club, and we didn’t have a business plan or any money raised or anything, and we just plunked our life savings down on the deposit for the lease, and then we scrambled about raising many millions of dollars, it’s a 20,000 square foot space. So we only said that if we understood how much risk we were taking when we started, we probably never would have done. It was truly hubris and naiveté that got this place going because anybody who knew what they were doing would not have done it this way.

https://www.royalpalmsbrooklyn.com

https://www.matzoproject.com

 

#Ashley #Albert #Royal #Palms #Shuffle #Brooklyn #Bushwick #Shuffleboard #Clun #Games #Entertaiment

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