In this episode of frankly…
Dan and Rachel sit down with Lisa Brancato, co-owner of the Sprout House Market in Grosse Pointe Park, to talk about what it means to take a career leap and navigate uncharted territory.
After an extensive career in radio, sales and event planning, Lisa made an unexpected transition to small business ownership at 60. An advertisement in the local newspaper caught her attention, presenting an opportunity to purchase the Sprout House, a health food store that had been a neighborhood staple for more than 40 years. Although owning a business had never been part of her career plan, she decided to embrace the opportunity alongside longtime friend and WDET host Ann Delisi.
Drawing from her previous experiences, Lisa reflects on how the skills she developed throughout her career have helped her navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship. From building relationships and understanding customer needs to managing employees and daily operations, she shares the lessons she’s learned about navigating new responsibilities, preserving the market’s longstanding connection to the community and remaining open to new opportunities at any stage of life.
Learn more about the Sprout House.
Let us know what you took away from this week’s conversation, and, as always, be sure to rate, review and subscribe!
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The transcript below is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies. Tune in to the episode audio to hear the full conversation!
Transcript
Rachel
Hello, welcome to Frankly. Today on the podcast, we have Lisa Brancato, who is the co-owner of the Sprout House Market, which is in Grosse Pointe Park. But she really dives into her background, which is heavily in radio and event planning. And then at 60, decided to buy a health food store.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
And we talk a lot about non-linear career paths, but she had an entire, very linear career and then really said, I’m gonna do something. Something new.
Dan
So Lisa was most recently before this at WDET for quite a while, and she talks about that as kind of like being her dream role at the time. And then she ended up purchasing this store with another WDET, probably familiar name, Ann Delisi, who hosts the Essential Music show on the weekends. But like you said, just a full shift to a new career, talks about some of the, what she loves about being in the community as a small business owner, some of the challenges, what’s difficult, what’s different.
Rachel
So what she took from her time in radio and sales and events to, being a business owner. Definitely, if you’re in the area, check it out. We’ll link the website in the description for this episode. But So with that, welcome Lisa.
Dan
Hi Lisa, welcome to Frankly. Thanks for coming on.
Lisa
Oh, thank you for having me.
Dan
Of course. So we always like to start out with some background. So talk us through your career path, kind of what where you came from, broadcast and other areas, and then what you’re doing now at Sprout House.
Lisa
Sure, like many people, it’s been a rather interesting journey to get to this point. I started in the 80s as an intern at WRIF, and this was back in the day that RIF was the rock’n’roll station competing against WLLZ. So I had always wanted to be in radio. I always wanted to be on the air. Karen Savelli was my model, I was going to be the next Karen Savelli. And my broadcast teacher at Wayne State told me after I giggled through every single one of our best broadcasts that maybe I should stick to behind the scenes. So that was my path. I was in research. I went to sales, promotions. I worked at a number of different stations. WRAF was probably the most notable. but I had the pleasure of working with Alan Almond. Then for a short while, I worked at WMXD and Mojo was on the air for a very short while. So that’s a real throwback. This was after his electrifying Mojo days. He kind of did a comeback. And I worked with Danny McLean at WXYT. We also, at that time, were the only station, one of the few stations that carried Rush Limbaugh. And so that’s a real throwback that he was a different person back then. And then I ended my radio career at the time at WJZZ. And then I went on and I worked at Channel 4 for a while. That was in the days when Mort and Carmen were the big name newscasters. I was in the sales department. I did all the research. So I equipped the salespeople with all their sales materials. That was a ton of fun. They had the broadcast license for the Tigers. I went to many, many Tiger games in the old Tiger Stadium.
Dan
It’s a nice perk.
Lisa
It was a wonderful perk. The salespeople had obligations to go entertain clients and they all had families and I was single. And I lived downtown at the time. So I was like, oh, I’ll go entertain those clients for you. So a lot of good memories there. And then my career took me to the Detroit Zoo. I worked for the Detroit Zoological Society and I was the events person for the fundraising department. And I ended up doing a whole lot of different things during my six years there. And I produced 2 dinosaur exhibits. So I am a big, big dinosaur fan. But don’t ask me too many questions because some of that knowledge has been lost.
Rachel
Yeah.
Dan
Were those like the mechatronic?
Lisa
Animatronic dinosaurs.
Dan
Yeah. I went to some of those.
Lisa
Yeah. And I went actually just this past year, my daughter, who’s 30, She was born when I worked there. And she remembers the second one. And of course, my kids each had dinosaur birthday parties and whether they wanted to or not. But I was the buyer for the dino store, so we had tons of dinosaur related things.
Rachel
What a good time of your career to work at a place like that.
Lisa
And so my kids remember that, I’d put them, as babies on the golf cart and I’d ride them around. And so for her 30th birthday, she wanted to go see Dinosaurium. And we did. And we took all the, tried to recreate some of the same poses and photos I had of her as a youngster. So I did that for a while. And then my kids were in elementary school. I took some time off to just do freelance projects, which took me to all sorts of different places. I worked for a domestic violence agency. I worked for the Arab Chamber. I did a project for the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. And I pretty much was the gun for hire doing events, producing all the events. Then I landed my dream job at WDET. And I thought, this is it, public radio, love public radio. And I was in underwriting or sales, as they call it. And that just afforded me so many different wonderful opportunities to not only meet all these great business owners in the community, But to me, NPR stars. So like I’m a super nerd and I have all these great pictures of me and Peter Sagal and me and Ari Shapiro and Don Gagne and all of those people. We’d go to these public radio conferences and they would all be there and I’d like muscle my way through so I could get my picture on, you know, like big deal, like super nerd.
Rachel
Hey, but if you’re into it. That is a big deal.
Lisa
It is, but I learned an awful, awful lot and I really thought that was going to be where I would retire. Public radio was having its moment. I certainly believed in that type of long format journalism, the storytelling. I mean, it just spoke to every bit of my personality and everything I had done in the past. Not to mention that, my whole circle of friends was all big fans and big supporters. So it made me, have the cachet. So the cachet. That was kind of fun. And then this wonderful opportunity happened in COVID. Oh, so I worked there for 11 years. COVID hits and just like everybody else, I’m rolling out of bed, walking to the dining room table, doing sales and I’d look up and it would be dark and I’d be like, this is unsustainable. But it was still fulfilling. I was just crushing it because everybody during the COVID time really wanted this information and was craving the conversations and it was the one place where people could convene. So we were doing really, really well. But anyhow, it was a lot. So I was living in Grosse Pointe at the time and I was getting the Grosse Pointe News and the paper comes and I’d flip through it and this little tiny ad kept popping out and it said health food store for sale at Grosse Pointe Park. And I’m like, well, there’s only one store that could be. And then the next week, I put the paper aside, next week, doing the same thing, flipping through the paper and this ad jumps out again. And I thought, well, this is a sign. So I call and sure enough, it’s the Sprout House. And so I had started this conversation with the owner. I had been a customer there for a long time. And actually every Saturday I would go to the Sprout House and I would get soup and cookies. And I’d sit in the front and I had earbuds and I would listen to Anne DeLisi’s show. And Anne and I were really good friends. And so I’d listen to her show and I was selling the ads. So I wanted to make sure my ads were running. And this was like a part of my life, like pretty much the whole tenure of my time at WDET, if not even prior to that the Sprout House was where I went every week. And so anyhow, so I’m having this conversation and I thought, wow, this is a really unique opportunity. And I’d just come into some money. My mother had passed and left me with some money and I didn’t know what I was going to do with this. I had to invest it somehow.
Rachel
And it feels kind of like divided in her, like the timing is interesting that it was at a time too when you had just kind of found some capital, right?
Lisa
Yeah, exactly. And I thought, wow, this is my next chapter. And so I thought, I can’t do it alone. So I was having a conversation with Anne and I said, I really need a business partner.
Rachel
Do you mind if I ask you, what was your age like at this time? I asked that question only because I think it’s a good example of being able to start something new or go completely off the rails. At any age or in your 50s or in your 40s, whatever it was. I think people think like, how could I start over then?
Lisa
I was 60.
Rachel
There you go.
Lisa
So I was like, okay, I’ve been doing this job for 11 years. I’m 60. I have all this energy. I have capital. I have grown children. I have no real responsibilities. I’m a forever renter. You know, this is something I can do. And so when I asked Ann, she didn’t really think about it for any more than a minute and she said, yes, I’m in. I love it. And so what was ironic is if you want to call it ironic, her sister had, this is in November of 2022. I’m sorry, 2021. And her sister had recently passed. And I knew her sister and I had promised her sister on her deathbed that I would take care of Anne. And that her sister had told Anne, you need to do something big and important in your life. So when this opportunity happened, it was like, wow, this is it. I’m, this is Tracy Anne’s sister. coming together, my mom. So if you come to the Sprout House, you’ll see right above the door, there’s a picture of my mom and Anne’s sister and I watch over us every day because it’s through their support that has allowed us to do this. So anyhow, so I became a store owner and like, what the heck? And to be the owner of the store I had visited so many years.
Rachel
It’s part of your life.
Lisa
So many. And I knew the importance of what that store meant to the community. And I was determined to make it better. But more importantly, that was going to be my next chapter. And I had, and it just, it felt 100% right.
Dan
Yeah. And talk a little bit about too, being part of that community. So you’re kind of like honoring the support of your mom, of her sister, but like you’re also kind of carrying forward that long legacy of the store. Like this was somebody else’s, you know, the legacy they’re leaving behind too as they move on to whatever that next chapter is. Absolutely.
Lisa
So the Sprout House has been around for over 40 years and it’s a corner store. It’s A mainstay in the community. And for folks that know anything about the Grosse Point, they don’t like change. So I knew that taking over that store meant that we had to keep what made that store great and what made that store last for over 4 decades. Actually, one of the articles about us taking over the store, which we directed in the Grosse Pointe News, the headline was, “We commit to not changing it” because we wanted to make sure that what people had come to know and love was going to still be there. And we see customers that come in that will tell us, oh, I remember coming here when I was a baby, or my mom remembers the first owner. I still talk to the founder of the Sprout House.
Dan
Oh, really?
Lisa
Oh, yeah, she’s in her 90s.
Rachel
How many owners are you, 4th?
Lisa
We’re the 4th owner. And most of the recipes came from the second owner, which was a mother-son team. And they’ve been back to the Sprout House on three different occasions during our ownership. And it was really quite sweet because we served them the food. They came in when we weren’t open. And a gentleman, Daniel, he’s got a restaurant in Brooklyn. And he closed his eyes and he was getting all tearied because he remembered those flavors. And that was a real important moment for us to know that the person that created this, we’re still making it exactly the same. And it brought that kind of emotion out of him.
Dan
Yeah, and how cool to be able to connect with all those different generations of owners. Like that’s, I don’t know. That’s awesome. I feel like that’s rare in a small business chain like that.
Lisa
I would like to think it is. And certainly it’s rare to have that kind of a customer base. And what we’re seeing now, so Anne and I have owned it for the last 4 1/2 years, is there’s people that have come in that they just got married and now they have kids. And now the kids are like just above the height of the counter. And they come in and they’re like, this is Miss Lisa. And I’m like, we love the kids. And it’s really fun to see kids come in our store. We’re right down the street from an elementary and a middle school. So we get a little after school rush. And the kids come in and they get excited about, these candies that we have or like the fig bars or the cookies that we make.
Rachel
It’s going to be their memories. Yeah. Like their childhood.
Lisa
And I just think, this is just the great American dream, and if anyone thinks about, their childhood, and I know I grew up with a little party store down at the end of Myer Street. And I remember, buying bazooka bubble gum for the comics, so I’m that next generation of that. And it’s important.
Rachel
A role in the community even. So you’ve committed to keeping things the same for the most part, right? Those recipes, but you got to add your own little touch, I’m guessing. So like, what have you added? What are you guys doing that makes it uniquely yours during your ownership?
Lisa
I love to talk about this. So one of the things through my time at WDET, Anne and I did a lot of cooking related things. And she still hosts a show on the weekends. So she’s still on the air and she’s in the kitchen on the weekends. And then I’m full-time working the front and the back and all the different areas. But one of the things that we committed to is that we were going to offer shelf space to local food-based entrepreneurs. So I’ve brought in a lot of local products, women-owned products. Being a women-owned business, we support our fellow sisters there. And for some of the products, we’ve been the first brick and mortar store that people have had their food items. And it’s fun to watch them. Now they’re at Meijer. And or they used to just do pop-ups at Eastern Market and now you can buy their stuff on our shelves. So we’ve added that. And then the other thing we started is on Sundays, we’re open on Sundays, we’re open seven days a week. On Sundays we host guest chefs who do pop-ups. So, we have quite a range of chefs that will cook their signature dishes and that’s what we offer to our customers, which has really been wonderful because these chefs don’t have a brick-and-mortar restaurant and they probably have not done anything in the Grosse Pointes. And then Grosse Pointe gets to experience some unique culture type of food that they don’t have. Our favorite is the French Cow. They make crepes down at Eastern Market every Saturday, and they are a regular once a month at the Sprout House. Gajiza Dumplings. Many people know who they are. They used to pop up at a local bar, Lost River. And unfortunately that place burned and then they found the Sprout House and now they’re at our place once a month in addition to they now have a permanent spot at the Meyer River town on Jefferson. And then I have two other weeks of the month that I can feature upstarts. It’s been great. I’ve had Filipino, Italian, I had Balkan this past weekend. I’ve had a chef from New Orleans making authentic gumbo. So it’s just been all over the place. And it’s funny how that word has traveled out in the pop-up community that they can go to this little place called the Sprout House.
Rachel
Yeah, they’re coming to you now.
Lisa
Yes, and I’ll tell you the response has just been fantastic. To just, you know, people come in and it’s like, oh, oh, you have chicken Kiev today? Oh, you’re making, you know, this Filipino dish that I can never pronounce correctly. It’s just been really wonderful, and these chefs do both vegetarian options and meat-based options. So it’s satisfying a wider range of people.
Dan
So it sounds like a lot of that might be just kind of word of mouth through the network of small businesses. But how, I guess, how do you get the word out both within the community for shoppers, but then also to kind of raise that profile among some of those businesses.
Lisa
Well, this is also a challenge. As a small business, we don’t really have a marketing budget. So we rely heavily on social media, word of mouth, our newsletter that goes to our dedicated customers. And the Grosse Pointe Chamber is very supportive in terms of they’ll share things out to their network so that reaches other businesses as well as other consumers. But it really just is a word of mouth, but I’d like to change that, make it a little broader, because there’s always room to be busier.
Dan
Yeah, that’s for sure. But I mean, the one thing I feel like you said Grosse Pointers don’t like change, but I was in that, I lived in that neighborhood just a couple of blocks away, probably just before you bought it is when I moved out, so we didn’t actually cross paths. But like one thing I remember especially about that small area of gross point is like people are shopping where they can walk to. Like there’s so many of those small businesses in that little pocket that it makes it… Idoes some of that marketing for you and just people walking down the street.
Lisa
That is true. And I always say, especially on Sundays, we’re that one ingredient store. And I can’t tell you how many times people will come running and, oh my God, I have a pot of chili on the stove. Do you guys have chili powder? Yes, we do. Here it is. And so we really are becoming that alternative grocery store and prepared food market. And that little section there of Grosse Pointe Park is really changing. We see, which is really been interesting to me, every week we see at least one customer comes in who has just moved to the area. And I’m like, oh, where are you from? This couple came in and they lived in Florida and they moved here. I don’t know what brought them here. But we have people that have come from New York, a lot of people from California, whether it’s their job or they just heard Detroit and Michigan is a great place to live. It’s affordable. But I’ll tell you, the California and the New York people, they’re like, oh, this is like a bodega. And so they get our store for us.
Dan
Plus the healthy food aspect of it too.
Lisa
And the healthy, yes. And everything in our store is, or for the most part, we try to be really, clean ingredient, healthy. We have a lot of gluten-free items, vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free products. And then our prepared foods are all just, there’s nothing like that in the area. Like where else can you run in and get a freshly made sandwich and a soup? So I’d be happy to talk about the soups if you want.
Dan
Yeah, go for it. Let’s hear them.
Lisa
Well, all right. We have over 50 soups in our recipe bowl. And most of those are recipes that have been handed down from the previous owners. But there are some new ones that we’ve added.
Rachel
And we’re getting into soup seasons. This is important stuff.
Lisa
It is soup season. It is pretty muc h soup season year-round. And as I always say, even on the hot days, the staff in the back is like, you’re kidding me, we’re selling more soups. And I’m like, yes, we are. But when I’m working the register, I’m like, oh, if it’s too hot to eat a sandwich, eat a bowl of soup because it’s nutritious. It doesn’t sit heavy in your tummy. And it’s hydrating. So it really can hit all the notes. I mean, just let it cool off a little bit. And contrary to what you think, a hot soup does not make you hotter.
Rachel
Yeah.
Lisa
So anyhow, but as the weather and the temperatures get cooler, we definitely move into much more soup season. We have 4 soups every day. It’s not on a set schedule. People say, well, what day do you make this soup? We make them as we sell them. And we always try to have a variety. A lot of our soups are lentil based. We use a lot of lentils, beans, And the interesting thing, we don’t start with any kind of stock. It all starts with water. So all the seasoning is all based on the vegetables and the spices that we put in. So you can always ensure that you’re getting something that is not out of a package. that’s been freshly made by real people in the back. And it should taste the same every time you come.
Dan
Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome.
Rachel
I did see on your website when I was looking, one of the things was, how do I know what soup it is? And it’s like, got to come in and find out. Like, what soup is it? I was thinking, that’s interesting. So that makes more sense.
Lisa
Yeah. You know, we’ll post things on Instagram, but if something runs out and we don’t have it, then we are dealing with the person that, you know, drove and had a craving for Thai peanut soup and man, you should have been here an hour ago. So it’s hard to keep up with as things change. But we answer the phone all day with, what are your soups? And we’re more than happy to help you figure it out. And there’s always something there. I always tell people, they’re like, “Oh, well, I was really hoping for this.” And I’m like, “Well, try these other ones.” We offer samples. And I see you should always have at least a couple of favorites so that if your one favorite is isn’t in stock, you can get something else.
Rachel
What do you think is something that you did in your career or someone that you worked with? What did you take away from your long career in radio and events that you still use today?
Lisa
Well, I’ll tell you, anyone that knows me knows I love to talk. And I was in sales a significant portion of my radio career. And so I think just having that ability to just engage with just about anybody is something that I do on a regular basis. I was thinking about this the other day that someone the other day asked me, well, what’s your experience running a store? None. I am a customer. So I look at everything from the customer’s point of view. You know, what should you, how should you feel from the time you walk up to the front door? Do you open it? And how should you feel as you’re walking out?
Rachel
It’s kind of like events though. Like events, you are thinking about the customer experience or attendee experience from the time they walk through the door, even beforehand to when they leave.
Lisa
Exactly. And then as an event planner, which I spend a significant amount of my time doing that, you have to be very resourceful and very nimble to go with the flow. And I always say, you never let them see you sweat. And if we run out of something, it’s just you just deal with it. I have to, be the facilities person. And so I, and that again, when I did events, I walked around with, a Gerber multiplier and a flashlight. And, sometimes I have to, fix a cooler, clean out a cooler, or fix the door, tighten something. You have to do all of that. And then you have different customers coming from different backgrounds, so helping them, navigate what they might be looking for, but being able to read people, that’s been helpful. What else can I, again, and then I’ve got a staff too, and they’re critical to our success, and we’ve retained three out of our, no, I’m sorry, four out of our 10 employees are people who were with the store previously. And so they bring all sorts of institutional knowledge. They’re very loyal and they’re immensely helpful. We just have this great team, I call them my Sprout family, and they care about the place and they’re always looking to help find the new products to develop a new process. So being able to to take all of that in and execute it. Again, it’s just like doing an event, all the elements, keeping all the balls juggling, keeping everything moving.
Rachel
24-7, not just for a day or two now.
Lisa
Exactly. And we’re a seven day a week operation. And then there’s days that it snows and it’s icy and people have trouble getting to work. But dang it, we’re going to be open and we’re going to have something, whether 2 customers come in the door or, 120 coming in.
Dan
And you mentioned your team there, which reminds me of a question. It’s just kind of like going from radio roles where you were kind of the employee and, maybe managing teams and things like that, but making the leap to being a business owner and like being responsible for those employees, then like, what is that feeling like? I assume it’s good and challenging at the same time.
Lisa
Oh, it’s incredibly challenging. Part of my experience being an event planner, you have a little bit of OCD in you, and you have that tendency that this is exactly how I want it, and then now I have a staff here and I can tell them how I want it. And I don’t have to do it, but I’m still doing it. And so it’s a learning process every day.
Rachel
Being in control, but learning to let go of some of that control, I feel like is kind of that piece that you’re learning.
Lisa
Exactly. But I’ll tell you, there is, especially in this kind of economic climate, Ten people count on me for their income. So that is not lost on me. That’s a heavy weight to know that they expect X amount of hours and I give them those hours because they have to pay their bills too. And so it’s always a challenge for me personally to to keep that in mind, but like, we’re slow today. how do I manage that?
Rachel
It’s a constantly running a business of I’ve got to keep people employed and give them what I owe them, but I also have money to make in a sort of run and product to bring in and the uncertainty of who’s going to walk through the door or not that day.
Lisa
Yeah. And, we’re really fortunate that our team is a mature staff and we’ve had, younger staff and that comes with its own set of challenges. But I’m a mom and I have adult children, so I’ve been able to manage that. But there’s a lot to be said for hiring mature people. And I think it’s important and I continually need to remind myself, I need to share with them the vision and the expectations for what I’m looking for, and they’re more than capable of executing that. Just have to let it go.
Rachel
What advice would you give your 21-year-old self working at RIF, that intern that walked through the door that was, you know.
Lisa
Yeah, so I remember watching the adults around me and thinking that okay, I can do this. So I had a lot of confidence. I was very, very sure of myself and that’s how I got more and more responsibility. But what I didn’t learn is that it’s okay to not know something. And that is really important now, that it’s okay for me to be humble and not know everything and to be able to, when faced with a new set of circumstances, say, hang on a minute, let me think about that or I’ll get back to you for the answer. Because you think that you’ve reached this point in your career, in your life that you should know everything? And I kind of, acted like I did because I was cool all this time. And it’s okay. It’s okay to say, I don’t know. I’ll get back to you. So that would be the advice.
Rachel
They appreciate it. They appreciate it when you aren’t just giving them some BS answer and you say like, I respect you enough to want to find that out. So let me do that first and then I’ll come back.
Lisa
Exactly. And you know, and as a salesperson, you know, you’re always, you’re always talking. You’re always have the answer right on the spot. So it’s been an unlearning of that, okay, I don’t know this one thing. I’m going to find it out. And it’s okay.
Rachel
Love that. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been so fun.
Lisa
Thank you. I hope if anyone that’s listening, if you’re looking for healthy, good eats, come hang out at the Sprout House.
Rachel
And we’ll link your website in the description for the episodes. People can check it out there too.
Lisa
Definitely go check it out. Thank you. I look forward to meeting new people at the store, feeding them.
Dan
Awesome. Thanks again.
Lisa
Thank you.
Dan
Well, thank you again to Lisa for joining us. This was, we really enjoyed this conversation. And as we said at the beginning, check out the link to Sprout House in the description here and go check them out. I’m going to make a point to check out that Sunday.
Rachel
Dan’s going to be there this week at this point after he heard how awesome everything was. She was rattling off everything even after we were done recording of what she’s been trying. So definitely check them out. But we will see you next time. See you.
