While at the Olive Festival a couple weeks back here in Paso Robles…we noticed something happening that we liked a WHOLE lot! We saw entrepreneurs! We know, neither are the same as wine, which is our normal topic of conversation…but we were so impressed with some of the vendors and it reminded us of what this country (America) is all about…human ambition, initiative, and drive!
We want to tell you about three of them, but also want to thank the two olive oil companies we actually tasted at; Olivas de Oro which is located in Creston and Rancho Los Olivos which is in Paso Robles. Both were great, but we wanted to send an extra shout out to Olivas de Oro, we believe we were chatting with Frank the owner (could be wrong), but he was informative, energetic, passionate about his business, and very kind!!
Now back to the purpose of this post; well, other than telling you that you definitely need to check out the Paso Robles Olive Festival next year!! One of the businesses we came across was Fred Springe Studios (fredspringe.com) that is doing unique and beautiful rustic wood furniture and custom ceramic tiles…but the real story in our opinion was his furniture, simply gorgeous! What a creative guy!!
Second was Over a Barrel (overabarrel.us), awesome furniture made of barrel staves…wine racks, dog beds, chairs, etc…truly amazing and creative work!! The last was Storyteller Keys (storytellerkeys.com), owned by JoAnne, beautiful necklaces made with antique keys…creative and different!! JoAnne was really cool, she chatted with us about her key collection and what each key type was, etc. Annie bought a necklace and has hardly taken it off since!
The point here is this, America is still the land of opportunity…these people are creating their opportunities rather than milking the system! They are being creative and unique, and presenting that to the world. Hoot said: “These people make me proud to be an entrepreneur!” This is what we need more of…people that choose to DO and CREATE versus help tear our country apart from the inside out by taking instead of producing!
This was our first time going to Olive Festival here in Paso, and we will definitely be back next year! And thanks to all the vendors for doing what you do!! Cheers!
Here’s a little bit more of what we saw….
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seMmZ3ROO_o[/youtube]
We enjoyed the Olive Festival – tasting the different olive oils, tasting olive oil ice cream for the 1st time, and checking out the jewerly and furniture vendors. Thanks for sharing your views on the festival. Have a Great Labor Day Weekend:)
Hey Renee, still sorry we missed you at the Olive Fest! But so glad you enjoyed it! You have a great weekend, too…hard to beat a long weekend!!!
Very cool, I’m like you Matt I didn’t know what I was missing until I went to the Olive Oil tasting which was part of our package deal when we went to the Apple Farm/SLO, very nice and we bought two bottles, some where in Templeton if Im not mistaken I know it was on the way to PR before the wine tasting, and the Lavendar Farm, don’t remember the name because I mostly buy from Claimont Farms in Los Olivos. Cheers to finding new things to try/taste!
That olive oil stuff is good, Bev! We got a couple of bottles and have been trying to use it more in cooking and snacking. We have to support our local economy, and if there’s more ways to do it than just drinking wine, all the better!!!