About two months after opening our very first Perenn in Reno in 2018, the streets directly surrounding us were torn apart as part of the Virginia Street Project. And when we say torn apart, we mean torn apart. There were moments when customers quite literally had to be personally escorted through construction to find their way to our front door.

We were a brand-new business. We were still figuring out who we were, building a customer base, and learning how to operate a bakery. Suddenly, simply getting people through the door became one of our biggest challenges.

Eventually, the streets reopened.

And then COVID hit.

Another moment where the plans went out the window and the only option was to figure out what came next.

We have thought about those years a lot lately because, apparently, here we go again.

The BRIDGE Project

When we opened Perenn in downtown Franklin last summer, one of the things we fell in love with most was its setting. Our little bakery sits right beside the Harpeth River, with a front patio that has become such an important part of the experience.

Believe it or not, nearly half of the revenue at this location comes from guests who sit outside.

So when we learned that the bridge directly beside Perenn would be replaced, we knew it would affect us. What we didn’t anticipate was how quickly the timeline could change.

The project wasn’t expected to happen this soon. It wasn’t part of the near-term plan when we opened. But funding became available, priorities shifted, and suddenly a project that felt many years away became something happening right now.

Construction is expected to begin soon, and our front patio will be impacted. The entire BRIDGE project could take up to two years.

There is no point pretending that isn’t scary.

We have been part of the Franklin community for just over a year. We are still establishing ourselves here, still creating routines with our regulars, still meeting new people every day. The possibility of losing a meaningful portion of our seating, when outdoor dining represents such a significant part of the business, is something we have to take seriously.

But one of the greatest lessons we have learned from building Perenn is that there isn’t much value in sitting around asking, Why is this happening to us?

There usually isn’t one person to blame. Projects change. Cities grow. Funding becomes available. Roads need to be rebuilt and bridges need to be replaced.

We could spend a lot of energy feeling sorry for ourselves, but that energy is probably better spent asking the question we have learned to ask whenever something unexpected happens:

What is the best possible way we can handle this?

And then we get to work.

So, We’re Moving Outside

One of our first thoughts was: if we can’t use the front of the building the way we have, how do we make the back even better?

Earlier this year, with help from the state, we began working on the grassy area behind Perenn along the river. What felt like a nice little addition at the time has suddenly become much more important.

We are going to extend our outdoor seating into this area and continue creating a place where you can grab a coffee, eat a croissant, have lunch, bring your kids, sit with a friend, and enjoy the river.

Will it be exactly the same as sitting on our front patio? No.

But it will still be Perenn.

And we are going to do everything we can to make it beautiful.

This Is Where We Ask for Your Help

Owning a small business has taught us that you can prepare for a lot, but you cannot prepare for everything.

Sometimes the street gets torn apart two months after you open.

Sometimes the street finally reopens and a pandemic begins.

And sometimes you open a little bakery beside a beautiful river only to find out that the bridge next door is going to be replaced much sooner than anyone anticipated.

You adjust.

You figure out how to make something inconvenient feel a little more beautiful.

And most importantly, you keep opening the doors every morning.

But this particular chapter is also one where we need our community.

Construction has a way of making somewhere feel closed even when it isn’t. A fence goes up, traffic changes, parking looks different, and suddenly people assume it might be easier to go somewhere else.

So over the next couple of years, if you find yourself wondering whether Perenn Franklin is open, we are.

If the front patio looks different, come find us out back.

If your usual route changes, take the extra turn.

If you have a friend who hasn’t been in awhile, bring them for a croissant.

Keep having your meetings here. Keep bringing your kids. Keep grabbing lunch. Keep sitting by the river. Keep making Perenn part of your routine.

Those seemingly small decisions matter enormously to an independent business.

We don’t know exactly what the next two years will look like, and we don’t want to pretend that we do. There will probably be inconveniences we haven’t anticipated yet. There will probably be days when we have to change the plan again.

But we’ve done that before.

A Little Perspective

The other thing nearly a decade of building this company has taught us is perspective.

When something threatens your business, it can feel enormous in the moment. And this one certainly feels enormous right now…

But someday, we will look back and this will be another little blip in the story of Perenn.

Our team is healthy. Our family is healthy. We have customers who care enough about this place to make it part of their daily lives.

There is so much happening in the world that is bigger than a construction fence outside a bakery.So we aren’t interested in spending the next two years saying woe is me. We’d rather spend them figuring out how to make the best of it.

Maybe the tables along the back of the river become someone’s favorite place to sit. Maybe we create something back there that we never would have thought to create otherwise. Maybe this forces us to become better operators and more creative business owners.

We’ve learned not to underestimate what can come from being forced to rethink the plan.

So, Franklin, we’re asking you to stick with us through this one.

The bridge may be changing.

The view might look a little different.

But we’ll be here.

And the croissants will still be warm.

Lots of love,

Aubrey + Tyler

Before we left school we had done a few Private Chef gigs in upstate New York. When we first visited Tahoe we realized there was a big gap. This was 2013. There still were Chefs and Catering companies using clip art on their website. Literally magic X catering with a genie dancing on their site. When we saw this and reflected on our substantial student loan debts we chose to give it a year and see how we liked the area.

Initially we both had other jobs. Less than a year later we started as private chefs and did that for about two years before opening a catering company servicing Lake Tahoe, with Reno as our hub. Reno made sense practically. It had the distributors, infrastructure, access, and proximity we needed to operate in Tahoe while giving us a place to actually build the business. At that point, we still weren’t trying to become bakers. We were caterers trying to make the food we wanted to serve.

One of the things we couldn’t find was bread. We couldn’t get the kind of bread we wanted to put on the table at our events anywhere in town, so we started making it ourselves. At first, it was simply solving a problem. We needed better bread, so we learned to make better bread. We practiced, changed formulas, failed, tried again, and slowly got better at it. Eventually it dawned on us that maybe the absence of the bread we wanted wasn’t just a problem for our catering company. Maybe it was another opportunity. If we couldn’t find it, perhaps other people were looking for it too. That was really the beginning of the bakery.

The initial idea was almost entirely built around bread. We were obsessed with it. When it came to the business aspect we did some simple math and quickly realized another important lesson. Bread alone doesn’t necessarily pay the bills. So we adapted. We added other products. We expanded the pastry program. We added coffee, then eventually espresso drinks. Each decision came from learning what the business needed to become rather than following some predetermined concept of what we thought a bakery was supposed to be. Our first location was only about 800 square feet. It was small enough that we didn’t have to hire a huge amount of staff, small enough that we could cover our operating expenses, affordable comparatively to today markets. We could change things, make mistakes, and get to understand what we were even really doing. This became a daily occurrence. Do, reflect, adapt. We changed this literally everyday.

If someone came to me today and drew out a business plan exactly the way we pieced Perenn’s together I would legit tell them this is a bad idea. Today its very well could be a receipt for disaster. Behold the beauty of early 2010’s Reno.

Around the 2 year mark of having a brick and mortar came Rancharrah, in at around 3,600 square feet. It was a completely different scale and required us to become a different company. We needed more people, better systems, more production, more management, and a broader understanding of what Perenn could be. From there, we have continued to grow, and each new location has forced another evolution. Looking backward, the progression can seem intentional. Private chefs, catering, bread, bakery, coffee, larger stores, multiple locations.

That is part of why I think so much about the value of where we chose to start. Reno’s market had space for us. There were gaps. Things we had experienced in culinary school, while traveling, or in restaurants and bakeries we admired simply didn’t exist there yet. Rather than opening shoulder to shoulder with ten other businesses already doing versions of the same thing, we were able to ask what we thought it should be. We weren’t immediately being measured against businesses that had already spent years perfecting their craft. We had the room to develop our own point of view. We we given support by a community that believed in us.

Most importantly, we had room to practice. We could make bread, change it, and make it again. We could introduce something that didn’t work and take it away. We could figure out coffee. We could learn retail. We could learn what customers actually wanted instead of what we assumed they should want. We bought the wrong size equipment, underestimated projects, made products people didn’t buy, hired the wrong people, created systems that didn’t work, and eventually rebuilt them. We had gone to school to become cooks. Almost everything required to actually build and operate a company still had to be learned. As I age and evolve into a senior restaurant vet I find myself saying “they didn’t teach that in my day.”

Reno gave us an environment where many of those mistakes could become lessons instead of just failures that might put us out of business. That doesn’t mean Reno was easy, or that the standards were lower. It means the market gave a young business some room to evolve. There is a natural instinct when you’re ambitious to put yourself immediately into the most competitive environment possible. There is value in that. Bigger cities usually create great standards, and being surrounded by talented people forces you to improve. Bigger cities also loose a lot of the principles and human touch as well.

Competition also removes your margin for error. Real estate costs more. Labor costs more. Customers have endless alternatives. Employees have endless alternatives. If your concept isn’t working, there are twenty other places down the street ready to take your customer.

In a major market, you often have to come out of the gate blazing. We didn’t.

We got to become something over time. We didn’t have to be something we weren’t at the time.

That distinction was enormously valuable. Reno was growing while we were growing. New people were moving in, expectations were changing, and there was an appetite for businesses that felt different from what had existed before. We could grow alongside the city instead of fighting for a tiny piece of an already mature market. The gaps in the market weren’t limitations, they were opportunities. Every time we found something we wished existed, we had the chance to ask whether we could create it ourselves.

That environment also gave us something that is harder to quantify. It gave us enough margin to build a life while we were building the business. Aubrey and I didn’t only want a company. We wanted a family, and we didn’t want to treat those two ambitions as things that had to happen one after the other. I wouldn’t describe those years as balanced in the traditional sense. Building a company while raising children rarely feels balanced. There were long days, financial stresses, missed night out with friends, and plenty of nights when the business came home with us. We could afford to build a life there. We weren’t spending hours commuting across a massive city. The economics of starting small weren’t completely detached from reality. There was enough space, both literally and figuratively, for our lives to exist outside the business.

We had our four children while building the company in Reno. Those two things ended up shaping each other. Having a family forced us to become better business owners because we couldn’t personally do everything forever. We had to build teams, trust people, delegate responsibility, create systems, and accept that a company dependent entirely on our presence wasn’t actually the company we wanted to build. We wanted something that could eventually become bigger than the two of us, and having a family made that necessity clear very early.

As we’ve grown and begun moving into larger markets, I appreciate the value of those years more than I did while we were living them. The world is a different place. The difference is that now we’re not entering those markets while simultaneously trying to figure out who we are. We’ve already had years to do that. We’ve made thousands and thousands of loaves of bread and pastries. We’ve opened stores. We’ve built teams, lost people, hired better, changed systems, made expensive mistakes, and rebuilt things we once thought were finished. Most importantly, we’ve developed conviction about what we want Perenn to be. That is all thanks to Reno.

Looking back, one of the greatest advantages Reno gave us wasn’t simply the opportunity to open a business. It gave us the opportunity to discover what that business should be. We didn’t move there knowing we were going to build a bakery. The bakery emerged because the people there gave us the opportunity to learn who and what we wanted to be.

There will always be bigger stages. I’m grateful we didn’t start on one. We had the chance to practice before we had to perform. We got to make mistakes while they were still survivable. We got to build a family alongside a company.

I refer to our earlier years as our monk period. We were in the Sierra Mountains learning and reflecting. We can all debate if we were really ready to move beyond those valleys into new, but regardless Reno prepared us for whatever is ahead. The Biggest Little City will always be apart of our story and thats our, “why.”

There is a part of owning a business that I don’t think I will ever get comfortable with: giving feedback.

More specifically, giving feedback when something isn’t good enough. It is, without question, one of the hardest parts of my job. After all these years, I still find myself wondering, am I being too critical? Am I expecting too much? Am I noticing something no one else would notice? Does this actually matter? Am I making a big deal out of something that could simply be let go?

But then there is the other question I have to ask myself: At what point is being critical the reason we are where we are?

Because the truth is, Perenn wasn’t built by saying, eh, good enough. It wasn’t built by ignoring the crooked sign, the sloppy plate, the email that went unanswered, the packaging that came back slightly wrong, or the deliverables that was promised Tuesday and somehow still isn’t finished a week later. And this isn’t really about employees. It’s about everyone we work with. Trades, artists, designers, photographers, packaging companies, vendors, contractors, managers. People we genuinely like and respect.

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This moment has taken almost 3 years to get to. While we have been building the grocery, I think we have also been thinking more about Perenn as a whole than we have in a long time. Opening something new creates the opportunity you to ask questions that are easy to ignore when you’re just operating day to day. What do we actually want to make? What belongs on our shelves? Who do we want to work with? Maybe more importantly, what kind of company are we trying to build as Perenn gets bigger?

Like most young cooks, we romanticized a lot of what it is to have a physical location. We have always imagined it would look like knowing the farmer who grew our vegetables, buying flour directly from a mill, finding the person making the best butter we had ever tasted and figuring out how to use it. We wanted to know where things came from and who made them. At the time, we probably thought that was simply what you did when you cared enough about food, especially when you have worked in places like New York were this is almost common place.

Then you actually open a business, and reality has a way of intervening. You need 40 pounds of butter tomorrow, and then you need 400 the next week. Eventually, you need thousands of pounds across multiple cities every week, delivered at exactly the right time. You need invoices to be correct, trucks to show up, products to be consistent, and someone to answer the phone when something goes wrong. So you call a distributor. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Distributors are an enormous part of how restaurants function, and frankly, we couldn’t operate without them. But somewhere along the way, convenience can start making decisions for you.

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But sometimes the things that feel like setbacks become invitations to create something even better.

Instead of mourning what was disappearing, we started asking a different question: What else could this place become? With Steve Mydelski of Natchez Glen House, that question turned into an entirely new way of seeing this little stretch of land above the Harpeth River. What had been an overlooked strip of gravel and weeds became a garden. A place to linger. A place that feels as though it has always belonged here.

One of the things we admire most about Steve is that he doesn’t simply design landscapes. He uncovers stories. He studies the history of a place, listens to what the land is trying to say, and lets that guide every decision. Reading his account reminded us that this project was never really about replacing patio seating. It was about honoring a river, a bridge, generations of history, and creating something that will hopefully become part of Franklin’s story for years to come.

We’re so grateful for Steve’s vision and care, and excited to share his words below. We hope the next time you enjoy a croissant beneath the apple trees, you’ll see this little corner of the Harpeth a bit differently.

A Bridge from Then to Now

The Story of Perenn on the Harpeth

How a neglected strip of Franklin riverfront became a new outdoor room, framed by eight mature cordon-trained apple trees and grounded in the layered history of the Harpeth.

by Steve Mydelski

1913 Sanborn map places two lumber warehouses at the Main Street and East Margin corner, with the Harpeth River immediately beyond. Library of Congress, public domain.

“The place tells a story to me, and I take my cues from that story.”

A Collaboration Rooted in Perennial Ideas

I am blessed to have amazing clients. Two of those clients are Aubrey and Tyler O’Laskey, the owners and creators of Perenn. The name is shortened from perennial—something that returns season after season. Aubrey and Tyler are gardeners who visit gardens when they travel, and that love and appreciation are things we clearly hold in common.

We met in the late fall or winter of 2025 to discuss a potential collaboration. Shortly afterward,Aubrey approached me about a coming transition at their downtown Franklin location.

The Main Street bridge over the Harpeth was scheduled for a major replacement project, and the work would affect front-patio seating that had quickly become a favorite of guests. I had also designed perennial planter boxes for that area.

Both of us wanted to create a new seating area that would reduce the disruption for Perenn and its customers while allowing guests to continue enjoying the outdoor scenery and atmosphere of downtown Franklin.

“The place tells a story to me, and I take my cues from that story.”

A Gray Space Above the Harpeth

The property’s parking-lot configuration made ordinary expansion nearly impossible. Yet the building also sits beautifully above the Harpeth River, part of a riverfront Franklin has repeatedly considered as a place where residents might one day walk, gather, and experience this important Tennessee waterway more directly.

Just north of the existing parking lot was a narrow strip of ground, roughly 120 feet long and 26 feetat its widest. Professionally, I would call it a gray space: land that had not been intentionally used, cultivated, or designed. It carried runoff from the pavement, held compacted soil, and supported a mixture of weeds and invasive grasses before ending at a fence above the riverbank.

The goal was not to make a blank, sterile environment with tables set on grass. I wanted to create a garden setting that felt like Perenn: warm, intentional, cultivated, and full of character. It needed to offer a place to meet, enjoy a croissant or coffee, and experience what Perenn and downtown Franklin are about.

Reading the Riverfront

My process always begins with two forms of observation: a site overview and a historical overview. What was here before? What was this place 50, 100, 150, or 200 years ago? What did the ground originally want to do, and what is it doing today?

The written history of this crossing reaches back to Franklin’s earliest decades. On July 5, 1819, the Williamson County Court authorized the building of a large, enclosed, double covered bridge across the Harpeth at the town of Franklin. The bridge linked Franklin with residents to the north and with Nashville until Confederate cavalry burned it late in 1862.

Cut-stone abutment work remains near the historic crossing. The surviving masonry marks the old bridge corridor, although it may incorporate repairs or rebuilding from more than one bridge generation. What survives is less a single untouched artifact than a physical record of repeated efforts to cross the river.

The Old Harpeth River Bridge marker records the 1819 authorization of the covered bridge and its destruction in 1862. Photograph by Steve Mydelski.

The property itself also carried layers of work and commerce. A January 1898 Sanborn map shows J. H. Fisher & Co. Planing Mill on land corresponding closely to the present riverfront parcel. By 1913, two lumber warehouses stood at the Main Street and East Margin corner, with storage ground extending toward the Harpeth. Long before the Boat Locker and later restaurants, this was part of Franklin’s woodworking and lumber district.

THE SITE IN LAYERS

A short chronology of the crossing and the land now occupied by Perenn.

1819–1820 A large double covered bridge is authorized and likely completed across the Harpeth.

Late 1862 Confederate cavalry burns the bridge before Federal occupation.

1898 J. H. Fisher & Co. Planing Mill stands on the riverfront parcel.

1908–1913 The corner functions as lumber warehousing and storage.

Later 20th c. The property becomes associated with the Boat Locker.

2012–2024 Puckett’s Boat House and Americana Taphouse occupy the building.

2025 Perenn opens at 94 East Main Street.

2026 The riverfront garden begins as Franklin prepares for bridge

replacement.

1898: J. H. Fisher & Co. Planing Mill beside East Margin Street.

Library of Congress, public domain.

When I first moved to Franklin 25 years ago, I remember the Boat Locker occupying the property. It was a marine-oriented business where boats were sold, stored, or serviced. I also remember the possibility of a small launch west of the building, although I have not found documentation proving that it operated as a formal marina.

Over the following decades, the building transitioned through restaurant uses before becoming Perenn.

That research gave me the first part of the design story: this had never been empty land. It was a place shaped by river crossings, timber, warehousing, vehicles, runoff, reconstruction, and continual adaptation.

A Living Screen, Not a Line of Trees

The new seating area also needed intimacy. Guests should feel as though they were inside a garden, not seated beside a parking lot. We needed a screen—some way to divide the space and soften the view of cars—without creating a dark or intimidating wall.

The easiest answer would have been to find the cheapest screening trees available, plant them in a line, and call the work complete. But that is not how I approach a garden, and it is not what Aubrey and Tyler’s business is about. We wanted something intentional—something that would make both the guests and the space feel special.

My garden-designer mind returned to a living wall made from espaliered apples.

Espalier is thebroader practice of training a woody plant in a flat plane against a wall, trellis, or freestanding support. A horizontal cordon is one particular trained form within that tradition, with a central trunk and ordered tiers of lateral branches.

The practice reduces the footprint of a normally broad tree, gives light access to the branches and fruiting spurs, and turns a productive plant into architecture. In our case, it could create privacy while remaining loose, transparent, seasonal, and alive.

Finding Trees That Had Already Learned Patience

There are very few American nurseries with deep professional experience in mature espalier work, and we needed the screen to have an immediate presence. Starting with young whips and slowly training them for the next five to seven years was not an option.

My research led me to River Road Farms in Decatur, Tennessee, a specialty nursery that has trained espaliered trees for more than 30 years. Its work includes horizontal cordons, fans, candelabras, Belgian fences, arches, and tunnels. The nursery’s largest estate-grade specimens are shaped over six to eight years before installation.

After a few email exchanges, I decided—as I nearly always do—that the responsible choice was to visit in person. I do not like to buy a plant sight unseen.

I traveled to East Tennessee to meet the River Road Farms team and was immediately impressed. I have been fortunate to visit other specialist fruit-training nurseries during my career, and this farm had clearly been shaping trees at a high level for a long time. Near the back of the nursery, I saw a group of large cordoned apples that offered exactly the immediate structure the Perenn project required.

The trees also carried a story. According to the nursery, they had been grown in connection with Mount Vernon’s living horticultural collection, where trained fruit trees are used to preserve and interpret an eighteenth-century garden practice. Personnel and program needs had changed during the many years required to shape the trees, and River Road Farms had continued stewarding them until the right home appeared.

I fell in love with them, asked whether they were available, and was told yes. That was the moment the project became Perenn on the Harpeth.

We were no longer choosing ordinary screening plants. We were bringing mature, historically informed cordon-trained apples—trees connected to the modern horticultural work at Mount Vernon—to the bank of the Harpeth River, beside a crossing whose story reaches back to the early national period. The group included old American cultivars such as Roxbury Russet and Red Streak.

A NOTE ON MOUNT VERNON PROVENANCE

These are modern trees, not surviving eighteenth-century specimens. Their historical value lies in the continuation of a training practice and in their connection to Mount Vernon’s modern living collection.

Mount Vernon documents apples and pears trained as espaliers along its garden walks during Washington’s era. Surviving planting records do not currently confirm Roxbury Russet as one of Washington’s named cultivars. Thomas Jefferson, however, recorded planting Roxbury Russet at Monticello in 1778.

What the Shovel Found

Apples are not the easiest trees to establish in Middle Tennessee. Many heritage cultivars prefer cooler nights, and all apples demand a root zone with adequate drainage, oxygen, and fertility. The existing riverfront strip offered none of those conditions reliably. A conventional landscape approach might have cleared the whole area with a track loader, graded it quickly, and prepared a uniform planting surface. We would eventually add a lawn for structure and small perennial beds built around North American plants, but the first responsibility was to ensure that the mature apples were not simply installed and left to decline.

The first day I put a shovel into the ground, I found compacted soil only about two inches down. Then the shovel made the sound that always causes me to cringe. As my foot pressed the blade, I heard the familiar ting and ding of metal striking stone or gravel.

Beneath the thin layer of poor soil was a bed of crushed gravel roughly 12 to 18 inches deep. It may have belonged to an earlier phase of parking-lot construction, or it may have been associated with the Boat Locker period. Either way, it was not a root environment capable of supporting large transplanted apples, a lawn, or a perennial garden.

After two decades in this work, there are few site conditions that do not give me an immediate thought about what to do next. This one required a pause. I wanted to do it correctly, not merely quickly.

Eight Trees, Eight New Foundations

We did not want to run large equipment repeatedly across the riverbank. That would further compact the remaining soil. Nor could we excavate the entire 120-foot strip, remove every layer of gravel, and replace the site wholesale. This was a sensitive edge above the Harpeth, where vegetation, erosion, and runoff needed to remain central to every decision.

I chose to create a generous individual soil block for each tree. We rented the smallest excavator available—a machine the rental staff joked looked more like a children’s coin-operated ride than construction equipment. Yet it was exactly the delicate instrument this delicate site required.

With the compact excavator beneath me and the intention of creating the best possible root environment for each mature apple, I spent three days carefully removing hostile material, blending what usable soil remained, and replacing the gravel-dominated root zones with fertile, well-structured soil.

At the end of those three days, eight mature cordon-trained apple trees stood in their new home.

“Until plants begin going into the ground, none of us truly knows what will happen next.”

Heat, Drought, and the Evidence of Roots

Every gardener, landscape architect, designer, and landscaper should admit a simple truth: until the plants begin responding, we do not completely know what will happen next. I rarely have the opportunity to create an ideal soil profile across an entire project. Most of the time, I must work with what exists, improve it intelligently, and then watch closely.

I was confident in the excavation and soil replacement, but the weather offered an immediate test. April and May brought aggressive heat, very little rain, and few of the cool nights that help newly moved apples settle. I visited the site almost every other day, checking moisture, watching drainage, and looking for signs that the trees were beginning to inhabit their new ground.

New growth, my friends, is the key that roots are doing things. When the apples began to push fresh growth, I knew the trees were producing new roots beneath the soil and beginning to establish.

Building the Ground by Hand

The apple trees were the storytellers, but they were not the entire structure. A lawn would create the open room for tables and people, while smaller perennial beds would bring flowers, movement, and a direct relationship to Perenn’s name.

Sod is no different from any other planting: its performance is determined largely by the ground beneath it. Yet we could not excavate and replace the whole site. The answer was repeated topsoil addition, careful amendment, and patient hand-grading.

For nearly three weeks, I avoided heavy machinery and graded the ground by hand. We needed water to move away from the parking area, travel gradually across the new garden, and percolate toward the Harpeth rather than standing in compacted pockets. Heavy equipment would have saved time in the moment while creating the very drainage failures we were trying to solve.

My Sneeboer tools and I worked across the space, grading, reevaluating, watching the effects of rain, and adjusting again until the surface was ready for sod.

As we moved farther from the building, more fragments of past construction emerged—small pieces of pale masonry and other debris from earlier building campaigns. The history of the property was visiting me again, not as an abstract story but as material held inside the ground.

The week the sod was ready, heat-index temperatures approached 105 degrees and Middle Tennessee was in an extended June drought. Those were not ideal conditions for establishing anything. Yet the apples continued to grow, the sod began to root, and daily attention carried the new garden through its first difficult season.

Roxbury Russet and the Long American Thread

One of the most compelling parts of the project is the selection of apples themselves. Roxbury Russet arose in or near Roxbury, Massachusetts, during the first decades of English settlement, traditionally dated to the 1630s or 1640s. It is generally regarded as the oldest surviving named apple cultivar to have originated in what became the United States.

Its skin is green beneath a heavy brown-gold russet. Near harvest, the flesh can be firm, coarse, and sharply subacid. With storage, it mellows, sweetens, and develops the aromatic character that made it valued as a late-winter dessert apple. Its durability also made it useful for shipping, cooking, and cider. By the nineteenth century, it was one of America’s best-known russet apples; modern cold storage and the commercial preference for brightly colored fruit later reduced its importance.8

Thomas Jefferson recorded planting Roxbury Russet in Monticello’s South Orchard in 1778.7 At Perenn, one of the newly installed trees carried a Roxbury Russet apple through its first seasonabove the Harpeth—a small fruit holding an unexpectedly long story.

Roxbury Russet is not important because it is fashionable. It is important because generations of people continued to graft it, carry it, plant it, eat it, and pass it forward. The wood of any individual tree is temporary; the cultivar survives through stewardship.

A Bridge from Then to Now

Franklin has always been a place where history matters and where an understanding of place matters. The new garden at Perenn sits beside a river crossing used for more than two centuries, on land that has held woodworking, warehousing, boats, restaurants, pavement, gravel, weeds, and runoff.

The work did not erase those layers. It responded to them. The old gravel determined how we built the root zones. The river determined how we graded the land. The parking lot determined the need for a screen. Mount Vernon’s espalier tradition suggested a form. River Road Farms supplied trees that had already absorbed years of patient training. Roxbury Russet supplied a living thread to early American horticulture.

Today, eight cordon-trained apples create a transparent garden wall above the Harpeth. A lawn provides a place to gather. Perennials will add the seasonal rhythm promised by Perenn’s name. Guests can meet, sit, eat, and look toward the river from a space that was once ignored.

That is what I hoped the garden would become: not a decoration placed beside the bakery, but a piece of garden making that recognizes where it stands. These trees are young in their new location, but the ideas they carry are old. Together, they form a bridge from then to now.

In 1913, the Sanborn map showed lumber warehouses at the Main Street riverfront and the Harpeth curving immediately to the east. The new Perenn garden occupies this same layered edge between town and river. Library of Congress, public domain.

Historical Sources and Image Credits

The garden-making narrative is Steve Mydelski’s firsthand account. The historical framing and clarifications draw on the following public and institutional sources.

1 Perenn Bakery. “About” and “Franklin.” Official descriptions of Aubrey and Tyler O’Laskey, the origin of the Perenn name, and the Franklin location. perennbakery.com.

2 City of Franklin, Tennessee. “Informational Meeting for Harpeth River Main Street Bridge Replacement,” June 24, 2026.

3 “Old Harpeth River Bridge” historical marker, erected by the Williamson County Historical Society and Save the Franklin Battlefield, 2011. Marker photograph by Steve Mydelski.

4 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from Franklin, Williamson County, Tennessee, January 1898 and September 1913. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress. Public domain.

5 George Washington’s Mount Vernon. “Lower Garden,” “Four Gardens at Mount Vernon,” and “Ten Facts About the Gardens at Mount Vernon.” These sources document apples and pears trained as espaliers along the garden walks.

6 River Road Farms, Decatur, Tennessee. “Purpose,” “Trees in Training,” and “Estate Grade Espalier Trees.” The nursery documents more than thirty years of specialized espalier work and mature trees trained over six to eight years.

7 Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. “Roxbury Russet Apple.” Jefferson recorded planting Roxbury Russet in the South Orchard in 1778.

8 S. A. Beach. The Apples of New York. Albany: J. B. Lyon, 1905. Public domain. Historical descriptions of Roxbury Russet’s form, storage quality, market value, and regional performance.

9 Williamson Source and FranklinIs coverage of Perenn’s May 2025 opening in the former Boat House/Americana Taphouse building at 94 East Main Street.

Image credits

• Old Harpeth River Bridge marker: photograph by Steve Mydelski.

• 1898 and 1913 Sanborn map details: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division; public domain.

On August 2nd, we’ll celebrate twelve years of marriage.

Wedding anniversaries are the celebration of time spent. They have a way of making you look backward, but this year they’ve made us look sideways as well. We’ve dived into the businesses we’ve built, the children we’re raising, the goals we’re setting, and the people we’ve turned into. Twelve years ago, we had no clue this is where we would end up.

People ask us what it’s like to be married and own businesses together. That’s follow most the time with a very specific facial expression. What they really want to know is how we separate our personal relationship from our business relationship.

The truth is, we don’t.

Somewhere along the way we stopped pretending our life had neat little compartments. Business shows up at breakfast. Parenting interrupts meetings. Date nights occasionally become brainstorming sessions (which sounds much more romantic than it actually is). It’s intertwined, but if we’re honest, it’s the only way we know how to make it work.

The biggest misconception is that working together is the hard part. It isn’t. We genuinely like being together.

The hard part is remembering that when life becomes overwhelming, your spouse is (most the time) not the problem.

Over the years we’ve noticed that the seasons which test our marriage rarely have much to do with our relationship. They almost always come from something outside of our control: a project that goes over budget, a difficult season financially, and under performing element of the business or a problem that simply has no immediate solution.

We’re both builders by nature. We like solving problems. We like making decisions. We like believing that if we work hard enough everything will figure itself out.

Until one day you can’t and it doesn’t.

And that’s where stress gets sneaky. It starts looking for somewhere to land, and if you’re not paying attention, it lands on the person standing closest to you. “Us against the problem” quietly becomes “us against each other.”

Somewhere along the last twelve years we’ve developed a reset button. Usually one of us says, “Hey…we’re on the same team.” We actually have a code word,”Kumquat” it doesn’t always work but its at least signifies to the other we’re tapped out and need a minute… or a day… or a month to sit on the subject.

It’s a simple sentence, but it changes everything.

The real goal isn’t to win the argument. It’s to survive the storm.

Maybe that’s what twelve years has really given us. Definitely not all the answers, but enough perspective to know that almost everything is temporary. The difficult seasons pass. The financial pressure passes. Even the wonderful seasons pass, which has taught us to pay closer attention while we’re living them.

2025 stretched us more than any other. We intentionally chose discomfort and challenge. We expanded, made a really big bet, and stepped down a path of no return knowing. Somewhere along the way we learned discomfort is a ever present norm and that it usually is where the rewards in life begin.

Marriage changes too.

The conversations become less about the two of you and more about the family you’re building, the parents you’re learning to care for, the children you’re raising, and the future you’re trying to create together. None of those conversations are separate from marriage, they are marriage.

We still disagree every day. Sometimes our team sees those moments. We’ve never wanted to pretend healthy marriages are conflict-free.

What matters isn’t avoiding conflict.

It’s remembering that you’re building the same thing.

At the end of every difficult day, after the budgets, the construction delays, the parenting decisions, and the impossible conversations, we’re reminded that nothing we’ve built is more important than the little family we’ve built together.

Everything else can be rebuilt.

This can’t.

12 Things We’ve Learned in 12 Years

Prioritize time together. It doesn’t have to be extravagant. One of our favorite dates was hiring a babysitter, eating In-N-Out, and driving around looking at old houses. The destination didn’t matter. The goal alignment did.

Don’t wait for life to slow down. It will when you are dead or worse retired. Schedule your relationship the same way you schedule everything else that matters.

Keep becoming your own individual person. Get an unrelated hobby or subject you obsess over. Be curious. A fulfilled person makes a stronger partner.

Learn each other’s love language. I feel loved through words of affirmation. Aubrey naturally show love through acts of service. Loving someone well often means speaking a language that doesn’t come naturally.

Talk about your future on purpose. Sit down every so often and ask, “Where do we want to be in five years?” It doesn’t happen by accident.

Have the uncomfortable conversations. Money, intimacy, resentment, fear, parenting. Honesty and openess creates closeness and understanding.

Encourage each other. Sometimes love is comfort. Sometimes it’s saying, “I think you’re capable of more, or you need to work on x.” You are a cheerleader, teammate and a coach at once.

Receive encouragement without becoming defensive. This is big. Just listen to what the other person has to say. I try and take a heavy conversation from the perspective of the fly on the wall. The whole picture. Defensiveness is the biggest hold up in most relationships I think. The person who knows you best is often the one who sees your greatest potential.

Remember that stress lies. A lot of time you need to clear your head before you have a discussion. Remove all the outside factors and focus in.

Protect your friendship. It comes first. It’s the foundation to your life. Never do anything to compromise it.

Repair quickly. Every marriage has conflict. Healthy marriages learn how to move on, forgive, and reconnect. Resentment is a communication problem or a personal problem not the others problem.

Stay curious. After 12 years you are no longer married to the same person you started with. Everyone is changing all the time, however slowly, things develop and perspectives change. Always revisit old thoughts. At the very least its a touch point and and opportunity on alignment.

When we catered we met a lot of parents of brides and grooms and we were lucky to have meet quite a few that had made it to some pretty monumental anniversaries. We would always ask,” what’s your one pieces of advice”? So what is yours?

⸻

P.S. Elevated Marry Me Chicken

Yes, it’s the internet’s most overdone recipe. And yes…it’s still a banger.

Our version starts by deeply browning the chicken before deglazing the pan with dry white wine. Stir a spoonful of white miso into the cream sauce for a subtle layer of umami, then finish with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, a little mascarpone, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh thyme, and a squeeze of lemon.

Instead of serving it over plain pasta, spoon it over lemon-herb farro cooked in chicken stock with garlic and lemon peel, then finish with parsley, chives, lemon zest, flaky salt, and good olive oil.

Top the chicken with torn basil, crispy shallots, fresh chives, cracked black pepper, and one final drizzle of peppery extra-virgin olive oil.

It’s familiar enough to feel comforting, but just elevated enough to make someone think you worked a whole lot harder than you actually did.

We’re creating a menu that celebrates Bloomsbury and the seasons, built around everything the farm has given us throughout the year. We’ve been preserving the flavors of spring and summer so they can come full circle in early fall.

We can’t wait to gather around the table with you.

Tickets are available here.

Seven years ago, for Aubrey’s birthday, I surprised her with a trip to Charleston. Neither of us had ever been. We spent our first day walking around the city, and what stood out wasn’t just the architecture or the food. It was how established everything felt. There was a clear sense of history and identity.

The next morning, we walked into a commercial real estate office and met LeGrand. He grew up in Charleston and offered to spend the day showing us around. He drove us through Sullivan’s Island, Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, and other areas, sharing stories about the city and how it had changed over time. It was an incredibly generous thing to do for two people he had just met.

At the time, Perenn was one 800-square-foot bakery in Midtown Reno. We had already decided to wind down our catering business after five years of weddings, we had two young daughters, and moving across the country felt possible. We spent a lot of that trip talking about whether Charleston could be a place we’d move to.

Looking back, that conversation mattered more than we realized.

About a week after we got home, we got a call from a catering company in Sonoma asking if we’d come consult. We said yes, packed up, and moved. We would split our time in Reno and Sonoma. Shortly after, COVID shut everything down.

What seemed like a short-term decision ended up giving us stability during a very uncertain time.

I’ve thought about what would have happened if we had chosen Charleston instead. There’s no way to know, and it’s not that useful to speculate.

What stands out is how little information we had when we made those decisions. Saying yes to Sonoma didn’t feel like it would shape the next several years. It just felt like the next step.

This week we went back to Charleston for the first time since that trip. We met LeGrand for coffee, and it felt easy to pick up where we left off. Some relationships don’t require constant contact.

We revisited a few places and found some new ones. We spent an afternoon at Sullivan’s Island. Ate peel-and-eat shrimp out of plastic bag on the pier of Crosby’s Fish & Shrimp Co. It was simple and memorable.

We also stopped by Himalaya to see the Land Rovers they’re restoring. The level of detail in their work was impressive. Dinner at Chubby Fish lived up to expectations. Hint: eat on the covered patio outside so you can enjoy drinks from their bar next door. Highlights was the tuna toast and char-broiled oysters.

We spent time in a number of antique stores, looking for furniture for our grocery in Nashville. On our last day, we went into Tucker Payne Antiques on King Street and found an old pub table that we’ll use as a produce table. It’s a good fit for what we’re building.

Comparing this trip to the first one, something else stood out. When we first visited Charleston, we had no idea we’d end up in Franklin, Tennessee. We couldn’t have predicted the locations we’d open, the people we’d meet, or what the business would become.

That’s how it usually works.

Our lives aren’t shaped by one big decision. They’re shaped by a series of smaller ones that add up over time. A trip. A conversation. A phone call. An opportunity that wasn’t planned. A relationship that continues over years.

Most of those moments don’t feel important when they happen. You only see their impact later.

Some don’t lead anywhere. Others matter more than you expect.

You don’t know which decisions will matter.

No one does.

The future is built gradually, through small choices made over time.

-T

Last night, I found myself nursing a little female hummingbird back to health.

She somehow found her way onto our patio, and I spent the evening feeding her nectar, checking on her every so often, hoping she’d be a little stronger with each passing hour.

Our kids named her Lucky, partly because of the beautiful emerald green feathers that shimmer every time the light catches them, and partly because she’d be lucky if she made it through the night.

I tucked her into a small box beside my bed before I went to sleep.

This morning, she was still here.

She’s trying so hard to fly. Every so often she’ll flutter her wings as if she’s reminding herself what they were made to do. She hasn’t quite found the strength yet, but she’s trying.

And maybe it’s just me, but every time she blinks, I can’t help but feel like she’s looking right at me.

In between checking on her, I did what I always seem to do when something captures my curiosity. I started researching hummingbirds…

One of my favorite things I learned is that hummingbirds often return to the exact same backyard year after year. They’ll come back to the same feeder and sometimes even the very same perch.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that.

It made me wonder if Lucky has visited our garden before. Maybe she was here last summer and we never even knew it. And if she regains her strength and flies away, maybe she’ll remember our backyard and come back again next year.

I hope she does.

It’s funny how something so small can slow an entire evening, and now an entire morning.

As I’ve been sitting here with Lucky, I’ve realized she’s been teaching me something.

Not about hummingbirds.

About noticing.

We spend so much of our lives searching for purpose. We define ourselves by the roles we play, being a parent, a spouse, a child, a sibling, or a business owner. Those things matter, of course. But lately I’ve been wondering if one of our deepest purposes is much quieter than we imagine.

Maybe it’s simply learning to notice.

To notice the way the morning sun spills across the kitchen counter before the house wakes up.

To sit outside in the afternoon and watch the yellow finches dive in and out of the sunflower heads, chasing one another as seeds scatter to the ground.

To notice two people lingering over coffee and a pastry, smiling at each other as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

To watch a young family walk into Perenn with their newborn tucked into a carrier, introducing them to grandparents over breakfast. Maybe it’s even their first time out with baby.

None of these moments are extraordinary on their own.

But together, they’re beginning to convince me that a beautiful life isn’t built from milestones. It’s built from paying attention to the ordinary.

Tyler and I have always been each other’s biggest cheerleaders. We dream together, encourage one another, and push each other to keep building when things feel hard.

But every now and then, we’re both a little uncertain at the same time.

I’ve realized those moments are important because they remind me not to depend entirely on someone else’s encouragement for my confidence.

Validation is wonderful when it comes, but it can’t be the foundation.

I’m learning to find reassurance somewhere quieter.

Not in accomplishments.

Not in social media.

Not in hearing someone say, “Good job.”

But in quietly knowing that today was meaningful.

That our kids laughed.

That dinner around our table was delicious.

That we built something today that reflects who we really are.

Maybe that’s enough.

Around Here Lately

Paying closer attention has also made me appreciate the little things filling this season of life.

I’ve been “bricking” my phone more often. If you haven’t heard of Brick, it’s a little device that lets you intentionally disconnect from your phone. I didn’t realize how often I reached for it until I stopped. There’s something freeing about being a little less available.

I’ve been living in linen almost every day this summer. My favorite dresses have been from Sézane and Gap. Maybe it’s the fabric, but linen somehow makes me want to move a little slower.

The garden is finally beginning to bloom, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to walk outside each morning. I’ve been cutting flowers and putting together little arrangements for no special occasion at all, just to celebrate the summer blooms. No dinner party. No holiday. Just a vase on the kitchen counter because the flowers are beautiful. Everyday life is worth celebrating, too.

I’ve also been eating an unreasonable amount of Fiber One cereal. Or, more accurately, the Trader Joe’s version. Our oldest daughter looked at the box, laughed, and told me I could’ve just used the cardboard from our compost bin instead. Honestly, valid.

I’m late to the party, but I’ve been watching Ted Lasso, and I finally understand why everyone loves it. There’s something so refreshing about his optimism. He reminds me that kindness isn’t weakness and that building a great team starts with believing in people.

I’ve also been completely pulled into the World Cup. I love the camaraderie, the emotion, and secretly hope America continues falling in love with soccer. Although, if I’m being honest, I mostly love listening to the English commentators.

My favorite snack is still cottage cheese with sunflower seeds. Some habits never change.

Whenever I have a chance, I’ve been listening to How I Built This and Advice Line with Guy Raz. Every episode leaves me wanting to build a little more thoughtfully.

One of my favorite moments recently was hearing our four-year-old use the word “important” perfectly in a sentence. It’s funny how those tiny milestones catch you off guard. One day they’re toddlers, and the next they’re using words that remind you just how quickly they’re growing.

We’ve also been making the same dinner on repeat: crispy seared salmon with seasoned sushi rice. Served with cucumbers tossed in a little sugar, vinegar and toasted sesame seeds, kimchi, pickled ginger, fresh thin slices of lemon, and tons of sheets of toasted seaweed. One of our kids recently declared it their favorite meal we’ve ever made.

It made me realize that every family has those handful of recipes that quietly become part of their story. Meals no one planned to make forever, but somehow become home.

Speaking of home, I’d genuinely love to know: what’s the meal your family makes over and over again? The one everyone looks forward to and would probably ask for if they were coming home for dinner? I’d love to borrow a few ideas.

Something I’m Dreaming About

One thing that’s been on my mind lately is how Perenn can become even more involved in our communities.

We’ve donated pastries, gift cards, and supported fundraisers for years, and we’ll continue doing that.

But lately I’ve been dreaming about something that feels a little more lasting.

I’d love for Perenn to help build gardens at public schools in the communities we’re fortunate enough to serve.

Watching our own children pick tomatoes off the vine, recognize herbs growing in the garden, and stop to admire flowers has made me realize how grounding those experiences are.

Every child deserves to know where food comes from.

Every child deserves the chance to put their hands in the soil and watch something grow because they cared for it.

As cheesy as it may sound, I don’t think there’s much that brings more inner peace than feeling connected to the earth.

Maybe that’s what Lucky has been teaching me.

Slow down.

Look around.

Notice the ordinary.

There is so much beauty waiting for us when we do.

Before I go, I’d love to hear from you.

What’s something you’ve been quietly loving lately?

Or what’s the meal your family seems to make over and over again?

I have a feeling some of my future dinners will come from your suggestions.

One more thing I’ve been loving is making the most of what’s coming out of the garden.

Read more

One of the hardest parts about building a business is learning the difference between perseverance and acceptance.

For the last year, we’ve served dinner at Perenn Franklin. From the beginning, we imagined neighbors lingering over a bottle of wine, birthdays celebrated around the table, and a restaurant that slowly became woven into people’s weekly routines. We developed a Family Chicken Dinner imagining families picking them up on their way home from soccer games with a hearty wholesome meal.

Some nights felt exactly like that.

Others were quieter.

The truth is, dinner never became as consistently busy as we’d hoped. We could point changing dining habits, the economy, or any number of reasons. Some of those things are probably true.

But over the past few months, Tyler and I found ourselves asking a different question.

Not, “How do we make dinner busier?”

But, “Do we actually need to do everything?”

That question changed everything.

I think when you build a business, especially one that’s growing, there’s this quiet assumption that success means adding.

More hours.

More offerings.

More concepts.

More opportunities.

If you can do something, surely you should.

But every ‘yes’ quietly takes time, energy, and attention away from something else.

Preparing to open Perenn Grocery has forced us to look at our business through a different lens.

The grocery isn’t just another location. It’s a reflection of what we’ve always loved most about Perenn. It’s the sum of every step we’ve made from being private chefs, to catering weddings, meal prepping and running a bakery cafe.

Somewhere along the way, I think we started believing that to be a “complete” restaurant, we had to do breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails, private events… everything.

Looking back, I’m not sure why.

Who made that rule?

Maybe maturity is realizing that you don’t have to be everything to everyone.

Maybe it’s actually the opposite. I think it truly is our own ego too.

Maybe becoming exceptional means having the courage to focus.

Sometimes we keep something alive because we don’t want to admit it isn’t becoming what we imagined.

We’ve learned there’s a difference between quitting too soon and holding onto something simply because you don’t want to let go of the original vision.

This decision doesn’t feel like giving up.

It feels like clarity.

It feels like choosing depth over breadth.

And, honestly, it feels like a weight off our shoulders.

If I’m being especially honest, Tyler and I also had another realization… We’re simply not night people.

But we do love throwing a party.

That’s why this next chapter feels so exciting.

Instead of regular dinner service, Franklin will become Perenn After Dark.

Private celebrations.

Holiday dinners.

Valentine’s dinners.

Themed pop-ups…

One-night experiences that feel special because they aren’t happening every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

There’s something magical about creating an evening people have been looking forward to for weeks instead of trying to recreate that feeling every single weekend.

That feels much more like us.

As we prepare to open Perenn Grocery in Nashville, we’ve found ourselves thinking less about becoming a place people visit for special occasions and more about becoming part of everyday life.

Maybe we’re the place you stop for flowers because your kitchen table feels empty.

Maybe we’re where you grab bread every Friday.

Maybe it’s where you pick up the Family Chicken Dinner on your lunch break so dinner is one less thing to think about that evening.

Maybe it’s soup when someone at home is sick.

Butter you’ll always want in your refrigerator.

Coffee on your way to work.

Maybe our role isn’t to be the place where you celebrate twice a year.

Maybe it’s to quietly become part of your weekly rhythm.

There’s something incredibly meaningful about that.

For a long time, we thought growth meant becoming bigger.

Lately, we’ve realized it can also mean becoming more ourselves.

And that feels like the best kind of growth there is.

One Last Dinner

With that in mind, we’ve made the decision to conclude regular dinner service at our Franklin location.

Our final dinner service will be Saturday, August 15.

Between now and then, we’ll continue serving dinner Thursday through Saturday, and we’d genuinely love to have you join us. If you’ve been meaning to come for dinner, we’d love to share one last evening with you before we close this chapter.

After August 15, our Franklin location will transition to Perenn After Dark, where we’ll host private events, full restaurant buyouts, and special dining experiences throughout the year.

To everyone who has celebrated a birthday with us, gathered around our tables, or simply let us cook dinner on a busy evening, thank you.

You helped shape this chapter of Perenn.

We can’t wait to show you what’s next.

Please come join us for dinner before our last official service.

Click here to make a resy.

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It comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s flattering. Sometimes it’s thoughtful and constructive. Most of the time it isn’t. That comes with building something in public. Over the years we’ve developed thicker skin, and we’re fortunate to have each other to process both the highs and the lows 24/7. Whether we’re celebrating a win (have to work on this) or questioning every decision we’ve ever made, the conversation usually ends up in the same place.

Why are we doing this?

Who does it serve?

What kind of company are we actually trying to build?

We’ve realized that daily conversations between Aubrey and I have been evolving for more than a decade. They shape nearly every decision we make, yet most people who visit our restaurants or even work alongside us have never heard them. They only see the results or request for change or the push to do something new.

This series is about sharing the thinking behind those decisions. We’ll also be expanding many of these topics into video conversations.

When we started the company, we had a chip on our shoulder. Our heads were full of the voices we inherited during our training.

“You won’t go anywhere unless you give this your whole life.”

“You can’t have a family and run a restaurant.”

Over time we decided to challenge those assumptions. Instead of accepting them, we built our company around the opposite idea. We believed it should be possible to build a great restaurant, have a family, enjoy your work, and create opportunities for the people around you. That belief has become our compass. It doesn’t mean we always get it right, but it gives us something consistent to measure ourselves against.

One framework we return to constantly is what we call “the wheel.”

Years ago, while working for Dan Barber, he would call the kitchen from his office twenty feet away, with a perfectly clear view of everything happening, and ask, “Is the train on the tracks?”

Every time I answered yes.

The truth was I had no idea where the train was actually going.

Our wheel is our attempt to answer that question.

The wheel has four quadrants. Guest perception, employee experience, business stability, equitability. Every decision we make has to check those boxes in a way. If one area is neglected, the ride becomes rough. Ignore it long enough, and eventually the wheel comes off.

Are we perfect at this? Not even close. But it gives us a way to think through difficult decisions instead of reacting solely on emotions( although that is sometimes important.

From the highest perspective it is cyclical.

You need happy guests to have a healthy business.

You need a healthy business to invest in your team.

You need a great team to create happy guests.

Then the cycle starts over again.

On paper, the cycle makes perfect sense. Living it out every day takes nuance.

Lately we’ve been watching Ted Lasso. Early in the series he installs a suggestion box. One of the first requests he tackles is improving the shower pressure in the locker room.

It’s a small detail, but it perfectly captures something we believe.

Culture is often built through seemingly insignificant decisions that quietly tell people, “We thought about you.”

That same thinking shapes how we design every one of our restaurants.

Most people only experience the dining room. What they don’t see is how much thought goes into the spaces our team spends eight hours working in. Many of our employees started as customers. During interviews they’ll often say something like, “Everyone here looks like they actually enjoy working together.” Hearing that means more than compliments about the food or the design. Professional kitchens will always be demanding. They’re hot, loud, fast-paced, and stressful. We can’t eliminate that reality, but we can reduce unnecessary friction.

Whenever possible we design our kitchens around natural light. Sometimes that’s through windows in the dish pit. Spending slightly more on a door with a window. Sometimes it’s an open doorway to the front of house.

There’s psychology behind that.

If you’ve ever worked in a New York City basement kitchen, you know how draining it can be day to day month to month. On the other hand, if you’re shaping croissants or plating food and can glance up to see a guest anticipating or partaking in the dish you just made, it reconnects you to the purpose of the work.

That feeling matters.

Most people will never notice those design decisions. That’s okay. They weren’t made to be noticed. They were made because they align with the kind of company we’re trying to build.

This is exactly the type of conversation we want this series to explore. Not just what we do, but why we do it.

So we’d like your help.

Is there something you’ve noticed about Perenn that you’ve always wondered about? A decision we’ve made? A process? A design choice? A product? Something you’ve been curious about but never asked?

Leave it in the comments.

We’ll choose questions, unpack the thinking behind them, and use them as future articles and videos. Some answers may be practical. Others may be philosophical. Either way, we’ll share the reasoning that guides us, even when the answer isn’t obvious.

Thank for reading!

T

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For our first wedding anniversary, Tyler and I drove to Mendocino and stayed at a tiny inn tucked along the coast. One evening they served paella outside, everyone gathered around one giant pan with glasses of wine in hand. Twelve years later, it’s still one of the meals we talk about most.

When we started thinking about how to celebrate our first year in Tennessee, we kept coming back to that memory. What better way to celebrate than with a giant pan of paella shared with all of you?

Earlier this summer, we spent a few days in Portugal. Beyond the beautiful coastline, one of the things that fascinated us most were the rice fields stretching across parts of the country. Rice isn’t just an ingredient there. It’s part of the landscape, the culture, and the rhythm of everyday life. Everywhere we went, meals seemed to revolve around gathering around giant pans of rice filled with seafood, vegetables, and whatever was fresh that day.

We came home even more convinced that this was exactly how we wanted to celebrate.

This past year has been wild in the very best way. We opened our doors in Franklin not really knowing what to expect, and somehow, over the last twelve months, so many of you have become part of our story. You’ve made Perenn part of your morning routine, celebrated birthdays with us, introduced us to your friends, and welcomed our family into this community.

We honestly couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than gathering everyone around a giant paella pan.

So, on Wednesday, July 8, from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m., we’re hosting a Paella Party on the patio at Perenn Franklin.

It will be incredibly casual. Open seating. Family friendly. Outdoor tables, warm summer air, and giant pans of paella coming straight from the fire.

Tickets are $40 per person and include two kinds of paella, pain con tomate, and dessert. We’ll also have sangria, wine, and beer available for purchase.

Tyler and I will both be there all evening, and we’d genuinely love to see you. Whether you’ve been with us since opening day or just discovered Perenn, we’d be honored to celebrate this first year together.

Sometimes the best meals aren’t really about the food. They’re about slowing down long enough to share them with the people around you.

We hope you’ll come hang out with us.

Click HERE to purchase tickets.

Lots of love,

Aubrey & Tyler

Can’t celebrate with us? Make a pitcher of sangria, invite a few friends over, and toast the middle of summer from wherever you are.

Red Sangria with Brandy

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients

• 1 bottle Spanish red wine

• 1/2 cup brandy

• 1/4 cup orange liqueur

• 1/4 cup sugar, or more to taste

• 1 orange, thinly sliced

• 1 lemon, thinly sliced

• 1 apple, chopped

• 1 cup chilled sparkling water or club soda

Method

In a large pitcher, combine the wine, brandy, orange liqueur, and sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Add the orange, lemon, and apple, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours, though overnight is even better.

Just before serving, stir in the sparkling water or club soda. Pour over plenty of ice and enjoy.

Here’s to long summer evenings, shared tables, and another year of making memories together.

Aubrey here.

I’ve always been comfortable alone.

Even as a teenager, I never quite fit into what seemed like the normal social scene. I wasn’t interested in getting drunk at parties or experimenting with drugs. The idea of losing control of my body never appealed to me. While everyone else seemed to be gathering around those experiences, I often found myself on the outside looking in.

I don’t say that with resentment. It was simply who I was.

In high school I found cycling. If you’ve ever spent hours alone on a bike, you know it’s a sport that rewards solitude. Long stretches of road, your own thoughts, the rhythm of your breathing. I loved it.

Somewhere along the way, I became very good at relying on myself.

I learned how to entertain myself. How to work by myself. How to spend time by myself. How to process things internally. I never felt particularly lonely because I genuinely enjoyed my own company.

For most of my life, I viewed that as a strength.

Lately, though, I’ve started wondering if perhaps I leaned too far in that direction.

If I’m honest, I’ve probably made friendship harder on myself than it needed to be.

I’ve spent much of my life moving toward something.

I transferred universities. I moved to New York. I moved near Lake Tahoe. I moved across the country again to Tennessee.

Each move brought incredible opportunities, people, experiences, and growth. I wouldn’t trade any of it.

But every move also came with a cost.

Every time you leave, you leave behind the effortless proximity that friendship depends on. The spontaneous coffee. The familiar faces. The people who know your history because they lived it alongside you.

You start over.

And if you’re someone who is naturally comfortable alone, starting over can feel deceptively easy.

You tell yourself you’ll stay in touch.

You tell yourself you’ll visit.

You tell yourself you’ll make new friends.

And sometimes you do.

But years pass quickly.

The older I get, the more I realize that roots don’t happen accidentally. They require tending like our garden, just like everything else worth having.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to realize that friendship serves a purpose beyond simply having someone to spend time with.

Friendship becomes a witness to your life.

Someone who remembers who you were before you became who you are.

Someone who understands the context.

Someone who knows why a particular victory matters, or why a particular disappointment stings more than it should.

The challenge is that adulthood makes friendship incredibly complicated.

When we’re young, friendship happens by accident.

You’re assigned a locker next to someone.

You sit beside someone in class.

You join the same team.

Proximity does most of the work.

As adults, friendship becomes intentional.

And intentional things require time.

Time is the thing many of us seem to have the least of.

I have four children. A marriage. A business. Employees. Parents who are aging. A house that constantly needs something. There are days when it feels like every minute already belongs to someone else.

Which means that when I do have a free evening, I don’t find myself craving more acquaintances.

I find myself craving depth.

I don’t want another surface-level conversation.

I want the kind of friendship where you can pick up where you left off six months ago.

The kind where there is no performance.

The kind where someone knows the whole story.

For a long time, work filled some of that role.

When you’re building a business, the people around you often become your closest relationships simply because you’re spending so much time together. You share victories, setbacks, stress, and long days.

But I’ve also realized that not every relationship needs to live inside of work.

In fact, some boundaries are healthy.

Still, creating those boundaries can leave you staring at an uncomfortable reality: without work, where exactly do adult friendships come from?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

Maybe friendship in adulthood isn’t harder because people are less friendly.

Maybe it’s harder because our lives become fuller.

We become more particular.

We know ourselves better.

We’re no longer looking for people to spend time with.

We’re looking for people to share a life with.

And perhaps that’s why it feels so rare.

Maybe part of why I’ve been thinking about this so much is because of my children.

As parents, we spend so much time teaching our kids practical skills. Work hard. Be kind. Be resilient. Be independent.

Independence has always come naturally to me.

What I’m beginning to wonder is whether I’ve given enough thought to teaching them the opposite.

How to need people.

How to keep people.

How to nurture friendships over years and decades.

How to make room in a busy life for connection.

I hope my children grow up confident enough to stand on their own.

But I also hope they grow up understanding something I’m only now learning myself:

A meaningful life isn’t built alone.

The people we love deserve tending too.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe friendship in adulthood isn’t something we find.

Maybe it’s something we create.

Maybe it looks less like waiting for the perfect friend to magically appear and more like inviting someone for coffee.

Maybe it’s texting the person you’ve been meaning to text.

Maybe it’s hosting a dinner when you’re tired.

Maybe it’s saying yes when your first instinct is to say no… Let’s be honest, it becomes easier for some reason as I age. (I like being comfy).

Maybe it’s being willing to be the one who reaches out first.

I don’t know exactly what the answer is, but I do know that the friendships I value most didn’t happen because life conveniently brought us together. They happened because someone made an effort and someone else said yes.

So that’s what I’m going to try.

I’m going to stop assuming friendship should happen naturally.

I’m going to stop waiting until life gets less busy.

I’m going to stop believing there will be some future season where I suddenly have more time.

Instead, I’m going to treat friendship like the important part of life that it is.

Because if I’ve learned anything, it’s that meaningful relationships don’t happen by accident. They happen through intention.

And if you’re feeling this too, I’d love to know:

How have you made friends in adulthood?

What has actually worked?

Because I have a feeling I’m not the only one trying to figure this out.

If all this talk of friendship has left you feeling emotional, may I suggest the universal remedy: hazelnut ice cream with Nutella and an unreasonable amount of toasted hazelnuts.

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Before leaving, I told myself I was going to disconnect. Not completely, but enough to create some space. Enough to let the team operate without me constantly inserting myself into every conversation.

The reality is that I still checked Slack. I still read emails. I still made notes in my phone. A lot of notes...

At some point during the trip, I completely spiraled into a packaging and private label frenzy. I was emailing vendors left and right, going mad really.

Every grocery store became research. Every shelf became inspiration. Every beautifully designed package became something I picked up, turned over, photographed, and analyzed. I literally have packaging from prepared foods in my closet. lol.

I came home with hundreds of photos, dozens of notes, and a growing realization that if we’re serious about Perenn Grocery, I may need to spend less time thinking like a bakery owner and more time thinking like a grocer.

That’s a strange realization.

For years, I’ve wanted visibility into everything. I like knowing what’s happening. I like understanding all the moving parts. I like being involved. Even when it’s unnecessary. Even when the team has it handled. There’s comfort in knowing.

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We are so incredibly lucky to have Sean’s support and perspective. Below is a guest post written by Sean on what it was like to spend a dinner service at Perenn Franklin.

P.s. We realize that there’s so many incredible stories behind our farmer’s, producers and folks that we work with. Our goal is to start connecting the “why” more and share these stories. So prepare for more guests posts.

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I don’t want to say I was nervous before I walked into the Perenn kitchen on a recent Friday afternoon. But yeah, I was a little bit nervous. I was there to stage, and I’d never spent much time in a commercial kitchen, so I had no idea what to expect. This is a place I respect deeply, so I didn’t want to make them regret letting me peek behind the curtain. Thankfully, within a few minutes of meeting Chef Marcus and the team, I felt at ease. At home, even. That’s a testament to the culture that exists at Perenn, both front of house and back of house. But I’ll come back to that.

I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of interesting stuff in my career that has spanned the tech industry and the music business. I worked on servers at Amazon in the early days, wrote code at Google, oversaw billion-dollar product lines, and ran digital marketing for one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. But, underneath all of that, I’ve long had a fascination with both cooking and the restaurant business. My mom is a great cook, so cooking has always been a part of my life. In my early 20s, watching Alton Brown gave me a deeper understanding of how food works. And reading Kitchen Confidential shortly after it first came out opened my eyes to a world I didn’t know existed.

I spent some of the most formative years of my life in the Reno/Tahoe/Carson Valley area, so when I learned that a popular Reno restaurant was opening just a short walk from my house in Franklin, I felt an instant connection to them. My wife Becky and I made sure to be among the first customers for both breakfast and dinner service, and we’ve grown to love the place, the food, and the people. So, when Aubrey brought up the idea of me spending some time in the kitchen, I saw it as an amazing opportunity to indulge my fascination with the restaurant business while learning more about one of our favorite places to eat.

When I arrived on the evening of my stage, Chef gave me a tour of the kitchen. It was smaller than I expected. Even though I’ve been in the building many (many) times, I didn’t quite understand the physical reality until I was standing there in the space. I’ve seen smaller kitchens, but for the number and complexity of dishes that Perenn puts out, it’s not a ton of real estate. There is no wasted space — efficiency is clearly the name of the game. While the massive rotisserie cranked away cooking chickens to a perfect golden brown, the team was busy preparing their stations. Everyone had a task, but no one appeared stressed. This was the calm before the storm.

At 4:30, it was time for the pre-service meeting, led by Chef Marcus and FOH manager Emily. This was my first glimpse into how Perenn truly operates: composed, collaborative, and detail-oriented. We went over how many reservations there were for the evening, the special requests and dietary restrictions, and details of the night’s menu (particularly the parts that change frequently, like the pasta of the day and the tasting menu). I’ve heard tales of rivalries between front of house and back of house before, but there were no signs of that here. It was one team, working together to create a great experience for their guests.

Then, we headed back to the kitchen to do final prep for dinner. Naively, I expected tickets to start rolling in the minute service started at 5. But, obvious in hindsight, it takes a while for guests to get settled, look over the menu, and place their orders. The calm lasted until about 5:15 when the first tickets popped up on the screen. Immediately, bread went down on the flat-top to be toasted (if you’re not starting your Perenn dinner with bread, butter, and radishes, what are you even doing?). Salads began being assembled. The screen continued to fill with tickets, and the real action was under way. The energy noticeably shifted once there were orders to work on.

Even with a bunch of food to prepare, the kitchen was remarkably quiet most of the time. There was no shouting, no music blaring, no chaos. Just efficient, continuous, calm communication. The notable exception to the quiet was Chef’s regular call-out of “HANDS!”: a request for a server to come pick up food and take it to the dining room. Chef wants guests to experience the food at its peak, and any delay is a risk to quality, so there was a sense of urgency to these moments.

After standing at the pass for a while and getting a feel for how orders flow in and out, I got to the fun part. I went over to the line with Travis to learn how to cook. Travis is a veteran in the Perenn kitchen, and, thankfully, a patient teacher even while he’s working hard. The quarters were tight, and the surfaces were hot. I did my best to stay out of the way, but at times we were jostling for space. I managed to avoid burning myself, which I consider a win. I’m not sure I successfully avoided being in anyone’s way.

As we put together several dishes — fresh pasta with trumpet mushrooms; mussels and garlic herb butter on a croissant; scallops with herb soubise and asparagus; Sunday roast with potatoes, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding — Travis showed me how to make one, and then let me try my hand at the next. I’m a confident and experienced home cook, but cooking and plating food on this level takes some practice. Details matter here, I did my best to get them right.

Next up was working with Chef on expo. This is the final quality-control point, and also where garnishes and other finishing-touches are applied. I got to learn the magic touch of applying herb oil to finish a dish, I searched for aesthetic ways to place radishes around the bread and butter, and I channeled my inner artist as I laid herbs and flower petals around plates.

One thing that surprised me was how rhythmic the work is in the kitchen. Tickets arrive in waves, and there are pronounced peaks and lulls of activity. Within each wave, there are mini waves: first the appetizers are needed, then mids, then entrees, then desserts. The orders are not perfectly synchronized, but they overlap. It’s simultaneously predictable and unpredictable. There are patterns, but they shift. I started to see how experience enables the team members to anticipate what is coming, and be prepared for it. That’s the kind of thing that can’t really be taught; you just have to internalize it by doing it.

Any time there was a lull, I filled the empty spa,ce with questions, and I learned a lot of interesting things. Chef showed me how he could order more scallops right from his phone, and they’d show up the next day. He demonstrated how deliveries are coordinated between the various Perenn locations using Slack. I learned about how the “muscargot” dish evolved based on guest feedback. And the team shared which dishes they find the most challenging (that’s a secret I’m going to keep for myself).

As the action wound down for the night, I reflected on the experience. It was a lot of fun to be in a different environment than I’m used to, and I loved learning some new skills. But my biggest take-away was how impressive the Perenn culture is. As a guest, I’ve always enjoyed the way the place makes me feel. But you never really know what happens behind the scenes. Even the most wonderful places on Earth can sometimes be pretty difficult back-stage. I was only there for one shift, so I can’t claim to know how things are every day. But from my observation, this is a team that works together smoothly, truly likes each other, and cares about doing a good job. They post Polaroid pictures on the wall, both celebrating humorous failures, and showing off their families. They give each other a hard time, but it’s good-natured and received well. Feedback is constructive (if sometimes humorous).

These things all combine to create a unique culture where people can do their best work, excellence can be expected without being enforced using toxic behavior, and a stranger like me can walk in on a random Friday night and immediately feel like a member of the team. That’s something special.

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The biggest takeaway was something almost frustratingly simple:

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