HB 002: The Sunrise Shack on Oahu – How Four Surfers Share Their Passion for Healthy Eating with Founder Travis Smith

Travis Smith 0:00

That's kind of how we started is really small times at first we're doing like $100 a day. And we also just thought we're just a pop up or just that wintertime is we get a huge you're listening

Bryan Murphy 0:11

to Travis Smith, who is the operating founder of the sunrise shack, and the sunrise shack started about two years ago. It's incredible on what these brothers have been able to build in this short amount of time. The brothers Travis Smith co Smith, Alex Smith, and also co Rockman. Some of those names are probably very familiar to you. If you're at all familiar with the surfing world, the Smith brothers come from a very entrepreneurial background and you're going to hear some of that and how the sunrise shack came to be. Travis and I we get to talk about everything from modeling in New York to growing up on quiet and also how the sunrise shacks started. And it was just kind of as you heard him say it was intended to be Like this pop up thing up on the North Shore, which around wintertime is very busy all the surf competitions happen around that time. We're going to unpack some of that how that came to be. So I can't wait for you to hear my conversation today with Travis. But before we do that, cue the intro.

Hawaii's Best 1:21

Aloha. Welcome to Hawaii's Best podcasts, learn the stories behind Hawaii's Best experiences, influencers and businesses. Discover everything that makes Hawaii the Aloha state. And now your host Brian Murphy.

Bryan Murphy 1:37

Welcome to Hawaii's Best you got Episode Two. I'm your host Brian Murphy. I am just pumped for today. We're just getting started here and I can't think of a better way to kick off Hawaii's Best podcast than with Travis Smith. So let's just go ahead and dive right into it. So stay around to the end I'm going to give you my takeaways from this conversation with Travis and also with our social media. contest is for the week. So as we get gone with Hawaii's Best and we do these, these interviews, they're more just conversations, I really want them to feel like we're at a coffee shop just talking over some good coffee. Like we're all friends, even though you know, this is Travis in our first time meeting, but really want the conversation to feel organic and kind of let it go where it needs to go. So that's why we're calling the section talk story. So when I say that, that's just you know, you just kind of talking with old friends, you're just passing the time chit chatting. So that's what we're going to do so right now let's go ahead and let's talk story with Travis Smith in here all about how the sunrise shot came to be.

Travis Hey, thanks for joining us today on this very first episode of Hawaii's Best podcasts. How are you doing today?

Travis Smith 2:55

Yeah, I'm doing good. I'm just sitting here in my apartment and it's right on the North Shore. And we scored this little beachfront. So it's not

Bryan Murphy 3:04

how long have you been living on North Shore?

Travis Smith 3:07

I've been living here for probably two years now. Or that I was in New York for five years. I was out there doing some modeling stuff. And then before that I was raised on why.

Bryan Murphy 3:22

So then what, what brought you back to the islands a couple years ago?

Travis Smith 3:25

Um, yes. So I kind of just graduated high school and I got approached for modeling. And I really just like, didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't want to go to college. I wanted to see the world a bit. So I just went with this modeling route. And it's really fun. while it lasted. I had like some amazing opportunities. I got to travel all over New York City, and all over America really and the world. I got to live in London for a bit. I went to Thailand and Hong Kong and see For diamond, but the whole fashion industry is really amazing. That just the whole time I was just feeling like this a piece of me Missing You know, I was just like I need the ocean. I need the warm like tropical, tropical, like just environment and I've even been other places too that are tropical and for me it's not as good as full. I think I've always planned on coming home. I just didn't know when I was going to come.

Yeah, so I mean if you bring it back like to more the beginning. I have two brothers. They're both professional surfers one is 24 years old. Now he's co Smith. He's a pretty well known surfer. And then I'm 26 years old Travis Smith. I'm in the middle and then my older brother Alex Smith, 28 years old. He's also Like a really talented pro surfer as well. So we just grew up surfing our whole lives. And we kind of grew up right in nature to like where we're from on kawhi. Like, half the places have no phone service because it's such a dense jungle in the map, then we'll go find these little surf spots and growing up we homeschooled. So we searched like, five, six hours a day. And it's just like, in our blood, you know, but yeah, just I think being like so close to the ocean and so close to nature. We just had a really good understanding Sure, like good food, and what what food like you should eat and, you know, avoid the processed foods or the foods that have been touched too much like chemicals and everything like that. So that's kind of originally how it started. We heard about this concept called bullet coffee or like bulletproof coffee. I was probably like, 16 years old or so. The first time I tried it, it just like really just turned my brain on. Like, our first batch is just like some good organic coffee with some coconut oil, some grass fed butter, and just blended it all together and poured it out is like super creamy and frothy. And we're just like, okay, like, let's try it out. And then we drank it and it's just like,

you only know if you've tried it, but

and it's just like, we'll turn your brain on. It's not like a weird energy there. It's not like a Red Bull or anything. It's like this crazy like your brain is feels like so much focus. If Yeah, if you don't use it the right way, like go for a run or do go for a server, you know, start working like it'll be maybe too much for some people. But we we were so fascinated by the idea of this bullet coffee. I just don't wait deeper into it. Different healthy fats to just blend in to this really good idea. Get a coffee. We found like the best coffee we could find. And we just made all these different combinations. And we would like bring, like, we invite, like, 10 of our best friends over be like, Hey guys, like, come come over in the morning at like 5am we're like I'm gonna make a massive bash with this bullet coffee and we're all just gonna go surf like big waves like they were just all like, like, super groggy and I just like mad raging like yeah, like, like good music, and everyone's just sagging. Oh, look at that way. Oh my gosh, and then all go out there and a pack and I just heard it from so many people so many times that like they're like, you should like sell this you should sell it. So that's actually what I did. And I actually started in New York City. I called it Trigger Happy coffee. funny name, but my middle name is trigger. And it was like the coffee. That was the slogan. I kind of forget the slogan, but it's just like this little guy, and he was like a little cup and he was happy. And he had a like a logo on the

Unknown Speaker 8:17

whole thing.

Travis Smith 8:18

Yeah. And I started at farmer's markets in New York City, which are really hard to get into. But there's like this one coffee vendor that pulled out, and I had a window to jump in, and I did. And our first day like, I had no idea what I was doing. I had like six of my buddies helping me like, I didn't know what equipment to use. I was using this coffee pot that like, just burnt the hell out of coffee. And, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. And it's really hard to transport stuff around the New York City, you know, like I was carrying like 200 pounds of stuff on the subway, coffee, pots and coffee and everything. Our first our first festival was in was in Long Island City and which is like, right, you know, in Brooklyn. And we did like 20 $500 in five hours. So it's like almost like a coffee machine minutes. Yeah, we didn't really get and then we had it the next weekend too. And we like had this buzz in the air. Like a lot of the people that came the first time came back, apparently just super amped on it. I was like, you know, that's really cool. This, this coffee concepts working. And so I just kept on doing it. We did it week after week. And it was just such a grind and New York just having to carry all this stuff. And then I actually met a few of these guys and they're interested in investing in the concept. And I sat down and I thought about it. I was like, you know, do I really want to live in New York City for the next few years or you know, starting a business might be a lifetime, you know, you never know. So I kind of just like pulled back and I was like, You know what? Why don't I try to do something back in Hawaii. I could partner up with my brothers and one of our really good friends Kohler often, he is just a real local here on the North Shore of Oahu. He just has all the connections you need, and he's just a super good friend. And so I just reached out to him as well. And I was like, hey, like, if you found like a spot for us love to just like partner up, we'll just do a little pop up. We'll just sell coffee. And like this bullet coffee is like Yeah, let's do it because he knows about the bullet coffee. Yeah. Yeah, a few months ago by over the summer of 2016. And, and he keeps on like sending me these little things on Craigslist. What about this? What about this, we wanted to be a pipeline because that's all the action is. And then he just randomly sent me this little photo of this beat up little shack. And it was like, a pretty ugly colors like between a blue and a green and another color. And it's like it was almost blending into the bushes you can even and he's like, what about this? It's like, Oh, that's not what I was thinking, you know, trailer like, you know, tow around, we could be mobile is okay. Well, to keep that up, like, you know, keep that in your thoughts and so we couldn't find anything else and then it was coming down to Okay, let's just go for the shack. And luckily him and his family knew that, like the owners of the property. We all partnered up. We just started we painted the whole thing yellow. We called it the sunrise shack because it's across from Sunset Beach, right? Sunset Beach is like right there where the sunrise were like a morning experience, you know, rise sun and we have just those bullet coffees to launch the whole time. Except, and that's kind of how we started is really small times at first we're doing like $100 a day. And we also just thought we're just a pop up, but just that winter time because we get a huge flux of people here in the winter. All the surf events, the waves are massive. It's just the time to be here if you're gonna come to the north shore and that's what we had in mind. And so yeah, it's really slow starts in the beginning I was just there by myself and Okay, you know, all of a sudden the health inspector comes in and

Bryan Murphy 12:37

set up for this.

Travis Smith 12:39

Hold on the back there. You didn't know what I was getting myself into. Yeah, we we ended up passing the Health Inspection after being shut down for like a week. And then we're running off the generator and then like, one day it exploded and so it was shut business down and go buy a new one. And just They really like tough times in the beginning. Yeah. But yeah, that's kind of how I started.

Bryan Murphy 13:05

Talk a little bit about those tough times. Like what kept you focused and driven because now now you guys have a couple more locations, but What kept you focused? Like, they believe it in the vision?

Travis Smith 13:17

Yeah, I'm not thinking is so fun for me. Like, I just I really love to sell people on the concept. And I really believe I still, I mean, I believe in what we're doing so much. Like we are making a big impact on how and that that was the core principles to it. I've seen other companies to like, work with like this bullet coffee or bulletproof coffee. And they they kind of have a real like crazy sciency spin on it. And if you're not like super deep into health, and you don't know what like a ketogenic diet is or paleo or whatever, but it's Like, you're like, they almost laugh at you, you know, it's like, oh, you don't understand, like, I didn't like all that stuff. I just wanted to simply like, tell it how it is, you know, it's like coffee, I know healthy fats, the fats are good for you. And it makes you feel really good and makes you happy. And basically one of the best energy sources you can get from, from a, you know, a drink. So, that's, that was the core principles I had, like built into it. So I think that kept me going through the hard time, but is definitely quite a roller coaster. All right, start up.

Bryan Murphy 14:39

Like you, you and your brothers growing up. Were you guys modeled this kind of entrepreneurial mindset or would that kind of come from?

Travis Smith 14:47

I mean, it was funny. We, we've had an amazing life like when we grew up. We were fortunate to be raised on this little private beach. We're just like little kids from You know, from being born to age like six, just running around playing in the trees playing in the sand, never wearing a shirt or shoes, playing in the river catching little like frogs and stuff. And like, you just that was our hood. So I don't know. I think that was a big part of it. And then we kept going down that route. We just dove into surfing my parents from Michigan, and they took why a few years before we were born. So they didn't really know about, like growing up in Hawaii. They were like, living firsthand through us in Well, I just remember one day my older brother went surfing with one of his best friends at the time. And he was just hooked in like, it was like every morning at five in the morning just so you'd wake my mom. I'm like mom, like let's go to this. Let's go surfing. You know, it became such a big thing that my parents realized that maybe we should homeschool and my my brothers were sponsored. myself to basically I'm a bodyboarder which is like a different sport, right? It's laying down on the wave. And a lot of people think like, it's just like a sport for tourists or something like going straight in the whitewash, like, small part of the wave, but it gets pretty radical you go out pipeline as big as it gets, and you can do huge aerial maneuvers and stuff not that's what I like to do and a smaller sport, so you can't really make it from making a living from it unless you're like a world champion or something. So that's what I do. I have the sponsors as well. And these guys got sponsored by like, rip curl night, in all kinds of big, big companies and they're getting paid at like h 12. You know, so, you know, between just like, I mean, just taking that surfing route is such an untraditional way of growing up. Never really plan on going to college. You know, never planned on getting a normal job. I had a few jobs growing up, like, you know, helping a restaurant or catering food around or doing some surf lessons. Yeah, I mean, I never planned on working like in an office or anything like that. I think our parents really installed it into us at age. I dad's very entrepreneurial type of guy. He always just has these really cool business ideas. You know, he's like, he's a he's a real estate developer. And he'll just like look at this like beaten up like little restaurant or whatever. It's like it's closed down. He's like, you know, you can buy that, you know, you can turn it like, invest some money into it, you know, remodel it, and then you could sell it for like this much more with it. Wow. So he always have these ideas. He's like, he is a big backbone into, like, everything that we do. It's pretty amazing. Like, even for the sunrise shack, he's like, going to Costco run right now to go get some more almond milk, or what, right? This is more a team player and couldn't do it without him. That's awesome. Everyone in our family, there's five of us were just like, were always talking about ideas. We're not talking like, drama or a, like, we're not, I don't know, we're talking about ideas. And it might even be just like an idea I came up with today. It's like, yeah, like, it'd be like a healthy candy or something, you know, whatever it is, it's so as funny and we're all open ears and you'd love to like, give feedback. And I mean, sunrise shag is probably just one of the ideas out of like, 1000 Yeah, that actually pursued and sends people. The feedbacks been so amazing. It's like, now we're this deep into it, you know, and it's taking up more My life now and yeah,

Bryan Murphy 19:04

there's this quote, as you're talking and I haven't actually pinned up on my board. It's Eleanor Roosevelt, quote, it's got to read great minds, discuss ideas, average minds, discuss events and small minds discuss people. And that's kind of that's cool to hear your family's kind of all in on that. That's,

Travis Smith 19:22

that's pretty cool. I mean, we'll even have like a friend around or whatever. It's hard for us to even stop, you know, like all you have this friend that's involved in this idea. You know, that's just brainstorm. And, you know, that's what we're up to all the time.

Bryan Murphy 19:41

What would you say people love most about the shack?

Travis Smith 19:44

Yeah, I mean, it started with the, with the bullet coffees, and then we realized like, Alright, we're targeting like a small portion of our day, you know, we got a target all day long. What what could balance that out, so We started introducing these little like food items. It's not like a lunch place but like a papaya bowl. It's like half with like almond butter or peanut butter with like, gluten free being granola with a bunch of local fruit on top like local honey, this was on it. Now we have like all these smoothies and smoothie bowls as well. So I mean, people really come to us for I think the vibe, like it's full of bright colors. And then I'm sure people really love a certain thing on the menu as well or just all of it. Everything we do is very unique. We put a lot of love into everything, all the ingredients are very well sourced. And no, it can be hard for us as a business because our profit margins might not be as good as someone that's just doing it real cheap. You know, everything we dislike organic or local Everything we use is also eco friendly as well. We just don't want to like hurt the world. You know, I always thought about like, it'd be so crazy if you had like your business and it was like something else just like hurting the world like you like for me personally, I'd feel pretty guilty you really feel like I'm doing something good.

Bryan Murphy 21:22

Yeah, as you look back from this moment, yeah, like okay, what did I build? And was it How did it affect not just people but you know, obviously the land and

Travis Smith 21:32

yeah, I mean it hard to have like, plastic bottles do something. It's like, here's your little juice in the plastic bottle and like, millions of American baht or whatever, like, bay, like, you know, plastic bottles or just burning oil.

Bryan Murphy 21:50

So 2016 Sunset Beach location opened up and just recently Waikiki opened up maybe A little bit about how that came to be. Yeah, totally.

Travis Smith 22:02

So um, right when I open the sunrise shack, you know, like, like I said before, I have like zero experience in the restaurant. And then I definitely learned a lot, but we just opened that one up, and all of a sudden we did really well. Like there's a big contest. One of the biggest contests in like surfing is right at Sunset Beach, and my brother CO is in it. And he just like after he won as he is, again, go check out the sunrise shop. And there's like 50 people online. We just have this mini coffee pot that could even brew any coffee. We're just like,

Bryan Murphy 22:42

generators blowing

Travis Smith 22:45

people away in 45 minutes for like a black coffee or whatever. Wild. But yeah, so I really like learn fast and we just dialed in business. I mean, we're still trying to dial it in but It took like a whole year and then coming into 2018 I was really thinking like, okay, let's expand let's, you know, let's bring this somewhere else and I still like now think like, I might have jumped the gun too early. It's just such a crazy learning curve like there's so much that goes on the restaurant industry is wild. And so outrigger hotels and Waikiki they sent this a direct message on Instagram. They said, Hey, we have an opening in our hotel and we would love to have like a local cafe come in and would you guys be interested? And I just showed it to my dad. My dad knows like the whole real estate and all that kind of thing within Waikiki like very well. This is like a once in a lifetime opportunity. You can even like if you're watching wanting to go to Waikiki? He couldn't find anything like this. So we just kind of were like, let's do it. Yeah, we, we didn't have any, like money for it or anything we had no like, no about, like, no managers to help us like, nothing. We just were like, let's do it. And so we, we ended up signing the lease. And we, we had like, like I said, no money to fund it. And my dad had like a few like business partners that were interested. But it kept on dragging on week after week, and no one was, like contributing any money. And so I was like, Okay, how, like, how am I gonna raise this money? So I literally, like had like a 50. I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna like throw it on my Instagram. And I'm just gonna do it really like politely and just like now, I basically said like, we're looking for like any family or friends. are interested in investing into our next location we have amazing to stone. And then like somehow just the messages came flooding in is wild. And we, I just I remember like for like 10 days I was on the phone, like five to 10 hours a day just like talking to these people and from like all walks of life like I've never met most of them, they just like have followed our story since the beginning. And they like whether they wanted to contribute to our concept because it was like for a good cause, you know, healthy and bad or if they just saw it as like a good business opportunity. We have so many different people and we we raised money from from doing it like that. And so that was prepays. And yeah, last summer, we ended up opening up and we had my mom like design the whole show. And I dad helped with the contract and my older brother designing the menu. Because our current concept at the time wasn't really relevant for like a Waikiki location. We have Starbucks next to us and a Honolulu coffee, like mad competition, right? So we had to bring a lot more to the table. And so we introduced like, more healthy smoothies and smoothie. And we have like an avocado toast. We have like, good organic sandwiches. So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of how it all happened to me, man like this the power of social social. Yeah, I mean, some people can hate on it. I mean, it's, I just think it's an amazing tool. You know, it's been just for the press of a button that we can have, like, a reach. Like, never before, you know, like, I don't know, 1015 years ago. I don't even know how you could reach this many people. You know, you'd have to Make a billboard. Right? That's that's not even very impactful, you know? So it's really cool. You can get to your direct audience just by Instagram. And actually like, only form of marketing since the beginning. So this

Bryan Murphy 27:16

man was pretty impressive because it's like under two years, all this is going down. And then you guys are on the cover of Hawaii magazine. The very first business to be featured on the cover. Yeah. How did that happen? That another another dm or

Travis Smith 27:38

why magazine? We know the people over there and why magazine. We got to work with them a few other times. Like, I think how they reached out on a DM and they wanted to just like write a little half page article on us. That's how it happened like I was closer to when we opened up and then they reached out to me And they wanted to do like, a video on us. So we did that. And now it's really cool is like the three brothers. And we like, we're like the tour guides of the Northshore. We picked like the items that we thought were really cool. And one of them was the sunrise shack. And then shortly after that, they just were like, hey, like, we want to, like, we're thinking about putting the center of Shaq on the cover, like, would you be interested in that? Like, like, Is there a model that you know, you know about or anything and I was like, I'm not I'll do it. Me and they hired that. Yeah. And I knew the photographer. just worked out and I saw later and wholefoods. Wow.

Bryan Murphy 28:49

That's pretty wild. What kind of going back to the Waikiki location? How would you compare? Maybe zooming out a little bit how would you compare the vibe compared to like, Northshore Waikiki?

Travis Smith 29:01

Yeah, well, I mean, it's really funny. It's hard to replicate what we have in the North Shore. Like, you'd have to experience it in person and think about how can you replicate this? Like, I spent like a year thinking about how to replicate the North Shore because it's this little shack between two real palm trees, surrounded by real like jungle plants. And behind it is just this massive orchard of tumeric. Is that smell like so amazing? Yeah. We have these wild chickens. We're on to like our 15th generation of every like, mine's like a huge batch of little chicks comes out and they're just eating all like the crumbs around and stuff. So funny.

Bryan Murphy 29:49

It's like growing up and quieter. Yeah.

Travis Smith 29:53

Like slice and dice. Yeah, yeah. One point there is like a bunch of wild pigs. Huh? Started with three pigs. And then they would come down and we'd feed them our compost like or papayas and stuff. And they just, the whole herd just grew and grew and they got 20 pigs. so intense were like, we're scared that they're gonna like nibble at a customer or something. He had to like put up this little bamboo fence. And since they don't get as much food now, I think they kind of like journey off into a different area. But yeah, I mean, it's just wild. How do you replicate?

Bryan Murphy 30:32

Exactly right, right next to Starbucks.

Travis Smith 30:37

I mean, we just the vibe for us is like, positive and happy. Just want to keep that going. Our color wave is like, yellow and orange, like the sunrise story. Like we have like hints of blue in there as well. So yeah, I mean, we're even thinking about like slightly remodeling here in there. Why you location? I'd say, we definitely like don't have one concept for online location that we've just replicated. We're still working on that model. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's full on, it's like, you know, indoor and it's way different. Right?

Bryan Murphy 31:20

What, what, maybe speak into that a little bit like, What is it? What do you see the future of the shack looking like?

Travis Smith 31:26

Yeah, well, we also did like a, we did a licensing deal in Japan. What best friends kind of approached us. He's like one of the most famous and he's like, I'm bringing this to Japan. I'm going like okay, okay. And honestly, like a lot of people have hit us up about like franchising and stuff. But this guy really knew well, and I really like he's very trustworthy person and just like that. I think this guy do it and He calls me like a year later after being in touch for a year about it. Like we're getting closer, we're getting close to the language barriers. And he flew out like a whole team, like a CEO, a, like an investor, like an ambassador, wow, himself, and they all came down, we sat at a little table at the shack on the North Shore. And we just like, talked it over and signed an agreement. So they have two locations in Japan. That In my opinion, um, so I did it. But I don't think at this stage, I would do another deal like an Australia or something. Now, because we're just really trying to fine tune our business. Right, right. But I'm super stoked that we did that deal because, like, I love the Japanese culture. Like there's such discipline and hard workers. Amazing. I remember I was just Like, oh yeah, like this should be yellow. Like, you know what kind of yellow like I had to pick the yellow. And like the blue. I remember at the time we're still playing with the blue color a little bit like we didn't exactly know which blue and then, like chose a blue that was like close to what I wanted. I should have like, explained more like this is close by I was just like, Oh, this is good. And then like next day like all these things think about everything I say. Be careful. Now Yeah, cuz that a little bit. So yeah. I mean, I just think somewhere else like want to be so honest and responsible. Like, just the Japanese culture is amazing, you know? So they're really hard working. And those are doing pretty well. We have on a Tokyo and London Kamakura. Yeah, cool.

Bryan Murphy 33:54

If someone's coming to the islands, maybe for the first time or maybe they've been there before. What What advice just in general? Like, what would you give someone come into coming to the islands?

Travis Smith 34:05

Yeah, I mean, it's first of all, it's hard to choose which Island you're going to go to. I would say you should visit all the islands in your lifetime, you know, a wahoo it depends what you like. A wahoo is just a really good base. You know, like, there's a lot of opportunities here. There's a lot more to do here. If like, like the kind of the shopping side, or like going to see a nice movie, or eating like a good restaurant like a wahoo provides the most in the aspect. But where I'm from a CO is really amazing. They call it the Garden of Eden. It's literally like the best fruits you'll ever have in your life. Some of the like, biggest like kale plants and just like it's just like, Daisy, what you can grow there. I remember I threw an avocado. Seed on the ground under a tree. And I looked like three weeks later and there's like an avocado tree grow. And Ede was out of the ground. And it's somehow rooted into the soil below. Wow, that's cool. fertile it is. And just the mountains and the waterfalls and everything over there. Super Amazing. I think now is pretty similar. It's probably a little bit more commercial of why it's it's a bigger island to realize like the smallest main island. And the big island is just a wild place. It's like just all volcanic rock. It's kind of like, I think it's the closest thing to like, visiting the moon on planet Earth. Yeah. Wild over there. So they're all very different. I mean, I think most people just come to Walton. You can really experience nature here. You can experience nature on all the islands. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, who probably has some The most famous things here and why pipeline was like right there, right? famous wave in the whole world. Like, it's like, walking into like, imagine it, like walking into like a gladiator pit. And like standing on the beach, like, you know, you take your seat and you just watch these waves, just breaking on like three feet deep of water. And this is huge caves and gnarly rocks under that it's breaking on. And it's just so close to the beach, like, laid like that, throughout the world is normally like, really far out on a reef or something where, you know, like, you just can't see, but you're like that pipeline. It's just like, it's just the Sabrina have amazing, amazing waves die every year there and there'll be some of the best surfers in the world. Sometimes it's this really heavy experience of like getting the barrel out there. Like nowhere you can get anywhere else in the world. And it's like pulling into like a cave of ocean, you know, powers so intense. It's what a lot of people live for here are pro surfers, and there's people for sponsorships. And they make a living. And that's all they do. So in the summertime, it goes flat. You don't really hear about these guys like they're just hanging out. And then in the winter time pipeline starts coming again. They are getting cover shots, you know, winning contests and all this stuff. And it's like, that's all they do. So Wow. Yeah.

Bryan Murphy 37:45

The next part just wanted to ask some like this random questions, maybe just kind of off the cuff just to learn more about about you. And the first one, what does that What does aloha mean to you?

Travis Smith 37:59

Yeah. Hello, ha. For me, I said all the time, it's like a greeting, you know? aloha means a lot of different things. It can mean like hello or goodbye. I it's not just like Hello, you know, it's like very impactful. It's like a very loving word. That's what it means to me. I mean, I think it's all good vibes. It's like, you know, such a positive thing to say. Aloha means to me.

Bryan Murphy 38:32

What was the best advice that you've ever been given?

Travis Smith 38:38

best advice to all is just to listen to your gut feeling. Believe in that paddock. Just going through like this whole sunrise shack experience. There's things that I just know so deeply about. Whether it's because I think about sunrise checks so often, you know, it's always relevant It's like such a passion for me, I like to dream about it, you know? And there's something that like, you know, I'll ask for someone's opinion, like, one of my loved ones or someone. And, you know, maybe they say the opposite thing, which I have to, like, you know, you got to take that in.

I just a fan of it. It's like,

you know, always knowing your gut feeling. And following that, and I think there's things in your life that you can do to make your, like intuition like, heightened because just like eating really good and being really healthy. You'll experience that more you'll be closer to like your intuition, and just trusting the process. I mean, I really believe like, I'm not going to get like a cancer or some illness like that's just gonna impair me, like randomly. I just don't believe in that. I think like what Whatever your lifestyle is, you know the air quality you breathe to the water you drink to the food you eat, to just who you surround yourself with and what your mind believes, you know, your mind is so strong, you can believe that you don't get sick and really believe that you probably won't get sick. Like once a year, and that's because I just some way out of balance. I see it coming from a mile away. I drink too much caffeine for that last month and whatever, you know, I haven't gotten enough sleep. I've just been shortcutting the food I eat I'll just get like a quick little sushi or something. Where I I could have just went home and made a really loving meal, you know? Oh, yeah, I mean, all those things. I think you'll just yeah, pretty epic path.

Bryan Murphy 40:52

Yeah. Can you who are some of your favorite artists or musicians

Travis Smith 40:59

we We like to listen a lot of like Island style music here. Uh huh. Like July in music. It's like Hawaiian reggae. Right? It's just funny. I feel like, at like the youngest age growing up here in Hawaii, like, it's like, No, it's just like, this music that you've heard your whole life, you know, and it's, it's not like, annoying. It's like, you love it, you know, like the walk into any grocery store here. And it's just like playing some like, mellow Hawaiian reggae song, you know? And, yeah, that like, speaks to me the most but I mean, I obviously love like, all kinds of music, just like bad music out there. There's good like, I've been at Coachella a few times and appreciate hearing music on those speakers. And I mean, I really don't hate on like any genre of music. I appreciate it all even country, jazz. Everything that I'm not used to hear and why.

Yeah, I really love it. Awesome, man.

Bryan Murphy 42:06

Hey, Travis, thanks so much for taking the time and and hear more about the story behind the sunrise shack. If people want to know more about the shack or how to find you, what's the best way to do that?

Travis Smith 42:20

Yeah, so

you can follow us on Instagram at sunrise shack. We also have like our new ecommerce store online and has some details about like our story. That's sunrise shack hawaii.com. That's where you can find us. Every out here in Hawaii. We have one in Waikiki and then the one here in the North Shore. And I think our future will be probably expanding here on a wahoo you know, we have a super solid team now we have like 20 to 25 employees and they all work off of each other off each location, and they really just go into two. And I think it'd be easier to have a third one here rather than the third one in California. But right, yeah, we're now people are always hitting us up. And it's always exciting to hear you say,

Bryan Murphy 43:16

there's some great spots in Southern California. I think you guys would do really well.

Travis Smith 43:21

Yeah, I guess. I think, you know, like, I just realized a lot of these other businesses that are in this genre of smoothies and stuff like they, they've been around for a long time, you know, like 10 years, three years. So we have a time, you know, only two years old. I know what you guys been able to do in two years. This is really amazing. Yeah, yeah. So I think 2019 for me is actually just gonna be like to just find two L's you know, like, I'll walk in, I'll see one and play, but like 20 goji berries on the bowl. So I supposed to 10 buy you make money on that ball? Yeah, yeah we're still like getting the fine tuning down

Bryan Murphy 44:08

awesome well thanks again man appreciate you and and what you're doing on a wahoo and really kind of around the world man. So thanks so much.

Travis Smith 44:19

Yeah, thank you man. Thanks for doing this.

Bryan Murphy 44:22

Well I just want to thank Travis again for being here today taking the time to share a little bit about how the sunrise shack came to be and also to see hear more about about who he is and and just kind of his outlook on life and to find out more information about Travis you can find him on Instagram at trig trav that is Tr IGG tr AV and you can also go to sunrise shack hawaii.com where you can find their store and their locations and all that good stuff when Travis said you know sometimes we can start being disruptive. phrasing here sometimes you can get unbalanced and, and maybe you grab a quick, you know, sushi roll or whatever and, but there's nothing like preparing a lovely meal at home. It's so much more than than food. It's it's this whole experience. And it's this whole mindset of slowing down and being present. And that was something that I didn't catch at first when I was when I was chatting with Travis. But But Ali, she caught it right away. And that's something that we've been trying to implement within our own family this last season. Well, again, I just want to encourage you to head on over to iTunes, leave a review, subscribe, and that way we can really start this whole journey together and be able to share with as many people as we can. So the show notes and all the links mentioned about in this episode, you can go to live Hawaii's best.com slash Episode 002 so he of social media contest for this we were doing a shout out so what you got to do is you got to take a selfie of yourself listening to the episode right now, or a screenshot is totally fine. and post it on Instagram and in your Instagram stories and tag us at Hawaii's Best and hashtag Hawaii's Best. And that'll enter you in for a chance to be shouted out within our stories and out of this be cool for more people to see what's going on. So until next time, have a great rest of your day. Aloha.

Hawaii's Best 46:32

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