The Shadow
CLIFTON FORGE, Va. (Alleghany Business Review) — When Peter Pestano secured a joint venture between Capitol Records, Universal Music Group and his independent label last year, he didn’t celebrate in Manhattan. Instead, he packed up and moved his family to a small Virginia mountain town most New Yorkers have never heard of.
Now the music executive is brewing coffee, building community and plotting a 20-state expansion from a converted cafe on Main Street.
Pestano discussed his unconventional journey on a recent episode of the Value Prop podcast with host Gene Mundy. The conversation revealed how a chance encounter at a small-town street festival sparked an entrepreneurial vision that could reshape how Americans think about rural business development.
“New York City kind of felt all consuming,” Pestano said of his decision to relocate. “I was able to sit down and look at the next 12 months. What did I want out of my life? I told myself I wanted to be in a different place.”
That place turned out to be Clifton Forge, a town where Pestano said nearly all businesses are women-owned and operated. During his first Friday night in town, he watched his son play cornhole in a blocked-off street while locals introduced themselves. The experience stood in stark contrast to his life in New York.
“We don’t really get too many micro, like community-based events,” he said. “It was beautiful to see people out.”
Jenny, owner of Livy’s Closet and head of the Clifton Forge Main Street Association, mentioned a vacant building next door during that first visit. Pestano initially envisioned a vinyl record store that would double as his office. But when he toured the space — formerly Cafe Museo, a community staple run by the late Judith — he discovered an existing coffee counter.
“I didn’t want to take it away from the community if it was there,” he said. “Full transparency, everyone. I’m not a barista.”
What emerged was Lyrik’s Cafe, a hybrid coffee shop and co-working space that has become what Mundy called “an anchor in Clifton Forge business community.”
Pestano’s five-year plan is ambitious: expand Lyrik’s Cafe to at least 20 states. But he’s not targeting major metropolitan areas.
“I want to find Clifton and Covington in every state and put the really cool niche thing in that little market,” he said. “The American dream, or the concept of it, is dying, and I feel you need to start at the lowest tier to kind of spark that belief system back up.”
Central to his mission is mentoring young entrepreneurs. Pestano said he regularly tells teenagers and young adults that his business model is replicable without massive capital investment.
“You and two of your buddies could have done it,” he tells young people. “If you live in Clifton right now, you could have opened what I opened.”
He encourages aspiring business owners to start small — borrow a parent’s lawn mower, print business cards at local shops and register at town hall.
“You have a business right then and there,” he said.
Looking further ahead, Pestano hinted at political aspirations once his business ventures stabilize.
“I would like to challenge all levels of local leadership, and once the business piece, once those things are in place, I’d probably be interested in politics,” he said. “I want the greater good for people.”
His message to the community heading into 2026 was characteristically direct: put down the phones and focus locally.
“We have a lot of work to do in these communities,” Pestano said. “Our world is not that. When we walk outside, we don’t see half of the chaos that is happening in the rest of the world.”
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Automatic Transcript
Peter Pestano 0:00
Yeah, and then last year, through that, you know, years of work and throwing things at the wall, I was able to do a joint venture between Capitol Records and Universal Music Group and my label. And that came with some clarity for me, because at that point, I was able to sit down and look at the next 12 months. What did I want out of my life? I told myself I wanted to be in a different place, because New York City kind of felt…all consuming.
Peter Pestano 0:25
overly consuming. Most of the businesses in Clifton, and this is with all due respect to their husbands, because I’m sure they’re involved financially and because they’re dealing with their lives true, but 90% of the business in Clifton, if not 99% are all women ran, owned and operated. Great. Yeah, that’s the face of Clifton Forge. Snooping around. I went downtown our first Friday in the forge, actually our very first Friday in the forge. We were downtown on Main on Ridgway and Jenny, who owns Libby’s closet, yep, her husband, Dave, had set up a game in the street of cornhole toss for the kids, and so my son wanted to play, and so he went out there. He’s playing, and I’m hanging with him, and they’ve introduced himself and told us, you know who he was, and that his wife owned the business. So we’re like, this was so sweet of you guys to do this again. I’m coming from New York. We don’t really get too many micro, like community based events, so I thought that was awesome that they did this thing, and the streets were shut down. And it was beautiful to see people out. We didn’t know anyone. So here I am walking through town with a cowboy hat. Who’s this guy? Oh, who’s this guy? But it was cool. It was awesome. It was nothing negative. And so we went in to support Jenny. We went in, and during that conversation, I asked her, I was like, how’s business down here? And she said, it’s growing. She was like, it’s a lot different than how it was in previous years, but she believes in it. And so she mentioned to me that the building next door was vacant if we were ever looking to open something. And I told her I was I was like, I’m not sure what it may be at the moment, but I was like, yeah,
Gene Mundy 2:11
so clarify, Jenny, that’s Libby’s. She’s the owner Libby’s closet, and she’s also on Main Street, the chamber,
Peter Pestano 2:22
not the chamber. She’s head of Main Street main
Gene Mundy 2:24
Yeah, Clifton Forge, Main Street Association, yeah. Sorry, Jenny, yeah. And I
Peter Pestano 2:29
believe she’s also in the historic
Gene Mundy 2:32
the board, yeah, the architectural board, yeah. We’re trying to give you props, Jenny, yeah. We’re just fumbling here.
Peter Pestano 2:38
Sorry. So yeah, Miss Jenny’s awesome. And so we looked into the building. Initially, I wanted to make it a vinyl store, a record store. I knew that was going to be a thing where, you know, I’m a music guy, so I felt that was my niche. And essentially it was just going to be my office during the day, and I was going to have vinyls playing. And if you wanted to come in and
Gene Mundy 3:00
hang out and buy hang out with that sure
Peter Pestano 3:04
and but once we took a tour, we saw that there was a cafe there. So the space is formerly Cafe Museum. Cafe museum was owned by Judith. Judith was a staple in that community for the years that she was there. She has now passed unfortunately. But while we were in there, we saw that there was this coffee counter component. I didn’t want to take it away from the community if it was there, yeah. So full transparency, everyone. I’m not a barista, but I figured, let’s keep it, yeah, let’s keep it, throw our hats in the ring and just offer that service as something we would want, because prior to us opening, we were driving to Stanton for coffee, and we’d even come down to Covington at times to go to, pardon me, I cannot remember the name manic, manic expresser. Manic, yeah, so we’d go down to manic at times. But I like Stan I like the street, yeah, yeah, downtown. I think that’s a great thing that more places should, like, more small localities should really do that. Staunton does a great thing where every weekend, their main street is shut down, no drive through traffic, and so like, given the local cigar shop, they will put, like, armchairs out in the street, rope them off with a red velvet rope so you feel special, and they’ll put some plants out there, and you can just smoke a cigar and sit in the street and just watch your family go shopping, walk up and down the street.
Gene Mundy 4:30
That’s an excellent thought, and idea of anybody from Old Town Covington is watching,
Peter Pestano 4:37
yeah, go ahead. I absolutely think it would increase the walking score, because then you’re not just forced to shop, yeah, you can actually have a day out and see friends and family coming and going. And it’s a good it’s a good energy.
Gene Mundy 4:53
Drama drives. It drops foot traffic, right? And that helps other businesses that are, you know, selling
Peter Pestano 4:59
anything, what? Anything? Right? Because if a
Gene Mundy 5:03
line barn would blessing or whoever,
Peter Pestano 5:05
yeah, so I think it’s a great way to bring your locale out. So once looking at the space, I said, Cool coffee. We’ll keep that. Yeah. What would make it different from anything else in the space? Because I equally believe in being a disruptor. I think disruptions that interrupt you. I think it leads to the most innovation, right? When you can disrupt the space, it challenges
Gene Mundy 5:30
everyone, because there’s evolution and there’s revolution. You want to get there faster. You need disruptors. You need people that look at things differently and how to attack a problem, you know, and from a different angle, right? And I think every business community
Peter Pestano 5:44
needs that so. And one of the things we heard once we moved to town was a lot of people found Clifton through covid, and a lot of remote workers relocated, and that’s based on the price points that they were able to buy into or rent at, and whatever the case may be. So at that moment, I said, I done. I’ve done co working. Let’s build a co working aspect into it. And so we added the co working membership piece, and we’re still developing that as we go, because what we’ve now ran into, which is a good problem to have, the folks that are interested in the co working aspect of the space, they want more space so they don’t want the individual desks to sit at. They want a private office. They want a pod. Yeah, so now we’re gonna start looking for a space that can accommodate that and have a second satellite location. Yeah, we’re currently looking at one building that’s very close to us, and they formally had a tech business in there, and they’ve now moved on and gone about, but they’ve had offices that were in that building. So I plan to kind of move the needle on that and see if we can create that.
Gene Mundy 6:51
There’s quite a bit of beside yourself. There’s been that’s kind of been discussed by some other folks here on the show. Annette Patterson was with us from the advanced advancement foundation. That was an idea that it kind of percolated there. I don’t know if you know Annette, yeah, there’s been a couple other interests so, you know, but to the point it hasn’t developed, you know, it’s still a need, a community need. So you’re not my validation, but you know, you’re obviously onto something there, that that would fit in the community.
Peter Pestano 7:26
I think the biggest thing I will say that I don’t think many people grasp at large. You can have money. Everyone can get money, right? So you can go to the bank, even if you don’t want to use your own money to get money, money does not equal prosperity of the business, and it does not equal know how, right? So I think where we’re struggling as a community is we have a lot of folks that may invest in things that they’re not fully versed on, right? And it might just be a colorful investment topic for the year or trend that they see somewhere. And you try to repeat that everything in like in co working, for example, co working is a very people based engine. It does not run on your building, right? Your building is irrelevant. People need to like you and trust you to want to rent from you. That’s the first thing, because they are tenants. It is the equivalent of renting someone an apartment when you rent them an office. I’ve done these contracts. I’ve rented over 300 different micro businesses in Brooklyn, and then we’ve done commercial leases for like Starbucks. There’s no difference between the two, right? Because if someone really likes you, they’ll ask you, Hey, if you’re giving me this rate right now for a one year commitment I know as borrowing, I die, I’m still gonna have this business in five years. I’ll commit to five years if you lock me in at this rate for this office now, you have that individual there perpetually, for as long as you have the lease for the building, and so that requires that trust, that requires faith in the overall concept of the business. There’s a co working company called we work. We work is massive, one of the largest ones. They are the largest co working company in the world, and they have bought up the most real estate everywhere. They’re in the red year after year, because they have capital, they don’t have people, and that’s where that attraction comes. So it’s the same thing how we view lyrics. We’re not baristas. We won’t tell you we make the best coffee in the world. We do our best, and we’re doing everything at an entry level. So the business can develop and figure itself out. I won’t commit to a $10,000 coffee machine, espresso machine maker, because I don’t have the demand for that. And that’s what people don’t understand. There has to be a demand for the equipment that you’re bringing in. Those equipments are based on turnover. So how hot can they, you know, heat up. How quick can they steam something? And how many cups are doing? Volume. So the same way I look at that business, where we can incubate a small start and slowly let it figure itself out, I think more investors that are coming into the Allegheny islands, they have to be willing to play dumb for a lack of better words. Don’t come in feeling that you know it all, learn your community first. So again, before you do that big upfront investment and feel like the world is your enemy because you need to cover what you just put out. Start, slow, start, slow. Learn the community. Talk to the people, and that’s what we do weekly. We’ll bring in different pastries. We’ll have them do taste testings, whoever’s in the store at the time, if something shows up, try this. Let me know what you think of it.
Gene Mundy 10:39
But one of the, you know, you mentioned community. And you know, the times that I’ve been there, and, you know, I like to make a habit of coming and visit with you, and bring the wife and have the opportunity, you know, to, you know, family to family, kindly, to talk. And you’ve got a few events, you know, I’m watching. You’ve got a new book, books, book, or however you want to, you know, I know what the right term is. You’ve got a financial planner, you know, coming in to talk to community members. So you form not only a business, but like a community hub. And, you know, just like to kind of get your thoughts on that. What, where? How does that increase value to your business, but also value to the community?
Peter Pestano 11:31
So if we’re being transparent, essentially today, lyrics, is there more so to foster change and have larger discussions than it is to be a for profit business transparently. We risky, but yeah, you know. And I think if, again, if you have the means and you can take care of it, take care of it, yeah, it’ll take care of itself in the long run. So where I feel we are today is we’re in a space where we’re consistently learning. There’s a lot of trial and error, right? We’re in a community where people are quiet, I’m loud, so you know that’s and thank you to Facebook also, because that way they can see who makes the post, versus thinking it’s just the unilateral business. Yeah. Oh, Peter posted this, so you will see a lot of my thoughts. I’ll speak very outwardly, and I want that conversation to lead to more conversation. It’s never out of a negative space. It’s always a challenging of whatever we’re accustomed to. Why are we accustomed to this? And what can we do to try something different? Right? Because whatever the old guard said it was, it didn’t work, and it didn’t work on many living levels. So it’s not just Clifton, it’s not just Covington, it’s a lot of small pockets all across the Blue Ridge, right? You can go up and down from Carolina to Georgia, you’ll find all these beautiful small towns with beautiful people, but they’re not given the ability to grassroot and build
Gene Mundy 13:06
and I think that’s important. And we’ve talked about this in some other shows. I mean, there’s a ecosystem of businesses here. And, you know, essentially, we all have to depend on each other. You know, we’ve said this in other places. No one is going to save us at all. No one is going to come here and drop some big, you know, box of business on us to save our economy. We have to do that ourself, and these are the hard conversations that we have to have to understand that what worked in 20 years ago is not going to work today. Industry has left. You know, we’re fortunate that we have a big industry here, because that’s keeping the machine rolling. But in the long run business owners and the community and elected officials all have to work together to keep this intact and to grow my opinion. I mean, everybody is entitled to an opinion. That’s my No. I wholeheartedly agree
Peter Pestano 14:20
with you, I would say again, we’ve had so many people that have been here for so many years, and they’re proud of that, right? And I, I value that as well, because that shows a level of stewardship that’s come with being here. Because it could have be, it could be completely dilapidated. It could be completely
Gene Mundy 14:38
people could abandon it, yeah, well, everything could have walked away their money and leave right?
Peter Pestano 14:42
So you can say it’s just horrible, and that’s why I’m cautiously optimistic about it, because I believe that the right intention has always been around, sure, in the midst of things, those people, and you know this from being well traveled and being a businessman. And when you have so much happening in your life, you don’t have time for the small, incremental things, to be honest. And so politics might not have ever been on the ranch owners purview, because he owns a ranch, he has other
Gene Mundy 15:13
businesses, and he’s traveling, gotta make payroll, gotta gotta generate he loves it
Peter Pestano 15:17
because he grew up here on the family ranch, so he’s still here, and he’s paying taxes here, but he doesn’t care about the politics. So now, as a community, once again, who are under pressure, underserved from a state level, they have to now select from a finite group of people who they feel are best to lead them. That pool will come with its, you know, plus and minus, like anything in life, right? Yeah, what’s happened is that there’s been a lot of trust, and it’s been given to a lot of people. And we can go back, and these are facts. We can go back and look at every year over year, how much money has been allocated to all these small towns. Where is that money gone? We haven’t seen I can’t talk to one business owner that can say they’ve been here for 25 years. That’s issue in a very true sense of the word, because then that shows we don’t have a storyline. We don’t have a pulse of what was we only we keep hearing these things, but we don’t have anyone we can go to that can say, hey, my mom owned this shop. We’re tenured here. We’ve been here, and we’ve been supported to stay here by our locale, like local government and all these things. I think now you have a lot of business owners that are very strong and are committed to staying I think family treats is one of those. Yeah, yeah, right.
Gene Mundy 16:39
Big expansion, you know, doing good, good. You know, growing and, yeah, and, and very good at marketing, by the way, you got a great marketing strategy
Peter Pestano 16:50
and raising their standards too, yeah, and being better than what was just normally accepted, sure, because far too often when you’re in these small towns, someone will dump a piece of ham and some lettuce on a plate, quality berries, right, right? And so, and that has been accepted, because if that’s all you have, that’s what you have. Yeah, I like the fact that they’re challenging themselves to cater to a larger palette. Yeah, when I was in there, last one of the line cooks that even mentioned they were having curry the next day. Yeah, I’m Caribbean. So that was, well, it’s very few that very like that. I hear someone says, outside of tropical spice, there you go. Oh yeah, we love tropical spice. We love their I don’t know their family at this point. They support us so much. And Isaiah, their son, he’s an amazing kid. He goes to VMI now, and he’s a barber. He’s probably the most sought after barber in the highlands right now, yeah, very real thing. So I think you have those type of business owners, family treats tropical spice. You have five sides now that are downtown,
Gene Mundy 18:03
but non these are non franchise businesses. These are family owned and operated businesses. And that’s, you know, goes back to community, goes back to the values that we have,
Peter Pestano 18:13
you know. And I’ve said this to Ken McFadden before, most of the businesses in Clifton, and this is with all due respect to their husbands, because I’m sure they’re involved financially and because they’re dealing with their lives, true, but 90% of the business in Clifton, if not 99% are all women ran, owned and operated. Great. Yeah, that’s the face of Clifton Forge. I’m pretty sure we can speak at least 50% of that in Covington as well. Probably right, because most of the places I run into ownership is usually the wife, sure, the woman who owns it, I think that speaks a lot about what’s happening in our communities, and I think we should champion that and support that absolutely, because it encourages the next generation of young women coming up to want to do something greater than to just leave, because that’s the what you know, these kids are given as the outlook is, we’re from somewhere it’s really small. We’re going to go to college and we’re going to leave. And for me, I want them to understand, don’t let the fact that because things are at a low cost, cheap, or they look rusty or old, or whatever antique ish be, the thing that scares you away, because you truly chase that American Dream that you’re after, this is an easier buying point for you. Sure. Then if you go to LA New York, Atlanta, those places will not cater for you.
Gene Mundy 19:42
And you know, those are conversations we’ve had that what brings people back boomerang? You know, kids that have, you know, gone to college and ventured out in the world, and realize maybe this is not for me. I’m going to go home, or I’m going to. Bring my family home. I’m going to raise my kid in this community. We’re going to create a family here. You know, we’re going to find our faith here. You know, those are all. Those are all selling points for our community. And you know, you, you hit right on that. You know, even as someone who just came to our community, what a year or two years ago?
Peter Pestano 20:18
Yeah, no, and that’s what we realized right away. We had community. If a package is dropped at our house, my neighbor will let me know there’s a package out there. If something’s happening, someone will run over. If the dog runs out of the yard, someone will bring him back. And we have so many stories of that, and it’s never a negative. You’re not. I think that’s the one thing about this community that I wholeheartedly will use as my selling point to bring attract more people here, is that you’ll rarely hear a no. Yeah, you’ll rarely hear a no. And I think for all the yeses, people deserve an ROI on that level of hospitality, ROI return. On investment for
Gene Mundy 21:05
the non business folks, yeah, yeah. I
Peter Pestano 21:07
think you know, for all the folks that are still present, that are still there, the seniors that we see walking up and down on Main Street, making yourself available to them, I always make my the doors are always open to the cafe for everyone. Any senior that walks in, they’re gonna get a free cup of coffee. It’s just, it’s me, and just what I’m gonna do, I’m
Gene Mundy 21:33
not close, right?
Peter Pestano 21:34
No, no, you’re still active. You still revenge. You’re still out here with me. Good. But you know, I think we have to find a way to tap those folks on the back and for what they’ve done and what they continue to do, and just the stories that they can tell us, it’s a lot to learn from. I think Covington and Clifton together, my ideal, you know. And I know this would sound crazy to a lot of people, but if I had my way, and I could wave a wand, I would make it one municipality and just marry them in some way, shape
Gene Mundy 22:12
or form. That’s that is an interesting commentary. And I think there would be a lot of people that would agree with you and a lot of people that would not agree with you, and that’s okay, you know, we, you probably know, we just went through a school merger a couple years ago, and you know, there was a lot of passion associated with that, and I’m not going to rehash it here, because people fall on both sides of it, but you know, there is some validity to what You’re saying is, you know, a unified community versus a city, the town, etc,
Peter Pestano 22:44
because we’re in the Bible Belt. And if we’re honest, in this Bible Belt, we have a large imprint of churches, but within the churches, we have very small denominations, sure that are all spread thin throughout those large bodies of churches. And I feel, you know, everyone is entitled to whatever belief system they’re in. We totally respect those. But I feel, again, if you can allocate space to a larger group of people that all are under this one belief system, whether you’re a Baptist or Evangelical, whatever, let’s say there’s five churches versus 30 right now, you have a bigger pool of people sitting present for that message. And I think that’s how I look at it from a business standpoint as well. If there is a unified goal, a collective agreement on what we are as a functioning body, because the separation is just, in my opinion, it’s just ego at this point and just heritage, maybe just heritage, right? What we know is what we know, but it’s what we know until we teach ourselves something new.
Gene Mundy 23:53
I think you bring you know. You bring a perspective that you know is grounded in where you’ve been as a person in life. And you know, there’s, there’s a lot of folks here that, like I said, we’ll agree, and some that won’t. I imagine we’ll get a lot of comments on that. That’s healthy and that’s okay, right? Debate to talk. Yeah, debate
Peter Pestano 24:15
is healthy. So I don’t think people should be afraid to, like, voice them.
Gene Mundy 24:19
No, I don’t either I don’t either tell me about where do you see your business, your current business, and where do you see yourself in, in in five years? Oh, I love the five year.
Peter Pestano 24:33
Five years from now, lyrics will be either franchised or just fully operational in at least 20 states from now, that’s the goal. And I don’t want to go after large markets. I want to find Clifton and Covington in every state and put the really cool niche thing in that little market. I think we. Because again, I feel the American dream, or the concept of it, is dying, and I feel you need to start at the lowest tier to kind of spark that belief system back up. And so I want to go and be the inspiration for the next generation to see a young business operator that may reflect some of the things they see on TV and what’s popular and all the things, but you show them like, Hey, have a real serious approach to life, and equally, know what’s possible in your community, and it doesn’t require a lot. So anything that I’m doing right now, I will be totally transparent to a 19 to 28 year old. You and two of your buddies could have done it. If you live in Clifton right now, you could have opened what I opened. One of you could have had a full time job, and one person could have ran the shop. My wife works remote. I run the shop. If she’s there, she’ll work remote in the back. She’ll come up to the front. My full time day job is an executive in the music industry, so I’ll have moments where I’m kind of checked out, and I’m in the shop, and that’s where she has my back. But our buy in point is not so egregious that you can’t self initiate without the assistance of the town or the state. You can. You absolutely can. If you plan to scale, then I would say, talk to your local leadership. For me, in five years, I would like to challenge all levels of local leadership, and once on the business piece, once those things are in places that I’d probably be interested in politics, oh yeah, yeah, that’s a fun swing, yeah. But I want the greater good for people, and I’m not a perfect human. I’ve been the human that have made mistakes that have bumped my head, and I’ve had to learn a lot of things. I’ve learned most of the things I know on my own.
Gene Mundy 26:46
If you were used, you know, use the term, you know, coloring inside the lines, that’s typically not the entrepreneur, right?
Peter Pestano 26:56
Yeah, I’m off the wall type of guy, so, and I understand it, but I mean, well, I want to see the best for everyone. I don’t believe money. Money is great. Money is a provisional tool, though, right? And that’s what the youth aren’t being taught right now. They don’t understand. Money is a tool. It’s the equivalent of the shovel and the rake, right? It’s a tool. And that’s in the moment you change what you consider to be the tool of value. You know, if I want to say gold is my tool for the need for the year, then I have a higher, you know, buy in rate than someone that’s using $1 right? Sure, sure. So for me, if you’re in these small markets, like where we are, I want a teenager to understand you don’t have to go get the big box tools. You don’t have to go get the bank loan. You can go self start something, something, whatever it is, even if you want to do landscaping,
Speaker 1 27:46
whatever it is, go bar neighbors start with what you got, bar
Peter Pestano 27:50
dad’s mower, and go to your neighbor and ask them if they want to cut the yard right and get a business card printed up. You have great printers that are around for us in Clifton, we have mountain Bear Mountain signs and four moons. So these are two establishments that can do these small, provisional things for you at very low cost, and you have a business right then. And there you go to town hall. You figure out what you need to register, and you do it. So I’ve, I’ve had these discussions with young people in our town. They’re willing to listen, and that’s why we’re doing the Financial Services today and bringing in more people that can kind of train the ecosystem to learn what they need to be upstanding members of society, rather than just having the days go by
Gene Mundy 28:35
waiting on someone to call them right job. Yeah, it’s been a fascinating conversation, Peter, I appreciate it. Our next conversation got to bring you know you’re the dynamic duo, Peter and Shanice. We got to get her in. I’d love to talk to her about, you know, some of the things that she’s been doing as well. You know, lyrics Cafe is becoming you know, an anchor in Clifton Forge, you know, business community. And it just goes beyond business. And I think that’s one of the great things that we’ve kind of brought out. It’s, it’s a hub, it’s a it’s a location that people can come and not only have a cup of coffee and talk about, you know, current events or or business, or, you know, or sports or whatever, right? And it’s a powerful tool that can be leveraged to do other things, and that’s and you, and we’ve covered a lot of ground here, and it’s been a fascinating conversation. So I just want to thank you. I’ll give you, you know, last last words, yeah, the last word.
Peter Pestano 29:45
We’re in January 2026 and I would say we have a whole year ahead of us. I would challenge everyone to turn your phones off as much as possible. Stay away from the distractions. We have a lot of work to do in these communities. Let’s focus. Us on that we have our own issues here, and the world can be very overwhelming at times, but our world is not that. When we walk outside, we don’t see half of the chaos that is happening in the rest of the world in these two communities that we have. So I’d really love for everyone to just stick, stick to Clifton, stick to Covington, and let’s focus on making those things better and enjoying our year and seeing it to the end of the year too. That’s the main thing. So you guys be safe driving on 220s please.
Gene Mundy 30:31
Thanks so much for being with us today. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
