Out to Lunch Emerald Coast Podcast By INO Broadcasting cover art

Out to Lunch Emerald Coast

Out to Lunch Emerald Coast

By: INO Broadcasting
Listen for free

Fletcher Isacks hosts a weekly informal business lunch at Farm & Fire in scenic Santa Rosa Beach. Local business people, community leaders, and beachside luminaries dive under the surface of the surf and sand lifestyle, sharing insider info about who and what makes The Emerald Coast tick. Whether you're a a beach-loving visitor or an Emerald Coast lifer, Out to Lunch will surprise and delight you as you get to meet who's here and what they're doing. You'll also find the show on NPR station WFSW 89.1FM on The Emerald Coast.

 Art Economics Food & Wine Leadership Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
Episodes
  • A World Away

    A World Away
    Apr 2 2026
    Most people who move to the Emerald Coast come here to slow down — to trade the hustle for white sand and blue water. Fletcher's lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch did something altogether different. They came here, fell in love with the place, put down roots — and then turned their attention to some of the most remote and demanding terrain on earth. Jim Sumpter is a man who has spent more than 25 years leading people through places most of us will only ever see on a map. He came up through the Army, training and deploying elite recon teams in foreign environments — work that demanded precision, physical toughness, and the ability to keep people alive when things go sideways. When he left the military, Jim didn't exactly dial it back. He went on to earn certification as a Wilderness Instructor through the Professional Association of Wilderness Guides and Instructors, and became a member of the Explorers Club. Jim is also a certified leader in the Duke of Edinburgh International Youth Award program — an honor recognized by HRH Prince Edward himself — for his work mentoring young adults in outdoor leadership. Jim’s partner in all of this — in adventure and in life — is Kristi Sumpter. Kristi is a 500-hour certified Vinyasa yoga instructor, an E-RYT 500, who built her practice right here on the Emerald Coast, starting at Balance Health Studio in Seagrove Beach. She went on to teach nationally at the Wanderlust International Yoga Festival, and has since led yoga on four continents. Her certifications go deep — Yoga Medicine, SUP Yoga, sound healing — and she's the person who figured out that yoga and mountaineering, far from being opposites, are actually a powerful partnership. On every Endeavor expedition, Kristi is there, helping climbers prepare, recover, breathe, and stay grounded — literally and figuratively. Together, Jim and Kristi co-founded Endeavor Expeditions — a Santa Rosa Beach-based company that takes everyday people to the rooftops of the world. Their signature journey is Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest freestanding mountain on the planet, in Tanzania. But they've also worked across South America, Central America, Patagonia, and beyond — always with military-grade planning, always with a safety-first approach, and always with the belief that the people standing in line at Publix right now are more capable than they realize. And in a beautiful footnote to all of this: when Jim and Kristi learned during the pandemic that the Tanzanian guides and porters who work Kilimanjaro couldn't afford school fees for their kids, they started a nonprofit called Kids of Kilimanjaro. Because that's apparently what explorers do when they're not out exploring. There's a version of life on the Emerald Coast that looks a lot like a postcard — beautiful, sun-drenched, and deliberately uncomplicated. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's part of why people come here. But what Jim and Kristi Sumpter remind us is that this place also attracts a different kind of person — people who are drawn to the water and the light and the pace of life here, but who carry something restless and reaching inside them. People who look at a mountain on the other side of the world and think: I wonder if I could get there, and I wonder who I could take with me. What they've built with Endeavor Expeditions is remarkable not just as a business, but as a philosophy. The idea that preparation, courage, and the right guide can get an ordinary person to the top of Africa — that's not a sales pitch, that's a worldview. And it's one they've tested over and over, on some of the most demanding terrain on earth, with clients who showed up nervous and came home changed. Add to that Kristi's gift for keeping people grounded — physically, mentally, spiritually — and you have something genuinely rare: an expedition company that treats the inner journey as seriously as the outer one. And then there's Kids of Kilimanjaro. Because Jim and Kristi didn't just see a mountain — they saw the people who work it, generation after generation, carrying impossibly heavy loads with grace and joy. And when the world shut down and those families lost their income, the Sumpters didn't look away. They built something. That's the kind of community citizenship that doesn't make the local news, but maybe it should. This is what Out to Lunch is really about — not just the businesses on the Emerald Coast, but the people behind them. The ones who washed ashore here, or grew up here, or simply chose here — and then went out and did something extraordinary. Jim and Kristi Sumpter call Santa Rosa Beach home. And honestly? We're lucky they do. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays. You can find photos from this show by Brandan ...
    Show more Show less
    55 mins
  • Mrs. Business

    Mrs. Business
    Mar 25 2026

    Hi, it's Fletcher Isacks, host of Out to Lunch. When you listen to a show like this you expect a person in my position to give you verifiable, factual information. But it turns out that statisticians are not collecting information about every subject I'm interested in.

    I'm interested in the structure of businesses owned and operated by couples. That is, people who got married because they fell in love with each other, and decided afterward that they were going to run a business together. So, absent any factual information, we're just going to have to go with my anecdotal, impressionistic perception.

    Some businesses are founded by couples who are equals – I’m thinking of recent guests who started a retail store together, and another couple who launched a swimsuit company. There’s another type of couples’ business, and that’s one that’s centered on the skills of one half of the couple. For example, one of the partners is a doctor or a plumber, and the other partner handles administration and book-keeping.

    Now, this could be a result of my own poor memory and cultural bias, or it could be factual and the result of our patriarchal society, but it seems to me that in most of these types of businesses, the principal partner is the husband.

    It seems much less frequent the other way around, where the wife is the practicing professional. Which is why I want to introduce you to Wendy Mignot and Lauren Pingree.

    Lauren is Co-Owner of the Hidden Lantern Bookstore in Rosemary Beach.

    This is how she’s described her current business arrangement: “This gentleman walked into the bookstore and asked me out. Two years later, we got married. And now we run the bookstore together.”

    Wendy Mignot’s business, Mignot & Co, in Grayton Beach, is focused on Wendy’s creations of pearl and leather jewelry, and her business is supported by her husband, Jean-Noel, and their two kids.

    Entrepreneur of the Week

    My Entreprebeur of the Week this week is another woman in local business, Lauren Newton. Lauren's business is everyone else’s business. Lauren is the founder of the Found Marketing Firm in Panama City. If you live on the Emerald Coast, you might not know it but you’ve probably seen or heard her work.

    The national Chamber of Commerce estimates that right around 40% of small businesses in the US are owned by women. In Florida, that number is higher. Here, around 46% of businesses are owned by women. And here on Out to Lunch today, that number is 100%.

    Talking with Wendy Mignot, Lauren Pingree, and Lauren Newton, is statistically and personally a rare treat.

    Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

    You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show more Show less
    55 mins
  • Smokey's Friends

    Smokey's Friends
    Mar 18 2026

    When you ask people about the benefits of living in this part of the world, the first response you often get is about natural beauty. We typically assume “the natural beauty of The Panhandle” refers to the white sands and turquoise water of our beaches. People sometimes also refer to our lakes and piney woods.

    These appreciations of nature are primarily visual. We love how the appearance of the natural setting makes us feel. But few of us stop to appreciate the life that these seascapes and landscapes support.

    The sea, of course, is teeming with fish. We all know that. But how many of us who live here, or the millions of tourists who sit on our beaches, are aware that a few miles behind the white sands there are families of black bears?

    Nobody around here knows that better than film maker Arix Zalace. Arix is the Co-Founder of film production company AZA Productions, and director of the feature film, The Paper Bear. In a unique combination of live action and animation, and documentary and drama, The Paper Bear is a love letter to the black bears who live alongside us, but are unseen by most of us.

    One of the reasons we like to go to movies is, they take us away from our everyday lives, make us sit still, and give us an opportunity to think about more than our daily obligations and routine. That’s also the reason people smoke cigars.

    People who smoke cigarettes are mostly looking to replenish the level of nicotine in their metabolism. People who smoke cigars are doing something quite different.

    You can, of course, smoke a cigar while you’re doing something else, but most cigar smokers don’t. For most cigar smokers, sitting down to smoke a cigar is either a part of socialization and conversation, or it’s a form of solitary meditation.

    Nobody around here knows more about cigar smokers and cigars than Paul Copeland. Paul is the Co-Owner of two stores, both called Shore Thing Cigars, one in Gulf Shores Alabama and the company’s flagship store, here in Watersound.

    Paul’s partner in the business is music icon Luke Bryan. Luke’s enthusiasm for cigars is the inspiration for some of Shore Thing’s exclusive custom blends, but it’s Paul who has the cigar cred, going all the way back to working at Franklin Cigar in Tennessee, a store he got fired from and later bought. 16-plus years later, Paul has won awards, including like Tobacconist of the Year, and he’s a three-time Davidoff Golden Band Award winner.

    Entrepreneur Of The Week

    Out to Lunch Entrepreneur this week is Ross Flick. Ross is a Fragrance Consultant with Scentsy. It’s a fragrance company that sells through independent reps instead of stores. Ross works out of her home in Panama City. You can visit her Scentsy store there, buy from her online store, or catch her at markets, pop-ups and other events up and down the coast.

    If there are three things that are somewhere between difficult and impossible to convey on the radio or a podcast, it’s the sensation of smoking a good cigar, the experience of seeing a good movie, or the scent of anything. So, congratulations are due to Paul, Arix, and Ross – for having successful businesses and for managing to pull off the impossible and describe them on today’s show.

    Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

    You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr
No reviews yet