Your Maine Concierge: No One Knows Maine Like Food and Travel Expert Vanessa Santarelli

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine. Today I have with me in the studio, Vanessa Santarelli. Thank you for coming in today.

Vanessa Santarelli: I'm happy to be here.

Lisa Belisle: So Vanessa, you have so many things that you've done, but what is it that you're working on right now that is so very exciting for the state of Maine?

Vanessa Santarelli: Oh, well, thank you for having me again. I'm really excited to be here. Gosh, I feel like I've got a few things that I'm doing that I'm really excited about. One, I just started filming for Maine Food Story, which is a spinoff of MaineLife, which I am grateful to be included on, with Erin Ovalle, the founder of Maine Life Media. And starting to get more clients, planning their upcoming visits to Maine for the 2023 season. And I have a full calendar of culinary events, both industry-only events and also ones that are open to the public to sign up for, really fun and exciting events all throughout the state. So lots going on. Yeah, in some ways.

Lisa Belisle: Well, and it's impressive because if I look at what you've done over the years, you've really done a broad variety of things. We actually have an intersection because for some period of time you worked with the Maine Primary Care Association.

Vanessa Santarelli: Yes. And your sister, right, is one of the providers that worked for one of the community health centers. I remember. So I had a 20-year career in public policy and advocacy. And the last five years of that career was at the Maine Primary Care Association. So I've been very fortunate to have had experiences working in nonprofits, working for private lobbying firms, working for state government, and then now as a small business owner. So it's been interesting to see the different perspectives and approaches to work here in Maine and life here in Maine in those different capacities.

Lisa Belisle: You grew up in our state capital?

Vanessa Santarelli: I did. I was born and raised in Augusta. Very proud to say that. And so the State House was obviously just this big focal point, but Cony graduate, undefeated state field hockey champions. Actually we were class A undefeated state basketball champions on the women's side as well, although I didn't play basketball. So yes, I proud Cony Ram. Grew up in Augusta. Spent a lot of time though in Lincoln, Maine. Our family had a summer camp, had a camp up in Lincoln, that my dad won in a poker game. So we spent many childhood days and weekends up at camp, swimming and fishing and riding four-wheelers. And yeah, it was great.

Lisa Belisle: It seems like it's a somewhat high-stakes poker game if he's winning a piece of real estate.

Vanessa Santarelli: My dad, yes, he actually, his interesting background, he was an Italian chef and cook and wonderful, brilliant. That's part of where I get all of my interest in everything culinary. But my dad, he's my late father. He's no longer here with us. He ran, I don't know if they were legal, poker games and things like that. And yeah. Unfortunately somebody lost their camp. And that was before I was born, but I was one of the beneficiaries of him winning that in a game. And we have a lot of fond memories of our time there.

Lisa Belisle: I believe that your interest in fine food goes back even further than your father.

Vanessa Santarelli: Absolutely. My grandparents, Guido and Jovanna Santarelli, they had restaurants in East Hampton, Long Island, the Villa Door, where actually Ray Charles used to play the piano there from time to time. They had photos that they would show me, and Barbara Streisand used to dine there on occasion. They also owned a restaurant called Guido's in Astoria, Queens in New York. And then they were actually avid outdoorsmen. My nana was a hunter, and they, with their friends from New York, somehow found their way to Maine. They owned these traditional sporting camps up in the Katahdin region, but they also owned a restaurant, an Italian restaurant in Augusta on Water Street called Guido's Wine Cellar. So as a child, I used to remember seeing Maine's big politicians coming in and having lunch and dinner. And yeah, it was a wonderful restaurant. Great memories. I was very fortunate. I got homemade pasta, homemade sausage, homemade bread, venison cutlets from the deer that my nana hunted, as a child. And so, yeah, I have that in my blood, I guess.

Lisa Belisle: So, do you feel that the work you're doing now is a way to help other Maine chefs and people in the hospitality industry gain more exposure?

Vanessa Santarelli: Gosh, there are so many chefs and folks that are in Maine's food and hospitality universe that I've looked up to for a long time. And when I left my career in government and politics and public policy, when I was in that life, I was fortunate to travel the entire state, and I spent every dime pretty much that I made in that world on where I was going to eat, where I was going to stay, recreational things all across the state. So I was fortunate in that I built friendships and other types of relationships with a bunch of folks in that world. And I feel like I'm grateful that they are willing to support me just as much as I support, I would like to think that I support, them. So there are definitely chefs and innkeepers and cheesemakers and brewers and distillers and others that have been around and paving the way for a long time, and they certainly don't need my help to elevate their profile.

I feel like it's almost the opposite. So in fact, one of my marketing ideas, which was, I don't know if it was just because I didn't have a lot of money as a new startup, was, I would approach inns that already had a presence in the state, people would go and book rooms with them, and I would say, rather than be like a quote unquote travel agent where if I book somebody to stay at your property, one of my clients, you pay me a fee, I said, I'm not going to do that. I will refer clients to you. Would you be willing to put my logo, link and description somewhere on your website? So they were like, that's all we have to do. It doesn't have to be on the homepage. There's no expectation of them sending me people, but I would get clients who would see my logo on all these hotels' websites. And it was essentially a way to get some free marketing out of it.

Lisa Belisle: I think that's brilliant because what you're talking about is a way that you've created value, but has also been valuable to you. But not in a way that I think recently influencers have gotten a little bit of a bad rap for asking for free stuff, and understandably so, because people who are in the hospitality business, it costs them money to make food and have rooms available, for example. So for you just to say, this is a relationship, we're building a relationship, and I appreciate that, and hopefully this will come back to benefit me. And it sounds like it has. I think that really feels better than the traditional free stuff approach.

Vanessa Santarelli: I've never wanted, nor have I just gone to any restaurant or inn and just said, hi, I'm an influencer or a blogger or whatever, and can you give me a free meal? In fact, and I don't, if that's what folks do as part of their business model, more power to them, I don't disparage them for that. For my approach, as you just described, the chefs, they're operating on the tightest of margins. And I also wanted to have an unbiased opinion when referring my clients to a restaurant. I paid for my meal at the restaurant, so if I don't really enjoy it, maybe I don't include it on a client's itinerary. But if I did enjoy it, or maybe if I enjoyed three of the dishes and not the fourth, maybe I say, oh, this restaurant's fantastic.

Here's what I would recommend you order. I just don't want to be negative either. I've gotten criticized occasionally on my Instagram, I'd get occasional direct messages from people saying, oh, all you do is say, this is the best pizza, this is the best pasta, this is the best octopus, this is the best burger. Why don't you ever tell us what you don't like? And it's like, I'm not trying to put myself out as a food critic. I'm here to, I think there's too much negativity in the world. I'd rather focus on positive ways to help promote our incredible food and hospitality businesses in any way, shape or form. And I'm not going to be putting posts up that say nasty things about anyone.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I want to go back and say, I also agree with you, if there's an influencer whose business model is to feature food, or some product that they've been given access to, and obviously there's a value to the work that the influencer does, I also completely agree. I don't have a problem with that per se. I just think your model is interesting for the reasons we've described. And also, I really value the fact that you're talking about a very strength-oriented approach to making pleasurable things happen for people within the state of Maine. Because I know when I was working with Maine Magazine and the other magazines, that was often a focus, was, let's show the best of Maine. Let's show people the best houses and the best restaurants. And by best, I don't mean like, this is James Beard nominated. What I mean is here are all these really wonderful options that exist, and you might like this one, you might like this one, you might like this one. And the same sort of criticism would come in. People would say, well, that's not really a biased opinion, if everything is the best. And it's like, well, but don't we have a broad variety of people with a broad variety of

Vanessa Santarelli: tastes? Of tastes. Exactly. Well, it's interesting you talk about Maine Magazine, and I should also say, if I do go to restaurants, I do get a dish sent to me occasionally that I don't pay for because the chefs are sending me a dish and I don't send it back. I mean, I'll eat it, gladly. That would be rude, and I'm not rude. So there are times, and if I have an established relationship with an inn, sometimes they'll offer me a business rate or a discount on the stay, or even sometimes if I'm partnering with them a free stay because they value that relationship. I just mean that I don't enter into situations where I go in expecting anything for free. I go in expecting that I'm going to pay for it and considering that a value.

But with respect to Maine Magazine, I subscribed to Maine Magazine. This was back when I was in that previous life, career life, and when I was in New Hampshire, working as the director of New Hampshire Public Policy for Bi-State Primary Care Association. When I left New Hampshire to come back to Maine, my gift to all of the staff at Bi-State was an annual subscription to Maine Magazine, because all I did was talk about how much I missed Maine. And I thought that Maine Magazine did a wonderful job of, the artwork, the photography, the descriptions, the restaurant features, all of those things, I really enjoyed. And in fact, when I started my business, Chris Cast was instrumental in helping me to come up with that brand and the logo. So I have a connection there as well. And so it's funny how we all have, instead of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, we have like the one degree of separation here in Maine or something.

Lisa Belisle: Yes, that's certainly true. So I think when I'm thinking about growing up in Maine and how much Maine has changed, I know I've had my experience, and I now work with a healthcare system based in Augusta that has a relatively brand new facility. So I know that's at least one area in which the Augusta area has changed. But as an Augusta native, I'm sure there are many, many more than I am not even thinking of. What's the difference between where you grew up and what that area has evolved to, in your opinion?

Vanessa Santarelli: Augusta itself? Yeah. So gosh, I've seen Augusta go from kind of a really vibrant, bustling community as a child, and the downtown, to a period where the downtown just kind of collapsed. There were all these investments in these big box type developments on various different areas of my hometown. And I'll never forget, so Water Street in Augusta was a hub of the community. You had high-end men's clothing stores, high-end women's clothing stores, shoe stores, bakeries, my father's restaurant. There was another restaurant, Hazel Green's. The politicians and lobbyists and lawyers. And so there was a business community. It wasn't just considered a community where folks would come in, work, and then leave. People actually would go down into the downtown area and support the businesses there, as opposed to go to all these bedroom communities and surrounding areas.

And then I'll never forget, it was the flood of '87, and it was a massive flood. And the Kennebec River was so high that the smaller bridge, so there's the Memorial Bridge and the smaller bridge, the water was actually going over the top of the bridge deck. And my father's restaurant got completely flooded, as did a number of the other businesses down there. And it was that flood that ended up, I think, my grandparents and my father, and my mother, closed the restaurant. And then it just seemed like that was that period, then all of these developments were happening in different parts of the community. And it was really sad to watch because the downtown was really devastated, I think. And it had a huge impact on that small town fabric of the community feel.

But now, as we're seeing, the really wonderful developments happening with the investments. You've got all these new restaurants down on Water Street again, like Cushnoc Brewing's down there and State Lunch and the Oak Table, and businesses are coming back and being supported, downtown Diner. And I go on and on. And it's really wonderful to see. And I also credit organizations like the Maine Development Foundation and others for saying we're going to move our offices downtown before all of these other businesses started seeing the downtown as a value again.

Lisa Belisle: I can tell you in my current position, where a big part of my job is bringing medical staff, doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants into work for our healthcare system, is helping people to understand the value of this area and the value of the Gardiner area and the value of the Waterville area. And so we will take our new medical staff out to dinners on Water Street, or up to Waterville on Main Street, to show them, this is Maine. This is a really wonderful part of Maine where you can get great food and the people are very friendly and invested in the community. And I think this is what brings, I'm specifically talking right now about the healthcare professionals, but this is what brings generally people to the area, and then causes them to stay and raise their children and continue to build that community. And I think when we talk about Maine, that's really what we need.

Vanessa Santarelli: Absolutely. And at Maine Primary Care Association, I remember the community health centers, the recruitment issue obviously was a huge concern. I was really happy that during my time in that organization, we built a strong coalition and passed the first ever primary care professionals' tax credit in the state. New Hampshire had had one. And when I came back, that was one of the things that I had said would be a goal when I was hired, because obviously the recruitment and retention situation for not just physicians, but nurse practitioners and physician assistants and medical assistants was so critical, especially in rural areas, but also in larger communities like Augusta and Portland and elsewhere. And you know, I just remember folks talking about, where can we take, as a lobbyist in Augusta, we want to be able to take folks out for lunch in Augusta, and I love Hollow, but they would also be like, we're going to Hollow. There was just not a lot of options in Augusta for a while. The Thai restaurant, awesome. The Senator, great. But I think it's really nice to see a little bit more of a dynamic variety of options now.

Lisa Belisle: I also like when you talk about the concierge service that you're providing, you're bringing people into the state to enjoy a slice of our experience when we live here in Maine, that people are so connected to our state once they leave. The people that we have coming into the Portland Art Gallery, they went to summer camp here, or they had a great meal on the deck of a lobster shack out in some part of the coast. And people will connect to these experiences and it creates so much longevity with their memories. So what you're doing now is interesting because you're, in a weird way, lobbying a slightly different stakeholder group, but also having the same impact possibly over the long term, like creating this interest, bringing people to Maine. Maybe they'll come back, maybe they'll remember it, who really knows, maybe it's two generations away, but you're building that business for Maine.

Vanessa Santarelli: Yeah. And very well said. And it's funny because I have repeat clients who are from places like Tennessee and California and Texas, and they just loved their experience here so much that now they had planned to go elsewhere. Like, okay, we went to Maine, we've done that. No, now they actually want to come back. They want to buy properties here, they want to buy camps here, they want to go to different destinations. What I also like is that I think people who want to come to Maine, some of them have an idea of, oh, we want to go to Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island, or we want to go to Kennebunkport. We all know those are fantastic communities, but if they're staying for any length of time, I really do try to encourage them to get inland, to get up north, to get farther Down East, to go to Western Maine.

Because there's just so many, and every place has something that's incredible about it. Erin and I just filmed a MaineLife episode in Rumford and Mexico. I just love it. I love every place we go to and there's something really wonderful and special about every community here. And really grateful that I get to show guests from away. I have a lot of clients that are Mainers that are just like, we really have never, there are a lot of Mainers that have never ventured outside of their home community or within a 30-mile radius. And now they're saying, we want to go somewhere else, but we want your advice on what you think we might enjoy. So it does bring me a lot of joy for sure.

Lisa Belisle: Well, and again, it's not just to bring people in, but it's to keep people here. So if you are having people from Maine who are clients of yours, and you're able to say, look, look what's around you, look at this community that you are a part of, or look at another community that's a little bit further away, but still within our state. That's just such a wonderful way to keep people connected to this place that, even on the worst of days, I still feel fortunate to live here.

Vanessa Santarelli: I agree. And I'm getting folks that are calling me not to set up their vacation plans, but folks that are coming here for business that want to extend their business visit, or folks that are just like, I'm thinking about buying a home in Maine, but can we just have a call so that we can weigh options, and I can ask them about their varying interests and then say, okay, well based on that, these are the types of communities that kind of meet and exceed all of those needs. Somebody told me when I started my business that you're going to think your business is going to have this, what you put in your business plan is going to be constant, and that you have this business idea and that you're just going to continue in that direction. And they said, when you start your business, you're going to have all of these different avenues, or opportunities are going to present themselves that branch off of that. And the folks that see those as opportunities and pursue them tend to be the most successful.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I think you and I, the first time I interviewed you was as you were just starting your concierge business, and it sounds like, at least according to the number of things you have that are planned and your bookings, that you have been successful.

Vanessa Santarelli: Yes, I am. I have a friend, chef Keiko Suzuki Steinberger. She owns Suzuki's Sushi Bar in Rockland. And she's very humble and very modest about always learning. You should never consider yourself there or a hundred percent successful, it's continual growth and all of this stuff. And I feel that way. I could never have imagined the amount of success that I've achieved thus far with this new business. There were so many people who, I got turned down for my business loans from banks because they had no idea what this service, what my business model was. They didn't want to take that level of risk. And that was hard. And I also had a lot of folks that were friends of mine that were restaurant owners and innkeepers that also said, how are you going to make any money?

How are you going to feed your, how are you going to survive? I don't even understand what you're talking about. We have a concierge. And so it was funny. They were like, good luck. I think somebody else tried this. I'm like, no, nobody's ever tried it this way. Trust me. So, not to sound cliche about, oh, there were all these naysayers and then I showed them, I proved them wrong. There were tons of people that were wickedly supportive. But it was not easy. And it is still not easy. I have a ton of debt from the COVID period. I was still building my business. I think people see me and they see my Instagram and all these luxurious meals. I get to enjoy all these inns and all these experiences and oh, I'm snowmobiling this week, I'm fishing this week.

You have to project that you are, I am having fun, but it is a lot of work. And I am struggling to pay my bills now. If I'm really being honest, I have a mountain of debt from deferring my home mortgage payments during COVID, as do a ton of other folks in not just the food and hospitality industry, but tons of small business owners and large business owners. And all these people I couldn't qualify for, some of my business wasn't eligible for some of the grants and other supports that were available during that period. The fortunate thing was I was partnering with vacation rentals and I was doing provisioning and delivery services to people who were quarantining in place in their summer homes, which became their homes and things like that.

I know that it looks like I'm wealthy and I get to do all these things. And it is important for me to project that, because it supports my business. It supports those businesses that I rely on for my business. But I'm not like woe is me. There are a lot of people who are really, really struggling in Maine and elsewhere, who can barely put a meal on their plate. But for me to keep paying my mortgage and pay my property taxes and put heating oil in my, I mean, I run it almost to empty and then refill it. And I'm just being real because I think that it's important. And I think it's to be honest about these things. Yes, do I feel like I've achieved success? Yes, there are certain ways that I can measure that, but I'd like to be able to get to a place where I am not dealing with high anxiety about whether I'm going to be able to keep my house and whether I'm going to be able to pay my bills and all of this stuff. So I think it's important for me to be honest about that.

Lisa Belisle: And I love that you're sharing this and you're willing to be honest. Because I think it puts you in a place of vulnerability that you can equally say there's all these great things. And I think people who have not tried to operate in a small business space have no idea of the personal risk involved and have no idea how much time is spent working on the business.

Vanessa Santarelli: I cashed in my retirement. I have no retirement, I have no savings. That's a real, and that's not just me. I know tons of other folks that are some of the highest rated chefs, some of the most beautiful properties in Maine, and we put every dime that we make into business. So yes, am I getting to eat at Primo or Chella or Walker's Maine? Yes, because when I get a client I'm getting paid, but I'm also reinvesting those dollars into my business because I need to continue to bring in income and those clients want me to stay current on things. So anyway, maybe I'm doing that oversharing stuff, but I also think that these conversations are important, because we all have, nobody walks a mile in anybody else's shoes.

And I think people sometimes need to come from places of understanding, and that what you see sometimes isn't the full story. What I post on Instagram, and I like to use a lot of humor, it's good and it's therapeutic and whatever, but I also work my butt off and I'm going to continue to do that because I have no other option. I'm not a trustafarian, I don't have a trust fund, I don't have any retirement. So am I worried now because I'm 45? Yeah. But we just keep plugging away. That's what we do here in Maine, that's what we do.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I think so. I'm guessing it's also what your grandparents did.

Vanessa Santarelli: And my mother and my father, they're all, that's, so,

Lisa Belisle: But I think this, what you're identifying, is something that I'm not sure everybody understands. You can be the owner of a very successful appearing, or successful,

Vanessa Santarelli: Successful,

Lisa Belisle: by some sort of measurements, business, and also there's a whole backstory that most people have no conception of unless they themselves have actually been doing that type of work. So I think the fact that you're willing to keep showing up every day, working through your own honest assessment of your life and your needs and what you need to move forward, but also working with other people who are similarly doing this, whether it's a chef, whether it's somebody in the hospitality, an owner of an inn, and doing that, you've identified something that's really big. COVID hit the industry very, very hard, and a lot of industries, and we're still in it.

Vanessa Santarelli: Yep. We still are.

Lisa Belisle: And we may medically be a little safer because things have shifted somewhat, but we're going to be experiencing this and living this for quite a while. So how do we try to stay as balanced as we can while we continue to rebuild the resources, I guess is the only way that I can put it.

Vanessa Santarelli: Yeah. I agree. And I think on top of COVID, and obviously COVID shifted the dynamic for the way people work and the way people want to work, Commissioner Laura Fortman at the Maine Department of Labor, I used to work for her, and we pulled together a focus group meeting of some local restaurant owners and others in the mid-coast area talking about their struggles for hiring. Not dissimilar I guess to the healthcare industry. And dispelling the myth that, oh, there's tons of people, they're just laying around collecting unemployment, they don't want to work. Well, that's actually not, the data doesn't support that. The unemployment levels, and folks collecting unemployment, were at some of the lowest just recently.

And I think it's that people don't want to work a million hours and not get to spend time with their families. So I know that there's that kind of double-sided situation where during COVID a lot of people did get to reconnect with their families and spend time with their kids. And so hopefully some of the learnings from that in certain parts of the industry were that people could still find a way to operate their restaurants or breweries or distilleries or cheesemaking operations, but strike a little bit more of a balance. And I hope that that's going to continue. But I also hope for the sake of the state's economy, for their economic well-being and their family's economic well-being, that they're able to hire enough people and make enough money to support themselves and feel like the career that they are passionate about is still giving them that passion and that they feel rewarded by all the work that they're putting in.

And I mean, it's what's going on with the Maine lobstering industry. This was a situation too a few years ago, with the tax credit stuff for Maine Lobster. Everybody wants to see the lobster boats in the water and they want the postcard pictures, and what are we all willing to do to help support our traditional industries as well as the innovative, groundbreaking new ones that are coming in here. So I'm going to keep eating Maine Lobster. I think that you can support Maine's lobster and fishing families and also support whales and the environment. So I love the and also, and I think there needs to be a lot of the and alsos going on.

Lisa Belisle: Yes. Well, I'd like to be able to continue to have people support your business. How can people find out about you? How can people connect with you, Vanessa?

Vanessa Santarelli: Thank you. They can find me on Instagram at Your Maine Concierge, as well as on Facebook at Your Maine Concierge or Vanessa Santarelli, and through my website at www.yourmaineconcierge.com. So I'm pretty easy to find. But thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm really grateful and I hope that you felt like the conversation was insightful and fun and not boring.

Lisa Belisle: No, I got a lot out of it. The thing that I love the most is your level of honesty and your willingness to engage in all the areas. I think that sometimes it's easier to say the happy things. I think most people, what I've found in my life is that some people assume that if you're saying the happy things, then either you are delusional or you're dishonest. But what I continually myself try to understand and put forth into the world is that saying the happy things is a choice. You are making a choice to present things in a way that draws people in to support your business and Maine businesses. And I feel the same way about, I am highly aware of all the terrible things that happen to people over the course of, let's say their medical lives, and also they are resilient. They are strong. And so I think that that choice to frame things in a specific way in no way undermines the difficulty that people experience. And you've just exemplified that all for me today.

Vanessa Santarelli: Well, thank you again. I'm so happy we've reconnected. And yeah, if you want me to set up an itinerary for you, you know the state probably as well as I do, but happy to help.

Lisa Belisle: That sounds great. I've been speaking today with Vanessa Santarelli of Your Maine Concierge. You can find her at yourmaineconcierge.com and I really hope that you will take this opportunity to reach out and connect with her. She's a wonderfully refreshing and also extremely knowledgeable Maine native and I think we're lucky to have her. And I'm really fortunate that you came in and talked with us today.

Vanessa Santarelli: It was my pleasure. It's beautiful down here. Thank you.

Lisa Belisle: I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you have been listening to or watching Radio Maine.