Shopping - Texas Style
Now you can't go to Texas and not buy a cowboy hat. So Sebastian took me to a local store that was brimful of anything a cowboy or cowgirl could ever want...
After leaving the shop, and with a cowboy hat on my head, we walked tall on the streets of Georgetown. We went to find out what Georgetown is really like, the different influences that have shaped it, and how it has affected the lifestyle there.
Texas is full of surprises and the biggest surprise was discovering the State's German heritage. Sebastian took me to a beer Keller in downtown Austin, where we ate Bratwurst, drank German beer, and talked about how evident the German influence still was in Georgetown.
“It makes many Europeans feel at home because there’s a rich European heritage.”
Time Stamps
0:47 - Visiting a classic Texan shop that sells everything from cowboy hats to boats.
1:49 - The amount of holiday that workers in America receive and how it makes them live for the weekend.
7:12 - The correct etiquette when wearing a cowboy hat.
8:53 - Georgetown, what it’s like and the quality of life there.
10:08 - A look inside an American church.
13:19 - How safe Texas is and the German influence that’s there.
15:54 - Going to a beer Keller and seeing the German heritage that’s still evident in Texas.
Resources:
Connect with Kevin Turley: Website
Connect with Sebastian Sauerborn: LinkedIn
Episode Transcript
Episode 5: Shopping – Texas Style
Kevin: So, here we are in Austin Airport. I think it’s Austin Airport. I hope it’s not the Austria or Australia.
So, I’m sitting in a somewhere in Europe and I’m thinking of moving my family to Austin, Texas what’s the process?
Sebastian: The US is a massive market, huge. I mean 330 million people live there. We just don’t have that in Europe if you want to do business on that scale Europe you have to deal with 10 different countries, 10 different languages, it’s very complicated, time-consuming, expensive.
You’re listening to ‘Move your business to United States’ with me, your host, Kevin Turley.
Sebastian: Yeah, so this is Outdoor World, like a big outdoors shop and it’s nine o’clock in the morning. So, they open at nine. We are the first ones in.
Kevin: Now, you can’t go to Texas and not buy a cowboy hat. So, Sebastian took me to a local store that was brimful of all any cowboy or cowgirl could ever want.
Sebastian: They sell everything, you know, from boats, fishing gear, weapons, camping stuff.
Kevin: I’m just going to describe, Sebastian, for our listeners and the outdoor façade of this shop is like something out of a movie set. It’s got this huge kind of wooden façade, of the start, with the antlers and American flags, Texas flags. I mean, it looks like something out of the Wild West. Is the outdoor life in Texas a big draw? Would you say, Sebastian?
Sebastian: Very big, yeah. I mean, hunting is very big, you know, hunting, camping, fishing. The point is, of course, that people in the United States typically don’t have holidays. You know, they don’t have paid vacation time. So, they are very much into local activities in their free time. You know, they might go to a state park for a weekend. you know, they might go fishing for a weekend, they might go hunting for a weekend. So, that’s very big.
Kevin: That’s a really interesting point what I want to ask you about because one of the things that a lot of people Europeans are put off about the United States, is this idea that nobody in the United States has a holiday. You have like two weeks off a year and that’s it.
Sebastian: Most people don’t have any time off a year. There’s no law here that would require an employer to give you time off. So, most small employers don’t think of any time off.
Kevin: So, how does that work?
Sebastian: Well, they just work, they work every day, except the weekend.
Kevin: So, does that make them live for the weekend a bit more than even we do in Europe?
Sebastian: Yeah, sure.
Kevin: And they make more use of it, maybe.
Sebastian: Yes, yes. I mean, their idea of a weekend wouldn’t be sitting in front of the television with a couch.
Sebastian: No, it’s a surprise lot of people do that too.
Kevin: Really?
Sebastian: You know, yeah, yeah. Typically, in bigger companies like in and you know like say software companies, the big technology companies. Of course, then they have holidays there, But I know a friend who works at Apple in a good position here, has only seven days paid-leave a year. You know.
Kevin: Really, seven days! Oh, goodness!
Kevin: Before we go in here and this is the… This, we’re in this, sort of one of these American parking lot kinds of mall places and this is another huge Emporium.
Sebastian: So, this is for Cowboys supplies hats, jeans, boots. They’re going to go in this now because I need to buy a couple of things.
Kevin: So, if I want to become a cowboy, I got to go to a place like this in America.
Sebastian: Yeah.
Kevin: Okay, let’s go.
Sebastian: Let’s kit you out guys.
Kevin: Walking into the store, was the equivalent of an Aladdin’s cave for any prospective Texan. Hats, boots, belts, yup everything you ever needed, except a real live horse.
Sebastian: There’s the boot section.
Kevin: I’ve never seen as many cowboy boots in my life.
Sebastian: So, which one, which one, would you, which one do you like?
Kevin: That’s got to be these.
Sebastian: What about those here?
Kevin: Look at these ones.
Sebastian: Alligator leather, yeah.
Kevin: Really, there’re not cheap, not cheap, wow.
Sebastian: Well, the real cowboy boot is like a flat. You know a flat tip, not a pointed tip because if you think about it, you know work boot, the pointy tip is not really useful for work boot.
Kevin: So, how much does the average I cowboy boot cost?
Sebastian: Well, I say two three hundred to three hundred.
Kevin: Two to three hundred dollars which is what about hundred and fifty pounds?
Sebastian: No, it’s about two and fifty pounds.
Kevin: Two and fifty pounds, wow!
Kevin: While the Europeans were working out what was what, on the horizon, the cavalry appeared in the shape of the ever-helpful salesman mark.
Kevin: Well, we’ve come from London.
Salesman: Okay. So, this is men’s here, on the other side, are the women’s.
Kevin: So, you got more over there.
Salesman: Oh, yeah, and we have in the corner, we’ve got kids and then over that corner, we have casual shoes and work boots.
Kevin: You know, is this the way Texans buy, or is it people who come to Texas on holiday and they buy these things. Is it like the Texans wear these?
Salesman: Oh yeah.
Kevin: Standard-issue?
Salesman: Huh, everybody, that’s whether they own a ranch, or they work on the ranch or they just wanted to do it and then people are coming here for work boots, steel toes, got to have them to work. [4:36]
Kevin: It’s amazing.
Salesman: Some places, won’t let you on the job site if you don’t have them.
Kevin: How much do the hats cost?
Salesman: Depends, we’ve got all the way down from 60 $ to up in the case 560 and they get more expensive than that.
Kevin: And what’s, what do you look for in a hat?
Salesman: Quality, the way it fits, style.
Kevin: Do you have hats for extra-large heads? I’ve got a big head.
Salesman: I’ve actually seen bigger.
Kevin: Have you?
Kevin: That’s saying something. I could never find a hat in London.
Salesman: I’ve hats if you’re looking, even small hats not like normal cowboy.
Kevin: I wouldn’t mind looking at them.
The bulls are kicking up their heels. **
[Applause]
[Music]
Let go cowboy! *
He can’t, his glove is stuck.
[Applause]
[Music]
Walk, do not run to the nearest exit. Oh yeah. *
Kevin: There’s somebody who told me there’s a difference between a straw hat and the other one ,a different season, is that so?
Salesman: Yes, so we’re right now in felt season
Kevin: Why, tell me why is that?
Salesman: Felt hats are a little bit warmer. It’s pretty warm at the moment.
Salesman: Oh, yeah, so usually the switchover is usually a big difference, so Labor days, when we switched to felt season but it’s, it’s still warm, so a lot of people still wear the straws but when we switched to straw season is still cold, so some people still wear the felt.
Kevin: So, where’s the big, big headed hats, you know for big heads?
Salesman: So, we have them so all these, just come with bigger sizes.
Kevin: Got you.
Salesman: The buckle will always go on the left if there’s not one that you can notice because you’re ripping in the back that will go into the back of it.
Kevin: Okay, this is an LBJ.
Sebastian: So, you’re going to buy a hat, Kevin? Now it’s the felt hat season, right?
Kevin: Yeah, I got this gentleman, was telling me all about it. Yeah, it’s pretty good actually.
Sebastian: So, let’s get Kevin a cowboy hat.
Kevin: Do you get the horse with the hat? Or you get ….
Salesman: We sell stick horses if you like. [laughter]
Kevin: I suppose as good as I need you know.
Sebastian: Well, that looks really good.
Kevin: Does that fit?
Sebastian: It’s a little big.
Kevin: But maybe supposed to be, it just a little bit tight.
Salesman: You want to be…stays looser, it’s not going to give you a headache.
Kevin: Will it, will it expand a little bit?
Salesman: ….
Kevin: Can I see it in the mirror?
Kevin: Wow, that looks amusing. I feel like a cowboy. Now, tell me about the etiquette, Mark.
Salesman: So, part of it is, take it off when you go to church, take it off, when you’re at dinner table, while you’re in a home. It’s a sign of respect. So, if you’re at somebody else’s home, you take off this hat. If you’re going to shake a woman’s hand, take your hat off, before shaking their hand. If you’re going to store it, sort of hang it on the crown or on a hat holder.
Kevin: You don’t take it often you meet him another man though?
Salesman: No.
Kevin: Okay.
Sebastian: Ready to go.
Kevin: Yeah, okay. Well, listen! Thank you very much and thanks for showing us around.
Sebastian: Cheers, thank you very much, very nice to meet you.
- Good manners make good first impressions and because your manners are showing all the time, they have a lot to do with how well people like you. Everywhere you go, your manners are with you and they leave their mark. They help you feel sure of yourself too and they make an impression on people, on everyone you meet. *
*Hi, you’re listening to ‘Move your business to the United States’, just a quick word from our sponsors Mount Bonnell Advisors. The people there have been advising clients on moving stateside for years. For all your needs, both business and practical, head over to Mount Bonnell.com to find out more.
Thanks for listening. *
Having just left the store with cowboy hat on my head, it was time to walk tall on the streets of Georgetown.
Kevin: So, Sebastian you brought me to Georgetown…
Sebastian: Yes.
Kevin: Which is in the northern suburbs of Austin. We’re about what ten miles outside Austin?
Sebastian: Yeah, I would say probably 20 miles outside Austin, yeah.
Kevin: Now, am I right in thinking, you lived in this area?
Sebastian: I did live here, yeah. So, when I moved back to United States in 2016, I moved to Georgetown because we found a nice house here.
Kevin: And how did you find it?
Sebastian: Oh, I loved it, I mean it was great. My children really liked it; you know. There are lots of nice bars and restaurants.
Kevin: Yeah, it looks, it looks like what I think America should look like, you know small town America.
Sebastian: It’s very Texan you know, there are lots of Texan small towns. They look like, we would see a few more.
Kevin: But you know what? It’s also very green, this is the thing, I keep getting about Texas. You know, I mean this part of Texas. It’s nice. I thought it’d be like a desert, you know, like those Westerns, we had in a desert and you have a train stop and the water tower….
Sebastian: And the tumbleweed rolling around.
Kevin: Wait but it’s nothing like it. I mean no tumbleweed at all.
Sebastian: Especially here, they have lots of pecan trees, you know, lots of oak, old trees you know. That are maybe several hundred years old.
Kevin: This is a lovely old church here.
Sebastian: You want to have a look inside.
[Music]
Sebastian: 1881.
Kevin: 1881, wow!
Someone: How are you?
Sebastian: Hey there, very well, thank you. That’s a very nice church.
Kevin: I said this is like you know that film, what was it called’ back to the future’, they filmed here? No, so this is the way that Europeans think small-town America looks like.
Someone: Yeah.
Kevin: Now, um we’ve been driving on the Interstate 35 and we I can tell you that most of America does not look like this. No, listen, listen it was good because when I got here, I thought wow, this is nice.
Someone: It’s a sweet place so we rent it from the city, we are Preservation Georgetown, we recently rebranded to be called Preservation but before that we were called the Georgetown Heritage Society and back in the 70s, the small square, that’s so delightful now, was run-down, broken-down, closed up and these ladies got together to form the society to bring up the square and the historic district.
Kevin: Well, you’ve done a fantastic job.
Someone: So, yeah. Old ladies, they can get stuff done, just a couple of them. They started all these events, clean, cleaned it up, partnered with the city for a long-term plan to preserve things and they did a great job.
Kevin: Listen! Thank you very much, we’re going to go take another look around, yeah. I’m dying to look around your square, it’s, it’s wonderful.
Someone: Yeah.
[Music]
Sebastian: And this side, is the courthouse and you will find the same concept or layout in a lot of Texas towns. So that the courthouse it’s very imposing architecture for a small town like this and it’s in a very prominent position and everything is kind of arranged around the courthouse and this is basically a symbol for civilization.
You have to remember when those people came here, those European settlers, there were still Comanche Indians here and the courthouse represented civilization, civility, the rule of law and this was very important as a representation of the, you know, the United States, as a you know, as a republic and as a state.
Kevin: Now! Listen, Sebastian, you got me worried. Are there any Comanches still around here?
Sebastian: No, nope, not now.
Kevin: Just on the point of law and it strikes me, is a very safe place. I mean, people’s cars, you’re all nicely parked and…
Sebastian: Oh, it’s very safe, so you’d remember like the European settlers came to Texas, many Germans from other countries around the 1850s and there’s been many of these houses here, they were built, you know, these original shops that were built in the 1850s and they always…
Kevin: Why the 1850s, what’s significant about the 1850s?
Sebastian: Well, there were lots of events going on in Europe back then. For example, in Germany, there was a failed revolution in 1848 and a lot of Germans had to leave the country to avoid persecution, a lot of Germans came to Texas then.
Kevin: Can you see traces of this sort of German either in the architecture or in the names?
Sebastian: Yeah, the names totally, yeah, yeah.
- We in America are immigrants or the children of immigrants. We are one people, but a people welded from many nations and races. People who came to America during a vast migration from Europe to other parts of the world. In this migration, millions of Europeans left their homelands to settle in new countries across the seas. Almost two-thirds of them came to the United States.
The era of the great migration from Europe began about 1820. During the following 70 years, immigrants came from western and northern Europe in growing numbers. The earliest waves brought people from Ireland and Great Britain, from Germany and nearby countries. Later the Scandinavians have joined the migration from the north and west of Europe. *
[Music]
- Today these people of every nation and race have become Americans. People, still diverse but sharing common aspirations and drawn together in their common contribution of the skills and talents that have made America a great nation. *
Kevin: Texas is full of surprises and the biggest surprise of all, was discovering about the state’s German heritage. Sebastian took me to a Bierkeller in downtown Austin to find out more.
Sebastian: Kevin! So, I wanted to show you something that exemplifies the German roots, you know, that are existing here in Austin Texas, so this restaurant was opened in 1866 is called Scholz.
Scholz is a beer garden and it serves traditional German food, I’d say rather Bavarian food and how did you like it, how did you like the schnitzel?
Kevin: It was very nice, it was, it felt very authentic German food and the atmosphere here is, hello it’s Texas. It still feels quite European, middle European.
Sebastian: And you didn’t even know that there was such a thing as German pasta, right?
Kevin: I didn’t, I do like it, I do now and I’m a fan yeah, it’s great.
Sebastian: So, there are lots of places like this in this area and around it, you know, like German beer gardens, German restaurants. Of course, all a bit nostalgic and its good fun for people to come here. Yeah, lots of possibilities to go to German restaurants.
Kevin: Yeah, it’s quite an eye-opener. Actually, I didn’t realize how Germanic this whole part of Texas was.
Sebastian: Exactly, I mean we have seen this time, various places in their place like Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, Boerne which are all German names, so yeah, there’s a lot of German history.
Kevin: There were, like roads called Weimar and this sort of thing, you know, it’s all very German.
Sebastian: Yeah, I mean Germans came in the 1850s and since then, I guess, they, especially, after world war I, they tried to be a bit under the radar, you know, they didn’t speak much German anymore but there are still actually clubs of German-speaking Texans, who meet up to, you know, regularly speak the language.
Kevin: So, you hear German spoken quite regularly on the streets of Austin.
Sebastian: I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration but yeah, I mean, you know, might be down to tourists you know. [laughter]
You know, oh yeah, I mean a lot of German Texans are proud of their heritage and celebrate it when they can.
Kevin: That’s good, that’s really good, should we take a look around.
Have you seen there, the beer in the middle?
Sebastian: The massive stein. Stein yeah, it’s incredible, isn’t it? I mean the beers, they serve are definitely very well-known German beers, big breweries, Spartan, that kind of Weiss beer… pretty good German stuff.
Kevin: And what about the construction, does it remind you of a German beer Keller?
Sebastian: A little bit, I guess. For this thing there this says ” Grüß Gott, tritt ein, bring Glück herein…” it means “welcome, come in and bring luck with you”.
I’m not sure why they have a rabbit there gnawing a carrot, but I mean anyway, it has to do with luck, you know, and this says “Das Leben besteht nicht nur aus Vergnügen” means ‘life is not all about fun’ I think it’s well, made by Bismarck, I assume it’s a quote by Bismarck, might be that, he said that, he was a very serious character, Bismarck. So…
Kevin: Let’s go to beer garden.
[Music]
Sebastian: You know, you wouldn’t expect that when you come to Texas, I think that’s the thing you know.
Kevin: Surely, this sort of thing, Sebastian, makes you and many Europeans feel at home, that there’s a rich European heritage to this part of Texas.
Sebastian: Well, I mean, it certainly means that lots of Germans came here since the 1850s and, you know, made a good life here, you know, many of them. So, I think there’s a reason for this and I think even today, this place is still attractive.
Kevin: And where exactly in Austin, are we?
Sebastian: Well, this is pretty much downtown Austin, I mean all the government buildings, Congress is just on the other side here. So, yeah, we are very close we’re very much downtown.
So, this is a good location for anyone to come, who wants German nostalgia, beer and a good time.
Kevin: And so, would this be a place that German tourists would come quite a lot to?
Sebastian: I don’t think really German tourists, but I think more like, you know, Americans who want to experience sort of German, the real German.
Kevin: You have German heritage?
Sebastian: Yeah, and I think it’s a good place for watching, you know, football games, you know.
So, I think it’s more, I think Americans wanted to watch a football game and having a good time in a bar with colleagues, for example.
Kevin: Really, Austin’s got everything you need isn’t it, football and beer.
Okay, so this, you’re going to take me to an Irish pub soon.
Sebastian: Let’s do that, let’s go.
Kevin: Okay.
Next time on ‘Move your business to United States’
Entrepreneurs have a different story. They go, and they follow a burning desire in their gut and whatever it is they’re trying to create, they put everything into it and spend five-ten years eating ramen noodles but at the end of the day, they truly create a life that is more stable for themselves and their life is happier because they’re following their passion.
- You’ve been listening to ‘Move your business to United States’ with me Kevin Turley. a huge thanks to my producer Emmett Glynn who produce this podcast for Mount Bonnell Media to find out more go to MountBonnell.com and remember, ‘Dream big, dream America’ *
