Hey folks, Kevin Denny, police chief for Grand Island Police Department here at Farmer's Daughter talking to Joanna on another episode of the Business Beat.

So Joanna, thanks for inviting us into your business.

And this morning we got the opportunity to uh flip some pancakes, serve some hash browns and some eggs, top off the coffee.

I really enjoyed that interaction with your customers.

I tell you what, my staff and I we all had a fabulous time with you guys here this morning.

It was wonderful.

Well, I appreciate your cook Jason allowing us to come back there and get in his groove because he likes to see got his thing going on, so that was nice to allow us to get back there for a little bit and just nice to let him shine for a minute too.

It's good.

Well, he does a great job back there.

He does.

I can tell.

And the customers really enjoy, I think a single.

They come for the singing sometimes.

I asked him what his genre was, and he said the 80s mostly.

Pretty much, but he's pretty versatile.

I'm down with that.

So if you could just tell us a little bit of history um on how you came to be the owner here.

Okay.

I've been born and raised in Grand Island.

So came here a lot of times with my folks growing up.

This restaurant has been here for over 50 years.

And so I came a lot of times and always we just felt like this was my niche.

And so my mom and I looked for a place a long lot of years.

And then I ended up working here.

So I worked here a total of roughly 16 years.

Uh that includes the two and a half I've owned it.

I worked for the previous owner for 11 years.

And it's just home.

It's just home.

Everybody here is just one big family.

I am so blessed with the staff that I have.

It never feels like work.

We all come and and everybody was happy to come to work.

Nobody ever feels like, oh God.

No, they come through those doors and we're all just one big happy family, and everybody helps each other out.

We're a big team, and my customers are phenomenal.

I can't begin to tell you how wonderful my customers are.

We had a really neat interaction this week where we had a couple come in.

They're in their late 80s, and she asked, called me and asked if she could come in and they could sing the farmer's daughter song.

And they came in saying and they surprised another one of their friends who's 90, and uh she got up and danced to it.

I tell you what, there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

And it's just wonderful, you know.

It's just that's how it is in here.

You know, everybody turns and talks to each other where they've from different states, don't know each other.

It's just the atmosphere is just wonderful in here.

And you don't get that in a lot of places.

You don't.

I mean, you turn to speak to somebody and they kind of snub you in the other places.

No, but not here, not here.

It's just you're all connected.

It's really neat here.

Well, talking to uh the waitress this morning who was helping me, she was training me on uh on how to take orders and things.

That's one thing that she mentioned was uh that it feels like a family atmosphere that she feels like she's part of a of a team and it's not just a job.

And that's something that that's a leadership thing.

I work hard at it.

I like to treat my staff really well because they treat me well.

So it doesn't matter if you're you know a Fortune 500 business leader or you're uh you work in the police department or you work here in Farmer's Daughter and you're the owner of farmer's daughter, leadership principles are really the same, and uh I I believe that.

So when you have your employees who don't think of themselves as employees, they think of themselves as part of the family, then more likely um you're gonna have better customer service.

You're gonna have better employee retention.

Those are some of the things that that we're working on at the police department and policing in general is is to try to make the officers, the people at the police department feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves, and that improves customer service a whole lot of people.