Title: Shop Listener 2024: Experiences.

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now it's time for another round of Shop Listener where we invite WNYC listeners selling holiday gifts to call in with what you've got, and we offer the rest of you the opportunity to Shop Listener to buy holiday gifts from your fellow WNYC listeners, Brian Lehrer Show listeners, and folks in our community. Today we'll take calls from those of you who sell experiences as gifts. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

We're singling out this category because people love getting experiences as a creative gift rather than things sometimes. Here are some of the many kinds that people offer. We'll get into them in a minute. 212-433-WNYC. If you're offering one, any kind of experience as a holiday gift that your business is selling, 212-433-9692. We invite you to call in and shout it out. Does your business offer classes of some sort, something creative, maybe a cooking class, sushi making, pasta making, so many to choose from, or maybe your business offers art or music lessons? If the recipient is always like if you know somebody who's always said, "I always wanted to learn the piano or how to sing," maybe a floral arrangement class or painting, quilting, or maybe your business gives tours related to any kind of travel, historical tours around the city, bike or hiking tours in nature, call in to shout out your experience-related businesses of any kind at 212-433-9692.

Maybe you sell wellness-related gifts, massages, facials, meditation courses, yoga instruction, and I'll say that whether you make it on the air or not, everybody should know that you can also participate by filling out our online form. That's at wnyc.org/shoplistener, and that's for you shoppers too. This is the other side of the equation. If anybody has been hearing our Shop Listener segments and wants to go browse, you can do that, too, because we have the list and we have a map of those who have brick-and-mortar stores at wnyc.org/shoplistener, wnyc.org/shoplistener.

For the next few minutes, if you're selling experiences of any kind as holiday gifts, we're inviting you to call in and shout them out on the air. 212-433-WNYC, and we will take those calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your Shop Listener calls, if you're selling experiences of any kind as holiday gifts. We'll start with Janet in Nassau County. Hi, Janet. You're on WNYC.

Janet: Hey, Brian. I'm also Big River Barn Rescue. We're offering horseback riding on the spectacular trails of the Muttontown Preserve, which is right in the middle of Nassau County. You'll feel like you drove for hours upstate. It's so beautiful. I invited you to come last--

Brian Lehrer: You're breaking up, unfortunately. You know what? I'm going to go to somebody else. I think you're offering horseback riding lessons in Nassau County on a trail out there. Let's see if we can get your line stabilized, and we're going to come back to you. In the meantime, we're going to go to Eli in Astoria. You're on WNYC. Hi, Eli.

Eli: Hey, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What do you got?

Eli: I run a live fire barbecue pop-up in Astoria, Queens called Tikkun Barbecue. That's T-I-K-K-U-N BBQ. In addition to doing popups or catering or private events like weddings, we also do barbecue classes, especially around the holiday times. We can do anything from smash burgers, whole chicken steak, ribs, or a brisket. On our Instagram, which is Tikkun BBQ, you see a little infographic right at the top that lists the types of items, the time commitment, and then the price breakdown for a solo or a group. Then if you swipe right, you'll see what's covered. It's everything from food safety, different types of charcoal salt, marinades, different types of barbecue, meaning the difference between cooking ribs directly over a fire versus indirectly, as well as resting and cutting.

Brian Lehrer: Really, really cool. The name, Tikkun, it relates to good deeds, right?

Eli: Yes. I'm actually Jewish. I started this pop-up from my balcony. I've actually called in about this before, sorry. I started this pop-up during the pandemic from my balcony on the corner of 31st in Astoria. We give out free Narcan at every event because we're a certified opioid overdose prevention program with the city of New York. We also do a ton of fundraisers for everything from UNICEF to Alex Horne Center, et cetera.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. If people want to take these cooking classes, how do they find you?

Eli: Tikkun BBQ on Instagram. We also have a website, tikkunbbq.com. There's a contact section that has my phone number and email as well. This is just something I do on the side, by the way, so it may take me a day or two to get back to you. It's something I do on the weekends throughout the year. If anyone wants to take a barbecue class and learn how to cook with fire, I'd be happy to teach them.

Brian Lehrer: Eli, thanks a lot. Now, we're going to go back to Janet in Nassau County, who I think has stabilized her line. Hi, Janet.

Janet: Hey, Brian. Can you hear me now?

Brian Lehrer: Much better.

Janet: Oh, good. My barn is Big River Barn Rescue. We take people of any skill level, including first-time riders out on the beautiful trails of the Muttontown Preserve. We're less than an hour from Manhattan, but you'll feel like you drove for hours because the trails are unbelievably beautiful, and everyone's welcome. I invited you last year, Brian. I'm still waiting for you to come.

Brian Lehrer: I haven't gotten out there, but I know that area. I have family in that area and I know people can just also, even if they don't have a car, you can take the Long Island Railroad to the Syosset Stop, right?

Janet: Yes, that's really easy. We have a lot of people coming. A lot of people come from the city and do just that. It's really easy to get here.

Brian Lehrer: How do they find you? What's the web address?

Janet: Big River Barn Rescue, or also Big River Barn. That's us. All our horses are rescued. It's Big River Barn.

Brian Lehrer: Awesome.

Janet: I also offer harp lessons.

Brian Lehrer: Harp? Not while you're riding the horse, I hope.

Janet: [laughs] We can try.

Brian Lehrer: Janet, thank you very much. Good luck with it. Scott in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Scott.

Scott: Hi, Brian. My name is Scott. This is not my business, but I am shouting out a fellow Scott, a friend of mine, Scott's Pizza Tours. He is one of the premier pizza experts in the world and he happens to live here in New York. He runs daily pizza tours in Greenwich Village, East Village, West Village, downtown Brooklyn. You can do a public tour. You can do a private tour. I've done it myself. It's wonderful and it's great for New Yorkers like me. If you have friends visiting in town, you get to see the best pizzerias, sample different slices, and learn everything there is to know about pizza.

Brian Lehrer: Does this take place over multiple days? How many different slices of pizza can you eat in one afternoon?

Scott: In my experience, I think we hit three pizzerias in about two hours in the village. You can do a bus tour. If you want to go even further deep into Brooklyn, L&B Spumoni, get some of the deeper safaris, there's a bus tour. I think that may be four hours or so, a little longer. It's a pretty swift afternoon and you get a great walk if you do the walking tour. I was so blown away. I've known this guy for about 15 years and I didn't know that anybody could know that much about pizza. He'll tell you how it's made, the temperature, where it came from, where it was invented, all that stuff, the complete history. It's delicious because the pizza is the best in the world, of course, right here in New York.

Brian Lehrer: Right here in New York. Scott's Pizza Tours.

Scott: Scottspizzatours.com.

Brian Lehrer: I'm sure it's not the same Scott, but when I was growing up, the local pizza place that established the kind of pizza that I have a taste for, and I was reading an article just the other day about the kind of pizza you like is the kind of pizza that you had first when you were a kid, and it was Scotty's Pizza on Francis Lewis Boulevard in Queens. I'm sure it's not the same Scott, but it rings a bell. Scott's Pizza Tours.

Scott: Scotty's Pizza. If Scotty's is still around, Scott will take you there. I don't know about that one, Brian. It might be going back too far.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know about that one. Scott, thank you very much. Erin in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Erin.

Erin: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. How are you? What you got?

Erin: I'm great, thank you. I'm calling from Red Flower. We are a natural luxury beauty wellness brand based in New York. We have aromatherapeutic home fragrance products, beautiful pedal top candles, and room diffusers, but also sensorial spa at-home rituals. If you don't want to leave your home and you want to make it feel like a luxury destination spa, we can help you with that. We have three different spa collections based off of different global bathing cultures. Our team can help you put together a ritual that will feel like you are transported to somewhere else but you haven't left your home.

If you'd like to leave your home, we work with a lot of destination spas and hotels in New York. We work with the Greenwich Hotel, the Ludlow Hotel, the Mercer and Aman, New York, and we also work with a beautiful spot out in New Jersey called Pendry Natirar that just opened. We created a custom mud treatment using ingredients that were sourced on the grounds of this resort itself. If you really want to treat yourself, we can help you, and if you want to treat yourself at home, we can help you with that as well.

Brian Lehrer: Nice. Again, how do they contact you?

Erin: You can find us at redflower.com or reach out to us on social media, @redflowernyc, and one of our team members can help you create that perfect at-home beauty ritual for you.

Brian Lehrer: Erin, thank you so much. Regina in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Regina.

Regina: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hello.

Regina: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Hello.

Regina: Yes, hi.

Brian Lehrer: We've got the hellos out of the way now.

Regina: [laughs] Yes, we did. We are Brooklyn Escape Room located in Sunset Park, Industry City. We have escape rooms and a Nerf arena. We cater to both adults and kids, and we host birthday parties for both. That's what sets us apart from everyone else is because we have two event spaces where you can have a private experience, once again, for kids and adults. We're adding more rooms and more adventures.

Brian Lehrer: Give us an example or two of the rooms and adventures that you have.

Regina: Sure. Currently, we have three. We have House of Spirits, which is a spooky adventure, but no blood, no gore. Then we have Shelter R, which is a dystopian future video game vibe kind of a room. Then we have our biggest and most immersive room, which is 1,100 square feet, and that is the Medieval Dungeon. It looks like a dungeon, feels like a dungeon, and you get locked in, and you have one hour to figure out how to escape.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Sounds like fun games, especially for the kids, but I'm sure the adults get into it too, right?

Regina: Oh, of course. No, it's not exclusively for children. We do make it more child-friendly as we don't do a lot of gore and scary. Even our scary rooms are kind of child-friendly. We cater to corporate events, school groups, birthday parties. We do quite a few corporate events as well for team building.

Brian Lehrer: If people go to this escape room in Sunset Park, how do they find you?

Regina: We are brooklynescaperoom.com. You can find us on social media. Everybody should visit Industry City. It's a lot of fun. Many cute shops and restaurants, and it's a great place to visit.

Brian Lehrer: Regina, thank you very much. That's a good way to end a little sampling there of some of our listeners who are selling experiences as holiday gifts. For those of you who couldn't get on the air today or anyone else who's selling any kind of holiday gift and you're a WNYC listener, Brian Lehrer Show listener, this series is Shop Listener, where we give you the opportunity to either shout out on the air like we were doing or just post on our webpage for this, which I'll give you here one more time in just a second. Anybody who's selling holiday gifts can go there.

The rest of you, a lot of people have been doing it, this is really gratifying that we're able to match listeners like this and keep some holiday shopping off the behemoth websites. What's the synonym for behemoth? Shop from WNYC listeners. If you want to go and browse, we have the list, we have a map for the brick-and-mortar locations, so go and post or go and shop at wnyc.org/shoplistener, wnyc.org/shoplistener. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More to come.

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