Meet Drew Tucker | Co-owner of Cahoots

We had the good fortune of connecting with Drew Tucker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Drew, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
As best friends for over 10 years, we’ve always fantasized about starting something together. Many ideas and business plans were dreamed up, talked about, aspired to, but life and other things just always put us in different places. Last year the stars aligned and we were finally together in the same place, mentally and physically. We both had this overwhelming feeling that we were on the edge of something, something big. And finally, during another long night of talking and dreaming and aspiring, we put down our glasses of wine, looked at each other and said, “let’s jump.” Our only real plan was to create something we both truly care about and to catch each other along the way!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Cahoots is silly. It’s meant to be. I think that’s what really sets us apart from others. Our mission is to create healthy foods for the modern eater using fun and amusing branding to attract both adults and younger kids. It really started with our CRUSHERZ. We knew when creating the all-natural freeze-pop treat that we didn’t want it to come across as this super healthy thing, even though it is. We wanted it to be fun and nostalgic and a treat that feels naughty, but is actually nice! Same with Spoony, our soups. Yes, it’s nutritious soup, but how can we get people to look at and smile? Amusing branding and great ingredients. We’re both 90’s kids and we grew up with Gushers, Slurpees, Lunchables etc. I remember the Gushers commercials with the kids’ heads turning into fruit, so awesome! The bright and colorful wacky packaging of these items made them cool. If I didn’t have Gushers in my lunchbox, it was game over for me at school. But they were full of such bad stuff and the branding was tricking kids into making them want it, ya know? It was evil. Cahoots is trying to re-frame that idea. We want kids to be pointing and yelling, “Mom I want that!!” and we want the parents to look at the ingredients and go, “oh wow! okay yes, lets get it!” and when everyone eats eat, we want it to be so yummy, they come back for more. Everyone wins.

Getting here wasn’t exactly easy, but it also felt like it was just unfolding before us. We always knew we wanted to go into business together. We recently came together at this point in life and sort of went, “it’s now or never… so what do we start?” With Drew’s marketing and branding background and Ty’s food and wellness background, Cahoots just sort of came about. It was like, what can we do that we actually have a lot of professional and real knowledge of. Food and marketing, okay, nice! And then our next question was, well what do we want it to really be about? It’s not just food, it’s wellness and creativity and community and people and life! Healthy, well-lived, funny and silly life! But it has been (and still is) a lot of trial and error. We knew the end results in terms of products we wanted to create and the experiences we wanted to bring about, but the permitting, correct branding and finding the right marketplace has been the most challenging.

We’ve learned to trust ourselves and our intuition first and foremost. Making decisions not just on profitability, but the people we are connecting with and the community space we are able to build and/or be a part of. When you put those things first, the right things will work out.

Cahoots is here to remind people that life doesn’t have to always be so serious, in fact, it should be mostly goofy and fun. But in today’s world, we know that most people have an overwhelming amount of stress and anxiety and other mental health issues in their life. We aren’t here to capitalize on those issues and push our wellness brand. We’re here to be your friend, make you laugh, and feed you really yummy, nutritious food to help make your life easier, better and (hopefully) a bit sillier. We want to be in it together with ya’ll. We want to be in Cahoots!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Honestly, we love having visitors in Los Angeles. The possibilities for a vibe are endless. An easy double-whammy is Day Glow for their unbelievable specialty coffees and then Playita Mariscos across the street for the best fish tacos ever. Then we walk it off around Silver Lake, oohing and aahing at the cool bungalow homes in the hills. For a David Lynch vibe of a day, we love to take friends to The Museum of Jurassic Technology. It’s small and easy to do in about an hour. The exhibits are weird and cool, and the rooftop tea room with cookies is so nice. Friends always walk out of that place feeling different, but really good. Strolling the LA River in Frog Town is nice, as we live close by. Lots of great small businesses over there, like Singulier for really well-curated vintage shopping and Just What I Kneaded for yummy pastries. If our friends are feeling spicy, we hit Jitlada in East Hollywood for the best Thai curry and then stop by Jumbo’s Clown Room for a party. If they want the classic Hollywood vibe it would have to be Musso & Frank of course, for a steak, martinis and a good chance at a celebrity sighting. Love sitting at the bar there. For just easy hanging out, Echo Park is our tried and true. Their is a lady on the corner who does insane quesadillas on handmade blue tortillas. Grabbing some of those and just hanging with the community is a wonderful day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We have so many supporting, loving, inspiring people in our lives that got us here and are getting us there. Family, friends, and mentors. Their belief in us is this magical power that propels the Cahoots boat. Equally, we absolutely have to shoutout Drew’s sister and brother-in-law, Kate and Dan! As a true small business, we started this with nothing. Just a dream and the heart and oomph to do what it takes to make it happen, but that’s it. As other small business owners know, that unfortunately just isn’t enough. Kate and Dan were truly how Cahoots started, loaning us the initial investment to get Cahoots off the ground. So this, being our first official press piece, goes out to the Duvals! We’re doing it!!

Website: https://www.livingincahoots.com

Instagram: @livingincahoots

Image Credits
Drew Tucker