We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Santi Gabino Jr. a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Santi , thanks for joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

When I began in 2019, I originally named the company Estancia Pantry as a spin-off of the previous career with my family’s farmstead, Estancia Culinaria. However when Spring of 2020 rolled around, like most individuals at the time, I found myself giving my business and well, everything, a great deal of thought.

I think we can all agree that the beginning of the pandemic was all about change. During that time, I cooked, baked, boiled, broiled, and fried almost every food in every way you can imagine. I painted, redecorated, repurposed, and refinished every piece and room in our home. I gardened, tilled, planted, harvested and picked. I sewed, cut, hemmed, designed and reconfigured. I tried my hand at learning the violin and brushed up on my French.

Most surprisingly, I somehow started teaching myself to paint. Me, the guy who always drew stick figures. Deciding to change my dba to “The Santi Show” wasn’t about shining a spotlight on myself. It’s just that I couldn’t think of another name for that period of my life. To date, my craft is evolving, transient, fluid, surprising (even to myself) and above all, unknown. I thought hard about that moment, theatre, and period of my life. What came most to mind was “The Santi Show”.

As for what’s “showing,” I always tell folks to “tune in” and check it out. I promise, you’ll have a good time. Although, I’m completely unaware of the scheduled programming. Yet, maybe, that’ was the gift in all the uncertainty of the past two and a half years. Unknowingly, we have all becoming more of ourselves. Stay tuned ….

Santi , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In early 2019, as my parents prepared for retirement, we decided as a family to bring Estancia Culinaria to a close. For 10 years, we welcomed thousands of people and met individuals from all over the world. We saw 75 couples get married. We were fortunate to have been on the “small screen,” “silver screen,” “front page,” and numerous magazine covers. We made lasting memories, relationships and friends.

I’ve been cooking since I was a young boy. My grandmother and great grandmother on my father’s side played a large part in my upbringing and in their home, something was always either on the stove, in the oven or both. As I got older, I realized that I really enjoyed baking.

My (now) famous “wedding day cookies” were probably the beginning of it all. I’ve been making them since I was 13. We offered them to the bridal party at every Estancia Culinaria wedding and they were always such a hit. I estimate that I’ve made around 15,000 of those cookies in my lifetime.

Once my parents retired to the farm and we brought events at Estancia Culinaria to a close, I was looking for my “next thing.” A few years back, I had heard about Florida’s Cottage Food Law and had always kept it in the back of my mind. At the time, micro bakeries and cottage food operations were popular in the North of the state and the West of the country but they really weren’t something being done in South Florida or in my case, rural South Dade. In fact, when I approached the City of Homestead with my idea and inquired as to what licensing I would need, they weren’t exactly sure how to handle it as they had never received that request before. After asking for assistance from county commissioners and Homestead City Council, I’m happy to say that I was the first licensed cottage food operation in the City of Homestead.

As a micro business and cottage food operation, I mainly sell baked goods, confections, candies, chocolates, jams, sauces etc. I try my best to use local, fun, unique and innovative ingredients. As a “one man show” I come up with the recipes, source the ingredients, make the products, package them in the best way possible and then hand deliver them all around town. In the past three years, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to establish a group of loyal clients, many of which have become friends. A unique facet of my business is that I’ve gotten to know the stories and histories of many of them. Every delivery gives me a chance to catch up and spend some time with each of them.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

As I mentioned earlier, I was fortunate to have many people know me or of me from the decade I spent at Estancia. When I decided to open my own small business, I looked for ways to transfer the creativity and attention to detail which I had become known for at Estancia into The Santi Show. I often joke that one of the main reasons I’ve done well in the hospitality business is because of my OCD. I am a stickler for things being right, looking right, tasting right. A few months ago, I sold about 20 dozen cookies to various clients. I delivered them all on a Friday. Much later that night, I sat down to enjoy a few which I had saved for my husband and I. As soon as I took a bite, I realized that I had forgotten to add salt. I contacted everyone who had purchased them and told them that I would make fresh ones and deliver them to them the next morning. They all said that they hadn’t noticed and the cookies seemed ok. Yet, I knew that they were not as they were supposed to be. I stayed up late all Friday night baking. The next morning, I delivered new cookies to everyone. Above all, I need to feel confident in the products I make and deliver.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I managed all social media accounts for Estancia during the time I was there. It was a great learning experience for me. During that time, I organically grew our combined FB and IG followers to almost 9K. In 2017, I was invited by Facebook to speak at their Miami “Boost Your Business’ event. As one of three panelists, I spoke about my philosophy with social media. It is the same one which I use today with “The Santi Show.” I feel that social media needs to tell an all-encompassing story. Each post needs to show a facet of who the individual(s) are behind the business. All your posts can’t be about the products or services you are selling. If you look on my feed, you’ll see posts about my home, my husband and I, our pets, what I made for dinner, the latest painting I made, my workouts and yes, what I have for sale that day/week. All of the posts cohesively tell the story of the individual behind the business.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @thesantishoww
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/watch/thesantishowwwww