We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Leslie Bilbey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Leslie below.

Leslie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We believe kindness is contagious and so we’d love for you to share with us and our audience about the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

We have a kindness overload from customers at Oakwood. I can think of so many immediate random acts of kindness that touch my heart. One example is in casual conversation with a customer I mentioned how much I loved Terlingua, TX and the southwest. About one year later (perhaps even longer), the customer returned and brought me a sticker from their recent visit to the area. I hate to just single that one out, because there truly are countless acts of thoughtfulness from our customers, but that one just really was unexpected.

Leslie, 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?

You might be surprised to know that I have never been personally involved in the food industry prior to my involvement at Oakwood. I got involved based on my background in Community Development and the mutual desire I shared with my husband to create meaningful change in the corridor closest to where we live. He does have a background in owning a burger shop in Texas and is an expert in ideas and efficiencies — so the two of us together built Oakwood Proper Burgers. I am most proud of our staff. Of course, our product is very high quality, but it’s the staff that makes the difference. They truly are experts in their craft and work hard everyday to ensure our customers have the best experience possible at Oakwood where we proudly serve single source Michigan Craft Beef from Moraine Parks Farm. It’s important to us to trace the supply chain back to the farm as much as we can, and we do that with our primary ingredients. We know that what we serve is the highest quality that we can source for an affordable price.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

Our first few weeks were fairly crazy. We had far more traffic than we anticipated and had to double our staff almost immediately. Bodies were tired, minds were spinning, and sleep was never enough. One night I was up at 3am and in a panic because I forgot to order our fresh-baked buns for the week. Luckily, bakers get up early, and our supplier at the time responded to my frantic text with: “No worries, we know you need buns to open. We will be there by 5am.” I was never so relieved!!!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

My husband and I are very frugal individuals. We saw a building in need of repair and at an affordable cost. We were able to purchase this building with our own personal savings. Because of my husband’s skillset (and my expertise of being a great helper!) We were able to gut, and rebuild the interior and exterior for a very small amount of cash because we did nearly 100% of the work ourselves. We purchased clearance paint, discounted or used items, and enjoyed hunting on Marketplace for unique and affordable finds. It really didn’t take that much equity to build our shop!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @oakwoodproperburgers
• Facebook: @oakwoodproperburgers

Image Credits
Ben Law Photography