Brick & Brand

What does it take to leave a successful career and build a brokerage on your own terms?   This week on Brick & Brand, we sit down with Carlie Wilmes, co-founder of Reimagine CRE, to talk about betting on yourself, building a national brokerage with a small team, and helping brands expand across the country. We also dive into the future of commercial real estate, the impact of AI, and why the traditional brokerage model may be ready for a shake-up.   Reimagine CRE

Before Campfire, Providence, and Marrow Fine, there were two creatives building furniture by hand.  Barbara Rouke & Jason St John, co-founders of Bells + Whistles, join Brick & Brand to share how they grew from hand-built furniture into an award-winning design firm behind some of the country's most talked-about restaurants. We get into turning an old mechanics shop into a destination, working with top chefs (and when to push back), where operators should never cut corners, and the lesson they'd tell their younger selves. The best spaces aren't just designed. They're built by people who care how you feel when you walk through the door. Bells + Whistles | Interior Design

Most people don't look at a sandwich and think, "I can disrupt this." Marc Howland did. In this episode of Brick & Brand, we sit down with Marc, Co-Founder and CEO of Breadless, the Detroit-based fast-casual brand built on a simple idea: ditch the bread and keep everything people love about a sandwich. He takes us from Wall Street and Harvard to the counter at Jimmy John's, and back to the early days of selling sandwiches out of brown paper bags in Detroit gyms. We also dig into Breadless's shift to national franchising, how Marc's private equity background shapes his approach to unit economics, and what makes a great Breadless location. Breadless

What happens when a former sports and CRE broker teams up with an architect to build a Dallas office from a blank canvas? Sara Bodzy and Aarohi Pilankar launched OTJ Architects' Dallas office from scratch, and they're breaking down how they did it. Two different backgrounds, one shared vision, and a partnership with serious fire. We talk winning clients in a relationship business, protecting great design without wrecking the economics, what separates authentic mixed-use destinations from manufactured ones, and how opportunities for women in architecture and CRE are changing. Design isn't just about buildings. It's about people, business, and what makes a place worth coming back to. OTJ Architects

He came to America as a teenager with nothing — and built a global steakhouse empire. Salim Asrawi left Lebanon as a teenager, chasing an opportunity in hospitality. Fast forward: he co-founded Texas de Brazil, opening the first location in Addison, Texas back in 1998 — and turned it into a global brand with locations across the U.S. and international markets. On this episode of Brick & Brand, Salim breaks down the real story behind the growth: the risk of betting everything on that first restaurant, the real estate strategy behind scaling an experiential concept, and how he thinks about expansion into new markets today. Nearly 30 years in — we ask him what he's learned, and what he'd tell the kid who was just getting started. This is the American dream, built one restaurant at a time. Texas de Brazil