Estabon Hayes: Owner of Zephyr Lemonade

Tell me about how you got your start owning a lemonade business.

I started the business before the first year of my undergrad, the summer before I started at Northwest Indian College. I was working kind of a crappy job. I made lemonade for my mom and my family. My mom and sister said, ‘Hey, you should sell this.’ I was like, ‘If you want to invest in me, mom, I’ll do this.’ I had to teach myself how to write a business plan, she made me do it legit. I bought a tent, I borrowed tables from friends, I bought the equipment I needed. She gave me two grand. We went to a powwow and I made $1,000 the first day. Paid back my loan that first weekend.

How did it grow into what it is today?

[Later] I contacted the White River Amphitheater … [they said] bring your product here, we’ll see if we like it. It kind of turned into having to learn how to be legit — getting a business license, insurance, all these things you need. That year we did 60 grand. I was trying to get into the Gorge Amphitheatre … and luckily, one of the guys who worked at White River had taken over the GM position at the Gorge [who said] we’d love to have you. [Tripled] the business again. We kept reinvesting, buying nicer equipment, buying nicer trailers.

This year, the venues decided that they want to take in-house lemonade, kettle corn, tea, ice cream — basically all these high-margin items. That’s what you have now at music venues is just this giant corporation that makes powdered lemonade and kettle corn that’s shipping in and not fresh. It’s kind of sad, so now we’re transitioning and kind of determining what kind of company are we, what do we want to do?

Without giving away any secret recipes, what makes your lemonade so good?

We measure the ice, we measure the water, we measure the simple syrup, we measure the lemon juice — so that it’s fresh. Our thought is if you’re going to pay premium price, you should have a premium product.

And then we do purees as our flavoring. So if you get a strawberry lemonade, it’s not frozen strawberries diced up and tossed in there, we actually take fresh strawberries, we puree them and pour over the top of the drink. It’s really what sets us apart from your standard lemonade stand.

Is selling lemonade (or just owning your own business) something you always wanted to do? If so, why?

I was never a great student. It wasn’t necessarily because I’m not bright, it was mostly I just didn’t like — being a young Native man — going to school. North Thurston High School in Lacey is a predominantly white school with predominantly white teachers. The history, what you’re learning, isn’t based on my history. It’s based on U.S. history, and oftentimes a bastardized version of that. As I got older I started reading books I was actually interested in … What I was learning in school didn’t resonate with me at all.

I always felt like I wanted to do my own thing. I always thought I would own a business. But I didn’t apply myself very hard. Zephyr Lemonade helped me do that. 

Where did your business name Zephyr come from?

Zephyr is a Greek word, it means a western wind or a cool breeze. Our lemonade is like a cool breeze. But ultimately my friend passed in high school, and his favorite song was ‘The Zephyr Song’ from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So the word Zephyr always stuck with me. I actually have it tattooed on my arm as a memorial for my buddy Alex.

When you sold at the Gorge and White River amphitheaters, Zephyr was the only Native-owned business operating there. How is that recognition important to you?

I want to be an example if I can be. I want people to look at my company and look at me and say, ‘He did it, I can do it too.’ We don’t have a lot of those in Indian Country. Indian Country is huge but it’s also tiny. It really tells our youth and other people this is possible — you can do this, too.