Happy Motoring…. It’s a place to go that I haven’t had. It’s a place to feel comfortable in my own skin. A place i've seen in other cities but not here yet. Something I want to see in a city I live in. It’s not the easiest but we wanted it our way. We wanted to do something more intentional to help build community. - Lucas Lindsey, one of the founders of Happy Motoring

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lucas Lindsey, one of the founders of Happy Motoring. Lucas Lindsey graduated FSU in Urban Planning. He has had a past in commercial real estate development for urban planning for the city and state of Florida. Recently, he has been the executive director of the Domi Station, located right before Railroad Square at Railroad.

“We help entrepreneurs start companies, build teams, and find resources.”

Happy Motoring?! How’d that come about?

Happy Motoring… well the place came about because we live in this area (by Cascades/ Myers Park). I work at Domi Station, near Railroad Square. My partners and I are always here in Railroad all the time; we work here, we go out here, walk and bike here. We’ve drove by this building (talking about Happy Motoring) for years to go to work. Even though the building was abandoned, it was beautiful.

It had great architecture and entry; designly, you don’t see much of those in Tallahassee anymore. You see a lot of similarity in South Florida, Miami. Those buildings have been preserved there in that mid century modern style.. Just begging to be more than something. Begging to not be abandoned. I came together with three partners; Micah Widen, Jake kiker and Jacob Waites. We acquired the property and searched for small business partners to help us operate it.

Now the name? The name was on the building. Happy Motoring was the old sign, tagline. This was actually a tag station known as the “Esso”, which I have discovered was eventually “Exon”. The tagline was actually Happy Motoring Esso. When we bought the building, we worked with a graphic designer to help recreate the type base and a local sign company to recreate the sign.

What makes Happy Motoring different than other places?

I think the programming and events are going to be unique and something that we really want to be intentional of providing a place for people to hangout that particularly don’t have a “place”. Like we have talked about having Drag Queen bingo, reaching out to groups on the southside more; trying to engage with groups through Famu.

I think there is a lot of emphasis on the big development of college town and some of those large scale developments. We want to stand out by being a smaller scale, incremental project that is focused on historic preservation, neighborhood and community outreach. Being more intentional about that. Family friendly; kids can have juice or lemonade while the adults indulge in drinks.

How was the soft opening?

Good. We’ve had a couple soft events with Leadership Tallahassee. An event with young professional groups. Around 40/50 people that have came out and had Food trucks. We are working with the Tallahassee Food Truck Association. There are always looking for a good place for venues and looking forward to rotating them in.

I’ve already see that there was a yoga class? Will fitness play a role at Happy Motoring?

Yes! For Fitness and active living will play a main programming for us. The next major thing would be Art and Music. On the fitness side, we’ve done some outreach to Gulf Winds Track Club, running clubs in the area. Joyride bicycle, yoga on the lawn. We are just going to try a handful of things and see what resonates.

With the Art and Music side, we want to bring in local DJ. With Art we have brought in local artists. We did a pop up event with every artists was given a 8x10 sheet and had a hour and a half to fill up the board with the specific theme. It was like a competition; battle of the boards. People really loved that.

What do you want people to expect at Happy Motoring?

I want it to be a place where people to come as they are. An unexpected setting. Feel like they are adding to the culture and history of Tallahassee. A mashup of unexpectation in Tallahassee that's memorable.

I know this is an early question, but do you expect there to be other locations in the future? Or is this a tally local business?

For now we just want to be here. We want to do this one really well to grow so we know what it means to everyone in Tallahassee. In the future? If there are other buildings then maybe.

What is the vibe / feeling that of Happy Motoring?

A couple of projects provided inspiration. Wynwood Yard and Wall are covered in street art everywhere. Close to that is Wynwood Yard, which is basically a huge food truck court, in the center of which is there is a bar. And so we wanted to create a Tallahassee version of Wynwood Yard.

Another project example is 30A Coast. The Hub is kinda like an outdoor shop of food. This is like an urban version of those. Working with local artists to bring that Wynwood vibe. We want this to be a place for “Desperados”. “We’ve done a little bit of looking and for us it’s like a rebel, a renegade maybe the way people think about entrepreneurs, how they do things a little different and not being afraid of that.

Living a different type of lifestyle, you think about business in a different way. The funny part is is that it almost comes from a 200 year old quote from when Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Tallahassee in 1827. In his travel journals he wrote about many places but a little bit about Tallahassee. I don’t think he was a huge fan. He called it a Grotesque place. And 200 years later that is still sorta true.

Happy Motoring is located at 1215 S Adams St, Tallahassee, FL 32301. If you would like to contribute or would like to contact them, their number is 850-597-9784.