pro file

Looking back over the years, it’s obvious now, the various pieces all fit together for PETE LJEPAVA— woodworking, small business, family—but his path was not a straight line from A to B. Taking the steps required courage and support, and, most of all, a community. We spent some time recently with “Mustache Pete” asking questions in an effort to retrace those steps. Here is his story . . .

Alright, Pete, let’s start off by talking about where you’re from. Born and raised here on the Central Coast, Arroyo Grande. I’m the oldest of three. My dad passed away very suddenly when I was seven. He had a heart attack. He and my mom had been together for a long time. To get real with you, that made it pretty rough growing up. My dad was really into woodworking, he had his own workshop, and it was something we would do together. After he passed away, I just kept using his tools. Kept working. Continued woodworking on my own.

All these years later, how do you look back on your loss now? It’s weird because I’m the same age now as he was when he passed away. And I’m a dad now, too. Between my wife and I, we have five kids, and my son from my previous marriage is the same age I was when I lost my dad. I realize that I’m just trying to figure out life, just like I’m sure he was, too, you know? It makes me think about what must have been on his mind, thinking about how to raise a family and do some good.

And, so, you continue the woodworking tradition. Yes, that’s right. I still use a lot of his tools, and I inherited his workshop. I’m in the same spot, now, when my kids run up and they’re like, “Hey, can you make us a sword, or make us whatever, out of wood?” That’s something that we always used to do, and he would make us whatever we wanted. It’s kind of this generational thing that is neat to pass on to my kids from what I remember about my dad. But I never thought I could make a career out of it until recently. Up to that point, my path had taken me to Cuesta [College], but then I just started working full time doing video editing. Mostly, I was filming and editing for this sports video distributor. We made extreme sports videos like snowboarding and dirt biking. That was pretty interesting, but I had some buddies at the Apple store here in town bugging me about joining them, so I did that starting in 2009.

What was your role at Apple? I started out as a part-time sales associate, then worked my way up to being the lead creative at the retail store here in San Luis. Basically, I was in charge of the team of creatives that would teach all the classes that they offered at Apple stores. It was cool. They sent me all over the place, to other stores, to trainings, onboarding new hires, all the while furthering my own education for being a creative, and learning all the new programs and stuff that they had. I did that up until about four years ago when my wife and I had our daughter. I was like, “You know what? I want to just change it up and do stuff with my hands and be more available to the family—just kind of change things up.”

Why change it up? You know, with my son, I was working all the time, getting sent to a lot of places and being away from home. I was thinking a lot about it when my wife was pregnant, and I was like, “You know? I kind of feel like I missed out a little bit on his childhood.” He was really young, and I didn’t want to do that with my daughter. I’d always wanted to branch into my own business, and be my own boss, and do some of these things with my hands. My wife was like, “Go for it. You can do it.” She just really supported my dream of doing my own thing. So, I was like, “You know what? I’m going to do it. It seems like kind of a crazy time to do it, but maybe it’ll be really awesome and worthwhile. Why waste any more time?” I just needed that little extra push that she gave me to go and just do it and be my own person.

So, how did you get started? I had this little side hustle thing that I did back in the day. When I grew a mustache, I would try different people’s mustache waxes. I was like, “Oh, I like this about these companies that do this.” But, I didn’t like everything about it, so I said, “I’ll just make my own.” Then, people started asking me, “What do you use in your mustache?” I’d tell them, “Oh, I just make my own.” They’d say, “Oh, can I buy some from you?” I’d think to myself, “Oh, man, now, I’ve got to make a label and get official with it.” So, the last four years I’ve been making the mustache wax full-time, plus making everything from cutting boards and charcuterie boards to wooden cheese knives, cigar ashtrays, and whiskey flasks, really anything out of wood. >>

What was it like in those early days? It was super rough at first. I thought I made a terrible mistake trying to do my own thing. I was putting a heavy emphasis on the mustache wax and grooming products, and it just wasn’t panning out to be that profitable and wasn’t paying rent. We had a new baby, and there’s a lot of expenses with that. The mustache wax wasn’t really as lucrative as I thought it would be in the beginning, so I started doing the cutting boards, and pastry knives, and charcuterie knives. That started taking off. The phone was always ringing. I was getting people who were like, “Hey, have you ever made a cigar ashtray before?” I’d say, “No, but I’ve always wanted to.” So, we did a cigar ashtray. I told myself, “You know what? That turned out so well I’m going to try this other thing.”

And that other thing led to another thing. Exactly right. Then, I’d meet people, randomly, that are like, “Hey, I have a fallen walnut tree in my backyard. If you want to scoop that up, that’s totally fine with me.” So, I just started meeting these people through these different, various opportunities that popped up. And somewhere along the line, someone asked me to do a custom piece, a woodworking commission. Word of mouth would bring another, and life got really interesting. I got really passionate about that whole thing that I loved at Apple, which is helping people come up with something that was in their head, but they didn’t know how to execute it. So, that whole desire to help others really drove me to make some really cool things that kept me going with woodworking. Now, I do the grooming products and the woodworking stuff, both products and commissions.

Let’s talk about the grooming products for a minute. Why do you feature two pipes in your mustache wax logo? I actually inherited my >> great-grandfather’s pipe collection and was smoking my pipe when I thought to myself, “You know what, I really like the smell of pipe tobacco. Why don’t I put this into one of my scents for my mustache wax?” So, I steep pipe tobacco in a lot of my different grooming products. The pipe is really such a unique, contemplative kind of thing, and I love the aroma of it. I actually didn’t know how to smoke a pipe, so I went to The Sanctuary here in San Luis and they taught me how. I’ve since made a couple of pipes, but it’s really about the tobacco that goes into the products now and the reason I include them in the logo.

How is it running a small business here? Growing up around here, my mom put a really big emphasis on supporting local. We’d always shop local or go to these different places that were little staples in the Village of Arroyo Grande, or wherever. And, honestly, I didn’t really care about any of that. I just didn’t really see the importance of it, as a kid, going to one store over another store. But now, as an adult, I do—and especially when you’re seeing all these businesses, people that you’ve really enjoyed who own that business, and getting to see them face-to-face, and experience why you go to one bakery over another, or one coffee shop over another.

How do you see it now? For me, a business is much more than just business. It’s the person—their story, their life. They remember your name, or your order, or whatever. They care. Seeing those businesses go out because they just couldn’t compete anymore with all the other big chains that were coming in, it really gave me the understanding of, “Shoot, I have to support these people because if I don’t, then they’re just going to disappear. Then, I won’t get to have that experience with >> those people anymore, that relationship.” Now, being a business owner myself, it’s also really important for me that my kids learn those same lessons. That’s why we support local because people are supporting us, too. Because that support allows me to spend time with my family, it allows me to take my four-year-old daughter to the workshop with me. She loves helping out. My eight-year-old son loves helping out, too. So, I’m getting to teach them how to use a drill or what have you, and I get to hang out with them, and I get to create for a living.

So, what advice would you give someone who wants to go out on their own? Yikes. That’s big. I mean, I don’t even know if I have it all figured out, yet, or at least enough to give people advice. But I guess I would say, the things that you were really into as a kid, typically, you’ll be really good at and really into, when you’re an adult. So, take a famous musician who was always into singing or into performing, it’s no wonder they ended up that way. It’s sort of like that quote, “Do something that you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I think that’s what you’re looking for. And, beyond that, from my own experience, I’d say, just believing in yourself enough so that you can make something happen, a lot of times, is the first big hurdle that you have to get over before you can do anything. Because a lot of times, you can end up being your own worst enemy. So, if you can just believe in yourself and surround yourself with people, a community, that also believes in you, then that support will take you wherever you want to go. Even if it’s a crazy idea, even if it doesn’t make sense to other people, or they think it’s not the smartest idea, or the safest idea, I’d say, pursuing it is something that is going to make your life well-lived. SLO LIFE