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Be Yourself. Be a Misfit.

The "Misfit" brand was created at a Thanksgiving dinner in 2003 when I was a college student aspiring to be a study abroad student and learning the French language. I had a host of friends that were expats from all over the world and who had never experienced an "American Thanksgiving." While I know that there is a troubled past with Thanksgiving and Colonialism which I don't diminish, this event was about sharing food, beverage, and community. It was about giving thanks for our lives, kinship, shared intellectual pursuits, and to break bread. We had thirty-three people packed into an 880SF apartment in Charlotte, NC. It was marvelous.

Since that time, I have hosted and cooked often with friends new and old to celebrate our shared values, to learn more about, and celebrate, our differences, and I've found we aren't that different after all.

In the pursuit of providing hospitality, I tried to open a "permanently parked" food truck that was meant to blossom into a brew pub at this great spot. With it I created the Misfit CLT Beer & Food Co. brand and had the original logo designed by my super-talented buddy Bobby Wildermuth. I purchased a 32' "kitchen on wheels", bought a Ford F-350 Super Duty, rented a commissary kitchen, wrote detailed HASSP plans, created A LOT of spreadsheets, and ultimately failed economically but I did learn a lot about hard work, taking risks, and how to deal with failure and setbacks. The brewpub journey didn't last long before I realized to keep the dream going it would mean that I might lose everything in the process. The stuff I could handle losing but not my wife, dogs, and what we have built. So, I put the crisp, pressed dress shirt back on and went to work at Wells Fargo for a couple of years in audit and banking. I've learned a lot from every experience I've been fortunate to have. Every day is a school day as I like to say.

When I started producing an open mic and then comedy showcases, I resurrected the "Misfit" brand and added PDX where CLT used to be. Why PDX when I live in McMinnville, OR? I do comedy whenever and wherever I can that has a stage and a mic but I am a Portland-based comedian. That's my scene. So, I named the company Misfit PDX Productions LLC to honor that and I try to earn it every day. To many, I am not the most "Misfit" in appearance, but I have taken the path less traveled and that has made all the difference.

To me we are all Misfits and we each have the right to, in the words of a failed brewpub owner: "Be yourself, be a misfit."

Cheers,

Sean Murphy