Meet Karissa Adams

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Karissa Adams. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Karissa with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

You know, I would have to say I get my work ethic from my family. Both sides of my Family; my mom and my stepdad and my father and my step-mom. They hustle hard and seeing them hustle hard and overcome challenges that just life throws at you regardless of your status is very aspiring. I was always shown through actions that things are gonna happen. They’re going to be detours as they say “Life is like a roller coaster” but that doesn’t mean give up on your vision and certainly doesn’t mean give up on your dream. What it means is sit back & find another way and that’s just what I’ve been doing with PUNCH BOWL CITY. Every time that I see that there is a roadblock I find an alternative route. What can be done that you’re not thinking about? Who can be reached out to that can give you the resources that you’re looking for? Just sitting down thinking about that. That’s where I will say my work ethic comes from. It never stops. Exactly just like you never stop growing in your personal life. You’ll never stop growing in business as well.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m Karissa Rae and I am the owner of PUNCHBOWL CITY a Daiquiri and Cocktails to go company. Currently I service two cities through out the year. Charlotte, North Carolina and St. Louis, Missouri! I started this business in 2022 after closing my bodycare line “YOU by Rae”.
I went through a burnt out phase of my bodycare line when I moved to Charlotte that year. After praying about my business and outsourcing I did decided to temporarily shut down my company. Shortly after shutting down Lord behold I was given the idea of PUNCHBOWL CITY! After relocating to Charlotte from St. Louis I quickly realized the culture as a whole was completely different. Not much of a nightlife and certainly not much of a “to-go” life where you can grab a daiquiri and go home. So I began creating one.
Creating Punchbowl City and the brand around it honestly has been so exciting for me and yet still challenging. Creatively the limits are endless. From flavors to serve, glassware, logos, slogans I can go on and on! In general I’ve always had a passion for creating and I would give that credit to my mom.
As of late I have been working hard on designing and crunching numbers to start my next phase for PB City. Although it’s been a little bit bumpy I’m hoping that within the next year I am able to scale into my first store front in St. Louis, Missouri. I believe it’s time to have a solid location that our customers can come too and receive the full experience we have to offer.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Resilience. Resilience is one of those skill sets that I believe you cannot teach. Someone can only show you what resilience looks like from their stance. As I stated previously, this world gives you challenges on its own and if you don’t have resilience, how can you push through those hurdles? Ambition, no one can teach you to be hungry for a vision. Most importantly the vision has to be yours for you to be hungry to reach that goal. I think many times a lot of people get entrepreneurship confused with a 9 to 5. Although you could have your own dream working your 9 to 5 such as starting from the mail room to executive to CEO. Those are very achievable and that is very practical. Being an entrepreneur means you are the mailroom, the executive. You are the CEO, the PR you are every single title and that gets tiring and if you’re not careful you can get burnt out. If you don’t use foresight and take the proper measures, you’ll be burnt out before you have even given yourself a fair chance.

My bodycare brand lasted for 5 to 6 years before I decided to temporarily shut down. Although it was not an easy decision it was necessary & I still have faith. However I did not take the proper measures in that business and that’s OK. With Punchbowl city I don’t get burnt out because I’ve learned my mistakes from my bodycare line. By pacing myself and Mapping out the next step sometimes the next 3-7years worth of steps if possible. Sometimes pacing ourselves means not moving slow. Moving too slow to get to the next step could also burn you out. There’s often a misconception that a burnout means that you did everything too fast and it is important to bring awareness that you can also be burned out from being too slow, too cautious. Take the proper measurements and have foresight. Write it down, put it on a poster board, make it plain and go for it! Any challenges you face in between those next steps for your business/ brand try to find resources to help discover the an alternative route to get you to the next step.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

Being strong means being strong in all areas of your life in my opinion. We cannot only just be strong in the areas that we are great in but being strong in the areas that we also once had difficulties in is also showing strength. You cannot depend on everyone to always be there to fight your battles in your weak points of life. Finding those resources that I love to talk about and have a new detour to accomplish your goal should be the goal.
There is nothing wrong with saying, there is something that I don’t know how to do And I am OK with outsourcing that help to help myself. That is strength.

It’s important to remember that business is ever growing and it’s ever changing. Yes, we play all roles when you’re an entrepreneur but a great part of playing every role is knowing when hey you need to an advisor. You need to say you know what I don’t know the answer to this question or I don’t know how to go about this particular situation. Let me outsource on someone with more experience.

Something that I wish I would have done with my previous business that I’m currently doing with Punchbowl city is outsourcing to other people that have more experience than me. It doesn’t matter if the experience is in banking , entrepreneurship, or if they’re restauranteur. It’s the most helpful thing that I have done for my brand it helps me expand my view on what it takes to actually run an operate an actual full-blown restaurant and it’s not easy. You’re gonna need a team and I believe by outreaching or outsourcing to these people this is how you slowly developed that team and those skills so people can’t walk over you in the end.

When I was in beginning stages of creating my portfolio and designing a business plan / a mock up for the storefront it was extremely difficult. I had never made a business plan. I had never made a mock up or mood board before. I’ve also never called different business owners for help with brand.
In my outsourcing, I reached out to previous & current restauranteur, daiquiri shop owners, etc. I became a sponge in all the information given.

I wanted to know what they did or didn’t do that worked. I have my own ideas and maybe my ideas would lead me in the same direction or someone who is not as successful could also tell me “hey these are things to avoid in these beginning stages”. ALL feedback is helpful.

No one person can do everything. Not a single person on earth is designed to do everything. There is no such thing as perfect. In knowing that and knowing that we’re going to have weaknesses within ourselves, just get comfortable with using your voice and being an advocate for yourself and for your brand.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: PUNCHBOWLCITY