Speaker 1: I go to the production, I'll be like, Yo, I
Speaker 1: got this idea, I got this great name.
Speaker 2: Then they're like, oh, that name will never work.
Speaker 1: So me being like on some Larry David, Moka Joe Shit,
Speaker 1: was like, all right, we're gonna show these motherfuckers how
Speaker 1: this get on Gaso Shit Rock.
Speaker 2: So we just started doing our own things.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's
Speaker 3: most influential brands and the teams that built them. If
Speaker 3: you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the
Speaker 3: power of collaboration, join me Yoah Callahan Bever each week
Speaker 3: as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture, because
Speaker 3: the only way to truly understand success is to look
Speaker 3: at it from all angles. Idea Generations All Angles is
Speaker 3: a will Pator Media podcast. In twenty twelve, a group
Speaker 3: of friends in New York City formed Ghetto Gastro, a
Speaker 3: collective of chefs and food enthusiasts with a mission to
Speaker 3: bring their culinary culture to the masses. In a decade
Speaker 3: that's followed, Ghetto Gastro has grown from weekly house parties
Speaker 3: in Long Island City into a full blown global brand,
Speaker 3: offering large scale events, their own food products, kitchen appliances, cookbooks,
Speaker 3: and much more. On this week's episode of All Angles,
Speaker 3: we talked to founders John Gray, Lester Walker, and Pierre
Speaker 3: Sirot to get the full story behind Ghetto Gastro and
Speaker 3: hear how a few chefs and hustlers came together to
Speaker 3: form one of the most unique brands in food and media.
Speaker 3: But before any of that happened, years before the Sneaker
Speaker 3: collabed with Brand Jordan or throwing parties at Rick Owens House,
Speaker 3: John Gray was just a kid running around the Bronx,
Speaker 3: giving menu advice to strangers.
Speaker 1: Born in nineteen eighty six, All Lady Emrcity Hospital on
Speaker 1: two thirty third White Planes is now like in Manta
Speaker 1: Ferry Hospital.
Speaker 3: This is John Gray, bounder of Ghetto Gastro, bounced.
Speaker 1: Around a little bit, wasn't Yonkers, Harlem, and that ended
Speaker 1: up landing in co Op City when I was about
Speaker 1: eight years old. I come from raised by black women.
Speaker 1: My pops wasn't in a picture, so it was my mother,
Speaker 1: my grandmother, my grandmother's sisters and then my mother's sister.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because all of the women in my
Speaker 1: family are like educators and super well educated, so having
Speaker 1: that foundation was really significant. Food has been my main
Speaker 1: thing since I was five years old, six years old,
Speaker 1: like living in El Barrio with my mom, was going
Speaker 1: to First Whack on eighty eighth and third Avenue, hit
Speaker 1: in the Indian.
Speaker 2: Spots, and like just going out to you with my mom.
Speaker 1: Because she was in school and worked, didn't always have
Speaker 1: time to cook, so we would go on dates and
Speaker 1: have dinner together. And I remember just being very analytical
Speaker 1: with the menus and thinking about how flavors go together,
Speaker 1: almost like.
Speaker 2: Some Rainman type shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So I remember the woman that was a regular at
Speaker 1: First Way right now known as WAK eighty eight on
Speaker 1: eighty eighth and third Avenue.
Speaker 2: She was a regular too.
Speaker 1: We used to see it like a few times a week,
Speaker 1: and I knew I was always a talkative, like charming
Speaker 1: young boy. And I was like, hey, what are you ordering?
Speaker 1: Like what do you always order the same thing? She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I get the lemon chicken. And I was like I
Speaker 1: tried the lemon chicken once and I was like, Nah.
Speaker 2: This ain't it.
Speaker 1: And then I told her, I was like, yo, look
Speaker 1: you need to order the orange chicken or the sessame chicken,
Speaker 1: because you'll get the citrus flavors. It comes with the broccoli,
Speaker 1: which is good for you nutrition, and it has the
Speaker 1: fried garlic, which gives it a beautiful flavor. And then
Speaker 1: she ordered it that night, right, And I remember believing,
Speaker 1: a spot older Jewish woman, probably in her eighties, right,
Speaker 1: just eating alone, and she stopped me in my mom
Speaker 1: She's like, yo, your son is a remarkable boy.
Speaker 2: And I just remember his saying that.
Speaker 1: She repeated it like three times, and it just resonated
Speaker 1: with me and gave me such a level of confidence
Speaker 1: that always stuck with me.
Speaker 3: While John showed early indications that he had a gift
Speaker 3: for the culinary yards, he had less success in the classroom.
Speaker 1: I think my neurology set up a little bit different.
Speaker 1: So I had difficulties in school in terms of behave
Speaker 1: what they called behavior issue. But the books, the book
Speaker 1: smarts were always there. But I always was social and
Speaker 1: like to turn up and you know, be a little
Speaker 1: bit of a menacine, mischievous kid.
Speaker 3: John became the neighborhood's newest troublemaker, following in the footsteps
Speaker 3: of another eventual partner in Ghetto Gastro.
Speaker 4: We grew up in co Op City, Section five, northeast,
Speaker 4: part of the Bronx.
Speaker 3: This is Lester Walker, co founder of Ghetto Gastro.
Speaker 4: I lost my father at the age of three. You know,
Speaker 4: my mom did her best to keep me out of
Speaker 4: harm's way. She was a very strong woman. All of
Speaker 4: my characteristics and my attributes to my mom.
Speaker 5: My brother and I grew up in a single family home.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, but not really unfortunately because she, you know, she
Speaker 4: raised us. As I got a little bit older and
Speaker 4: I was able to, you know, reach the stove. That
Speaker 4: was one of the ways that I contributed. That's what
Speaker 4: I owe to my success of being a being an entrepreneur,
Speaker 4: being being an artist, and being a chef, and being
Speaker 4: a storyteller.
Speaker 5: My mother used to do hair in the house.
Speaker 4: She was in the house a lot, and she would
Speaker 4: have customers come to the house.
Speaker 5: They would be in the hall way where she come head,
Speaker 5: talking shit, you know, doing.
Speaker 4: What they do, gossiping or whatever, hanging out, having fun, laughing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I used to make breakfast in the kitchen. I'll make
Speaker 4: like pancakes, I'll make like wild foods, and I would
Speaker 4: have some left over, and they being they'd be out
Speaker 4: there like, damn, that smells good what you're making. That's
Speaker 4: that's your son. And so you know, I would come
Speaker 4: out there and hope the pretty ladies up with you know,
Speaker 4: some plates. You know, they would be like, wow, this
Speaker 4: is good.
Speaker 5: You made this. Oh, these eggs are perfect.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of when that was like one of
Speaker 4: the times that I've realized that I had a skill,
Speaker 4: you know, And I was like very young. I probably
Speaker 4: was like I don't know, man, eight nine, I didn't
Speaker 4: get no recipes.
Speaker 5: I'm making it up on a fly.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 5: I was reading the back of the box. It was pancakes,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: Add water, add eggs, add milk, grits whatever, add you know,
Speaker 4: read the back of the packages. But you know I
Speaker 4: would add a little bit more butter. I would add
Speaker 4: you know, sugar to my grits. I was being creative
Speaker 4: in that aspect at a very young age, Like I
Speaker 4: knew the basics or how to make something. If my
Speaker 4: grits were coming out too thick, I would add more water.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, just your science, just common sense.
Speaker 4: But I guess it's not that common. If you know,
Speaker 4: to a lot of people, because a lot of people
Speaker 4: could fuck up with all the grits, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. Like, I guess it wasn't common sense. I
Speaker 4: guess that was a skill that I had.
Speaker 3: Leicester found his calling in the kitchen, but John still
Speaker 3: struggled to figure out his own path.
Speaker 1: Wanted to be an athlete, played ball, but didn't have
Speaker 1: the discipline and really like do the extra work it
Speaker 1: took to reach the level to get to the league
Speaker 1: and all of those things.
Speaker 2: I played in school, but I got kicked out of
Speaker 2: the high school that.
Speaker 1: I went to to play ball like three months into
Speaker 1: my freshman year. So then I went from Ohillos to
Speaker 1: Truman High School, which is my zone school in the
Speaker 1: North Bronx and carp City, and it was just a
Speaker 1: whole different story.
Speaker 2: It's like you go from.
Speaker 1: Like if I didn't do my homework at Ohillows at
Speaker 1: the Catholic school, they had a thing called homework Clinic
Speaker 1: right where you would basically go to detention, do the
Speaker 1: homework that you didn't do, and then not.
Speaker 2: Get credit for it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So the work was always getting done. Him ain't going
Speaker 1: to Truman where it's like every man and every woman
Speaker 1: for themselves. It's like you could go to class who
Speaker 1: could not go to class. Going to school was like
Speaker 1: going to the Guardia airport with metal detectives. There was
Speaker 1: a precint inside the school. The time that I went
Speaker 1: there was like the time that Truman was the worst
Speaker 1: school in New York City in terms of ranking.
Speaker 2: There was just like a big culture shock.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that also changes is when
Speaker 1: you go to Catholic school, you got a uniform, so
Speaker 1: you might switch up, get fitted hat, get a fly
Speaker 1: book bag, a fly jacket for the winner, and then
Speaker 1: switch up the footwear. You know, get some wild beans,
Speaker 1: some East Lands or whatever, some Thames, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But in public school you got to be
Speaker 1: fresh every day. You can't wear the same shit, you know.
Speaker 1: So that led to external pressure having to like get
Speaker 1: some money. You want to get fly for the honeys.
Speaker 1: And you know what I'm saying, it's a whole different
Speaker 1: type of vibe because I was going to schoolhere. I
Speaker 1: was going it's like it's hustlings in there too. It's
Speaker 1: like people that get money, people that a ged up.
Speaker 1: It's a whole it's a whole different atmosphere. I remember
Speaker 1: asking my mother and my grandmother some money and like, yo,
Speaker 1: get a job. And then I went to apply every
Speaker 1: store in the mall in my neighborhood because it's the
Speaker 1: mall over there, big plaza, and everybody was like, you
Speaker 1: got your working papers, but you don't got.
Speaker 2: No work experience. I'm like, how can I get work
Speaker 2: experience without you hiring me?
Speaker 1: So that's when I made up my mind, like yea,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to hit the streets and get this paper.
Speaker 1: And I ended up doing that, excelling in that field
Speaker 1: at a very young age. I started selling weed at first,
Speaker 1: and then I graduated to the snow after high school.
Speaker 1: I think I was probably when I was eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 1: This girl had said she was pregnant by me. She
Speaker 1: ended up not being pregnant by me. But I had
Speaker 1: made up my mind like damn, if I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: a father, I don't want to be selling drugs into
Speaker 1: my twenties.
Speaker 2: So I was like, let me just The.
Speaker 1: Logic I had was like, all right, let me just
Speaker 1: go hard and get a lot of money right now
Speaker 1: and start this new game.
Speaker 3: Desperate for any kind of income, John resorted to hustling
Speaker 3: in the streets to make some bread. Meanwhile, Lester continued
Speaker 3: to sharpen his cooking skills.
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna say the summer of like my two
Speaker 4: last years in high school, like junior year, you know,
Speaker 4: eleventh grade, twelfth grade, that's when I started, you know,
Speaker 4: having girls come over the house when my mom's wasn't
Speaker 4: home all right, and then you know that would be
Speaker 4: my way to get him to come up stairs, y'all.
Speaker 4: Made some shrimp with some with some linguini. I made
Speaker 4: a little pasta come through. We watch a movie I This,
Speaker 4: that and the third. So I would do that. But
Speaker 4: I wasn't even thinking about becoming a chef, like at
Speaker 4: this point, I was just you know, I was just macing,
Speaker 4: like figuring it out, like you know, having something to
Speaker 4: bring to the table, like have a date. I ain't
Speaker 4: have no money to take him out to go to
Speaker 4: go out, Like I didn't have money, but you know,
Speaker 4: if moms was out of town, I was taking advantage
Speaker 4: of that and I would cook.
Speaker 2: That was my thing.
Speaker 5: I like, you know, shrimp, pasta, mostly pastas.
Speaker 4: At this point, I'm just like going crazy with pastas, shrimp,
Speaker 4: Primavera Linguini with the Alfredo garlic butter. YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 4: Then I had a little problem with authority. So I
Speaker 4: wasn't really lasting in my high schools for that long.
Speaker 4: Like every high school, I was pretty much like getting
Speaker 4: kicked out of these high schools.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I had a problem with authority. I didn't like to listen.
Speaker 4: I knew I wanted to do my own thing. In hindsight,
Speaker 4: I kind of knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to take orders from anybody. I wanted
Speaker 4: to do my own thing. I wanted to be my
Speaker 4: own boss. My last year of high school, my mom's like, yo,
Speaker 4: you gotta figure something out. And it was a school
Speaker 4: called Park West downtown Manhattan on West fiftieth Street, and
Speaker 4: I'm looking through the book of high school. So when
Speaker 4: my mom was just like, YO, just pick out a
Speaker 4: high school. You're gonna finish up, you're gonna graduate, and
Speaker 4: this is what's gonna happen.
Speaker 5: So I found Park West. They had a cooking.
Speaker 4: Program in the school, right, So I said, all right,
Speaker 4: I've been cooking these past two summers. They really jacking
Speaker 4: my food. So let me see what it's heding for
Speaker 4: went to the school. Then a kicker to that was
Speaker 4: they were like, we go out off campus after school
Speaker 4: to cater events. I said, okay, cool, and we make
Speaker 4: money too, straight cash. At the end of the event,
Speaker 4: samet word like say, let's I'm in there. So I
Speaker 4: started to do these k re in events with my
Speaker 4: school making money. My teacher caught a liking to me
Speaker 4: because the things that I would make, you know, regular
Speaker 4: recipes in class, double baked potatoes, you know, pasta, making
Speaker 4: little pastries or whatever. I was good at, like my
Speaker 4: food tasted good. And I used to watch cooking shows
Speaker 4: on Food Network, but my mother would put me on
Speaker 4: punishment a lot, and I would stay in the room
Speaker 4: and I would just watch Food Network all day and
Speaker 4: I'd figure out how to like make plates look cool.
Speaker 4: So my teacher was like, oh shit, you kind of
Speaker 4: you know, you got a little bit of skill. Why
Speaker 4: don't you enter this omelet making competition. The winner of
Speaker 4: the competition gets a scholarship to go to culinary school.
Speaker 5: I said, okay, sounds good, boom, sign me up.
Speaker 4: So I was going up against kids that were in
Speaker 4: like a culinary foundational school for I would say at
Speaker 4: least four years. This is my first year, and I
Speaker 4: came in third place, and they gave me ten thousand
Speaker 4: dollars to go to a cooking school. They gave me
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars a Good in New York school, and
Speaker 4: I spoke to my mom about it and were like,
Speaker 4: all right, cool, We're gonna do the culinary school thing.
Speaker 5: But then I started to get like.
Speaker 4: Letters from like Johnson and Wills Culinary Institute of America.
Speaker 4: They said that, you know, I could have applied my
Speaker 4: scholarship to good to one of these schools.
Speaker 5: So I said, We're gonna check out. I'm Johnson and Wills.
Speaker 4: Johnson Wells had a University of Rhode Island, that's the
Speaker 4: main campus in Providence. But then another kick, I found
Speaker 4: out that there was a campus in Miami, So you
Speaker 4: already know, I.
Speaker 5: Was like, we going to Miami.
Speaker 4: We're taking this show on the road to Miami. So
Speaker 4: I ended up in Miami, got a scholarship, got financial
Speaker 4: a lester, took.
Speaker 3: His talents to South Beach to pursue his dreams of
Speaker 3: being a chef. Meanwhile, John's career in the streets had
Speaker 3: resulted in some harsh lessons, including multiple arrests. As he
Speaker 3: searched for other hustles, he stumbled on the up and
Speaker 3: coming world of streetwear.
Speaker 1: So I go to the funk Master Flex car Show
Speaker 1: and this is the first year they had the sneaker
Speaker 1: show in the streetwear show. To be honest, I see
Speaker 1: all of these kids that look very suburban doing this
Speaker 1: thing called streetwell, and I'm like, hold on, I'm really
Speaker 1: in these streets, so like for real, like I think
Speaker 1: I got something I co offer bring to the table here,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. That's kind of when I
Speaker 1: was like, I think the pivot's going to be into
Speaker 1: like doing streetwear, doing something in the power space because
Speaker 1: I've always been created, Like I thought I was flying,
Speaker 1: you know, And I'm like, all right, we can figure
Speaker 1: this out.
Speaker 2: So I just went full full throut.
Speaker 1: It was just a store called Fashion Decks, right, and
Speaker 1: they sold all of these fashion books like styling, how
Speaker 1: to merchandise online, how to think about cogs and price.
Speaker 1: This is before YouTube tutorials in and I just signed
Speaker 1: up for FT and take night courses, I think a
Speaker 1: bunch of courses from the Learning Ax. So I just
Speaker 1: went full emerging into like soaking up game, right, And
Speaker 1: I'm the type, like even with Ghetto gash Or, I
Speaker 1: have an idea or interest. I'm not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: learn how to design the shit or to make the shit,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna find the best people to put it
Speaker 1: together and just direct them. So that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I did with Fashionable.
Speaker 3: While John dove headfirst into the world of fashion, another
Speaker 3: crucial member of the Ghetto Gastro ensemble was about to
Speaker 3: enter the mint.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 6: Unlike John the Less, I wasn't born in the Bronx.
Speaker 3: This is Pierre Siro, co founder of Ghetto Gastro.
Speaker 7: I was born at Hartford, Connecticut, and I was raised
Speaker 7: between Harford. My mom's from Harford, my dad's from Barbados,
Speaker 7: and I was raised between the two growing up as
Speaker 7: a child, mainly going to school up in CT and
Speaker 7: then summers and like long vacations in the winter and
Speaker 7: stuff we would spend down in the islands from a
Speaker 7: young age. My father's always had that and sale in
Speaker 7: myself and my siblings. You know, wake up, brush your teeth, exercise,
Speaker 7: you know, iron your clothes, make.
Speaker 6: Sure you leave the house look in a certain way.
Speaker 6: All the things.
Speaker 7: And my mom is more of a hustler in a
Speaker 7: sense where I've always known her to always have like
Speaker 7: a steady job, but also have like a side hustle
Speaker 7: more along the lines of doing things creatively. She used
Speaker 7: to hustle like cakes and stuff were like that when
Speaker 7: I was a child.
Speaker 6: She used to move cakes.
Speaker 7: And then she also had an events company called Party
Speaker 7: Your Way. She had a pink band and she used
Speaker 7: to drive around like a Scooby Doo band, but as
Speaker 7: she was pink and said party your Way on the side.
Speaker 7: And I remember that was my mom's first real sort
Speaker 7: of events company, and that was like my first job
Speaker 7: and basically ad an events company. And when I think
Speaker 7: about it, because I was working with my mom, but
Speaker 7: I was real young.
Speaker 6: At that time, but I always saw my mom.
Speaker 7: Like dibbling and dabbling into the space using food and
Speaker 7: or like an event to try to create business and
Speaker 7: like a sense of entrepreneurship. As I got older, that
Speaker 7: kind of all came together and like a mix of
Speaker 7: my mom's hustle and my father's work ethic kind of
Speaker 7: just got me literally to the place where.
Speaker 6: I am right now. I always used food as like
Speaker 6: a sort of a hustle tactic.
Speaker 7: So when I was in high school, I used to
Speaker 7: hustle like breakfast sandwiches or like deli sandwiches and subs
Speaker 7: and shit like that. I used to hustle to the
Speaker 7: kids in between class basically, like the day before you
Speaker 7: would put your order in. My man Demetrius Lazarritas, his
Speaker 7: pops had a deli, So we used to take the
Speaker 7: orders from the kids the night before and then pull
Speaker 7: up with the fresh sandwiches and the chips and all
Speaker 7: that and like put them into kids lockers. Kids would
Speaker 7: give us their locker combinations, so then in between class
Speaker 7: we would just go in drop their sandwiches in their lockers,
Speaker 7: being bong. When they come out, they got their lunch.
Speaker 7: It's perfect. Honestly, it was such a good operation. And
Speaker 7: when the school found out about that, they try to
Speaker 7: suspend us and all this shit. They should have really
Speaker 7: just invested into the young entrepreneurs that we were as
Speaker 7: opposed to like trying to you know, trying to punish
Speaker 7: us for taking Basically, they saw it as us taking
Speaker 7: money out of their pockets and they're like, oh, you're
Speaker 7: not a licensed to sell food and this and that
Speaker 7: all sorts of shit. Anyways, they were just mad that
Speaker 7: we was getting to the bag and I got the
Speaker 7: last laugh.
Speaker 6: Because I'm you know what I'm saying. I got my
Speaker 6: food products and stores and shit now.
Speaker 3: So after high school, Pierre headed to Barbados to pursue
Speaker 3: a more legitimate career in food.
Speaker 6: Moved to Barbados.
Speaker 7: For like three and a half years, I was working
Speaker 7: in like in a couple of hotels, doing some private
Speaker 7: work with some celebrities and shit. Every time like some
Speaker 7: celebrities would come into the island, basically they would call
Speaker 7: me to do the work because I had an international experience. Honestly,
Speaker 7: those are my least favorite days of my life because
Speaker 7: I didn't like working for people and being on hand
Speaker 7: and foot and they tell you like I want this,
Speaker 7: I want this.
Speaker 6: I don't like it like this.
Speaker 7: And as a chef, you know, you're an artist and
Speaker 7: you want to create and be able to cook your
Speaker 7: own shit. Some of the people I was cooking for
Speaker 7: they were really picky and finicky and didn't like certain things.
Speaker 6: And I don't do that shit.
Speaker 7: I'm pulling up to cook what I'm cooking and like
Speaker 7: y'all gonna eat what I'm cooking is going to be
Speaker 7: super tasty. But like these people just misguided and haven't
Speaker 7: been introduced. A lot of people haven't really been introduced
Speaker 7: to food, I'm saying.
Speaker 6: And then I opened.
Speaker 7: Up this spot in this lifestyle center and it was
Speaker 7: like an epicario shop.
Speaker 6: Basically, I was like nineteen years old in nineteen twenty.
Speaker 6: It was really dope.
Speaker 7: It was like a grocery store slash retail food store,
Speaker 7: almost like an Italy sort of vibe, but like in
Speaker 7: the Highlands.
Speaker 6: But then I had a fallen out.
Speaker 7: With the woman who owned the company, and that's when
Speaker 7: I had my first lesson on getting finesse out of
Speaker 7: your IP, out of your.
Speaker 6: Basically like your sweat equity and like your working shit.
Speaker 7: And because I had a contract, I didn't go over
Speaker 7: the contract properly.
Speaker 6: I didn't have a lawyer look at that shit. And
Speaker 6: basically that lady.
Speaker 7: Didn't end up paying me the money that she owed
Speaker 7: me and was able to build like three or four
Speaker 7: more locations off of the IP that I had created.
Speaker 6: So that was like a really eye opening experience for me.
Speaker 7: And that's also one of the things that drove me
Speaker 7: to move back up north to to the City because
Speaker 7: I was done with it.
Speaker 6: I was done with that bullshit.
Speaker 7: I was like, all right, fuck, I gotta get out
Speaker 7: of here, and so left Barbados moved up to New York.
Speaker 3: Pierre left Barbados for New York City. I began working
Speaker 3: in different restaurants around the same time. Lester, still in
Speaker 3: Miami at culinary school, decided he'd rather be back in
Speaker 3: New York as well.
Speaker 4: I did two years of culinary school and I was
Speaker 4: just like, you know, I'm not doing this four year shit.
Speaker 2: It's not me.
Speaker 5: School's not me. I jumped into working in restaurants.
Speaker 4: First kitchen was Marriot, Marquee, Downtown, forty second Street, Times Square,
Speaker 4: forty Dukes. I was on forty Dukes man Light's cameras
Speaker 4: in action. It was destined for me to live this life.
Speaker 4: It's like I was taking my show to Broadway. Went
Speaker 4: from Miami to Broadway, you know what I mean. Worked
Speaker 4: on Broadway, New York, Marriot, mal Keuye for about a
Speaker 4: year and some change, and I'm just working at restaurants
Speaker 4: at this point. Then I finally get a job with
Speaker 4: John Jor George Spice Market, so I leveled up. I'm
Speaker 4: in Spice market working with Gean George. This is where
Speaker 4: I met my mentor, Anthony Rico still to this day
Speaker 4: keeps in contact with me, you know, still to this
Speaker 4: day has my back. So I was working at three
Speaker 4: restaurants at the time with Jean George. Like I'm gonna say,
Speaker 4: like two years, two and a half years. During this
Speaker 4: time I lost I had a kid, had a daughter,
Speaker 4: and they was Jay. During this time, Jay was born,
Speaker 4: she passed away from SID sudden infant death. Like I said,
Speaker 4: these traumatic things that happened to me in my life,
Speaker 4: they all happen for a reason, you know, And I
Speaker 4: don't regret any of it. It's like there's nothing I
Speaker 4: could do about it. If it's if it's something that's
Speaker 4: out of my control, out of my hands, what can
Speaker 4: I do but just keep pushing, keep being better. But
Speaker 4: the only thing I regret about that is not healing right,
Speaker 4: not you know, doing up taking the proper steps for morning,
Speaker 4: because like I just jump right back into work. I
Speaker 4: didn't take off, like I didn't get any type of therapy,
Speaker 4: like which was a very traumatic and you know, a
Speaker 4: life changing event that happened to me, you know, So
Speaker 4: due to that, due to not functioning correctly mentally due
Speaker 4: to the traumatic instances. I lost the job at Jean George.
Speaker 4: You know, I got into a little squabble with somebody there.
Speaker 4: It was on camera, and I got you know, they
Speaker 4: had to let me go. But Anthony Rico, I loved
Speaker 4: his brother man, my Italian brother man.
Speaker 5: He was like, yo, I gotta let you go.
Speaker 4: But we always kept in contact and I ended up
Speaker 4: like getting another job.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Lester grieved over the passing of his daughter and search
Speaker 3: for a new job. John's foray in the fashion was
Speaker 3: flaming out.
Speaker 1: Nobody was taking a chance for new brands. Burned through
Speaker 1: all my trap capital, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: Bill try to hustle it and figure it out for
Speaker 1: like another two three years, just through the grindstone, but
Speaker 1: that shit just wasn't working out. And then I realized, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: fashion is I'm really my calling. Making things and being
Speaker 1: creative is my calling. But you quickly get into the
Speaker 1: SMATs of business to fashion business and realize.
Speaker 2: It's not that much of a creative business.
Speaker 1: It's really about margins, operations, logistics. And I didn't have
Speaker 1: that counterpart. That's why I realized, like I'm a creative.
Speaker 1: I thought I was super business because I got money
Speaker 1: in the streets, but I definitely skew towards the right
Speaker 1: side of the brain more.
Speaker 2: So than the left side.
Speaker 1: I was just super depressed because I was kind of broke,
Speaker 1: Like I started selling weheed a little bit again, and
Speaker 1: I had promised myself after I beat my case, I
Speaker 1: made a promise to the universe I wouldn't sell no drugs.
Speaker 1: I rationalized it by saying weed is not a drug.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, yeah, what the fuck am I
Speaker 1: doing with my life? And I just had to do
Speaker 1: do some soul session, like what would I do if
Speaker 1: it wasn't about money? Because I had to release the
Speaker 1: attachment to being defined by having money. So but then
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, food is what I love. I
Speaker 1: was a part of this business program that Allen Houston
Speaker 1: had done with City Bank called the Allen Houston Foundation,
Speaker 1: and it was a business plan and competition and teaching course.
Speaker 2: And I was going there to learn how to put.
Speaker 1: Together a business plan, et cetera, et cetera, to get
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 2: And I would take those plans and I'd run in
Speaker 2: the less on the block.
Speaker 1: And this is after he's done school, he's back in
Speaker 1: New York and I'd be like, yo, I'm in this class.
Speaker 1: I ain't fucking with this with the streets no more.
Speaker 1: And this is what I'm doing. And he was like, damn,
Speaker 1: I want to do this food thing. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna give you the lesson plans. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you what to do, how to think about
Speaker 1: the plan.
Speaker 4: He was doing his thing with the street where I
Speaker 4: was doing my thing, working in high end kitchens all
Speaker 4: around New York City and where we would connect you
Speaker 4: with like, yo, less what are you working at now?
Speaker 5: And I would tell him.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, Yo, I'm at John George, I'm at
Speaker 4: Spice Market.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm at toad La Yo. Pull up, like
Speaker 5: come through.
Speaker 4: And he you know, he used to like to go
Speaker 4: to Nice Rest, So he would pull up to the
Speaker 4: establishments that I was working in and we connected and
Speaker 4: were from the same block. He like hanging out with me,
Speaker 4: you know, just like everybody else does, because I have that.
Speaker 5: Energy, you know.
Speaker 4: And then we just started talking about, you know, opening
Speaker 4: some shit up, like because he was at the time
Speaker 4: he was going to Alan Houston's School for Business and
Speaker 4: he was learning how to write business plans and that
Speaker 4: intrigued me. And we would just hang out right around,
Speaker 4: go to different spots downtown, good at parties, you know,
Speaker 4: cop gear because we was fresh. We always been fresh,
Speaker 4: and you know, that's how we was building, That's how
Speaker 4: we was bonding.
Speaker 3: John and Lester began planning a business together. It wasn't
Speaker 3: clear exactly what it would be, but then an appearance
Speaker 3: by Lester on a popular cooking show would change everything.
Speaker 4: So I was a chef in his restaurant. It's not
Speaker 4: even a restaurant actually, and my manor Anthony Rico, got
Speaker 4: me the job because it was straight a thousand dollars
Speaker 4: cash every week. I was guaranteed to get paid. And
Speaker 4: it was like this nightclub kind of thing. And they
Speaker 4: wanted to do a restaurant during the day, nightclub at night,
Speaker 4: and they hired me to do that.
Speaker 5: I did a tasting for him, blew them away.
Speaker 4: One day, a scout from Chopped from Food Network Chop
Speaker 4: came into the restaurant and I was running a special.
Speaker 5: It was coconut lemongrass seafood soup.
Speaker 4: Was really delightful obviously because the girl that had the dish,
Speaker 4: came to the back, came to the kitchen where I
Speaker 4: was at, and she said, did you make this dish?
Speaker 4: I said, yes, it's amazing. Would you like to audition
Speaker 4: for Chops? So I'm like, I'm like, okay, but what
Speaker 4: is Chop? So she tells me it's a show on
Speaker 4: the Food Network. So I went, I auditioned, I made
Speaker 4: it to the show. Next thing, you know, like a
Speaker 4: month or so later on, I had this show and
Speaker 4: I won. And so from that point on it was like, Yo,
Speaker 4: I really started to believe in myself even more once
Speaker 4: that happened.
Speaker 3: Leicesterre's victory Chopped brought new attention and credibility to the chef.
Speaker 3: Looking to keep the momentum going, John pitched the idea
Speaker 3: that would eventually turn into Ghetto Gastro.
Speaker 1: My initial idea was the ghetto gas shows like Yo,
Speaker 1: me and Les. We could do some fly recipes, talk
Speaker 1: shit like how we talk, bring that street credibility, bring
Speaker 1: that vibe, and make content. You know, we make make
Speaker 1: videos on some epic meal top ship and shit that's
Speaker 1: actually delicious and not just ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You know. I come up with the name ghetto gas
Speaker 2: Show during the nap. You know.
Speaker 1: My shout out to my homie and Larry Menza because
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, we think about ghetto astronomy. She
Speaker 1: was like, what about getto gas And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. That's I like the I like
Speaker 1: the symmetry, I like the alliteration. It was the production
Speaker 1: company that I wanted to do like a docu follow
Speaker 1: based on what I was doing in the fashion game
Speaker 1: and what I had going on. And I go to
Speaker 1: the to the production company like, yo, I got this idea,
Speaker 1: I got this great name.
Speaker 2: Fuck with us. And they're like, oh, that name will
Speaker 2: never work.
Speaker 1: This and that. So me, being like on some Larry David,
Speaker 1: Moka Joe shit, was like, all right, we're gonna show
Speaker 1: these motherfuckers how this get a gaso shit rock. So
Speaker 1: we just started doing our own thing, doing a house parties,
Speaker 1: making his name, making a high on these streets, and turning.
Speaker 3: Up having his media brand turned down by the production company.
Speaker 3: John focused on building ghetto Gastro from the ground up.
Speaker 3: This included throwing dinner parties at his house with great food,
Speaker 3: important guests, and immaculate vibes. Lester now working at a
Speaker 3: high end restaurant inside Madison Square Garden, found that his
Speaker 3: job had some added benefits that would help keep John's
Speaker 3: partygoers fed.
Speaker 4: I'm mad Madison Square Garden. At Madison Square Garden, we
Speaker 4: have this huge budget. We get to utilize all different
Speaker 4: type of you know, exotic ingredients, high end ingredients. I'm
Speaker 4: talking caviar, sturgeon, caviar, beluga. We're getting like the best
Speaker 4: of the best, like edible golds, wag you beef, Kobe beef,
Speaker 4: you name it.
Speaker 5: We didn't have a budget. It's like whatever we wanted.
Speaker 4: To work with my Cassidy and I we would have
Speaker 4: suit chefs at Delta Club.
Speaker 5: Whatever we wanted we could get.
Speaker 4: We can order to create a menu to cater to
Speaker 4: our high end guests. So they have all of these
Speaker 4: products and these ingredients. But at the end of the night,
Speaker 4: if we don't use the product, we don't use the ingredient,
Speaker 4: they would tell us like, don't even worry about it,
Speaker 4: throw it out. Like would be like, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 4: just throw it out. So me being from the Bronx
Speaker 4: and having a personality having the background of never letting
Speaker 4: anything go to waste, zero waste. This starving people that
Speaker 4: can eat this food. You know, my family, my neighbors
Speaker 4: can have this food. I'm not throwing anything out. One
Speaker 4: man's trash is the next man's treasure, and it was
Speaker 4: definitely a treasure for me because we would hope we
Speaker 4: would throw dinners at John's apartment that he had at
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 5: In Long Island City.
Speaker 4: We would throw dinners with these ingredients that were going
Speaker 4: to trash, like we utilize them. We turn an active
Speaker 4: service into an act of luxury, into something luxurious, into
Speaker 4: something sustainable. With these ingredients that Madison Square Garden were
Speaker 4: put in the trash, we utilized it. These are the
Speaker 4: first parties. These are the hash house parties at this time.
Speaker 4: We're throwing hash house parties. Were just inviting all of
Speaker 4: the fly people that we know to the crib. We're
Speaker 4: doing a three course, five course dinner. All ingredients courtesy
Speaker 4: of Madison Square Garden. Courtesy of fourteenth Street Union Square.
Speaker 4: Farmers Market.
Speaker 1: They had so much overage, so like some wagu was
Speaker 1: going away, so some far growd caviard. We had the
Speaker 1: food stamps rocking, so we go get some produce from
Speaker 1: Whole Foods. With the food stamps that hit the farmers
Speaker 1: Market and just put together exquisite meal for the homies.
Speaker 3: The first official ghetto gastro parties were underway at John's
Speaker 3: apartment in Long Island City, became the epicenter of the
Speaker 3: bread I was living.
Speaker 1: In Long Island City at the time. My man k
Speaker 1: from Kutian Cheek Created Control was out there. He's like, yo,
Speaker 1: come fuck with Long Island City.
Speaker 2: I'll ember going. And I'm like, Yo, this sh is
Speaker 2: kind of hi.
Speaker 1: So I got a spot in Long Island City created
Speaker 1: community with Cheek. We used to hit the gym on
Speaker 1: a regular Okay, We're working out and I overheard Pete
Speaker 1: talking about tune of Tar Tar from Morimoto and shit
Speaker 1: like that, and I'm like, you know, that's not usually
Speaker 1: Jim conversation or gym fighter. And I'm like, well, you
Speaker 1: know about the Morimoto tartar. He's like yeah, I'm a chef.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, what's your name.
Speaker 3: Pierre, now, having returned to NYC from Barbados, ended up
Speaker 3: living down the hall from John.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 7: Him and I were neighbors in Long Island City. Him
Speaker 7: and I had met in the gym. We were cool,
Speaker 7: kept on just building a friendship. I was selling weed
Speaker 7: I was hustling.
Speaker 2: We just became great friends.
Speaker 1: Right, Like, he always had the weed and my girlfriend
Speaker 1: used to always be stressed out, so when she was
Speaker 1: acting up, I'd be like, yo, pee, can you just
Speaker 1: come over and bring this girl to blunt, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And then we just bonded. He became
Speaker 1: like one of my closest road dogs. Me and him
Speaker 1: cheek it. I was like the LC crew.
Speaker 7: And I had another homie who lived in his building,
Speaker 7: and he was actually John's neighbor at the time.
Speaker 6: I used to go to my man's apartment.
Speaker 7: And I would see this orange extension cord running down
Speaker 7: the hallway going all the way to the last door
Speaker 7: at the very end of the hallway on the left
Speaker 7: hand side. This orange extension cord is running from the
Speaker 7: hallway underneath the door into this apartment now, and I
Speaker 7: used to wonder what the fuck was going on, and
Speaker 7: then just to come and find out, like that was
Speaker 7: John's apartment. He wasn't paying his electric bill and he
Speaker 7: was just using the building's electric to run all of
Speaker 7: the electric in his apartment. So he had like this
Speaker 7: extension cord that was basically from the hallway that was
Speaker 7: powering his entire apartment. Yo, incredible, man, Like that was
Speaker 7: the sort of character that he was.
Speaker 3: John's apartment running on free electricity became the place to be,
Speaker 3: and soon the party started to build a real buzz
Speaker 3: around the city.
Speaker 4: Initially we wanted this shop ghetto gashow around as media corporation,
Speaker 4: as immedia platform. But I would get so many good
Speaker 4: ingredients and I was cooking all the time, and we
Speaker 4: were doing dinners that we just.
Speaker 5: Said, Yo, listen, let's let's focus on like it was.
Speaker 4: Pop ups at the time were very popular, you know,
Speaker 4: so we focused on like doing pop up restaurants and
Speaker 4: doing in the crib, supper clubs, things.
Speaker 5: Of that nature, inviting people over.
Speaker 4: We had the liquor program, we had the cocktail program.
Speaker 4: We were somaliers, we were chefs, and we were just
Speaker 4: getting it popping, man.
Speaker 5: We were getting it popping out of the apartment.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: We strategically planned everything from the guest list to the
Speaker 4: menu to the beverages. We invited certain people over that
Speaker 4: were maybe heads in the PR department of these brands,
Speaker 4: or you know, just in general worked at these brands,
Speaker 4: and we would invite them over and we would get
Speaker 4: the idea and it had that you need this, you
Speaker 4: need this type of vibe with your brand, we should
Speaker 4: collaborate and that's how it happened.
Speaker 2: It starts to grow.
Speaker 5: The food was delicious.
Speaker 4: We were doing more than We started to do this
Speaker 4: thing called Free Style Friday.
Speaker 5: Every Friday.
Speaker 4: We invited people over from the likes of Asad Ferg
Speaker 4: the whole Asad Mob and so many damn people Man
Speaker 4: Coodie and Cheek. They were getting everything on film, Ebro
Speaker 4: Low Styles. We went on the show to promote this
Speaker 4: pop up that we were doing Featherbed Lane with Scope
Speaker 4: at the time. That got even more people to come through.
Speaker 4: We were talking shit on the High ninety seven. That
Speaker 4: stirred up a buzz and we always were creating buzzes
Speaker 4: and we had track. Also we had traction because I
Speaker 4: had just one chop too, so it was like chef Lester, Walker,
Speaker 4: Chop Champion, Ghetto Gastro, Freestyle Friday, coming up with whimsical
Speaker 4: names Free Style Friday, Forties and Shorties, Waffles and Models.
Speaker 1: The big traction kind of came initially after we did
Speaker 1: this party called w and Models like and we did
Speaker 1: that at le Beron. Shout out to Simon as forgetting
Speaker 1: us to space. We did it at Leboron during fashion week.
Speaker 1: It was definitely the best party of fashion week that year.
Speaker 1: We had exotic dancers this twenty thirteen. One of the
Speaker 1: dancers happened to be Cardi B who I had met
Speaker 1: the night before in Long Island and she just had
Speaker 1: the star quality and stage presence then.
Speaker 2: And I after to come over and I spoke to him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, come come fuck with me tomorrow. Get
Speaker 1: some money, man. She was like all right, Like I'm
Speaker 1: would pull up and I remember her pulling up doing
Speaker 1: her things.
Speaker 2: She was so smart.
Speaker 1: We had these girls, Spider and Magic, who was like
Speaker 1: Magic City legends, like when you talk about doing the
Speaker 1: tricks and going crazy and all that, and Cardi's like, yo,
Speaker 1: I can't. I gotta go before them. She was like,
Speaker 1: I can't go after them. If I go after but
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna make no money because all the money
Speaker 1: go up be gone from them getting on the tips.
Speaker 1: So she always been being a hustling and to fly
Speaker 1: like being a sex DJ Mamay and Rufio, Brendan Fallis Vashti.
Speaker 2: It was as.
Speaker 3: Ghetto Gastro grew. It was only a matter of time
Speaker 3: before Pierre, still living down the hall from John, brought
Speaker 3: something to the table.
Speaker 6: One day there was a Playboy party that there was happening.
Speaker 7: I could see his apartment from my window, so whenever
Speaker 7: there was some shit going on, I would just like
Speaker 7: look outside, pull up and come.
Speaker 6: Across, and he was like, Yo, bring your blades and
Speaker 6: break some food over.
Speaker 1: Playboy came to my crib in Long Island City. We
Speaker 1: threw a party at the crib and Playboy film deals
Speaker 1: for they was giving us a cover story.
Speaker 7: So I pulled up with a couple of dishes to
Speaker 7: the party, and those two dishes that I brought were
Speaker 7: the first two things gone. And at that moment the
Speaker 7: guys were like, okay, well we see that he's going
Speaker 7: to bring something to the table that we're missing.
Speaker 6: In a sense.
Speaker 2: He brought like some dishes and people loved it.
Speaker 6: I pulled up with a keen wat salad and the
Speaker 6: kale salad.
Speaker 7: Those were the first two things gone at that function,
Speaker 7: and everybody was like all right, cool, and then I
Speaker 7: got busy with everything else too. That was probably the
Speaker 7: moment where every it was like all right, cool, pease, God,
Speaker 7: some shit that we missing because there was no salads
Speaker 7: and stuff like that on the table.
Speaker 6: It was just like a bunch of burners and chicken
Speaker 6: wings and stuff like that.
Speaker 7: So bringing that balance to the team and being able
Speaker 7: to see the gaps was definitely one thing.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, you can fuck with us.
Speaker 1: You official And I had to taste this food over
Speaker 1: the years and I'm like, yeah, like he solid, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And then then we just got an in it. It
Speaker 2: was a vibe. It was a vibe.
Speaker 5: We had a lot of beautiful people there.
Speaker 2: It was just a vibe.
Speaker 4: And we did the play Boy spread and then once
Speaker 4: we killed that and we saw that Peak hold his own,
Speaker 4: he became a member of the team. I just think
Speaker 4: that we were diligent, We were consistent, and every time
Speaker 4: we got a little bit of traction, we kept we
Speaker 4: kept going, We kept the momentum up. We worked hard,
Speaker 4: we worked smart, we worked strategically with.
Speaker 3: The team complete, the events got bigger, the food got better,
Speaker 3: and the brands looking to be affiliated with Ghetto Gastro
Speaker 3: started to call.
Speaker 4: Jack Daniels, Microsoft, Apple, Ralph Lauren, Polo, Timberland.
Speaker 7: Homies that work at these brands have been coming to
Speaker 7: our parties for years, you know, and we've just been
Speaker 7: building and not forcing anything and just letting the universe
Speaker 7: be aligned when time is right. And when these brands
Speaker 7: saw that and felt that energy at their functions, you know,
Speaker 7: it was something small, maybe you know, a little Timberland
Speaker 7: dinner or something with Jack Daniels or the event in
Speaker 7: the South of France with Microsoft. It was really about
Speaker 7: us seeing the value and knowing that these companies will
Speaker 7: pay us big money to pull up and do our day.
Speaker 7: But it's just about how you approach yourself, your food,
Speaker 7: the work that you do, how you speak about yourself,
Speaker 7: how you carry yourself. All those things really matter. So
Speaker 7: like people treat you, how they meet you. So if
Speaker 7: somebody's gonna say that they're looking for a caterer, it's like, now,
Speaker 7: we're not caterers. You know, we provide culinary experiences. We're
Speaker 7: artists and storytellers, and you know, we'll pull up and
Speaker 7: we have this offering because food is only like cooking,
Speaker 7: food is really only one part of what we provide
Speaker 7: at Ghetto Gastro, you know what I'm saying, Like it's
Speaker 7: way more than just us putting some food on the plate.
Speaker 7: We curate the entire experience from the guest listen to
Speaker 7: the music, to the plate where to the ambiance, the
Speaker 7: table settings, everything like we really design and curate the
Speaker 7: entire experience from soup to nuts, if people have the bag.
Speaker 7: And the fact that we were able to show improve
Speaker 7: and be consistent as a brand and always show up
Speaker 7: and show out as opened the open the doors for
Speaker 7: us to do collaborations with Beats by Dre and do
Speaker 7: a set of headphones and you know, uh, our own
Speaker 7: line of Jordan's. We did the Jordan's One, the Fearless,
Speaker 7: the Fearless One, React the Lows.
Speaker 6: It was a new silhouette.
Speaker 7: It wasn't our first choice, but you know, we were
Speaker 7: glad to have the opportunity to be able to design
Speaker 7: a sneaker with Jordan and to have you know, a
Speaker 7: national release with a sneaker like that.
Speaker 3: In addition to the Jordan collab, the team started looking
Speaker 3: to other ways to reach new audiences. This includes throwing
Speaker 3: larger ghetto gastro events and putting their own products on
Speaker 3: shelves and stores near you.
Speaker 7: One of my favorite events ever was Thanksgiving at Rick
Speaker 7: Owens and Michelle's house, and it ended up being like
Speaker 7: two hundred plus people in their house. We cooked off
Speaker 7: like I don't want to say eight or like ten
Speaker 7: big ass turkeys. It was a vibe yo, and it
Speaker 7: was crazy because like that was a huge introduction for
Speaker 7: us into the fashion world. And like when I say
Speaker 7: that you show up in disrupt spaces, it's like ghetto
Speaker 7: gastro showing up to do Michelle and Me and Rick
Speaker 7: Owens Thanksgiving meal. When we did that, it was just
Speaker 7: a certain level of status that we had got because
Speaker 7: we killed that shit too. It was an incredible meal
Speaker 7: turned into a wavy ass party afterwards.
Speaker 1: I'm the ABC and the XYZ right, So I love
Speaker 1: of the inception of an idea and I also love
Speaker 1: being a closer, like drop me in a target and
Speaker 1: let me secure that three year partnership. So we're launching
Speaker 1: the edible packaging like we're at irawuon now, but like
Speaker 1: on a big scale to make it accessible, you know,
Speaker 1: we're bringing it to targets.
Speaker 4: We started to focus in on recipes for the waffle MiGs,
Speaker 4: focusing on steasonings. We put out a season a blend
Speaker 4: of different spices and herbs. We put out collaboration with
Speaker 4: Sky farms at the time to create a sovereign syrup.
Speaker 4: We were working as well on designing kitchen appliances with crucks.
Speaker 4: We put out my waffle iron, a grill, a smokeless grill,
Speaker 4: air fryer, a toaster, a coffee machine. We put out
Speaker 4: all of these different products during the time of the pandemic,
Speaker 4: and we turned it into a pandemic before.
Speaker 1: We were chefs or cuts with storytellers. Right, its food
Speaker 1: is a metium. So approaching product development from the story, like,
Speaker 1: all right, what's the story of this ingredient?
Speaker 2: How do we make something delicious.
Speaker 1: But that had that's layered right, and it's something different,
Speaker 1: So thinking about how do we bring a certain consciousness
Speaker 1: and a level of flavor and vibe to it. Because
Speaker 1: I go to the grocery store, I don't necessarily see
Speaker 1: anything that is speaking to me. So wanting to be
Speaker 1: able to put that out in the world and be
Speaker 1: able to take our privilege of being culturally relevant and
Speaker 1: all of that, and hopefully making better products that can
Speaker 1: change health outcomes and communities, and figuring out how to
Speaker 1: make it accessible because how many people can access The
Speaker 1: getto Gastro event with fifty seventy one hundred maybe two
Speaker 1: hundred tops. It's like the gospel needs to spread further,
Speaker 1: so us dropping a book is a big part of that.
Speaker 2: Black Power Kitchen.
Speaker 4: The book is the book is in target right now
Speaker 4: as we speak, being sold, many units being sold right now,
Speaker 4: thousands of unit of being sold, becoming a New York
Speaker 4: Times bestseller with Black Pot Kitchen.
Speaker 3: With the best selling book, Black Power Kitchen, products on
Speaker 3: shelves and live events on the regular, Ghetto Gastro has
Speaker 3: evolved from a popping house party into a full three
Speaker 3: sixty media brand. But it's no accident. It's evolved hard work,
Speaker 3: a unique vision and team chemistry.
Speaker 7: Man, I think it's just an amazing sort of testimony
Speaker 7: to the work that with John Less and myself have
Speaker 7: been doing, all the people around us have been putting
Speaker 7: in over these past ten years. That's a great outlook
Speaker 7: onto the places that we've been and how they've inspired
Speaker 7: the moves that we make.
Speaker 6: And also that gives you like a little glimpse into.
Speaker 7: The future when we're talking about the future of the
Speaker 7: future of our community and where we really see the
Speaker 7: world going, how we see food, how we see Ghetto
Speaker 7: Gastro in the next decade, and just also the importance
Speaker 7: of the black and brown contribution to the cultural space
Speaker 7: across the world since day one, from food to music,
Speaker 7: to the arts, to fashion to everything, you know. And
Speaker 7: it's really just an ode to the community, to the
Speaker 7: Bronx for being such a resilient place and a place
Speaker 7: that I like to call home and that I feel
Speaker 7: has adopted me over the past, you know, ten years
Speaker 7: that I've been working with the company and rocking with
Speaker 7: the guys and shit like that.
Speaker 4: That's the true definition of success right there. When we
Speaker 4: inspire others and we're a catalyst for the next person's success.
Speaker 4: That's what success is to me.
Speaker 1: Man, It's just taking something that is in your mind
Speaker 1: and manifesting it into the tangible asset or a femeral experience.
Speaker 1: I find great pleasure in that, and just the community,
Speaker 1: like just being able to be in the Cayman Islands
Speaker 1: with our families and working and hanging and.
Speaker 2: Just being like, yo, look at what we've built, Like look,
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful light.
Speaker 1: So being able to just build this with my brothers
Speaker 1: and have this bond and it's really a family.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm really just looking forward to everything else
Speaker 7: that has to come.
Speaker 6: But right now, Black Power Kitchen were on a mission. Man,
Speaker 6: more nutrition to your kitchen. Let's get it.
Speaker 3: The story of Ghetto Gastro is one of ingenuity, skill
Speaker 3: and immaculate vibes. When John Gray wanted to be an entrepreneur,
Speaker 3: there was never a shortage of business ideas for him
Speaker 3: to pursue. When Lester and Pierre showed signs that they
Speaker 3: were gifted in the culinary yards, they pursued their passion
Speaker 3: and they willed themselves into being master chefs. And when
Speaker 3: they all came together, the energy was undeniable and that
Speaker 3: recipe could only lead to success for Ideas Generation. I'm
Speaker 3: Noah Callahan Bever. Thanks for listening to The All Angles
Speaker 3: Podcast presented by Will Packer Media. If you've enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 3: please don't hesitate to like, comment DM or tell a
Speaker 3: friend to tell a friend about Idea Generation and the
Speaker 3: All Angles Podcast. We can't do any of this without
Speaker 3: your help, and honestly, your support means everything. We do
Speaker 3: this for you, and we can't do it without you.
Speaker 3: This episode was brought to you by Will Packer, Executive
Speaker 3: produced by John Balachick and Helena Ox original music by
Speaker 3: Valentine Fritz, edit and sound mixed by Nonsensible Production and
Speaker 3: hosted by me Idea Generation founder Noah Callahan bever Idea Generations.
Speaker 3: All Angles is a will Packer media podcast