Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, coleeen Witt, and today we have the
Speaker 1: mc Legacies of all mick legacies. I just before I
Speaker 1: even introduce this amazingly special guest, I have to let
Speaker 1: you guys know that I have tried to get this
Speaker 1: interview for at least a year. Not because I've reached
Speaker 1: out and actually broke contact to this special guest, is
Speaker 1: because I've literally had to stalk research, watch so many interviews,
Speaker 1: and I try not to do this, but I am
Speaker 1: so impressed with this special guest right here. I've been
Speaker 1: telling my whole team and everyone who watches the show knows.
Speaker 1: I am absolutely more excited over entrepreneurs than celebrities. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: sorry for my celebrities, but today we have special guests.
Speaker 1: Carrie Harper Howie is in the building. And not only
Speaker 1: is she, are you the largest McDonald's franchise owner in
Speaker 1: the state of California.
Speaker 2: I keep saying that I think you.
Speaker 3: Got in the state of California. African American.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, she's gonna wear that hat.
Speaker 4: She is twenty one man, twenty one twenty.
Speaker 1: One McDonald's restaurants are owned by Carrie Harper Howie and
Speaker 1: her family, her mother and her sister, three minority women.
Speaker 1: This was a huge feat in the timing and the
Speaker 1: whole structure. But the cool thing about Carrie here is
Speaker 1: her story is definitely untraditional. But she has released a
Speaker 1: book which led me to her, called The Family Secret.
Speaker 1: So if you guys are interested in hearing more, you
Speaker 1: can go ahead and look up The Family Secret online Google, Amazon,
Speaker 1: you can find it.
Speaker 2: That is how I found her.
Speaker 1: But so we are going to get into The Family
Speaker 1: Secret first, starting with the broke dish that y'all had
Speaker 1: before you had twenty one McDonald's.
Speaker 2: So what will you have me eat in today?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: So this is a dish that my my sister and
Speaker 4: I used to make back in the day eons ago,
Speaker 4: and as I shared with you, I don't remember the
Speaker 4: last time I made this, so I'm hoping that I
Speaker 4: can pull it off. But it was such a that
Speaker 4: meal that my sister and I would go to that
Speaker 4: we thought was so delicious and so cool. So today
Speaker 4: I'm gonna make for you mustardy cheddar hot dogs. And
Speaker 4: I asked for this bag these bags of chips because
Speaker 4: that was always the side we always had in our house.
Speaker 4: We were definitely not making fries. We weren't even baking
Speaker 4: frozen fries. We were not doing anything special. But we
Speaker 4: always had a backs of variety chips. So we're gonna
Speaker 4: do mustardy cheddar hot dogs and chips.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I threw a ketchup and I said, she must have
Speaker 1: forgot some ketchup up in here, but go ahead, it's okay.
Speaker 1: So since you had that surprise, I switched out your
Speaker 1: hot dogs for turkey hot dogs, just from you know,
Speaker 1: the sanity of my stomach.
Speaker 2: So surprise.
Speaker 1: Anyways, go ahead, make your mustard cheese hot dogs. I
Speaker 1: was sitting there looking at the recipe and the ingredient said,
Speaker 1: maybe she wants elvida, and I said, but.
Speaker 2: Usually people they want belvida cheese, say elvida.
Speaker 1: So we want to see what So so take me back, okay,
Speaker 1: take me all the way back to life when y'all
Speaker 1: you and your sister almost burnt down the house and
Speaker 1: these hot dogs.
Speaker 4: So my sister and I were born and raised in Englewood.
Speaker 4: My sister still lives in the house that we grew
Speaker 4: up in. Y'all ago, Yes, and.
Speaker 1: That's crazy to think twenty one McDonald's later.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, we take a lot of pride
Speaker 4: in living and existing and moving and supporting the communities
Speaker 4: where we live. And so you know, if you got
Speaker 4: a perfectly good house that works fine and suit your purposes,
Speaker 4: there's no real reason for it not to still be
Speaker 4: in your family.
Speaker 1: And did you guys own it back then or were
Speaker 1: you renting it?
Speaker 4: I literally came home from the hospital to this house
Speaker 4: my parents before they became McDonald's franchisees. My dad was
Speaker 4: a cop and my mother was a social worker, so
Speaker 4: they both had good government jobs. Wow, and they were
Speaker 4: able to afford to buy this house on this very
Speaker 4: small street in Inglewood, California.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, and you could share or not share,
Speaker 1: but you know Inglewood has gentrified, and is you know,
Speaker 1: buying a house over there as impossible.
Speaker 2: I am genuinely.
Speaker 1: Curious how much they bought a house for then and
Speaker 1: how much does it work today.
Speaker 4: So when I was growing up, my parent, my mom especially,
Speaker 4: was like kids know what kids know, and grown ups
Speaker 4: know what grown ups know.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna be honest and say I honestly.
Speaker 4: And truly never knew what I can tell you, though,
Speaker 4: is we have lived there long enough and remodeled, renovated,
Speaker 4: change things, et cetera, that we have not completely paid
Speaker 4: it off.
Speaker 3: So we have pulled money out.
Speaker 4: Which is the beauty of real estate as an investment,
Speaker 4: right is you can use it in over time, you
Speaker 4: can allow yourself to reinvest in yourself to beautify the
Speaker 4: space that you're in through taking money out of your
Speaker 4: house and then paying for that mortgage. So it's not
Speaker 4: paid off even forty plus I'll say forty plus years later.
Speaker 1: So that's like basically saying that the house is gorgeous.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: We think it is beautiful, it works beautiful, and you know,
Speaker 4: quite honestly, my mother has Alzheimer's, and so what that
Speaker 4: means is that we have been able to change the
Speaker 4: space to create a little mini apartment for her inside
Speaker 4: the house, in a place that's familiar to her. Because if,
Speaker 4: as you may know, with Alzheimer's patients, for them, everything
Speaker 4: familiar is better. So if they can really and truly
Speaker 4: be in a place where they know, hey, around this
Speaker 4: corner is my bedroom, then that.
Speaker 3: Is very helpful to them.
Speaker 4: That's another reason why I feel especially blessed that we've
Speaker 4: held on to the house because we didn't know that
Speaker 4: our mom was going to develop Alzheimer's. But I'm so
Speaker 4: glad that she's able to be in a space that's
Speaker 4: been familiar to her for so long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it kind of goes back to the naming
Speaker 1: of this episode, is gonna be mc legacy legacy because
Speaker 1: you guys definitely like even just saying that you kept
Speaker 1: this house shows that you guys value this family culture
Speaker 1: that you guys have. Kind of your parents kind of
Speaker 1: knew you guys as a whole built so you and
Speaker 1: your sister at the time. Are they when you're doing this?
Speaker 1: Are they cops? And and would your mom do social worker?
Speaker 3: Social worker?
Speaker 4: So my parents got involved in the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 4: so this would have been even after we had McDonald's.
Speaker 4: But as you can imagine, if you're going from a
Speaker 4: career where you're used to catching criminals or helping families,
Speaker 4: you don't know anything about McDonald's or being your own
Speaker 4: business owner or anything like that. So they were a
Speaker 4: lot of times away from home. So my sister and
Speaker 4: I will be home by ourselves, and we had to
Speaker 4: figure out how we were going to eat because unlike
Speaker 4: my very coddle children who are left with meals and
Speaker 4: all the other.
Speaker 3: Kind of stuff. My mother was like, figure it out,
Speaker 3: and we did.
Speaker 4: And so this was one of the things that we
Speaker 4: knew that we could cook that would taste good. You know,
Speaker 4: we're not as you know, as a restaurant tour I know,
Speaker 4: I don't know that we were thinking about this, but
Speaker 4: there's no food safety issues, you can, I feel pretty sure,
Speaker 4: although I honestly don't remember.
Speaker 3: I think we would have.
Speaker 4: Probably cooked the hot dogs in the microwave. I don't
Speaker 4: know that we were necessarily using the stovetop.
Speaker 1: But you know, hey, in here there's no microwaves, so
Speaker 1: I like it no microwave, So making it work?
Speaker 2: And how hard was it?
Speaker 1: Do you know at least the history of like what
Speaker 1: it took for your parents to get a McDonald's and
Speaker 1: how did they stumble upon the opportunity.
Speaker 4: So at the time, my mother's only sister, her name
Speaker 4: or she's my auntie Jane, she was and her husband
Speaker 4: were a franchisees at the time. They were in the
Speaker 4: San Diego market and the and you know, they were
Speaker 4: enfranchising even longer than my mom, and so my parents
Speaker 4: were like, we have our good government job, so we're
Speaker 4: not tripping. And at some point in time, there was
Speaker 4: an African American regional manager who at the time was
Speaker 4: responsible for finding franchisees well. He as well as McDonald's
Speaker 4: as a corporation, they were looking to increase the number
Speaker 4: of black franchisees. So when he met my I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, my aunt became an approved operator, and I
Speaker 4: think he met my mother and thought and proposed the idea.
Speaker 4: They were kind of like, huh okay, And so they
Speaker 4: both cashed in the retirement at their good government jobs.
Speaker 4: And that your eyes just got big because it was
Speaker 4: a big deal.
Speaker 2: That's a high risk move.
Speaker 4: That's a very high risk move, right, They cashed in
Speaker 4: their retirements and bought their first restaurant. Now, my sister
Speaker 4: and I were young girls at the time, so it
Speaker 4: was really you know.
Speaker 3: It was a big deal. It was a big risk,
Speaker 3: but somehow they had the courage to do it.
Speaker 1: That's a lot did that Now, I don't want to
Speaker 1: skip forward, but I'm gonna So did that amount of
Speaker 1: pressure play a role in possible separation later on?
Speaker 4: No, So their separation was very specifically around my father
Speaker 4: being a gambling addict. And I do talk about this
Speaker 4: very openly in my book. My father was a gambler
Speaker 4: for years, and while my mom knew that he liked
Speaker 4: to go to the racetrack and you know, bid on horses,
Speaker 4: she never realized that it had developed into a habit
Speaker 4: that he couldn't control. And so, as you can imagine,
Speaker 4: you know, this day and age, we are very used
Speaker 4: to walking into a bank shoot at this point, right,
Speaker 4: we do apple pay or. People weren't using a lot
Speaker 4: of credit cards back in the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: They were using a lot of cash.
Speaker 4: And so my father, being a gambling addict, surrounded by cash,
Speaker 4: would literally take whole envelopes of money from the register
Speaker 4: that should go into the bank, right and being building
Speaker 4: McDonald's money.
Speaker 1: Which oh, no, Papa, no, Papa, yes, said yes.
Speaker 4: And so basically he gambled away a lot of money.
Speaker 4: It was, I'll say, to put it briefly, it was
Speaker 4: a very very large financial infidelity. I'm just gonna put
Speaker 4: that there, yeah, okay, yeah, And so my mom was
Speaker 4: not able to forgive that. She was not able to
Speaker 4: get past the fact that he had, you know, I
Speaker 4: think for her, honestly, I don't know if it was
Speaker 4: so much like the oh, he's been financially unfaithful to me,
Speaker 4: as how could you be so selfish as to ruin
Speaker 4: the potentially ruin the lives of your wife, but even
Speaker 4: more importantly, your daughters. We've done this, We've taken this
Speaker 4: risk so that your daughters could have something more than
Speaker 4: we ever thought we could have. And she just could
Speaker 4: not get past that, and so she didn't and then
Speaker 4: so then she decided to divorce him. Now, as you
Speaker 4: can imagine, their Black franchises, this is the mid nineteen nineties,
Speaker 4: mid to late nineteen nineties. And how long were they
Speaker 4: the franchise at that point, Somewhere in the range of
Speaker 4: seven or eight years. I don't know exactly, because I'll
Speaker 4: say this, I'm pretty sure I was in sixth grade. Okay,
Speaker 4: so somewhere in sixth grade, you're around ten or eleven.
Speaker 4: So around the mid to late eighties, they had been
Speaker 4: in around seven or so years, six or seven and
Speaker 4: they only owned one at.
Speaker 3: The time, or they owned two at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's high pressure. She's under two, ye.
Speaker 4: Right, you know, so she was, you know, appropriately unable
Speaker 4: to forgive that fine.
Speaker 3: So she was prepared to leave him. The issue.
Speaker 4: Is that she was the black woman in the nineteen
Speaker 4: eighties with two young daughters, and so she had to
Speaker 4: figure out one is McDonald's gonna let me even continue?
Speaker 4: Because the way that they all found out was we
Speaker 4: were on a vacation. We used to go to Lake
Speaker 4: Havasu with a bunch of other cops in their families.
Speaker 3: We were on vacation. They called her and said, your
Speaker 3: bills have not been paid.
Speaker 2: Oh heck no, ye see, so he's gambling.
Speaker 4: And if there's one thing any corporation like McDonald's is like,
Speaker 4: is gonna not go for They're not going for their
Speaker 4: bills not being paid.
Speaker 1: So so just to backtrack for everyone that doesn't know,
Speaker 1: can you do like a brief breakdown of McDonald's. I
Speaker 1: have an idea that what it is, but definitely not
Speaker 1: nearly as much knowledge as you do. So just do
Speaker 1: a snapshot so people understand why you guys would be
Speaker 1: paying McDonald's bills.
Speaker 3: Yes, so.
Speaker 4: Enfranchising, you have to pay what's called a franchising fee
Speaker 4: or a royalty.
Speaker 3: Use this knife before you burn yours.
Speaker 4: Stabbing, thank you, So you have to pay a royalty
Speaker 4: in order to be in business, and so we were
Speaker 4: they were not paying he was not paying that royalty fee.
Speaker 4: All that cash, unfortunately, was going to support his gambling
Speaker 4: habit and so and you know, and of course there's
Speaker 4: a variety of other bills.
Speaker 3: So we have vendors.
Speaker 4: Some of those vendors might if McDonald's pays the vendors first,
Speaker 4: we will pay McDonald's back. Or the vendor is calling
Speaker 4: McDonald's saying, hey, we haven't gotten paid for food and
Speaker 4: in a certain amount of time, can you go to
Speaker 4: your owner operator and find out what's going on, because
Speaker 4: we are one of the biggest things that we're specifically
Speaker 4: held accountable to as franchisees. It's paying our bills on
Speaker 4: time like that is there are franchising standards.
Speaker 3: That's one of them. Pay your bills on time?
Speaker 2: And is this back?
Speaker 1: Did McDonald's have a McDonald's university back then?
Speaker 3: It's called Hamburger University?
Speaker 2: Sorry, yes, I did a little bit of research.
Speaker 3: Come on, all right, I'm a proud graduate of that's HU, right?
Speaker 2: And how many years is hu?
Speaker 3: HU is? A week?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: It's a week? Is it week? Two years?
Speaker 4: It's okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you details how
Speaker 4: that works out.
Speaker 1: Okay, so wait, wait, backtrack. So your mom is on vacation.
Speaker 3: Mom's on vacation, all of them were all on vacation.
Speaker 2: Okay, she gets a call, she gets the call.
Speaker 4: The call says, you have not been paying your bills,
Speaker 4: and she says, holy stuff, holy but Jolie, and she
Speaker 4: then you know, I don't think we left the trip,
Speaker 4: but I think it because it was kind of like, oh,
Speaker 4: surely this cannot be the case, Like, that's not.
Speaker 3: Would you like mustard on ketchup on yours?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it the way you do it first, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to live the whole experience.
Speaker 3: Yes, so I don't have enough cheese. I'm gonna great
Speaker 3: a little more cheese.
Speaker 4: But so yeah, So then we get back, we realize
Speaker 4: that the bills, in fact, she realized, because I didn't
Speaker 4: know anything, she realized at the time that in fact,
Speaker 4: the bills had not been paid and that McDonald's was
Speaker 4: mad about it. And so it becomes a question of, well,
Speaker 4: what happens do they just kick the whole family out.
Speaker 4: My mom, because she's amazing, was able to convince McDonald's
Speaker 4: to let her stay in the business. And that it
Speaker 4: was my father who was the gambler who should be
Speaker 4: kicked out, and they agreed to that. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: people have a lot of things to say about McDonald's,
Speaker 4: and everybody has their.
Speaker 3: Own story experience.
Speaker 4: One of my biggest feelings about McDonald's is gratitude for
Speaker 4: giving my mother, a single woman at the time, a
Speaker 4: chance to prove that she was more than what her
Speaker 4: husband had done to her.
Speaker 3: Wow, and so.
Speaker 4: And the reason why that feels so palpable to me
Speaker 4: especially is because she did have to take steps to
Speaker 4: buy my father out because you know, he.
Speaker 2: Was a co owner, and then she toy that dead too.
Speaker 3: Well, she did not immediately because she couldn't.
Speaker 4: But she Your question is a good one. She had
Speaker 4: to get financing to be able, said as low as possible.
Speaker 4: She had to get financing to be able to buy
Speaker 4: him out and put herself in a position to repay
Speaker 4: this debt.
Speaker 1: So she had to even get into even more debt.
Speaker 3: Yes, geez.
Speaker 2: She had to really believe in herself too, right, she.
Speaker 3: I mean, and have the fortitude.
Speaker 4: And as you're grieving your marriage, yea grieving the vision
Speaker 4: that you had for your life, you're caring for your
Speaker 4: daughters who are so young and basically don't know anything
Speaker 4: you know, and so it's at the.
Speaker 1: Time, did you guys see her in any like emotional
Speaker 1: distress or was she like a gangster?
Speaker 4: She was an absolute gangster. I'm gonna tell you about
Speaker 4: that in a second. But what I want to get
Speaker 4: back to your question of the reason why I keep
Speaker 4: harping on black single woman is because my mom went
Speaker 4: to bank after bank trying to get the financing to
Speaker 4: dig herself out of this hole, and bank after bank
Speaker 4: after bank said no, they would not give her money.
Speaker 4: And in fact, one of them when she walked in
Speaker 4: said to her, where is your husband? And she said,
Speaker 4: I don't have one, And they were like, there's nothing
Speaker 4: we can do for you.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Until one day she walked into the Culver City branch
Speaker 4: was even either Culver City or Baldwin Hills branch of Wells.
Speaker 2: Fargo Bank to Wells Fargo, there was.
Speaker 4: A black woman there named Mona Maze, and my mom
Speaker 4: laid it all on the line for Mona, and Mona
Speaker 4: said okay, and she was able to get my mom
Speaker 4: the financing that she need needed to move on by
Speaker 4: my dad out get herself right with McDonald's and plan
Speaker 4: for a future where she paid off the debt just
Speaker 4: like you said.
Speaker 2: Holy cow. So and she had to go through multiple
Speaker 2: multiple for that.
Speaker 1: I had read that and I was like I even
Speaker 1: called Wells trying to get your contact.
Speaker 2: It was like, girl, you don't get off my phone
Speaker 2: with this.
Speaker 1: But it's true, true, And that was in I mean,
Speaker 1: no disrespect to the banks, but that was hard time
Speaker 1: too as a black black woman, like she wasn't even white.
Speaker 1: She was definitely like the opposite of and McDonald's is
Speaker 1: almost like a forsurable you know when someone comes up
Speaker 1: with a McDonald's loan. I heard those are like yes,
Speaker 1: you know, so she had she had to go through
Speaker 1: all that into to still fight and press on.
Speaker 2: Yet she's pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: You do rep the fact that she was a single mom.
Speaker 1: I just became a single mom and I just wore
Speaker 1: them days be hard, you know, especially handling it with grace, right,
Speaker 1: you know, because they love to like be out there
Speaker 1: like well she was a bitter or whatever, but like
Speaker 1: to handle it with grace in a situation where it
Speaker 1: was like to be honest, unfair.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and she I can say with total honesty. Never
Speaker 4: bad mouthed my dad did. We've only over the years
Speaker 4: kind of gotten details out of her about what happened.
Speaker 4: She wasn't trying to like harp on anything bad about him.
Speaker 4: She was just like, it's me now, and you know,
Speaker 4: we're rolling. And so we were lucky at the time
Speaker 4: we had a woman. She was our babysitter and babysitter
Speaker 4: to Minnie, and so we spent a lot of time
Speaker 4: in her house, like you know, at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, Like my mom had to really be physically
Speaker 4: present in those restaurants a lot. And I think that's
Speaker 4: really kind of where learning how to cook.
Speaker 3: Things like this came from.
Speaker 1: Wow, Oh my god, can the camera see that?
Speaker 2: I don't know they can see it. That is crazy.
Speaker 3: That's been a long time.
Speaker 2: Do you feel just sidebar, we have to name we
Speaker 2: have to name drop this.
Speaker 1: What was the can you just tell us like thirty
Speaker 1: seconds about this chop winning yeah situation.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I was in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: At this amazing event called the Family Reunion, and there
Speaker 4: was a chopped style not chopped, but chopped style competition.
Speaker 4: Mister three baskets, three rounds, the whole nine and I
Speaker 4: was on a team with four people including my sister
Speaker 4: and this other one wonderful woman I was on the
Speaker 4: other panel with and then a total stranger, and we won.
Speaker 3: We were the overall Chop champions.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I only had to shout that out because
Speaker 1: this is something that I'm definitely I haven't even tried it,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna make it for my daughter.
Speaker 2: Ooh, I'm gonna do thrids. Okay, oh sorry.
Speaker 3: I'll take those, Sorry, Primellion.
Speaker 1: This looks like something my daughter would absolutely love because
Speaker 1: she just loves cheese.
Speaker 2: I'll get her spaghetti. And it was just big cannam
Speaker 2: with cheese. But this is all gooey. The bread is toasted,
Speaker 2: which I do like.
Speaker 1: The Other thing I love about this is she used butter,
Speaker 1: and if you know anything about me, I.
Speaker 2: Use a stick of butter like every two days.
Speaker 1: It's really bad. This is why I have fat over
Speaker 1: my abs. But this is gooey, cheesy, and you put
Speaker 1: the mustard underneath. So I am dying to try it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let us sit for like two sicks. It's
Speaker 1: a little it is hot. It's hot, but before I
Speaker 1: take a bite into it, let's go back, so your
Speaker 1: mom successfully handles this transaction. You guys have no idea
Speaker 1: babysitters are stepping in. Is your father still in the
Speaker 1: picture kind of or does he like to a Houdini?
Speaker 3: He pretty much does a Hudini?
Speaker 2: Does that suck?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that happened to me in my situation. I'm like, why,
Speaker 1: because then it's like double the responsibility, right.
Speaker 3: I obviously cannot speak for my father. He is deceased. Now.
Speaker 4: I think he was ashamed, and I think that shame
Speaker 4: can be a lot not excusing his absence, but I
Speaker 4: think he was just very embarrassed and because not only
Speaker 4: did he mess everything up financially for my mother, sister,
Speaker 4: and I, but he had borrowed from friends, from family,
Speaker 4: like it was a it was an addiction, and so
Speaker 4: you know, I don't treat that any differently than a
Speaker 4: drug addiction that makes people make really bad decisions. But
Speaker 4: I just think he, you know, as they said, my
Speaker 4: mom got the friends, my mom got the life, she
Speaker 4: got the businesses, she got the kids, she got the
Speaker 4: she got everything, and he just kind of, you know,
Speaker 4: crawled away into obsoletion. One of I think Nicole and
Speaker 4: I Nicole's my sister. One of our shared regrets in
Speaker 4: life is that somewhere we lived together after uh she
Speaker 4: had already graduated from college. We both went to college
Speaker 4: in the Bay Area and we lived together, and we
Speaker 4: had reached out to a friend of his and gotten
Speaker 4: his phone number, and we had his phone number on
Speaker 4: our kid on our kitchen refrigerator, and we were planning
Speaker 4: to reach out to him, really just in the spirit
Speaker 4: of we're doing great, how are you like? We hadn't
Speaker 4: talked spoken him in years, and he died before we
Speaker 4: had a chance to reach out to him, and so
Speaker 4: I wish that we had reached out to him and
Speaker 4: re established that connection. I before I have my first son,
Speaker 4: I remember talking to my husband and I was like, Babe,
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 3: Like, what do dads do? I feel like I don't
Speaker 3: really know what dads do.
Speaker 4: And you know, I mean he was definitely around until early,
Speaker 4: you know, middle elementary, sixth or seventh grade, but I
Speaker 4: didn't never I certainly never got a chance to develop
Speaker 4: a relationship with him as a teen, as a college student,
Speaker 4: as an adult, all those things.
Speaker 1: And I think we both wish that we had. So
Speaker 1: he never like touched base again. No and then how
Speaker 1: did your mom like she just did she? What story
Speaker 1: did she come up with to make you, guys palette it?
Speaker 4: So I think the worst or not, I almost say
Speaker 4: the worst, but probably one of them, the most difficult
Speaker 4: pieces of it that we never talked about it. There
Speaker 4: was no acknowledgement that we should have feelings about the
Speaker 4: fact that my parents were divorcing.
Speaker 3: I talked about this in the.
Speaker 2: Book so like it wasn't even like but there was.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you exactly how it happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we came home from wherever school, the babysitters wherever,
Speaker 4: and my mom said, your dad and I are getting divorced.
Speaker 4: And we said, so that means that I think. I said,
Speaker 4: so Dad's not going to live here anymore, and she
Speaker 4: said no, And then I started crying for a few minutes,
Speaker 4: and then my sister started crying, and then my mom
Speaker 4: started crying, and then we all stopped crying.
Speaker 3: And we literally never spoke of it ever again.
Speaker 2: Now we're there.
Speaker 1: But I can't imagine you There was something you said
Speaker 1: earlier in our interview that kind of makes sense. Why
Speaker 1: maybe you guys, but I don't look at my.
Speaker 2: Little daughter, she's three.
Speaker 1: She goes through phase of missing her dad, and she's
Speaker 1: like very expressive, like I miss daddy or whatever whatever.
Speaker 2: It's really kind of sad. H it's actually sad.
Speaker 1: No, No, I try to make like I just do
Speaker 1: I miss too. But it was your space because earlier
Speaker 1: in the interview you said my mom was the type
Speaker 1: that this is adult conversation or a kid. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you didn't feel comfortable enough to say, hey,
Speaker 1: I miss my dad, where is he or where are
Speaker 1: you having those conversations?
Speaker 2: She was like adult kid.
Speaker 4: So I've had enough therapy to know that I didn't
Speaker 4: know how to verbalize that I missed my dad. And
Speaker 4: also I think my for whatever, and this is gonna
Speaker 4: sound crazy, my mom would not have been a person
Speaker 4: that I would have gone to to express the feelings
Speaker 4: she was not. And and I said, she is wonderful
Speaker 4: in many ways, but emotionally available, she is not. So
Speaker 4: we we didn't live in a household where we were
Speaker 4: hugging and kissing. It wasn't abusive, but it wasn't affectionate,
Speaker 4: either verbally or physically.
Speaker 3: You know, And so it wasn't you know.
Speaker 4: I never went to my mom like, oh, this guy
Speaker 4: just broke my heart or you know, oh, I'm going
Speaker 4: shopping for a prom dress.
Speaker 3: My mom wasn't a part of that.
Speaker 2: Was just wasn't that person.
Speaker 1: Oh, so it was like that was the that was
Speaker 1: that was our householder, that was your household culture, that
Speaker 1: was our household culture. That's that's I could only imagine
Speaker 1: how difficult that would be because, yeah, I mean just
Speaker 1: because I'm just a new mom and I see my
Speaker 1: daughter very much.
Speaker 2: Expressive, like oh my bady, I saw fly so much.
Speaker 2: My goodness, girlfriend.
Speaker 1: But but it makes sense if culturally in this household.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up in a house where my
Speaker 1: mom didn't hug us, so like that was just the
Speaker 1: norm I longed for. So now this poor child is
Speaker 1: a hugger, cuddler, and I love you, right, but I
Speaker 1: get it. So it doesn't sound crazy. It just sounds
Speaker 1: like it's unfortunate that you guys had to experience that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And like I said, I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 4: have enough therapy. I think the biggest impact for us.
Speaker 4: And I talk about this very I think rationally because
Speaker 4: in my in my experience, I've really had to learn
Speaker 4: how to connect with feelings because I.
Speaker 2: Never you are you grew up disassociated.
Speaker 3: Very disassociated from feeling like we never you know.
Speaker 4: So last night my youngest son is being baptized at
Speaker 4: the end of this month. We had a conversation with
Speaker 4: the pastor and his wife of that church and they said, Cyrus,
Speaker 4: how are you feeling? And he said nervous, but I
Speaker 4: feel okay, And they were like, glad that you were
Speaker 4: able to My kids have lots of emotional language. My
Speaker 4: mom wasn't acknowledging that I was sad or angry or fearful.
Speaker 4: We never, we didn't have conversations around emotional language, and
Speaker 4: she certainly didn't express those things to us. So you said,
Speaker 4: you asked me, how did she handle it? She didn't
Speaker 4: know how to handle it any other way than a jeep.
Speaker 4: She put her head down. She's like, I'm about to
Speaker 4: save this whole situation. I'm taking care of my daughters.
Speaker 2: Did you ever see her crime in that moment.
Speaker 4: Where she said the divorce, the divorce? But other than that, no,
Speaker 4: did you?
Speaker 2: Did you and your sister have those I have a
Speaker 2: twin sister.
Speaker 3: Exciting to those of us who don't have twins, it's
Speaker 3: so cooling.
Speaker 2: It's all exciting. If you look alike.
Speaker 1: But did you and your sister talk about those emotions
Speaker 1: at all or at the time where you just so disassociated,
Speaker 1: you didn't know what those feelings, how to identify those feelings.
Speaker 4: Over time, yes, we've grown up to start having those
Speaker 4: convers but we weren't like little girls in the room
Speaker 4: because we shared a room for a long time, but
Speaker 4: we were not little girls in the room saying you know, oh,
Speaker 4: I wish that mom, you wish that mom would.
Speaker 3: Hug you, or we didn't know, or I miss it. It
Speaker 3: was just or no, geez, that's a lot. I don't know,
Speaker 3: and it sounds.
Speaker 4: Crazy to say out loud, but that I can't be anything.
Speaker 1: I don't think it sounds crazy. I think there's people
Speaker 1: out there that can relate. And I'm glad you're open
Speaker 1: enough and you've done enough work to say it, because
Speaker 1: people go through this, even in twenty twenty four. I mean,
Speaker 1: mental health is still brand new to the world. But
Speaker 1: it's just crazy to think about the family legacy and
Speaker 1: still see these pockets of.
Speaker 2: What's the word like.
Speaker 1: Passed on little demons, you know, kind of I don't
Speaker 1: know the word that I would use, but generational.
Speaker 4: I mean, a part of it is trauma. And the
Speaker 4: reason why I say trauma, excuse me. I one time
Speaker 4: asked my mom, you know what, and this was I was,
Speaker 4: this was relatively advanced in her journey with Alzheimer's, but
Speaker 4: she was at this time much more kind of aware,
Speaker 4: and she's aware and alert, but she definitely her illness
Speaker 4: continues to increase, right, And so I asked her, you know,
Speaker 4: I forget the exact question, but something along the lines of,
Speaker 4: you know, what was your life like when you were young,
Speaker 4: or like how did you what did you when your
Speaker 4: brothers and sisters you were or how do you feel
Speaker 4: like the emotional things were happening in your household? And
Speaker 4: her response to me was, you know, when my brothers
Speaker 4: and sisters left the house, I was not even sure
Speaker 4: that they would come home safely because we lived in
Speaker 4: New Orleans in the nineteen forties and fifties, and your
Speaker 4: family members sometimes would just disappear, So we weren't developing connections.
Speaker 4: We could afford to be hyper emotionally connected. And that really,
Speaker 4: I was like, A, this makes a lot of sense
Speaker 4: to me because I can look at my mother and
Speaker 4: all of her siblings and see they are wonderful and
Speaker 4: loving people. But my generation, me and our cousins, we
Speaker 4: are so much more effusively real, you know, emotional when
Speaker 4: it comes to connecting with each other than all of
Speaker 4: my mom and her parents. I don't know how we've
Speaker 4: all kind of gotten out of started to break that cycle,
Speaker 4: but it's so clear to me where it starts, and
Speaker 4: that this is really a part of the African American
Speaker 4: systemic racist experience, that we carry that, and.
Speaker 3: We you and I we're moms.
Speaker 4: You know, my kids are older than yours, but we're
Speaker 4: moms raising the same generation of kids, and our kids
Speaker 4: will have a very different experience. I don't know if
Speaker 4: you've had therapy, but I have, my husband has, and
Speaker 4: so we now know how important it is when I
Speaker 4: make a mistake, I apologize to my kids, and.
Speaker 2: That's me right, yes, And.
Speaker 1: I think also people need to remember apology is the
Speaker 1: best way to end the argument. They're all gonna be
Speaker 1: arguing mad all day. An apology will reset it to
Speaker 1: you know, it's the best hidden secret accountability. Same thing
Speaker 1: I did it, I'm sorry, won't happen again, or I'll
Speaker 1: try to do better, I can't do better, or whatever.
Speaker 2: But accountability and apology is probably.
Speaker 1: The easiest way to end nagging drama, arguing everything, and people.
Speaker 4: Like for what?
Speaker 1: But I am curious and this is a sidebar, and
Speaker 1: we got to go back to your story because I.
Speaker 2: Want to hear about it.
Speaker 1: But as a mom, I feel like what makes me
Speaker 1: resilient and probably makes you and your sister resilient, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna use the word resilient and your mother resilient is
Speaker 1: probably the hardship that you had to go through. When
Speaker 1: I look at my teeny bopper and I heard you
Speaker 1: say coddle to your kid. You came from your mouth. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know your kid, but do you feel like
Speaker 1: and I'm definitely afraid of this is I want my
Speaker 1: daughter to have this resilience, this like.
Speaker 2: Grit, right? But maybe girl? I mean, she already showing
Speaker 2: signs of coddled.
Speaker 1: You know, she has the best or whatever, And I
Speaker 1: take pride in it because we come from nothing. But
Speaker 1: are you fearful that the coddling will take away that resilience?
Speaker 1: Is it possible to love and create that grit of resilience?
Speaker 2: Is it even possible?
Speaker 4: So here's because I think about this often and even
Speaker 4: you know. So my husband and I were moving and
Speaker 4: we were like, should we stay here in this slightly
Speaker 4: grittier community or do we move to this slightly more
Speaker 4: upscale community.
Speaker 3: What do we want our kids to experience? What is
Speaker 3: it going to mean?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: So I say, that's one example of all the different
Speaker 4: ways that I think about and I worry about how
Speaker 4: my kids, especially my boys. I have two black boys
Speaker 4: that I'm raising. What does it look like? And so
Speaker 4: the way that I resolve this issue for me is
Speaker 4: one I do try to make sure that I build
Speaker 4: in moments of shall we say, the need for resilience
Speaker 4: in our household. So our boys they you know, they
Speaker 4: start with chores and maybe ten is a little bit late.
Speaker 4: So don't yell at me if ten it is too late.
Speaker 4: They start with chores at ten, laundry, trash, all that
Speaker 4: stuff that they're responsible for that they have to be
Speaker 4: willing to earn.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: Also, try to build in some amount of like financial accountability,
Speaker 3: so they do get an allowance, they're not out allowed
Speaker 3: to spend outside of it unless they get money. Like
Speaker 3: for a birthday has an Apple watch. He bought it
Speaker 3: with his own birthday money.
Speaker 4: I'm not buying you an Apple Watch because you don't
Speaker 4: need one, and I'm not spending that much money on
Speaker 4: a device for a kid. You got the birthday money,
Speaker 4: you have at it, you go for it. But I'm
Speaker 4: not doing that, and so we do. I do try
Speaker 4: to make sure I draw some financial boundary so they
Speaker 4: don't just think, oh, whatever it is, I can get
Speaker 4: it and it's all good.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, my kids as
Speaker 3: was I.
Speaker 4: Because I went to a private school from seventh through
Speaker 4: really out my whole life, but an elite private school
Speaker 4: from seventh through twelfth grade, my kids are going to
Speaker 4: have a similar experience and their peers parents have the
Speaker 4: privilege to not think about these things, and yet their
Speaker 4: kids grow up with a level of accountability and resilience
Speaker 4: in some way, shape or form, because they do go
Speaker 4: on to.
Speaker 3: Do things right.
Speaker 4: They go on to be professionals and have careers and
Speaker 4: go to college and be responsible. So I feel like
Speaker 4: I'm probably just raising a child that may be more
Speaker 4: similarly situated to some of their peers.
Speaker 3: Not completely, because trust.
Speaker 4: Me, we were doing our first sleepover at a friend's
Speaker 4: house and I'm driving there, like, hey, you see this neighborhood.
Speaker 4: This ain't our neighborhood. You see, you see their house,
Speaker 4: and how that we don't live like that. So don't
Speaker 4: go in there touching. Look in feel you have a
Speaker 4: different life than a lot of these kids. But they
Speaker 4: perhaps get to experience more of the creature comforts than
Speaker 4: you and I did. But they're still they're gonna see
Speaker 4: things and they're going to know that they're different. One
Speaker 4: because of the color of their skin. And two, I
Speaker 4: don't know how you're living, but I'm not living like
Speaker 4: the people where I took my son to this house.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, And so.
Speaker 4: You know, I think that that you know, you get
Speaker 4: there are moments in time where your kids are going
Speaker 4: to have to They're gonna they are they're regardless, They're
Speaker 4: gonna have to navigate these situations in a variety of
Speaker 4: different ways, and that's going to build resilience in ways
Speaker 4: that I think you're not giving yourself or your child
Speaker 4: credit for it.
Speaker 1: And I hope so, I mean, three years old, I'm
Speaker 1: getting lectures from the friends saying, oh, come on, man,
Speaker 1: you you about to create a monster. All right, let's
Speaker 1: take a bite of this. I didn't want the cheese
Speaker 1: to get this cold. But let's try it.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll been play too much better on the first one.
Speaker 3: I'm not giving you credit yet.
Speaker 2: I'm not giving you credit.
Speaker 4: Well, you complain about these turkey hot dogs, but they
Speaker 4: are good.
Speaker 5: I want to get the mustard and the cheese together.
Speaker 3: I'm the lie.
Speaker 2: This is great, but I want more of the you know,
Speaker 2: I'm happy.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 1: I could see why you didn't do to touch it.
Speaker 1: It's the mustard and cheese. Wow, that's good for you listeners.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, hold on, it was good.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I gave you my list of
Speaker 4: ingredients you want me to give you while you're taking
Speaker 4: your sip?
Speaker 3: Yeah, go ahead, all right. So we kind of.
Speaker 4: Talked about it as we went along. But your simple
Speaker 4: ingredients are gonna be hot dogs. If you're a vegan,
Speaker 4: I guess you could do vegan dogs, or you can
Speaker 4: do we have some turkey dogs and we have some
Speaker 4: classic dogs here. I prefer a block of sadared cheese
Speaker 4: that you great. I'm not gonna lie. When we were
Speaker 4: growing up, we had pre shredded cheese, but I prefer
Speaker 4: freshly grated cheese. So I asked for a block of cheese,
Speaker 4: regular old frenches, yellow mustard, and a hot dog bun
Speaker 4: of your choice.
Speaker 3: Those are really all for ingredients, but.
Speaker 1: I want to highlight that she toasted the bread in
Speaker 1: butter both sides.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes a huge world of a difference.
Speaker 1: So you're out there in your cabinets at home pulling
Speaker 1: out some cold ass bread and put some cheese on it.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna work. She put the mustard directly on
Speaker 1: the hot dog. Then she put the shredded cheddar on top,
Speaker 1: re put it in the pan, heated it up so
Speaker 1: it melts it over the mustard.
Speaker 2: Brilliantly done. I feel like a celebrity chef. I mean,
Speaker 2: what do you call it? The person that judges them?
Speaker 1: Back to your story, let's go back to the legacy.
Speaker 1: Sorry to sidetrack with the parents and you think I'm
Speaker 1: still in the new mom trying to figure out ray
Speaker 1: and Jesus, I don't raise a monster. But back to
Speaker 1: your mom's story. Your dad's been gone for a while.
Speaker 1: Your mom, I'm assuming, pays off the debts, gets some
Speaker 1: good graces. How many restaurants does she have at this point?
Speaker 3: Excuse me?
Speaker 4: So mom eventually had an opportunity that was presented to
Speaker 4: her to buy, to sell her to high volume in
Speaker 4: slightly more la I'm sorry, in slightly wider areas Clover
Speaker 4: City adjacent and then about a mile or so away
Speaker 4: on what was then Rodeo and Los Librea, sell those
Speaker 4: to higher volume restaurants and buy restaurants in Compton and
Speaker 4: Lynnwood area.
Speaker 3: And she decided to do that. So in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4: Why was she encouraged to do that she was offered
Speaker 4: the opportunity to because first of all, it's a little
Speaker 4: bit easier at times to run an organization with larger
Speaker 4: with a larger number of restaurants. These current times were
Speaker 4: in very, very challenging for a variety of reasons. We
Speaker 4: are able to survive as an organization and float literally
Speaker 4: float sinking a little bit because it's such hard times
Speaker 4: because of the size of our organization. When you're a
Speaker 4: smaller number of restaurants operator, it's difficult you can't spread
Speaker 4: the losses out as wide and so and also for Mom,
Speaker 4: you know, it was important to her that she demonstrate
Speaker 4: to anybody out there that a restaurant in a predominantly
Speaker 4: black and brown community can be as successful successfully want
Speaker 4: as successfully run, as profitable and as reputable as a
Speaker 4: restaurant in you know, in an area that's Culver City adjacent.
Speaker 1: But I'm just curious, why was why was it important
Speaker 1: for them to say give up these two.
Speaker 4: For for those two because that was the finances of
Speaker 4: the deal. Those two restaurants were worth about the same
Speaker 4: as these other five.
Speaker 2: Oh it was two for five?
Speaker 3: Correct?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, that's that's okay, that's where I got lost.
Speaker 3: Sorry, No, what's going on? I'm sorry, and I may
Speaker 3: have missmoken. I'm sorry. So she's so too for five?
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, well go ahead, mama, be it be.
Speaker 3: A boss.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a good deal. Okay, so she did.
Speaker 4: Okay, so from there, so from there she steadily grew.
Speaker 4: Now I was very happy. I knew since the tenth
Speaker 4: grade I wanted to be a lawyer. I didn't have
Speaker 4: any interest in the businesses.
Speaker 1: And like when she came home and said, you got
Speaker 1: to do a ship? Did you ever have to do
Speaker 1: a ship to McDonald's.
Speaker 4: She never required us to work in the restaurant. I
Speaker 4: did choose to work there the summer between tenth and
Speaker 4: eleventh grade, and I was apparently pretty slow and you know,
Speaker 4: kind of a mess. But you know, I did it.
Speaker 4: I wanted to earn some extra cash, and so I did.
Speaker 4: But she never even asked us to come in and
Speaker 4: take over the business. She was very much like, I
Speaker 4: got this and I'm cool and if you're ever interested, sure,
Speaker 4: But she never pushed us. And that's a big part
Speaker 4: of what I talk about in my book, which is
Speaker 4: important for family businesses. If you want to really establish
Speaker 4: something that you want to transfer to another generation or
Speaker 4: even just another family member, it's got to be that
Speaker 4: person's choice. It can't be compulsion, or you just end
Speaker 4: up building resentment. They feel like they have lost opportunities,
Speaker 4: they haven't gotten out of their system what their true
Speaker 4: passions were, and then they're coming to join the family
Speaker 4: business by choice because they want to.
Speaker 3: It's not an act of desperation. For example, now.
Speaker 1: With your case, since you did try out a job
Speaker 1: at McDonald's where you like, oh, hells to the know exactly, lawyer,
Speaker 1: it is, yes, And I was like, this is not.
Speaker 4: For me, Like I knew early on, McDonald's was not
Speaker 4: from me, or I believed obviously, And I also had
Speaker 4: a passion for I knew that I would be a
Speaker 4: good lawyer, Like that's what I really wanted to do
Speaker 4: in my heart. So I did, and I was successful
Speaker 4: at it, and I loved it. I really really enjoyed
Speaker 4: being a lawyer. And so for me, you know. And
Speaker 4: so I say that to say, I'm having my you know,
Speaker 4: going to law school, having my legal career. Mom is
Speaker 4: steadily growing. So by the time I fast forward to
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen, my son Caleb is one. I had moved
Speaker 4: home from the Bay Area to be with my now husband.
Speaker 4: We you know, had this We actually I moved, of
Speaker 4: course before I had the baby. So I'm closer to
Speaker 4: my sister and we always have been very close. I
Speaker 4: see my mom and my sister in this business. I'm
Speaker 4: going to some of like their were their holiday party.
Speaker 2: So your sister did choose to go directly into McDonald's.
Speaker 4: Now, she also had a ten plus year career in
Speaker 4: social work.
Speaker 1: Oh so she went to mama's old Yes okay, okay, yes, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: So she she did.
Speaker 4: She graduated from her master's program in ninety four and
Speaker 4: then didn't join mom until two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: Okay, And did both you guys join at the same time.
Speaker 3: No, two thousand and three and twenty thirteen, ten years.
Speaker 1: Old day, So did did your sister start planning little
Speaker 1: seeds of come joy?
Speaker 4: Well kind of, And it was leave it to a
Speaker 4: big sister, right she was, you know, and I'm observing,
Speaker 4: like there's no substitute for seeing Well, first of all,
Speaker 4: any person's ever been in the family business, but McDonald's,
Speaker 4: especially you would be. I would be around them, and
Speaker 4: that's all they want to talk about is McDonald's and
Speaker 4: this employee in this meeting and this election. And I
Speaker 4: was like, all you guys ever do talk about is
Speaker 4: talk about McDonald's driving me crazy?
Speaker 3: But Thanksgiving and talking about McDonald's over the turkey? Can
Speaker 3: we just eat the turkey?
Speaker 1: And they ever beef at all? Like then it's over McDonald's.
Speaker 4: No, No, I know, sorry, but I know that would
Speaker 4: have been an exciting story.
Speaker 1: But well, knowing your family, y'all wasn't talking about emotions anywhere.
Speaker 4: We weren't and I mean, trust me, what we weren't.
Speaker 4: There's no beef with Patricia, Like you don't beef with her?
Speaker 2: Oh that's you.
Speaker 3: You, yes, you roll with what Patricia is doing or
Speaker 3: you hit the road you know, so it wasn't no
Speaker 3: room for Beethan.
Speaker 1: So how many McDonald's did your sister and your mother before.
Speaker 2: You before thirteen thirteen? Now the ad twenty one? Right?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Wow? Okay, so so you joined the squad? Now are
Speaker 2: they receptive to you or are they like.
Speaker 1: Girlfriend, we don't tell you what it's done, and if
Speaker 1: you don't listen, we told you.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, that's like the best question, right, because
Speaker 4: they welcomed me, and I was like, great, here's all
Speaker 4: the things that we need to do now that I'm here.
Speaker 4: I'm an employment lawyer expert, so this is what we
Speaker 4: need to do. And they were an employment law that's
Speaker 4: a big deal.
Speaker 2: That's actually great.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a great asset to the scene, the biggest asset.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you are walking in there like, oh guess what? No,
Speaker 3: So first on day one, like everybody else, I started
Speaker 3: on fries. Everybody else day.
Speaker 2: One, the attorney. So I started on fries.
Speaker 4: I was a senior director at twenty for our finis.
Speaker 4: I had responsibility for half of the United States.
Speaker 3: Okay, on Friday and then on Monday, I was working
Speaker 3: the fries.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I can I say this? Well, why we gotta.
Speaker 3: Do you like that?
Speaker 2: Why they had to do you like?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: Like? Do you think that's a black people think? Do
Speaker 2: you think what they did was right?
Speaker 3: Do you?
Speaker 2: Because it's hilarious.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you why it matters and why I
Speaker 4: would not have done it any differently because it was
Speaker 4: literally fries.
Speaker 3: I went through all the stations.
Speaker 4: If I am, because everybody knew when I came in
Speaker 4: that I was on the track to become an owner operator.
Speaker 4: But if I I can't come in and tell you
Speaker 4: how to work fries if I've never worked fries and
Speaker 4: sucked at it and then had to take a few
Speaker 4: weeks to get good at it. Same thing for the
Speaker 4: cashier window, same thing for the kitchen.
Speaker 2: But they were really put you through all that.
Speaker 3: I I got there at four in the morning and
Speaker 3: did prep. You DoD have no attitude. I worked over night. No,
Speaker 3: I did all the things.
Speaker 2: No cursing out, no hang ups. Come on, now, what
Speaker 2: could I say?
Speaker 3: I don't know nothing.
Speaker 2: But you worked there when you was a.
Speaker 3: Teenager, like fifteen years before that.
Speaker 2: Can me tell you something?
Speaker 1: Okay, sidebar, Okay, guys, I worked at McDonald's was my
Speaker 1: first job. Okay, that job is hard, Okay, French fries,
Speaker 1: the burgers, the little cheese, the egg that comes out
Speaker 1: of the carton, all that shit was hard. I burned
Speaker 1: myself on the thing, flat oven thing. The cashier job
Speaker 1: was hard. There was not one position in McDonald's that
Speaker 1: was not hard. By the time I was done with McDonald's,
Speaker 1: I was permanently banned because I was a prankster, had
Speaker 1: a big.
Speaker 2: Mouth that I couldn't even order food.
Speaker 1: When I was done, I still am ashamed to pull
Speaker 1: up in that McDonald's. But and a half, do you
Speaker 1: do you like that? Because you know, if you did
Speaker 1: it in high school, that job was hard. They sent
Speaker 1: you back to concentration camp of h E.
Speaker 2: L L on fries. At your level, that's dope of
Speaker 2: you to like.
Speaker 1: Take it as a badge of honor and brag about
Speaker 1: the fact that you had to start at the French fries.
Speaker 3: First of all, can I pause to say, do you
Speaker 3: know that you were one and eight? One and eight
Speaker 3: of all Americans have worked at McDonald's And I am.
Speaker 2: Going, oh, by the way, Neo has two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, lots of people have Jeff Bezos, Amazon or McDonald's.
Speaker 2: Damn, you sound like a McDonald's commercial.
Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, guys, we are not going to
Speaker 1: end the interview without me talking about the apps and
Speaker 1: all that, because I want to get to know when
Speaker 1: when I go, I'm gonna get this. Don't let me
Speaker 1: close out without talking about these apps that are saving
Speaker 1: people a lot of money. Oh, I want to know
Speaker 1: from your perspective how it feels. Yes, but for the
Speaker 1: uh going back, So you work in the fries, your
Speaker 1: sister and walking by.
Speaker 2: You doing snickers jokes, nothing.
Speaker 3: No, she stayed out of there because we knew that.
Speaker 3: So I didn't want people. I didn't want it to me.
Speaker 3: I didn't want people to think I was getting special
Speaker 3: treatment because who respects that?
Speaker 2: Who respects the boss's kid?
Speaker 3: Who get.
Speaker 2: Of course they did. They knew.
Speaker 3: How could they not.
Speaker 4: Because the general manager is like, oh shit, I got
Speaker 4: to train the boss's daughter like so you know. But she,
Speaker 4: I will give her credit. She kept it real. She
Speaker 4: told me when I was like, you're slow or you're extra.
Speaker 3: Like you look girls get together.
Speaker 4: I love her. She is now one of our key areas.
Speaker 4: She's been promoted since then. She's amazing. Okay, yeah, so okay,
Speaker 4: you sound.
Speaker 1: Like a good good So I told the most hated
Speaker 1: job at McDonald's because I got to hear something negative.
Speaker 2: What's the job you hate.
Speaker 3: The most, the hardest.
Speaker 4: The hardest job to me at McDonald's is working second
Speaker 4: land of drive through because you are taking orders in
Speaker 4: your headset and you're making all of the drinks for
Speaker 4: the drive through.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I've seen that the other day.
Speaker 4: That was crazy, So imagine and what I didn't realize
Speaker 4: until I.
Speaker 3: Had to do it breakfast time.
Speaker 4: So your drive through was full of people, A large coffee,
Speaker 4: three sugars, one cream, do you want it on the side?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: Uh, medium coffee, no sugar, no cream, iced coffee, frapp it,
Speaker 4: all that stuff while you're taking orders and making sure
Speaker 4: it is It is so complex now hard Damn.
Speaker 1: I should have wrote down some of mcdonald'sques. I had
Speaker 1: some good ones too, but McDonald's the one that got sued.
Speaker 1: I hate to do this to you who got sued
Speaker 1: for the hot coffee years. This was like, wait, McDonald's
Speaker 1: McDonald's right, But is McDonald's.
Speaker 4: If there's a lawsuitent in fast suit, it' McDonald's Because
Speaker 4: we're the biggest, we're the target.
Speaker 1: And then I will never forget that. I was a
Speaker 1: little kid, and I said, that's the dumbest lawsuit. I
Speaker 1: haven't talking about it. It's too hot, But.
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: What is your most profitable I know, I'm sorry bar
Speaker 1: in the hell out of this, but I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: What's the most profitable item at McDonald's soda?
Speaker 3: I knew it.
Speaker 2: I told, let me just.
Speaker 1: Tell you something, nothing, nothing more. Okay, I am Jewish
Speaker 1: and j maake. I'm gonna repeat it a hundred times over.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Nothing bothers me more than people that are sucky at finance.
Speaker 2: I had friends. I got rich friends, stupid rich like yo, yo,
Speaker 2: can you hear me on that side of the house.
Speaker 1: Then I got my broke friends. I'll show you the
Speaker 1: difference instantly. Okay, I'll be on the phone with my
Speaker 1: rich friends. They talking about taking over the world. You
Speaker 1: know whatever, my broke friends, what you're doing? Can I
Speaker 1: get a large sprite for four dollars fifty cents?
Speaker 2: Are you in your car? You would go to the
Speaker 2: seven eleven ralfs? What do we even talk?
Speaker 1: You were spending four or five dollars on a soda?
Speaker 1: I mean, don't discriminate on what I did earlier with
Speaker 1: you with the or chattle, okay, because we needed ice
Speaker 1: for our situation, so I paid seven dollars for two cups.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: If you wasn't with me, girl would have been like,
Speaker 1: can I get a little plastic cup with the ice?
Speaker 2: Okay? Just know your presence earned that seven dollars. Okay,
Speaker 2: But it baffles me that soda.
Speaker 1: I thought it was your coffee that was the most
Speaker 1: proffee is up there too, okay, okay. And then since
Speaker 1: we hear at it, okay, uh. The when you go
Speaker 1: on the app, they have the dollar forty nine line fries,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is Jesus on wheels, okay, because
Speaker 1: I mean we all know if you eat beef, it's
Speaker 1: the big mac in my opinion, But it's the French
Speaker 1: fries all day. I don't know what kind of crack
Speaker 1: you put in the salt.
Speaker 3: None, no crack.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, goshould have even said that.
Speaker 3: Sorry, no cracking the fries.
Speaker 2: No cracking the fries. Sorry. The fries is so damn good.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's the size, the shape.
Speaker 3: Even when you.
Speaker 2: Try to buy the imitation frozen fries at the store, they.
Speaker 1: Still don't come out as good. As McDonald fries. But
Speaker 1: when I use that app, it gives it to me
Speaker 1: for a dollar forty nine. Does it annoy you if
Speaker 1: you have a customer that only pulls into the window
Speaker 1: they use the app for the dollar forty nine fries?
Speaker 4: No, you know why because you keep coming back for
Speaker 4: the dollar forty nine fries. And sometimes you're not just
Speaker 4: gonna get those fries. Sometimes you're gonna have your baby
Speaker 4: with you and she's gonna be like, Mommy, can I
Speaker 4: get a Happy Meal or whatever it is? So no,
Speaker 4: for all the deals, the best deals are in the app.
Speaker 1: The best deals are in the app, and I actually
Speaker 1: wanted to do at some point I started, so I
Speaker 1: think McDonald's was the first one someone put me onto it.
Speaker 1: But I do try not. I purposely the financial savvy
Speaker 1: and me tries not to spend out of the dollar
Speaker 1: forty nine. But then recently, I don't know when, but
Speaker 1: y'all started saying two dollars off the Happy Meal because
Speaker 1: I really buy the fries for her.
Speaker 2: I'm like, they got me.
Speaker 1: But I try not to drink sweet beverage, so I
Speaker 1: try to avoid it. But I will admit it's always
Speaker 1: the dollar forty nine fries. But my daughter never eats
Speaker 1: the nuggets, never eats anything else. So now every once
Speaker 1: in a while, when I'm trying to force her there,
Speaker 1: I will do the happy meal and enjoy a high
Speaker 1: Sea Orange. And by the way, you guys added the
Speaker 1: high Sea Orange with the vanilla and Da Da da flavors.
Speaker 1: But I did want to say, back in the day
Speaker 1: when I used to do the drinks at McDonald's, they
Speaker 1: didn't pre measure them. So is it really that hard
Speaker 1: when the second person taking the order and they push
Speaker 1: a button in and like circle, Come on, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Those little machines.
Speaker 1: They pre you push a button, they put the ice in,
Speaker 1: and they put the drink in. At least that's what
Speaker 1: they tell me when I put too much ice.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's just the that's just the cold. That's
Speaker 4: just soft drinks. We have a lot of different drinks
Speaker 4: that we sell. We do Frappe's, we do or We
Speaker 4: would also do the mcflurries, which is not a drink,
Speaker 4: but shakes. We do coffee, we do ice coffee, we
Speaker 4: do tea, we do orange juice. Like, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of different drinks there. That machine, Yes, it's helpful, but
Speaker 4: even all the other the drinks are a machine assisted.
Speaker 4: But when you've got a rush hour and you're going
Speaker 4: and going, and then you have three people in the
Speaker 4: car that are all ordering coffee, and all the coffees
Speaker 4: are different.
Speaker 1: So what's your biggest pet peep from a customer? Since
Speaker 1: you've got to wear all hats, Well, what are your
Speaker 1: your if you don't know it? But what does like
Speaker 1: your staff come back as your biggest pet peeve?
Speaker 3: Being disrespectful to our people and putting them down.
Speaker 1: At the at what area do they do that all
Speaker 1: the I'll tell him saying like how do they do that?
Speaker 1: Like they give me a big big mag and throw
Speaker 1: some extra frizen, be like a me.
Speaker 2: To how people to handle your food?
Speaker 3: People?
Speaker 4: Right, one would think, okay, let me tell you now.
Speaker 4: You know, I've gone to good school. I'm a very
Speaker 4: educated woman. I have lots of experience. Right when I
Speaker 4: was in the restaurants one day somebody came in. I
Speaker 4: knew that he was lying about in order that he's
Speaker 4: supposedly had placed. He wanted a refund, and I said, no,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, sir, you know I can't give you this refund.
Speaker 4: And he said, you're so stupid, that's why you work
Speaker 4: at McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Did you hit him with, yeah, that's why I'm on
Speaker 1: twenty one of these bitches. No, that would have been me.
Speaker 1: I would have been on one.
Speaker 2: Okay, did you I roll? Because you knew it?
Speaker 3: Did you?
Speaker 2: He was like, you have no idea?
Speaker 3: You have no idea.
Speaker 4: I just smiled and said, thank you, sir, have a
Speaker 4: nice day because I have enough education and I'm not stupid.
Speaker 3: I do that.
Speaker 1: You handled it like that. I know that was your
Speaker 1: your secret inner confidence, like.
Speaker 3: Right, okay, okay, So and people, you know what, you
Speaker 3: would be shocked. What angers people.
Speaker 4: They that they can't be heard through the headset and
Speaker 4: so they so our people may say, I'm sorry, can
Speaker 4: you repeat that?
Speaker 3: I already said it, you know, you know, and people
Speaker 3: and I mean.
Speaker 1: Not just like you have like a McDonald's just that
Speaker 1: sounds sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Why are we doing this to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: I want it so nice.
Speaker 2: I want to hear more.
Speaker 4: You know, Let's say our people are human, we make
Speaker 4: a mistake on in order. Usually, Let's say we gave
Speaker 4: them strawberry jelly instead of grape jelly.
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't want this f jam. They'll come,
Speaker 3: they'll throw it at people.
Speaker 4: I mean, people get mad about what I consider very
Speaker 4: small things.
Speaker 3: Do we want to get it right every time? Yes,
Speaker 3: we always want to be perfect.
Speaker 2: That's kind of saying.
Speaker 4: It's really unfortunate like that people feel and they feel
Speaker 4: like they can just say.
Speaker 3: And do anything to our people.
Speaker 1: So how do I deal with it when like saying,
Speaker 1: employees having a rough day and then someone comes in
Speaker 1: and just a complete obnoxious because you know, we all
Speaker 1: don't wake up with butterflies overhead, But like what if
Speaker 1: a staf's having a rough time and then this sends
Speaker 1: them over?
Speaker 2: What do you How do you guys handle those situations?
Speaker 4: Depends on how they handle it, So we our position
Speaker 4: is you definitely have the right to have feelings.
Speaker 3: If you need to go in the walk in.
Speaker 4: Refrigerator and scream and be mad and yell, you're welcome
Speaker 4: to do that, but you can't at the same time
Speaker 4: disrespect a customer back. That's not what we're able to do.
Speaker 4: We can't allow you to do that, but you can
Speaker 4: remove yourself from the situation. We can remove the customer
Speaker 4: from the restaurant. We'll call the police if we need to.
Speaker 4: So we're certainly not like, go out there and subject
Speaker 4: yourself to insanity. Walk away, call a manager, get support,
Speaker 4: go to the back. Don't engage, Yeah, because it's the
Speaker 4: engagement that will get you in trouble. Remove yourself, get
Speaker 4: yourself and whomever else into a you know, a safe
Speaker 4: or quiet or just a removed space, and then, you know,
Speaker 4: let the manager handle it.
Speaker 1: When I worked at McDonald's, I used to steal the
Speaker 1: chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I confess that. I'll confess it
Speaker 2: because I want to know Carrie.
Speaker 1: I have to know you and McDonald's. It's late got
Speaker 1: a little hungry in you. What you take it to
Speaker 1: eat from McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Secretly nothing. You cannot steal the food. I mean, like, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: you want to if you want to restate the question.
Speaker 1: By the way, don't judge me, everybody. I was poured
Speaker 1: growing up teenagers. Come on, now, a chicken nugget here
Speaker 1: and there. It wasn't like I was stealing a ten piece,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know you cooking them. You may
Speaker 1: want to sample the goods. So so let me say this,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite item?
Speaker 4: I was going to go back to your declaration that
Speaker 4: the Big Mac is the best burger. The Double cheeseburger
Speaker 4: head to head every time. The double cheeseburger, it's the
Speaker 4: two patties and the two slices of cheese that take
Speaker 4: it to.
Speaker 2: The next Do you ever add the Big Mac sauster with?
Speaker 3: Though, Oh it's the ketchup and mustard, delicious mustard. You
Speaker 3: even brought the ketchup? You know what?
Speaker 1: As I got older, You're right, the double cheeseburger is hidden.
Speaker 1: But I've never I don't think ever ordered the double
Speaker 1: cheeseburd without the Big maxauce.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's fair. Big people do love that. I have people.
Speaker 4: I have a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine,
Speaker 4: and as a Christmas give one time, I gave him
Speaker 4: a container of Big Max sauce.
Speaker 2: You can I be on that list? Can I please
Speaker 2: be on that list?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 4: And you know what I didn't do. I did not
Speaker 4: sneak it out. I actually paid for it.
Speaker 2: You could buy it in containers.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I can because I can say, hey,
Speaker 4: charge me for this, and oh you know, but if
Speaker 4: you you know, okay, now that I know, just make
Speaker 4: sure you watch your I feel bad and men and
Speaker 4: this stuff to you, It's like I feel like.
Speaker 2: Sickly, but you know, like a sick feeling is like
Speaker 2: this is good and bad. I get to say this.
Speaker 4: I'm enjoying this. Mech professional, Okay, it's lovely.
Speaker 1: Stuff that irritates me about fast food. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is the only thing that makes me irritated at fast
Speaker 1: food is hey, can I have an extra barbecue sauce,
Speaker 1: big maxim whatever sauce and little container.
Speaker 2: I ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot to give me irritating, but I
Speaker 1: usually pay for everything with card. Everything like now that
Speaker 1: they have the phone on the wallet and the key
Speaker 1: on the wallet on the phone, yes, forget it. Even
Speaker 1: though it takes forever to open your car with a
Speaker 1: little app, I'll stand out there for that minute if
Speaker 1: it means I don't have to carry a bag or
Speaker 1: a Purson wallet. But I will pay for everything with
Speaker 1: a card. And nothing irritates me more than you want
Speaker 1: an extra ranch twenty five cents? Why why did they
Speaker 1: have to put that rule to McDonald's has that rule right?
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be honest to say, we very specifically don't
Speaker 4: do that in our restaurant.
Speaker 1: Oh twenty one McDonald's. Right there, you just set yourself apart.
Speaker 1: Twenty one McDonald's in California. Do not charge you to
Speaker 1: twenty five cent feet. I'm telling you right now, you
Speaker 1: just gained the whole fan base because I know there's
Speaker 1: other people that can really relate to that sit Do
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3: No, we don't. I mean, now, let me be honest.
Speaker 3: If you come in and you ask for ten, fifteen,
Speaker 3: twenty sauces, I'm not rolling with that, yeah right, because
Speaker 3: we do have costs that there is an actual cost
Speaker 3: associated with that cup of sauce. But if you're like, hey,
Speaker 3: can I get an extra ranch? Are people not charging
Speaker 3: for that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: They should not be. And so if you do get charged,
Speaker 3: call me or call my office.
Speaker 2: Call her office.
Speaker 1: She's trackable now because she got a book. Yall, she
Speaker 1: got a book, The Family Seeker out.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 1: I want to check it out.
Speaker 3: One last.
Speaker 1: Let me see whom I had so many good ones
Speaker 1: I do. I try not to eat out a lot
Speaker 1: of fast food. Just another sidebar. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this happens to you at the grocery store and it
Speaker 1: irritates me too, You guys get to check out and
Speaker 1: they be like, how many bags you want?
Speaker 3: Does it not?
Speaker 2: Does it irritate at least you?
Speaker 4: It is frustrating and oftentimes in outrage, I'll just say no,
Speaker 4: and then I'll hobble out.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear you say that twenty one McDonald's
Speaker 1: that she will hobble out.
Speaker 3: That for I will hobble. I'm pretty sure I just
Speaker 3: did a target yesterday.
Speaker 2: I thought you were gonna say I always carry my bag.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I.
Speaker 4: Try to carry my but who can remember. I can't
Speaker 4: remember that, So I've hobbled. My husband's always like, get
Speaker 4: a bag, and I'm like, I'm not getting the bag.
Speaker 4: But I will tell you it's government regulation. That is an.
Speaker 2: Attorney, that's the attorney in her is gonna be good.
Speaker 1: Guys, you better go out there and get it, because, uh,
Speaker 1: because it ain't nothing. So now you're you all you since
Speaker 1: joining on, you've.
Speaker 2: Added what is that?
Speaker 3: Seven?
Speaker 2: Six seven?
Speaker 1: What's thirteen? Those twenty one minus thirteen eighty eight? Yes,
Speaker 1: eight more McDonald's been added to the to the legacy.
Speaker 2: How does that feel?
Speaker 5: Do you?
Speaker 2: How does it feel?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 3: What's I mean?
Speaker 4: That's such a good question, because when I joined the
Speaker 4: family business, my mom and my sister were already rock stars.
Speaker 4: They were very successful, and so for me, a lot
Speaker 4: of it was like where do I add value here?
Speaker 4: And I did feel very lucky that I was able
Speaker 4: to bring employment law skills. But now that we've expanded
Speaker 4: now to twenty one, I take I feel like I'm
Speaker 4: more able to take ownership in this growth.
Speaker 3: I was a part of those decisions.
Speaker 4: The fact that we felt comfortable growing is because we
Speaker 4: felt able as a sister partnership to take this on.
Speaker 3: We've now built a team.
Speaker 4: We are the doo that the director of operations that
Speaker 4: my mother had has retired, Nicole and I hired our.
Speaker 3: New Do you know what does that mean?
Speaker 4: Director of operations? So that is the person in our organization.
Speaker 4: He's the only person who reports directly to us. He
Speaker 4: is responding right into my next question. Yes, sorry, it
Speaker 4: was a day in the life of y'all. And and
Speaker 4: when you do the splits, I hate to do this to.
Speaker 1: You, is it like, well, you kind of just answered
Speaker 1: that question indirectly with the director of operations, But did
Speaker 1: you guys do like you run this set and I
Speaker 1: run this set? Or did it be like I'm good
Speaker 1: in this era, I'm good in this era, and I'm
Speaker 1: good and then we manage all together.
Speaker 3: The latter.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I forget which restaurants Nicole owns and which ones
Speaker 4: I own, But we do own them all separately, one
Speaker 4: hundred percent each. So I own one hundred percent of
Speaker 4: the interest in all of my restaurants and she owns
Speaker 4: one hundred percent of the interest in her restaurants.
Speaker 3: And then what your mom, Well, my mom is retired.
Speaker 2: So did you guys split the ones that she one
Speaker 2: hundred percent?
Speaker 3: We did?
Speaker 1: I love that you said the best line of all
Speaker 1: of this, the jay Z of all lines, the best
Speaker 1: line I heard of all this shit. Just now, Sorry
Speaker 1: for cursing.
Speaker 2: I respect you so much.
Speaker 1: Is I forget which restaurants I own? I can't even
Speaker 1: remember which one she own? We be forgetting all the time.
Speaker 2: That's the best. Do you know that's a boss line
Speaker 2: right there?
Speaker 1: You could wear that I forget which restaurants I own
Speaker 1: should be on a shirt.
Speaker 3: That's how connected we are. We are one organization.
Speaker 2: Either that or that's just how boss you are.
Speaker 3: I'll take that too.
Speaker 1: No, that is a good testament to how connected you
Speaker 1: are so like if you are you able to pop
Speaker 1: into each other's store all the time. So what's a
Speaker 1: day in the life of you without being, you.
Speaker 3: Know, an asshole? There is no typical day.
Speaker 4: But what I will say is we spend Our goal
Speaker 4: is to create situations where the people in our restaurants
Speaker 4: are so successful they don't need for us to be there.
Speaker 4: If I am working Fries, literally something has gone catastrophically wrong, right,
Speaker 4: So for us, most of my working days are going
Speaker 4: to be in the office. We have an office HQ
Speaker 4: and Carson.
Speaker 2: Is it like your own officers? Like McDonald's And I'm
Speaker 2: trying to.
Speaker 3: Know it's just us.
Speaker 4: The front of it says way because we've gone through
Speaker 4: a lot of changes.
Speaker 3: Williams.
Speaker 4: My sister's first married name was Narrow Harper Howie Wig Enterprises.
Speaker 4: That's the name of our building, and we occupy the
Speaker 4: front half of it. We're actually building out the second half.
Speaker 4: I'm creating what I hope will be a gallery space
Speaker 4: for my mother.
Speaker 3: There's artwork that used to be in the home she owned.
Speaker 4: It's not valuable, but it's meaningful to our family, and
Speaker 4: so I'm trying to transform that space to be something beautiful.
Speaker 4: So most of my days I spend in my office
Speaker 4: where we do have an administrative team, and where we
Speaker 4: have a training room and then a conference room where
Speaker 4: we'll do you know, meetings of depending on the size
Speaker 4: of the meeting. And we also so the way that
Speaker 4: McDonald's is set up is that there are a lot
Speaker 4: of local, regional, and national leadership opportunities. So we have
Speaker 4: groups of leadership bodies, and between Nicole and I were
Speaker 4: both on in leadership on a multiple of those groups. So,
Speaker 4: for example, Nicole is the vice chair of our Field
Speaker 4: Alignment Council, so that may take her to Las Vegas
Speaker 4: or some to have a meeting to go to go
Speaker 4: through to decide whatever that group's area of responsibility is.
Speaker 4: I'm also all in the Field Alignment unseil in a
Speaker 4: different role, but she does that. I'm the I'm the
Speaker 4: president of our local Black McDonald's Owners Association, our local chapter.
Speaker 1: I almost cost you that way, Okay, Yeah, I knew
Speaker 1: some people that could have bumped into you that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I might be working with one of our advertising
Speaker 4: agencies to put together an event for Black History mother
Speaker 4: for you know, supporting a local community organization doing a
Speaker 4: PR activation in an African American consumer market restaurant. So
Speaker 4: we're both in a lot of leadership. So I pretty
Speaker 4: much travel about two weeks out of the month to
Speaker 4: different meetings. A lot of our meetings are in Chicago,
Speaker 4: which is where McDonald's headquarters is. But I'm not going
Speaker 4: to a meeting that another organization. I'm in a McDonald's organization.
Speaker 4: They're having a board meetings. I'm on the board in
Speaker 4: in Alabama because i have another meeting the following week,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, I got I can't be away from
Speaker 4: my family for two straight weeks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're gone for a week, it's like the
Speaker 2: whole week.
Speaker 4: It will typically be Tuesday to Thursday depending. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: I'm usually you know, Monday, Friday, I'm usually home and
Speaker 4: weekends of course, but you'll usually be anywhere from two
Speaker 4: to three days.
Speaker 1: What is the worst hat or you've ever worn as
Speaker 1: a McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Everything, the worst hat? Okay, I'll say this.
Speaker 4: I can't I won't go into any specific details, but
Speaker 4: I'll say there are moments in time when I'm in
Speaker 4: meetings and not because I'm black or because I'm a woman,
Speaker 4: but because of the nature of the relationships enfranchising where
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 3: Feel like my opinions are having an impact.
Speaker 4: So I was on a team that met pretty regularly
Speaker 4: and we were supposed to be deciding things as it
Speaker 4: related to our restaurants, and I felt very frustrated because
Speaker 4: I didn't feel like I was being impactful and that
Speaker 4: the thing that I had to say, which I felt
Speaker 4: were pretty right, were valued and being taken into consideration.
Speaker 4: I was on that team for probably about two years,
Speaker 4: and then I had to get off that team because
Speaker 4: I can't be in any space.
Speaker 3: I get that I have to be there.
Speaker 4: I'm into paying my dues or as you can see,
Speaker 4: I believe paying my dues, listening and learning, but at
Speaker 4: a certain point, I'm transferring from learning to contributing, and
Speaker 4: I need to be an actual contributor. And I know
Speaker 4: that I have good thoughts and ideas, and if they're
Speaker 4: not being received consistently, not all of them, but consistently
Speaker 4: those ideas are not being received or listened to, I
Speaker 4: have to get out of that space. So that's probably
Speaker 4: been my most difficult McDonald's experience.
Speaker 1: When you explain to McDonald's situation, it almost feels like
Speaker 1: because when I think of a McDonald's franchisee owner, I think, okay,
Speaker 1: you well, I know McDonald's headquarters owns like the land.
Speaker 4: Right most of the time, well, the vast majority of
Speaker 4: Sometimes they lease spaces.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, they'll you're about to say we own
Speaker 1: some of the property.
Speaker 3: No, that would be amazing.
Speaker 4: Not quite No, we're specifically not allowed to do that.
Speaker 1: But when you talk about you being on this National
Speaker 1: Black and she's on this field, I'm yes, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna get perfect where you're going. It's a little confusing
Speaker 1: me because it seems like McDonald's has like you guys
Speaker 1: are the franchise owner and then you guys, are you
Speaker 1: guys encouraged to take on these additional responsibilities or is
Speaker 1: it is it like you build up points or is
Speaker 1: it like you own this restaurant so now you are
Speaker 1: you have to pick your slot commitment like some of
Speaker 1: you guys have all these little extra legs.
Speaker 4: I'll be honest and say we honestly see it as
Speaker 4: an opportunity because what it does is, first of all,
Speaker 4: on a lot of this So let's take the NBM away.
Speaker 4: So what National Black McDonald's Owners Association, Sorry, it's an
Speaker 4: advocacy group, which means that when you're meeting first of all,
Speaker 4: when you're meeting with them, you're connecting with other black franchisees.
Speaker 4: I consider that to be an opportunity because we are yes, right,
Speaker 4: So that's an opportunity. If you're in leadership, then you
Speaker 4: have a say in the running of that organization, so
Speaker 4: you can say, hey, this is happening to us franchises
Speaker 4: in California.
Speaker 3: We need your help in this way.
Speaker 4: National Leadership of NBM away.
Speaker 3: National Black McDonald's Owners Association.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'll try to say that, it's just hard to
Speaker 4: say the full time.
Speaker 2: Well, I was just wondering.
Speaker 1: So you report on the local level to the to
Speaker 1: the national level, and then they go to the correct
Speaker 1: So the chairs of all of the diversity groups.
Speaker 4: There's adversity groups for all of the you know, Black Asian,
Speaker 4: Hispanic pride.
Speaker 3: White people have women like I can't. I can't, I
Speaker 3: don't know how to.
Speaker 4: Okay, So this is let me go back to what
Speaker 4: I what what what we are McDonald's. We we Let
Speaker 4: me say I work with a number of wonderful white
Speaker 4: colleagues in a variety of different ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, it's okay.
Speaker 4: So all of those individuals who lead our national organizations,
Speaker 4: they have they are part of a larger leadership group
Speaker 4: that meets with McDonald's leadership.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's.
Speaker 3: Kind of like a voice.
Speaker 4: And so we call ourselves three legs of the stool, franchisees,
Speaker 4: the corporation, and our vendors. Without all three of us,
Speaker 4: we can't survive if one of those legs is jacked up.
Speaker 3: COVID, the supply chain got all jacked up. We had
Speaker 3: to figure out how to the franchise, suppliers, franchises and
Speaker 3: the corporation.
Speaker 2: The suppliers what suppliers mean like vendors.
Speaker 3: Basically, we just suppliers and.
Speaker 2: Our suppliers, the.
Speaker 3: Suppliers, franchisees, corporation.
Speaker 2: Corporation is McDonald franchises, got.
Speaker 3: It, Yes, So we all have to work together.
Speaker 4: So we're organized as as franchise the organizations, and then
Speaker 4: we always have corporate counterparts pardon me, that we work
Speaker 4: with in order to try to figure out issues in
Speaker 4: the system because we own ninety five percent of the restaurants,
Speaker 4: so we know the field better than anybody else. The
Speaker 4: corporation has, you know, over they're the franchise or so
Speaker 4: they have ultimate deciding power and a lot of different things.
Speaker 4: So we have to work together to make sure that
Speaker 4: everybody's goals and objectives are being met.
Speaker 1: I can tell why McDonald's is successful off this conversation.
Speaker 1: It's very well structured. It sounds very sound, very systematic.
Speaker 1: Shout outs to McDonald's.
Speaker 2: My actual.
Speaker 1: You guys are my favorite fast food plays, the French
Speaker 1: fries and the fact that you serve code because I
Speaker 1: hate any I think it's burgerting one of them sell
Speaker 1: PEPSI and I don't know, can Spider like the best? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys may very well. Yes, don't tell trainers or
Speaker 1: anybody that works out with me.
Speaker 2: I have to ask this.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, jar, I know we're over. The next question
Speaker 1: I had was out of you're in the franchise business.
Speaker 1: Have you looked at other franchises? I know Chick fil
Speaker 1: A has like a lottery system. Did you hear about that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: So I heard through the grapevine that to own a
Speaker 1: Chick fil A it's ten thousand dollars. They do splits
Speaker 1: and it's a lottery. You work in there and you
Speaker 1: enter the lottery. So the one on Hollywood. I remember the.
Speaker 2: Guy that won that one.
Speaker 1: He was like twenty seven at the time, So did
Speaker 1: you You don't know about that.
Speaker 3: The only thing I honestly know.
Speaker 4: I do know that their price point to entry is
Speaker 4: lower than if you're a what's called a registered applicant
Speaker 4: for McDonald's. I also know that a part of that
Speaker 4: is because their profit sharing model is different, although I
Speaker 4: don't know the details of THEIRS. I had a friend
Speaker 4: who applied to be a chick franchise e and it
Speaker 4: didn't work out for her, so I didn't I thought
Speaker 4: that it was just a similar application process. I've never
Speaker 4: known anything about a lottery or anything.
Speaker 3: So I don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard it's like you have to work in there.
Speaker 1: You enter the lottery from like being an employee, and
Speaker 1: then once you're pets then you.
Speaker 2: Have to follow the steps or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it is They definitely have a back end that's
Speaker 1: a little different on the profit splits, but initial going
Speaker 1: is lower, but it is for you have to work
Speaker 1: in there. For someone sitting at home, a McDonald's fan
Speaker 1: could be a McDonald's employee. I want you to tell us, ooh, girlfriend,
Speaker 1: how we cannot just get to well, we got to
Speaker 1: get to we want to get to twenty one.
Speaker 3: We got to surpass you.
Speaker 1: Okay, but how do we get to our first one?
Speaker 1: For anyone out there listening, what advice would you give
Speaker 1: realistically on what their chances are and what they'd have
Speaker 1: to do to get their hat in the.
Speaker 4: Race, The first step is to make sure that you
Speaker 4: are financially.
Speaker 3: Clean. Is your credit good check? Do you have a
Speaker 3: history of saving?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: Do you have a pretty success substantial liquid amount of
Speaker 4: savings at your disposal?
Speaker 1: I mean I have a house equity equity? Okay, got
Speaker 1: like a lot of equity. Okay, that's great. Okay, start there.
Speaker 1: That's number one.
Speaker 3: Two. Are you as an individual cool?
Speaker 4: Are you clean? Do you have a criminal record? Do
Speaker 4: you have you know, any sort of like degree history.
Speaker 4: Do you have a college degree at AA, A BA
Speaker 4: or whatever? You don't have to, but all that stuff
Speaker 4: helps because your next step is going to be the
Speaker 4: thout the application.
Speaker 2: But don't you have how do you get into You
Speaker 2: don't have to work at.
Speaker 1: McDonald's, not before you apply? No, what about Hamburger University?
Speaker 1: How does that work?
Speaker 4: You get to Hamburg University when you're ready to become
Speaker 4: a general manager.
Speaker 3: It's our general manager training class.
Speaker 1: But if you say you say you have a girl,
Speaker 1: you got me excited.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But wait, okay, so I got like a Okay, I
Speaker 2: got an a y like.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm hella good with money. I'm kind of cheap,
Speaker 1: but ran businesses. No college degree. I have some liquid cash,
Speaker 1: but I ain't gonna lie. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: money and equity because I pay off my house way
Speaker 1: too fast.
Speaker 2: What else did you say I need it?
Speaker 3: Criminal record?
Speaker 1: No criminal record except for stealing like nuggets when I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, But ain never been.
Speaker 3: A record, So that's no record.
Speaker 1: You're honest that I have a lot of integrity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I admit to my you miss doings.
Speaker 2: Clearly.
Speaker 1: I stole candy. I'm gonna say it. I stole candy
Speaker 1: for me and my siblings. Okay, I admitted to it
Speaker 1: because I.
Speaker 2: Got caught and I didn't snitch on my siblings. My
Speaker 2: parents did, I swear to God.
Speaker 1: Jamaican mother, Jewish father. Who's afraid of the Jamaican mother.
Speaker 2: She said, take her butt to the police. They took
Speaker 2: me to police station, They took me to the store.
Speaker 2: I had to apologize.
Speaker 1: Then I had to go to the police tell them
Speaker 1: my mom misfortunate for three candy bars. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you right now, my siblings listen, there was a reesis.
Speaker 1: It was a butterfinger, and I think like a TwixT. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have three siblings, one for each of us did
Speaker 1: not snitch and not got punished, and it was humiliating.
Speaker 2: And I promise you I ain't never stole since. Wow,
Speaker 2: that's crazy, right, So you know what I'm saying. You
Speaker 2: think we're gonna do that to Zaryan Caleb?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, okay, anyways, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: But before we close out, I want for everyone that's
Speaker 1: listening to this interview or the Family Secret is out?
Speaker 1: What can they learn from The Family Secret? Says the
Speaker 1: Business and Franchise Owners Guide to Building Generational Wealth? What
Speaker 1: can we learn from this book? Just a snapshot?
Speaker 2: Difranctly sure, some.
Speaker 4: Major takeaways are going to be figuring out what your
Speaker 4: thrive factors are. That's a phrase that I kind of
Speaker 4: coin to help you figure out where your passion and
Speaker 4: your purpose intersect. Before you can enter a family business,
Speaker 4: you need to figure out what that is and then
Speaker 4: assess whether or not your family business can meet your
Speaker 4: personal thrive factors. You're also going to learn a lot
Speaker 4: about how to build and expand a business, whether it's
Speaker 4: a family business or not. You're going to learn about
Speaker 4: a lot about succession planning, which includes both passing it
Speaker 4: on to another family member or passing it on to
Speaker 4: someone outside.
Speaker 3: Of your family.
Speaker 4: And you're also going to get some information, really truthfully
Speaker 4: about what it means to put your family first. One
Speaker 4: of my favorite chapters in the book is chapter eighteen,
Speaker 4: which is called The House Always Wins. And in that chapter,
Speaker 4: I talk about what it means to make sure that
Speaker 4: no matter what, at the end of the day, your
Speaker 4: family and your family relationships come first, and I talk
Speaker 4: about how you can make sure that you do that.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of a brief snapshot of the family secrets.
Speaker 4: And at the very end there's a bit of a
Speaker 4: checklist and you can decide do I want to get
Speaker 4: involved in a family business. Do I want to create
Speaker 4: a family business? Do I want to take over a
Speaker 4: family business. I give you some tips and thoughts about
Speaker 4: what you can consider as you're making that determination.
Speaker 1: And this book looks like more than like even if
Speaker 1: you're like I love business books, but one of the chapters,
Speaker 1: I said, like, be an expert on the competition. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this just sounds like a really all the way
Speaker 1: around great business book.
Speaker 4: And I will tell you the feedback that I get
Speaker 4: most often is I loved the family stories that you told,
Speaker 4: because all in here is background history and quite honestly
Speaker 4: inspiration relating to my mom's story, relating to my sister
Speaker 4: and I how we kind of came in. And then
Speaker 4: I also interviewed several other family businesses to find out
Speaker 4: their secretcy success because it's not just our secret, but
Speaker 4: there are things that are common to businesses that anyone
Speaker 4: can really take into account.
Speaker 3: So people love the story. There's a lot of story.
Speaker 1: Look at this, it says, know when the only solution
Speaker 1: is vulnerable communication. This book sounds amazing just looking at
Speaker 1: the chapters. And right now you can read it, but
Speaker 1: very soon it will be on audio for all your
Speaker 1: audio listeners. I am super grateful. I promise you you
Speaker 1: could read text between my group chats. I was over
Speaker 1: the hill when I found out I was gonna get
Speaker 1: this interview. I've been bragging to everybody in name Mama
Speaker 1: about this interview. So I am thankful for your vulnerability.
Speaker 1: I'm also thankful that you fend me.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful to know that if eating Wall Broke don't
Speaker 2: work out, you know, you never know.
Speaker 1: I may trying to, you know, go to Hamburger University,
Speaker 1: staying to Broklyn. But no, thank you so much for everything,
Speaker 1: every minute of you, and I promise you like you
Speaker 1: are just incredible, Like we are soul sisters on another level.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you guys see me sweating
Speaker 1: back here, I found out our AC went out.
Speaker 2: A little backstory.
Speaker 1: Our AC went out, and I called your publicist and
Speaker 1: I said, oh my god, it's eighty five degrees in here.
Speaker 1: She cancels, I totally understand. I will be devastated. Do
Speaker 1: you think she if she cancels, But she probably's gonna
Speaker 1: cancel because anybody would cancel.
Speaker 2: You know, and she, you know, Carrie didn't cancel. She didn't.
Speaker 1: She showed up, told my producer, it's gonna suck for
Speaker 1: you today because you know, I don't think we have
Speaker 1: enough time to go buy fans. But everyone's you know,
Speaker 1: I just want you to know that, like no matter
Speaker 1: how big someone is or out of reach or or
Speaker 1: what have you, you know they're still human and they
Speaker 1: understand the mission.
Speaker 2: And I really appreciate that you came out.
Speaker 4: I'm so grateful to have been here today, to have
Speaker 4: been able to share with you. You're so authentic and
Speaker 4: you've been so welcoming and kind and sharing stories with
Speaker 4: me like your real life, and I appreciate that. I
Speaker 4: am truly over the moon and I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and hopefully we go see you at every
Speaker 1: other podcast on The Black Effect.
Speaker 2: All Right, peace out, y'all, Thanks for tuning in. Bye
Speaker 2: for more Eating while Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.