Speaker 1: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
Speaker 1: the team today?
Speaker 2: It was the new game day scratches from the California
Speaker 2: Lottery players. Everything. Those games sent the team's energy through
Speaker 2: the roof.
Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 2: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 2: the game. That's all for now, Coach, one more question.
Speaker 1: Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine
Speaker 1: ers and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery.
Speaker 1: A little play can make your day. Peace made responsibly.
Speaker 1: Must be eighteen years or older to purchase plate or claim.
Speaker 3: My graduates from my school being forced back drop bag drop, Mike,
Speaker 3: drop back, drop drop.
Speaker 4: All right, guys, welcome back EYL Atlanta Headquarters. This is
Speaker 4: gonna be a special episode for a variety of different reasons.
Speaker 4: But you know, we travel around a lot. One of
Speaker 4: my favorite things to do when our travel is to eat.
Speaker 4: I'm a foodie, even though I'm a pescytarian. I don't
Speaker 4: eat a lot of food, but I do enjoy fool
Speaker 4: and I definitely love Southern cuisine. Soulful very important to me.
Speaker 4: Oh so, when we went to Houston. They told us.
Speaker 5: I'm not even sure how we actually got turned onto it.
Speaker 6: I think we visited the first time we went to Houston,
Speaker 6: and I think maybe Chris.
Speaker 2: Senegal was like, chrisentege, that's what.
Speaker 6: We got to check out this restaurant and we pulled
Speaker 6: up to it and the line was three blocks long.
Speaker 2: We're like, we can't wait, no line.
Speaker 6: We're not we're not fans of doing lines, and so
Speaker 6: this time nothing was to say Chouter.
Speaker 4: Chris, he made the phone for He was like, I'm
Speaker 4: taking out to the breakfast club. Breakfast Eat breakfast.
Speaker 2: Clus' man, I'm man.
Speaker 4: So Marcus Davis, the owner of the breakfast club, was
Speaker 4: actually there when we was eating. We had like thirty
Speaker 4: people with us and they was, you know, scarfing down.
Speaker 2: Their food service was immaculate.
Speaker 5: Yes, the food came out within five minutes.
Speaker 2: It was crazy. Never see anything like that.
Speaker 4: Within that he came, he introduced himself and we had
Speaker 4: a conversation and we were talking about a lot of
Speaker 4: things in business, real estate play. And then they would
Speaker 4: educating me like how he's more than just a restaurant
Speaker 4: tour He's an investor.
Speaker 5: The businessman does a lot of different things. So I'm like,
Speaker 5: we should definitely interview him. Yeah, so you know, put
Speaker 5: the request in, We get the interview and made it happen.
Speaker 6: Got a text message I said, let's do it, I mean,
Speaker 6: and we talked about a lot about people, you know,
Speaker 6: investing in their communities, a lot of people talking about
Speaker 6: buying back the block, and we spoke about that with Chris,
Speaker 6: and we didn't know that it was also happening in
Speaker 6: other ways, right, So like the restaurant business that after
Speaker 6: after night light night life business, it's a different way
Speaker 6: to own the block. So it's gonna be an interesting story, man,
Speaker 6: historic one, historic, one for the age.
Speaker 5: Yes, so this is gonna be dope.
Speaker 4: We're gonna talk about the restaurant business, were gonna talk
Speaker 4: about real estate, We're gonna talk about branding, trademarks all
Speaker 4: of the year above.
Speaker 5: So first and phone, well, thank you for joinings, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And thank you for having me. Brother. I am excited
Speaker 2: to be here with y'all. I appreciate the invitation and
Speaker 2: appreciate the opportunity, you know, or good or good And
Speaker 2: more importantly, man, I'm I'm as I told look as
Speaker 2: I told you when I when I saw you, you
Speaker 2: came to the restaurant, and I shook your hand like
Speaker 2: I was your uncle shaking you. I was like, hey, man,
Speaker 2: how you doing. You'll do it. I'm good. Good. He
Speaker 2: looked at me like, hey, But I was just genuinely
Speaker 2: excited man, to see y'all, because I was genuinely excited
Speaker 2: about you know this, this, this movement that that that
Speaker 2: y'all have been on the forefront of changing the dialogue
Speaker 2: in the barbershop and and and beyond.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. Thank you so much. All Right, so
Speaker 4: let's get into this. So you've built a nice portfolio
Speaker 4: for yourself in the restaurant. I believe you have four
Speaker 4: storefront properties. Then you have a restaurant inside the airport
Speaker 4: inside the airport. Yeah, that I'm sure as a money maker.
Speaker 4: And then you have real estate places as well. So
Speaker 4: how what was your starting point into getting into the
Speaker 4: restaurant business.
Speaker 2: So my starting point for getting to the restaurant business
Speaker 2: man goes back to when I was a kid. My father,
Speaker 2: who was a huge inspiration in my life. He was
Speaker 2: an educated by profession, but he was passionate about two things,
Speaker 2: and he was damn good at both. Of them. One
Speaker 2: was music. He was a musician, and the other was food.
Speaker 2: You know, best cook I ever met. And he was
Speaker 2: the person that was responsible for showing me how to
Speaker 2: create spaces where people enjoyed themselves. So when you say,
Speaker 2: you know, ask me what do I do? I create
Speaker 2: spaces that facilitate memories and moments of fellowship. And that
Speaker 2: came from my father, you know, putting food on the
Speaker 2: stove and inviting folks over, and you know the laughter
Speaker 2: that occurs in your house from folks enjoyed themselves. And
Speaker 2: that was my interest into the food business. He had
Speaker 2: a side aside, catering business. First place I got hired,
Speaker 2: First place I got fired. Yeah, very important, both of
Speaker 2: them both important. Yeah yeah yeah, Pop Pop Pops fired me.
Speaker 2: So he had this catering business, right and uh he
Speaker 2: he did weddings and banquets and things like that. And
Speaker 2: so he would bring my brothers and I to go
Speaker 2: and work the events. And uh, working the event meant
Speaker 2: working the front side and the backside. The backside was
Speaker 2: all the prep work. The front side was putting on
Speaker 2: our bow ties and combo bums and survey. So one
Speaker 2: day I was slacking just a little bit and he
Speaker 2: told me. He warned me. He said, hey, you keep slacking,
Speaker 2: you're not gonna make the trip, which was which was
Speaker 2: kind of devastating because my cousins and my brothers it
Speaker 2: was fun, but we also made money paid us. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I didn't make that trip. He told me. I had
Speaker 2: to sit this one. I so, yeah, he fired me.
Speaker 2: I got it, I got it backed up. But go ahead.
Speaker 6: So you said your dad was educated by trade. He
Speaker 6: was educated by it, and I know you were educated
Speaker 6: by trade. Oh, so I get this question a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's like Troy, I know you were a teacher. I
Speaker 6: know you were teaching. Obviously you were a history teacher.
Speaker 6: They asked me all the time, like when did you
Speaker 6: know it was time to transition? How was that transition?
Speaker 6: So what was that like for you going from the
Speaker 6: classroom or were you doing both at the same time.
Speaker 2: So Noah wasn't doing both at the same time. The
Speaker 2: difference for me was I was in food before I
Speaker 2: went into education. Gotcha, I worked, you know after my father.
Speaker 2: I started working in food when I was fifteen, worked
Speaker 2: in fast food, worked my way up from you know,
Speaker 2: fries to you know, sandwiches to cash here to night
Speaker 2: manager to day manager, so on and so forth. Real
Speaker 2: coming to American Yeah, yeah, the whole, the whole shabank,
Speaker 2: and work my way all the way to you know,
Speaker 2: a nice position in the corporate office. With the corporate house.
Speaker 2: I said, I was a troubleshooter for a particular region.
Speaker 2: But nonetheless, when I when I left the company, I said,
Speaker 2: well what am I gonna do now? And I started
Speaker 2: teaching school. I went to the family business. Mom and
Speaker 2: dad both thirty year educators. So I went into the
Speaker 2: family business. But to ask you a question about when
Speaker 2: did I know it was time to go? I knew
Speaker 2: it was time to go when that that this ease
Speaker 2: started to set in right where I was not comfortable
Speaker 2: where I was, and I knew I was supposed to
Speaker 2: be somewhere else, and uh, there was a moment. Oh,
Speaker 2: speaking of real estate, this is how I found the
Speaker 2: location for the breakfast club. I was dabbling in real
Speaker 2: estate right when I left corporate. I left for a
Speaker 2: six figure job, and so when I went into teaching,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't a six figure job. So I
Speaker 2: had to find a way that I had to find
Speaker 2: a way to subsidize my income and I had to
Speaker 2: find a way to fulfeel that entrepreneur me. So I
Speaker 2: started dabbling in real estate, buying little pieces of property,
Speaker 2: putting my plan together on how many little townhomes and
Speaker 2: condos I was gonna build and how big I wanted
Speaker 2: the portfolio to be by the time I got to
Speaker 2: this age and when I could retire and so and
Speaker 2: so forth. Because if I was gonna be in education,
Speaker 2: you know, I had to have something to do. But
Speaker 2: I'm going through the newspaper. And as I'm going through
Speaker 2: the newspaper looking for spots, I found a spot for
Speaker 2: a restaurant, uh, and it kind of piqued my interests.
Speaker 2: Drove down and looked at it, talked to the lady,
Speaker 2: left work on my lunch break, talked to the lady
Speaker 2: about the spot, told I'd be back tomorrow. I went
Speaker 2: back to my office, pulled out a legal pad and
Speaker 2: wrote my resignation. I knew the menu, and I walked
Speaker 2: in that building and saw that space. So I went
Speaker 2: I went back to the office, pulled out a yellow
Speaker 2: no pad, and I wrote my resignation because you know,
Speaker 2: I saw the spot and I knew that it matched
Speaker 2: where I wanted to be and what I wanted to
Speaker 2: do as much. Don't get me wrong. I love the kids,
Speaker 2: right love. I loved teaching right But but but I knew,
Speaker 2: you know, deep down inside that that you know, restaurant
Speaker 2: was what my passion was. And I knew deep down
Speaker 2: inside that I was. I was an entrepreneur. And I
Speaker 2: can't cage an entrepreneur.
Speaker 6: So when you said something interesting during that, you said
Speaker 6: it wasn't where you were comfortable, comfortable in terms of
Speaker 6: fun end so it's comfortable.
Speaker 2: I'm not in my purpose. I'm not where I'm supposed
Speaker 2: to be. I know I'm supposed to be somewhere else,
Speaker 2: and I had to get to it, you know, Like
Speaker 2: I said, I knew, I knew I loved teaching, and
Speaker 2: I knew I loved the kids. Uh And as much
Speaker 2: as I thought about it as a career, the entrepreneur
Speaker 2: and me knew that I was, I had to be
Speaker 2: back out there just because you know that ADHD comes
Speaker 2: sets in and you can't sit still. You gotta you know,
Speaker 2: you gotta give birth. You're dealing with labor paints. Look,
Speaker 2: I tell you, after I wrote the Resigonation, that wasn't
Speaker 2: that wasn't the highlight of the story. It was a
Speaker 2: two year drought before I actually got to open the restaurant. Uh,
Speaker 2: and the time I quit my job, so I went
Speaker 2: a whole lot of you know, showing up at my
Speaker 2: mama house and my baby. Don't you think you ought
Speaker 2: to go back and get you man? Look that over
Speaker 2: those two years, my nickname had become Marcus gonna open
Speaker 2: a restaurant Davis. That's what the fellas called me behind
Speaker 2: my back, right, and and it was it was so crazy.
Speaker 2: I was I was out one day and I went
Speaker 2: to higher at the fellows. What's up? Man? So we
Speaker 2: talked and you turn your back and you walk away.
Speaker 2: And when you turn your back and you walk away
Speaker 2: and you allowed laughter? Was that me? Right? And so Uh,
Speaker 2: I just took it grain of salt and kept and
Speaker 2: kept it moving because I knew where I was gonna do, right.
Speaker 2: I knew it was taking a long time. You know,
Speaker 2: I quit my job eighteen months before. Uh, and it
Speaker 2: ain't looking so great. I've been turned down by bank
Speaker 2: after bank, investor group after the investor group. But I
Speaker 2: still believed in the picture that I saw the day
Speaker 2: I walked into that building.
Speaker 5: So how much did you bought a building for man.
Speaker 2: So that's a whole nother story because the original deal
Speaker 2: that we had ended up falling through, right because it
Speaker 2: was something in like a quarter of a million dollars
Speaker 2: uh in or in order to get that building, but
Speaker 2: because all the pieces didn't fall into together, ended up
Speaker 2: being twice as much.
Speaker 6: So, yeah, that eighteen months that's got to be tough, right,
Speaker 6: you left the position, right. Yeah, So now you're going
Speaker 6: to banks, but you don't have income to show them
Speaker 6: that you didn't get. So how are you approaching the
Speaker 6: banks saying that you know, I need this loan when
Speaker 6: you don't have the income to show them that you can.
Speaker 2: Pay it back? Because I had a great idea, That's
Speaker 2: what I'm telling the banks. Now, Look, here's one thing
Speaker 2: that that that I want to share. Right One, Obviously,
Speaker 2: the generational wealth in African American community doesn't exist the
Speaker 2: way it could A should a will in the future
Speaker 2: after eyl is done with doing what they're doing. But
Speaker 2: the idea that we didn't have, my father didn't have
Speaker 2: money to pass down. I found the things that he
Speaker 2: did passed down, Right, My father instilled three great things
Speaker 2: to me. One was, uh, save your money you know,
Speaker 2: be a saveror Two was because he didn't know how
Speaker 2: to he didn't know how to invest. Two was keep
Speaker 2: your credit clean. And then the third one was know
Speaker 2: how to bust your ass. You gotta work hard. And
Speaker 2: so those three things paid off for me. And so
Speaker 2: when I went to the bank, I had a seven
Speaker 2: hundred credit school. Right when I went to the bank,
Speaker 2: I did have some money stocked up in my savings account.
Speaker 2: But it still wasn't enough for them. It still wasn't
Speaker 2: enough for them, but they still rejected me. They still
Speaker 2: turned me down. And here's the crazy part. They were
Speaker 2: turning me down because restaurant has such a high failure rate.
Speaker 2: And I heard that speech over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: I got tired of hearing. I got so tired of here,
Speaker 2: and I went to find out. I said, let me
Speaker 2: find out what is it that makes because I'm sensitive.
Speaker 2: This is my industry, and why y'all saying my industry
Speaker 2: has such a high failure rate? And I bought it
Speaker 2: down to a couple of things. One is lack of capitalization. Right,
Speaker 2: a lot of restaurants failed because they started out underfunded.
Speaker 2: Second one is a lot of people go into this
Speaker 2: business because it's sexy and they don't have the experience
Speaker 2: to know how to work in this business. My approach
Speaker 2: to the bank turned different. I started going into the
Speaker 2: bank and told him I had done my research on
Speaker 2: you know why they were failing funding and experience, And
Speaker 2: I said, look, I got eleven years in this business.
Speaker 2: I've you know, turned p and ls from losing two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a company to making
Speaker 2: that store profitable. So I got eleven years in this business,
Speaker 2: and you got a tank of money back there. We
Speaker 2: can solve this problem. Just give me some of them
Speaker 2: so I can open the restaurant. Yeah, he wouldn't. He
Speaker 2: wouldn't buying it. He wouldn't have it.
Speaker 5: So how did so? Eventually a bank loans your money.
Speaker 5: How'd you get the money?
Speaker 2: Now? Eventually a family friend. The most common way entrepreneurs
Speaker 2: African American get funded is that family friend. Law and
Speaker 2: a family friend who knew that I was on now
Speaker 2: a twenty four month journey, and I was that we
Speaker 2: were together, and then and his wife walked in and
Speaker 2: said that you're still trying to open your restaurant. I said, yes, mama.
Speaker 2: I was a nickname. I guess my mom still, well,
Speaker 2: you need to go in there and talk to Papa.
Speaker 2: I went in there and talked to pop. Paul said,
Speaker 2: I showed him my plane. Uh, he agreed to meet
Speaker 2: me at the location. We met at the location, and uh,
Speaker 2: he wrote me at check, what a bit chack? What
Speaker 2: did you see? Right?
Speaker 6: So when you saw it two years ago, you said,
Speaker 6: you walked in, you knew it. It was just the
Speaker 6: place I had to be. What were the characteristics that
Speaker 6: you saw that you said this is going to be.
Speaker 2: The place is one of the one of the common
Speaker 2: questions that I get on Saturday morning, Sunday morning, and
Speaker 2: the place is bumping, as you said, lying three blocks
Speaker 2: up the street. I'm often asked, and this is this
Speaker 2: is a point that that that you know, entrepreneurs have
Speaker 2: to have to get lines out the door, places bumping,
Speaker 2: And I get called up to the table and they say, baby,
Speaker 2: let me ask you a question. Did you ever think
Speaker 2: that this? Yes, I did. It got so it got
Speaker 2: so common that I started answering it before. And the
Speaker 2: reason I started doing that was because I wanted them
Speaker 2: to understand the power of vision. Right. So when I
Speaker 2: took that exit, I saw something completely different than the
Speaker 2: dilapidated building that sat there. It was run down, it
Speaker 2: was unattractive, it was in a desolate area. But that's
Speaker 2: not what I saw, right. I saw this nice esthetic.
Speaker 2: I saw this nice, bright yellow building. I saw on
Speaker 2: the inside where the dusty tables and cheers were in
Speaker 2: the torn out ceiling. I saw, you know, nice mahogany
Speaker 2: wood with colorful walls and paintings on the wall. And
Speaker 2: I saw people sitting in there, and I heard Miles Davis,
Speaker 2: I heard John Coltrane playing. So my response to that is, yes,
Speaker 2: I did think it was gonna happen. I saw you
Speaker 2: here before you got here, and so I shared with
Speaker 2: and so you asked about that twenty four months. The
Speaker 2: reason that vision is so important was because after being
Speaker 2: turned down by bank after bank, and that investor group
Speaker 2: after invest room, the only thing I had to hold
Speaker 2: on to was a picture that I hate in my head,
Speaker 2: and that's what kept me sane at night, and that's
Speaker 2: what kept me hopeful in the daytime.
Speaker 6: Hennessy celebrates those who never stop and never settle in there,
Speaker 6: never end in pursuit of greatness. Maurice Ashley lives this
Speaker 6: passion through his love of chess. He made history in
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety nine as the world's first black grand master.
Speaker 6: An inspiring story of intellect and brilliance. His ability to
Speaker 6: push the potential of his own mind to new levels
Speaker 6: of greatness is universally inspiring. Visit www dot Hennessy dot
Speaker 6: com to learn more about Maurice Ashley in the world
Speaker 6: of the mind. There are no limits, Hennessy. Never stop,
Speaker 6: never settle twenty one and over. Please drink responsibly.
Speaker 4: So moving along as far as the business is successful,
Speaker 4: I would So you've been in business for two decades,
Speaker 4: but you said one of the main reasons why restaurants
Speaker 4: fails because cash flow and not being properly funded.
Speaker 5: Because it's ups and downs right right right.
Speaker 4: And you know you have to pay your staff no
Speaker 4: matter why. You have to pay chefs, no matter what.
Speaker 4: You got to pay the light bill, no matter what.
Speaker 4: But you might have a bad week, or you may
Speaker 4: have you know, some downturns, you might have bad weather.
Speaker 4: How have you been able to get those obstacles and
Speaker 4: still be profitable for twenty years?
Speaker 2: Man? Look, I tell you one. When I started the business,
Speaker 2: I made sure that I had money saved up, Right,
Speaker 2: I said, I want to make sure I have at
Speaker 2: least six months of rent in the bank, right, and
Speaker 2: I want to have some payroll stacked up because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to run in a week to week and
Speaker 2: I had already, you know, agreed what I was going
Speaker 2: to personally contribute to the to the business and that
Speaker 2: and that, and that went well for a while, but
Speaker 2: I did I did run into I did run into
Speaker 2: a wall at one point, kind of like the moment
Speaker 2: we have in right now, right, two thousand and six, Yeah,
Speaker 2: think about it. Two thousand and six, gas went up, right,
Speaker 2: the last two years of Bush. I'm not blaming him.
Speaker 2: I'm just giving you know timeframe. Last two years of Bush,
Speaker 2: gas went up, and the price of food shot up, skyrocketed.
Speaker 2: It was the highest food had been since the nineteen eighties. Right,
Speaker 2: So we had these transportation surcharges, right, We had We
Speaker 2: had food that calls there was outrageous. And the problem
Speaker 2: I ran into is that I couldn't move my prices
Speaker 2: up fast enough. And I'll never forget, man, I'm having
Speaker 2: I'm having, you know, a moment because this is this is,
Speaker 2: this is when I think, oh, man, I've been successful
Speaker 2: for five or six years, and it's about to something's
Speaker 2: about to happen. And man, I called one of my
Speaker 2: mentors who had been in business for thirty years Frenchish chicken.
Speaker 2: They ever, you know that long standing chicken business in
Speaker 2: the city of Houston, And next time y'all come, we
Speaker 2: gotta take it to get some go there. You gotta go, Okay,
Speaker 2: I gotta go. So I called him and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you because I don't know
Speaker 2: how to figure this out. And he came in and
Speaker 2: it was a five minute conversation. Was less than that.
Speaker 2: He walked in. He said, first of all, stop always
Speaker 2: god damned crying. I can't hear what you're saying over there.
Speaker 2: I'm keeping it real. I'm keeping it real. If you
Speaker 2: ever had some long nights and days as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: you know, yay for you, but they come, they happen,
Speaker 2: and so uh, he said, you know, this is what
Speaker 2: you need to do. And he looked at the menu
Speaker 2: and he had me make the price to Johnson and
Speaker 2: I said, mister King, I can't. I can't make the
Speaker 2: adjustments that quick because I'm gonna run people away. He said,
Speaker 2: if you don't, they're gonna run away anyway, right, because
Speaker 2: your door's gonna be closed. So I learned the value blessing.
Speaker 2: Going back to what you're saying, So I from from
Speaker 2: that day forward, I never priced a grit or a
Speaker 2: piece of chicken based on today. I always priced it
Speaker 2: based on tomorrow. And then I moved from pricing for
Speaker 2: tomorrow to moving it to next month and next year,
Speaker 2: and today I tell entrepreneurs, do not be afraid to
Speaker 2: price for being in business next week, next month, and
Speaker 2: next year. Don't get caught where you have to catch up.
Speaker 2: And there's a whole lot to not pricing for today, right,
Speaker 2: there's a lot to it. It's a lot to pricing
Speaker 2: for tomorrow. That means not just having payroll, not just
Speaker 2: having rent, but it also means making sure that you
Speaker 2: have the right insurance policy for when you have things
Speaker 2: like hurricanes. We have a little thing called hurricanes down
Speaker 2: in Houston, right making sure that you have the right
Speaker 2: attorney on retainer. Because the insurance company ain't gonna want
Speaker 2: to give you the money that they're supposed to give you.
Speaker 2: You got to go and fight them. Making sure that
Speaker 2: you have the right CPA where your books are in order,
Speaker 2: so that when the disaster relief come, you can just
Speaker 2: pick up the phone or shoot an email to your
Speaker 2: CPA and say, hey, they say they need this, send
Speaker 2: it over to them. Right, So, all of those things
Speaker 2: come into play. And the other one, which is probably
Speaker 2: one of the most important, if there's one more important
Speaker 2: than the other, it's cash reserves. Making sure that you
Speaker 2: price so that you can save money. And if you
Speaker 2: price where you can save money when the days come
Speaker 2: where ain't no business, when the weeks come where you
Speaker 2: know sales are low, when the months come where there's
Speaker 2: a pandemic or an ice storm or what have you,
Speaker 2: you can keep the ship afloat during that time. And
Speaker 2: so that that's how I've been able to over the
Speaker 2: last two decades do that is make sure that we
Speaker 2: price accordingly and make sure we do the right thing
Speaker 2: with the resources that we are keeping the reserve.
Speaker 4: So when you say, don't price your food for today,
Speaker 4: prices for tomorrow, prices for next year.
Speaker 2: Food costs.
Speaker 4: We interviewed the entrepreneur that was in the restaurant business
Speaker 4: early on, and he was talking about food costs. He
Speaker 4: was the first person who actually explained and broke down
Speaker 4: food court when he was like the average entrepreneur, they
Speaker 4: selling fits sandwiches for five dollars and he's asking him
Speaker 4: why and he's like, I just think it costs.
Speaker 5: It should cost five dollars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, He's like, that's not really a set science and
Speaker 4: how to actually price it? Like, so can you explain,
Speaker 4: like how you evaluate food costs and what do you
Speaker 4: mean by price it for next year?
Speaker 5: Price it for you know?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, so that rules in restaurant, right. You know,
Speaker 2: you have a certain percentation that labor should be at.
Speaker 2: Some people say, oh, we're gonna be at about you know,
Speaker 2: twenty eight twenty five percent labor. Say we're gonna be
Speaker 2: at about fourteen fifteen percent food costs or you rent,
Speaker 2: those expenses should be no more than eight percent there.
Speaker 2: You know, different people have different theories on those numbers,
Speaker 2: but they fall within a similar range. Right. The science
Speaker 2: behind what you're asking about is making sure that you're
Speaker 2: not just trying to hit that number, but that you
Speaker 2: actually having enough to Okay, my general council costs X
Speaker 2: amount of year, right, which is X amount of month, right,
Speaker 2: So I got to make sure that I got enough
Speaker 2: to cover that. My insurance policy costs this much. I
Speaker 2: got to make sure I have enough to cover that.
Speaker 2: So whereas you might go in and do the price
Speaker 2: and just to hit that percent, but then you also
Speaker 2: go in and price so that you can cover those
Speaker 2: additional costs.
Speaker 6: One of the things he talked about too, is obviously
Speaker 6: when you build an establishment built by somebody that looks
Speaker 6: like us, as hiring people that look like us, right,
Speaker 6: And so I wanted to obviously everything that you just named,
Speaker 6: you've been through a pen, right, You've been through natural disasters,
Speaker 6: we've been through food.
Speaker 2: Prices going up. How has staffing been for you? Right?
Speaker 6: Having people to come in and go out that look
Speaker 6: like us? Because when we came it was like them,
Speaker 6: everybody's happy to be here. Has that always been the
Speaker 6: case or is that something that was trialing error and
Speaker 6: you have to figure it out how to get people
Speaker 6: that look like us.
Speaker 2: So those those are two separate things, right one one
Speaker 2: staffing like staffing right now is incredibly tough because the
Speaker 2: country shifted, right, the world shifted, and for those entrepreneurs
Speaker 2: who don't know, it's not going to shift back. So
Speaker 2: get out of that thought about you know, when things
Speaker 2: get back to where they were. It's not going back
Speaker 2: to what they were. Throughout the history of the world,
Speaker 2: when major shifts happen, they don't just go back. They
Speaker 2: go back ten percent, fifteen percent percent, but they never
Speaker 2: go back one hundred percent. Right, So we won't get
Speaker 2: back to what we were doing as a restaurant or
Speaker 2: as a country. Right from from restaurants to to you know,
Speaker 2: fortune five hundreds, nobody is going back to get you know,
Speaker 2: they had a million square feet of office space, right
Speaker 2: and when the pandemic hit, they realized, I don't need
Speaker 2: a million square feet of office space. I only need
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand or five hundred thousand. So they're not
Speaker 2: going to go back and get that million. Similarly, in
Speaker 2: every business, that's something that's not going to change. It's
Speaker 2: going to it's change forever. Right. So, But but in
Speaker 2: terms of people, you know, it takes time to build
Speaker 2: a staff, right, and building a staff you said everybody
Speaker 2: was happy. Building a staff means building a culture, setting
Speaker 2: a standard, setting expectations, and holding people to those standards
Speaker 2: and expectations. Right, So I don't I personally don't do
Speaker 2: you know, I hire managers, but I don't personally hire
Speaker 2: day to day. My managers do that, but they're charged
Speaker 2: with making sure that people who apply for this job
Speaker 2: understanding where they're coming to work and understanding who you're
Speaker 2: working for. Right when I did, when I did interviews,
Speaker 2: it was it was cold, but it was but it
Speaker 2: was it was real. You know, somebody come in and
Speaker 2: say I want to work here, and you know, we
Speaker 2: got articles on the wall and I would point to them,
Speaker 2: I say, look, you see all those articles on the wall.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, we have that already. We're known from
Speaker 2: the Pacific to the Atlantic. What are you adding to this? Right?
Speaker 2: What do you bringing to the table? And not only
Speaker 2: what are you adding to this? How can I trust
Speaker 2: you with these people who come in and inspect those things.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's about setting the stand to making
Speaker 2: sure people understand, uh, the place that you work. I
Speaker 2: was saying that at at at the restaurant, it's the
Speaker 2: TVK way. This is who we are, this is what
Speaker 2: we're about, this is what we do, and these are
Speaker 2: the things that we do not do. Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: So you talked about hiring employees in an era where
Speaker 4: it's the great resignation and even now for jobs like
Speaker 4: you know, for the rest of our things in the nature,
Speaker 4: they can't fill them, right, Like those like jobs that's
Speaker 4: not paying a lot of money, that require not a
Speaker 4: lot of skill set. They're saying it's extremely hard to
Speaker 4: fill those jobs right, right, Like even for young people,
Speaker 4: they're just not working. I'm not really sure why, but
Speaker 4: they can't fill those jobs. So how have you been
Speaker 4: able to keep a staff and how have you been
Speaker 4: able to you know, handle during that time or has
Speaker 4: it affected you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I mean yes, I don't know anybody that
Speaker 2: hadn't been affected. How have I been able to handle one?
Speaker 2: I'm fortunate to have had long term team members, right,
Speaker 2: I've got folks that have been with me four or five, seventeen,
Speaker 2: fifteen years, right. So I have a core group and
Speaker 2: the goal is to just build around that core group.
Speaker 2: The core group understands who we are, what we're about,
Speaker 2: They understand the TBKA, and they have the responsibility of
Speaker 2: making sure that the people that come aboard protect who
Speaker 2: we are and what we're about. And that's you know,
Speaker 2: one of the things I share with my team is,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm quick to tell a team member how
Speaker 2: this is impacting you. You think that Johnny not doing
Speaker 2: what he's supposed to do just affects Johnny. Then you're
Speaker 2: solely mistaken. If you, as a teammate, don't hold your
Speaker 2: teammate responsible for running the ball, for running the play,
Speaker 2: shooting the shot, for you know, running the play that
Speaker 2: we're supposed to run it, then we don't score. And
Speaker 2: once you communicate that to them, then they start to
Speaker 2: take ownership. Additionally, you know, my team understands I'm here
Speaker 2: with y'all right now, I haven't I haven't fried a
Speaker 2: wing or stirred a grit in quite some time now.
Speaker 2: And I make sure that they understand that when people
Speaker 2: show up for three block long lines, that they're coming
Speaker 2: to see the work that they are producing. It's not
Speaker 2: the work that I'm producing, right, And so I get
Speaker 2: them to take ownership and pride in the work that
Speaker 2: they're doing. That people are coming and waiting and sat
Speaker 2: in the line that they heard about. They're coming to
Speaker 2: see what you did, so show up, show out.
Speaker 6: So let's talk about that. So obviously these lines every
Speaker 6: time we go, Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: They came because they heard y'all. Was kind I put
Speaker 2: it out there. I was like, why hellas coming? There's
Speaker 2: a rumor that they're in sound life. It's but I
Speaker 2: did it always start that way? And what was the
Speaker 2: marketing behind it? To me?
Speaker 6: Right, souse, you're talking about twenty years in business to
Speaker 6: have that type of reception.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a landmark. Now when we go to Houston,
Speaker 2: it's saying we have to go there. You have to
Speaker 2: go there. And so what was the marketing behind it
Speaker 2: to get people to come? Well, we know what. It
Speaker 2: wasn't right. It wasn't Twitter, right, it wasn't Facebook right,
Speaker 2: it wasn't Instagram right. I liked I like to brag
Speaker 2: a little bit, right, I like the Jack cast. Hey,
Speaker 2: that's cute what you doing? I like it? Keep doing it.
Speaker 2: But I did it before we could reach you know,
Speaker 2: people across the country with a single stroke of a thumb, right, right,
Speaker 2: And so man, it was straight up guerrilla marketing, bro,
Speaker 2: it was straight It was straight up gorilla. My first
Speaker 2: day opening, I had a habit of getting out in
Speaker 2: the street my day opening. This is true. So this
Speaker 2: is what I did. I had flyers because I didn't
Speaker 2: have I didn't remember. I told you that my family
Speaker 2: and friend lost some money. Right, it was ten percent
Speaker 2: of what I had projected this to be I built.
Speaker 2: I put up you know, a two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars project costs, right, and we started with ten
Speaker 2: percent of that if that right. So there was no
Speaker 2: money to do the build out. There was no money
Speaker 2: for this major marketing plan. Uh. The buildout was done
Speaker 2: by me and my friends, me and my homeboys. Right.
Speaker 2: I got to pitch in my office, me and my
Speaker 2: mother building a table together, pitching my office, me and
Speaker 2: my homeboy painting a wall together. Right, And I'm I'm
Speaker 2: sure that y'all have had times where you know, people
Speaker 2: kick in and for the costs, and so that that's
Speaker 2: how it started. So we didn't have the marketing budget.
Speaker 2: So I had, you know, I remember my business plan,
Speaker 2: business plan important. I remember my business plan talking about
Speaker 2: you know, advertising on the radio, advertising the newspaper, how
Speaker 2: much I was gonna do that. All of that was
Speaker 2: a wash. What I I had to do the start
Speaker 2: this thing was I printed up these flyers and at
Speaker 2: the corner of Alabama and Travis. I picked this location
Speaker 2: because when you come off the highway, it's the entry
Speaker 2: way into downtown. And so when when people will stop
Speaker 2: at the light, I would go to their car and
Speaker 2: panhamd them, try to sell them some grits. I'm shoving
Speaker 2: flyers in in your wonder, in your wonder, in you wonder,
Speaker 2: and I'm you know, I dart across the street before
Speaker 2: before the light changed. Then from there I went back
Speaker 2: in the restaurant and I gathered these. Uh. My nickname
Speaker 2: was the muffin Man in the in the neighborhood, right
Speaker 2: in the in the in midtown because I would get
Speaker 2: these muffins and I would go from business to business,
Speaker 2: knock on the door and then introduce myself right and
Speaker 2: drop off some muffins so they can know who we are.
Speaker 2: Left a little something some for So I mean that
Speaker 2: that that was. That was honestly the organic. Uh. It
Speaker 2: was a lot of grit. It was a lot of
Speaker 2: grind and his the thing. So, yes, we have Instagram
Speaker 2: to day and we use it. Yes we have Facebook
Speaker 2: today and we use it. Yes we have Twitter and
Speaker 2: we use it. But I don't dismiss grit and grind
Speaker 2: at at at any time because I think you know
Speaker 2: that sheer hustle uh is a compliment to the social media.
Speaker 6: So was there a moment that somebody came and that
Speaker 6: changed it, like was it a local like Houston celebrity
Speaker 6: tent that came and it was like, now this becomes
Speaker 6: a place or just it just built over town.
Speaker 2: J Princeburgh, he came, all I got a funny story
Speaker 2: about about Jay. Right, Uh, I pitched I pitched my
Speaker 2: business plan to Jay. Yeah. Four it is before. That's
Speaker 2: a whole nother story, and that's how. That's how. That's
Speaker 2: that's how Jay became. Jay and I became friends. Right.
Speaker 2: We built a relationship over time. Uh. And you know
Speaker 2: he would always tell me, man, I showed Hey, I
Speaker 2: didn't get in on this. What he saying when you
Speaker 2: pitched you? Oh? Man, you know what, it's crazy because
Speaker 2: when I pitched you to him. I mean that's it's
Speaker 2: a longer story. When somebody introduced me to Jay and
Speaker 2: we met, we talked, He came to the building and
Speaker 2: the whole time, my mind has just blown. Right. He
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, I'm gonna meet you. So he met me.
Speaker 2: Mem me solo showed up. I gave him walked and
Speaker 2: walked it through. He liked it. He actually liked it
Speaker 2: a lot. That was some other things that came that
Speaker 2: came up during that time that he had to handle,
Speaker 2: and you know, we decided to call it a day.
Speaker 2: But Jay was one of those people that when I
Speaker 2: said I got turned down, that was one of those turndowns.
Speaker 2: So but but but you asked, what was that moment, right,
Speaker 2: I can't say, you know, a single moment. I can't
Speaker 2: tell you. I can't tell you one one big moment, right.
Speaker 2: And it's going back to that guerrilla tactic, right and
Speaker 2: not having because my goal from day one was to
Speaker 2: be known as a national eater. Right in two thousand
Speaker 2: and one and ninety nine when I wrote The Big Playing,
Speaker 2: the goal was to be known nationally. Even though there's
Speaker 2: not a path there's a path forward today for that. Right.
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, if you out there and you're doing
Speaker 2: something good, and you're doing something well and you're not
Speaker 2: known nationally, you're not known across your state or across
Speaker 2: the region, then something you're not doing right. Because it's
Speaker 2: so much easier and have so much access to everybody.
Speaker 2: I mean, social media has just really changed and opened
Speaker 2: things up to where I don't have to think solely
Speaker 2: about marketing to the people around the corner, of marketing
Speaker 2: to the people up the street. But I can deliberately
Speaker 2: market to people in Atlanta. I can deliberately market to
Speaker 2: people in Dallas, San Antonio, uh, so on and so
Speaker 2: forth and so but but back then that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: But I still had the desire to be naturally known
Speaker 2: and I had to figure it out. So this was
Speaker 2: one of the things that I did to figure it out. Uh.
Speaker 2: They used to be you're familiar with Tom Joiner right,
Speaker 2: had the hottest radio show on Earth right, And I
Speaker 2: was like, man, I got to get on a Tom
Speaker 2: Join and warning show. Get on that. I ain't got
Speaker 2: Tom drying to show money though, so I can't, you know,
Speaker 2: I can't just write a check. So they did this
Speaker 2: thing called a sky Show where they would travel from
Speaker 2: city to city and it was a big deal. Right,
Speaker 2: they go to each city, everybody would come and you know,
Speaker 2: they played on the radio. And I looked on the
Speaker 2: thing they said he coming to Houston. I was like,
Speaker 2: I gotta get on a Tom Join in the morning show.
Speaker 2: What am I going to do? So I went out
Speaker 2: and I dial in Houston is one O two, right.
Speaker 2: So I went out and bought one hundred and two
Speaker 2: Neon yellow shirts with with our logo on now got
Speaker 2: up at four o'clock in the morning to go out
Speaker 2: to the the to the coliseum where they were and
Speaker 2: passed out one hundred and two shirts. Hey, put this on,
Speaker 2: put the phone, put this on, and if I see
Speaker 2: you on this side with the shirt on, free grits
Speaker 2: on me. When we get back to the restaurant. And
Speaker 2: when we got in the and we got in the auditorium,
Speaker 2: got in the coliseum, it was, yeah, there's five thousand
Speaker 2: people in there, but one constant throughout that room with
Speaker 2: five thousand people, it's these little yellow specs And it
Speaker 2: caught the attention to one of the dj It's like,
Speaker 2: what these yellow shirts? One of them got it. It was
Speaker 2: a dance competitions. One of them was on the stage
Speaker 2: with the dance competition. One of the DJs mentioned, next
Speaker 2: thing I know, we're back at the restaurant at the
Speaker 2: end of the show, and all those people I promised
Speaker 2: chicken too. They showed up and that that line was
Speaker 2: out there, and I was like, we got to feed them.
Speaker 2: But it paid off. Why because one of the guys
Speaker 2: who was on the on the show ended up walking
Speaker 2: in the restaurant, sitting down eating eating some chicken and
Speaker 2: grips next thing. You know, Tuesday morning here on Monday
Speaker 2: morning here on the air, It's like, man, I had
Speaker 2: the best chance of the brine. Man, I had the
Speaker 2: best fried chicken in Houston ever. You see what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you know that that was that was That was
Speaker 2: a moment, but it was it was. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 2: stroke of luck that's involved in that. But you know,
Speaker 2: luck ain't worth nothing if you're not prepared for the moment.
Speaker 2: You know, I could have just waited and said, well,
Speaker 2: you know when it gets to come to come, I
Speaker 2: hope it happened. Nah, it's faith, man, you got you.
Speaker 2: It's fading and busting your ass. You know, you gotta
Speaker 2: you got, you gotta at the working and you got
Speaker 2: to be courageous about it. I have a stick on
Speaker 2: my in my office on my deck behind my desk
Speaker 2: that says build a courageous company, right, and it just
Speaker 2: simply means be willing to do the wild thing that
Speaker 2: will wild folks, Right, those crazy ass ideas that you
Speaker 2: come up with. Did you think, like, hey, man, I
Speaker 2: heard Eyl come to town. Let me call get see
Speaker 2: if they want to come to breakfast, Right, what's gonna hurt. Right,
Speaker 2: you gotta be courageous and in your effs as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: because if you're not, I can guarantee the result of
Speaker 2: courageousness won't happen. If you are, then the result can.
Speaker 4: And one of these things where you got to create
Speaker 4: a spectacle at all times. And talking to grend card
Speaker 4: Dome and he was telling us like he has a truck,
Speaker 4: like eighteen wheeler and he was seeing the truck caught
Speaker 4: on fire and they called him and it was like frantic,
Speaker 4: like you know, the truck caught on fire, like everybody's panicking,
Speaker 4: and he was like, tape, it's good content, make a.
Speaker 5: Movie out of it. And it's like just the idea
Speaker 5: of everything.
Speaker 4: It just has to be done in grand fashion because
Speaker 4: people remember myths and people remember stories. And then that
Speaker 4: hundred shirt in somebody's mind. They said, that's a thousand
Speaker 4: people right in somebody's mind, Like you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: urban legend, Yeah, exactly. Once you get the urban legend,
Speaker 4: it's like it's like a snowball event.
Speaker 2: It was I wish I had known that about when
Speaker 2: my truck burned up.
Speaker 6: But it was it was the free part too, right,
Speaker 6: the free food. Yeah, And it was crazy because I
Speaker 6: just seen Waller pull something about having free right and
Speaker 6: he had the TEDx talk and they said, you know
Speaker 6: you're new, we can't pay you for it. Let's do
Speaker 6: it for free, right, And so we did it for free,
Speaker 6: not knowing that that Ted talk would be the one
Speaker 6: that sparks his career. And he's made so much money
Speaker 6: off of doing that free event. And so now you
Speaker 6: have created a line of service giving off free chicken.
Speaker 2: I was wondering, we didn't see any yellow shirts at
Speaker 2: the EYL but I was there, though I was there. Hey,
Speaker 2: but look but that but that's a philosophy man, that
Speaker 2: that that that's permeated the rest of the business man.
Speaker 2: I listen, here's a little nugget, right, as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: when you have knee jerk reactions, I'm not telling them
Speaker 2: be anybody to be undisciplined or irresponsible with them with
Speaker 2: their money, right, But when you're too afraid to lose
Speaker 2: something that you hold, hold, hold, I guarantee you're gonna
Speaker 2: lose something. Right. So let's take a common occurrence that
Speaker 2: happens in the restaurant. I probably shouldn't say this on TV.
Speaker 2: Let's take a common occurrence that that happens in the restaurant, right,
Speaker 2: you know, when when when guests come in and they
Speaker 2: are trying to get a little something extra. Here's a
Speaker 2: rule if you if you're in the restaurant and you
Speaker 2: say I ordered this and I don't see it, I'm
Speaker 2: not about to We're not about to go back and forth.
Speaker 2: The most important thing is you wanted grits when you
Speaker 2: got in the store, and I want to get them
Speaker 2: to you. We'll worry about whether or not you're getting
Speaker 2: in that five dollars and eight or seven cent later,
Speaker 2: but right now you need to eat now. You know,
Speaker 2: somebody come up and say I want to pay for
Speaker 2: my grips. But if I would hell that from them,
Speaker 2: and it's the reupted them, why because I want to
Speaker 2: hold on with the grips. It's not that serious.
Speaker 4: So you're saying, like, if somebody comes, it's like the muffins, right,
Speaker 4: those muffins don't don't expound on it.
Speaker 5: I have it so when you first, but it's like
Speaker 5: it's like the muffins, right.
Speaker 2: You know, I had to graduate from giving away muffins
Speaker 2: to then I started taking food to the businesses. Right,
Speaker 2: So I went from from taking muffins from business. Bit.
Speaker 2: I had a little map of the of Midtown. It's
Speaker 2: six streets this way, it's eight streets this way. And
Speaker 2: one week I go up and down these streets. The
Speaker 2: next week, I go up and down these streets. But
Speaker 2: they got tired of the muffins, right, The muffins wasn't
Speaker 2: bringing them in no more now. And then I started
Speaker 2: taking them grits, right. And you're like, oh man, you
Speaker 2: giving away food. You got to give him something to
Speaker 2: get him in the door.
Speaker 6: Simple, simples, simple, simple.
Speaker 5: So when you first started, you had a business.
Speaker 2: Partner, you know what. So my, my, my angel investor
Speaker 2: came on, right. That was my promise to him. If
Speaker 2: you if you do it, then you know you can
Speaker 2: come on and come aboard. And he was adamant that
Speaker 2: I'm no, I'm retired. I just want to help you
Speaker 2: get started. And so he helped me get started. And
Speaker 2: once it was the craziest thing ever. Man, Once we
Speaker 2: got busy, he pulled me outside. We're on the sidewalk.
Speaker 2: He said, all right, you up and running. Put something
Speaker 2: on paper, give me mine, put a little some on top.
Speaker 2: Call of the day and his goal was just to
Speaker 2: see me. He didn't have an interest in so.
Speaker 5: He never wanted to be like a invested partner. He
Speaker 5: just wanted you to get up and running.
Speaker 2: Just wanted his money. That it goes back to that
Speaker 2: conversation we had on the couch right where he just
Speaker 2: goes back to the conversation that that that that his
Speaker 2: wife had with me in the living room, which was
Speaker 2: you're still trying to do that. Let me let's let's
Speaker 2: say a poppul can help you. The rest is history,
Speaker 2: you know, and and and you know, one of the
Speaker 2: things that that and that's that's why I'm excited about
Speaker 2: what you're doing, is because y'all creating more ways for
Speaker 2: people to start investing in businesses. Right, It's one thing
Speaker 2: to invest in the stock market, but when we moved
Speaker 2: that into investing in entrepreneurship, when we would man everybody
Speaker 2: from Malcolm to Marcus Mosaic Garft to Martin King talked
Speaker 2: about the importance of building businesses in our community. Each
Speaker 2: of them listed that as a cornerstone to liberation from opressure.
Speaker 2: And you know, Malcolm Win as far as saying, if
Speaker 2: you are if you are not building your own factory,
Speaker 2: creating your product earners. What's up?
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Speaker 2: Then you have no reason to sit in front of
Speaker 2: the white man and ask him for something else, or
Speaker 2: demand or tell him what he's not doing when you
Speaker 2: yourself have not built it in your own community, when
Speaker 2: you have the capacity. Marcus Mosiah Garver was a great
Speaker 2: example of it in the early turn of the century right
Speaker 2: where built everything from Blackstar line to I mean his
Speaker 2: brother is selling stock and shaking shipping companies, and I
Speaker 2: mean it's just amazing, outrageous things that he was doing.
Speaker 2: He had big vision, you know. Malcolm followed it up
Speaker 2: by talking about the importance of being involved in industry
Speaker 2: in your community. Martin the night before, if you, if you,
Speaker 2: if you haven't get a chance to go back and
Speaker 2: watch the last the last speech of doctor King the
Speaker 2: night before, he was murdered, not not not a week,
Speaker 2: not two weeks, not three weeks. Go back and watch
Speaker 2: the very last speech to doctor King Gay before he
Speaker 2: stepped on that balcony the next morning. In that speech,
Speaker 2: he said some of the most courageous things. One, he
Speaker 2: told black people the power of their money and stopped
Speaker 2: giving it. He stood on the stage and said, don't
Speaker 2: spend your money with Coca Cola, don't spend your money
Speaker 2: with Heartspread, don't spend your money. He listed out companies
Speaker 2: because those companies weren't doing right by the African American community. Right.
Speaker 2: But the flip side, the flip side is when he said,
Speaker 2: not only that, go take your money and put it
Speaker 2: into Try State Bank, which is the black bank that
Speaker 2: was in Memphis at the time. Go out and put
Speaker 2: by your insurance with these insurance companies, these black owned
Speaker 2: insurance company. Martin was advocating for us building ourselves as
Speaker 2: a people by opening businesses and by putting our money
Speaker 2: in our business.
Speaker 5: That's why he got killed.
Speaker 2: That's why he got killed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's more dangerous than trying to integrate schools.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It is, listen. Integration. Integration is a
Speaker 2: valuable to right. You know, you have this debate about
Speaker 2: integration and what it did. Right, you have to see
Speaker 2: integration as a tool. Imagine it's a hammer. A hammer
Speaker 2: can build a house, a hammer can tear a house down.
Speaker 2: Integration is a tool that we have to make a
Speaker 2: choice on how to use. Integration didn't mean I can
Speaker 2: go to this restaurant, so I'm no longer going to
Speaker 2: that restaurant. Integration meant I now have the privilege of
Speaker 2: not being treated inhumanly by turned away at the door.
Speaker 2: But I'm still going to build a businesses in my
Speaker 2: community with me. Yeah. Yeah, And that's why, you know,
Speaker 2: that's why I'm I'm an entrepreneur that happens to be
Speaker 2: in the food business because I believe entrepreneurship is important
Speaker 2: for two reasons. One, it is the path to get
Speaker 2: in the foot of the oppressors, the foot of oppression
Speaker 2: off of my neck. Two, I believe that people suffer
Speaker 2: from disease if they're not doing what they're supposed to
Speaker 2: do with their calls to do with they were meant
Speaker 2: to do, what they were made to do. And I
Speaker 2: think entrepreneurship is our ultimate emulation and imitation of the creator.
Speaker 2: Think about it next, to childbirth. Entrepreneurship is that you
Speaker 2: are creating the way the Creator did. You're bringing something
Speaker 2: into existence that did not exist. And the truth be
Speaker 2: told is it was designed for you to do. And
Speaker 2: when you don't do it, then you are going against
Speaker 2: what the universe has you here for. And not only
Speaker 2: are you going against what the universe has you're here for,
Speaker 2: you are creating disease in yourself. But in addition creating
Speaker 2: diseases in yourself, you are depriving someone else of the
Speaker 2: gift that you were supposed to bring into the earth.
Speaker 2: And if you think about it from a standpoint of nature,
Speaker 2: trees don't inhale what they put out. We breathed that
Speaker 2: in bees don't eat what they pollinate, eat that the
Speaker 2: universe needs them doing their part. The sign doesn't benefit
Speaker 2: from vitamin D. We do it, puts it out, we
Speaker 2: receive it. So whatever gift the Creator is given you,
Speaker 2: whatever dream the create has given you, whatever he's putting
Speaker 2: your heart in your head, you have a responsibility to
Speaker 2: the universe to bring that into fruition. Prowf word prof
Speaker 2: for word. Living in the dream that makes doctor Martin
Speaker 2: Luther and.
Speaker 4: The King's the only way So let me ask you
Speaker 4: this as far as the real estate, because you own
Speaker 4: a few different locations, So talk about that. How you
Speaker 4: expand it and do you own do you own all
Speaker 4: of those properties or some.
Speaker 2: Of those some of them will do some of them
Speaker 2: with pieceing together. The goal is to make sure that
Speaker 2: the whole thing is under one umbrother. But like I said,
Speaker 2: you know, for those who are trying to decide between
Speaker 2: lease and and and purchasing, you know they're they're there
Speaker 2: are locations that are good lease locations. Right. You can't
Speaker 2: turn away a space just because it says, uh, it's
Speaker 2: it's the least because it may be on the corner
Speaker 2: of what not in what had and it's a thousand
Speaker 2: cars going this way every hour and a thousand cars
Speaker 2: going this way and out, and you might just have
Speaker 2: to take that right. But the other part of it is,
Speaker 2: you know, if you if you're in the food business man,
Speaker 2: you have the opportunity today. The way I look at
Speaker 2: it is, you know, I have the opportunity to acquire assets.
Speaker 2: The company acquires assets that the grits can pay for,
Speaker 2: and that's that's the mouth, right, look for what the
Speaker 2: grits can pay for we look for what the grits
Speaker 2: can buy because at the end of the day, when
Speaker 2: there are no more grits being sold, you know, the
Speaker 2: dirt's still there, the assets are still there.
Speaker 5: That's like we in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: So we had interview Kenny Burns a while back, and
Speaker 4: you know, he's nightlife champion. He was talking about ag
Speaker 4: Alex was a legendary not our dialex, but there's a
Speaker 4: legendary promoter in Atlanta. And he was saying he was
Speaker 4: like the only one that really owned the club Compound,
Speaker 4: like any different things the nation. And then I recently
Speaker 4: heard that he sold Compound for a crazy amount of money.
Speaker 4: And but I say that to say it's like, think
Speaker 4: about how many party promoters and how many people had it,
Speaker 4: but they got money, but it was quick money, right,
Speaker 4: he actually.
Speaker 5: Owned the club.
Speaker 4: So now when the party's over, right, because the party
Speaker 4: always ends, it's still prime real estate location right now.
Speaker 4: Those real estate developers, it's like, all right, we want
Speaker 4: this land, Well how much is it worth to you?
Speaker 4: So now he probably made more money from the cell
Speaker 4: of that land than he ever made nightlife.
Speaker 2: He can he can make money selling the land. He
Speaker 2: can also make money leasing the land. I had a
Speaker 2: guy who had a popular restaurant in my first two
Speaker 2: years of business. He had a spot that was that
Speaker 2: was the spot, so old the guy and he was
Speaker 2: sitting at my restaurant one day and he was sitting
Speaker 2: at eating and I went over to talk to him
Speaker 2: and I asked him, said what you're doing now? He said,
Speaker 2: eating grits and collecting rent. I was like, what happened
Speaker 2: to the restaurant. He was like, yeah, I'm out of
Speaker 2: the restaurant, said I did it for thirty years. I'm done.
Speaker 2: But now at least the locations that I used to
Speaker 2: run as a restaurant. So with your real estate, you
Speaker 2: know the story of of Ray Crop. Oh yeah, know
Speaker 2: so you know when he asked the Harvard the urban
Speaker 2: legend or not, you know, sitting around at a dinner
Speaker 2: with the Harvard students and asked them what business is
Speaker 2: the in and they laughed and said, you're in the
Speaker 2: burger business. And explained to them, now I'm in the
Speaker 2: real estate business, you know, and and and and whether
Speaker 2: it's real estate or not, whatever business you're in, you know,
Speaker 2: gaining assets right overliability, by the way I did it,
Speaker 2: by the way, you know, it's crucial.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was talking about the proximity of the properties
Speaker 6: that the other assets that you required, because I know,
Speaker 6: we got the breakfast club, but then across the street,
Speaker 6: you know is that the is it the nightclub?
Speaker 2: So the uh the uh got the restaurant. Then across
Speaker 2: the street I have an office space. Then on the
Speaker 2: backside I have I have a bar. And like I said,
Speaker 2: some of this mix and match, some of this stuff
Speaker 2: is is you know, it is under least some of
Speaker 2: the stuff you know, working on the acquisition we got.
Speaker 2: Our future for acquisition is bigger than our current so
Speaker 2: right you know, right now what we're working on is
Speaker 2: bigger than what we currently do. Yees, So that's what
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it.
Speaker 6: I'm like, all right, well and again we saw Chrisina
Speaker 6: say let's own the block. But now from a standpoint
Speaker 6: where you have a couple of different assets on the block,
Speaker 6: but it speaks to expansion. So this is another thing
Speaker 6: that entrepreneurs try to figure out is when is the
Speaker 6: right time to expand? And so for you, as you're building,
Speaker 6: you know, bringing the money that the grits is taken in,
Speaker 6: when did you decide all right, let's have expansion and
Speaker 6: have some more of these locations.
Speaker 2: So, man, the right time to expect So those are
Speaker 2: two different things, right, The right time for expansion in
Speaker 2: your restaurant really depends on where you are in your
Speaker 2: maturity in the restaurant, right, where you are in your system,
Speaker 2: your systems, your systems, and that is that is so crucial,
Speaker 2: whether you whether you're expanding or whether or not. It
Speaker 2: is incredible. I mean, it's incredibly important that you have
Speaker 2: systems in place that the machine is running the way
Speaker 2: it's supposed to run, right, I mean when you turn
Speaker 2: the call on, right that that thing everything fires and
Speaker 2: does what it's supposed to do, and that's the way.
Speaker 2: That's the way the business is supposed to be. Of course,
Speaker 2: these are people, you know, it's humans, so hands involved,
Speaker 2: so you're going to have your hiccups, ups and downs.
Speaker 2: But the goal is to have a standard and a
Speaker 2: set of systems that in place that allows you to
Speaker 2: function in what I call my recipe for success, uh quality, product, quality,
Speaker 2: service all the time. Right, So when folks are talking about, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, what how do you what advice you have
Speaker 2: or what how do you you know, guide people towards
Speaker 2: success or how did you become successful quality product I
Speaker 2: I do not compromise on the quality of product that
Speaker 2: I offer, I guess, and this is not just about food.
Speaker 2: This is in any business that you're in. Right, if
Speaker 2: you're offering a good or a service to the marketplace,
Speaker 2: you should do your best to make sure that it
Speaker 2: is of great quality. Going back to the price and think,
Speaker 2: what made me feel comfortable about making those moves that
Speaker 2: we discussed was the fact that I know that I'm
Speaker 2: not going to buy a product that's inferior just because
Speaker 2: it's cheaper. Right, I know that I'm not going to
Speaker 2: skimp on something. You know, you bring a new product
Speaker 2: to me, you got to convince me that it is
Speaker 2: the same or better before you talk to me about
Speaker 2: the price, Because if you come in just talking about
Speaker 2: the price, that's not important to me. It is important
Speaker 2: after I know that it is a quality product. It
Speaker 2: is important after I know that my guests are not
Speaker 2: going that we're not going to miss a beat. Right,
Speaker 2: Then you got quality service. You got the folks who
Speaker 2: deliver that product making sure that they are as pleasant
Speaker 2: and as positive and as you know, as what you said,
Speaker 2: everybody was happy, happy to be there, happy to be
Speaker 2: there as you possibly can. And the last thing in
Speaker 2: that is making sure that you do those two things
Speaker 2: every time you unlock that door, because if you do
Speaker 2: the two things once or twice, it's not sufficient. You
Speaker 2: got to make sure that you are consistent. And if
Speaker 2: your goal is consistency, it's a good chance you're gonna
Speaker 2: meet Yeah.
Speaker 6: So, if I'm an entrepreneur about to start in the
Speaker 6: restaurant business, I'm glad you brought up systems because I
Speaker 6: want to talk about that.
Speaker 2: What are some systems that I need to have in
Speaker 2: place to be successful? Oh? Man, systems that you're in place.
Speaker 2: You need standard operating procedures, right, you need everything from
Speaker 2: scripts to recipes. And when I say scripts, what is
Speaker 2: the role of what are the positions and what is
Speaker 2: the role of each person in that position? Right, I
Speaker 2: mean down to the the repeat verbage, down to it's
Speaker 2: not a being unauthentic. You know, there's some things that
Speaker 2: that people who've been with for a while, they have
Speaker 2: their own way of adding their flavor to it. But
Speaker 2: the meat got to be there, the core got to
Speaker 2: be there, right, So you know, making sure that you
Speaker 2: have your positions, making sure that you have the details
Speaker 2: of what each position entails, what role they're playing. Then
Speaker 2: in the back, same thing for the kitchen. But that's
Speaker 2: where uh the recipe comes into place. Making sure that
Speaker 2: you have recipes and that they're that they're followed, right,
Speaker 2: and that's so crucial. Let me tell you how big I
Speaker 2: am on consistency. I told you my dad fired me, right,
Speaker 2: and I told you I got him back. So my
Speaker 2: old man, best chef I ever met, right, my man
Speaker 2: was this I big. This is what I think of
Speaker 2: my consistency and why I think is important in business. Uh,
Speaker 2: my pops who was who was a great cook. He
Speaker 2: was making uh, some dishes for us for us to
Speaker 2: start serving. We were making these green beans, and one
Speaker 2: day he changed them up. I was like, Pops, those
Speaker 2: are delicious, but they're not the same flavor profile that
Speaker 2: the guests had last week. You know, we you know,
Speaker 2: we can run some specials, but if this is our
Speaker 2: standard every day dish, then it has to taste this
Speaker 2: way every day. Right. Then we got we got into
Speaker 2: it one day because we're coffee shop, right, we serve
Speaker 2: all of the the latte is, the mocha's, the caramel
Speaker 2: and machiato's all that this stuff. So my pops was
Speaker 2: making this drink one day and this lady came in.
Speaker 2: She said, I want Carara macato, but white raspberry mocha,
Speaker 2: but I want him to make it and me being
Speaker 2: big on because that's how that's how I cut my
Speaker 2: teeth in corporate, making sure that we followed the rules,
Speaker 2: making sure that we followed the steps. So that's what
Speaker 2: I was trying to bring to my community because I
Speaker 2: knew in my research that was something we lacked. Me
Speaker 2: going from restaurant to restaurant to restaurant in you know,
Speaker 2: the late nineties, looking at our restaurants and trying to
Speaker 2: find out, how can we bring something new, something better,
Speaker 2: something different to our community. Because let's just tell the
Speaker 2: truth about it, right, restaurants had a bad rap in
Speaker 2: the African American community, and I wanted to I wanted
Speaker 2: to put a din in that, right. I wanted to
Speaker 2: be I wanted to be on the front of changing that,
Speaker 2: at least in my city and beyond. So everything that
Speaker 2: I did for corporate, that was a one I wanted
Speaker 2: to do it for my people and so consistently was
Speaker 2: part of it. So I told the lady, I said uh, Now,
Speaker 2: anybody can make it. We cooked I had a saying
Speaker 2: we cooked by process, not by person. Right. That means
Speaker 2: that anybody can make this dish as long as we
Speaker 2: have the training, We have the the procedures in place.
Speaker 2: So she gets her drink and she goes over to
Speaker 2: the table and she said down. And I walk over
Speaker 2: there with my chest out and I said, how it takes.
Speaker 2: She says it's good, and I said, but what it's good?
Speaker 2: But he makes it better. So I went I said, Pop,
Speaker 2: so are you changing the recipe? And he got a
Speaker 2: little you know, a little high way. I mean, he
Speaker 2: was like, I know what I'm doing. I was like, yeah, buddy,
Speaker 2: we follow recipes and everybody that's gonna be here has
Speaker 2: to follow recipes. And if they not go follow recipes
Speaker 2: and everybody can't be here. He said, you fire me.
Speaker 2: I said, everybody that's gonna be here, go follow the recipe.
Speaker 2: And if they're not following the recipes, they can't be here.
Speaker 2: Now here's here, now here's here's Here's where you learn.
Speaker 2: Because there's one thing to be stirring on your rules,
Speaker 2: but there's also another thing. Like in King Richard, he said,
Speaker 2: I wrote the plan, but he was willing to look
Speaker 2: whether the plan could be better, could be enhanced. So
Speaker 2: I took what he was making and sample that I
Speaker 2: compared to what we were already making. What he was
Speaker 2: making one so guess what that was the new recipe.
Speaker 2: But everybody had to follow that couldn't go back. So
Speaker 2: over right, quality product, quality service and doing that all
Speaker 2: the time is incredibly important.
Speaker 4: So how do you keep the culture in the workplace
Speaker 4: where people are enthusiastic to work and they're happy.
Speaker 5: And that's a big part of like, you know, I
Speaker 5: think a successful business it's like to have, Like you
Speaker 5: go to Apple store and it's like, you know, it's
Speaker 5: a cult.
Speaker 4: They created a great culture. How have you been able
Speaker 4: to keep that culture going?
Speaker 2: So if you work for Apple, you like I work
Speaker 2: for Apple, right, you know you work for them, you
Speaker 2: know you work for a great place. That's the same
Speaker 2: thing we try to create. I want people to know
Speaker 2: and understand they're working at a great place. I want
Speaker 2: people to know and understand. That's why it's hard. That's
Speaker 2: why it's so credibly important that you protect the brand right,
Speaker 2: because you don't want it taint it. You want people
Speaker 2: to understand it I like when people say you work
Speaker 2: at the breakfast club, right, because that and they like
Speaker 2: it when when people say that right. So that's that's
Speaker 2: one way let them know that the place that they
Speaker 2: are part of has value too. You continuously remind them,
Speaker 2: as I mentioned before, continuously remind them that they are
Speaker 2: adding value. You know, as I mentioned I'm start of
Speaker 2: grid in a minute. They do, and so I continue
Speaker 2: to remind them that it's their work that the people
Speaker 2: are lining up three blocks to see, right. I continue
Speaker 2: to remind them that, you know, I think it's important
Speaker 2: that your team understands how this works. When you get
Speaker 2: your paycheck on Fridays, it's not coming out of your pocket, right,
Speaker 2: it's coming out of what you've produced that goes to
Speaker 2: the bank that then filters into So I communicate to
Speaker 2: my team that, hey, guys, these people are walking through
Speaker 2: these doors. They help us pay our rent, they help
Speaker 2: us pay our mortgage, they help us put food on
Speaker 2: our table. And when you communicate in that language, I
Speaker 2: think it resonates differently. So One, make them understand that
Speaker 2: they're part of something good. Two, make them understand that
Speaker 2: they are adding value to this good thing. Three help
Speaker 2: them understand that Ah, this is how we actually live.
Speaker 2: And I think those things add to that that culture
Speaker 2: that you described. And you got to be deliberate about it.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to be intentional about it. You can't.
Speaker 2: I caution anybody that wants to start the business. And
Speaker 2: I know it's kind of a popular thing, but I
Speaker 2: cautioned anybody wants to start their business, I want to
Speaker 2: hurry up and be out of that. Yeah. I only
Speaker 2: spend a little time in my business. You know, if
Speaker 2: you have not made it and molded it the way
Speaker 2: it needs to be, then it could be you said
Speaker 2: that generously, could be a recipe for for a disaster.
Speaker 2: So in terms of no, no, none.
Speaker 6: In terms of the name out the obviously in the
Speaker 6: eighties movie the Breakfast Club, you know about that, I
Speaker 6: got the Breakfast Club obviously, Hall of Fame radio show.
Speaker 6: And there's a bunch of cities that have a breakfast club.
Speaker 6: So what was that trademarking process like for.
Speaker 5: You, Well, there's not a bunch of cities that Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Well Atlanta, no, no, no, no, no, no, they don't have
Speaker 2: the no something Similarizy, Now you missed that.
Speaker 5: He missed that conversation.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, Uh. The breakfast club trademark belongs to thirty
Speaker 2: seven eleven Travis Marcus Davis and nobody else in the country,
Speaker 2: period point black. Gotcha.
Speaker 6: And if anyone else tries to use it, that's what
Speaker 6: And but it's important to break it because it's for food,
Speaker 6: like the breakfast club, the radio show, that's for entertainment, right,
Speaker 6: and that's what So in in intellectual.
Speaker 2: Properties, you do have the you do have the ability
Speaker 2: to use it in a particular class, right, And that's
Speaker 2: the other thing you gotta show use But you do
Speaker 2: have the ability to use things in a in a
Speaker 2: in a particular class, and that can make a difference.
Speaker 2: But all these other little plays on I changed it
Speaker 2: a little bit of it. That's that's McDonald's, McDowell's, that's
Speaker 2: that's that's not the real world. We'll break that down.
Speaker 2: Could you have mentioned that right coming to America was
Speaker 2: a great intellectual properties uh lesson, right, because it gave
Speaker 2: people the idea that if you change it just a
Speaker 2: little bit, then you're not infringing the rule in in
Speaker 2: in uh, trademark is opportunity for confusion, right, the is
Speaker 2: there an opportunity for this to be confused with that,
Speaker 2: and if it isn't, the one that holds the market
Speaker 2: and the one that started is the one that is
Speaker 2: entitled to it, right, So the golden arches worth the
Speaker 2: golden arts. Yeah that that that didn't work. That that
Speaker 2: didn't work. That man, that that that you know, intellectual
Speaker 2: property is is a big deal because it is someone's
Speaker 2: It's just that it's someone's property, and there is a
Speaker 2: property of their intellect. It is property of their thought process.
Speaker 5: Yes, very important to know that because if not, you
Speaker 5: can get yourself as.
Speaker 2: You can get yourself well, one you can get yourself
Speaker 2: in the deep water for trying to negular system, but
Speaker 2: two you can miss out on an opportunity if you
Speaker 2: don't protect yourself right. So you know, protecting yourself on
Speaker 2: the front side is important.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a great name. It's one of these
Speaker 4: things when I don't know if the movie was the
Speaker 4: first thing that ever said breakfast club, but the radio
Speaker 4: obviously that helped out a lot too, because it's like
Speaker 4: you've been around before the radio show.
Speaker 2: Yeah we were.
Speaker 4: I'm assuming that the radio show has actually helped you
Speaker 4: in a way.
Speaker 2: I think we helped them. Yeah, Yeah, that's so.
Speaker 4: But the more people are saying the name is playing recognition. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's like the breakfast club. Breakfast club. That makes sense
Speaker 4: because now this is actually a restaurant, right that serves breakfast,
Speaker 4: right exactly.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about the menu.
Speaker 4: We talked about a restaurant owner before and he said
Speaker 4: his philosophy is short menus, seven items, no more, and
Speaker 4: he had reason behind that.
Speaker 5: What's your thought process on menus?
Speaker 4: Like how do you say, Okay, this is enough items,
Speaker 4: this is too many items, this is Yeah.
Speaker 2: I may not have the seven rule, but I don't
Speaker 2: believe in in big complex menus. I believe in keeping
Speaker 2: me use simple. I believe in keeping menus where they
Speaker 2: can they can overlap. I think that's important. Well, menus overlapping,
Speaker 2: like if you have in restaurant, but hey, y'all get
Speaker 2: y'all get in restaurant one on one right here, y'all
Speaker 2: need to come side up from a class. Look, if
Speaker 2: you don't have if you don't have things that overlap,
Speaker 2: then you know you're doing yourself a disservice. Right, So
Speaker 2: if you have one product that can be used in
Speaker 2: three different things, then it's more advantageous for you. Right.
Speaker 2: So that's like so on the hand, example, on the hand,
Speaker 2: we use it for the breakfast special. On the hand
Speaker 2: we use it for a sandwich. On the hand, we
Speaker 2: use it for anoma. So we're not buying ham just
Speaker 2: for one plate. Right. So that that's that's one thing too.
Speaker 2: The more the bigger your menus and the more complex
Speaker 2: it is, then the bigger, uh and more complex your
Speaker 2: kitchen is going to be. Right. And this's just this
Speaker 2: is just my my, my belief, my rule. Right, if
Speaker 2: you want to be successful, you have to find areas
Speaker 2: where you minimize the confusion, that you minimize the chaos. Uh.
Speaker 2: And so the simpler you make the menu, then I
Speaker 2: can tell you this a chain right now that you
Speaker 2: know doing a couple of hundred million dollars and they
Speaker 2: ain't got before items and all of them are chicken strips.
Speaker 2: You can think of the rest the morning chicken ships.
Speaker 2: It's all Look at what does kness? What is king?
Speaker 2: Sir kings? Or you don't have a king? Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, but that's that's what.
Speaker 6: But does that tempt you because I'm thinking obviously the
Speaker 6: breakfast club, most people are gonna frequent it in the
Speaker 6: hours of usually breakfast right and on the weekends.
Speaker 2: But do you, I mean maybe you did or didn't.
Speaker 6: Did you say to yourself, maybe I should expand the
Speaker 6: menu to have more people come in in the evening
Speaker 6: Like we saw like people only went to I Hot
Speaker 6: for breakfast until they started serving burgers and I was like, oh,
Speaker 6: I can go there midday or for dinner. Is that
Speaker 6: something that you had to confront like, maybe I should
Speaker 6: expand the man just a bit to have what customers coming.
Speaker 2: Even for Well, for me, I'm not necessarily believe in
Speaker 2: expanding the menu just to get more people in, right,
Speaker 2: because one more people doesn't always it made me more revenue,
Speaker 2: doesn't always mean more profit. Right, More people doesn't always
Speaker 2: mean more people can be more problems too, right, true,
Speaker 2: And it's not to say that we won't ever. But
Speaker 2: the idea of why this was a breakfast launch concept
Speaker 2: was because I wanted to keep it in two day parts.
Speaker 2: I wanted a tight ship run from seven in the
Speaker 2: morning to two in the afternoon and call it a day.
Speaker 2: Not call it a day because the work is never
Speaker 2: done right. Call of the day, like we ain't got
Speaker 2: nothing else to do, call it the day. In terms
Speaker 2: of operations in terms of service. Doesn't mean that we'll
Speaker 2: never open the night. You know, who knows, who knows
Speaker 2: the future, But it won't be simply because you know,
Speaker 2: we can get a few more dollars, right. I think
Speaker 2: my personal opinion has to be more to it than that.
Speaker 5: How many days you open.
Speaker 2: We open seven days a week, seven days a week,
Speaker 2: Monday through Monday through Friday seven to two, Saturday and
Speaker 2: Sunday eight. That's at the breakfast club. You know, my
Speaker 2: Caribbean restaurant is open seven days a week lunch and
Speaker 2: dinner culture. My downtown restaurant is open five days a week.
Speaker 2: And you know the bar, yeah does bar things.
Speaker 4: So for the breakfast so specifically, you know, most people
Speaker 4: would think that during the week it's not a good
Speaker 4: time because who's going to brunch on Wednesday?
Speaker 2: Thursday? You said two different things, you said going to brunch.
Speaker 2: I opened the breakfast Club for breakfast. You get it.
Speaker 2: So a week in two thousand and one we open breakfast.
Speaker 2: Brunch wasn't the sexy day part that it is now.
Speaker 2: You didn't have all these places, you know, booming on Sundays.
Speaker 2: You didn't get that. It wasn't happening right. Matter of fact,
Speaker 2: for the big boys, breakfast was an afterthought, right you
Speaker 2: have you have you know, a big company, They served
Speaker 2: breakfast just as a way to make a few extra
Speaker 2: pennies because we already got to be there during the
Speaker 2: prep time anyway, and we can make a few extra
Speaker 2: extra dollars. And then in the one of the reasons.
Speaker 2: So I'm sorry I failed to give my definition of entrepreneurship,
Speaker 2: which is filling the void in the marketplace that the
Speaker 2: marketplace is calling for consciously are subconsciously that's that's the
Speaker 2: definition of entrepreneurship, looking at what the marketplace has, what
Speaker 2: it needs, what's missing. How do you feel that void?
Speaker 2: And in two thousand and one, or in ninety nine
Speaker 2: when I wrote this business plane, you can count breakfast
Speaker 2: restaurants in the in midtown, in my city and across
Speaker 2: the country. You can kind of them. On one hand, right,
Speaker 2: you didn't have a lot of places other than your
Speaker 2: big boys, like your eye hops and your dentist. You
Speaker 2: didn't have a lot of places that just featured breakfast,
Speaker 2: not soul breakfast, featured breakfast. So you know, in ninety nine,
Speaker 2: the you know, the breakfast market was wide open, and
Speaker 2: I saw that was an opportunity to fuel the void.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you look to that, man, Look,
Speaker 2: I know this may sound a little strange in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, but you'd be hard pressed to find a
Speaker 2: fish and a grip and a winging a waffle on
Speaker 2: one menu across the country in two thousand and one. Right,
Speaker 2: you'd be hard pressed, let alone to find it on
Speaker 2: a breakfast menu. And so here in twenty three. That's
Speaker 2: why when you said brunch today, those dishes have become
Speaker 2: very popular and the brunch thing has become wildly popular.
Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna take a little credit because, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I like to think we had something to do with that,
Speaker 2: you know, Uh you know, I mean, truth is true. Right,
Speaker 2: If it wasn't happening before you start doing it, and
Speaker 2: then you start doing it and then it's happening, then
Speaker 2: I think, you know, But no, I've seen I've seen
Speaker 2: a number of people. I'm an entrepreneur, man, and I
Speaker 2: get inspired when people are inspired, right, And I've I've
Speaker 2: had people come to me and tell me, man, you
Speaker 2: inspired me. Told my brother here doing well, and you
Speaker 2: inspire me to open my bills, open my restaurant and uh,
Speaker 2: you know it's it's you know, it's it's it's a reality.
Speaker 2: But you know that I'm I'm and as much as
Speaker 2: I am crazy about that, I'm more inspired when I
Speaker 2: when I discovered that as an entrepreneur in the restaurant business,
Speaker 2: I've inspired people who weren't in the restaurant business. So
Speaker 2: when the first time I had, you know, an attorney
Speaker 2: come up to me and say, man, I won't you
Speaker 2: inspire me to my practice or Dennis or doctor, I'm like,
Speaker 2: how did how did that happen? I say, of Grich,
Speaker 2: you have a terminal degree. How does that? And I
Speaker 2: came to realize this concept of uh, see touch field right,
Speaker 2: it is necessary for a lot of folks to see
Speaker 2: it in order that they believe it. To touch it
Speaker 2: and they believe it. You know. We I know people
Speaker 2: like to you know, like to dump on Thomas and
Speaker 2: said he was a dollar, right, But Thomas said it
Speaker 2: was a dollar. He said, I'm gonna believe it if
Speaker 2: I touch it. And the truth be told, the majority
Speaker 2: of people have Thomas faith. They need to be able
Speaker 2: to touch it before they believe. And so I'm grateful
Speaker 2: to be have been in the space for the last
Speaker 2: two decades that people can touch entrepreneurship and be inspired
Speaker 2: to go out and do what they've been called to do.
Speaker 5: So, what's what's next to you?
Speaker 4: What's what's your next vision on the on the five
Speaker 4: year horizon horizon.
Speaker 2: Man, I going back to seeing and touching and I'm
Speaker 2: a I'm I believe that this, this entrepreneurship is important.
Speaker 2: But I believe that in this food game, as African Americans,
Speaker 2: the window of opportunity is so wide. Right if you
Speaker 2: look at how much participation we have in the food
Speaker 2: business compared to how much we have in terms of ownership,
Speaker 2: it pales. So we're actually leaving the bag on the
Speaker 2: table in this era of going to get the bag.
Speaker 2: And so my goal is in the next few years
Speaker 2: is one to continue to inspire entrepreneurs to go into
Speaker 2: business to open their restaurants. My goal is to to
Speaker 2: mentor and consult restaurant tours. All it's gonna be my first,
Speaker 2: my first client. I want to see us successful in
Speaker 2: the space. I believe that the food industry is an
Speaker 2: untapped market for African Americans. We're talking about everything from
Speaker 2: restaurants and I'm not just just talking about restaurant. We're
Speaker 2: talking about the butcher, the baker, and the hot sauce maker.
Speaker 2: We're talking about everything from inside the restaurant with plates
Speaker 2: and forks, to purveyors to the people who sell and
Speaker 2: grow the products. We're talking about retail. I mean, think
Speaker 2: about it, brother, we don't have if you're talking about restaurant,
Speaker 2: we don't have national change, African American owned, right name name,
Speaker 2: name one concept that stretches across the country. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, we just interviewed Pinky from Fludy Vegan.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm so happy for her. Man, I'm so I'm
Speaker 2: so excited for her because us it means the train
Speaker 2: is moving right. But we're in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 2: we don't have one national brand. Go in the grocery store,
Speaker 2: name me a national brand, Black owned. I can show
Speaker 2: you where people have you know, been culture vultures. I
Speaker 2: can show you where people have profited off of our
Speaker 2: name and our likeness, from Uncle Ben to Angel Mama.
Speaker 2: But we're not selling food off shelves, but we buying
Speaker 2: a lot of it. So my goal in the next
Speaker 2: five years is to get into those spaces and operate
Speaker 2: and encourage others to get in those spaces and operate.
Speaker 2: We need a hospitality company that stretches across a region,
Speaker 2: stretches across the country. And whether I'm the person to
Speaker 2: do it or whether it is the next person do it,
Speaker 2: I carenot. We just need those dollars circulating in our community.
Speaker 5: I agree. I agree got happened. So you're actually gonna
Speaker 5: be teaching people.
Speaker 2: Man, I am. You know. I've come to a conclusion
Speaker 2: that the words that I share and the work that
Speaker 2: I do is so important. We'll go back to how
Speaker 2: this started. One. The barrier to entry and restaurant is
Speaker 2: so low, right. It's not like, you know, you go
Speaker 2: be a lawyer tomorrow. You can't go be a doctor tomorrow,
Speaker 2: but you can go if you want it, you can
Speaker 2: go open a restaurant tomorrow. Right. And because of how
Speaker 2: sexy is how glamorous it, there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: want to do it. And I think that there's a
Speaker 2: space for well, I know there's a space. I get
Speaker 2: emails every day, I get inboxed all the time, so
Speaker 2: I believe there's a space for folks to come and
Speaker 2: learn how to successfully run a restaurant. So it's going
Speaker 2: to start off with mentoring and then it's going to
Speaker 2: move into something a little bit more because I think
Speaker 2: consulting is incredibly important and as African Americans, we have
Speaker 2: to begin to believe in professional services and going out
Speaker 2: and getting the professional services that we need in order
Speaker 2: to be successful. We can't be afraid of that.
Speaker 4: Very important mentorship extremely important, and we fail because we
Speaker 4: have a lack of knowledge a lot of times and
Speaker 4: that knowledge, like you said, there's ain't no school for this,
Speaker 4: even like if you're trying to start a podcast, right, like,
Speaker 4: there's no school for that. So you either make a
Speaker 4: lot of mistakes and luckily you can make it through,
Speaker 4: or you find some people that have already done it
Speaker 4: and they can help you. The same thing with the
Speaker 4: rest of our industry. Same thing with trucking, any type
Speaker 4: of industry you could think of. So it's extremely important
Speaker 4: for people to seek out those people that have already
Speaker 4: had success and already went through those mistakes because they
Speaker 4: can help.
Speaker 5: You avoid them.
Speaker 2: Man, there's a blessing in learning from somebody else's success
Speaker 2: and somebody else's failure, right, I mean that, and I
Speaker 2: don't even call it failure. You know, the the mistakes
Speaker 2: that they may have made or you know, the drop
Speaker 2: ball or what have you. But I look, there's some
Speaker 2: folks that came before me that I give homish right
Speaker 2: that I and other people don't see it that way.
Speaker 2: But if I didn't learn from them, Mista say, then
Speaker 2: I don't get to be where I am today. Your growth,
Speaker 2: I said, your growth, oh, without a doubt, man, without
Speaker 2: no question, asked.
Speaker 5: I appreciate you, brother, thank you for coming.
Speaker 2: Man, I appreciate you. Got it. When we go back
Speaker 2: to Houston, you gotta you gotta come on back, come
Speaker 2: on back, and uh bring the crew and you know,
Speaker 2: well you know we'll we'll, we'll speaking of the crew.
Speaker 2: So one more day. So a couple of things I
Speaker 2: was asked, I want to make sure we get these out.
Speaker 2: One was about about about food time, right about hey man,
Speaker 2: how do you get the food out? Expeditiously, expeditiously shut Look, look, look, systems.
Speaker 2: Systems are incredibly important. And I have a I have
Speaker 2: a restaurant that we acquired just based on me being
Speaker 2: able to see that, Hey, this is a great concept.
Speaker 2: They just need some systems in place. And I give
Speaker 2: you an example. Right, so you order a dish the
Speaker 2: a shrimp dish, right, And what they were doing was
Speaker 2: they were peeling the shrimp when you order. They were
Speaker 2: declicing the vegetables when you order, they were making the
Speaker 2: sauce when you order. So you food to forty five minutes, right,
Speaker 2: So I'll go what's to go? And okay, what do
Speaker 2: we take the steps? Right? We pre peeled, we pre season,
Speaker 2: we pre slice, and this is all fresh. We're just
Speaker 2: doing these steps ahead of time. And then you get
Speaker 2: to a point where we have to know we have
Speaker 2: an idea of what you're going to serve that day.
Speaker 2: I know if the line is three blocks long, about
Speaker 2: how much chicken we're gonna sell every hour? So we
Speaker 2: keep frying. Right now, here's the kicker to that, going
Speaker 2: back to that not being willing to lose in order
Speaker 2: to win. If going back to quality, if I fried
Speaker 2: a chicken and they don't order it and it goes
Speaker 2: over my whole time, I got to have the courage
Speaker 2: to pull it. A lot of times entrepreneurs, particularly in
Speaker 2: the restaurant business, they want to sell it to you
Speaker 2: anyway because they don't want to lose that five dollars,
Speaker 2: not understanding that you've already lost that five dollars because
Speaker 2: you put in for your product in front of your guests.
Speaker 2: So systems system system. The last one is you know
Speaker 2: the presence of the You know, I'm in my store
Speaker 2: a lot, not because I have to be, but because
Speaker 2: I want to be. I like going to work. It
Speaker 2: was to saying, if you love what you do, it's
Speaker 2: not really work. I love going to work. I love
Speaker 2: creating places to where people fellowship and I love being
Speaker 2: there with them. But there's also something that I that
Speaker 2: I found as a business term that makes this relevant,
Speaker 2: makes this important. If you go I went to buy
Speaker 2: a piece of property, right and this first piece of
Speaker 2: probably have a ball, and the bank asked me it
Speaker 2: was in a complex, it was a conduct. The bank
Speaker 2: asked me, what is the owner eccupency rate in this complex?
Speaker 2: Not an understand and I didn't understand why they were asking.
Speaker 2: So I asked, what does this mean and why you're asking? Said, well,
Speaker 2: the bank says that the property value is a little
Speaker 2: bit higher if the owner's present. And that's the philosopher
Speaker 2: at keeping my business. I go to work because it
Speaker 2: adds value to the guests, it adds value to my team,
Speaker 2: it adds value to my community.
Speaker 4: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a whole lot
Speaker 4: of game. Thank you, appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Brother.
Speaker 4: And I said, we can come to Houston. We gotta
Speaker 4: We're definitely gonna go patronage the restaurant, but we gotta
Speaker 4: do something. You gotta you know, doing events, and.
Speaker 2: You can come to Houston. Wenna, get you an astron
Speaker 2: this man, start. You don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 2: You don't have me break out the trash fans, Baby,
Speaker 2: I will bang these trash cans and we will knock
Speaker 2: some home runs. We're not gonna forget seventeen. Hey man,
Speaker 2: y'all got to get over that. Brother, we can. Y'all
Speaker 2: got to get over that this year. But hey, this
Speaker 2: is what two things. One the trash cans don't explain
Speaker 2: how we beat y'all with y'all part. That's one that's true. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Two didn't didn't a little little just come out about
Speaker 2: y'all cheating in the same year leisure. That was a
Speaker 2: leg that. There's just proven his alleged difference.
Speaker 4: Most of the most championships with the cheating, but the
Speaker 4: most championships in sports history, man.
Speaker 2: Look, look, baseball is a game of cheating.
Speaker 6: It's about it cheats. Well, we're cheating into the first
Speaker 6: place right now.
Speaker 2: So hey that boy looking nasty. Yeah, he's second in
Speaker 2: home runs to judge. So Ron's bombers, they wouldn't bombing
Speaker 2: with that. Put that no hit on them the other
Speaker 2: day though. All right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, shout to everybody on eyl University, all our earners,
Speaker 6: everybody that's important to merch, all our patrons on Patreon.
Speaker 2: Love is love. You know, we can't do this without you.
Speaker 6: It was built for you. Uh So keeps important. Keep
Speaker 6: telling a friend, to tell a friend. That's how we
Speaker 6: build community.
Speaker 2: And shout out to everybody in Houston.
Speaker 4: Sharlot to my girl Jazz, shout out to Slim Thugger,
Speaker 4: shout out to don Key Toby Ian Dunlap of course,
Speaker 4: of course. And you know every time we go to
Speaker 4: h time, it's always love out there. We did a
Speaker 4: show out there. It was packed twenty six hundred people.
Speaker 4: So man, because the show was fire.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Man. I was, I mean, I was in
Speaker 2: there just I was like, I was, I was man,
Speaker 2: I was, I was happy, I was excited. Slim has
Speaker 2: a special place in the Breakfast Lub's history.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Oh god, yes, good dude.
Speaker 2: Man, in our first year or two of business, when
Speaker 2: we're not popular, we're not hot, we're not famous. Guess
Speaker 2: who comes two three times a week. Slim and the crew,
Speaker 2: and so much so that we would look for Hey, Slim, Slim,
Speaker 2: we need to come on here. We got we got
Speaker 2: red but slim. See note buying the boars. They brought
Speaker 2: bond in right off the bun and you know the
Speaker 2: rest was the rest was history. Yeah, Slim, Slim, Slim Slim.
Speaker 2: You guys have to get a dish ning that to him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we gotta figure that out.
Speaker 4: Of course, Chris Senegal too, and Mike Brown. See a
Speaker 4: lot of solid guys out there in Houston, man, real love.
Speaker 4: Every time we get we get a chance to go
Speaker 4: to Houston. So shout out to Houston man. Love is
Speaker 4: love to you guys. Next week peace.
Speaker 3: My graduates from my school being forced back drop b drop,
Speaker 3: Mike drop drop drop.
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