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Speaker 2: It was the new game day scratches from the California
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Speaker 3: Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.
Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 4: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 4: the game.
Speaker 1: That's all for now, coach, one more question play than
Speaker 1: New Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine ers and
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery. A little
Speaker 1: play can make your day. Peace made responsibily. Must be
Speaker 1: eighteen years or older to purchase late or claim.
Speaker 5: All right, guys, welcome back eyl Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Secondician, second home. Man.
Speaker 5: This is definitely a second home for us. Anytime that
Speaker 5: we in the A is a blessing. So first and foremost,
Speaker 5: shout out to the good city of Atlanta. We got
Speaker 5: this is our second biggest market, but it feels like
Speaker 5: home for us.
Speaker 2: So you know, I saw somebody's that put us in
Speaker 2: as an Atlanta based podcast.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was that was crazy. That was okay, Like, yo,
Speaker 5: tag the Atlanta based podcast. Somebody was like earn your
Speaker 5: lisha I'm like, I appreciate it, but so yeah, today
Speaker 5: we got that. We got a definitely exciting episode. One
Speaker 5: of Atlanta's legends, A legend in the town, A legend
Speaker 5: in the town. Michelle Snoop Dillard. Her story is mind boggling.
Speaker 5: I actually did some some reading on his very very
Speaker 5: interesting story. And she's a serial entrepreneur. We're gonna talk
Speaker 5: about all of her businesses that she owns. Got enough
Speaker 5: time run it down right.
Speaker 2: Now, there's so many, man, I mean, we're gonna get
Speaker 2: into it, but this is so many. Like I said before,
Speaker 2: if we had a meme like what a serial entrepreneur is, like,
Speaker 2: this is the living embodyment of it. And the story
Speaker 2: is just so crazy.
Speaker 5: By way of Detroit, we gotta shout, yeah, that's a fact.
Speaker 2: So in Tennessee plays a part. But we're gonna get
Speaker 2: into all that because it's a long list. Ya.
Speaker 5: So, restaurant, tour, nail salon owner. She's also a teacher.
Speaker 5: She actually I just found out, used to be in
Speaker 5: the financial services.
Speaker 2: Industry financial advisor.
Speaker 5: Financial advisor, so she has a bad background and investments, insurance,
Speaker 5: retirement stuff like.
Speaker 2: That, real estate license.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: You had your own publications.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure. And we're actually in her establishment right now.
Speaker 5: Members Only is one of one of her establishments. She
Speaker 5: has a couple others, Crave Restaurant, Escobar Atlanta, Escobar South Side,
Speaker 5: uh Remedy Salon Suites, Nails Salon, and now we're members
Speaker 5: only Crave, Crave shout out to Yeah, I said Crave.
Speaker 5: And one of our business partners, to Change, might have
Speaker 5: heard of him. True, you might have heard of him.
Speaker 5: Shout out to Change. Shout out to Change. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: this is gonna be interesting, you know, conversation. Any time
Speaker 5: that we get a chance to talk to entrepreneurs, there's
Speaker 5: always a blessing and people always get a lot of
Speaker 5: value and information. So first and foremost, before we start,
Speaker 5: thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 6: It's always, you know, humbling to even be looked at
Speaker 6: his interview.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that.
Speaker 5: No, So let's let's start at the beginning, because, like
Speaker 5: I said, your story is interesting. It's like you just
Speaker 5: wasn't born into being an entrepreneur. You had some adversity
Speaker 5: and then you actually went to one of the best
Speaker 5: colleges in America at a young age. And then you,
Speaker 5: like I said, worked in the financial industry. So can
Speaker 5: you talk about your story and like how did you
Speaker 5: get into the the business world?
Speaker 3: And you think we got enough time?
Speaker 2: You know, we don't.
Speaker 6: So just a little bit about me, as you guys said,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm from Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 3: I grew up in Detroit.
Speaker 6: I kind of came from I came from a family
Speaker 6: of hustlers. My dad was a big trump, big time
Speaker 6: drug dealer. My mom, her family, she kind of came
Speaker 6: from a lot of adversity. Her mother and sister was
Speaker 6: murdered when she was fourteen. So just grew up pretty quickly,
Speaker 6: met my dad at a young age, had me and
Speaker 6: my brothers, and of course being in the type of
Speaker 6: environment you know, where your father is selling drugs, of course,
Speaker 6: a lot of times someone the right it's made. And
Speaker 6: so there was a situation where somebody had kind of
Speaker 6: kicked our dory and shut up the whole house and
Speaker 6: caused my mom to leave my dad, and so she
Speaker 6: ended up just kind of like fleeing, wanting to flee
Speaker 6: the whole city, you know, because she felt like it
Speaker 6: was so many negative influences, you know, especially more so
Speaker 6: for my two younger brothers, you know, and didn't want
Speaker 6: to see them, you know, trying to get into the
Speaker 6: game and things of that nature, and wanted to show
Speaker 6: them that, you know, there were other means, you know,
Speaker 6: to be able to make money, you know, other than
Speaker 6: just the street life. So we moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 6: I already was kind of a couple of grades ahead.
Speaker 6: So I started school when I was three, and so
Speaker 6: when we moved to Nashville, they initially was trying to
Speaker 6: you know, put me back into my original grade. And
Speaker 6: so they were like, Okay, well we're gonna give her
Speaker 6: this test, you know, to see if she can even
Speaker 6: you know, be I think maybe I was going into
Speaker 6: like the fifth grade or something like that. And so
Speaker 6: when they tested me, actually tested for the seventh grade.
Speaker 6: And so my mom was like, nah, just at least
Speaker 6: let her be in a fit grade.
Speaker 3: I don't put her in the third grade.
Speaker 6: But you know, she's only you know such and said,
Speaker 6: I think I was like eight at the time, you
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. So anyway, started school young, ended
Speaker 6: up getting pregnant the first time I had sex when
Speaker 6: I was in high school.
Speaker 3: So I had my.
Speaker 6: Daughter extremely young, got pregnant when I was fourteen, had
Speaker 6: her when I was fifteen, had kind of just Kevin
Speaker 6: as a secret you know from my whole family. Was
Speaker 6: really just you know, a terrified kid. The family had
Speaker 6: already been through so much, and it was just kind
Speaker 6: of like one of them little lifetime things child where
Speaker 6: you know, I'm holding the shit in not telling nobody.
Speaker 6: So once my mom ended up finding out, she was
Speaker 6: like so distraught about it. She tried to get me
Speaker 6: to put my daughter up for adoptions, and my daughter
Speaker 6: actually spent the first four years of her life in
Speaker 6: foster care.
Speaker 3: Shout out to my daughter. She actually works for my
Speaker 3: company too.
Speaker 6: She's goes to Georgia State Dean's List student. Uh, definitely
Speaker 6: one of the parts of you know, my life that
Speaker 6: I'm extremely proud of. You know, everything definitely happens for
Speaker 6: a reason. But that was kind of like the start
Speaker 6: to you know, the adversity you know, for me. But
Speaker 6: even after that, you know, I ended up going to
Speaker 6: Vanderbilt University at the age of sixteen. Shout out to
Speaker 6: VU Commodoes.
Speaker 2: We can't let that go. That's one of the best
Speaker 2: business schools like in the country.
Speaker 3: It is it is.
Speaker 6: I actually mean I had a great experience at Vanderbilt.
Speaker 6: I originally did not want to go, you know, just
Speaker 6: just kind of growing up in Nashville.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to get back to Detroit, which is.
Speaker 6: Where the roots was, which is where the majority of
Speaker 6: our family was. We were the only ones that were
Speaker 6: in Nashville. You know, nobody else came there. They everybody
Speaker 6: thought it was slow, as so did me and my brothers,
Speaker 6: and so all three of us, you know, just always
Speaker 6: as soon as we were able to, wanted to leave,
Speaker 6: you know, Nashville, Tennessee. But you know, at the time,
Speaker 6: you know, I had just you know, had gotten pregnant,
Speaker 6: you know, my mom didn't know about it and all
Speaker 6: of that stuff. So once that happened, it was just
Speaker 6: like I can't trust you, girl, you ain't going you
Speaker 6: ain't leaving this city. And then I got into Vanderbilt
Speaker 6: and it was just kind of like how can you
Speaker 6: turn it down? You know, And I had had some
Speaker 6: scholarships and things of that nature, So ended up going
Speaker 6: to Vanderbilt. Had a great experience, but my my experience
Speaker 6: was a little bit different than how I am now.
Speaker 6: And it's so funny because a lot of the people
Speaker 6: that I went to college with.
Speaker 3: You know, they're.
Speaker 6: Always like, man, I'm like now, you know, They're like, oh, man,
Speaker 6: I knew you was gonna be like super successful and.
Speaker 3: Stuff like that, and I'm like, how to class? Like
Speaker 3: how you pick that up? You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: So cause I was literally, I literally like grew up
Speaker 6: on the college campus. You know, you just imagine I
Speaker 6: had never even as a high school student. I remember
Speaker 6: hanging out with friends like maybe twice, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean out of the whole four years of going
Speaker 6: to school.
Speaker 3: And you know, like I played basketball.
Speaker 2: So I got you heard about that somes.
Speaker 6: So I got some socialization there. But I wasn't like
Speaker 6: your typical you know, definitely not like how I am now.
Speaker 6: I'm a very social person, so you know, somebody would
Speaker 6: expect like in high school, I was always hanging out
Speaker 6: or had a bunch of friends, and I did right then,
Speaker 6: but once I went home, you know, that was pretty
Speaker 6: much it. I wasn't like the type that was going
Speaker 6: to the movies, going to the mall, skating rings and
Speaker 6: different things of that nature. So you know, you look
Speaker 6: at somebody that kind of grew up like sheltered like that.
Speaker 6: And then you know, I go to college, you know
Speaker 6: that young living on the campus, and so.
Speaker 3: I pretty much kind of wild it out, you know.
Speaker 6: I started DJing, getting into throwing parties, messing with girls.
Speaker 6: I mean, you name it, you name it. I was
Speaker 6: doing it, you know what I'm saying. And so the
Speaker 6: education part was honestly the back burner for me, and
Speaker 6: I really, you know a lot of times I look
Speaker 6: back on that now that I'm so thirsty for knowledge
Speaker 6: because being an entrepreneur, you know, I have to teach
Speaker 6: myself things.
Speaker 3: You know, I have to get my own training, and.
Speaker 6: You know, make sure I'm watching YouTube and different podcasts
Speaker 6: and you know, going to seminars and different things of
Speaker 6: that nature, because you know, I'm the boss and I
Speaker 6: have a lot of people up under me.
Speaker 3: So even if somebody think I'm doing something wrong, ain't.
Speaker 6: Not gonna tell me, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 6: and I ain't gonna tell them if I don't quite
Speaker 6: know what I'm doing, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 6: but I definitely, you know, do wish that I would
Speaker 6: have taken advantage, especially going to a college as prestigious
Speaker 6: as Vanderbilt. You know where there's so much to learn,
Speaker 6: so many different courses and things of that nature. But
Speaker 6: I guess it just kind of all worked out the
Speaker 6: way that they did because I think that kind of
Speaker 6: brought out like my alter ego, which is Snoop. So
Speaker 6: it's like my shell versus Snoop.
Speaker 3: So but anyways, I graduated from Vanderbilt at twenty.
Speaker 2: And like that, I mean that's in president of Solf, right,
Speaker 2: like you're saying to yourself, like just now, like I
Speaker 2: really didn't play attention to the academics part, but like
Speaker 2: you graduated with a degree.
Speaker 6: And I mean, when I tell you I was bad man,
Speaker 6: Like I my GPA was not the highest. I probably
Speaker 6: graduated with like a two point seven gpa.
Speaker 2: Like that's good enough to get just ski.
Speaker 3: It up out of that thing. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: I went to summer school, had to go to summer
Speaker 6: school every single summer, wanted to go to summer school
Speaker 6: every single summer because I loved being on campus and
Speaker 6: you know, doing what I wanted to do in.
Speaker 3: Partying and all of that stuff.
Speaker 6: There's not probably not one black student that went to
Speaker 6: Vanderbilt doing those four years that I was there.
Speaker 3: That don't know who I was.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so after that, like I said, I was
Speaker 6: twenty when I graduated. I wasn't even old enough to
Speaker 6: have a drink. When I went to college, I didn't
Speaker 6: even have my driver's license. My friends taught me how
Speaker 6: to drive. I literally got my driver's license the week
Speaker 6: after I graduated from from college. But and so after that,
Speaker 6: and so then I also got my daughter as well.
Speaker 6: So you know, it's like, now it was time to
Speaker 6: be a mother and decide what I was gonna do,
Speaker 6: and you.
Speaker 3: Know, all of these different things.
Speaker 6: And so immediately after that, my great grandmother she had
Speaker 6: always you know, kind of talked about and you know,
Speaker 6: her financial advisor.
Speaker 3: You know, and she was always the one.
Speaker 6: In the family who had, you know, the most money,
Speaker 6: and you know, she was always talking about her assets
Speaker 6: and kicking people out the wheel and who she was
Speaker 6: going to lead this to and lead that to. And
Speaker 6: so this financial advisor was somebody she kind of put
Speaker 6: on the pedestal. And so I kind of said to myself,
Speaker 6: but maybe that's something, you know that I.
Speaker 3: Should get into.
Speaker 6: You know, my degree was in economics, and so you know,
Speaker 6: I was just like, Okay, let me check that out
Speaker 6: and so, you know, to be a financial advisor, you
Speaker 6: have to get your Series seven sixty six licenses and
Speaker 6: your life and health insurance licenses. And so during the
Speaker 6: time that I was studying for those licenses, I ended
Speaker 6: up working at a very popular club in Nashville that
Speaker 6: was owned by It was just like kind of one guy,
Speaker 6: his name was Moe, who owned a lot of the
Speaker 6: you know, lounges.
Speaker 3: And clubs there.
Speaker 6: And so I kind of said to myself, I said,
Speaker 6: I said self, I said, you know, you should work
Speaker 6: in this, you know, this club lounge environment, because you're
Speaker 6: never going to be in an environment like this ever.
Speaker 6: Again a little did I know that I would end
Speaker 6: up owning you know, several of them myself, decades going
Speaker 6: down the line or whatnot. But anyway, so I worked there,
Speaker 6: and I just felt like I was always you know,
Speaker 6: going to Vanderbilt. You know, you think that you're going
Speaker 6: to be in this corporate, you know, lifestyle. Most of
Speaker 6: my friends that I went to school with, everybody was going.
Speaker 3: To graduate school except for me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: They they all had kind of come from two parent
Speaker 6: households and their lives were planned out, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. They knew coming into their freshman year that
Speaker 6: I'm going to law school after this. You know, I'm
Speaker 6: going to doctor at school after this, or I'm going
Speaker 6: to get my PhD. Or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 6: So for me, you know, I had already had a child,
Speaker 6: and you know that I didn't grow up like that,
Speaker 6: So it was just like just for me, graduating from
Speaker 6: Vanderbilt was kind of.
Speaker 3: Enough, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So anyways, ended up once I ended up working there,
Speaker 6: once I got my licenses, I transitioned into this corporate
Speaker 6: lifestyle and uh was basically, you know, had to dress up,
Speaker 6: wear suit to work every day.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget. I hate I HAE got my nose
Speaker 3: pierced in college. And the guy was the white guy.
Speaker 6: In the name of the company it was American Express
Speaker 6: Financial Advisors.
Speaker 3: So they were super uppity.
Speaker 6: And so I remember the very first day, you know,
Speaker 6: I walked in and you know, I'm thinking, I'm looking
Speaker 6: good and I'm in my you know, I was, I
Speaker 6: was dressed real feminine back then, you know.
Speaker 3: So I'm in a little.
Speaker 6: Nice little blazer skirt and stuff, and you know, he
Speaker 6: walk in and you know, he's.
Speaker 4: Like and immediately made me.
Speaker 2: Take that thing out I don't.
Speaker 6: And so so anyways, I did end up enjoying that
Speaker 6: experience because it taught me a lot. It taught me
Speaker 6: a lot about finances, It taught me a lot about
Speaker 6: the stock market. It taught me the importance in saving
Speaker 6: a lot of like the basic financial principles that I
Speaker 6: used to this day. That that has helped me get
Speaker 6: to where it is that I am. And I was
Speaker 6: very successful in doing it, you know. So they that
Speaker 6: was kind of a career that was more so independence.
Speaker 6: You know, you really didn't necessarily have to clock, and
Speaker 6: you did kind of have to come in at a
Speaker 6: certain time, but you really kind of made your own
Speaker 6: schedule and had your clients and different things of that nature.
Speaker 3: And so I was becoming very successful at that.
Speaker 6: But they ended up closing that particular office in Nashville,
Speaker 6: and so when they did that, we had the opportunity
Speaker 6: to either stay to either stay with the company moved
Speaker 6: somewhere else, or to open up your own, you know, office.
Speaker 6: And so at the time I was also working on
Speaker 6: getting I had started invested in real estate, and so
Speaker 6: there was a guy, a black guy that I'm really
Speaker 6: close with to this day. He was probably about I mean,
Speaker 6: if I was twenty one at the time, he was
Speaker 6: probably maybe thirty four or something like that. But anyway,
Speaker 6: he was very real known. He had bought up a
Speaker 6: lot of property in Nashville and things of that nature.
Speaker 6: And so somebody had put me in touch with him,
Speaker 6: and they was like, you know, you should go work
Speaker 6: with him, you know, in his office. You know, he'll
Speaker 6: really help mentor you and things of that nature. Shout
Speaker 6: out to Lee Mallette, and so I ended up going
Speaker 6: and working with him. His wife was a dentist. She
Speaker 6: had a dentist practice right below us. And so he
Speaker 6: ended up encouraging me to get my real estate license,
Speaker 6: and then he actually let me, him and his wife
Speaker 6: let me sell their like two million dollar home, you know.
Speaker 2: And so anyway that that's your first deal.
Speaker 6: That was my very first deal, and so that gave
Speaker 6: me a nice chunk of money. I ended up, you know,
Speaker 6: furthering myself into that. And then so I was doing
Speaker 6: a financial advice and I was doing a real estate.
Speaker 6: This is around two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine,
Speaker 6: where you know, you got this stock market crash where
Speaker 6: those are like kind of two of the worst industries
Speaker 6: to be in at that time. And then also at
Speaker 6: that time in my personal life, I had kind of
Speaker 6: got like my first girlfriend that I really actually cared about,
Speaker 6: and she had a very very wild side to her.
Speaker 6: Shout out to the Scorpios, but she had a very
Speaker 6: wow side to her.
Speaker 3: And it it kind of brought out a lot.
Speaker 6: Of that college you know, that college snoop if you
Speaker 6: and Yo and so her and I. At the time,
Speaker 6: you know, so I was making money, I was doing well,
Speaker 6: and so I said to myself, you know, I need to,
Speaker 6: like the three people that I spend the most time with,
Speaker 6: I should be making money with them. And so, of
Speaker 6: course the main one was her. She was modeling and
Speaker 6: different things of that nature. And so I said, you know,
Speaker 6: I was like, you know, we should do a calendar together.
Speaker 6: You know, we should get twelve of the hottest women
Speaker 6: in Nashville.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you, that was hard to find.
Speaker 4: I'm like, to Nashville.
Speaker 2: We got some people in Nashville. Yeah, yeah, shout our
Speaker 2: voice and the Huskies.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, Clinton, Yeah, Clinton, those are That's that's
Speaker 6: our feeling. But yeah, so I was like, you know,
Speaker 6: we should do this calendar and so we did. I'm
Speaker 6: the type of person that like, if I can dream it,
Speaker 6: I can make it come true, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And so we did this calendar.
Speaker 6: We called it, uh we named the Wet Dimes and
Speaker 6: the Key, and so the models were called the Wet Dimes.
Speaker 6: And so first I formed a model management company and
Speaker 6: I had all of the girls that were in the
Speaker 6: calendar signed to my management company.
Speaker 3: And then so we did this calendar.
Speaker 6: We produced it, and you know, I think we our
Speaker 6: first batch was maybe like five thousand calendars, and so
Speaker 6: the calendar came out nice and everything, and so then
Speaker 6: it was like, okay, well.
Speaker 4: How much would you say? How much it was on
Speaker 4: the calendar? Forty dollars?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And then now we also did it behind the scenes DVDs.
Speaker 6: So we got really wild while we were calendar. Always
Speaker 6: a lot of alcohol around and a few other things,
Speaker 6: and so we filmed everything that was happening, and so
Speaker 6: we also had the DVD. I think the DVD was
Speaker 6: twenty five and so then it was just like, okay, well,
Speaker 6: how do we get this off the ground. You know,
Speaker 6: we gotta now, we gotta sell them, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. I invested all this money into this calendar.
Speaker 2: How much was the investment into the calendar?
Speaker 6: And so I would say I probably spent about seven
Speaker 6: thousand dollars into this project. Now, mind you, I was
Speaker 6: still a financial advisor in real estate, but at this time, child,
Speaker 6: I'm no longer interested.
Speaker 2: In This is now snoo This is full blown stoop.
Speaker 6: Now this is full of blown snoop. This is two
Speaker 6: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. Ain't nobody trying
Speaker 6: to invest with me? People are losing their houses like that. Also,
Speaker 6: at the time, I had also owned six investment properties
Speaker 6: that's probably about twenty three, you know, and I own
Speaker 6: the house that I was living as a really nice
Speaker 6: house on the golf course. So I had definitely, you know,
Speaker 6: made a small success for myself that I would end
Speaker 6: up losing everything.
Speaker 3: Very shortly thereafter.
Speaker 6: So we did this calendar, and so then it was like, okay,
Speaker 6: now we have to push it. So then I decided, okay,
Speaker 6: well what we'll do is I'll start We'll start promoting
Speaker 6: nights at different venues and I'll have the wet Nimes hosts,
Speaker 6: the girls always bring everybody to the party, and then
Speaker 6: I'll have them in there selling the calendars, and so
Speaker 6: that's what we did, and that was how I became
Speaker 6: a promoter and started to get into the hospitality industry
Speaker 6: and see the behind the scenes of the hospitality industry.
Speaker 6: And so I'm always the type of person like I
Speaker 6: want to be at the top, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: So it was like, Okay, I'm the promoter, but you know,
Speaker 6: I'm always having these conversations with the lounge owner or
Speaker 6: the club owner, and so that kind of made me
Speaker 6: want to know what it was like, you know, to
Speaker 6: be an owner. And so I ended up shortly thereafter
Speaker 6: opening up my first spot in Nashville at the age
Speaker 6: of twenty four.
Speaker 3: It was called the G Spot. I actually have it
Speaker 3: tattooed on my neck.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: That was how I lost all of my money because
Speaker 6: number one, you know, the club, we just we didn't
Speaker 6: do it right. I didn't know anything about doing venues
Speaker 6: at the time. The people that I was working with
Speaker 6: for kind of crooks, apparently they didn't know anything yet.
Speaker 5: So like when you say you didn't do it right,
Speaker 5: because we haven't really covered the night life yet, like
Speaker 5: we interviewed, shout out to Kenny Burns.
Speaker 4: That's our.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, but as far as we have an
Speaker 5: interviewed a club owner, Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 6: I didn't have like the right licenses a license. Yeah,
Speaker 6: we pretty much. I just opened up the door.
Speaker 4: On some ghetto like we're open.
Speaker 2: Initially that was like the dream, right, It was like, yo,
Speaker 2: I want to get into this life. Yes, right, So
Speaker 2: like now the wet dimes that the club thing. Did
Speaker 2: that become a tour or like because I was trying
Speaker 2: that out?
Speaker 3: We did? We did.
Speaker 6: We went to various cities and went to Birmingham, we
Speaker 6: came here to Atlanta, so we also went to other places.
Speaker 3: And what we would do is put up to.
Speaker 6: The strip clubs like in the parking lots and stuff
Speaker 6: like that and get the calendars off. And I would
Speaker 6: always take my girlfriend and maybe a couple of other models.
Speaker 6: I used to these models come to my house three
Speaker 6: days a week. They had to work out. Some of
Speaker 6: them lived with us.
Speaker 3: I mean those was the days. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So anyways, ended up doing my first spot with some
Speaker 6: people that just you know, were not good business people.
Speaker 6: I didn't have good business practices. At the same time,
Speaker 6: myself wasn't as familiar with you know, the licenses and
Speaker 6: the requirements and things of that nature that were required
Speaker 6: to be legally open.
Speaker 3: And Asheville at the.
Speaker 6: Time was not a city either that promoted black businesses,
Speaker 6: especially not the way that Atlanta does. So I ended
Speaker 6: up losing my entire investment and that spot was shut
Speaker 6: down within about two months.
Speaker 2: About how much money we lost.
Speaker 3: I lost forty thousand dollars also at the same time.
Speaker 6: So remember I was telling you I had all these
Speaker 6: little rental properties and stuff. Well, a lot of the
Speaker 6: people that were in those rental properties they couldn't pay
Speaker 6: their rent and things of that nature. So I had
Speaker 6: like one last property and I ended up turning that
Speaker 6: into a spot called the Kitty Cabin.
Speaker 3: I don't know if y'all read about that.
Speaker 2: I did not.
Speaker 3: I did not, But I actually did that with my homegirl.
Speaker 6: She don't mind if I talk about it, but her
Speaker 6: name is Brooklyn Tanker. She was on that reality show,
Speaker 6: her whole family, the Tankards.
Speaker 3: On one VH one. But we did that together, and.
Speaker 6: That was a spot where we would have like girls
Speaker 6: dance and kind of do a few other things. And
Speaker 6: so that's why I got shut down. The time door
Speaker 6: was kicked in, and so it was a lot man
Speaker 6: it was a lot that I went through. And so
Speaker 6: after that, you know, both of my sources of income
Speaker 6: was shut down. Of course, the lady I was dealing
Speaker 6: with was gone by the enshall. I'm dried up, I
Speaker 6: ain't got no money, that isn't going right.
Speaker 3: And so exactly.
Speaker 6: And so at that point it was kind of like,
Speaker 6: you know, what am I going to do? And so,
Speaker 6: you know, to be honest with you, I kind of
Speaker 6: went back to something that I knew they kind of
Speaker 6: helped me get through different times, which was, you know,
Speaker 6: being in the streets myself selling drugs things of that nature.
Speaker 6: And once I had kind of hustled up on a
Speaker 6: little bit of money, I had met some guys that
Speaker 6: had an idea, had kind of put me on an idea,
Speaker 6: which was these mugshot newspapers that were very popular at
Speaker 6: the time. So I don't know if you guys had
Speaker 6: seen them, but they were those newspapers that used to
Speaker 6: sit on the counter and the gas stations. They'd be
Speaker 6: right up there, and they came out weekly and they
Speaker 6: had mudshots of people that had been arrested, and they
Speaker 6: were like, you know, we should do something like this.
Speaker 2: And so my story is so long, this is, this
Speaker 2: is this is the face it.
Speaker 6: So came up with face It with a guy that
Speaker 6: I was associates with at the time.
Speaker 3: He was from Detroit.
Speaker 6: And when I tell you, a lot of people from
Speaker 6: Detroit are crooks, and I.
Speaker 3: Can say that because I.
Speaker 6: Am from Detroit, and you know, a lot of them
Speaker 6: are just super slick. And so anyway, this guy we
Speaker 6: had got this little paper off the ground, didn't take
Speaker 6: us no time to get it going, and I mean
Speaker 6: he was so excited. He had never had his own
Speaker 6: business before. And when I tell you, the MF just
Speaker 6: started stealing out the gate.
Speaker 3: I mean like it was just like, could not trust him.
Speaker 6: Because what we did was we would have somebody put
Speaker 6: the publication together, it would come out, and then you
Speaker 6: have to go to the stores and collect your money.
Speaker 6: So of course, like if I'm not right there with him,
Speaker 6: you know, he doesn't necessarily have to be honest. Then
Speaker 6: he started changing the banking password and information and stuff
Speaker 6: like that, and so almost immediately I was just like,
Speaker 6: you know what.
Speaker 3: You can have this.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm not no amount of money is you
Speaker 6: know my piece? I'm not about to be fighting with
Speaker 6: you daily. You know, at first I kind of came
Speaker 6: to him with tears in my eyes, like, you know,
Speaker 6: like dude, please don't do this, Like this can be
Speaker 6: a big business together, you know, like I have a
Speaker 6: daughter to feed. You know, I was only when they
Speaker 6: had kids at the time. I'm like, I got a
Speaker 6: daughter to feed. Like, you know, I'm really putting in
Speaker 6: a lot.
Speaker 2: Are you the business business mind behind these ventures? Because
Speaker 2: I'm thinking like this right, so, like you're the one
Speaker 2: creating the LLC everything. So even a publication, that's something
Speaker 2: that we've never spoke about before. How what's the process
Speaker 2: of even doing that? Like what's the startup course to
Speaker 2: even do it?
Speaker 3: It's not a really big startup costs.
Speaker 6: You know, the main thing that you're going to pay
Speaker 6: for outside of setting up the business, it's going to
Speaker 6: be actually having a publication printed. So that's you know,
Speaker 6: really your main costs. You know, I would say we
Speaker 6: probably got that in mind. You I pay for all
Speaker 6: of it because I was the one in the money
Speaker 6: with the money. I was in the streets, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying. So I think we probably get that
Speaker 6: going with maybe just like five thousand dollars. So I left,
Speaker 6: I totally I let him have it. I left left it,
Speaker 6: let him have faced It. I started researching, Okay, where's
Speaker 6: another city I can put me money in, and so
Speaker 6: then I went to Knoxville and I started caught up
Speaker 6: in Knoxville, and that ended up being very successful. Then
Speaker 6: I went to Western Kentucky. I done another edition there.
Speaker 6: I went to South Florida.
Speaker 3: I done it.
Speaker 6: Not South Florida, North Florida. I'm sorry, Tallahassee, Saint Petersburg.
Speaker 2: Caught up different from from face It.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's the same idea, but it's a different publication
Speaker 6: because remember I let old boy.
Speaker 2: You can have it, Okay, gotcha?
Speaker 3: So I had an audition.
Speaker 6: So I ended up having five different editions, and then
Speaker 6: ended up moving here to Atlanta, Georgia, and doing it
Speaker 6: here in Atlanta as well, changing.
Speaker 3: And so and so.
Speaker 6: Anyways, it was doing okay, but it just it never
Speaker 6: made me a lot of money.
Speaker 3: You know. I never made more.
Speaker 6: Than like sixty thousand dollars a year, you know, doing
Speaker 6: this paper. But I also really didn't have to do much,
Speaker 6: you know, I maybe worked two or three days, you know,
Speaker 6: out of the week. And so how I ended up
Speaker 6: getting out of that is there was a white guy
Speaker 6: that was up under me that I had. It's kind
Speaker 6: of the face of the company, you know, because you
Speaker 6: got these funky jewelry towns and stuff. You know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. That there's gonna be some stores that he
Speaker 6: can get in that they won't let me.
Speaker 4: And you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So he basically ended up turning on me. You know,
Speaker 6: he wanted to do a paper hisself. You know, I
Speaker 6: never knew it, but there was something he had wanted
Speaker 6: me to.
Speaker 3: Change the name of mine too.
Speaker 6: I guess he thought that it would make it more commercial,
Speaker 6: you know. And so long story short, there was one week.
Speaker 6: It was after I moved here, and there was just
Speaker 6: one week where like all of my employees quit on me.
Speaker 3: And one week, you know.
Speaker 6: So it was like Monday, the graphic designer Tuesday, a
Speaker 6: couple of the managers Wednesday, the people that lay the
Speaker 6: paper out Thursday, the people that delivered the paper and
Speaker 6: didn come Friday.
Speaker 3: You know, this manager he quits.
Speaker 2: So you leave Tennessee to come to Atlanta. Within the week,
Speaker 2: everybody in Tennessee has left you.
Speaker 6: Now within a week, I would say this was probably,
Speaker 6: I believe within like the first.
Speaker 3: Six months of me being here.
Speaker 6: So then I go there that following week to see
Speaker 6: what's going on. You know, of course I have no
Speaker 6: staff at this point, so I have to go and
Speaker 6: do everything myself and also see like, wow, all these
Speaker 6: people in Clinton, what's going on. I going to the
Speaker 6: first store, and of course I see a mine ain't
Speaker 6: even on the shelf. No more, they done took mine
Speaker 6: off the shelf. I don't know what he didn tell now,
Speaker 6: but it's another new paper with this same name that
Speaker 6: he wanted me to name mine. And of course he
Speaker 6: had my list of stores when I was paying him
Speaker 6: to carry the paper, so he was able to come
Speaker 6: in and undercut me. And so I ended up just
Speaker 6: letting them have it because there was just no way
Speaker 6: I could beat him in that city, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean.
Speaker 3: I wasn't about to move there. I didn't.
Speaker 6: I was starting to grow to really become in love
Speaker 6: with the city of Atlanta and wanting to kind of
Speaker 6: get into some different things here and so, and especially
Speaker 6: like I said, I wasn't even making more than like
Speaker 6: fifty five or sixty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 3: So I ended up letting him have it.
Speaker 6: And after that I ended up starting my party bus
Speaker 6: company with the girl that I was dating at the time.
Speaker 3: We started a party bus company together.
Speaker 6: It was super successful, but I hated it, just like
Speaker 6: I hated I didn't like that paper because I was
Speaker 6: somebody who had been arrested in different things of that
Speaker 6: nature myself. So I never even like felt comfortable telling
Speaker 6: people what I did for a living, because you know,
Speaker 6: it's just like I could be in this ship myself.
Speaker 2: You could on the cover of the papers. I'm listening
Speaker 2: to the story, right, and even when I was reading
Speaker 2: the story, I'm like, you face betrayal once, right and
Speaker 2: still recovered, came back. You faced it again and still
Speaker 2: came back. Like what what was it that inside of you?
Speaker 2: That was just like, you know what, I gotta keep
Speaker 2: going because like I can imagine that too.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, what you're gonna do, lay
Speaker 6: down and die, you know what I mean? Like you
Speaker 6: know cause if you quit, then you know you know
Speaker 6: where you're gonna end that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: So it's just like you have no choice but to
Speaker 6: keep going. And I had always been inspired by just
Speaker 6: different people successful stories. There used to be a show
Speaker 6: back in the day call behind the music that I.
Speaker 2: Just it's okay, yeah, we know that.
Speaker 6: And so all of these super successful people that you know,
Speaker 6: everybody is inspired by, they have a story. Everybody that
Speaker 6: is successful has been through these things.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: Nobody just has this perfect story, you know, unless you
Speaker 6: know you are genetically and blessed. Genetically blessed. And what
Speaker 6: I mean by that is, you know, you're born into
Speaker 6: being Michael Jackson's kids, or born into being Beyonce's kids
Speaker 6: or something like that. But you know the rest of
Speaker 6: us have had to really work to get where we are.
Speaker 6: And you know, you're gonna go through some things, you
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying, And I feel like the more
Speaker 6: that you go through it prepares you for the level
Speaker 6: of success. You know that God is going to allow
Speaker 6: you to make it too. And I've been through even
Speaker 6: more things than those, you know, even as being successful.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: I've had people that work for me to try to
Speaker 6: get my trade secrets, you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 6: know that you know, they're just gonna try to open
Speaker 6: up their own restaurants, stealing reservations lists and menus, different
Speaker 6: things of that nature.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So those things continue to happen now now as often,
Speaker 6: you know, because I truly have like a great team
Speaker 6: around me now, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But that type of stuff is just a part of
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 6: You know. In my younger years, it didn't feel well
Speaker 6: and I took some hits, and you know, I was
Speaker 6: discouraged and probably kind of went through some lightweight depressions
Speaker 6: and stuff like that, because after that newspaper thing, I
Speaker 6: really did not know what I was gonna do. I
Speaker 6: was in that same girlfriend's boutique. My daughter was outside
Speaker 6: selling bottled waters. I was inside selling five dollars smoothies.
Speaker 6: And now I have a restaurant on that same street
Speaker 6: right down the street, you know what I'm saying. It
Speaker 6: just really didn't know I had made some T shirts
Speaker 6: and selling those, you know what I mean. It just
Speaker 6: really did not know what I was going to do next.
Speaker 6: And you know, the Nika time I had a house,
Speaker 6: I was flipping that seld and we ended up buying
Speaker 6: a party bus, and that that was the first business
Speaker 6: that I ever owned that made that grow over six figures,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, party bus, And so it
Speaker 6: was called party bus kings based here in Atlanta. A
Speaker 6: lot of people kind of met me from that first
Speaker 6: original business. But I always wanted to get back into
Speaker 6: you know, promoting or owning my own you.
Speaker 3: Know, lounge or something like that.
Speaker 6: So with that party bus company, I just started saving
Speaker 6: as much money as I possibly could.
Speaker 3: I went one whole year and I never.
Speaker 6: Bought a new nothing, a new shirt, a new pair
Speaker 6: of pants, a new pair of shoes.
Speaker 3: I mean, I felt totally poor.
Speaker 4: You know how much did you say?
Speaker 3: I had a whole different Virginia.
Speaker 6: Probably that first year, I probably saved about forty thousand dollars,
Speaker 6: and so I had that. I stayed glueding to that
Speaker 6: party bus business for about two years. I used to
Speaker 6: drive the buses myself on the weekiands gave up a
Speaker 6: lot of weekends to do that got to the point
Speaker 6: I hated drunk people. But after that, you know, I
Speaker 6: was blessed enough to I had moved to right around
Speaker 6: the corner from here Arborn Avenue and Jesse Hill, and
Speaker 6: there was a little spot that was available that I
Speaker 6: eventually leased, and I turned that into the Hookah Hideaway.
Speaker 6: So that was my first project here, and it was
Speaker 6: a cornerstone of Atlanta.
Speaker 3: It was one of really one of the.
Speaker 6: First real after hours you know here in the city
Speaker 6: of Atlanta. And so I did Huka Hidaway. And while
Speaker 6: I did Huka Hideaway, I got a lot of success there,
Speaker 6: and I decided I wanted to do another location. I
Speaker 6: ended up doing Posh Ultra Lounge and making experienced a
Speaker 6: similar situation of backstabbers and things you knows nature uh
Speaker 6: huh again. But at the same time, I also was
Speaker 6: looking for a spot here in Atlanta. So I was
Speaker 6: looking for a location here in Atlanta. And when I
Speaker 6: first moved here, I was enamored by the street, Peter Street,
Speaker 6: because it was right there in Casterlebury Hill, and coming
Speaker 6: from Nashville, I really wasn't used to seeing like a
Speaker 6: lot of black owned restaurants and bars right next to
Speaker 6: each other. So this was a street of black owned
Speaker 6: restaurants and bars and that had good walk up traffic
Speaker 6: and things of that nature, and so I really wanted
Speaker 6: to own something over there. So I went and looked
Speaker 6: for a spot over there. And while I was there,
Speaker 6: so I applied for a spot and a couple of
Speaker 6: days later I had a trip to Jamaica. So I
Speaker 6: went on this trip to Jamaica. Long story short. When
Speaker 6: I come back, I'm going through customs and a custom
Speaker 6: officer comes up to me and kind of like grabs
Speaker 6: me by the army was like are you mi?
Speaker 3: Shehall Dillard.
Speaker 6: I'm like yeah, And this was only maybe like my
Speaker 6: second or third time even going out out the country.
Speaker 3: So I'm just like, what is this about?
Speaker 6: So anyway, it takes me to the back, tells me
Speaker 6: there's a warrant from o arrest in Nashville, Tennessee. And
Speaker 6: so he's like, you know, do you know what this
Speaker 6: can be about? And I'm just like no, not at all.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I mean, I did used to live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 6: And he's like, you know, well, there's this printing company
Speaker 6: that has a now so when this newspaper shut down,
Speaker 6: you know, they didn't put the last the money that
Speaker 6: was collected into my account, and so the check that
Speaker 6: I had wrote that printing company and ended up bouncing
Speaker 6: at the time, I didn't have money to cover it.
Speaker 6: That I des I just go on with life. I
Speaker 6: figure it's fine. But you know, white people they don't
Speaker 6: play upout they they had filed or warn't for me,
Speaker 6: and they was They was like this girls gonna We're
Speaker 6: gonna get her one day. So anyways, I ended up
Speaker 6: going to Clayton County Jail and I was there on
Speaker 6: no bond. They were waiting to see if Nashville wanted
Speaker 6: to come pick me up, and they said that they did,
Speaker 6: and so I stayed in that jail for about two
Speaker 6: and a half weeks waiting on them to extradket me
Speaker 6: to Nashville, Tennessee. So at the same time, I'm still
Speaker 6: trying to check on business affairs because mind you, I
Speaker 6: still down the Hookah hadaway at this time, I'm still
Speaker 6: in process of new and posh Ultra lounge and invested
Speaker 6: in that spot. And I've also, you know, had put
Speaker 6: in an application to get a spot on Peter Street.
Speaker 6: So I ended up calling that realtor one day. He
Speaker 6: has no idea I'm calling him from jail, and so
Speaker 6: he didn't even hear the story until I told it
Speaker 6: in an interview two chains as well. And so anyway,
Speaker 6: I called him and I'm like, hey, you know, I'm
Speaker 6: just calling a check on that spot.
Speaker 3: You know, and he was just like, you know, well,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately that when they don't really want another lounge, you know,
Speaker 6: in that location. He was like, you know, but there's
Speaker 6: another location right down the street. He was like, you know,
Speaker 6: it's not really right there, you know, right by that
Speaker 6: other stuff that you wanted to be at. But he
Speaker 6: was like, you know, it's right down the street. It's
Speaker 6: a nice location. He was like, you know, and it's
Speaker 6: actually owned by a popular rapper. You know that's you know,
Speaker 6: from here in Atlanta. And you know, he said that
Speaker 6: he heard about you, he knows about the who the Hideaway,
Speaker 6: and he's interested in going into business and being business.
Speaker 3: Partners with you. And I was just like, I'm like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, now, you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 3: know that. And so I was just like, well, who
Speaker 3: is it?
Speaker 6: Cause you know, to me, just because you say it's
Speaker 6: a popular rapper, it doesn't mean I want to do
Speaker 6: business with him, because you know, some people aren't smart,
Speaker 6: they aren't good business people whatever.
Speaker 3: And so I'm like who is it? And he was
Speaker 3: like two chains? And I was like okay.
Speaker 6: You know, because when I had moved here, I really
Speaker 6: liked his music and I felt like he was intelligent,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So I was just like, okay, how much the sounded that.
Speaker 2: This is the phone call from jail.
Speaker 3: I'm in jail, and so that's crazy.
Speaker 6: Shortly thereafter, it's time for me to go back up
Speaker 6: to my little cell, and I remember telling my salemate,
Speaker 6: who I'm cool with to this day, I was just
Speaker 6: like Grandma's to open up a spot with two And
Speaker 6: I know she probably didn't believe me because I'm Marvin's
Speaker 6: doing one of them, that I own a spot card
Speaker 6: the Hook Highway and all this, and you know, people
Speaker 6: be lying in.
Speaker 2: Jail, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So anyways, I ended up being extra dighted. They picked
Speaker 6: me up like a couple of days later, give me
Speaker 6: to Nashville. Once I get to Nashville, all of the
Speaker 6: charges are mysteriously jobed dropped. So I just sat in
Speaker 6: this jail cell for two and a half weeks for nothing,
Speaker 6: after riding a paddy wagon like this, chained up at
Speaker 6: my arms and my to the floorboard and right and
Speaker 6: so get up there. They dropped the charges and so
Speaker 6: I immediately go back to Atlanta that same day, and
Speaker 6: two days later I met with two chains at so
Speaker 6: they had the bet awards. He flew back and the
Speaker 6: following day we met at the Hookah Hideaway, and I
Speaker 6: remember like that whole night I couldn't even really like sleep,
Speaker 6: and I really just meant like starstruck or nothing like that.
Speaker 6: But I knew that like if we ended up doing
Speaker 6: this spot, then it would be like life changing for me,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. And so I was already
Speaker 6: doing like really well for myself, but I knew that
Speaker 6: this would get me to, you know, that next level
Speaker 6: of success. So I remember meeting him and like the
Speaker 6: Hookah Hideaway, like it's probably not even as large as
Speaker 6: this one little room.
Speaker 3: It was maybe a thousand square feet.
Speaker 6: So they had a little kitchen that like, you know,
Speaker 6: was using deep fryers, you know, to cook.
Speaker 3: They didn't even have a real kitchen or nothing.
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Speaker 6: I'm like, if you think it's too small. If you
Speaker 6: think it's not you know, commercial enough, you know that.
Speaker 6: I so I just thought of my hand, well, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna just show them the numbers because we was.
Speaker 3: Moving at the trap.
Speaker 2: Jump.
Speaker 6: And so anyway he comes in and we had just
Speaker 6: immediately have a connection. A lot of people kind of
Speaker 6: say that like we acted like he actually caused me
Speaker 6: twin but like a lot of people kind of say
Speaker 6: that we acted like and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: We immediately had a connection.
Speaker 6: And it was like he was trying to sell hisself
Speaker 6: to me, like, yeah, so I got these rappers at
Speaker 6: the time, Fresh rest in Peace, he was alive, you know,
Speaker 6: young Dolf, a couple of other people.
Speaker 3: He was just like, yeah, I got this going on,
Speaker 3: that going on. You know, me and you together, you
Speaker 3: know we're gonna And.
Speaker 6: So he basically just felt like, yeah, if you can
Speaker 6: do forty some thousand a week at this little.
Speaker 3: Spot, ain't no telling what.
Speaker 5: So you was doing forty thousand a week out the
Speaker 5: hookah lounge after hookah, how how was you doing?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 6: Was liquor or liquor and food and we were staying
Speaker 6: up on the six o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3: We used to I mean it used to be like
Speaker 3: a street block party every single week.
Speaker 2: But what's I mean? This is the I feel like
Speaker 2: this is the the mecca of black business, right, But
Speaker 2: what is that process like to even get a lounge? Like?
Speaker 2: What are the things that somebody has to do in
Speaker 2: order to even the first thing that you need to do.
Speaker 6: Is number one, you want to find a dope location.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying that I'm gonna have good
Speaker 6: parking that you don't have to put a lot into
Speaker 6: depending upon your budget.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: Secondly, you have to get a building permit to even
Speaker 6: do whatever construction or whatever you're gonna need to do.
Speaker 6: You've got to get your liquor license. You've got to
Speaker 6: get your food permit. You have to get a business license,
Speaker 6: putting your menu together, staffing funding, you know, all of
Speaker 6: those things. So it's a lot that comes into it.
Speaker 6: And Who Can hide Away is where I really learned
Speaker 6: the tricks of the trade. I would say, who Can
Speaker 6: hide Away? And then that first Escobar because that first
Speaker 6: Escobar was my real first restaurant, and so when we
Speaker 6: first opened, I mean it was super packed and a
Speaker 6: lot of it based off of his name, and you know,
Speaker 6: of course, he doesn't know anything about the restaurant industry
Speaker 6: at all, you know, even still to this day, Like
Speaker 6: he asked me the other day, what was a bar back?
Speaker 6: And he says, you know, he gives me my credit.
Speaker 6: That says, you know, I wouldn't have none of this
Speaker 6: shit if it wasn't for you, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: He knows I could do this without him, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean. You know, his job is to be
Speaker 6: two chains and to promote you know, heavily.
Speaker 3: You know what we have going on.
Speaker 6: But we just came in and just really worked well together.
Speaker 6: The trust is there, the respect is there. And I
Speaker 6: had the time to be able to really learn the
Speaker 6: restaurant industry, to learn how to put a good team together,
Speaker 6: to learn how to value people. Just learning so many things,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, and taking a lot of
Speaker 6: the things that I had learned, a lot of mistakes
Speaker 6: that I had learned in some of those former businesses,
Speaker 6: you know, and put those into what I have today.
Speaker 6: And so fast forward, like you guys said, we've got
Speaker 6: the two Escobar locations. We're about to do Esco Seafood
Speaker 6: on Edge with that right around the corner from here,
Speaker 6: I ended up deciding to close who can hideaway voluntarily?
Speaker 6: So I had a five year lease there and I
Speaker 6: decided not to renew my lease and just closed that
Speaker 6: spot for several different reasons.
Speaker 3: Number One, the area.
Speaker 6: Had a lot of crime. There was a lot of
Speaker 6: crime in that area. It got to the point we
Speaker 6: were just getting such big crowds of people. It kind
Speaker 6: of scared me, you know what I'm saying, especially in
Speaker 6: that crime infested area.
Speaker 3: The spot was really small.
Speaker 6: I had already talked him into doing this spot members only,
Speaker 6: which I knew I wanted to be after hours as well,
Speaker 6: and I felt like would replaced that on more of
Speaker 6: an upscale level. And just you know, sometimes you have
Speaker 6: to know when the gig is up and when it's
Speaker 6: time to walk away from something, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So but yeah, so let me ask you this.
Speaker 5: So we in the day and age of COVID nineteen,
Speaker 5: which you're a serial entrepreneur, but all your business is
Speaker 5: are brick and mortar. Atlanta is different from everywhere else
Speaker 5: in the country because it's still open and nowhere else
Speaker 5: is really open. It's kind of amazing if you think
Speaker 5: about it. But how have you been able to manage
Speaker 5: during COVID like you got any of right, because honestly,
Speaker 5: what I heard from party promoters is that it's actually
Speaker 5: up in like Atlanta, like right, Like the revenue was
Speaker 5: up because everybody's coming from all over the country to
Speaker 5: go party.
Speaker 6: And that is exactly what's happening. We're you know, I
Speaker 6: probably travel every two weeks, you know, so during this
Speaker 6: I've been to Cabo, I've been to Toulone, I've been
Speaker 6: to I just got back yesterday from a trip from
Speaker 6: La and Vegas, and there's no city right now like Atlanta.
Speaker 3: You know, you wouldn't even think we was going through
Speaker 3: a pandemic here. Yeah, see nothing, y'all have my mask,
Speaker 3: but yeah, you know it.
Speaker 6: It makes Atlanta a hot spot. Like I get a
Speaker 6: bunch of friends coming in from Philly tomorrow. So it
Speaker 6: was crazy because when we shut down, you know, I
Speaker 6: was of course very scared and nervous. You know, I
Speaker 6: had never been in a situation where my businesses could
Speaker 6: shut down from anything other than you know, lack of
Speaker 6: whatever on my behalf, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 6: to just be told that and then you don't know
Speaker 6: when you can open a Union. It just was a
Speaker 6: very very scary time. And so then when the governor
Speaker 6: allowed us to open, it was just crazy because I
Speaker 6: felt like it was going to be slow, you know,
Speaker 6: I feel like it would be like a slow start,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. But literally, our cells at
Speaker 6: every location are up by about thirty five to that
Speaker 6: Escobar Downtown location I'm talking about. When we closed, we
Speaker 6: were doing eighty thousand a week. We're doing like one
Speaker 6: hundred and forty thousand a week. Now. We've got so
Speaker 6: many out of a lot of it is out of
Speaker 6: town or you got a lot of Philly, a lot
Speaker 6: of Detroit, a lot of people from Miami are starting
Speaker 6: to come up.
Speaker 3: Miami currently has a curfew now they got to go
Speaker 3: to bed at eight pm.
Speaker 4: Really, that's crazy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So it's people in Atlanta are extremely blessed. You're
Speaker 6: seeing people buying g wagons every other day, you know,
Speaker 6: are jugging, they getting these.
Speaker 3: People, They're getting these fraudulent SBA Long. Yes, the fact
Speaker 3: stimulating this city.
Speaker 6: You know, I think Atlanta is going to be one
Speaker 6: of the only cities that's not gonna, you know, have
Speaker 6: any you know issues, you know, come next year, because
Speaker 6: a lot of these cities are going to be broke,
Speaker 6: you know, next year because a lot of these cities,
Speaker 6: like one of the reasons why Governor Kemp said that
Speaker 6: he opened the state up is because we have so
Speaker 6: many business owners here, and the business owners here pay
Speaker 6: so many so much in taxes, you know, like I
Speaker 6: have to pay back all of the taxes from everything
Speaker 6: that we sell. Then we have three percent alcohol taxes
Speaker 6: that we have to pay, so you know, they taxing.
Speaker 3: Us twice, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: So for restaurants and lounges not to be open, and
Speaker 6: that's where a lot of the money is coming from,
Speaker 6: to pay the roles, to pay the teachers, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, and things of that nature. You know,
Speaker 6: that's really going to hurt a lot of these other cities.
Speaker 3: So it is, really, it is.
Speaker 6: It's just amazing that like this one little city in
Speaker 6: the country. Now I think Houston is also similar, but
Speaker 6: not as many people are traveling to Houston, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, because Atlanta is already a place that
Speaker 6: a lot of people be wanting to come to anyway,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. And then so just the
Speaker 6: fact that we're open like this, and then you have
Speaker 6: so many choices of rest staurants and lounges and things
Speaker 6: like that to go to. We have definitely felt the
Speaker 6: effect of being one of the only cities in the
Speaker 6: country country that's open.
Speaker 2: I feel like when when people watch the news and
Speaker 2: they see Texas the numbers going up, it kind of like,
Speaker 2: we're not going to go to Houston. I have a
Speaker 2: question about this though, because this is a unique place.
Speaker 2: Members only. It's here, but above us is Remedy Sweet Salon.
Speaker 3: Remedy Salon se Sweets.
Speaker 2: So when you were looking for a property, were you
Speaker 2: looking for a multi level or a mixed use property
Speaker 2: to have this vision come to.
Speaker 6: Similar I was only looking for Remedy Salon Sweets just
Speaker 6: to do on my own. I just felt that was
Speaker 6: an easy business model. You're basically like a landlord with that.
Speaker 6: So I have twenty two suites up there, and you know,
Speaker 6: you've got stylists, estheticians, last texts, different things of that nature,
Speaker 6: and they rent out their own suite and they pain rent,
Speaker 6: you know, once a week. And so I was only
Speaker 6: looking for that. And then that same landlord that I
Speaker 6: was on the phone with in jail, he was the
Speaker 6: one that found me that, and then he was like,
Speaker 6: let me show you this spot downstairs.
Speaker 3: You know you may like this. And you know I
Speaker 3: came down here and saw this, and I was just
Speaker 3: like this might be cool.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I hadn't done another lounge in like two years.
Speaker 5: And so that was how I so a couple of questions.
Speaker 5: The nail salon business is a really big business and
Speaker 5: it's been a lot of sweet sweets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's different. So like how it's set up
Speaker 2: is like because I obviously I have a wife and
Speaker 2: a daughter. Is like, there's a bunch of suites that
Speaker 2: have different businesses inside that pay you rent, should have
Speaker 2: their business, the landlord, a bunch of businesses.
Speaker 5: But it's sor right, But it's what exactly is is
Speaker 5: nail salon.
Speaker 6: Is a barbers slash texts instetisician just everything.
Speaker 2: Have a barber shopping there.
Speaker 4: The last how big? How big is the space as.
Speaker 6: Big as this spot is the exact same spot this spot,
Speaker 6: so about thirty four hundred square.
Speaker 5: Feet Okay, So like just like there's a bunch of yeah, okay,
Speaker 5: so that's an interesting model.
Speaker 4: Thinking they have that in New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah they do, they do. Yeah, I was gonna
Speaker 2: say the last check thing is something that's.
Speaker 5: Well, the last chech thing is is is a pandemic
Speaker 5: within itself. Theyre going too far with that, then theyre
Speaker 5: going to business thought mank on their eyes and all that.
Speaker 5: But even with okay, all of that stuff is still
Speaker 5: service based businesses where it's like people, especially black people,
Speaker 5: they get their nails done, they get their eyelashes done,
Speaker 5: they get their haircuts, stuff like that. And for a
Speaker 5: long time, especially the nail industry is run by people
Speaker 5: that's not black, and that's been a big thing. So
Speaker 5: was that part of your decision making, Like you knew
Speaker 5: that you know there was a need for it, and
Speaker 5: did you think being a black business owner did that
Speaker 5: come into play, Like, you know, I might as well
Speaker 5: do it. They might support me more than the alternative.
Speaker 6: The beauty industry is very popular here, so it was
Speaker 6: kind of like a no brainer to me. I was
Speaker 6: really just looking for like some good daytime money that
Speaker 6: would be headache for it, because doing the restaurants is
Speaker 6: very stressful. It's a lot of details. You know, it's
Speaker 6: one of the hardest industries to be in. There's a
Speaker 6: lot of people. You know, your money goes through so
Speaker 6: many hands before it gets to yours. So you've got
Speaker 6: a lot of room for theft there. And there's just
Speaker 6: so many different things you know, that you have to
Speaker 6: you know, like with these restaurants, I literally I probably
Speaker 6: get about two hundred emails a day. We got group me,
Speaker 6: like in this group me right now. I've only been
Speaker 6: sitting here with you guys for this little short period
Speaker 6: of time and I probably have a million messages.
Speaker 4: As you see, that's for the restaurant.
Speaker 3: These are all for the restaurants. Only one. It's this
Speaker 3: one little Remedy Saligne, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So I wanted something that would be some good headache
Speaker 6: free and that girl that manages Remedy Salion Suite, she
Speaker 6: rarely ever caused me, but some good little headache free money.
Speaker 6: I knew that it would be successful because like also,
Speaker 6: like I said, I do those business consultations, So I
Speaker 6: got a lot of people that I've helped do businesses
Speaker 6: and things of that nature. And so a lot of
Speaker 6: the girls that came there, they said they wanted to
Speaker 6: be there so they can kind of be around me.
Speaker 6: I do free business consultations for the sweet owners to help.
Speaker 3: Them improve their businesses.
Speaker 6: But you know, we live in a city where in
Speaker 6: this city, you know, people are really interested in their appearance.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm wanting to things of that next.
Speaker 6: And salon suites have become more and more popular because
Speaker 6: people wanted to get around the salon away from the
Speaker 6: salon model. Like me, Like when I get my hair braided,
Speaker 6: the girl actually comes to my to my house. But
Speaker 6: before I was able to find somebody that would do that.
Speaker 6: I love going to a salon suite because I don't
Speaker 6: like talking to a lot of people when I go
Speaker 6: to the salon, you know, and especially now that I'm
Speaker 6: more well known, you know, people are gonna be asking me.
Speaker 3: A bunch of questions and all of this stuff.
Speaker 6: And then like during these times of COVID, people would
Speaker 6: rather get those services. Then in a salon swite, it's
Speaker 6: just you and that one person versus being around a
Speaker 6: bunch of people in a busy salon.
Speaker 2: Now I'm thinking about it, like you go to one,
Speaker 2: you actually go to a salon suitek regular because Buzz
Speaker 2: has a barbershop, but.
Speaker 5: Because you go to the barbershop on a Saturday and
Speaker 5: it's like a bunch of random people talking about non
Speaker 5: since they're lying and stuff. So me, it's just like
Speaker 5: I don't got time to be waiting, Like you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. Me and my barbera shout out the bubs.
Speaker 5: We got a special relationship. I go to every Thursday,
Speaker 5: nine o'clock in the morning, Give me done, and I'm out,
Speaker 5: like you know what I'm saying. So that's actually but
Speaker 5: it's COVID is actually interesting too because it's like, now
Speaker 5: from a safety standpoint, it's a lot safer to just
Speaker 5: be you and the person that you're dealing with, whether
Speaker 5: it's nails, whatever, as opposed to like five hundred people
Speaker 5: just like just waiting. Well, let me ask you this
Speaker 5: as far as the clubs and the lounges, because Atlanta
Speaker 5: has a bunch of clubs and lounges, and I always
Speaker 5: wonder what makes one club popular over the other club right,
Speaker 5: because it's like so many clubs open and close all
Speaker 5: the time. Obviously, you know it's marketing and you have
Speaker 5: a big name attached to it with change, But in
Speaker 5: your opinion as a club owner, as a lounge owner,
Speaker 5: what separates the elite clubs lounges from the ones that's
Speaker 5: just struggling.
Speaker 3: I think it is number one.
Speaker 6: Like so, like mine are a little bit different, even
Speaker 6: though we have the association with chains.
Speaker 3: Probably that the only one that that really makes a
Speaker 3: difference is that Escobar Downtown location.
Speaker 6: But like I don't base mine off of celebrities and
Speaker 6: different things of that nature. So, like you know, you
Speaker 6: have a lot of these clubs that their main thing
Speaker 6: is they have to book artists, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I never get into that type of stuff.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: I like to provide a good vibe, a good atmosphere,
Speaker 6: in good food, you know, at my establishment.
Speaker 3: So mine are more lounge based versus club based.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: With the clubs, a lot of times they only open
Speaker 6: two three days a week, you know, and you can't
Speaker 6: afford to have no off night, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: But when you up at seven days a week, you
Speaker 6: can afford for one or two nights to be slower,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. So from my spots, people
Speaker 6: primarily come for the food and they come for the vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it. I mean, speaking of the Basketball lounge,
Speaker 2: it's like one of the craziest stories part of your
Speaker 2: stories that I thought was like, Uh, the Basketball family
Speaker 2: is trying to fight you for the name. Huh, Like
Speaker 2: what is that even about?
Speaker 3: Crazy?
Speaker 6: And I think that happened during the pandemic. We were
Speaker 6: on TMZ a lot. We were in the Shaved Room
Speaker 6: a lot. The moment that we decided to open up
Speaker 6: our lounge to open Escobar back up.
Speaker 3: It was a really big deal.
Speaker 6: Two Chains got drugged for it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: just like because you know, a lot of black people
Speaker 6: were kind of like, you know.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, they shouldn't be letting y'all open so soon,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, like they trying to kill
Speaker 3: the black people. He only kimp only doing it because
Speaker 3: he wanted to kill the black people.
Speaker 6: And then you know, we had our mayor shout out
Speaker 6: to our mayor, Keisha Lance Slots.
Speaker 3: Who was very opposed, you know, to the businesses opening.
Speaker 6: She actually contacted us and asked us not to open.
Speaker 6: And you know, so we had already made a decision
Speaker 6: to open, and that was on the Shaved Room. Two
Speaker 6: Chains got a lot of shade for that, and so
Speaker 6: then we decided not to open. We ended up feeding
Speaker 6: the homeless, using the restaurant to feed the homeless for
Speaker 6: a couple of weeks and then we opened back up,
Speaker 6: and so all of this stuff was just detailed, you know,
Speaker 6: on Shade Room and on TMZ, and I think that
Speaker 6: that's what got the attention of the Escobar family.
Speaker 3: And I just think they kind of fishing for something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I read it. I'm like his brother, like what
Speaker 2: this is crazy?
Speaker 3: Apparently, I ain't care. I just went to old Mansion.
Speaker 4: The irony of it, that.
Speaker 6: Article had came out that Friday. I was into loan
Speaker 6: that Monday at this man mansion, kicking it.
Speaker 2: This is a general right here.
Speaker 5: So as far as your business model, like you got
Speaker 5: a bunch of different businesses, do you look to say, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm just I'm good at this, so let's just open
Speaker 5: more lounges, more restaurants, or like, what's your what's your
Speaker 5: strategy to like when you keep opening new businesses?
Speaker 4: Is it kind of like just piggyback off.
Speaker 6: I feel like I have the blueprint down and I
Speaker 6: can continue to do this, you know, as long as
Speaker 6: I pick the right locations. I just feel like it's
Speaker 6: like no stopping me, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 6: because so like, for example, I had originally wanted to
Speaker 6: expand into like the South Florida area, and I'm glad
Speaker 6: that I didn't because now like this is a good
Speaker 6: time to like kind of like look at this pandemic
Speaker 6: and see how various cities you know, are operating. So
Speaker 6: now for me, I would expand to like a Houston
Speaker 6: or something like that. So like if something like this
Speaker 6: ever happened again, you know, I know.
Speaker 2: Like how to move. So I mean, prior you said
Speaker 2: or previously you said that the restaurant businesses a headache
Speaker 2: in itself, So then why over more restaurants?
Speaker 3: Because I love it.
Speaker 6: I make great money, really really good money, more money
Speaker 6: than I ever thought I would make in life. I
Speaker 6: make with most people make in a year in one week,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. So when you're doing something
Speaker 6: like that, you can't help but to continue doing it.
Speaker 6: I continue to find good people and good help. I've
Speaker 6: turned my businesses into a full fledged company, Dealert Hospitality Group.
Speaker 6: I continue to learn how to do things properly in
Speaker 6: the right way, to avoid lawsuits and different things of
Speaker 6: that nature. And I just feel like as long as
Speaker 6: that I have help and I have different people in
Speaker 6: different positions, like I said, I go out of town
Speaker 6: every two weeks, you know what I mean. So, and
Speaker 6: I'm opening three businesses.
Speaker 4: At the same So what's the deal of hospitality group?
Speaker 4: I saw the T shirt.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so that's my hospitality group that pretty much houses
Speaker 6: all of the restaurants. So I have a corporate office. Well,
Speaker 6: shout out to my videographer. She's one of the individuals.
Speaker 6: They are my director of operations who's basically right up
Speaker 6: under me, so he manages the he so the gms,
Speaker 6: they manage.
Speaker 3: The actual restaurant. They manage all of the.
Speaker 6: Employees in the restaurant. My director of operations, he manages
Speaker 6: the GMS, and I managed the director of operations. Some
Speaker 6: of the gms don't even have my telephone number.
Speaker 5: It's interesting because I feel like you're a very interesting
Speaker 5: person because you have a street side, but you also
Speaker 5: have a corporate side as well. Like you went to
Speaker 5: one of the best colleges in America and you actually
Speaker 5: were financial advisor, so obviously you have business like not
Speaker 5: only just street business, but like general business. But then
Speaker 5: you know, you obviously were in the street as well
Speaker 5: for a certain period of time. So be like your
Speaker 5: business minde as you just broke down. I don't really
Speaker 5: think that there's probably too many restaurant tours or club
Speaker 5: owners or promoters or whatever that actually have like a
Speaker 5: board of directors, like like a set corporate instructure like this.
Speaker 3: The white ones.
Speaker 4: But that's what I'm saying. As far as like I mean,
Speaker 4: and a lot of you know, the black ones.
Speaker 6: They really don't want to pay the money, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying. Like I make about eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 6: a week. I could make one hundred dollars thousand dollars
Speaker 6: a week, but guess what, I rather take that eighty
Speaker 6: and have me a life to go live.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. And I enjoy providing opportunities
Speaker 3: for other people.
Speaker 5: So was that something that you came in the game
Speaker 5: right away with that business mindset like, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: have this structure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I always knew that I wanted to once stand who
Speaker 6: could have the way one was successful. I knew that
Speaker 6: I wanted to do more, and I knew that I
Speaker 6: would need more people to help me, and so I
Speaker 6: researched that and found out what positions I would need.
Speaker 6: What's the name of them with their job description is
Speaker 6: and just as I started making more and more money,
Speaker 6: I started replacing myself in different areas because guess what,
Speaker 6: Once upon a time, I was doing all of this
Speaker 6: stuff on my own my phone.
Speaker 3: You see, my phone ain't run.
Speaker 6: I want since open here because that's what don't Nobody
Speaker 6: had my telephone number, so that's the only way they
Speaker 6: can reach me is that group me or email. But
Speaker 6: I was just having this conversation with my girlfriend because
Speaker 6: I had seen y'all standing outside and I was like,
Speaker 6: is that them?
Speaker 3: I was like, why are they standing outside?
Speaker 6: Way?
Speaker 3: Ain't nobody helped them? And so I'm just like, it's
Speaker 3: more there, And so I was just like I was
Speaker 3: on her. I was like, I was like, dang, I
Speaker 3: wish I had more numbers. She was like, baby, you
Speaker 3: ain't getting mom got my telephone numbers.
Speaker 6: But yeah, but if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't
Speaker 6: be able to do things like do these interviews. I
Speaker 6: wouldn't be able to do things like do business consultations.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't be able to be a mother.
Speaker 3: To my daughter.
Speaker 6: You know, I wouldn't be able to be in relationships
Speaker 6: and not be stressed free. But because my phone would
Speaker 6: be ringing off the hook with every issue and problem.
Speaker 5: I think it's important to highlight, especially for black businesses,
Speaker 5: because they said, like COVID nineteen has wiped out fifty
Speaker 5: percent of black businesses across America. It's like a economic
Speaker 5: crisis and a lot of them with brick and mortars.
Speaker 5: But a reason why I think a lot of businesses fail.
Speaker 5: It's a variet of different reasons, but a lot of
Speaker 5: times there's a difference between having a hustle and having
Speaker 5: a business. And it's like you're hustling, you don't really
Speaker 5: have systems in place, and I feel like, you know,
Speaker 5: you like kind of breaking that down explaining that can
Speaker 5: kind of give people some idea that you can't just
Speaker 5: do everything yourself, like you can't be the rest of
Speaker 5: our owner and then wipe the tables and then fry
Speaker 5: the fish, like you know, at first, you gotta do
Speaker 5: what you gotta do. But it's important to reinvest in
Speaker 5: your business. And I'm pretty sure that's one of the
Speaker 5: reasons why your businesses have been successful. It's not just
Speaker 5: because like you said, you know, it's popping and you
Speaker 5: got you know, two chains and you've got the buzz,
Speaker 5: but you got the business structure. Business structure down. So
Speaker 5: can you just kind of just tell people how important
Speaker 5: that is, because, like I said, there's a lot of
Speaker 5: entrepreneurs that listen to.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to have your systems in place.
Speaker 6: And one of the things, you know, my director operations
Speaker 6: one of the things that he brought to the table.
Speaker 6: And it was funny because he was just my publicist
Speaker 6: when I first met him. There was another guy that
Speaker 6: was supposed to be my director operations that kind of
Speaker 6: stabbed me in the back and ran off and opened
Speaker 6: up his own restaurants and stuff. But he came in
Speaker 6: and kind of listened to everything I was saying and
Speaker 6: put it on paper, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 6: now we have job titles and job descriptions all on paper.
Speaker 6: We've got a company manual. So it's just like it's
Speaker 6: so much easier to bring people on, it's so much
Speaker 6: easier to replace people. We know what everybody is supposed
Speaker 6: to be doing with their hours need to be, with
Speaker 6: their pay needs to be you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And so that's another reason why I'm able to open
Speaker 6: up so many businesses at one time.
Speaker 3: You know, even these I did three in one year.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 6: I did, I did Crave, I did this spot in
Speaker 6: Esco South all in the same year, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. And then this year during a pandemic, I'm
Speaker 6: doing two remedies and Esco Seafood. And it's because not
Speaker 6: only do I have all these people on the team,
Speaker 6: but we got these systems in place.
Speaker 3: So it's like everybody know like they already was doing stuff.
Speaker 3: I ain't even told.
Speaker 2: Them the manual.
Speaker 5: So you have a manual like McDonald's, like absolutely, because
Speaker 5: the people don't know that, Like you open a McDonald
Speaker 5: you just can't wing it like they got even how
Speaker 5: you fold the follow the franchise rules.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. How many employees do you have?
Speaker 6: I just did an interview before y'all, and I was
Speaker 6: trying to think about this. I would say, uh, maybe
Speaker 6: about three hundred.
Speaker 4: Three hundred.
Speaker 2: Really it's franchising something you're thinking about in the future. Yeah, good,
Speaker 2: that's all right. So I know that creating the night
Speaker 2: life or the after hours lounge was an old goal
Speaker 2: of yours. What's the new goals?
Speaker 3: My new goals are more like personal goals.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 6: I want to get married, I want to have more kids.
Speaker 6: I'm looking about my dream house between now and the
Speaker 6: end of this year. That's actually a really big mind
Speaker 6: of talking about that. The day he was like, you know,
Speaker 6: that's the only thing you miss and you know it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, your dream house or whatever.
Speaker 3: So I want to do that and.
Speaker 6: Just you know, be able to continue to like have
Speaker 6: opportunities for other people and give back, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. I'm in a place to really be able
Speaker 6: to give back to people and not have to worry
Speaker 6: about how this is going to be paid, how this
Speaker 6: is going to be paid. And for so many years
Speaker 6: that was my life, you know what I mean, a
Speaker 6: lot of us years I couldn't really travel, you know,
Speaker 6: the way that I wanted to because I didn't have
Speaker 6: these systems in place. So a lot of mine is
Speaker 6: more so, you know now focusing on my own personal
Speaker 6: goals because I gave so much of my life to
Speaker 6: you know, opening and running these businesses.
Speaker 2: So I mean, speaking of giving back, I know, I
Speaker 2: don't know if it has it started your own nonprofit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's called Her Impact Foundation, and so we do.
Speaker 6: Like right now, we're doing a backpack drive that's going
Speaker 6: on into.
Speaker 3: The end of the month. We've collected over one hundred.
Speaker 6: Backpacks field with school supplies and different things that nature.
Speaker 6: I'm going to donate some laptops to some schools as well,
Speaker 6: you know, because I know that you know, now they're
Speaker 6: switching to the you know on and you know a
Speaker 6: lot of these kids, you know, they don't have their
Speaker 6: own laptop, you know what I mean, And so some
Speaker 6: of the schools are trying to provide them, and some
Speaker 6: schools have the budget for him, and some don't, especially
Speaker 6: with you know, what they've experienced, you know, with COVID.
Speaker 4: So we do that.
Speaker 3: We feed the homeless all the time.
Speaker 6: We do uh Friendsgiving during Thanksgiving, we do a charity
Speaker 6: during Christmas.
Speaker 3: For my birthday.
Speaker 6: I actually we had to cancel it because my birthday
Speaker 6: is April third, so it was right in the midst
Speaker 6: of this. But I turned thirty five this year, so
Speaker 6: I was going to take thirty five young women upstairs
Speaker 6: and you know, pay for them to be pampered, you know,
Speaker 6: up there. And so I'm always just kind of like
Speaker 6: trying to think a little different things that I can
Speaker 6: do to give back and you know, make my impact.
Speaker 5: That's that's like just being in Atlanta, since we're in Atlanta.
Speaker 5: I want to just speak about this afleet. It's like
Speaker 5: it's different city, like compared to anywhere else, Like we're
Speaker 5: from New York or anybody else anywhere in the country.
Speaker 5: Can you just speak about like how like to me,
Speaker 5: it's encouraging, Like I come to Atlanta and it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is the largest dump truck company owned by a
Speaker 5: black guy, or this every every business is black owned business,
Speaker 5: like you know, for what's your thoughts on the city
Speaker 5: of Atlanta? And yeah, maybe you know, like we were saying, you.
Speaker 6: Know, I'm not originally from here, so I've been living
Speaker 6: here it'll be eleven years, you know, the end of
Speaker 6: this year, and I was I was just you know,
Speaker 6: extremely inspired. You know, like I never had a business
Speaker 6: that made millions of dollars, you know before I moved here,
Speaker 6: and the ones that I had at other than that
Speaker 6: newspaper company, I couldn't even get form legally because of
Speaker 6: you know, some of the racism and things of that nature,
Speaker 6: you know that I was experiencing in the city hall
Speaker 6: and different things of that nature. So to come to
Speaker 6: a city like Atlanta, number one, I had never experienced it.
Speaker 6: Just a city where you know, you're seeing so many
Speaker 6: black people driving luxury vehicles. I wasn't even used to
Speaker 6: even happening to vallet all the time trying to be cheaper.
Speaker 6: Another thing about it is that you know other black people,
Speaker 6: instead of hating on these people are actually inspired, you know,
Speaker 6: like given on my I G I get tons of
Speaker 6: messages daily of just you know, people telling me how
Speaker 6: inspired they are a boy me and different things of
Speaker 6: that nature. And you know, I'm kind of a loud,
Speaker 6: flashy person, so of course every now and again somebody
Speaker 6: is hating or something like that, but you know, you
Speaker 6: really don't give much of that. And a lot of
Speaker 6: the people here that are successful, they really support each other.
Speaker 3: You know, most of us know each other.
Speaker 6: I got one of them group meets right now is
Speaker 6: all of the club owners and restaurant owners. You know,
Speaker 6: we came together at the beginning of this pandemic because
Speaker 6: we didn't really know how we was gonna make it.
Speaker 6: We didn't know it was gonna turn out like this.
Speaker 6: We didn't know they was gonna start giving out money
Speaker 6: like it was applicis.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: I didn't know that, you know the city was going
Speaker 6: to open back up and that we were gonna be okay.
Speaker 6: You know, we still had this group me and help
Speaker 6: each other out, you know what I'm saying. So I
Speaker 6: think that's a big thing. You know, it's a lot
Speaker 6: of inspiration here. There's a lot of events and seminars
Speaker 6: and you know, people that are successful they put together
Speaker 6: you know, like a little different things for people other
Speaker 6: people to be able to come out and learn how
Speaker 6: they can be successful as well. So I never had
Speaker 6: stuff like that in Nashville, never even known of things
Speaker 6: like that in Nashville.
Speaker 3: But here you got stuff like that going on all
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's crazy.
Speaker 5: Like our mutual friend Alex good Energy, so you know,
Speaker 5: him and his whole crew missed two weeks out him
Speaker 5: five hundred shots to all of those guys, and I
Speaker 5: think every week they like Neo Davis, they meet like
Speaker 5: once a weekend. They just shared different ideas And I
Speaker 5: was just telling my friendship more, I'm like, Yo, this
Speaker 5: is dope, like because like.
Speaker 6: A lot of I just paiged five thousand dollars to
Speaker 6: do him five hundreds class next.
Speaker 4: Month, Okay, And I'm like, I don't know, I'm still learning,
Speaker 4: still learn Yeah, but.
Speaker 3: I got money, but he ain't spending he is he
Speaker 3: and it's coret, but.
Speaker 4: It's no man's power. It is power in that.
Speaker 5: And it's like, you know a lot of times, especially
Speaker 5: coming from New York, were like real cynical people where
Speaker 5: it's like.
Speaker 2: No trust herself.
Speaker 4: Trust.
Speaker 2: We really got a New York state of money.
Speaker 5: That's a fact. And even with the music, I could see,
Speaker 5: like I think that's really helped Atlanta. It's like they
Speaker 5: work together, and it's the power in that instead of
Speaker 5: just trying to be cliquish, like trying to find fault
Speaker 5: in what this person is doing, Like, we go a
Speaker 5: lot further if we move as a unit.
Speaker 2: I feel like your legacy is being cemented like this.
Speaker 2: Your story is incredible. Tell me how it feels now
Speaker 2: that your daughter's coming of age and is she interested
Speaker 2: in running these businesses? And how proud of you to
Speaker 2: hand it down to her.
Speaker 3: She's going to do it. I'm extremely proud of that.
Speaker 3: I'm extremely proud of her.
Speaker 6: I'm almost about to like she had a couple of
Speaker 6: two years now, but yeah, because you know, she originally
Speaker 6: kind of wanted to do her own thing, and I
Speaker 6: didn't talk her out of it or anything like that.
Speaker 6: But she started off just having a job doing the
Speaker 6: social media and so just being around and you know,
Speaker 6: of course, like when I come home, my business had
Speaker 6: comes off. So you know, I'm not telling her about nothing.
Speaker 6: And so she didn't even realize like how people looked
Speaker 6: at me or viewed me until she started working for
Speaker 6: me and being in the businesses.
Speaker 3: And now she just even admires me more.
Speaker 6: Of course, you know, she knows that I'm her mother,
Speaker 6: but you know, she realizes like who I am and
Speaker 6: what I've done in the platform that I'm one, And
Speaker 6: you know, she's proud, you know, to wear a Dealer
Speaker 6: Hospitality Group shirt that's her last name, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying, and to have a company that you know
Speaker 6: can be passed down to her you know. So that's
Speaker 6: really that's the best thing about it, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean, that's what you do it for, so that
Speaker 6: this is something that can feed generations to come, you
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. So definitely like extremely proud of that,
Speaker 6: and she's really good you.
Speaker 3: Know at it already.
Speaker 2: She's social media.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she runs all of the social media. It doesn't
Speaker 3: run my personal I'm like.
Speaker 2: I'm like I was on yours.
Speaker 4: The businesses, the business businesses.
Speaker 3: All of the business ones.
Speaker 6: And then she's also started so she just turned twenty,
Speaker 6: but she started doing like learning, you know, some shift
Speaker 6: lead managerial things, close and open the restaurants and different
Speaker 6: things of that nature.
Speaker 5: That's a feeling that I really wish everybody could feel
Speaker 5: at least one time, Like you know, it's just a
Speaker 5: it's a proud feeling as a parent. Like I have
Speaker 5: a son, he's nine, and you know, he played basketball,
Speaker 5: and so we rented a house in La, the whole
Speaker 5: the whole podcast crew, and we had we was in
Speaker 5: our families in La. So I'm trying to work out
Speaker 5: with him, like on his game while we're in La.
Speaker 5: He's like giving me push back, like I don't want
Speaker 5: to work out, dada. So I'm telling I'm like having
Speaker 5: a conversation like you if you want to go to
Speaker 5: the NBA, because they always tell you want to go
Speaker 5: to the NBA. I'm like, you want to go to
Speaker 5: the NBA, you gotta practice every day, like you're not
Speaker 5: just going to get there by accident. So he's like,
Speaker 5: I don't want to go to the NBA anymore. So
Speaker 5: I'm like, all, you don't have to. I'm like, so
Speaker 5: I might, So what do you want to do? He's
Speaker 5: like I want to do what you do. So you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, It's like it's a dope feeling
Speaker 5: and so exactly, I'm like, all right, you get to
Speaker 5: play video games about entrepreneurship and you know, it's dope
Speaker 5: to make money and it's dope. But it's like the
Speaker 5: family legacy is extremely and it's something that you know,
Speaker 5: it's it's one thing like you can't pass a job
Speaker 5: down to your family like you can, but you know,
Speaker 5: it's it's always politics involved. You know, you got a boss,
Speaker 5: so it's like if you are the boss, the sense
Speaker 5: of pride that your children have and you it's a
Speaker 5: little different, you know. So that's something for people to
Speaker 5: think about.
Speaker 2: And our kids, I mean, they're always around each other,
Speaker 2: so like they hear that conversations like my dad is
Speaker 2: on YouTube. It's like a big deal of them. It's
Speaker 2: it's like it makes it really proud because they look
Speaker 2: at Aaron a Lisia like is this and it is
Speaker 2: like we're not working for us when.
Speaker 3: They ask, you know, when people ask them are.
Speaker 5: Exactly yeah, nah, Snoop. That's it's been a pleasure. Anything
Speaker 5: that you would like to make the people aware of
Speaker 5: or let them know what do you have anything going on,
Speaker 5: new business ventures, anything like that.
Speaker 3: Like that talked about the new business ventures.
Speaker 6: But you know, if anybody wants to find me, I'm
Speaker 6: on Instagram and who is Snoop? Like I've mentioned, I
Speaker 6: also during the pandemic, I filmed uh six different courses,
Speaker 6: three of which are free courses. I would highly recommend
Speaker 6: I literally beg people during the pandemic to invest in
Speaker 6: the stock market because a lot of the stocks were down.
Speaker 6: I knew that this was a man made recession and
Speaker 6: that as soon as the economy started to bounce back,
Speaker 6: as it's starting to do that, there would be a
Speaker 6: lot of earnings and so definitely encourage people to, you know,
Speaker 6: invest and just get that knowledge. There's so much knowledge
Speaker 6: out there, and YouTube is definitely one of those places
Speaker 6: to go to. But my course site is courses dot
Speaker 6: Who is snoop dot com My website just to kind
Speaker 6: of hear more about my story, my businesses and the
Speaker 6: things that I have going on is who is snoop
Speaker 6: dot com?
Speaker 3: As well as Dialer Hospitalitygroup dot com.
Speaker 5: What's your what's your We didn't get a chance to
Speaker 5: talk about that is what's your st for stock investing?
Speaker 5: You have a such strategy or so, I'm a long
Speaker 5: term long term by a hole.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't do a lot of the.
Speaker 6: I'll reinvest my dividend. I also have a financial advisor.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, So I have quite a bit of.
Speaker 3: Money, almost a million dollars in the stock market.
Speaker 4: So any particular sector like tech, tech or.
Speaker 6: One thing that I will encourage people to do, Yes,
Speaker 6: tech tech is definitely. Tech is big right now, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Test, Tesler,
Speaker 6: of course, Tesla.
Speaker 3: Those are some of the main ones. But it's a
Speaker 3: lot of other little ones like Gap stock is good
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 4: What else?
Speaker 3: There's a there's a lot of different ones.
Speaker 6: I've done good with a few of the airline stocks,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. Especially for somebody like me
Speaker 6: that's going to buy and hole, not day trading, day traders.
Speaker 3: You have people to do options. You got one of
Speaker 3: my boys.
Speaker 6: I don't know if you guys know, Black Robin Nashville,
Speaker 6: who owns Minerva in the weekend, but.
Speaker 3: He hit me like snoop, you do options. I made
Speaker 3: seventeen grand a day off.
Speaker 4: Options is the way, and.
Speaker 6: So I'm always looking for new things as well, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean. But for somebody like me that's
Speaker 6: as busy as I am, I don't have time to
Speaker 6: sit and do four rex time to sit and do
Speaker 6: day trading. I you know, sometimes have time to look
Speaker 6: up a little different stocks and stuff like that. But
Speaker 6: I utilize my financial financial advisor. But two things tips
Speaker 6: that I do want to get people before I get
Speaker 6: out of here of ways that you can save and invest.
Speaker 6: One of the ways to save that I did is
Speaker 6: number one, cut your debit card up. So a lot
Speaker 6: of times, like when people go out or they go places,
Speaker 6: you know, you get their debit card and you just
Speaker 6: get to swiping, you know what I'm saying. But like
Speaker 6: you go out, you know, go to the ATM, take you,
Speaker 6: you know, one hundred two hundred dollars out the bank.
Speaker 6: I don't know much fun you're trying to have for
Speaker 6: the night. And then once that's over, you ain't got
Speaker 6: your debit card. You have no way to even be
Speaker 6: able to spend more money, you know. So that's that's
Speaker 6: a really big thing, you know, it's the hardest part
Speaker 6: is saving your first one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: But once you do that, it's so much easier.
Speaker 6: You know, you'll see your money continue to accumulate and
Speaker 6: kind of almost get to the point where you're kind
Speaker 6: of obsessed with it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So you know that's that's definitely one thing too.
Speaker 6: On the investment side, one of the ways that I've
Speaker 6: been able to accumulate my portfolio to get as big
Speaker 6: as it has been is that I automatically invest each month,
Speaker 6: and so that's what I call paying myself first. So
Speaker 6: I make sure that it comes immediately out of my
Speaker 6: checking or savings account and goes into my investment account,
Speaker 6: and you know, you get to the point that you know,
Speaker 6: you don't even miss it, you don't even see it.
Speaker 6: Of course, you know you want to do your budget
Speaker 6: first and see what it is that you can afford
Speaker 6: to actually invest. But those are just two things that
Speaker 6: I want to leave y'all with, as well as the other,
Speaker 6: you know, knowledge we just talked about. But thanks for
Speaker 6: having me, guys. I appreciate meeting y'all. I watched a
Speaker 6: couple of the episodes and so it was like earn
Speaker 6: your leader. I normally don't do things on Friday, and
Speaker 6: especially not this late, so I was just like, Man.
Speaker 3: I gotta do that.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Thank you for having appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Man, choice some housekeeping night.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Shot everybody on patreon dot com that is proud
Speaker 2: to pay program. Obviously. You know tear four and five members.
Speaker 2: You have access to e y l University, the number
Speaker 2: one online school in the world. We have our book
Speaker 2: club there that's hosted by myself. We have breaking breat
Speaker 2: sessions with our brother MG, the mortgage guy, and the
Speaker 2: group has just grown.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: A lot of investment tips in there. I know we've
Speaker 2: been driving some gems in the options game. So shout
Speaker 2: everybody that's on there, and shout everybody that's supporting the merch.
Speaker 2: We are going to be dropping some some some really
Speaker 2: cool things in the very near future. Look up.
Speaker 5: Shout out to Atlanta once again. He was doing an
Speaker 5: eighty five South show yesterday. Yeah, the bros. They had
Speaker 5: some jokes. I can't wait for that. Shout out to them, man,
Speaker 5: And yeah, once again, make sure you subscribe like comment
Speaker 5: on Apple, Spotify YouTube. All of that tele a friend
Speaker 5: to tell a friend, and yeah, we will see you
Speaker 5: guys next week.
Speaker 2: Happy birthday to ob brother jamal Man. Happy birthday, Broth,
Speaker 2: Happy birthday Man Atlanta. That's right, we're going to turn
Speaker 2: up tonight, so we need a spot. We don't need
Speaker 2: a spot. We're going to but we talk after this.
Speaker 4: As a fact. We see ya next week.
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