Speaker 1: Pushkin. The other day I drove up from my home
Speaker 1: in Long Beach to a restaurant called Alta and the
Speaker 1: historic West Adams neighborhood of LA. This is a beautiful
Speaker 1: space you have.
Speaker 2: I thank you, thank you. Have you been here?
Speaker 1: I have not?
Speaker 3: I gotta I gotta put you on? Did we get that?
Speaker 2: Great? Were opening with that?
Speaker 3: My apologies, man, you can make here for the interview.
Speaker 1: Keith Corbyn, the man you just heard grilling me, grew
Speaker 1: up about ten miles south of here in another LA
Speaker 1: neighborhood called Watts. In the nineteen eighties. Watts was pretty
Speaker 1: much the epicenter for the War on drugs, and like
Speaker 1: many others growing up in the area, hustling became a
Speaker 1: way of life for Keith. But it was also in
Speaker 1: Watts where through his grandmother, Keith developed a love of cooking,
Speaker 1: and as you'll hear in our interview before becoming the
Speaker 1: trendy restaurant tour he is today, that love of cooking
Speaker 1: saved him when his hustle landed him in prison. This
Speaker 1: is started from the body hard earing success stories from
Speaker 1: people like us. Keith and I jumped right in to
Speaker 1: talk about what it was like building this black owned
Speaker 1: restaurant in West Adams and how people in this quickly
Speaker 1: gentrifying neighborhood reacted when Keith first opened All TOA back
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was ugly the beginning.
Speaker 3: How so, I mean when we first came in here,
Speaker 3: we first came into West Adams, I got a lot
Speaker 3: of slack for, you know, from our own people, for
Speaker 3: being the quote unquote face of gentrification. It was only
Speaker 3: on Instagram and you know, and it was just like
Speaker 3: in my what I was trying to do was elevate
Speaker 3: our food. I wanted to represent it and present it
Speaker 3: in a way that it hasn't been done. I wanted
Speaker 3: to bring a restaurant into a community like mine. I
Speaker 3: wanted to provide opportunity, jobs and training to kind of
Speaker 3: like infistrate this industry that doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 3: black and brown influence in it. So I was very
Speaker 3: intentional on what I was coming in to do. No
Speaker 3: one asked me, it's just like part of the gentrifying
Speaker 3: the community. Bullshit, excuse me? Yes, So, but you know,
Speaker 3: it passed and now people see what the mission is,
Speaker 3: to see what I'm about and understand it, and has
Speaker 3: been very very supportive, but it was hard in the beginning,
Speaker 3: you know, like it was it was eating at me.
Speaker 1: What do you think it says about as black folk,
Speaker 1: like our relationship with success, that when one of our
Speaker 1: own opens up, like a restaurant like the one like
Speaker 1: Alter that you've opened in our own neighborhood is viewed
Speaker 1: as betraying the community.
Speaker 2: You know that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, you know, I try not
Speaker 3: to be this believer in black folks pulling black folks down.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't come at our folks like that.
Speaker 3: You know where they say black folks pull black folks down,
Speaker 3: White folks lift each other up, and this, that and
Speaker 3: the other. I just think it's years and years in
Speaker 3: years of trauma and experiences, right, it's brainwashing, Like it's
Speaker 3: America has a lot to do with the way black
Speaker 3: folks think, you know, from our ancestors and what we've
Speaker 3: been through to get up to this point is going
Speaker 3: to take a lot of healing, you know, it takes
Speaker 3: a lot. It's gonna take a lot of healing and that,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't think that we intentionally want to
Speaker 3: pull each other down.
Speaker 2: I don't wake up to pull another black person down,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: But I can't say that ten o'clock at night and
Speaker 3: I'm on the street, you know, and I got my
Speaker 3: eye out, you know what I'm saying, Like in certain communities,
Speaker 3: you know, if I'm turning the block and it's kind
Speaker 3: of dark and you see the like your own fellas
Speaker 3: on the block, like you might you know, fly past
Speaker 3: or busty you or whatever. Right, Yeah, but yeah, that's
Speaker 3: going down a whole other lane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1: You had an interesting I mean, plenty of trauma in
Speaker 1: your life, plenty of trauma. How have you managed given
Speaker 1: all that to become comfortable with success?
Speaker 3: So for me, success changes with my goals. I don't
Speaker 3: look at it as monetary or buying a house in
Speaker 3: Westwood or any of that.
Speaker 2: But you did, But I did.
Speaker 3: When I first came on from prison in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: I had a conversation with my daughter where she was
Speaker 3: made whare of my lifestyle, and in that moment, I
Speaker 3: realized I wasn't proud of the lifestyle I was living.
Speaker 2: And if I died in that moment, you know, I was.
Speaker 3: No longer proud of the conversations that people have, you know,
Speaker 3: and about me. So I set out to change my
Speaker 3: narrative and my legacy and the narrative that people were
Speaker 3: having around me, right, conversations, and we're having different conversations today, Right,
Speaker 3: my legacy has changed. So I'm successful in that I've
Speaker 3: accomplished that, right, So that's a level of success. So
Speaker 3: then once I accomplished that and I had an opportunity
Speaker 3: to open my own business, my goal changed, right, and
Speaker 3: my goal became to provide opportunity to people in similar
Speaker 3: situations in which I came from.
Speaker 1: Right, So maybe we should start at that first moment
Speaker 1: coming out talking to your daughter. Yeah, your goal was
Speaker 1: really just to create a different narrative for your life.
Speaker 1: That's it than you've been given.
Speaker 3: That's it, And that one not the one I've been given,
Speaker 3: the one I've created. Right, So, both the circumstances were
Speaker 3: created before me, Right, I was born into these circumstances.
Speaker 3: But the narrative of the gangster and the drug dealer
Speaker 3: and all that, even though the choices were limited for me,
Speaker 3: so it was kind of like a forced path for me,
Speaker 3: I still own responsibility and accountability and choosing to go
Speaker 3: that route, right, So I created the narrative the drug dealer,
Speaker 3: the gangster, the shooter, the X, whatever the case may be. Like,
Speaker 3: I own some responsibility in it. Yeah, So I created
Speaker 3: this narrative about myself because one I had pride in it,
Speaker 3: and I set out to have this larger than life
Speaker 3: reputation in the streets and then the drug trade. That
Speaker 3: was my goal, in my mission, my aim, my objective. Right,
Speaker 3: So I own that. Right, I own that. But then
Speaker 3: I sought to change that.
Speaker 1: So to change that. So when you come out, what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts about how you can change that? After
Speaker 1: that conversation, I had no idea.
Speaker 3: I absolutely had no idea, right, I just took it
Speaker 3: day by day, and when I found myself in situations,
Speaker 3: I just made the best of it, just like when
Speaker 3: I was in my youth, you know, when I found
Speaker 3: myself in situations at seven and seven world on wheels,
Speaker 3: locked in with all these street dudes throughout LA and
Speaker 3: the squabble time come up. I just made the best
Speaker 3: of the situation. And as things as those opportunities presented
Speaker 3: themselves and I stood up and stayed down, the reputation
Speaker 3: began to grow.
Speaker 2: So I just followed that same model.
Speaker 3: I had no idea, no path on how I was
Speaker 3: going to change my legacy or how I was going
Speaker 3: to change the narrative.
Speaker 2: It's just I.
Speaker 3: Knew I didn't want to do that anymore so and
Speaker 3: avoiding that it put me on another path. And as
Speaker 3: the opportunities presented themselves, right, I made the best of it.
Speaker 3: When I got my first job at local restaurant, I
Speaker 3: had no idea where that path was going to take me.
Speaker 1: Did it seem like a good opportunity to you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Like work man, please, nigga, I've been hit selling dope
Speaker 3: my whole life, like hustling entrepreneur. I ain't want to
Speaker 3: work for nobody, you know what I'm saying. Like it
Speaker 3: was so uncomfortable. It was so uncomfortable to be to
Speaker 3: come up into projects and to go to and lift
Speaker 3: this whole lifestyle of with no authority, no respect for authority.
Speaker 2: To then have this white man yelling at me in.
Speaker 1: The kitchen, Daniel Patterson.
Speaker 2: Man, that shit didn't work. It just didn't work, like
Speaker 2: you feel me. So I tried to.
Speaker 3: Quit numerous of times, but Daniel supported me in the role.
Speaker 1: So hold, look you walk me through that. So will
Speaker 1: you when you go in? Would you just go walk
Speaker 1: in and be like yo, I'm done, or he might
Speaker 1: yell you and be like I'm done.
Speaker 3: You got to understand that the restaurant right in the hood.
Speaker 3: So I just walked out of the door. Yeah you
Speaker 3: feel me, like he we yelling in the kitchen. Fuck that, man,
Speaker 3: I'm out of here. So I walk out. Then here
Speaker 3: Daniel come behind me. She let me talk to you,
Speaker 3: you feel me and like guide me back in, Like, man,
Speaker 3: I know it's uncomfortable with it. To get comfortable, it
Speaker 3: just takes time. And in my mind, I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: you just want me here to yell at me, fool
Speaker 3: like you know, but I'm seeing it one way and
Speaker 3: he seeing it another way.
Speaker 2: He like, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, that job, I
Speaker 3: didn't treasure it, but I explored it because I had
Speaker 3: a goal.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that working at Loco that so it
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 3: There was no representation at the mountaintop or at the
Speaker 3: end of this road saying if you take this path,
Speaker 3: you're able to accomplish these thing.
Speaker 2: There was no example for me.
Speaker 3: No, there was no representation, nobody, no example, no one
Speaker 3: exemplifying that for me. Right, I was carving a path
Speaker 3: on my own you know what I mean. So with
Speaker 3: not knowing what I can accomplish at the end, I
Speaker 3: didn't treasure it, you know what I.
Speaker 1: Mean, trust the process because you didn't know it was
Speaker 1: a process.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what the end result was going to be.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 3: In my mind, is just a job in a check
Speaker 3: And if it's just about the money, then I know
Speaker 3: many ways to get money. But I was committed to
Speaker 3: the change. I was committed to the change. And I
Speaker 3: think that commitment to the changes would allow Daniel to
Speaker 3: tap into to guide me back into the restaurant, because
Speaker 3: if I wasn't committed to the change in yourself and myself,
Speaker 3: then I would have been out. Yeah, but he was
Speaker 3: able to tap into that. And I had a purpose,
Speaker 3: like I was doing it for a reason, and so
Speaker 3: I went back in and you know, now I'm comfortable.
Speaker 2: Was ill.
Speaker 1: How did Daniel and Roy Troy find you for local
Speaker 1: to be men?
Speaker 3: Well, they came down there. I was still in prison
Speaker 3: when this process started. They came down to the community
Speaker 3: and kind of like really did the best research they could.
Speaker 3: They got with a bunch of the older gentlemens in
Speaker 3: the community, which I call my big homies, well some
Speaker 3: of them. Some of them are just older dudes in
Speaker 3: the community. You know, we'll keep that separate. And they
Speaker 3: spent almost a year in the community and so they
Speaker 3: were aware of some of the.
Speaker 2: Conflicts, the traumas.
Speaker 3: They kind of got an understanding about what the community
Speaker 3: culture was like. And one of the things that they
Speaker 3: did was really important when they opened Local was they
Speaker 3: brought in a counselor. Wow, so we had access to counselor.
Speaker 3: That's brilliant, you know what I.
Speaker 2: Mean, and like paid counselor.
Speaker 3: Like you'll have a you'll be working in a restaurant
Speaker 3: and like I'll go have a session if I chose to,
Speaker 3: and then I'll come back and tell Tim or whoever.
Speaker 3: Now your session up, Like it's your turn and you're
Speaker 3: still on the clock getting paid to go deal with
Speaker 3: some of your trauma. And then we had group settings, right,
Speaker 3: And so that was how intentional Local was. We're coming
Speaker 3: into the community and really being intentional on helping.
Speaker 2: The folks that they hired. And that's what I experienced it.
Speaker 1: So they found you by talking on the old heads
Speaker 1: on the block.
Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry I didn't answer that question. I had
Speaker 3: got fired at the OI refinery, and I got a
Speaker 3: call for my mother.
Speaker 1: You working at the refinery in.
Speaker 2: Else So, yeah, I was working there.
Speaker 3: I came on from prison, got a job there, labor job,
Speaker 3: because that's the only job I thought X cons can get,
Speaker 3: And so I got a labor job, worked my ass off,
Speaker 3: got a promotion. At the time I got hired, they
Speaker 3: wasn't doing background checks, and then by the time I
Speaker 3: got the promotion, background checks has been implemented. So in
Speaker 3: order to get the promotion, they had to run my
Speaker 3: license to drive company equipment. Running my license brought my
Speaker 3: background up, and so they walked me to the gate
Speaker 3: and terminated me. They didn't say damn, like, man, he
Speaker 3: really worked hard to the point that we want to
Speaker 3: invest in him and move him up in the company. No,
Speaker 3: they overlooked all that and said background, Oh, yeah, you
Speaker 3: out of here. So for a couple of weeks, I
Speaker 3: just really felt that the system and society was so unforgiving,
Speaker 3: right yeah, that I considered going back to hustling. And
Speaker 3: then I got a call from my mother saying, boy,
Speaker 3: you better get over here.
Speaker 2: They just build a restaurant in the.
Speaker 3: Hood and they hiring on the spot and I was
Speaker 3: getting off the freeway and watch on Womenton, the Womenton
Speaker 3: exit off the one oh five, So I just shot
Speaker 3: over there.
Speaker 2: They's show enough.
Speaker 3: They had an application with like four or five questions
Speaker 3: first name, last name, birthday, phone number, email, like, no,
Speaker 3: do you small? Have you ever been in prison? Are
Speaker 3: you black or brown? None of that general information. They
Speaker 3: hired us on the spot.
Speaker 1: Without even knowing your ability to cook?
Speaker 2: Are my inability Do.
Speaker 1: You feel you had an inability at the time for restaurants?
Speaker 1: Absolutely okay, because cooking that home.
Speaker 3: And cooking dope, the's two differents, like it's but however,
Speaker 3: there are skills in both of those that's transferable that
Speaker 3: I didn't understand until I got comfortable in the restaurant industry, right,
Speaker 3: and then I was able to see and understand that, Wow,
Speaker 3: I didn't have to forsake all this knowledge I've learned
Speaker 3: cooking drugs. There's some things there that I learned that
Speaker 3: actually it's transferable. Because when I was cooked drugs, the
Speaker 3: main star was the product, right right?
Speaker 2: How do I make great product?
Speaker 3: And that's what's starting with a proper base, A great base,
Speaker 3: great keilo or cocaine, right right?
Speaker 1: So that's like a rue or something like.
Speaker 3: So No, it's like when you have an option of
Speaker 3: vegetables where you getting it from the liquor store or
Speaker 3: the farmer's mark. Starting with great product and the base
Speaker 3: of the product has to be great, yes, right, and
Speaker 3: then that translates how the end product. So if I
Speaker 3: have a bad kelo or coke, then what do I
Speaker 3: think the crack is going to be at the end result?
Speaker 3: If I have shitty vegetables that's out of season, that's
Speaker 3: been on a frozen truck traveling for two months.
Speaker 2: If I have avocados.
Speaker 3: That's coming and that's getting picked off the tree too
Speaker 3: early to equate for travel time opposed to going to
Speaker 3: the farmer's market and grab an avocado that was just
Speaker 3: picked yesterday. So that's what I'm talking about. Like there's things,
Speaker 3: and so the product is one. And then when you
Speaker 3: think about hustling, it's like, Okay, I had a dope
Speaker 3: house and you got all these young dudes on the
Speaker 3: block that also have dope sexes.
Speaker 2: Like how do I.
Speaker 3: Get the customer to walk past the convenient guy to
Speaker 3: come to me every time?
Speaker 2: Right? How do I distinguish my product? You know what
Speaker 2: I mean, and so.
Speaker 3: All these things start coming back to me, like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: I can utilize that shit in the restaurant, like focus
Speaker 3: on the product, like the base. And then when you
Speaker 3: have that, how do you distinguish your product from everyone else?
Speaker 3: At least full of restaurants? So how do you separate
Speaker 3: your product and your business from everyone else? And so
Speaker 3: those lessons that I learned in the streets I utilize
Speaker 3: and the restaurants, but just cooking, I had a whole
Speaker 3: lot to learn.
Speaker 1: When we come back. Keith Corbin talks about how being
Speaker 1: exposed to fresh foods and learning to cook professionally helped
Speaker 1: him understand what his community needed, access to healthier meals.
Speaker 1: What did you learn at local about cooking properly?
Speaker 3: Seeing me full timing shit. I learned a lot of vegetables.
Speaker 3: I learned a lot of herbs. I learned a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff because you know, growing up, a lot of
Speaker 3: of the ingredients came out of can garlic powder, onion powder, lowriesy.
Speaker 3: You know, like you didn't really work with raw product,
Speaker 3: so loco, I learned that how to deal, how to
Speaker 3: work with raw product. And then another thing, how to
Speaker 3: properly cook vegetables. Like in our community, we overcook vegetables.
Speaker 3: We make everything into mush, right, we boil the heat,
Speaker 3: We boil the hell out. So what I'm saying, so
Speaker 3: no color. Yeah, So I learned a lot of that,
Speaker 3: you know. I learned a lot about how you know,
Speaker 3: steaming is better than boiling because through the baill you
Speaker 3: you boil broccoli and then you see the water's green.
Speaker 2: That's because all of them nutrients is in the water now, right, Like,
Speaker 2: So I learned a lot in Loco.
Speaker 1: Incredible. How long were you there?
Speaker 3: Ultimately I started in twenty sixteen, probably a year and
Speaker 3: a half because I opened this restaurant in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: so just over.
Speaker 1: A year, just over your half. And then you get it.
Speaker 1: Then you go up to then that shutters, that closes.
Speaker 2: No Local Wats, and Local Wats was the last one
Speaker 2: to close.
Speaker 3: So six months, not even six months, less than six
Speaker 3: months into Loco, I was actually join the executive body
Speaker 3: and be part of the expansion of Local and so
Speaker 3: I moved to the Bay Area and opened one in
Speaker 3: downtown Oakland, one in West Oakland, and then we circled around.
Speaker 2: And open one in San Jose.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 3: I flew to Jersey and met with Mayor Barock, now
Speaker 3: Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, wait, wait, wait a second man, Brock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Barock in Jersey because that was going to be
Speaker 3: a stop. I had a deal in place with Nipsey
Speaker 3: and Fats to open the second location in La off
Speaker 3: of fifty fourth in Crenshaw, right there by Krinshall High School,
Speaker 3: whereas you got the gas station at church and then
Speaker 3: the structure. So we was going to open one there
Speaker 3: and then unfortunately we was Fats untimely death kind of
Speaker 3: like ended that because it was his space, and then
Speaker 3: we lost nip So so.
Speaker 1: You got asked him move, what do you think it
Speaker 1: was about you that made them think this is the
Speaker 1: right person to come up to the Bay area? And
Speaker 1: Daniel Patterson's like, you know, he's like a big deal.
Speaker 1: What do you think he saw on you to pull
Speaker 1: you up then to his to his restaurant group up
Speaker 1: in the Baby I'm.
Speaker 3: Asked him that question all the time because at the
Speaker 3: time I was a game, banging coke, had of alcohol,
Speaker 3: putting in work, straddling the fence, like you know.
Speaker 1: You still were you still in the streets?
Speaker 2: I mean it was it was in a sense.
Speaker 3: It wasn't an even in the desire to change the
Speaker 3: narrative in the legacy. It wasn't like I walked through
Speaker 3: a magic door. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 3: it wasn't like you walk through a magic door. A
Speaker 3: lot of the mistakes that people make when they leave
Speaker 3: the street culture is how they exit.
Speaker 2: Your exit can be your demise. You can't leave right away.
Speaker 3: There's roles, you know, like people still depend on you,
Speaker 3: your leadership, your guidance, the relationship.
Speaker 2: The love.
Speaker 3: You know, you can't abandon, yeah, because then it's like
Speaker 3: you're turning your back, right, And so I still deal
Speaker 3: with my folks, you know, absolutely, just in a different capacity.
Speaker 3: You know, you go from putting in work with people
Speaker 3: to counseling people.
Speaker 2: Guidance, and you know, you go to and it's just layers. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 1: So you come out and you make this decision you
Speaker 1: want to change your life. First opportunity, You're gonna take
Speaker 1: whatever opportunity you can, and soinery then there's local absolutely,
Speaker 1: the next opportunity is running this restaurant group. And you're
Speaker 1: not sure what Daniel saw on you. What did you
Speaker 1: learn though? Going up to Oakland I imagine, did you
Speaker 1: you never probably never live in the Bay No.
Speaker 2: I had.
Speaker 3: Up until then, I had been to about twenty cities.
Speaker 3: But like selling drugs, you see a different part of
Speaker 3: the city. You know, people say they come to l
Speaker 3: all the time, but I'm like, which part? Right, La
Speaker 3: has two faces, It's two sides. So it's like, and
Speaker 3: that's what every city. So depending on what you're into,
Speaker 3: what your what your goal is, going into that city, like,
Speaker 3: you'll see one side of the city and then there's
Speaker 3: a whole other side. So I traveled a lot selling
Speaker 3: drugs and been to a lot of cities, but I've
Speaker 3: seen a certain part of the city. But then through
Speaker 3: local I was able to see these cities in a
Speaker 3: different light. And so going to the Bay Area, it
Speaker 3: was for me it was like decompressing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I was able to ship go to the stores. I
Speaker 3: was able to walk to the stores, you know. I
Speaker 3: was able to walk the blocks.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I was able to come outside with slippers on, you know,
Speaker 3: the simple things of.
Speaker 2: Life without without without fear of.
Speaker 3: Running into an violence. Not to say that Oakland didn't
Speaker 3: have his own shit going on.
Speaker 1: Part of the equation.
Speaker 2: I wasn't part and that's what people don't gather.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, Oakland's still tough, and they're just yeah,
Speaker 3: but they not looking for me.
Speaker 2: I don't look like them. I don't walk. So when
Speaker 2: that guy spinning the block looking for hisself, he's not
Speaker 2: going to see me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right past.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Just like when I was
Speaker 3: spinning the block looking for someone who looked like me, the.
Speaker 2: Guy with the backpacked the glasses. This that I'm that
Speaker 2: guy in Oakland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'm the guy they're gonna pass by
Speaker 3: like it was that weirdof I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let me read my pringles and shit.
Speaker 1: That's a lowless man must have been. It was a release.
Speaker 2: It was absolutely a load off. Absolutely a load off.
Speaker 2: But I was thirty four when I came on from prison.
Speaker 3: By the time I moved to Oakland, I was thirty
Speaker 3: six going on thirty seven.
Speaker 2: Bro. That was the first time I ever went walked
Speaker 2: into a whole foods. Wow.
Speaker 3: The other first I've ever been to a farmer's market
Speaker 3: was in the Bay Area, and that was the first
Speaker 3: time I seen food come pre loved, pre loved, pre loved,
Speaker 3: man pre loved. Yeah, you wonder what I mean by
Speaker 3: that acidamn.
Speaker 2: Questions free loved.
Speaker 1: My mama was running the.
Speaker 3: It's just you know at the farmer's market, you know
Speaker 3: people like literally put their hands in the soil growing
Speaker 3: it's food, cultivating this, picking this and bringing it to you.
Speaker 3: It's like, uh, it's a relationship with the food all
Speaker 3: the way through. They love it like you can like
Speaker 3: the love they're pointing to. They're caring for it. It's
Speaker 3: a child, right right, they're raising from they're raising up
Speaker 3: and then their gift.
Speaker 2: They're bringing this to you. And then you have Whole
Speaker 2: Foods the food.
Speaker 3: The same way like you got them in there, and
Speaker 3: they're in comparison to food flescing Boys Market. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's still a supermarket, right, and I choose Farmers Market
Speaker 3: over supermarkets all day.
Speaker 2: But when I'm.
Speaker 3: Shopping at Ralfs and Boys Market back in the day,
Speaker 3: and which is now food for less the quality or
Speaker 3: lack of quality that we had access to compare to
Speaker 3: what Whole Foods have to offer, Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 3: drastic difference.
Speaker 1: What was I like walking in the Whole Foods.
Speaker 3: Man, you know those big old white barrels. I thought
Speaker 3: that was all free so man, I stuck my hand
Speaker 3: in there and was walking through whole foods popping turtles
Speaker 3: like the cheese is because you know how they you know,
Speaker 3: I'm used to ship being in cages. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: like you don't really have as wrapped up in rappers
Speaker 3: so things, you know, so what you just got, like
Speaker 3: you just got chocolate, I can just lift the lid
Speaker 3: up and I'm thinking they samples yeah you.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, but that was my experience.
Speaker 3: But I was looking, you know, just going through them,
Speaker 3: like damn, man, I wonder what my granny could have
Speaker 3: created if she had access to this, you know, if
Speaker 3: our community had access to this, what what can be created?
Speaker 1: And what would our health look like?
Speaker 2: Boom, that's what alto.
Speaker 3: That's what the men you and the design you just
Speaker 3: asked the very question. Then I want to think and
Speaker 3: like they say that our number, the number one contributed
Speaker 3: to our health problems is our culture's food. And I
Speaker 3: am seeing the farmers' markets and the whole foods and
Speaker 3: what these other communities has access to.
Speaker 2: I said, goddamn it, it's not our food.
Speaker 3: It is the lack of resources and access we have
Speaker 3: on our community and the ingredients.
Speaker 2: My grandmother had to start with.
Speaker 3: So those can goods that's full of preservatives and salts
Speaker 3: and all that for cure and pickling and all. That's
Speaker 3: the shit that's unhealthy. Yes, but my grandmother will slave
Speaker 3: over the stove probably a bad term, would labor over
Speaker 3: the stove and tease all the love out of that food.
Speaker 3: She will pour love into that food, cooking it for
Speaker 3: hours and hours before we ate it. Right, But that
Speaker 3: didn't take away the unhealthiness of it, right, But what
Speaker 3: made it delicious was the love she poured into it.
Speaker 3: And then here I am up here in the barrier, like,
Speaker 3: goddamn food come loved already? Yeah, what can she could
Speaker 3: create with this?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 3: And so that's when I started dreaming up a menu,
Speaker 3: you know, along with working in these various restaurants that
Speaker 3: Daniel had and learning techniques and seeing what the other
Speaker 3: chefs are doing and seeing exotic ingredients, and then I
Speaker 3: started to realize how diverse California is, the multicultural influences.
Speaker 3: And then I started thinking about California soul food, man,
Speaker 3: you know, like what that looked like. So taking something
Speaker 3: that I inherited, food that I grew up with, and
Speaker 3: just keeping to the trend of our ancestors. Soul food
Speaker 3: in New Orleans is not the food that they made
Speaker 3: in West Africa. So on their journey, wherever they stopped,
Speaker 3: they created a dish. They created food from what they
Speaker 3: had based on what was available there. So we've been
Speaker 3: doing farm the table, Doctor table. So when I started
Speaker 3: thinking about California soul food, it's like, I'm gonna just
Speaker 3: deframe and reframe what's already there and showcase the beautiful
Speaker 3: bounty that California has to offer, because that's what they
Speaker 3: did everywhere they stopped.
Speaker 1: After the break, we get into how Keith was able
Speaker 1: to turn his hustling skills into becoming a successful restaurant
Speaker 1: tour How did you get into So you're in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area, Yeah, party you think you might do Alta
Speaker 1: in the Bay or did you know you had to
Speaker 1: come back?
Speaker 2: Well, I la to do Alta.
Speaker 3: I talked to Daniel when I started thinking about these
Speaker 3: these dishes and this concept, and I just asked him, like,
Speaker 3: you think by the time I'm forty, you'd be willing
Speaker 3: to open a restaurant with me partner?
Speaker 1: And did you feel nervous asking that?
Speaker 3: You just was like, oh no, I'm for nervous. Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: I'm for nervous at all. I've always been a guy
Speaker 3: to shoot my shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so Daniel was like, sure, that's we can talk
Speaker 3: about that right up with three year business plan right
Speaker 3: there and hopes and dreams going.
Speaker 2: Down the dream business planning.
Speaker 3: Write no business plan, man, I ain't No, I don't
Speaker 3: know how to know where to start.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: At the time, I'm like, man, I don't know where
Speaker 3: to start. You know, I don't write no business plan.
Speaker 3: I go to a nigga, get a sack.
Speaker 2: I go to someone. Man.
Speaker 3: Let me get a quarter piece right up. A business plan?
Speaker 3: No man, man, let me get a pound of weed
Speaker 3: right up? A business plan. No man, you get that
Speaker 3: and you figure it out, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And that's I just kept saying, how different things operate,
Speaker 3: Like you want to open a business, drop a plan.
Speaker 3: Let's go over the plan. No, I'm used to man,
Speaker 3: I got this house, he got some weed. Let me
Speaker 3: get a pair. Man, I'm gonna just take it to
Speaker 3: the house and selling figure it out, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: But business plans some kind of deterred me.
Speaker 3: And so about two months later, Daniel walked into the
Speaker 3: restaurant in Oakland. It was like, man, remember, let me
Speaker 3: talk to you. So he put me out the kitchen
Speaker 3: and he was like, you think you want to go
Speaker 3: back down to La. Like of course, he was like
Speaker 3: that concept you were thinking about I may have an
Speaker 3: opportunity to do it in LA. We found a building
Speaker 3: and someone's giving the money to open a restaurant, and
Speaker 3: I think your idea will be great.
Speaker 2: There you ready like hell yeah, but like, hell no,
Speaker 2: ain't no way if you ask for things. I think
Speaker 2: sometimes we ask for things knowing that we can't get
Speaker 2: it right, and then when they.
Speaker 3: Say sure, you're like, oh shit, what have I stepped into?
Speaker 3: But yeah, I wasn't going to say no to an
Speaker 3: opportunity to own something I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like the same getting out of prison,
Speaker 1: wanting to change things, not exactly, not knowing the exact steps.
Speaker 1: It's like now you're in that same boat, like you've
Speaker 1: been given an opportunity. You don't know the exact steps
Speaker 1: necessarily open a successful.
Speaker 2: Restaurant, not at all all.
Speaker 1: So what was the process? Then?
Speaker 2: It was a long process.
Speaker 3: We definitely invested in hiring people to work alongside me.
Speaker 2: You know different chefs to you know, one came in
Speaker 2: and helped teach me through the opening process, lining up
Speaker 2: vendors and setting up accounts and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: And then when we opened, you had one work alongside
Speaker 3: with me too, you know, hiring, which I knew how
Speaker 3: to do, but hiring and managing and prepro to all
Speaker 3: this stuff right, And then Daniel and I worked together
Speaker 3: on a design and the concept and it was just
Speaker 3: like it was a lot to learn.
Speaker 2: I had to learn the facts.
Speaker 1: Did you do the business plan?
Speaker 3: No, didn't do the good round plan? Man, I did
Speaker 3: it my way. You know the plan I know that works.
Speaker 3: Did you get in there? You figure it out?
Speaker 1: When did this place open?
Speaker 3: This place open October eleventh, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: What is this part of your journey? Tire you?
Speaker 3: You know, Daniel and I talked it over, and it's like,
Speaker 3: how would it feel to take folks that has come
Speaker 3: in work theirself up? And then when you have another
Speaker 3: opportunity to open another restaurant, you take those leaders in
Speaker 3: your restaurant and you give them ownership in that next project,
Speaker 3: and then you keep doing that. Right, And now this
Speaker 3: industry or this path where I didn't see no, example
Speaker 3: becomes full of examples for people that that's trying to
Speaker 3: make a change. Right, can see this industry or this
Speaker 3: path that I've taken as a way out, as a
Speaker 3: way to rise above right, and not just me being
Speaker 3: an inspiration, but now feeling you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's like I'm standing here, but depending on your struggle,
Speaker 3: you can be so far away that I'm a blur, right,
Speaker 3: But if I continue to put people alongside me, then
Speaker 3: it becomes this brick wall that no matter how far
Speaker 3: away you are, you can see us. You're going to
Speaker 3: see it, right, and you can look down and say, damn.
Speaker 2: I can like I can do it.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 2: That's what my purpose and goal is now. And I
Speaker 2: can say that I'm dis close to success on that right.
Speaker 1: Why that close?
Speaker 3: Because we have a lease in place that's going back
Speaker 3: and forth with the lawyers where I will be well,
Speaker 3: not I, but out to the team me being included,
Speaker 3: where be able to take three of our managers and
Speaker 3: they will own this next restaurant that we're opening.
Speaker 1: Wow, So the owner along with you guys to.
Speaker 3: Become an employee to an employer, a partner with us.
Speaker 3: So that will be dope and so continuing to do
Speaker 3: those type of things.
Speaker 2: That's why I measure my success.
Speaker 1: How did it feel for you to be part of
Speaker 1: an ownership team? I mean.
Speaker 3: It changed my life, Like it led me to be
Speaker 3: able to write a book, to build a house, not
Speaker 3: just buy a house, damn to build a house. It's
Speaker 3: been allowed me to be able to travel. One of
Speaker 3: the number one contributors to crime is poverty. You get
Speaker 3: rid of poverty, you get rid of crime, right, And
Speaker 3: I've learned that because shit from where I said, Nigga,
Speaker 3: you couldn't get me to sell a rock or to
Speaker 3: rob a bank. Yeah, you take it all away and
Speaker 3: I'm starving. Might be some missing persons, said, I'm just
Speaker 3: getting one on it, right. So if you can remove
Speaker 3: people from poverty, bro, yeah, remove them from poverty and
Speaker 3: set them up for some type of generational wealth, we
Speaker 3: slowly began to make change things, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So for ownership for me was big and very important.
Speaker 3: It gave me a pride in myself. It gave me
Speaker 3: something that I can leave and I want to share that.
Speaker 1: Feeling because they don't know what their pactice.
Speaker 3: Man, how many folks I've seen that from my projects
Speaker 3: that didn't run the streets, went to college, just stayed
Speaker 3: in school, went to college, and then wounded up right
Speaker 3: back into projects because there's no network or no infrastructure
Speaker 3: in place for them to tap into nothing.
Speaker 2: There's nothing.
Speaker 1: Dog. That's why I started the show. I went to college.
Speaker 1: You know, my family about a Eujima village not too
Speaker 1: far from Watts. Oh yeah, no, that's a gun and yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know my dad was like, and my mom especially,
Speaker 1: gotta give her credit to You're going to college. The's
Speaker 1: no question, like you're going to college whatever. When you
Speaker 1: get to college, you think you made it. Anybody's like,
Speaker 1: oh a lot, everyone's getting banking, like they're getting Oh
Speaker 1: they're they're gonna go to Bank of my Marrie. Oh
Speaker 1: they're gonna go to New York to do with chase banking.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know, like what.
Speaker 3: Because I think we chase after what what success looked
Speaker 3: like for white people. Yeah, like their kids going off
Speaker 3: to college and getting in law firms and all that.
Speaker 3: You gotta think great great grandfathers set that shit up
Speaker 3: long time ago, right, set up this infrastructure a long
Speaker 3: time ago for their siblings and for their future generations
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 2: Plugged in and tapped in.
Speaker 3: We don't have that infrastructure and place, and so it's
Speaker 3: a small part that we do for for me to
Speaker 3: go to trade Tech, because I'm at trade Tech next
Speaker 3: week speaking and teaching and looking to hire.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, so we're infrastructure that's in place that can catch
Speaker 3: you when you come out, so you don't got to
Speaker 3: spend time going to college and then go right back
Speaker 3: to the block and infiluational time.
Speaker 1: Right And while you're doing that, meanwhile, one day you're
Speaker 1: gonna be that great great grandfather. That's because you're giving
Speaker 1: your daughter a different look at life.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna be yes.
Speaker 3: But I want to be that great great grandfather for
Speaker 3: my community, for my folks. It's not even just about
Speaker 3: my kids.
Speaker 1: You want me, you need it immediately now.
Speaker 3: You want to see I want. I probably don't even
Speaker 3: see the change. I probably don't even see the change,
Speaker 3: but I'm gonna start it now. Though I'm gonna start
Speaker 3: it now, I may not witness what it become, but
Speaker 3: that don't mean I'm not gonna start it now. Like
Speaker 3: giving folks entrepreneurship and ownership, giving folks opportunity, giving people jobs,
Speaker 3: going back down, talking and encouraging, being tangible and showing
Speaker 3: you what success can be coming from here. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to not do that because I can't see the results, right.
Speaker 3: I just hope someone picks it up. You know, in
Speaker 3: any event that I leave deserves someone picks it up, right.
Speaker 3: And that's the only thing the great grant grandfather did
Speaker 3: was start setting it up for his kids, and then
Speaker 3: they can pick it up and pick it up and
Speaker 3: pick it up right.
Speaker 2: I just wouldn't do that for my community. Do it now?
Speaker 1: Look, man, I know you got to open this restaurant,
Speaker 1: so I want to keep you too long, but it's
Speaker 1: till more. I want to ask you. So when the
Speaker 1: next restaurant opens, let's do it again.
Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, we never got to the book.
Speaker 1: Look to it. There's so much. Look, there's a lot
Speaker 1: to get you. We're gonna reference it, don't We're gonna
Speaker 1: reference the California Soul. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Did you read it? I didn't read it because you
Speaker 2: keep looking over there getting the next.
Speaker 1: Now you keep looking at it because it's cool. It's
Speaker 1: right there. I've been looking at it. I came in
Speaker 1: here and it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's some promotion.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, I loved it.
Speaker 2: Man, do you relate to it?
Speaker 1: I relate to it a lot. Man, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of you.
Speaker 3: Didn't even grow up in the streets, did you No,
Speaker 3: but you can relate to it from it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just was what a lawyer friend and he literally
Speaker 3: was talking to me and he was like, man, this
Speaker 3: book needs to be like some part to educate people.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He's like, he read it and they helped him understand
Speaker 3: would his clients be going through in the county jail?
Speaker 3: And I just hope that this book at some point
Speaker 3: people just realize it's for them.
Speaker 1: Your story was great. Is you get a little bit
Speaker 1: of everything. You get that and you get the redemption.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the redemption arc man, And it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. And you've built a beautiful place singing and yeah,
Speaker 1: this is I mean really, when you think about the steps,
Speaker 1: it's like you're at the beginning, like it's crazy, like
Speaker 1: at the beginning, man, like.
Speaker 2: I started late, but at the beginning.
Speaker 1: You're shamed me. Man, I'm coming in. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna come, bring the family, I'm gonna come somepport man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come support man. Please, We're gonna be in
Speaker 1: all right. California Soul is Keith Corbin's book. Let me
Speaker 1: repeat that again. California Soul is Keith Corbin's book out
Speaker 1: now wherever you buy your books, you hear that, Keith.
Speaker 1: I'm plugging your book, California Soul. Since the interview, I
Speaker 1: have eaten at the restaurant and let me tell you,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. The food, the ambiance, location, it's all amazing.
Speaker 1: And to think it all came from the hands of
Speaker 1: someone's society would normally have counted out. It's a beautiful
Speaker 1: story and I'm so glad Keith put it down in
Speaker 1: a book and I'm wax with us. California Soul, Thanks Keith.
Speaker 1: Started from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw, edited
Speaker 1: by Keyshaw Williams, Engineered by Bentaliday, booked by Laura Morgan
Speaker 1: with production help from Lea Rose. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all of in the
Speaker 1: videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by Bent Holliday
Speaker 1: and David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
Speaker 1: Listen to Started from the bottom. Wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts and if you want, ad free episodes available one
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Speaker 1: If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.