Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #238 Don Pooh on Running NYC's Top Restaurant, Owning a Food Franchise, & Being a Music Manager

Transcript

EYL #238 Don Pooh on Running NYC's Top Restaurant, Owning a Food Franchise, & Being a Music Manager · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
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  Speaker 3: The time is come, ladies and gentlemen. Invest fest That's right,
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  Speaker 4: All right, guys, welcome back Eyl. We're back home. Yes,
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: in a lab. This is an interview that we've been
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: trying to actually do for a while. So if you
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: follow us, you know that we are foodies. We frequent
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: the restaurants a lot, and the number one restaurant one
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  Speaker 4: more than in New York that we always go to
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  Speaker 4: all the time. I just had my birthday dinner there.
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  Speaker 4: Actually Brooklyn Shophouse. Yes, so Brooklyn Shophouse. The first location
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  Speaker 4: was was downtown Manhattan by the Brooklyn Bridge.
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  Speaker 5: Uh yeah, it's actually five eye so it's a cross
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: the street from Based University and right by the brook
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: right at the mouth of the Brooklyn Bridge, So we
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: call that financial district for sure, financial district.
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  Speaker 4: That was the first location, and then once they opened
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  Speaker 4: a second location in Times Square. Yeah, and that's the
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  Speaker 4: one that we've been turning up a lot all the time.
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  Speaker 4: I've been in there every week pretty.
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  Speaker 5: Much, so a lot. Yeah, good lucky, good luck.
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  Speaker 3: No problem.
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  Speaker 4: One of the owners of Brooklyn chop House is Don Pooh.
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  Speaker 4: So I forgot who was the first person to introduce us.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
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  Speaker 3: I think Matt was mentioned trying to connect us like
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: years ago.
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  Speaker 4: But then we had met, and then over the last
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  Speaker 4: six months we've actually been running to each other everywhere everywhere.
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  Speaker 3: They're part of the tour.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've been on tour with you guys. You guys
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  Speaker 5: win a little hort go a little harder than me,
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: you know. But I've seen you guys, maybe I don't
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: know eight ten times, I don't know, over the weather,
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: the weekends, weekdays, events you know, important, you know, important events,
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: you know in industry, fashion film. I've seen you guys,
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: I don't know ten times in the last twelve weeks.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man to super Bowl.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: Miami, Yeah, Miami, Dubai.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, We've been all over the world together. Grammy, that's
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  Speaker 4: a fact.
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  Speaker 5: From through the other day. I even know you guys.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: Are Mary J.
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  Speaker 5: Blige forty shout out to Mary J. Blige and Andrew
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: Martinez Grass Mary on your new show.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, So this is gonna be a dope episode because
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: we're not only going to talk about his journey as
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: being a restaurant tour, but he's also a music man.
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  Speaker 4: Is what's actual high He got his start and both
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: of those albums are people that he actually played an
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: intricate role in, from Mary J. Blige to the notorious
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: b I G.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: Fox Bug Fox Boogiet. We gotta get that, folks. Fox
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: LP is on the way.
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  Speaker 3: I'm gonna put it next to hardcore just because of
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: cultural impact.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, you gotta do it, both of them, both
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: cultural importance and then both Brooklyn.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: There you gook Brooklyn. So this is gonna be a
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  Speaker 4: thrope episode. We're gonna go through his whole journey. We're
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: gonna talk about the opposon downs, entrepreneurship, the music business,
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: restaurant business, and everything. But before we start, thank you
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: for joining us. We appreciate it.
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  Speaker 5: Oh Man, thank you for having me. Man, I've been
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: trying to connect with you guys as well. And I'm
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: proud of what you guys have been doing and the
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: message and you know everything. You know that you guys
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: have been actually intricol and trying to educate people on again,
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: you know, the slogan Assets of Reliability. So I think,
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: you know, hopefully the best is just resonating out there
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  Speaker 5: in the community where it needs to resonate.
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  Speaker 4: That thank you your part of the sky to all
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  Speaker 4: the club.
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  Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, that's my thing. So
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  Speaker 5: I said again.
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  Speaker 4: That's a fact. So let's get into this. So all right,
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: where does it start for you? Because I know it
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  Speaker 4: starts a long time ago, absolutely, So let's talk about
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: the star. Let's talk about the music and how you
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: got going.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, So, my passion has always been music, just as
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: a as a kid, you know, I had all these
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: images all of the you know, like from right on magazine.
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: I had all those guys on my wall, and you know,
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  Speaker 5: I used to take piano lessons as a kid. I
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: hated it, but my parents forced me to do it,
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: and you know what ended up working out in a
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  Speaker 5: weird way later on in life, because you know, I
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: had an air for music and you know, I got
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  Speaker 5: my shot by you know, actually going on the road
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  Speaker 5: with the notorious Big Biggie. And prior to that, you know,
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: I went to Howard University for a little bit and
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: I met Puffy, you know, Harf Pierre, you know, my
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  Speaker 5: good friend Mark Pitts, Derrek Angeletti. They were all down there,
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: you know, didn't know that, you know, music business was
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: gonna be their future. They were, you know, Howard studying,
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: you know, taking up business and whatever you know they
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: were doing. But just so happened that Puff, you know,
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: kind of took like left it was interning, got an
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: internship job, and I'm gonna talk about that later on
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: how important that was. But he took it. He got
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: an internship job at Uptown and then he became cool
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: like Heavy D. He was cool with like Dougie Fresh
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: and a lot of those guys, and when it came
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: time for homecoming, he would bring Heavy D down. And
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: then you know, he always like try to learn the game.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: And then he became an A and R and he
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  Speaker 5: started working with Heavy D as an A and R
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  Speaker 5: well Uptown as an A and R until he was
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  Speaker 5: producing Heavy A and R and Heavy D right and
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: then you know, he got his shot to you know,
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  Speaker 5: A and R, Jodasy obviously Mary J. Blige and father
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: him see and a couple of other people. So you know,
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  Speaker 5: it was inspiring to see him go from intern to
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  Speaker 5: A and R to vice president of A and R
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  Speaker 5: to then you know, obviously you know they had a
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: conflict and then you know, he got fired from his job.
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  Speaker 5: Then he went and started his own label, so that
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  Speaker 5: whole entrepreneur he didn't took his entrepreneurial journey. So you
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: know inspired me. So to answer a question, and how
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  Speaker 5: I got my start was really once my friend Mark
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: started to mand ags Biggie. I kind of said, you
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  Speaker 5: know what I want to learn from that same perspective.
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  Speaker 5: I want to get on the road. You ain't got
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: to pay me nothing, that just want to learn the
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: game and understand the game from a management perspective. And
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: that's how it became part of his you know, his
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  Speaker 5: management team that was on the road with him, and
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  Speaker 5: then we hit it off and became good friends. What
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  Speaker 5: year was that, That was nineteen ninety four.
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  Speaker 4: So he was like an understudy, Yeah, for Biggie's management.
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  Speaker 3: Correct, that's right, Mark, Mark Pits has big Later he
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: gets Usher.
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  Speaker 5: No, he had Biggie, he had Faith, he had a
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: he had a group called Changing Faces. Yes Yes, Yes, Yes,
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  Speaker 5: and that's was the core of his management team. And
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: then he went on later on from there to you know,
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  Speaker 5: do A and R and you know, obviously you know,
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: work with Usher and Chris Brown and so on and
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: so forth, and you know, you know, big historic moves.
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  Speaker 5: So but the first his first interest in the game
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: was you know Big. He was working with Puffing and
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  Speaker 5: Biggie asked him to manage him. And then through that
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: I got my entrance into you know, working in management.
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  Speaker 5: And then I was always you know, doing the entrepreneur thing.
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  Speaker 5: So I opened up a barbershop in Brooklyn called Moods.
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: So it was on Washington Avenue, not too far from
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  Speaker 5: where Biggie grew up. So they would come through, you know,
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  Speaker 5: stop by, and everybody in the neighborhood was like, oh shoot,
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: you know, you know Biggie Da Da Da. So then
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: a friend of mine, his name is Anton, and his
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: brother Gavin, they had a little sister called Inga and then
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: they used to get their hair cut there. So it
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: was like, hey, my sister, her name, you know, she
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: was signed to Capital Records, but it didn't work out
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: through you know, another situation. It was like, hey, you know,
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: I want you to introduce you. Maybe you guys could
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  Speaker 5: you know, work together. I met her, we hit it off,
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: you know, I started, you know, shot going around and
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: doing demos. I went to this kid dr Period. He's
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: he's a producer in Brooklyn who produced like Smooler, Hustler
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: and Trigger the Gambler and then Clark Kent. He helped
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: me with a lot of music and a few other people.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: So I lean on all the relationships I knew and
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: everyone I knew through big and we started, you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: putting the demo together and then we got a big break.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: So that was my first client client on my own right.
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: So no, no, we had no deal. So we got
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: our big break by getting on ELL's album on a
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: record called I Shot You. So that record featured Keith Murray,
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: Bad joe In Ll and there was one more spot.
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: I think they was trying to get another artist. The
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: artists didn't show up or whatever. So track Masters, who
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: was cool with Anton, said he we heard you know,
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: you're putting your demo together, and we started hitting mixtapes too, right,
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: we started doing like clue tapes and were doing the
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: groundwork right. So next thing they called us, we went
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: in the studio, we laid the sixteen and then they
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: played it for l. L said leave it on there.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: That actually sounds dope. She had this like unique kind
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: of deep tone voice. There was like, you know, kind
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: of like at that moment they were saying that she
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: sounded like Shai from Wu Tang, but running she had
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: she had her own style. And you know, we came
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: with a little, you know, a different more edgy lyrics,
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: a little different than what was out there before, and
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: that's how you know. And then once that hit, it
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: was a bid in war, unbelievable in war. We end
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: up going with depth Champ.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Can we stop right there? Because it's interesting, right, I
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: never heard this story, right, So Inga obviously becomes it's
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Foxy Brown. She's from Brooklyn, yes, but she she does
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: the song with Lly, she jumps on at the ain't
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: no with j but she runs with the Queen's crew
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: was unique.
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: What happened here, Okay, So it was a unique dynamic.
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: That was actually a great question because she was part
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: of different crews. So after the I shot your record.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: Jay Z calls me, right, He's like, you know, I'm
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: putting out this independent joint through Priority, and so there
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: was like a mix of a couple of different labels,
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: and I heard your girl, I want to put on
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: this record. So I meet him true story, and we
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: talked about it. The last time I seen him at
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: before No, I actually saw him in LA when we
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: were at that. Yeah. Yeah, So he said, he said, ya,
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: I want to put it on there. He's like, it
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: wasn't gonna take. I was like, you know, we're gonna
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: work it out. He's like, all right, I'm bring it
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: back right because you know, we were sizzling doing a
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: couple of things. So we ended up getting twelve fifty
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: I remember the number, right, he came with twelve hundred
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: and fifty hours. No, no, twelve hundred and fifty hours.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: This is early, this is early nineties, early early, right.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: So I meet him at Junius. He pulled up in
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: the GS Lexus out of Lexus too, so we met.
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: We said, Yo, we're gonna do it at D and
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: D Studios. We're gonna knock the knock this verse out
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: in about another week. So this is the beat. So
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: I gave it a beat. You know, she started, you know,
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: writing the rhymes and that, and that's how she ended
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: up getting on.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Ain't no so that So he paid with twelve thousand.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: I mean he was independent, he was from We had
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: people in common.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: So you know, we just and she was she was
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: she was coming up, yeah, but she wasn't artist.
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: She wasn't right, she wasn't there yet. We had this
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: one feature, but we were like buzzing in the streets.
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: Then the same thing happened. We get a call from
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: uh Kenny Smooth, who's from up this this this way
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: he had he had a label through a situation I
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: think it was due Depth Jam, and he asked us
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: to jump on this record called touch Me Tease Me, right,
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: like I got this called it next week case case
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: so correct. So this is how you know, this is
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: when I really met Mary. And then that records started
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: to blow up, right, And then because it was on
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: Death Jam, they added that to the Nunty Professor soundtrack
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: and then they was like, who's this jay Z guy?
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: You know, I want to meet him. So I'm the
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: one who introduced jay Z and Dame Dash to Leo.
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: All right, So once I introduced them to Leon. They
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: went and you know, Leo wanted to kind of take
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: the record. He was like, Yo, this record out here
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: has Foxy Brown on it and it wasn't cleared. Ain't no,
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: it wasn't clear that we need to clear it. So,
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: you know, they were going back and forth a little bit,
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: and then what ended up happening is we all had
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: a meeting and then they agreed to you know, work
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: it out financially clear the record for Jay's album and
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: also add the record to the Nunty Professor soundtrack simultaneously,
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: which worked to both of their advantages. So then they
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: end up after that the success of that record and
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: that soundtrack and then Jay dropping the album and becoming
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: successful on his own, they end up working out a
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: deal to do a joint venture with Death Jam and Rockefeller.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: That's ninety six because the case when he dropped that record,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: it's crazy. He actually came to our high school performance,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: oh wow, and I was like, I was sick. I
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: didn't go to school that day. The fact like, Okase
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: did the record, I'm like, because it's not cl and
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Aaron they were doing wives projects and that was part
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: of it. They brought them to the school. That was crazy.
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So what ended up happening is after he got
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: the after he got the deal. No, his album came
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: out ninety six, right, His second album was on Death Jam.
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: So first album ninety six independent, and then we came
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: out with My My, My Artist. We came out ninety
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: six in November.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: So you're managing Foxy fox Sole, your soul man, all right,
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: so her career starts to take off. And now that
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: leads to other clients. Where do you start working with Mary?
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: So after so ninety six, I started working with Foxy
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: the album Blew Up, so we did that album, then
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: we did another album, China Doll. Then that album Blows
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: Up that goes number one. It's like ninety nine, and
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: then I decided to go into I got a call
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: that they were looking for executive vice president of A
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: and R. So I decided to go that direction and
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: do more of the A and R more my passion
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: of making music, because even though I was managing, you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: I'll contribute to records here and their ideas, you know, concepts.
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: And I decided to go into becoming the executive vice
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: president of the A and R for MCA Records. And
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: they also gave me a label deal from my company.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: My artists didn't blow up, but you know, I took
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: a shot at it. And also as part of that
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: part of that, the first their biggest artists on the
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: label was Mary J. Blige. So they said, you know what,
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: you have a you know, you have a history of
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: working with you know, successful r this and you know
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: we would like you to work with us. So that
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: then you know, we we got together at that point
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: and I worked on her No More Drama album.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: So okay, So the role of a manager, let's go
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: do this. What's the responsibilities day to day for a
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: manager for a musician?
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: Just one other questions that you you you was talking
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: about NOS. You want to get back to Yeah, okay, okay,
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: let's get that Foxy she's running with the park so
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: se so so right, So she got this the jay
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: z Out record out. She worked on her album and
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: then she always had she loved NAS from the beginning
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: for when he dropped this albums as a fan. Right.
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: So track Masters right, and Steve Style was working with no.
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: So Steve was managing NOS and track Masters was producing NONS.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: So track Master is the one that gave us our
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: opportunity to get on an LL record, right, so naturally
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: we're all you know, working and developing. And then track
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: Mess is also executive producing the first album as well,
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: so you know, collectively, we're all working together. Her and
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: Nas and As get together and Cormega and they say,
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: you know what, we're gonna start this thing called a firm.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: We're gonna start our own power group. Individually, they were
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: artists separately, so it made it kind of cool. They
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: didn't come together as a group. First was nos Fox.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: He was getting high, as was Asy, and they came
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: together to form this group, the Firm, and then you know,
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: he started working on our records. So affirm Affirmative Action
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: was the first record that they did together. On nas album, yeah,
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: she was you know, I helped her with that verse
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: so by.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: The way wrote.
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: Well I helped her with it. I'm not gonna take
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: a credit away, ye that. Yeah, So so yeah, we
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: collaborated so on that, on that. So after that they
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: ended up doing the deal with track Masters, and.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: After Man after Man trended up.
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: Getting together and do a collaboration. And then I was
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: able to help like co executive produce that album with
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: you know track Man Firm album. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: that was you know.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: What's your favorite song on the Firm album?
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: I think maybe Firm Biz.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good that was the lead. That was
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: the single. I didn't think that should have been bone Tap.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: I think it's like I don't know that. We spoke
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: about no. He said that that song actually saved his life.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: We spoke about that on Drink Champ because he was
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: saying that he was he was down and out and
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: it was after the War report came out and Cope
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: was locked up and he was like he was back
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: in the hood. He ain't had no money, he didn't
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: have any direction, and Jungle was like, yo, you wanted
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: to get on his record? He was like, he flew
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: to Miami, he did the record, and I think it
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: was originally supposed to be for Nature's album or something,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: and then it was like and the landed on the
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Firm album and then it was like his solo career
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: just took off after that.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: That's dope, man, that's dope. That's a great story. I
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: talk about that when I go go, you talk about
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: that one.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: Shout out to Norri Shout out to Norri bro very
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: nostalgic to our child these conversations. So all right, so
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: the manager, right cause we always say about the role
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: of a manager. I personally didn't know how important because
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: I was always one of those people like, no need
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: for a manager, you can just do it yourself, until
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: we actually were in a position where we needed a manager.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: And then I saw how much work that entails and
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: how it just can bog you down. And I don't
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: think people fully realize it until they actually need it.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: So what's what? What was the role? What's the role
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: of a man?
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: So the most important thing, especially from an artist manager
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: manager's perspective, is representation, right. You don't want to negotiate
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: your own all of your own deals, right, So you
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: have a manager. You have an agent if you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: you need an agent to secure bookings that has other buyers,
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: you know, in their database to secure bookings, and obviously
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: the entertainment lawyer. You know, you have the role manager.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: But the key, the nucleus of it is the manager
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: because they deal with all of those different positions as
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: well as the stylists as well as the label, as
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: well as the the publishing company as well as the publicists.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: If you have one. So that's the nucleus of all,
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: you know, working with the artists to make sure that
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: all the functions that an artist needs are are done
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: and done correctly and done on time and schedule, and
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: make sure that they have everything they need to be successful,
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: because that's the last thing an artist wants to worry
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: about all of those other things. So a manager is
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: key to putting you know, negotiating deals, you know, doing
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: day to day you know, back back back in the days,
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: you know, when you're you have a management company to
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: have a day to day manager. Back in the days,
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: we were everything. We were the manager, the day to day,
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: the role manager. We did it all in the beginning
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: because you got to work your way up to build
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: your organization to have you know, that foundation.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: So as you're growing, right, the records are blowing up,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: your artists are blowing up. You have the labeled. Obviously
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: you said your artist didn't blow like you thought, but
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: you still getting money at this time, right, right? Are
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: you continuing the entrepreneurial journey? Because I feel like the
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: barbershop happens, but then at some point franchising happens. Right,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: what what period is this? I know it starts at
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Papa johnsone that right, right.
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: So, barbershop I had when I was rocking with Big
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: earlier on before I before I have Foxing, and then
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: when I have Foxy, I sold the barbershop because I then,
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: you know, we then started getting some success and she
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: became you know, you know, a world you know, worldwide artist.
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: So at that point, I said, you know what I
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: want to, you know kind of you know, start my
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: own label. So the first my first entrepreneurial you know,
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: attempt was doing my own label, right so, and then
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: doing my own well actually doing my own management company
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: and label. So also discovered Shine. So I found Shine
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: in the midst of right before I did the deal
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: with m c A. I found Shine. You know, he
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: was at a barber shop. My boy Manny and another guy,
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: Austin brought him to me. It was like, no, I
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: know you you know, you got Foxy. You know, like
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: this kid, we think he's dope. So he spit for
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: me for like two hours. I was like, all right, out,
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: let's go to. Let's go to And then did you
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: mention Matt early on? You said Matt was the one
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: that tried to hook us.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Up different different different.
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: Okay, So there was a there was there was an
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: attorney that Milton was down at. Yeah, there was down
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: at Howard and then he was he was actually doing
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: some I think assistant da work. And then I said,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: I got a client and I know you could do this.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: That needs a manager. So I brought Shine to Matt, right,
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: Matt represented. I already had an attorney, and then we
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: end up doing the deal. We end up signing the
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: deal in the back of my car. So, but prior
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: to that me signing him right, So, once I found him,
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: he started to move around. He started doing a few things.
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: So he actually bumped into jay Z and gave jay
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: Z a uh demo. Jay listened to it, said it's
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: I and he's like and he took back the demos
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: like the weirdest thing. They spoke about this too, right,
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: I'm like, yo, you take I get devil for now?
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: He you know you don't think that that that I met,
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: So it was that was an interesting story. And then
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: along the way a few other so as I have
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: him signed, I have a meeting with Diddy. Did he
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: falls in love with it? And then death Cham falls
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: in love with it. And then so it turned into
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: another bit of then we end up doing I end
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: up doing a deal with did with puff with bad
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: Boy where he went to bad Boy and then you
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: know I got my deal separate from bad Boy, like
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: you know, override points and stuff like that. So he
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: went directly there and I kind of so almost like
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: he was signed to me by I kind of like
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: released them the part.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: I feel like this, this Howard ninety one through ninety three,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: this needs to be a documentary on the people who
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: came out.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: We spoke, we spoke to you know, you know, it's
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: a just story with this Matt Middleton things. I'll just
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: kind of interject. So Matt Middleton. Before I did this,
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: I was a financial advisor for twelve years. And when
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: I was first starting as a financial advisor, I used
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: to get like all of these publications Black Enterprise, all
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: these like any black like business publication I would get,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: and you know, you always had the list list of
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: top fifty business accountants, top fifty lawyers, top fifty whatever.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: So he was on the list. So I emailed every
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: single person on the list. I didn't know any of them.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: I just emailed them like, hey, I'm a financial advisa.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: You know, would love to, you know, come and just
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: you know, have a meeting with you that if you're interested.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: And he actually was one of the few people that responded.
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: He's like, hey, come up. So I met him in
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: his office like a cold call. I didn't know who
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: he was. He know who I was, and we sat
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: and we had a meeting and he was telling me.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: I think at the time he was representing Cameron and
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: a few other people had like clients and he was
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: the president of this organization called Beesler Black Entertainment Lawyer
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: something and we So it was crazy because fast forward
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: almost fifteen years later, I see him at the Rock
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: Nation brunch and he's like, yo, remember that time. He's like, yeah,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: that was crazy, Like you know, but I say that
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: to say, you never know.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: You never know, you never know who's who. And I
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: liked the fact that he answered though that a lot.
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: I like that. That means, that means a lot. Sometimes
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: I would do that a lot. Can do it to everyone.
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: I would do it a lot. And I met a
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: few people later on in life like oh wow, they
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: say thank you for for you know, taking my call,
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: and you know, inspire me. So you never know who
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: you're going to talk to along the way.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: That's why I said, even listen to this story right now,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: like that HPCU connection, right obviously the big manager, yep,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: you met a Howard, Matt Howard brought Sea Puff Howard.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: It's just I mean, I don't know how many guys
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: graduated from it, but I know that the guys in
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: the early nineties that was there. They obviously went in
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: different aspects of their careers, but everybody when they needed somebody,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: they looked to those people to all right, yeah, look
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: at that work.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And and not only that, I thought that man
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: could actually handle a bit, like handle a client in
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: which he did, and he ended up I believe that
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: was his first client. And then from there, you know,
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: he had endless clients and you know, doing lots of
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: different things. So that was good and shout out. Then
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: you mentioned Cameron out the camera on cameraon you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: just recently spoke about me giving him his first check.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: So that's another one I identified and I tried to sign,
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: but he ended up going with Entertainment because they got
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: I got a big bag from Sony. My bag was
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: still little.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Baltimore.
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, But before that, I was trying to sign him
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: and then but I had gave him a check for
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: you know, doing a collaboration on I ended up signing
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: Foxy's brother Gavin. He was pretty boy and we did
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: a deal at Sony and he ended up doing you know,
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: some collaboration and some writing on the album for me.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: So I gave him a check before he even got signed.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: So that was his first check he got. And Fab
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: as well, so I identified Fab even before, like he
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: was like buzzing on mixtapes with Clue. And I also
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: gave him a check to come and collaborate with my
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: artists like early on. But work yeah, clap, so you know.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: The right price, I could even make.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: Show. So you're rocking and roll in the music business.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: But at some point the music business starts to die.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: I guess when when iTunes.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: Comes out, it's more napster and you know, downloading and
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: you know file and just you know this ability to
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: like like you know, like how the mixtapes was a
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: source of promotion and marketing and you leaked what you
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: wanted to the mixtapes or whatever. But now you know
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: all entire albums were getting leaked and emailed and you
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: know it was that time where you could, you know,
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: share files and all of a sudden people got the
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: leg of different albums, so it was hurting the music industry.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: So that was in like two thousand and three, after
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: I've been with MCA from ninety nine to two thousand
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: and three, I decided, and I had some success with
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: we're working with Mary and you know, we're gain a
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: great working relationship and you know, shout out to her,
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: still work with her today. So that was a that
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: was another you know, relationship that you know, I'd garnered
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: from you know, the music business and the success of
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: us having you know, her album being successful. So then
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: I decided to diversify and go into franchising. So it
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: was something that you know, I thought made sense because
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: they had proven systems, and if I was going to
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: invest my money, I wanted to invest it in something
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: that had a system instead of restaurants, specifically, because restaurants
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: are are risky and you know, there's a it's a
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: it's a high risk investment. So you know, seventy sixty
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: to seven percent failed in the first you know year,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: eighteen months, and then another eighty percent don't even make
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: it to three years. So it's definitely a high risk.
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: So I don't I don't know. I like to take
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: on the most riskiest of things, but I end up
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: doing franchises. So I got into Papa John's Pizza, the
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: development sixteen store development deal for New York City. Me
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: and a partner of mine who introduced me to the opportunity,
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: my boy keV, and then we end up doing seven
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: out of them and then sold them all. Then he
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: went on to do another franchise, and then I went
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: on to get a franchise deal a development deal with I.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: So for the development deal, how does this work? They
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: you tell you go to the company and say, this
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: is my idea to create more stores inside of let's
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: say the borough of Brooklyn. Did they look at your plans?
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: They okay, they say yes or no. How's this worth?
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: So another great question? So not exactly. So they have
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: territories that they think are great. Right, So when you
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: go sit with them, they'll say if another franchise or
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: doesn't own that development right already, they'll say, well, we
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: have Brooklyn, we have the Bronx, we have White Planes,
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: we have you know, this part of Jersey that we
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: want to develop. If you have any interest, you know,
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: and you qualify based on having restaurant experience and having
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: you know, the financial experience, I mean financial wherewithal to
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: do it, which we'll get into in a minute. We
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: would love to have you develop the you know, we
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: feel first, we feel that this amount of restaurants can
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: fit in this territory. So in Brooklyn, we feel like
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: a whole you know, six stores, you do a you know,
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: five store, six store deal, and you could you know,
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: have options later and then you get a certain amount
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: of time to develop each store, like maybe one you
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: have to build one every two years, right for the
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: next you do a five store deal, one every two
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: years for ten years and then and you know, but
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: until then, that territory is locked and you own that
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: development what they call development area. You own that development
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: area until you finish your development. Nobody, nobody can develop there.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: So unless you default obviously and you don't meet your
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: you know, your your timeline, then it becomes available again.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Was it very cash intensive?
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: Very cash intensive, especially up front because obviously restaurants and
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: especially full service restaurants like that take you know, quite
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: some capital to you know, build out. You know, you're
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: talking seven figures to build a restaurant of that size,
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: five thousand square feet and everything that comes with it, right,
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: So from the soft cost, the construction, the franchise fees,
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: you know, training, everything that goes with it. So but
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: again they have proven system. It's a you know, for me,
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: there was a void, you know, just going into the
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: business side of it. Why I did it. It was a
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: void in the market. Right. I grew up in Brooklyn
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: and there was only one I Hop in Brooklyn. It's
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: like three million people. So I'm like, this is not
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: making sense. So as a kid, I would have to
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: go to the suburbs to get like red Lobster and
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: I Hop and there was there's nothing. There was nothing
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: in the like in the boroughs. There was nothing in Brooklyn.
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: It was crazy to me, right, So I said, you
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: know what, I'm going to bring this because everyone loves it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: Why is it not here? So I always thought, almost
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: thought I didn't know what I was doing, right, because
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: I'm like.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: Why isn't it what's the catch?
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: Right? Right, I'm like I was going in to this
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: place in the seventies and it's still one there, and
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: the we're in the you know, two thousands, right, So
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: they had like a thirty year run, So you know,
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: we took it on. We opened it up, and that
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: restaurant became one of the highest grossing restaurants in two
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: thousand and seven of all eighteen hundred eyeps. Because I
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: knew that that was a value that's a value play, right,
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: So by having a value brand and a like in
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: a place like Brooklyn where it's like a value market,
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: it worked. The two worked really downtown Brooklyn on Livingston Street,
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: it's still there. Still actually moved it across the street.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: Actually the building, the first one I built. They demoed
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: the building and built another building, So I actually moved
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: across the street.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: Yes, So let's get back to this Papa john situation.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: Why'd you sell the Papa John's.
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: So Papa John's, it was at one point we had
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: a really good performing unit, and then we had a
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: couple that weren't performing that well. So me and my
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: partner decided, you know what we liked there was a
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: couple of other brands that we thought can perform better
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: for the amount of investment that we put in the
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: amount of return we were getting back. We said, you
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: know what, list, maybe it's a good time and we
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: and someone you know made an offer to us that
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: was really good. So we say, you know what, this
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: was great. We built out this many we didn't finish
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: our development deal, so we sold the rights plus the
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: remaining rights to develop, and then we both decided. He
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: went in to do Popey's and I went in to
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: do Yeah.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: So I'm looking at it from a just business standpoint.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: If I'm doing Papa John's, I know my biggest competitors Dominoes,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: right right, If I do I what's my biggest competitor.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: In this market? It wasn't any But in the rest
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: of the country there are competitors. There's Kaka Barrel, this, Denny, this, Perkins,
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: this different in other markets. But in this market, I
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: knew I had nobody close. There was no one there was.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: The closest person was ten years away from the development
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: of market, and they still, in my opinion, still couldn't
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: beat the I Hot brand. And what you know, I
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: how meant to families that grew up on it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: So inside of the the franchise itself, were you able
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: to create a uniqueness to the actual store or did
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: you have to by bye by like yo. This is
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: the rule book for how we want our franchise some great.
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: Questions bro oh Man. So with that said, there is
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: a franchise branded franchise manual. This is what they call
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: standard operating procedures, right that you got to follow by
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: when you're developing the brand. But because the way they
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: developed earlier on was a standard blue roof kind of
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: freestanding ihops, which everyone knows when they see it, you know,
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: whether you're anyway in the country. But now they were
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: doing non traditional locations, which I found, which in Brooklyn
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: you really can't find the land downtown, so you had
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: to do an inline non traditional. So with that said,
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: and they realized that I had this music background, we
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: tied in a little bit of the artwork was was
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: a you know, was Brooklyn inspired. So we had like
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: like Brooklyn inspired Brooklyn Bridge, downtown Brooklyn and artwork, so
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: we kind of tied the brand to the community in
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: a way. Did like some music inspired artwork. Obviously we
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: had the brand's images inside, but they did allow me
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: to do something unique and different. You know, I put
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: at that time flat screens. It just come out maybe
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: like like five or six years before it's had a
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: flat screen TV. I built I built a not a
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: VIP room, but like a meeting room right inside of
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: this location where people downtown and all of the businesses
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: downtown could do breakfast meetings. So I did something a
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: little different than what was traditional, and they allowed me
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: to be creative within you know, my ideas that I had,
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: so that that also worked really well.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: So how much is it for the licensing fee for
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: a franchise?
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: Iha, So a single unit is fifty thousand dollars, and
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: if you do a development deal is forty thousand dollars
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: per And when you do a development deal, you pay
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: for the first one and then you pay for halves
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: of the other ones, and then you pay the other
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: half each time you opened the last one.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: And that's what you did development dement.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: I opened four in Boklyn, all in Brooklyn.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: They're still all running, all running, all them all what
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: parts of Brooklyn.
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: It's in downtown Brooklyn, it's in Flatbush, Brooklyn, it's in
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: Cony Coney Island. I had the opt the license and
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: I and I sub licensed that that I was a
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: friend of mine. Shout out to him. And then I
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: have Williamsburg, Bushwick. So that's on Flushing Avenue, ones on
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: Church Avenue, other ones on Livingston.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Was the original deal for four or what did it?
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: Was there more?
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: And you said, I have the capacity to do for No.
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: The original deal for four. I fulfill the agreement, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: then I replaced one as well, so that that that
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: technically was the fourth one, and I licensed that one
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: that was the like like a fifth one. But the
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: replacement of the first one to this to the newer
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: version was like, so I actually built that's actually like
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: building two restaurants.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: So when you see the success of the four that
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: you've done, was expansion part of the plan, Like, are
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: we going to other boroughs?
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: I was, I was thinking about it, but as I was,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: you know, got to the end, I thought, you know,
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: let's try my own brand. Let's try something different, right,
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: let me you know, the natural progression is going into
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: real estate, which I'm doing that as well, but before
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: I got there, I decided to try my own brand.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: And this is when Brooklyn Chopause comes.
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: In from Brooklyn chap House, like ten years later Brooklyn
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: chap House. Well, yeah, ten years later, oh seven, yeah,
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: twenty eighteen.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: So I want to talk about broken chop up before
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: we get to Brooklyn Chop House, the ie Hop. So
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: all of this that you're funding, are you funding this
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: out of your pocket? Are you getting bank lines of credit?
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: Or you have partners?
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: Like great question again. So initially it was myself and
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: a partner, my partner Dave Diamond Castars my partner. He
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: actually passed away, but we started together. We had an
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: idea someone brought us, you know, after I got out
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: of Papa John's up skipping apart, actually opened a nightclub
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: called Rain in Brooklyn, me and Dave, and then we
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: went on to do the the first two I apps.
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: And what we did was, yes, we pulled together our
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: resources and then we had one more option, which is
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: not as available today as it was before. We did
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: like an equipment financing loan through through like g GE
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: the like there's a GE franchise Financial I don't know
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: if they're still around today offer like equipment loans, so
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: whatever we didn't. We used that for the equipment and
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: then we used our money to build the rest.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: So prior to Papa John's, prior to IHB, did you
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: have any experience in the rests around tour game at all?
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Or it's the capital let me partner with somebody who
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: has that expertise.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: No, we just knew. I just knew business right. So
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: prior to doing Papa John's, I just knew that I
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: wanted to own my own business right by having my
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: own management company, by having my own no label imprint.
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: I said, you know what, let me just let me
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: take a shot at it. Because franchising you can actually go.
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: So I went to training to learn how to run
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: the franchise, how to make the food, how to do
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: food course, how to do you know, schedule and labor,
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: you know, build a restaurant. Basically, they teach you everything
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: and training right, and I already know how to build that.
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: I used to renovate homes here and there and do that,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: so I already knew construction, so that that came That
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: part came easy.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: And then you said it was a tenure span between
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: the ihop and and obviously Brooklyn chop House. What role
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: is music and the music industry playing during that ten years?
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: Are you still involved?
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah? I still have my my relationships still earners.
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  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: border and families will be protected.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: Security to work in with Mary on the outside doing
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: some you know deals and you know, opportunities and appearances.
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: You know, I was handling a lot of that part
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: of our business, like the appearances with different people around
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: the country, like like when she went on tour and
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: things of that nature. And then like I said, open
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: the nightclub, so I would have a lot of artists
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: come through the nightclub in Brooklyn. So through my relationships
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: and then that I just kept all the entertainment relationships.
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: And then when I opened Brooklyn job houses, really when
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: a lot of because it's the same thing that I
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: used to do in the music industry. I used to
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: frequent a lot of these restaurants and do my dinners
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: at my meetings, and that's what we did a lot
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: in the you know when when you know you're working,
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: you know, having meetings after you before you go to
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: the studio, after you leave the label, it's always like, oh,
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: you want to get something to eat. So either the
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: label got the corporate card or you spending the money.
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: So that's how that's how that went. But yeah, the
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: relationships were important, and you know, just doing good business
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: with people all the way around kind of paid off
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: in the end.
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: So all right, you take the steps to open Brooklyn Chophouse. Yeah,
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: what's this, What's what's the process to do that?
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: So what happened was Brooklyn chop House on Nashall Street
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: used to be a Denny's. Right, So I got a
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: call from the Denny's owner, like, it's not working out right,
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: this restaurant on Wall Street, it's not really you know,
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: performing the way it's supposed to. If you want to
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: turn it into I hop turn it into you know,
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: the you know, the landlord is open for you to
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: turn it into an I OP. And we know you
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: got the rights, and you know there's not a lot
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: of them in Manhattan. This will be perfect for you.
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: The operation operational, operationally, the vicinity was perfect. It was
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: right over the bridge. I went downtown. So I jumped
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: in the deal, and midway through the deal, I said, uh,
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: you know what, this might not be good for IHAP.
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: So if Denny's didn't work, I mean I'm stronger. I
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: don't think I want to, you know, put an eye
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: app here. So you know, I told the landlord, I
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: want to do my own concept. So originally I was
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: gonna do a Caribbean concept there. So I took the
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: leads and signed the leafs and midway through me developing
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: and building out the restaurant, I call my partner, my partner, Dave,
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: and I said, hey, you wanna I think you want
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: to do this? And you know he's West Indian, You're
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: want to do this restaurant with me because he always said,
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: you know, when you find an opportunity, to just call me.
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: So I called him and Dave was like, I bet,
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: let's do it. So then we got together and that's
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: my partner in chap House. And then what ended up
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: happening was I gave another gentleman, you know, who does
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: operations and who had a restaurant stratus. I gave him
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: a walkthrough, right. I was like, I'm doing his restaurant.
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: It's gonna be this, you know, I'm this is my
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: first four way into you know, New York City. I'm
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: gonna do like more like a fine down an upscale restaurant.
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: And he was like, oh, that's dope. It was like,
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: you know you should consider you know, flipping it and
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: doing you know, a different concept. I was like yeah.
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: He was like, yeah, let's do you know I was
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: successful doing these other Asian brands. Let's do you know Asian,
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: I mean steakhouse, and the Caribbean was going to be
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: partly like a steakhouse anyway. So I was like, that
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: sounds good. Let's figure it out. So, you know, we
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: came up with the name. You know, it was always
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: the name was always going to be Brooklyn something right,
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: So we was thinking about Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: Bridge Restaurant, We was thinking about Bridge and Butter. We
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: had all these names and then we just said Brooklyn
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: and it was like chop house, like chop stick and
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: chopped steaks, and then it sounds like something that's been
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: around for a long time. So we came up with
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: that name, and then that's how Brooklyn chop House was born.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: So I was gonna say, in terms of from a
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: financial standpoint, obviously this is Wall Street, right, so we're
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: talking about are you at leasing the spot? How much
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: is it as opposed to had you done the I
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Hop deal?
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: Was it more cash intensive or were more people needed
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: to be involved to finance? How did that work?
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: So it was less cash intensive because the blessing for
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: me and my partner Dave is that we were kind
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: of you know, successful for what we've been doing for
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: the last ten years, so we were looking I was
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: actually looking for an investment opportunity, and the fact that
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: it's a second generation space, meaning that it was already
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: built out as a restaurant, so I just had to
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: come in and change the furniture, change the equipment, changed
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: this static, you know, so we just had to basically,
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: to use a music term, I had to remix the restaurant, right,
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: so I put my ditty on it and changed up
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: everything and made it more upscale, all the textures, all
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: the furnitures, all the you know, the equipment, and we
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: changed it into our use. Right, so much less cash
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: intensive by doing second generation space. And even if it
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: was I have, it probably might even be more or
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: less because a lot of the equipment is the same
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: I have been. Then it's similar.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: I probably would have went with all new equipment, because
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: that's how I like to start with, you know, a
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: concept I believe in, So I would have started fresh
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: instead of using old equipment.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: Did you have to sign like a five year or
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: ten year least? What was that process? Oh?
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we signed a twenty five unheard of because I
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: talked to them and you know, well, actually these had
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: a great lease. Let me not say that, and then
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: I was able to negotiate a great least myself. So yeah,
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: we have a long lease.
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: So all right, So now the restaurant business is a
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: lot harder than the franchise business because it's not set
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: for You got to kind of stry it. But you've
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: learned it from So did you take the principles that
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: you learned from franchise and just duplicated with the restaurant I.
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: Got to say, it's another great question.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: So so so that's how I was able to put
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: systems in place because I already had I was already
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: trained with these systems right from food ordering from all
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: the vendors and I'm that I was dealing with from
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: how the and the vendors to order from, which is
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: basically automated. Right, So we use some of the same vendors,
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: we use some of the same principles from a franchise,
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: I you know, use it. That's those same principles in
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: Brooklyn chop House, from hiring, from operations, from scheduling, from
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: all of those different things and all of those different
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: tools that I had at my at my disposal, from
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: being at I have except from you know, obviously I
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: don't sell panchaches, but but I've used, you know, the
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: knowledge that I got from all of the years of
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: operating underneath these proven systems. I employed some of that,
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: especially back at the back end, like the back end,
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: like the financial, the you know, the you know, the bookkeeping,
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: the you know, all of those things. So I already
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: had you know, systems in place from account.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: Talk about like food courts, right, explain what food course
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: is and why food course is so important.
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: Oh, food course is so important. So food course and
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: labor course are your two highest controllables, your two highest
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: controllable costs. So in any P and L when you're
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: looking at one hundred percent or you're looking at let's
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: just say one dollar, So typically your full costs, you know,
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: can range anywhere from twenty five percent to thirty five
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: percent of that one dollar, right, So and that's something
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: you have to control, right. And then you have your
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: labor costs, which can be also high twenties to mid thirties,
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: which if you put the two together, that's anywhere from
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: fifty five to you know, high sixties or seventy percent
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: of every dollar. It's in those two controllable costs. Right,
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: So food cost is extremely important because if you can't
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: control the cost of your food, obviously it's gonna shrink
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: your margins, right, you shrink your profit margins. So it's
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: great to have, like, for instance, back to the franchising,
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: so they have we do what we call like bulk purchasing,
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: right because there's so many restaurant r purchasing at the
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: same time that it reduces and it could kind of stabilize, right,
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: you could negotiate your prices and stabilize your food costs,
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: which is to your advantage because there's a lot of
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: like fluctuation and obviously produce and you know, chicken and
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: meats and things of that nature. So with having so
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: much buying power, you're able to level that out and
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: control it, like pretty much to get the maximum out
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: of your full cost, meaning to bring your food costs
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: down because the buying power so much. So it's a
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: little more challenging when you have your own concept because
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: if you're not doing volume, you're not able to you know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: get that yeah, get that discount of that buying power
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: that thousand restaurants are buying versus you know, just a small,
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: small group of restaurants us and so in the franchise,
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: we have what we call a co op who goes
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: in and negotiates the pricing for us, and we're.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: All part of that co op for the whole region.
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, so correct for the whole region. So within
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: the country there might be you know, ten co ops, right,
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: So every region has their own co op. So for
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: New York, for example, there'll be New York, New Jersey,
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: Connecticut co op. Right. So we go in, might be
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: a one hundred restaurants and we you know, we plan, right,
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: we say, okay, we're gonna do this special like this.
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: We think this is gonna work. This is just this
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: is back to iha. So the co op is an
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: important part of it, but you don't have that. And
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: when you own your own restaurant, your own brand, so
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: you have to do the best you can and negotiating
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: your own prices and really watch the food court because
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: you know it's a small even though you could do
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: large numbers, your profit of it is very in restaurants,
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: so how do you manage it?
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: Because this is interesting, Like when you're doing pancakes, you
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: can do a different vari antion of pancakes, right, you can,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: but they still pancakes or whether they're chocolate chip, you
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: do something special with them. But one of the things,
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: like when we go to book on chop House, the
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: menu is so there's so many different types of food,
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: and so like one of the things we've heard, especially
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: in the restaurant businesses, keep the menu limited. That way
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: you can cut down on the food coats and have
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: higher margins, but you have such a wide variety. How
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: do you balance like having all that being an independent
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: and keeping good profit margins.
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: I'm about to drop with jewel. You're gonna have to
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: pay me for this one.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: You have to see, you're gonna have to frequent the restaurant.
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you got a freak good the restaurant. You gotta
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: frea good the restaurant. So we use a lot of
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: the same things in different items, So we lose a
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: lot of the same menu items in different dishes. Right,
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: That's kind of how we do it. So if we're
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: buying you know, Bell and Evans organic chicken, we'll have
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: our chicken dishes, or our chicken and rice, or or
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: chick saute Beijing chicken sweing sour chicken, chicken compile different
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: menus that we have. We have the same items, so
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: the items aren't that extensive, but we're able to create
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: different Yeah, we're able to create different likable dishes that
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: like the lobster. You got the lobster, so lobster. We
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: have lobster fried rice. We have lobster saute, we have
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: a lobster spring rolls. We have lobster salt and pepper lobster.
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: We have ginger lobster. So yeah, that's enough.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: All the good. By the way, I think I tried
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: everything you just said. Ladies and gentlemen, it just dropped
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: them somebody on the lobster.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: Lobster. Let's talk about liquor license because that's something that
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: a lot of people have. I've seen restaurants getting taken
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: out because of liquor like, like they might lose their liquor
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: license and then they're not making enough money. How much revenue,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: like percentage wise, comes from a liquor license, and how
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: hard is it. What's the challenges and actually getting a
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: liquor license and maintaining a liquor license.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: So I have quite a few of those, but it's
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: it's in the city that I operate in is not
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: that challenging. You just have to qualify, and you have
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: to qualify in two ways. Your location has to qualify
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: and you have to qualify. So obviously, you know, you
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: couldn't have a list of license before and do like
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: reckless things with it. You got to be responsible. And
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: then obviously you have to have the capital to build
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: your restaurant because they want to know that you're actually
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: you can actually build a restaurant that you're applying for
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: the liquor license for. And the challenges sometimes is that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: you know, when you're applying for the license, you're actually
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: building the restaurant at the same time, so you're actually
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: spending money while you apply for the license. The cost
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: of the license is not a lot of money. It's
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: only forty five hundred per bar right in New York City,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: so that's that's not hard. But finding a location that
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: can be licensed can be a challenge because the liquor
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: authority don't want too many licenses unless it's zoned differently.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: They don't want too many licenses or too much alcohol
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: being sold on the same block area right because it's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: like unless it's like a zone, it's zone like a.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: Times square or like Bourbon Street.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, or things like that. Then then it's different or
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: like Hell's Kitchen has has a different zone, but other places,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: And I'm assuming it's the quality of life. They don't
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: want too many liquor licenses on one block. I believe
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: it's like four might be the max or something like that.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure. But your location has to qualify, so
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: it can't be too close. I think it's the fire
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: from your foot rolls. You gotta be five hundred feet
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: away from a school, a church, and other entities that
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: are in the Yeah, things like that. You can't be
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: like you can't walk out and then there's the nightclub,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: or you can't walk out, then there's you know, things
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: like that. You're selling the liquor store, so you know
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: they tried to so, so in that essence, the actual
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: location needs to qualify as well as you qualify when
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: you get the liquor license.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: When you create a chop house, obviously you gotta have
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: food clothes, but there's also a part of it that
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: you have to market to make sure that people know
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: that it's there. And so I'm wondering was there a
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: marketing budget or was it the power of the relationships
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: that you had, you know, cultivated throughout your career. That
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: helps inside that marketing.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: So it was a combination of both. It's it's the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: power of social media, right, So just one person or
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: a few people that influencers, taste makers, people that just
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: love the brand and you know and love what we do.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: Can we fuse you know, our you know culture, whether
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: you know entertainment, music, food, fashion. We kind of fused
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: it together to create Brooklyn Chop House. So when people
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: get that experience, you know, they share it. And once
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: they share that experience, people may say even today, we're
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: getting a lot of people in Times Square like we
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: just came here to see a play and to go
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: to Brooklyn Chop House. So we're getting after after you know,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: being opened, the brand being open five years now, we're
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: getting people from out of state that's coming in town
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: that they heard about it, or they heard someone celebrated
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: there that was you know, a significant you know, personal
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: celebrity or artists or athlete you know, celebrated at the restaurant.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: And they see the social media because it's not really
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: like the news, it's just social and people posting how
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: much they enjoy their experience. How much they enjoy the food.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: They're taking pictures of the food, and you know that's
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: really has what has spread the word around it and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: in the relationships obviously, you know helped. You know, I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: come from a promotion promotion background, so I used to
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: I left this part up. I used to throw parties
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: as well, like one two big parties a year, so
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 5: you know, I had a small, you know, network of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: people that came to support. But it's not just that,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: it's just the brand is standing on its own and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: you know the experience of when you know they come
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: to other the two most important things obviously the food.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: People like the food. But you know, you want to
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: have a good experience in a nice place.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like I said, you know, they see me there
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: probably at least once a week. So yeah, doing my
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: promotional purposes. So let's ask you. Let me ask you this.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: So you said the two biggest costs that you could
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: control are food and labor. Yes, you talked about food
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: and talk about labor.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: Okay, So labor you have to be able to control,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: to schedule correctly, know your market right. So I don't
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: open for lunch right lunch At one point prior to
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: COVID was a big seg daytime part, a big segment
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: of the business. But right now it's not as big
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: in certain markets as it used to be because it's
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: the traffic isn't the same. The traffic change. People aren't working,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: people aren't working as much from the office. Maybe there's
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: three and two right or maybe it's all at the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: Maybe it's all at the office, so I mean, sorry,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: all at home. So what happens is you have to
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: know your you know, traffic patterns, you have to know
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: how to schedule. And that's a huge cost because obviously,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: you know, there's a lot of a lot that goes
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: into labor, and you know, New York, New York City,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: you know requires that you know, you do it the
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: right way. So, you know, we we pride ourselves on
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: having quite a few employees that help us execute. When
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: you're busy, you need more employees. So, but when you're
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: not busy, there's you know, some slow times. You have
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 5: to know how to you know, control your schedule.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: What are some other costs that associated with the business.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: Obviously said food and labor, but there's other costs that
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: people probably aren't aware of if they're trying to get
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: into the space that they probably should be aware of
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: and prepare for if they're going.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: To Yeah, so I think knowing your locate. You know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: you heard the term location, location, location, knowing the right
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: location for the concept that you're doing. Right. So, for instance,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: you might not want to open up subways in your
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: neighborhood when everyone's at work during lunch, right, because the
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: subways is primarily a sandwich is primarily a lunchtime item.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: So you might want to position your franchise or your
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: brand if you if you focus on lunch, you might
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: want to put that in there an office complex where
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: people at work where people need to grab lunch.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: So it's all location, right, So I think that, and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: you know, obviously negotiating the deal and you know, try
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: not to have high rents, which is tough in certain markets.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: That's a non controllable cause because that's a fixed cost.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: So you have fixed costs that you have to obviously
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: be aware of, you know, from garbage to electric to
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: you know, rent and you know, cleaning services and things
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: that you must have as far as running a restaurant.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: So you have the fixed costs and then you have
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: things that are in your control that you must control
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: else it hurts your bottom.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: So you got the variable court and fixed cost.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: Insurance you're putting there to insurance would be a fixed
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: cost because you can't you can't control the insurance rates.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: I just picture for you. I'm gonna show this to you. Right,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: you said, people visit look at the date. See the date.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: So let me see March.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: Thir Wow, this is right before the fans.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: A week later book the chop house would close the doors.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: So I want to talk about that. Man, talk about
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: well March it was my birthday. So we went there
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: on this is the down by Wall Street, but for
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: Times Square.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: So talk about that.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: The impact obviously that COVID had on you, and how
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: you were able to leverage that in the new location
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: in town Square.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: So, I mean we were all impacted, like every most
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: in most industries were impacted, especially the hospitality industry, the
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: restaurants and hotels. Everything was just closed. It was just
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: like it was over. So we all went home. We
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: had to really think in the word is pivot. We
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: had to really figure out how to pivot from all
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: of this, right, because you could have sat down and
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: just waited till everyone came back, which in retrospect, it
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: took a long time for it to get back to
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: it's still not normal, to get back to some normalcy, right,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: So we had to figure out how to pivot, and
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: that's how you know, our concept Brooklyn Dumpling Shop was
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: born from pivoting. That's one thing. And the other thing
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: was we had to change our to labor. So we
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: had to cut all the labor back obviously because we're
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: not open, but we were allowed to do delivery, so
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: our deliveries went up. We got you know, we had
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: some support, so a lot of people were coming to
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: pick up, so we were doing pick up and deliveries.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 5: We were closed, we couldn't do any indoor dining, so
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: I pick up and deliveries went through the roof, and
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: then we started delivering food to the first responder's, a
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: lot of emergency rooms because you know, at that point,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: you know, there was a lot of people, a lot
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: of loss of life and things were happening that you know,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: we didn't know what was going to happen next, right,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: it was just like, oh, you touched this person, like
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: you got like it was a weird time. So once
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: we started doing that, we ended up getting you know,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: someone picked up the story and I think we got
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: hero the day of the manga and sorry in one
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: of the newspapers. And then all of a sudden, the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: food purveyors, right, which were also in fact impacted, they closes,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: they don't have anyone to send food to but the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: people that's doing delivery and take out. So their business changed,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: and they had a lot of product that they had
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: to you know, certain things have an expiration day, right,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: so vegetables and you know, different things. So all of
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: a sudden we started getting boxes and loads of vegetables
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: and food and produce because they saw that we were
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: you know, cooking things, just giving it away, right, So
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: that was great. So the purveyors, you know, vast water,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: different companies, just started sending us boxes and packages. Our
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: dining room would filled with boxes of produce, vegetables, water,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: anything that we could know make. So we'd make all
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: these dishes and pans and we'd just bring them to
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: police departments, hospital, every hospital in the city. I think
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: we touched just out the cond as far. We didn't
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: want anything in return. We just knew at that point
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: it was you know, people that were in the front lines.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 5: Didn't have to be in the front line. They could
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: have quit too, right, So we just did something for them.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 5: And then when they started to open the outside program
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 5: where you could build the decks, is when we built
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: the decks, and then from there everyone I guess it
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 5: was cooped up too much. It was looking like pirates outside.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: Like everybody came out and it was like an outdoor party,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: like every night.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: I remember.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: I remember that that element was outside. It was in
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: the winter.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 5: They had like yeah, I had I had winside to
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: cover that heat lambs. So for just about a whole
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 5: year until twenty twenty one, we was outside. It was
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: rocking outside, it was snowing, and people were eating. The
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: decks were full because it became like I guess everyone's
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: patterns changed again. It became a way.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: Of getting outside. Speaking of your employees, we gotta give
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: Ja Kwan absolutely dope shout out. He always holds us
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: down every time he was out there with you guys.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so j Kwan, And I'm glad I was able
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 5: to take him out there and show him, you know,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: the other side of the other side of the world.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 5: But yeah, he was with us from I guess after
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 5: the fifth or sixth month of us opening Brooklyn Chop
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 5: House fi I in the financial district and it's great
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 5: to see his growth. He's been with me since then,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 5: since two thousand and nineteen. So I had the opportunity
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 5: to do a Brooklyn Chop House with the w and
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 5: Abu Dhabi during Formula one, which was incredible. Bumped into
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 5: you guys on the other side of the Not only
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 5: did I bump into them, I was going to play with.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: Them, that is true.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: Going and coming back.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 5: By the way, we were on the second floor. You
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 5: don't know what that means, you know, you know, you know,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: you know, interest separate, pole, separate.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: You know that's a fact. And Marsha shout out to
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: Hunt too, Yeah, shout out to market. He's hold me
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: down a few times. So let's talk about the most
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: important part of a restaurant, the chef, because nothing is
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter that I'm beyond the vibe if the
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: food isn't good. So, you know, I don't think people
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: have a full appreciation of chefs because it's probably one
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: of the hardest jobs because you don't even really live
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: in a real life. You're working in the restaurant from
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: like six o'clock to like two o'clock in the morning,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: five days a week. It's like a night shift. You
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: don't even get to you don't have no nights, I.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: Mean, and weekends and weekends, holidays. Yeah, exactly, Like the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: business is tough. I mean, I've been fortunate to layer
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: all of my businesses with managers and you know, to
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: the point where I have a director of operations. So
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 5: you know, but in the beginning, I would in there
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: like that because I had to watch you know, you know,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 5: it was most of what I had, I had to
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: make that grow. So in the beginning, you you really
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: sacrifice and put a lot of work in. But you know,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: going back to what you're saying about the chefs, like
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: they you know, it's it's it's it's a tough position,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: right to execute day in and day out. So shout
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 5: out to shout out to my chef, can't you know,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna tell your name because people knowing that
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: you know the secret sauce, But shout out to my chef.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 5: You know how he holds me down. And then and
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 5: then I replicate that, right, because now my chef can't
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: be in two places at time, So now I trained
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: another chef, and then for when we become permanent in
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: the W hotel, there's gonna be another chef. And then
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: I'm building one in Miami, which this chef is gonna
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: go down and spend like two months. So we're treating
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 5: another chef to hold hold down the latest restaurant while
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: he so, so it's just it takes time though, it
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 5: gotta do it in steps. But when I get to Miami,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: he's gonna be training.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: So so so it's not necessarily and I shout out
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: to the chef because obviously it is the chef, but
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: it's the recipe because like, because my whole thing is
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: like if the chef isn't there anymore, well, the food
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: still taste the same, yeah, because of because of the
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: So you got the chef teaching the Sioux chefs, right,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: and then they become chefs and then they teach. So
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: the recipe is the most important thing.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: Correct, It's the recipes and and and it's the chef
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 5: too because it's the quality. It's quality control, right. So
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 5: it's quality control with the recipes, right because you could
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: take the recipe and mess it up. So it's just
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: quality control because there's always you know, new people that
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: come that we train. So it's about doing it consistently
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: all of the time, right, just like consistent service. Right,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: it's the consistent quality of the food that helps make
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 5: everyone feel like every time I go there, the chicken
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: saute tastes the same, the sauce tastes the same. So
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 5: that's kind of key, you know, for anyone in the
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 5: restaurant business to have that consistency because oftentimes I'm also
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: the customer. I'm not only the business guy. I'm the customer, right,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 5: So I do this. I go out right like I'm
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: on the receiving it. So sometimes I have good service.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: Sometimes I have bad service. Sometimes I have the places
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 5: that I love the most. They might be a little off,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 5: but I love it so much I forgive them and
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: I come back and then they get it together. I
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: make a suggestion. I don't think I ever wrote a
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 5: bad review in my life, but I just because I'm
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 5: a restaurant tour I'll give my you know, input or
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 5: constructive criticism on how I feel about something that took
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 5: place during that experience.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: So when you brought up expansion, you talked about and
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: Abu Dhabi that was fly that was that was amazing
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: and obviously just brought up Miami. But Tom Square, when
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: you had the financial district location, how did you know
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: it was time to expand? Was there a number that
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: you said, I, if we hit this, we can grow
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: because Tom squa when we're talking about prime location, they
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: don't get more prime than than Tom Square in New York.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: And the fact that I mean there's a lot of
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: restaurants there, but the fact that we know the owner
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: of one, it's just like, yo, this is pretty cool,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: which is why people go there because they know that
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: there's a chance they might see you. So how did
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: you know it was time to expand and grow into
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: the probably the heart of New York City?
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: So I kind of knew based on the reservations and
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 5: people can get reservations in the original one that was one,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: So I really knew if I used this theory, right,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 5: if ten people call me and say, oh, I can't
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: book a reservations this time, I don't know everybody in
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 5: the in the new in the world, that means hundreds
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: of other people can't get it either, right. So I
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: just used the theory that maybe there's a lot more
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: people wanting to come all at the same time, meaning
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 5: during the evenings on weekdays between like you know, six
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 5: thirty and ten thirty, and that's the time that we're
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 5: mostly always always booked. So I said, you know what,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: this when COVID hit the restaurant that was there in
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 5: Times Square before they left the you know, the landlord
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 5: used to have dinner at the other restaurant and he said, hey,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: I got something for you guys. So we explored the
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: opportunity and we said, you know what, this is a
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 5: little scary. This is huge. It's a big undertaken. So
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: you know, he said, don't worry, We're gonna take it
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 5: in steps. Right, this is what it is now. But
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: this is what we'll do for now. I'm like, word, okay,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 5: let me sit and let's think about it. You know,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 5: we sat and we thought about it. We said, you
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 5: know what, let's take a shot at it right because
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 5: now is the time because I don't think I can
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 5: get that same opportunity now there because it's I don't
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: know if you want to say seventy percent back or
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 5: eighty percent back now things have changed. So it's it's
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 5: about season, the moment, and everything is like the timing
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: the deal was right for that time. So we took
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 5: we took it on and you know, we opened it
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 5: and became you know what it is now and you know,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 5: one of the largest black owned restaurants, I don't know,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 5: maybe in the country, certainly I think in New York City.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 5: And you know, we're just grateful that, you know, we
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: were able to get the prime location because now we
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 5: get you know, a diverse crowd right during you know,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 5: pre theater, post theater. You know, we got a core
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 5: crowd during you know, core hours, and you know, we
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 5: have a lot of say, we have a rooftop, we
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 5: have a private restaurant, you know, two levels below which
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: we're you know which which we're looking with thinking about
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 5: doing membership. And then so we have an event space
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: and a few event spaces in a way within the
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 5: within us being a restaurant. So you know, we looked
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: at all of those possible opportunities and it all made
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 5: sense because there's a few different revenue streams now in
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 5: order for us to make it all makes sense.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: So talk about what's next. You said different revenue streams
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: and you got the rooftop and you got a dumpling.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: Thing is expansion is uh.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so, you know, expanding more on our sister brand,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 5: our franchise brand, Brooklyn Dumplings Shop. But that's you know,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: franchise E's going from franchise z now to me, me
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: and my partner being franchise or so that's you know,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: basically probably one of the biggest steps that I've taken,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 5: and and also working on a restaurant in Miami. But
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 5: Brooklyn chop House, I think the the you know, that
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: culture that you know, the way Miami, you know, the
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 5: lifestyle in Miami lends itself to a Brooklyn chop House
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: type restaurant. So we're gonna go there and then from
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 5: there we're going to London and then more likely Vegas.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: So those are next. In Abu Dhabi, the license deal
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: with us in the w Hotel should be done and
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: we should be open again permanently for Formula one next year,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 5: next year, this year, this year, sorry, this year, we.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: Should have little Sexion.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: So before we do.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 5: An official grand over. That was like the pop up
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: ground over. Now we're gonna do the official.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: So a lot of restaurants serves restaurants and nightclubs, especially
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: like up here, there's there was like the strip where
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 4: a lot of restaurants open and they clothes. And I
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 4: used to notice the cycle where a restaurant would open
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: and they would struggle, and I always knew that they
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: was just about to go out of business when they
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: start throwing parties. Then the parties is like life support.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: It gives them, it gives them energy, and it got
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: them back on their feet. And then what happened There
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: was a stabbing, a fight and they lost their lake
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: a license and then they go out of business. So
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 4: but like Tao, they throw parties and they haven't had
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: any issue. So that we know about that, we know
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: about correct.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: So I'll tell you.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: What's your thoughts, what's your thoughts on because I could
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: see how appealing it could be, but it's also dangerous
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: as well.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 5: Right, I would never do it.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: You would never do it ever. Why Because I own
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 4: the club before, so you know you know what comes
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: with them.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: Of course I had a club in Brooklyn, right so,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: and I to come to Brooklyn, so I did that
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 5: part already. So for me, it's about the growth. It's
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 5: for me, it's about going into real estate.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 5: So I have a few real estate developments. I'm working
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 5: on one specifically in Newark one hundred and twenty units
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: that you know, I'm passionate about and you know, it's
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: like a legacy play for me. So I'm working on that.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 5: So the transition from you know, like leasing to owning.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: You know, I own other properties, but just on the
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: commercial side, it's something that I want to you know,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: progress into. So that's the natural progression, not doing I'd
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 5: rather give another restaurant tour the opportunity to run what
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 5: I had if you know, I haven't you know, thank god,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 5: I haven't had this happened to me where I had
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 5: to give the restaurant to someone else. But I'd rather
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 5: give it to another restaurant tour and give them the
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 5: opportunity than to turning into a night comelion. And nothing
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 5: against nightclubs because we all go there, we all celebrate.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 5: Just for me, you know, that business model is just
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 5: not for me because of the high liability and of
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 5: probability of possible things, you know, happening. And you know,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 5: we knock on wood and you know, pray nothing happen,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: because anything can happened anywhere. No one is immune to
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 5: things happening because it's the general public. But we want
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 5: everyone to have a great time, eat dinner, you know, pregame,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 5: have some drinks, and then go to the club or
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 5: strip club or turn up whatever it is your heart's desire,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 5: you know. Again, nothing wrong with them, it's just we're
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 5: just going to keep it about the food, the culture
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 5: of the experience and having a good time at dinner
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 5: or lunch or brunch.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: Do you have it? Do you have it? Ladies and gentlemen,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: any what's the what's the socials? The website? How can it?
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: What's the address? All that stuff?
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 5: Oh, definitely missed at Downpool music is you know, my music,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 5: my my, my, I g my Instagram. Also at Brooklyn
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 5: chop House. If you want to, you know, please follow,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 5: No not what you want to, please follow at music
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 5: at Brooklyn chop House, At Brooklyn Dumpling Shop. Those are
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 5: the three main tags that you know, I would like,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 5: you know, people to follow the CE you know, everything
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 5: that's going on. And you know, if you have any
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 5: you know, desire to open your own business. We have
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 5: franchise opportunities and possible license deals you know from Brooklyn
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 5: chat House. But again we're just going to keep it
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 5: in you know control. In a few markets.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: You might see us definitely probably will see us at
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 4: some point if you go to Brooklyn Chop House and
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 4: Tom Square. That is the restaurant that I frequent the most.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 4: I'm there very very often whenever I'm in the city,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 4: I always stopped through Brooklyn Chop House. I get the duck,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: that's my favorite. He can duck, he can duck with
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 4: the with the pancakes, things about cakes. That's my boss.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 5: I tell you we got we got all that. We
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 5: got something for everyone.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: Chickens incredible. The salmon we had the other night.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: Salmon I was new. And the LEECHI Martine, you guys
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: got you guys make a good leach Martin. That's my
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 4: favorite drink.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 5: Thanks, And I just want to say organically that I
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 5: appreciate that seeing you guys there. This is bump into
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 5: each other even at my restaurant outside of the restaurant,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 5: So thank you, because organically I'll just see you guys. Evan, yeah,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 5: real quick.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: And if you're in the New York area, you should
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: also visit. Tell me why y'all sent you.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 5: Make sure you get your assets, not acquire too many
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 5: live ability.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: Matter of fact, when this is airing inside the Brooklyn
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: chophouse tigers, let.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 5: Us know this is gonna be on black turned the
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 5: valcuum down. Yeah, there you go, There you go, fat.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 5: That's the fact.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: Joey House and shot everybody on euy l University dot com.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: Shout to all our earnest shot. Everybody's supporting the merch
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: and everybody out there that is telling a friend to
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: tell a friend about what's happening here at euy Yola.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: We couldn't do it without y'all.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 5: So love is love and I need a hoodie.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: Got got you, Love you man. Thank you guys for
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 4: RockA West for see you next week. Peace.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: He's an illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christine nom the United
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: border cross are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: over one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: you are here illegally, your next you will be fine
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: nearly one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported, you
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: will never return. But if you register using our CBP
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: home app and leave now, you could be allowed to
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: return legally. Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,