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GREG PLUMMER - Creamy Cajun Pasta · Eating While Broke

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Eating Wall Broke. I'm your host,
0:03
Speaker 1: Colleen Wit and today we have special guests Greg Plumber
0:07
Speaker 1: in the building, CEO and managing partner of Concord Collective,
0:11
Speaker 1: and enjoy repeat. I'm really excited about having him here
0:14
Speaker 1: today because he has to be one of the most
0:17
Speaker 1: impressive entrepreneurs of the season that survived the pandemic and
0:21
Speaker 1: did it on a Kobe Bryant, uh, Steph Curry, Clay
0:25
Speaker 1: Thompson level. Yeah, I'll take it. Thank you so much.
0:30
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. And we're talking hospitality industry today,
0:33
Speaker 1: so we're gonna be eating real good this This this
0:36
Speaker 1: has a lot of moving parts. I would like you
0:39
Speaker 1: to tell me what are the ingredients? Sure, well, Colleen,
0:43
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I really appreciate you for bringing
0:46
Speaker 1: me in today. So today we're making a creamy Cajun pasta.
0:50
Speaker 1: Creamy Cajun pasta. I would say creole, but I'm not
0:53
Speaker 1: creole and I'm not Cajun, but just creamy pasta, very
0:59
Speaker 1: comfort food. Feeling good when you were broke, Yeah, well, yeah, absolutely.
1:04
Speaker 1: I always wanted to eat good, no matter if I
1:06
Speaker 1: was broke or if I had any money, So I
1:07
Speaker 1: still like to eat the same type of things. I
1:09
Speaker 1: get to eat out and get to try a lot
1:10
Speaker 1: of different food down, but I like to eat the
1:13
Speaker 1: same thing that brings me comfort and it reminds me
1:15
Speaker 1: of something that takes me back to like a nostalgic place.
1:17
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean when I was growing up, I
1:20
Speaker 1: did a lot of cooking. But when I when I
1:21
Speaker 1: think of broke in the real true sense of it, uh,
1:25
Speaker 1: it's college, and it's right after college when you needed
1:29
Speaker 1: to be able to stretch, to stick to your ribs,
1:31
Speaker 1: whether he was drinking or whatever. If you had a
1:33
Speaker 1: couple of people over the house, you wanted something that
1:35
Speaker 1: you can go a long way and then everybody just
1:37
Speaker 1: be like, oh yeah that was cool, whether it be
1:39
Speaker 1: you know ladies or you know, your buddies or whoever
1:42
Speaker 1: you wanted to impress them. So and I've always been
1:44
Speaker 1: one that I really liked to, you know, kind of
1:46
Speaker 1: treat my friends well. So you know, yeah, even if
1:49
Speaker 1: I'm broke, you know, back in the day, I would
1:51
Speaker 1: spend my last just trying to make sure everybody else say,
1:53
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's the truth. Though. Yeah, Well, well
1:58
Speaker 1: we'll see you gotta you gotta tell today ingredients. We
2:01
Speaker 1: have a chicken. We have some bell peppers, yellow peppers,
2:06
Speaker 1: red peppers, green onions, white onions, and Dowe sausage. We
2:11
Speaker 1: have some heavy cream. I want to see. I hate
2:15
Speaker 1: heavy cream. We have some crisscoat garlic, and then you
2:20
Speaker 1: know any kind of creole ss with tony statuaries today
2:24
Speaker 1: chicken stock just for a little, you know, to cut
2:27
Speaker 1: the heavy cream. It's crazy. I kind of have the foresight.
2:29
Speaker 1: You didn't like it. And then and then there's nodles.
2:33
Speaker 1: Have some noodles here as well, this sausage and had sausage. Yeah,
2:42
Speaker 1: and I'm not you know, so so this is the
2:45
Speaker 1: meal is super confident, filling. And then you know, let's
2:50
Speaker 1: get to it. Let's get to it. My problems, my problem.
3:14
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited to try this dish. Go ahead,
3:16
Speaker 1: let's start awesome. Well, let's let's heat our paying first.
3:22
Speaker 1: Are you used to working with electric? Not really, but
3:25
Speaker 1: I'll make it work. I like my paying hot, so
3:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna turn it up hot. Put oil in it,
3:30
Speaker 1: not too much oil, because we're gonna brown the meat first.
3:35
Speaker 1: Now you're you're from the hospitality industry, absolutely so, did
3:40
Speaker 1: you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Yes,
3:43
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm spend time in the kitchen. When I
3:45
Speaker 1: was a kid, I was really fascinated by cooking and
3:49
Speaker 1: watching cooking stuff and uh and then you know, working
3:52
Speaker 1: in restaurants. My first jobs in restaurants, well, one of
3:56
Speaker 1: my first job was at a golf course concession stand
3:58
Speaker 1: in Detroit, and uh, after that, I went to work
4:02
Speaker 1: in restaurants downtown. I worked in one of the busiest
4:05
Speaker 1: restaurants in Detrode from fifteen as a bus boy hostess.
4:09
Speaker 1: And it was amazing to see how like how much
4:12
Speaker 1: energy came to a restaurant and whether people were celebrating
4:14
Speaker 1: the birthday or you know, just getting the lunch or
4:17
Speaker 1: having a meeting. You know, it was all around food.
4:19
Speaker 1: So it kind of clicked to me. And you know,
4:21
Speaker 1: ever since then, I just really kind of been really
4:24
Speaker 1: into it. And I went to college and when I
4:28
Speaker 1: was in college and morehouse you know, would try to
4:30
Speaker 1: work different jobs, whether it be entertainment, internships, or you know,
4:35
Speaker 1: working for a family longer had a uncle down there.
4:37
Speaker 1: It was doing well at the time, and he let me,
4:40
Speaker 1: you know, kind of work for him, and you know,
4:43
Speaker 1: always would end up going back to restaurants. So so
4:47
Speaker 1: for our listeners, because I don't think I was able
4:51
Speaker 1: to share with you guys what Concorde Collective is, what
4:54
Speaker 1: enjoying repeat is. Can you break it down for everybody
4:58
Speaker 1: so that they can kind of I have an idea
5:01
Speaker 1: of yeah, yeah. So Cancre Collective is a restaurant hospitality
5:10
Speaker 1: company based in Los Angeles, and we operate bars and
5:13
Speaker 1: restaurants and airports, and we have over thirteen locations today
5:17
Speaker 1: at l a X. So if you travel to l
5:19
Speaker 1: a X, hit us up um and you know from there,
5:23
Speaker 1: you know, uh, we also have restaurants outside of airports
5:27
Speaker 1: that we're working on and soon the launch in the
5:28
Speaker 1: very near future restaurants. That's correct, That's crazy. It is good.
5:35
Speaker 1: I mean I worked at l A X. I started
5:37
Speaker 1: my career in two thousand five and I came in
5:39
Speaker 1: as an assistant manager after leaving MORGANE. Stanley. I was
5:43
Speaker 1: unhappy as in finance, and I thought that you don't
5:46
Speaker 1: want to do something. I really got it got me going.
5:49
Speaker 1: I got a chance to meet a friend of mine's
5:51
Speaker 1: father who was in the business. He interviewed me, said
5:55
Speaker 1: you can have a job, but you know, just be careful.
5:57
Speaker 1: This is not glamorous, is not what you probably expected
6:00
Speaker 1: to be, but you definitely have a job. We definitely
6:03
Speaker 1: did to help. And I was like, and you were
6:05
Speaker 1: a manager at a concession standard. I was the lowest
6:09
Speaker 1: of the lowest manager and I was the assistant manager,
6:13
Speaker 1: closing manager who you know basically you know, worked on holidays,
6:17
Speaker 1: airports between seven So I worked on holidays. You know,
6:21
Speaker 1: there was no there was no like regular days off.
6:24
Speaker 1: My days off for Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the middle
6:27
Speaker 1: of the week. So as a young guy trying to
6:29
Speaker 1: figure out l A and then try to also navigate
6:33
Speaker 1: uh a career, I just kind of buried my head
6:38
Speaker 1: and worked and we had a lot of fun. And
6:40
Speaker 1: you know, I still have my fair share of fund
6:42
Speaker 1: but I did a lot of work. Yeah, and how
6:45
Speaker 1: do you go from that to phoning all these concession stands? Like, well,
6:51
Speaker 1: what happened in between? So in between U and you
6:54
Speaker 1: got I got a chance to continue working for the gentleman,
6:56
Speaker 1: my mentor, and through CMS, the company I used to
7:00
Speaker 1: work for, we were able to go from being a
7:02
Speaker 1: small you know operator at l A X with you know,
7:05
Speaker 1: four or five locations to ultimately growing the company from
7:10
Speaker 1: two thousand uh eleven to two thousand and sixteen to
7:14
Speaker 1: nineteen locations. And I was a big part of that
7:17
Speaker 1: growth with my dear friend and his son or and
7:22
Speaker 1: you know, really we had to prove ourselves and we
7:24
Speaker 1: were competing against much larger companies. So and then also
7:27
Speaker 1: as a small business, you get to you know, touch
7:30
Speaker 1: a lot of parts of the business. You don't just
7:31
Speaker 1: work in one focus that's my job. I go home.
7:34
Speaker 1: We were thinking big, big time, and like how do
7:36
Speaker 1: we get to the next level. It required us to
7:38
Speaker 1: do a little bit everything, even if we don't want
7:40
Speaker 1: to do it. I hate to bring up the racing,
7:42
Speaker 1: but where are you guys all black? Or yeah? I
7:44
Speaker 1: mean so your boss at the time was black. Most
7:48
Speaker 1: of the employees of minority. So the airport, they have
7:50
Speaker 1: a program called the a c dB Airport Certified Disadvantaged
7:55
Speaker 1: Business Enterprise. So that is a program that really promotes
7:59
Speaker 1: women and minority own businesses being included in contracting opportunities
8:03
Speaker 1: and airports. So for the a c d D program, uh,
8:09
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be a minority and a woman,
8:11
Speaker 1: and you have to obviously go through certain certifications to
8:14
Speaker 1: get to make sure you meet the requirements. And um,
8:18
Speaker 1: he was a c d V company and he eventually
8:21
Speaker 1: sold his business. No, I like it hot as long
8:26
Speaker 1: as everyone can still hear you. It isn't too hot,
8:29
Speaker 1: it's too high bloody, be louder. Uh I like it hot,
8:36
Speaker 1: And uh probably people like what are you doing that?
8:39
Speaker 1: So yeah, a c d VS for people that don't know.
8:42
Speaker 1: There are opportunities for women's minority own businesses to get
8:45
Speaker 1: into the airports. Yeah, but do you have to have
8:49
Speaker 1: a lot of money to get in there? Like shooting people? See,
8:52
Speaker 1: that's a that's a tricky thing. And you know there
8:55
Speaker 1: are a couple of ways to get into it. But
8:57
Speaker 1: you know, access the capital is really challenging for minorities
9:00
Speaker 1: in general, and then a lot of predatory lenders out there.
9:04
Speaker 1: But if there's a will, there's a way. And you know,
9:07
Speaker 1: I think there's a bunch of access to capital now
9:10
Speaker 1: and a lot of resources out there for you to
9:12
Speaker 1: learn where to go get those things. And I want
9:15
Speaker 1: someone that I always love to talk to people and
9:17
Speaker 1: kind of like give my story because I didn't come
9:19
Speaker 1: from money. I didn't have money, I didn't have someone
9:22
Speaker 1: to say here's a bunch of money for you to
9:23
Speaker 1: go start a business, and you shouldn't wait for that. Um.
9:27
Speaker 1: But I fast forward, you know, really working for that
9:29
Speaker 1: company taught me everything I did. I learned on someone
9:32
Speaker 1: else's tign And that's what they tell you, like, don't
9:35
Speaker 1: go out there and say I want to start my
9:36
Speaker 1: own business, but you really haven't worked in that and
9:39
Speaker 1: you gotta learn what's going on. You gotta learn what
9:41
Speaker 1: the opportunity is and then how you can provide about
9:45
Speaker 1: I just had to be a sausage. My hands a
9:48
Speaker 1: clean on. So we're mixing a sausage of the chicken
9:51
Speaker 1: out any season that with the creole season, season with that,
9:55
Speaker 1: and I had a little more at the end. Just
9:57
Speaker 1: brought it off the chicken and we're gonna put it
9:59
Speaker 1: to the side to find the vessel to put into
10:02
Speaker 1: the side. You can use uh, you can use my
10:07
Speaker 1: plate for now because I want to get so Yeah,
10:13
Speaker 1: so you know, fast forward that company. He ultimately had
10:16
Speaker 1: a chance to sell his business, which is great because
10:19
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't get a chance to realize that.
10:21
Speaker 1: He sold his business in two thousand sixteen. That was
10:24
Speaker 1: the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, trying
10:26
Speaker 1: to get everything ready to package up for him to
10:28
Speaker 1: realize his goal. His goal was to realize success. I mean,
10:33
Speaker 1: he's been operating for a long time. He had really
10:36
Speaker 1: took a lot of risk and it was time for
10:38
Speaker 1: him to kind of focus on retirement. And you were
10:41
Speaker 1: the guy that had to package it. Me and the team.
10:44
Speaker 1: It was a team of us, but I was a
10:46
Speaker 1: big part of the team. And we were obviously cleaning
10:48
Speaker 1: cleaning up a lot of things, things that really need
10:50
Speaker 1: to be fixed that weren't you know, getting his real
10:53
Speaker 1: value to go in and tweet those things, change brands.
10:56
Speaker 1: If we had a location that wasn't doing well, we
10:59
Speaker 1: had to change in something than that was so you
11:00
Speaker 1: get the real value for it. Because it's the real
11:02
Speaker 1: estate is really real estate in the airport, so it's
11:06
Speaker 1: a different type of sense of real estate. But the
11:08
Speaker 1: better the real estate, the more valuable it is from
11:11
Speaker 1: operating standpoint, when you're talking like I don't know if
11:16
Speaker 1: the correct terms are like retail on hospitality, but don't
11:19
Speaker 1: you guys look at it by like the square foot
11:21
Speaker 1: is like how much money you produce per square foot?
11:23
Speaker 1: Is that how it works that retail typically does that,
11:27
Speaker 1: but for restaurants is a little different because yes, you
11:30
Speaker 1: want to maximize the revenue and square footage, but you
11:32
Speaker 1: also have a lot more components, Like there's a lot
11:35
Speaker 1: more labor intensive to to to execute a restaurant. It's
11:38
Speaker 1: a lot more equipment to execute the restaurant and the retail.
11:42
Speaker 1: You get products that are finished and they come in
11:44
Speaker 1: and as much stuff you can fit in the box
11:47
Speaker 1: that someone want to buy, you do it. But for us,
11:50
Speaker 1: it's about getting the right product mixed and being able
11:52
Speaker 1: to execute in an airport in the time, we managed
11:54
Speaker 1: to be able to get people to the destination without
11:56
Speaker 1: being angrier way too. So it's kind of like a
12:00
Speaker 1: a little dance that we do. But it's fine if
12:04
Speaker 1: you like, if you look at it that way. I
12:06
Speaker 1: worked at McDonald's once, and uh, I wasn't successful at all.
12:10
Speaker 1: I wasn't even successful waitressing. I learned that food and
12:12
Speaker 1: me in that business was way too much pressure. There's
12:16
Speaker 1: some things that I'm just not good at, and that
12:18
Speaker 1: is those those two jobs I would feel horrifically well.
12:21
Speaker 1: So you got to we have a great personality to
12:24
Speaker 1: be able to serve. So I think I leave you
12:27
Speaker 1: to your table. You know, if you're not into and
12:29
Speaker 1: you're not into it, and that's the that's the real
12:32
Speaker 1: driver to it. I think anything you do got to
12:34
Speaker 1: be passionate ball yea, even even if you flip in
12:37
Speaker 1: burgers like you gotta be. I want to make this
12:39
Speaker 1: burger so good, like I don't want to eat it
12:41
Speaker 1: my guys. I see him with guy's a girl thinking
12:43
Speaker 1: they're cooking, and it's a lot of pride that goes
12:46
Speaker 1: into that. So I always love it. And I agree,
12:48
Speaker 1: something's not into I'm not into. I wasn't in the finance,
12:52
Speaker 1: so it didn't work for me and I was miserable.
12:54
Speaker 1: Couldn't pay me to go there. Uh, And I was
12:57
Speaker 1: you know, late, and I wouldn't be in the best
12:59
Speaker 1: version of myself. So I think you gotta be into
13:02
Speaker 1: whatever it is you do. You went to school for business, Yeah, um,
13:06
Speaker 1: did you foresee that you were going to be an
13:08
Speaker 1: entrepreneur because he said you went straight into finance. You
13:11
Speaker 1: know what the funny thing is, whether I knew it
13:13
Speaker 1: or not, I was an entrepreneur before I really like
13:16
Speaker 1: I thought about it, and I in college, I mean
13:19
Speaker 1: well before that, in high school, me and my brother
13:22
Speaker 1: and my best friend at the time. We threw um
13:25
Speaker 1: one of the largest parties in the city of Detroit,
13:28
Speaker 1: and everything you could imagine went wrong. We had We
13:32
Speaker 1: had done an incredible job and promotingly hit every venue,
13:35
Speaker 1: Every school from every neighborhood came. But I didn't think like, oh, well,
13:39
Speaker 1: I'm putting this from creating a really hostile situation. Yeah.
13:45
Speaker 1: So we actually had one of the few parties at
13:48
Speaker 1: this place called the Bella Casino. You been how old
13:51
Speaker 1: were you when you did it? You had at the casino?
13:55
Speaker 1: It was it was the call that casino. What so
13:58
Speaker 1: we had? You were talking about a house. We got there,
14:01
Speaker 1: It's February. It was a Valentine's Day party. We handrew
14:05
Speaker 1: a flyer like hearts with a little SPECIs like come
14:09
Speaker 1: to my party. I wish I could find but we
14:12
Speaker 1: passed them out. We had a huge turnout, and then
14:16
Speaker 1: you know, obviously people start fighting and shooting. People were
14:18
Speaker 1: dancing in the trade. We danced, so I mean, you
14:21
Speaker 1: guys had the hustle and all that. This guy was
14:23
Speaker 1: dancing with this girl and he punched a hole in
14:26
Speaker 1: the wall. So I'll see that and like, oh, they're
14:28
Speaker 1: gonna charge us for that. We got there to night
14:31
Speaker 1: of the menue. I don't want to overcook this, and
14:34
Speaker 1: they say you can't take money to do it. So
14:37
Speaker 1: all the things that could went wrong went wrong and
14:39
Speaker 1: then we end up still walking away with a little
14:41
Speaker 1: money and we paid it out. We had to fix
14:43
Speaker 1: the grass, got beat up. It was it was kind
14:45
Speaker 1: of a mess. It was kind of as they were shooting.
14:50
Speaker 1: Thank you, and you guys are only six. Where were
14:53
Speaker 1: your parents? They were there? But you know, I beg
14:57
Speaker 1: my dad he was a police officer, and I beg
14:59
Speaker 1: my had to give me the money to do the
15:01
Speaker 1: party because I needed like I thought I had the
15:04
Speaker 1: money and it was a shorts so I'll go to
15:07
Speaker 1: him and my uncles are like, yeah, that's the plan,
15:10
Speaker 1: and like I don't know, this sounds kind of crazy,
15:12
Speaker 1: but they took a chance and we got their money back. Okay, perfect,
15:16
Speaker 1: And then we had so you are a real entrepreneur.
15:19
Speaker 1: You know, it wouldn't have lc anything like that. And
15:22
Speaker 1: then in college we threw parties, were parties and we
15:26
Speaker 1: did promotion. We passed off flyers. We passed off flyers
15:29
Speaker 1: for some big promoters that I won't name that never
15:32
Speaker 1: paid us, so we got a chance to learn earlier.
15:34
Speaker 1: But being an entrepreneur was you know what we should
15:38
Speaker 1: do better to to kind of better serve the guests
15:41
Speaker 1: of the clients. So yeah, all right, so this is
15:43
Speaker 1: about brown got the boom. Okay, we'll use this. Oh yeah,
15:51
Speaker 1: you can use that one. So I only get all
15:53
Speaker 1: the grease of it because I want to use some
15:55
Speaker 1: of that for these veggies. So next to was edges.
16:00
Speaker 1: It's okay, we'll get that. Always make a mess. I
16:03
Speaker 1: the cleanest guard, one of those people like I cook
16:07
Speaker 1: and clean at the same time. Right, I don't, but
16:12
Speaker 1: you have to. Okay, So now you got the veggies, Okay,
16:15
Speaker 1: I want to do I want to do these first.
16:18
Speaker 1: Let him sweat a little bit and man and I
16:22
Speaker 1: challenged him for all you listeners. I was like, can
16:25
Speaker 1: you make this dish in under fifteen minutes? So he's
16:27
Speaker 1: under a lot of pressure right now, pressure as he
16:30
Speaker 1: told his story telling telling an impressive story. So the
16:36
Speaker 1: thing that caught my attention about you was I was
16:39
Speaker 1: reading that during the during the pandemic, when most people
16:44
Speaker 1: were crying like myself, I was in fetal position, like,
16:49
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, my business is going under in micro Sacks.
16:53
Speaker 1: I had an events company, so needless to say, it
16:56
Speaker 1: shut down really fast. Um, you were you were out
17:00
Speaker 1: there working and I guess looking for your next opportunity
17:05
Speaker 1: or was it just a natural pivot? Like what was happening? Um?
17:07
Speaker 1: I remember being at the conference that the industry conference
17:10
Speaker 1: we had. I'm just Sautetia Peppers. So we were at
17:15
Speaker 1: the industry conference and then everything was kind of We're
17:18
Speaker 1: riding high and then come home, people started getting sick
17:21
Speaker 1: and I was working on I was doing some consulting
17:24
Speaker 1: at the time, and I was with a dear friend
17:25
Speaker 1: of mine up in San Francisco. And then we were
17:28
Speaker 1: at a restaurant which is a missing Star restaurant, the
17:31
Speaker 1: Angler and his beautiful restaurants. You're hard to get a
17:34
Speaker 1: seat in there. But we're on business in San Francisco,
17:37
Speaker 1: and we look around, were only person in the restaurant.
17:39
Speaker 1: We're like, this is scary. And then later that night
17:43
Speaker 1: the mirror San Francisco Learning breed shut down San Francisco,
17:48
Speaker 1: so we're like, can we get home? And I was
17:50
Speaker 1: the first city to shut down, if you remember. So
17:52
Speaker 1: I went home and I was still kind of like, uh,
17:55
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen. And then immediately overnight, you know, air
17:58
Speaker 1: traffic really kind of shut down down across the country,
18:02
Speaker 1: which is our business. Yeah, you're in the airport and
18:04
Speaker 1: our businesses struggling. Beforehand, we were having a hard time
18:07
Speaker 1: just trying to get, you know, things on the right track,
18:10
Speaker 1: because when you open a new business, they're always gonna
18:12
Speaker 1: be things you need to correct. So this kind of
18:15
Speaker 1: took the wind out of ourselves. And you guys opened
18:17
Speaker 1: right before the pandemic. Yeah, you know, we open right
18:19
Speaker 1: before the pandemic. And then you know, we opened and
18:21
Speaker 1: to know, we opened two dollars eighteen, like end of
18:25
Speaker 1: two dollars eighteen, a year before the panic. So you know,
18:30
Speaker 1: I was a partner and I wasn't very involved, but
18:32
Speaker 1: I was also doing consultant, trying to get new opportunities
18:36
Speaker 1: and trying to chase new deals. And then everything kind
18:39
Speaker 1: of came to a screeching home. So when I say yeah,
18:43
Speaker 1: I was really affective because we had to all go
18:45
Speaker 1: home and I'm thinking on stuff, what's gonna happen. But
18:49
Speaker 1: then at the same time, we were doing, uh, myself
18:52
Speaker 1: and some other partners mine, we're working on golf course project,
18:56
Speaker 1: Ratio Park golf course, and we're supposed to take over
18:59
Speaker 1: Mark and they're like, well the golf course closed down,
19:04
Speaker 1: you can't take over, okay. So we end up taking
19:09
Speaker 1: over into April when they started to reopen and quickly
19:13
Speaker 1: got it going in April. The golf courses were the
19:18
Speaker 1: first thing to open the city. Well everything else, the
19:21
Speaker 1: grocery stores, with everything, other venues. Because we're outdoors, I
19:24
Speaker 1: didn't know that. Yeah, it was people are allowed to
19:26
Speaker 1: go play golf, and golf just skyrocket. But then I
19:30
Speaker 1: had no idea that was the place to be at
19:33
Speaker 1: this whole time. It was and golfing, and we were
19:38
Speaker 1: there and I spent time there, and then we were
19:42
Speaker 1: working on like okay, how do we take advantage of
19:44
Speaker 1: the opportunity. We can't start construction, And we found a
19:47
Speaker 1: contract with the l a Homeless Authority UM which has
19:51
Speaker 1: lost of and they had a project for people experiencing
19:55
Speaker 1: homelessness to take them off the street, and they interviewed
19:59
Speaker 1: us to do meals for these individuals that they had
20:03
Speaker 1: housing hotels doing so the government. You know, we're a
20:06
Speaker 1: government contractor. So it's like, okay, how are you government
20:11
Speaker 1: contractors because of l a X. Yeah, we're Yeah, our
20:13
Speaker 1: businesses we operated government control facilities. You know golf course
20:19
Speaker 1: is owned by the city of l A. I didn't
20:20
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, for the most part. And then also
20:22
Speaker 1: you have the airport, which is owned by the city
20:24
Speaker 1: of la So I say government contractors, yet we work
20:28
Speaker 1: with government instince. Okay, So we got there where we
20:31
Speaker 1: want to be. We don't want to get too soft
20:33
Speaker 1: because boom, your favorite part of it? First? Wait, did
20:38
Speaker 1: you add green onions? Gotta keep it? Okay, So guys,
20:43
Speaker 1: you just sautay the garlic onions, peppers. He's adding the
20:48
Speaker 1: chicken stock just a little. You're a real chef man. No, no,
20:53
Speaker 1: not at all. I definitely do not cook like this
20:56
Speaker 1: at home. You gotta start. I'm going to I'm gonna
20:59
Speaker 1: take this. Whenever there's a really good dish, I try
21:02
Speaker 1: to pretend like I created it in front of my husband.
21:04
Speaker 1: He's gonna like this because we got we have a
21:07
Speaker 1: special type of taste, but betrayed. We all know there's
21:13
Speaker 1: a lot of lorries in our house. We're like, we're
21:15
Speaker 1: very colorful taste for us better word. Really, I feel
21:18
Speaker 1: like Jamaicans have more a little heavy. There we go. Man,
21:24
Speaker 1: I hate heavy cream, frost, build the sauce left the store,
21:28
Speaker 1: barg alfredo sauce. You know that garlic onions, You got
21:32
Speaker 1: the peppers. So you're gonna like basically give all the
21:36
Speaker 1: heavy cream. It's gonna be good because with the chicken stock.
21:42
Speaker 1: So he's gonna kind of like let this kind of
21:43
Speaker 1: blend together. Don't mind my face everyone, because I really
21:47
Speaker 1: really hate heavy cream, but a passion. But cheese is
21:52
Speaker 1: gonna kind of all work out. He makes chicken stock
21:55
Speaker 1: with heavy cream, Okay. And I thought heavy cream was
21:58
Speaker 1: like a milk you could eat it. Yeah, water milk
22:01
Speaker 1: will like separate, but heavy cream it's good. You need
22:06
Speaker 1: the Farmeersan cheese okay. Okay, So yeah we're gonn how
22:11
Speaker 1: to make alfredo. Guys, it's just cheese. I mean a
22:34
Speaker 1: lot of people use lozarella cheese, but parmesan is good
22:38
Speaker 1: for us today, right. Um. And then so we're doing
22:42
Speaker 1: meals for homeless people experienced homeless nest and we didn't
22:46
Speaker 1: have the background for that. We just kind of figured
22:48
Speaker 1: it out and we end up making one day it
22:51
Speaker 1: was three hundred and then the week later said, well,
22:53
Speaker 1: can you make a thousand meals, like so imagine you know,
22:58
Speaker 1: the trial and error. So think that was a big
23:00
Speaker 1: part of me like kind of figuring out like, man,
23:03
Speaker 1: you really can do anything you want to if you
23:05
Speaker 1: want to do it. And uh so I really kind
23:08
Speaker 1: of just we we were working like seven days, were
23:10
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to how to you know,
23:13
Speaker 1: come up with meals and I was your creating recipes
23:15
Speaker 1: or like look at the recipes and then trying to
23:17
Speaker 1: figure out how do you mass produce them? Yeah, and
23:19
Speaker 1: that's I was gonna ask next, like how do you
23:20
Speaker 1: go from getting the contract so now entering a space
23:24
Speaker 1: that you've you've never really entered before, right, because it's
23:27
Speaker 1: it's like meal prep right now, here's here's meal prep,
23:29
Speaker 1: but here's the here's the cheetode. Right. Most people say yes,
23:33
Speaker 1: I'll take the opportunity and then say, but I need
23:37
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of time to figure it out.
23:38
Speaker 1: If you just say and it's probably not everybody because
23:42
Speaker 1: if you're not if you're not built to handle this
23:44
Speaker 1: kind of thought process, if you say yes, I'll do it,
23:46
Speaker 1: and then you just quickly jump in action and figure
23:48
Speaker 1: it out because right now, even today, people are still
23:52
Speaker 1: dealing with whether the business is telling them, yeah, we
23:56
Speaker 1: don't have the ability to do that. We know the
23:58
Speaker 1: band when you do that, we can't do it. And
24:00
Speaker 1: I think we want to be, you know, for as
24:03
Speaker 1: a company that kind of runs towards that kind of stuff,
24:06
Speaker 1: because you know, you solve problems, you get opportunity, and
24:08
Speaker 1: that's we were like in the problem solving business. A
24:11
Speaker 1: little more cheese, want the sauce that thicking up, and
24:14
Speaker 1: then we're gonna return the meats to the kind of
24:20
Speaker 1: bring it all together. It looks good. Yeah, I'm one
24:22
Speaker 1: of those people that say yes and then uh, I
24:25
Speaker 1: look at my schedule like, oh, we're gonna fit this today.
24:28
Speaker 1: But you know, I watched a lot of pinking in
24:31
Speaker 1: the brain, so you know what, I'm gonna take over
24:34
Speaker 1: the world. I literally, during the pandemic, painted a mural
24:38
Speaker 1: of pinking in the brain in my garage. The neighbors
24:40
Speaker 1: all driving my lake. What are you doing? What's going on?
24:43
Speaker 1: I'm making myself happy. So we're gonna end up adding
24:47
Speaker 1: more cheese. But I just want to start building this
24:48
Speaker 1: in just go when we get the right consistency. So
24:51
Speaker 1: he's pouring the chicken and the sausage into the sauce,
24:55
Speaker 1: and you gotta try not to make a big mess
24:58
Speaker 1: what you look like I'm doing. So you don't need
25:00
Speaker 1: to add more seasoning throughout this whole thing, I think absolutely.
25:05
Speaker 1: But you know you always can add, you can't subtract.
25:10
Speaker 1: I've learned that lesson before. Yeah, I give remind all
25:15
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, I've done that before. Maybe you try
25:20
Speaker 1: to drown it out. It's not start over, start over.
25:25
Speaker 1: Uh So, Yeah, we were doing the meal thing and
25:28
Speaker 1: that kind of ended up being something big, but it
25:31
Speaker 1: was exhausting work. And then the opportunity with with SSP
25:35
Speaker 1: came and I was a partner with them and there
25:39
Speaker 1: it was a great relationship. But you know, they made
25:41
Speaker 1: a business decision where they wanted to kind of look
25:43
Speaker 1: at to exit from the l a X market. Can
25:47
Speaker 1: you explain to our listeners what SSP is. SSP is
25:50
Speaker 1: a fabulous company, shout out the SSP. Uh, But they're
25:55
Speaker 1: really one of the leading industry leaders for food, beverage,
25:58
Speaker 1: hospitality and airports. And they're based their London owned company,
26:03
Speaker 1: but they have a Northern North American division and they
26:08
Speaker 1: are really you know, we essentially do the same thing
26:11
Speaker 1: as we managed food beverage contracts and airports and you
26:15
Speaker 1: know they do travel centers and uh in Europe London,
26:19
Speaker 1: but for the most part, Yeah, SSP is as a
26:22
Speaker 1: food beverage hospitality management company. So you had your own
26:26
Speaker 1: concessions in the mark in the airport while you're doing
26:30
Speaker 1: the homeless food and you're a part of SSP. Yeah,
26:35
Speaker 1: so I had more or less, Yeah, we had. We
26:40
Speaker 1: were a joint venture partner with SSP through the a
26:42
Speaker 1: c dB Airport Concessions Disadvantage Business Enterprise. It's allful program
26:48
Speaker 1: and SSP UM myself and we had my company and
26:53
Speaker 1: enjoy Peat and several of the companies were partners in
26:55
Speaker 1: l A. We had operated eight restaurants in the airport.
26:59
Speaker 1: They were the managing partner and then they operated the
27:01
Speaker 1: day to day restaurants and we served on the management committee.
27:05
Speaker 1: And then you know, because I had worked for the
27:08
Speaker 1: company previously CMS and I managed the business myself and
27:12
Speaker 1: I done kind of everything. I built the rapport with
27:14
Speaker 1: the airport and you are w R landlord where they
27:18
Speaker 1: knew that one I had the experience to do it
27:21
Speaker 1: UM and they were quickly able to get behind me
27:23
Speaker 1: and say yeah, we like this. And it was really
27:25
Speaker 1: at the time where uh not just airports, not just cities,
27:29
Speaker 1: where everyone was saying I want to see more minority
27:32
Speaker 1: participation in a real way, like a meaningful way. And
27:35
Speaker 1: then to me that was kind of like a light
27:37
Speaker 1: bulb like, well, they can't say no if you said
27:41
Speaker 1: you if you want to see more, and I'm bringing
27:43
Speaker 1: some to you. Because this is not an easy thing.
27:46
Speaker 1: It wasn't like oh yeah, sure, just like you signed
27:48
Speaker 1: off on a document. It's a lot of work that
27:50
Speaker 1: goes into this and a lot of people's livelihood of state.
27:53
Speaker 1: You know, this business had over two other employees um
27:57
Speaker 1: that quickly they had to furlough a lot of them,
28:00
Speaker 1: you know, because there was no business in the airports.
28:02
Speaker 1: So it was a lot of a lot of things
28:03
Speaker 1: to consider when we really addressed the opportunity and say well,
28:07
Speaker 1: how do we do this? And then trying to go
28:09
Speaker 1: raise capital. I mean I took I made about a
28:12
Speaker 1: hundred phone calls just trying to raise the capital. People
28:16
Speaker 1: you knew, what, people you didn't know. Both people a
28:21
Speaker 1: little more cheese. I think that's it for us on cheese.
28:24
Speaker 1: And now we're gonna we're gonna mix with the pasta
28:26
Speaker 1: because I like to mix um season first though, So
28:33
Speaker 1: you have this opportunity. Now you're cold calling, You're trying
28:36
Speaker 1: to raise the capital. So no part of you was like,
28:38
Speaker 1: I don't have this capital. I should just quit. You're like, no,
28:41
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out and get it. We're gonna do it,
28:43
Speaker 1: and you become a salesman. I didn't do. I've never
28:48
Speaker 1: done that part of the business before. I just knew
28:50
Speaker 1: how to operate the restaurants. I had a bunch of relationships.
28:52
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing about it was, you know, you
28:55
Speaker 1: learned every pitch you go and you learn something you
28:58
Speaker 1: should anyway. So would go in a beating and you
29:01
Speaker 1: know certain things would stand out to certain investors and
29:03
Speaker 1: certain people looking at my deck, and then I just
29:05
Speaker 1: asked for help, like I asked friends that I knew,
29:08
Speaker 1: take a look at this. Tell me what you think.
29:10
Speaker 1: Do you think that I missed something here? And I
29:12
Speaker 1: still do that today because you need perspective, like I
29:16
Speaker 1: don't know everything. I know that to be a fact, like,
29:20
Speaker 1: and I've always I kind of have a disadvantage. I'm
29:24
Speaker 1: a twin, so I have a twin brother. Are you
29:27
Speaker 1: kidding me. Family, I love it a lot of turn
29:35
Speaker 1: you if you sat us the next to each other,
29:36
Speaker 1: you can tell we tell we're brothers. But you know,
29:39
Speaker 1: he's a love brother. He's extremely intelligible. He knows it all,
29:44
Speaker 1: and he'll tell you the same thing. So I'm not
29:45
Speaker 1: saying anything you don't know. And so I would always
29:49
Speaker 1: have someone in my ear telling me, oh no, you
29:52
Speaker 1: know they you know if I'm always used to take
29:55
Speaker 1: in criticism, So all right, listed friends took a bunch
29:58
Speaker 1: of calls, you know, a bunch of pitch meetings. People
30:01
Speaker 1: weren't meeting in person. So imagine trying to like sell
30:04
Speaker 1: an idea via zoom. It was a special skill. I
30:08
Speaker 1: got a lot of respect for people who do that
30:09
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. The thing to touch it because it's hot. Sure,
30:16
Speaker 1: this is not hot. I just want to taste it first.
30:18
Speaker 1: Make sure to go for it. Oh it's too cheesy.
30:28
Speaker 1: It's too cheesy. That's hilarious. It's not. It's not too cheese.
30:35
Speaker 1: It's little cheese. And I'm like, okay, okay, So you
30:38
Speaker 1: told me it was hard to do this, and it is.
30:41
Speaker 1: Uh so you're selling, You're you're selling on zoom exactly.
30:46
Speaker 1: I'm selling on zoom, FaceTime, you know, sending people emails,
30:51
Speaker 1: you know, having a follow up every single day because
30:54
Speaker 1: no one you know, when you have money, even sitting
30:56
Speaker 1: there like we get to you. And I was getting
30:59
Speaker 1: more more gesture by the moment. And then every time
31:02
Speaker 1: my partner would say, hey, where we at, I would say, oh, yeah,
31:05
Speaker 1: we're on the home stretch, you know, like work with me.
31:09
Speaker 1: But they knew, but did he was he responsible for
31:11
Speaker 1: also raising capital? No, my partner's SSP. I med SSP.
31:18
Speaker 1: They're like, okay, the people you're you're trying to buy
31:21
Speaker 1: them out, yea, And they're like, we're under pressure. Kind
31:23
Speaker 1: of give us an update, what's going on? And it was.
31:26
Speaker 1: It was a lot of a lot of pressure. But
31:28
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we had a relationship,
31:30
Speaker 1: so and this was the right thing to do. And
31:33
Speaker 1: you know, I called all the favors I could, what
31:36
Speaker 1: I need to call them, and you know, I would
31:39
Speaker 1: do it all. I would do the exact same way
31:41
Speaker 1: if I had to do it again. Right, So, um,
31:44
Speaker 1: now we're gonna kind of mixed up. So you're telling
31:46
Speaker 1: them you're in the home stretch, but you really weren't.
31:48
Speaker 1: What was keeping you from quitting at that point because
31:51
Speaker 1: I told everybody I was gonna do it. Oh, you're
31:54
Speaker 1: exactly like me. That's how I am. If I say
31:56
Speaker 1: it out loud, it's like, oh my god, I have
31:57
Speaker 1: to do it now that I mean. I literally told
31:59
Speaker 1: her buddy, oh yeah, so I'm I'm doing this and
32:02
Speaker 1: they're like, what's you up to? How's everything? You know,
32:04
Speaker 1: he was checking in how things doing the pandemic. We
32:06
Speaker 1: were trying to get like, you know, the airport to
32:09
Speaker 1: give us rent relief for different uh you know things
32:13
Speaker 1: that you know that really were hindrance on our business.
32:15
Speaker 1: It was a lot of that, right, um so we
32:19
Speaker 1: were doing YouTube videos the first time, trying to tell
32:21
Speaker 1: our story so uh so, but then you know, you
32:24
Speaker 1: talk to friends and what are you up to, like, oh,
32:26
Speaker 1: I'm doing this or this? So it's the real thing.
32:30
Speaker 1: Like once I said I was doing it, I couldn't
32:32
Speaker 1: have I couldn't face the noise of not saying, not
32:37
Speaker 1: being when to get it done. And I think a
32:38
Speaker 1: lot of people doubt it that we would get it done.
32:40
Speaker 1: A lot of people thought you're crazy if you're doing it, Yeah,
32:43
Speaker 1: you're crazy, Like why would you want to do this,
32:45
Speaker 1: and um, I found a fantastic group of partners UM
32:50
Speaker 1: through our industry who who quickly got it. They believed
32:55
Speaker 1: in You call people in the industry at this point
32:57
Speaker 1: smart well I started looking on saw the industry. You
33:00
Speaker 1: had to come in. Inst're like, Okay, somebody here wants
33:03
Speaker 1: to do it. A lot of people will take your
33:05
Speaker 1: calls and say, yeah, we want to do it, but
33:06
Speaker 1: we gotta you know, typen this up. We gotta do this. Well,
33:10
Speaker 1: how do you know they're not even gonna kind of
33:12
Speaker 1: overstep over you, right, because that's kind of tricky, right,
33:14
Speaker 1: because you're calling your competitors essentially, right. Yeah, but I
33:17
Speaker 1: had I had a UM noncompete or exclusive for a
33:23
Speaker 1: little bit of time that quickly elapsed after I couldn't
33:26
Speaker 1: get it that they couldn't tell to anybody else until
33:30
Speaker 1: we reached this deadline. So yeah, for the most part,
33:33
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of a little bit of
33:35
Speaker 1: that for sure. So we're ready to play. Okay, okay, yes,
33:40
Speaker 1: let's play. Let's play UM do you Yeah, we'll play UM.
33:48
Speaker 1: What a crazy, crazy, crazy story. So you end up
33:51
Speaker 1: raising the capital and then we're gonna we're gonna end
33:54
Speaker 1: up trying this meal, and yeah, I'm trying to get
33:57
Speaker 1: it all this in. And you know I said it
33:59
Speaker 1: was cheesy, but it's not easy being cheesy. It's fine.
34:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna rate your dishes. I'm gonna race it. I'm
34:06
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna be like salmon cow with it. Okay.
34:09
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you had me, uh preoccupied, so I'm not.
34:16
Speaker 1: So I'm moving here and then I'll bring it here.
34:19
Speaker 1: Here we go. I want to make it look good.
34:22
Speaker 1: Ready on a second, you got this? Oh, just a
34:27
Speaker 1: little more right, and then we'll do like we'll like
34:30
Speaker 1: plate it and then we'll put a little on top. Awesome,
34:34
Speaker 1: a little uh there you go, a little hot sauce
34:37
Speaker 1: if you want plate We're gonna do this. We're gonna
34:44
Speaker 1: switch it. We're gonna throw the commercial. Great, well, it
34:49
Speaker 1: looks cheesy, it looks delicious. Okay, it's a little red
34:53
Speaker 1: brna and you how very much you like? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
34:56
Speaker 1: let me try. Let me try and be you for
34:58
Speaker 1: a second. Hit it all right, and then this yeah
35:04
Speaker 1: a little bit of that. So I use hot sauce,
35:08
Speaker 1: but we don't. We're not gonna do it today because
35:11
Speaker 1: I like it hot. Here we go for the taste test.
35:13
Speaker 1: Everyone ready, here we go. First of all, it looks beautiful. Well,
35:19
Speaker 1: let's see how cheesy. Didn't do it? I don't taste great.
35:28
Speaker 1: It's not cheesy. No, it's cheesy. Do you not like cheesy?
35:32
Speaker 1: I like cheesy, but oh yeah, the noodles balance it
35:37
Speaker 1: out a little concerned, thank you. I'm definitely gonna bring
35:43
Speaker 1: this home and pretend like I created this dish. It's
35:47
Speaker 1: very comforting. I don't say that. I just have one question.
35:50
Speaker 1: Why did you use chicken thighs and not chicken breasts
35:54
Speaker 1: because it's cheap? Yeah, well you don't. Back in the day,
35:58
Speaker 1: you can do this meal for all. Now you might
36:00
Speaker 1: depend on what story you go to. You gotta go
36:02
Speaker 1: to Rouse or trade to Joe's, or you'll be in
36:04
Speaker 1: real trouble. I lived by Gilson's, and I've never seen
36:08
Speaker 1: a more expensive groceries for my life. This dishes extremely delicious.
36:14
Speaker 1: It's definitely like one of my top favorite dishes. Hopefully
36:17
Speaker 1: my crew can enjoy it in our little in between break.
36:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna table. That's good news. Did you tell everybody that? Though?
36:25
Speaker 1: Won't I've been hesitant to tell people when their dishes
36:29
Speaker 1: are really bad. Useally the second we wrap and they leave,
36:32
Speaker 1: I'm like, the dish was really horrible. Yeall saw some
36:35
Speaker 1: of my stuff. I'm like, really, people, ain't that Um yeah,
36:38
Speaker 1: i'd say it like I'll tell you on this episode
36:42
Speaker 1: my most hated dish is uh, the tuna castro. I
36:46
Speaker 1: love it. Tuna castro. Right, I'll never do it again.
36:51
Speaker 1: Don't ever want to hear hear it again. It was
36:53
Speaker 1: it was. It was out of all the dishes of it.
36:56
Speaker 1: I've even had the muscles on the crackers. I will
36:59
Speaker 1: do that before the tunic, the muscles like from the camp. Yeah,
37:01
Speaker 1: it was pretty bad. We had a We had a
37:06
Speaker 1: guy in our neighborhood named t and he would eat
37:09
Speaker 1: the Vienna sausage are like the oysters and the muscles
37:13
Speaker 1: from can. I'm like, dude, obviously he had a drinking problem,
37:17
Speaker 1: so he was whatever being connects. Now, we're gonna close
37:23
Speaker 1: this inner, this episode out, but I do have a
37:26
Speaker 1: question for you, out of just two more questions, out
37:30
Speaker 1: of everything that you've accomplished in your career thus far,
37:32
Speaker 1: what would you say was the hardest accomplishment. I think
37:39
Speaker 1: the hardest part for me was actually believing that I
37:42
Speaker 1: was good enough to do with myself and like I
37:45
Speaker 1: was able to bring value to so many other people.
37:48
Speaker 1: But then when you you know, you don't look at
37:50
Speaker 1: yourself as the guy who should be you know, receiving
37:54
Speaker 1: the blessings is easy to put yourself there. And I
37:58
Speaker 1: was always good at like showing up for people, And
38:00
Speaker 1: the biggest part was me to show up for myself,
38:03
Speaker 1: and I really show up, And you know, I had
38:06
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure, not just you know, from a
38:09
Speaker 1: dead standp but pressure pressure to perform because I really
38:13
Speaker 1: want to be great at what we do. I really
38:15
Speaker 1: want us to be recognized as one of the best.
38:18
Speaker 1: And that's not gonna be easy. That's something you can't
38:20
Speaker 1: say that and not not say that. I'm putting the
38:23
Speaker 1: work to do it. So the biggest part for me
38:25
Speaker 1: was believing I could be the guy and I could
38:28
Speaker 1: actually make it happen for myself. I know it may
38:31
Speaker 1: happen for others because there are so many components I'm
38:34
Speaker 1: really good at. But then you gotta surround your people
38:36
Speaker 1: with you know, surround yourself with people that are really
38:39
Speaker 1: good at the other stuff, so you can actually you know,
38:42
Speaker 1: get to the to the to the to the commonplace,
38:44
Speaker 1: so where you really want to be at. So that
38:46
Speaker 1: was the hardest part. Um the rest of the stuff,
38:49
Speaker 1: you know, this deal was was great because it energized me.
38:52
Speaker 1: It gave me a whole new purpose coming out of
38:54
Speaker 1: this pandemic. And it was it was it was someone
38:58
Speaker 1: who said it to me and I was like them
39:00
Speaker 1: books and listen to the podcasts and they were you know, really,
39:03
Speaker 1: opportunity comes when there's chaos. Opportunity comes when you least expected.
39:08
Speaker 1: And I know I was ready and I put in,
39:10
Speaker 1: you know, fifty years doing this, so for it wasn't
39:13
Speaker 1: about at that point can I do it? It was like, oh,
39:17
Speaker 1: I'm I'm doing it and let's go um. Because I
39:21
Speaker 1: also like making decisions and uhsion, Oh yeah, I love
39:26
Speaker 1: making decisions. I love it. I want to be the
39:28
Speaker 1: gout to make a decision because I'm equipped to do
39:32
Speaker 1: it and I know the right decisions and I don't
39:36
Speaker 1: I'm not a scary person. I don't think from a
39:37
Speaker 1: scary mentality. So because when I'm there, I've never had anything,
39:42
Speaker 1: so it's not like I'm gonna lose everything. I didn't
39:44
Speaker 1: have any I didn't have anything, so it's easy for
39:46
Speaker 1: me to say to take the leap, but then yeah,
39:51
Speaker 1: that's it really once you mentally get yourself there, and
39:55
Speaker 1: it's kind of all downhill from there, do you U?
40:00
Speaker 1: I look at you, and I feel like there's a
40:02
Speaker 1: lot of your success kind of goes back to you
40:05
Speaker 1: being able to say that you're going to do something
40:07
Speaker 1: and then doing it. So I think that from an
40:09
Speaker 1: outsider looking in, we didn't get to dive as deep
40:12
Speaker 1: as I would have liked. But I feel like the
40:15
Speaker 1: reason why you were able to even raise the capital
40:17
Speaker 1: to do what you were able to do is because
40:19
Speaker 1: people knew your work ethic and they knew if you
40:21
Speaker 1: said you were going to do something, you were going
40:23
Speaker 1: to do it, you know. I mean the people that
40:52
Speaker 1: invest in me, I don't even know that they were
40:55
Speaker 1: paying attention from AFAR. And one thing I probably myself
41:01
Speaker 1: on is showing up for people doing the right thing
41:04
Speaker 1: and and really kind of doing not just doing it
41:07
Speaker 1: to say I check the box, but doing it too
41:10
Speaker 1: to do it and you did it with integrity, I mean,
41:13
Speaker 1: I mean, and obviously there are moments where you kind
41:16
Speaker 1: of you kind of have to like been been the
41:20
Speaker 1: been the your your standard of internity because you know,
41:23
Speaker 1: I was telling my partner, yeah, I got it all
41:24
Speaker 1: figured out. I got it all figured out, but it
41:26
Speaker 1: was it was a white line because I was gonna
41:29
Speaker 1: figure it out. But there was a moment where I
41:31
Speaker 1: had to basically come clean and tell them like, you know,
41:35
Speaker 1: I got some real challenges. And you know, I wish
41:38
Speaker 1: I would have just did that from the beginning because
41:39
Speaker 1: it took a lot of pressure of myself because they
41:42
Speaker 1: were really coming at mean, the SSP was really coming
41:45
Speaker 1: position like wanting to help me. This was the right
41:47
Speaker 1: thing to do, Like I was helping them so they
41:50
Speaker 1: solve a problem like being able to get out of
41:53
Speaker 1: this opportunity and then provide an opportunity for for someone
41:56
Speaker 1: else who wanted it. And it made a lot of sense.
41:58
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, integrity was critical, but just just
42:03
Speaker 1: being honest with yourself and saying all right, you know, uh,
42:08
Speaker 1: I may I may not be able to pull this off.
42:10
Speaker 1: Ware here's the challenges because people want to help you,
42:13
Speaker 1: but if you if you're acting like it's all good,
42:15
Speaker 1: then can they really help you? Because where do they
42:17
Speaker 1: help you? How do they do to help you? Yeah,
42:19
Speaker 1: I agree with that. To to a certain extent, but
42:21
Speaker 1: at the same time, I feel like you put yourself
42:23
Speaker 1: under just the right amount of pressure to like create diamonds.
42:26
Speaker 1: My last and final question, I promise you we will
42:29
Speaker 1: wrap this is This is the This is the question.
42:33
Speaker 1: This is the thing that I admire the most about
42:35
Speaker 1: you and I struggle with as an entrepreneur. Is the pivot.
42:39
Speaker 1: I love your pivots. Like your pivots, they look from
42:42
Speaker 1: a far very graceful and very like, Wow, what an
42:46
Speaker 1: amazing pivot right there. How are you able to pivot
42:49
Speaker 1: as much as you have? Like, what is the secret
42:52
Speaker 1: behind your pivot? I just want, I mean, I don't
42:58
Speaker 1: you know, thank one, thank you for the compliment. I'll
43:00
Speaker 1: say that the second pieces. If you have to, you
43:05
Speaker 1: have to. Like I didn't really have a choice. I
43:07
Speaker 1: couldn't said yeah, I don't have to deal with it
43:10
Speaker 1: one way or another. And I wanted to control my narrative.
43:13
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in, you know, kind of driving
43:16
Speaker 1: the ship. And I thought that, you know, this is
43:20
Speaker 1: my opportunity, this is my moment to like kind of
43:23
Speaker 1: make history in our industry, do something that you know,
43:26
Speaker 1: it's been talked about for a long time, and really
43:30
Speaker 1: you know when I was looking a capital that was
43:32
Speaker 1: a big part of a really aligned with the right
43:33
Speaker 1: people who also wanted to do the right thing and
43:37
Speaker 1: kind of like make history and do something that really
43:39
Speaker 1: had never been done before. So the pivot comes when
43:43
Speaker 1: one you have to be ready and prepared, so you know, uh,
43:47
Speaker 1: well not all the time you're ready and prepared, like ready,
43:51
Speaker 1: be ready. I mean, you gotta have you gotta have
43:53
Speaker 1: a framework to bring you gotta be in the building
43:56
Speaker 1: to reading. I was in the building and from the outside,
43:58
Speaker 1: people thought, oh, you got this. You know you're you're
44:01
Speaker 1: all the percentage of business, which I own percentage. They
44:04
Speaker 1: have partners, right, I have great partners, and we all
44:07
Speaker 1: want to see each other win. But I woul business
44:09
Speaker 1: where I was really kind of just along for the ride,
44:12
Speaker 1: whereas today I'm making a difference. And the pivot came
44:15
Speaker 1: because I wanted to be the person I always knew
44:17
Speaker 1: that I could. I could do this, And you know,
44:20
Speaker 1: that's kind of really the driving force behind everything our
44:23
Speaker 1: team is doing, because we really are like really competing
44:27
Speaker 1: against big boys, like big companies who who do this
44:30
Speaker 1: on a on a global scale, and I think we
44:35
Speaker 1: speak to a different person who wants to work for
44:36
Speaker 1: a company. They say, I want to work for a
44:38
Speaker 1: company that looks like that, and give me they come
44:40
Speaker 1: from where I come from. I come from the same
44:42
Speaker 1: background and many of the people that work force. Uh,
44:45
Speaker 1: I worked in the industry. I did all this, I
44:47
Speaker 1: did all the work. I'm not telling them to do
44:49
Speaker 1: something I haven't done myself, and I still do it.
44:51
Speaker 1: So it's all about just remembering all of that, kind
44:54
Speaker 1: of putting it on in a pot and kind of
44:58
Speaker 1: making it work, making it work, you know. So well,
45:00
Speaker 1: thank you for an amazing meal on another episode of
45:04
Speaker 1: Eating Wild Broke. Thank you, thank you, yeah, thank you
45:09
Speaker 1: so much. It's awesome, So bring our energy levels up.
45:23
Speaker 1: That's because in the back of my mind, I'm like, dang,
45:25
Speaker 1: I gotta cut it short. I gotta cut it short.
45:29
Speaker 1: We cut a lot of feel of her. Well, thank
45:33
Speaker 1: you so much for blessing me with one of the
45:36
Speaker 1: my favorite meals on the show. And even though we're
45:40
Speaker 1: on camera and I'm not you know, I'm going to
45:42
Speaker 1: clean this plate the second camera coup. Yeah, yeah, no,
45:47
Speaker 1: you did an amazing dish, And thank you so much
45:49
Speaker 1: for taking time out of your busy schedule and answering
45:52
Speaker 1: my LinkedIn d M. That's as the only DM I'm
45:57
Speaker 1: looking at because that's where the actually is it like
46:03
Speaker 1: what somebody wants to be on the podcast. So thank
46:05
Speaker 1: you for having me and thank you for finding me
46:07
Speaker 1: interest enough interesting enough to be on your show. And
46:10
Speaker 1: now when I go to the airports, which I'm I'm
46:12
Speaker 1: always at the airports, uh, instead of just going straight
46:15
Speaker 1: to the Delta lounge because I'm adulta lounge fanatic, UH,
46:19
Speaker 1: I will be like, where which restaurant we're going to today?
46:22
Speaker 1: So we in Delta. I'm a Delta a person too.
46:24
Speaker 1: We are opening um Alfred with Alfred the coffee brand
46:29
Speaker 1: in the Delta terminal and uh later this year. So
46:32
Speaker 1: that'll be our our kind of latest and greatest. But yeah,
46:36
Speaker 1: please feel freedom. We're gonna put you on the v
46:38
Speaker 1: I P List. They're gonna see their face and say, oh,
46:41
Speaker 1: there's such thing. There's no such thing as that is.
46:43
Speaker 1: It's an unofficial There are people that you get all
46:46
Speaker 1: in love when you come through. Okay, you guys heard
46:49
Speaker 1: that here on Eating Wall Broke, I'm gonna hold him
46:51
Speaker 1: to it, all right, peace yea for more Eating while
47:07
Speaker 1: Broke from I Heart radio and the Black Effect. Visit
47:10
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
47:13
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.