Latest / Go Big with Gib Podcast / Season 1 Local Special Episode

Transcript

Season 1 Local Special Episode · Go Big with Gib Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Go Big with Gibb podcast, where we talk to professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs about their big wins.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Today, I've got a very special guest with me, massimo Menino.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Massimo, how are you today?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Good, how are you?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me here.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: We just absolutely love your restaurants and I wanted to have you on the podcast for a really long time, so thank you for having us here today.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you, tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, my name is Massimo Mannino.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I'm owner of Marabella and Nino Italian Restaurant.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We're family owner.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Now, it's my understanding that you grew up in Italy, is that correct?
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, I grew up in Sicily, italy, a little town like 10 miles away from the big city, palermo.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We were talking earlier, I think you told me that you grew up on a farm.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about that.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: My father was a farmer so I grew up on a farm.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: From my father's side, From my mama's side, they would make a cheese maker.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I grew up on a boat way, making food and everything from scratch.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Always got passion to cook so since little, always try to make my own pasta and my own sauce.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: But always making a mess.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: So my mama always complain about how much mess you would make, but overall it was.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: She was helping me and learning so much a little bit even as a kid, you had a passion for cooking yes, and you had a lot of exposure to the restaurant business because of your mother had, yes, 10 siblings.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: That were all in the business.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all in the same environment business.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: What kind of farming did your father do?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: They would grow olive and pear and lemon.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: That's the three things they were growing as a farmer.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: When did you first visit the United States?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I came when I visited my wife.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: She was my girlfriend.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I came here, I visited my wife.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: She was my girlfriend.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I came here in 1992.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I came to visit her and then he ended up to stay and a year later we got married and went back to Italy, do the church, the ceremony there and come back here.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Had it always been a dream of yours to come to the United States to visit America.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, visit America was one of the dream because I grew up watching all the American movie, everything.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was one of the things that I.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a dream to come and see America.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Is your wife also Italian?
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, she's born.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: She's born in New York, but yeah.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: But her father was born in Italy yeah, come from the same town that I come from and they were friends with my father too in the young time, so they were friends.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Plus, they got bakery up there in Sicily and so we would buy bread for them.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Massimo, what was it like growing up in Sicily and then moving to New York City?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, what was that transition like?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: It's a big thing, whatever you see in a movie and the big building and it was.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a shock, but you know, nice, yeah, it was a good impact for me.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I learned so much from my skill cooking.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: He taught me a lot I learned from other places.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: When your father-in-law started in New York.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: What role did he play in the development of Little Italy?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: He went to New York and worked for this place.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: He went to the Italian Food Center in New York and started to introduce the bread stuff.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: He knows how to do it.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: That story would never make it before.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: It became so popular.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Everybody would come from everywhere to buy his bread, whatever he was doing to bring it back away People that live in Pennsylvania or away.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: They would go there there by and go back, and then a lot of celebrity they're going like, uh, sylvester Stallone and, um, frank.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Sinatra, I think you mentioned yeah yeah, so make it introduce something, uh good product that it was not there yet how was it that you ended up in Greenville, North Carolina?
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: So my father-in-law he has a brother who lives here.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So we came one day after 9-11, we come to visit him.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: We were going to move somewhere somehow from New York because of the situation, but we came here to visit him.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: We liked the place, we liked the weather weather it was good and and from there, uh, it was story about going pass by from Washington.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: My cousin was doing some work in the area and I saw this building for sale that I liked it.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: I don't even know nothing about Washington in little Washington, right, yeah, and.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I was my first day and I see that and we don't know anything about it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: But we make an offer of that building and they accept it and two years later I move here and open up the place and everything went good, you know.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: The first Mirabella in North Carolina was located in Little Washington right.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And you still have that location open now.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: How many Marabella locations do you have currently?
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: It's four Marabella now.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, and there's two in Greenville.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Two in Greenville, one in Wilmington and one in Washington.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: One in Washington.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: What year was it when you opened Nino's?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I think it was like almost nine years ago.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: If you had to say, like, what is the most popular dish?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Do you think at Nino's?
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: At Nino's, oh yeah.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I think chicken saltimbocca Okay yeah, it's one of the most popular here and cacio e pepe would be the second one, probably.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Saltimbocca is a very different dish.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I saw my brother-in-law he made that.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: He come out with that dish.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: It's very.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: You can get anywhere besides here.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I eat, you know, here at Nino's all the time.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I love to bring my kids here, especially on their birthdays.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: We come here for like different reasons.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Obviously, you know the food is fantastic, but it's also the people you know and like the way that you've treated us.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: What do you think is so special about Nino's?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's the—obviously the food is delicious, the people are wonderful, but it's like—I feel like this is like a community gathering place where people just feel very comfortable and you have so many good relationships in the community.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: We treat everybody like a family and that's the key.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Normally, who's coming here for me is support me, and I give my heart to anybody, no matter.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to say, but for me it's family, everybody coming here and I welcome everybody the same kind of way and we all have that mentality as a family.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: You know, you come here to the dinner time.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: It's like coming to our house.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: We live here, we live in this place, we live in the restaurant and the community in general, like it's been doing a lot to us in a pandemic time.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Uh, it's been doing a lot to us and a pandemic time is, I mean we'd be blessed to live in in this community because I don't think if it was another place, another area would be survived.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, support we got from the community yeah, you.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: You definitely have the heart of the community and a tremendous amount of support from the community here.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: As far as the future of your businesses, do you see yourself opening other locations in the future?
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Are you looking to grow and expand, or is that kind of unknown at this time?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Right now.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It's unknown at this time, but definitely who knows?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: You know, everything can change, but right now that's where we are.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Spend more time with the family, because it takes a lot of time away from everybody.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Your restaurants are no secret to the folks here in Greenville.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knows how wonderful your restaurants are, but for anybody that's listening to the podcast that has never eaten at Nino's or Marabella, I can't say enough good things about it Literally some of the best food that you'll ever get in Greenville, north Carolina, really anywhere in the world.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being on.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Today I've got a very good friend of mine here with us, justin Jackson from CrossFit Tier One Fitness.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going?
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Glad to be here.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, great to have you on.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about yourself, if you could.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Sure, my name is Justin Jackson.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I'm the owner, operator and head coach of CrossFit Tier One.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: I've been a fitness professional here in Greenville for about 15, 16 years.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I used to work for Vidant Wellness Center, did a lot of great things with them, helped bring the performance center to that facility as well.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I've also had my own business in a couple of different other areas, ran a couple of different LLC's in the fitness world and about seven, eight years ago I acquired this business and I've really just fully immersed myself in being a head coach for CrossFit and operating this business here.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: I'm a fitness guy, I'm always gonna guy, I'm always going to practice what I preach and one of my things that I really do is I don't ask anybody to do something that I'm not doing.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: I want to be involved in those types of things and I still have a huge passion for coaching and doing some of that stuff.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: And so, although I have to zoom out and look at that macro a lot and really run the business and make sure the business is really doing well, I still like to zoom in in that micro and get to really have an impact on people, get to touch them.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: With my knowledge and the basis that I have.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I'm a CrossFit level three coach.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: There's not too many of us.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: It's kind of a prestigious certification and I've been that for about four years now and I'm just really big on continuing education, making sure we have a lot of science behind what we're doing, and that really shines through in my background as an exercise physiologist.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I have a couple of different exercise degrees from ECU and I've also used those a lot and I think that makes me a unique combination of the traditionally educated exercise professional with exercise physiology and nutrition in my background, but also having some high level experience and education in the CrossFit world as well those two things kind of colliding.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: I think that gives me a unique perspective and we have some unique offerings and things that we can do based off of that leadership that I'm able to provide.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Tell me a little bit about CrossFit.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: What is CrossFit?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Crossfit is a premium fitness service.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like a functional fitness service where we have everything kind of tied into one, so like strength training, body weight work and plyometrics, what most people would consider like cardio and conditioning, and we kind of have it all in a neat little package and I think that's part of what makes it such a premium service and so popular.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: It takes a lot of the thinking out of it.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: You don't have to worry about your health and fitness.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: You come, you do the program that we have for the day, the coaches guide you through that, and so it's got kind of a group personal training element to it.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: And I think the biggest factor, like most things, is it works.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: It works really well, it's for everyone, and even if you're just beginning, you can do a similar workout style as someone who's been doing it for a while.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: It just kind of changes in degree, not really in type, and I think people really like that.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: You see someone that you may look up to or you're inspired by.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: You can do a really similar workout to that person.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: They just may be doing more weight, they may be doing more reps, they may be going faster, but you get to kind of share the same type of stimulus and the same result, and that really brings the community together and that's a big part of what we do as well.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Give me kind of the framework of what a typical class might be like Sure, that's awesome, yeah, it's a great thing to go over.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: So we'd come in and we would meet for the briefing.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: That's going to kind of be like a huddle and you're going to be around the coach and around our kiosk, which is like double screens and a computer.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: It's going to show you the workout.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Each person gets access to the app so they can see the workout on the app.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: They kind of have an idea what to expect.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: We meet for that briefing with the coach.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Coach is going to talk to you about like what the workout parameters are, maybe some tips strategy wise, definitely some scaling options and how to adjust things and things like that.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Greet everyone, ask how everyone feels, get to know them a little bit.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Then we're going to go through a structured warmup.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: So the warmup is going to be specific to the workout of the day.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: We're going to guide you through that.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Make sure you're moving properly, take a look at anything that might be ailing you, anything that looks a little off.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Then we're going to have more of what we call a primer no-transcript on that and only doing a few sets of something heavy versus like doing a ton of conditioning, and that's what makes it so fun and just a lot of variety and a lot of learning as well.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: No, I love that.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about some of the lifting.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: So you know I follow you on social media and, um, you're, you're pretty active on social.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: You know you'll throw up there, uh, videos that you do in all these different Olympic lifts and stuff like that.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Um, for people that are like, maybe scared of that kind of stuff, um, how do you get them into that and, um, and do it in a safe manner?
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Sure yeah, I love that question because that is something we hear a lot.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: You can get injured doing Olympic weightlifting.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: You can get injured doing a lot of those things.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: What we try to really sell is we want to teach it to you right, we want to teach it to you properly and we want you to understand how to do the movement.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: We don't necessarily want to push how much weight you're doing or how often you're doing it or try to push that envelope.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: We want you to learn the movement.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: It can be such a beneficial thing to understand the principles of Olympic weightlifting.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: You're using your whole body.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: It requires mobility, power, strength, dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and so just learning it, not necessarily worrying about what type of weight we're doing, is really, really awesome.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: And one of the really fulfilling things for myself and for my staff is when you get someone that you might not identify as like an Olympic weightlifter that really moves well doing that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: So whether that be a kid, you know, a young person or someone that's a little bit more elderly, maybe someone that's coming off of an injury, a car accident, something like that, a surgery, they can do all the things that we're doing right, but it's the degree where it changes, and I think that's one of those misconceptions with the general public.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: No one's ever going to force you to put weight on the bar and try this movement that you don't feel comfortable with.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: We just want to take all that away.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Go with an empty bar, or even a PVC or a medicine ball, teach you the principles of the movement and then let you build up from there on your own, and where you build up from there on your own and where you end up is a lot more autonomous to what your goals may be and what you want to do.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: And so we teach everyone the Olympic movements, but we don't necessarily require that you do them at a high level or with a heavy load.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's true.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It is very functional and I mean you can do a lot with just your body weight, and so I know a big part of CrossFit is just using your body weight.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And then you also have the weight element.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Like, tell me a little bit about the setup of the gym.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, I know we're going to walk around later and we're going to observe one of your classes, but tell me a little bit about the gym setup and what kind of equipment you have.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Sure, sure.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: That's another one of those areas that I think kind of separates tier one from most gyms in the area and most gyms In the state.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: To be honest, the space we have a 75 foot rig, and so we're able to take about 25 plus people on the rig for each rack.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Basically, it means that 25 different people in a class could have their own squat station, which is very, very rare.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: We also have over 80 barbells in this facility and so, being able to outfit that many individuals, we can do things simultaneously.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: We can offer open gym and stuff that other places can't offer, and so the layout of our space is this back area that you see in the background is our main class space, and we call this our main rig, and we have everything set up to where we can do all kinds of gymnastics squatting, pressing and stuff on the rig.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: But also, because it's in the middle of the room, we also have all of that space in front and behind to do the body weight stuff you were describing burpees, pushups, things like that and so we really have this space set up to maximize the individuals that participate in the class and have the variety pack of being able to do all that stuff.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: This episode of Go Big with Gibb is brought to you by Irons Equity.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: At Irons Equity, we specialize in helping investors like you create long-term generational wealth and save money on taxes through recession-resistant real estate investments that create passive income for you and your family.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: If you want to secure your financial future, go to investwithgibcom to schedule a 30-minute introductory meeting with me.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Gib Irons Again, that's investwithgibcom.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: So, Justin, when did you take over this business?
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: When did you acquire the business About seven years ago it was late February, early March of 2018, I believe it was and I had been here for a while.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: I've been in the community doing functional fitness and personal training and things like that for over 15 years.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: It's kind of always been my professional thing is fitness.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: A lot of people will dip into fitness as like a hobby, something they did for a while.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it's probably like one of the few things I'm really good at, so for me, it's been like a professional passion for the last
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: 15 years.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Seven years ago I was fortunate enough to acquire CrossFit Tier 1.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: We've made some significant changes to improve the business but at the same time we've kept that core nucleus and that core kind of existence.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: You know, any small business like this that's been here in Greenville for 14 plus years serving the community, we like that, we want to continue to do that and that's something that is really really important to me is to continue that legacy and to be proud of it.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: I want the people who used to come here under the previous regime, I want them to be proud of what they have and I want anyone new that stops in or is familiar with CrossFit in other communities to be proud and really be like hey, this is a nice space and this is a nice facility to be able to conduct these classes and stuff.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: What is the nutritional element of CrossFit, just in broad terms, like what are your thoughts on the importance of nutrition in addition to an amazing workout?
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well, crossfit kind of has a nutrition element to their program.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: You know, they have a very famous thing that they put out nutrition in 100 words or less, and it's really, really cool.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Probably a little bit more than I would go into, but I would abbreviate that and make it even simpler.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Right, and basically what the CrossFit mode of nutrition is is we're going to limit sugar and artificial sweets and things like that almost completely, and then we want to just eat things that are whole, fresh and real, really focusing on things like meat, vegetables, nuts, seeds, things like that, things that you can pronounce, things that are, you know, don't have a long shelf life, they're not ladled in preservatives and things like that.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Right, and if you look up, if you Google search nutrition in a hundred words, that's the first thing that will come up is they'll talk about, you know, limiting some of the starches and some of the fruits and really eating a lot of vegetables and a lot of fiber, making sure we're getting a ton of protein and things like that, and so it's a lot of the stuff that you've heard before, almost like it's an oversimplification, and I think that that's accurate, because nutrition is not complicated, it's just not easy, and I think people get those two things confused, and so that's how I try to recommend nutrition Start simple, baby steps, make those changes, reassess, take in some data, make those adjustments again, and just one little step at a time.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I can't say enough good things about you For people that want to come out here and check you out.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: What's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, crossfittier1.net, what's the best way for them to get a hold?
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: of you.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, crossfittier1.net.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: We just upgraded our website at the beginning of this past year and we have all of these different parameters in there where you can schedule without any contact or any friction.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: You can schedule a no sweat intro, you can schedule a drop in, you can actually communicate with us back and forth on a chat, and so what we really try to do with that is when people have questions and they want to get involved.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: We wanted to minimize any friction and make it very, very easy to contact us, schedule your initial appointment, which is essentially a tour, and just going through everything and talking to the person about what they want to do.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: A mentor of mine in fitness a long time ago said something to me and it really stuck, and I think it applies to this situation.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: People will quit a machine, people will quit a squat rack, people will quit a bike right, but it's harder to quit a machine.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: People will quit a squat rack.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: People will quit a bike right, but it's harder to quit a relationship.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: And so when we start with those introductions and we get people in here and we talk to them, that's really our focus is we want to build a relationship and an understanding of what the person wants.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: We want to remember that, we want to engage them on that, and it's like you can't fake caring.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: You know if you care people know that you care, they could also just come by.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: We're open all the time every weekday.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: We have staff here all the time, so they could come by.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Justin.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Look, thank you for coming on.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate it, man.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me Gib.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, enjoyed it All right Good times.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Got a good friend of mine, Abraham Reisig, with me from HCK Chicken.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Abraham, how are you today?
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: I'm doing well, Gib.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: How are you?
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me on today.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Abraham, tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: I'm 30 years old, originally from Buffalo, new York, been in Greenville roughly 16 years and love the city of Greenville.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: Don't see myself going anywhere else.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: I graduated from JH Rose High School.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: To be quite honest, I didn't think that going to college and all was for me just because I wanted to be like my dad.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: He wanted to be a spitting image of him.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: So right after high school I got into the car business, did six years in the car business and then I got into.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: After I started growing a car business, started to do my own little thing and be like silent partner investor.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: All that good stuff.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: Got out of the car business after about six years.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Worked for a equity company out of New York and did like commercial business all that good stuff.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Stopped working, traded the stock market for a little bit and here I am you know, my own restaurant.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about why you chose HCK.
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: Like I said, I was doing a lot of silent partner investing before I got into this and HCK really just put me in the right direction on what I wanted to do in terms of brick and mortar.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: I actually had a few ideas before this to do a few other things, and one of my buddies graduated from East Carolina in 2019.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Him and his dad are.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: His dad is the CEO of HCK Hot Chicken.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: They originally own they own the original HCK in Woodbridge, virginia.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: So when I found out they were starting to franchise all that good stuff, I looked more into it and, um, really understood what made them different and, just reading the story behind it, took a trip to Virginia, really wanted to see what this was all about and, to God, honest truth, man, I got there, toured the corporate restaurant and I probably had $200, $300 worth of food on the table and it was by far the best chicken wings, the best chicken sandwich I've ever had in my entire life anywhere.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: But I didn't understand how or what made it that way.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about the ingredients and some of the other things that really differentiate.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Hot.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Chicken Kitchen from other restaurants.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: So, starting from the top, all of my chicken is fresh.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: It is 100% halal, so we don't serve a single piece of frozen chicken here.
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: There's a ton of places that are serving frozen chicken, you know.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: So I've only got two-door freezers back there and the only thing that's inside that freezer are french fries.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Everything else is a cooler.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: When the chicken comes off of our truck, it goes into a brine.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: We kind of marinate that a proprietary brine for 24 hours and then we make our wet base and then it goes into a dry batter and then pan.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: So there's pretty much a two-day step, two-day process before that chicken that comes off the truck actually goes into the fryer.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: Everything here is made fresh to order.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: So what that means is we do not start dropping chicken in the fryer until an order is being placed, just to keep a level of consistency.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: There's not a lot of places making meals fresh to order, so when a customer comes up to the front counter and says that they want a chicken sandwich, that ticker will then fire off to the back and then at that point we'll go ahead and start dropping a chicken breast into the fryer.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about the sauces.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: So our base is the level one that one's infused with cayenne pepper.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: It's more of like a sweetened savior.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: That one's really good, got a ton of good flavor to that.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Something that a kid could eat.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, even a kid could tolerate it there is.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: There's there's a believe it or not, there's kids coming here between the age of 8 to 12 and you mean always getting the base.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: So, um, yeah, for sure, the, the base is definitely something that the kids can do.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: The afterburner is my favorite.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: Um, it's also my best seller that one's infused with habanero pepper, and my tolerance for heat is extremely low too.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: To me that one's just got habanero pepper and my tolerance for heat is extremely low too.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: To me that one's just got an enjoyable amount of heat with an enjoyable amount of flavor because habanero can be extremely spicy, but you're saying it's, it's a moderate level of spice all of our, all of our sauces.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Man, there's one thing you won't find that too many places not saying everybody doesn't have the same thing, but our, all of our sauces have got heat and flavor.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: So our Angry Hot is the level three.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: That one is infused with Trinidad Scorpion.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: I tell everybody to jump from the Afterburner to Angry Hot.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: It's a big step up.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Like I said, my tolerance for heat is extremely low, so I've never got up there.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: And then the medic is infused with Carolina.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Reaper.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: What would you say are the most popular menu items that you recommend?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I'd love to know what you recommend, too, to somebody coming in that's maybe never eaten here.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: Absolutely so.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: The Nashville-style sandwich is always really good.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: Man, without being biased or anything, man, I feel like everything on the menu is really good, and the only reason why I say that is because our menu is a lot smaller than a lot of other food chains.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: But the reason for that is because of the level of quality of food that we serve.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: You know, it's easy to add a thousand items on the menu, but when you do that, you really lose focus on what you're trying, what your mission is, what you're trying to put out there.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I've lived here in Eastern North Carolina my entire life actually moved here in 1988.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: So almost my entire life and I know people from Eastern North Carolina love chicken wings, Myself included.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: How many chicken wings are you going through on average per day?
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: let's see each case I go through.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: I'd say right at about a thousand pieces a thousand.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: You see, you're selling a thousand chicken wings a day, traditional bone-in chicken wings per day, a day, that's amazing.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: So I mean that you know the the eight piece.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: We've got eight piece 10, 12, 14, 25 and 50.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: The 25 and 50 piece bone and wings are actually pretty normal for people to get around here every single day.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: So a thousand pieces of bone and shift wings every single day.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I see a ton of the sports teams coming in here and supporting your restaurant.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: What have you done to get so much support from the community?
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: First and foremost man, it's keeping a healthy relationship with anybody and everybody that you come into contact with.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: You know there was a point where I tell everybody I was young and dumb at one point and you know, at the end of the day it's all about the relationships and the values that you bring to the table.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: You know, at the end of the day it's all about the relationships and the values that you bring to the table.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: You know I cherish and value every single customer that walks through this door and I mean that when I say that.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: You know you've got to greet every customer.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: That's first and foremost Coach Houston.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: I met him when he first came to Greenville.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: You and I both get our haircuts at the shave with our buddy Mike, and Coach Houston met him at the barbershop.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Really good guy man, pumped up to come to East Carolina, and I think East Carolina itself knew that Coach Houston was going to bring a ton of great things to the university and he has done just that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: So I'm very pumped up for him, excited.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I met him at the barbershop at Shave on Fifth as well, and uh you know great, great, great coach uh running a great program.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You know putting in a lot of work over there and very supportive of of of you as well, and you have that magnetic personality that I think you know, I think you're right, though it comes down to the way you treat people.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I know when I walk in the door here, you know it's not just, uh, any other customer, I'm not just a number.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: You know, like we know each other.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: So you come out and speak to me, but I see you speaking to other customers.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: You don't even know that's important man very, um, like you know, welcome home like a very, you know, good mentality that, you that you foster here with your customers and that respect that you show them, they show you a lot of loyalty.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: July 13th you celebrated six months, so it was January 13th that you opened.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Six months ago would you have ever imagined that things would have gone this well?
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: The day.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: You know, it felt like this day was never going to come, from the very first day that I got my keys.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: The day I got my keys, man, I was in here every single day, 12 hours a day, building this place out every day.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: And I had this place built out in about 45 days, from electrical, like I said, six o'clock in the morning until seven, eight o'clock at night, and I never thought this day was going to come.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: I knew I had a ton of support, but I didn't think that I'd walk out here five, ten minutes to a line of five or six people, to a line all the way to the dumpster, and it felt good, man.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: That's a feeling that I'll never let go.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: You know just the way it all happened.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: And then, ever since then, man, it's taken off.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Things are doing really, really well.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I'm thankful, like I said, humbled, blessed and um thank god for this opportunity.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: It's been fantastic to have you as a guest um for anybody that wants to reach out to you and connect with you, what's the best way for them to contact you?
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: yeah.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: So, uh, give, first and foremost, I appreciate you giving me opportunity to sit down and speak with you.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: Um, it's a really special moment, man, and I had a ton of fun.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: I am located at 920 Criswell Drive, right next door to the Ruby Tuesday.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: It's a Criswell address, but I'm across the street off of Memorial.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: My phone number at the restaurant is 252-751-6349.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: If you want to call in to order, you're more than welcome to.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: My Instagram is 252HCKHOTCHICKEN.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: I also just recently started a TikTok, doing a ton of content on TikTok now, and built a large following up there.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: It is the same name as my Instagram.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: It's 252HCKHotChicken, so follow me on Instagram, follow me on TikTok.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: I do go live every day now on TikTok, so yeah, but that's where you can find me at.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, abraham I appreciate you, Gib.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Thank you for the opportunity.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of Go Big with Gibb.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: If you haven't already, go follow us on social media at Gibb Irons.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.