Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Prentice Penny, Chef Deborah VanTrece, Marc Morial, Jimmy Wong, and Brandon Williams

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Prentice Penny, Chef Deborah VanTrece, Marc Morial, Jimmy Wong, and Brandon Williams · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Rashan McDonald, making conversation talk shows about
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Speaker 1: relatable information to the listener about career and financial planning, entrepreneurship, motivation, leadership,
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Speaker 1: overcoming the art, and how to live a balance life.
1:51
Speaker 1: My next guest has over forty years of leadership in
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Speaker 1: the service of our communities. He is the former mayor
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Speaker 1: of New Orleans. He was thirty six year olds thirty
2:01
Speaker 1: six years old when he was first elected there. He
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Speaker 1: is currently the CEO of the National Urban League, the
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Speaker 1: nation's largest historic civil rights and urban advocacy organization. He's
2:11
Speaker 1: authored a very very new, very very good book. It's new,
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Speaker 1: brand new, The Gumbo Coalition Ten Leadership Lessons that help
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Speaker 1: you inspire, unite and achieve, now available wherever books are sold.
2:22
Speaker 1: Please welcome to Money Making Conversations. The leader of the
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Speaker 1: Gumbo Coalition, my man Mark Morel, Hey brother, thank you
2:31
Speaker 1: for having me today and uh good data. Your entire
2:34
Speaker 1: listening audience, thank you so much. Well, you know, it's
2:37
Speaker 1: a it's a journey we've had. We met over the
2:39
Speaker 1: years when I was managing Steve Harvey and producing this
2:42
Speaker 1: morning show, and I've seen you come in and as
2:45
Speaker 1: a representative of the of the Urban League, just tell
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Speaker 1: us exactly what is the Urban League. National Urban League.
2:53
Speaker 1: National Urban League is a historic civil rights and urban
2:56
Speaker 1: advocacy organization founded in to help black people who were
3:01
Speaker 1: moving to the North from the South to get away
3:05
Speaker 1: from segregation. The ku Klux Klan in lynching, and they
3:08
Speaker 1: moved to America's urban communities Detroit, Chicago, New York, Boston
3:13
Speaker 1: looking for work. But what they found is they found discrimination,
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Speaker 1: they found prejudice, they found difficult conditions, and we rose
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Speaker 1: to assist them in both making the transition and in
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Speaker 1: having a voice. And those were our earliest days. In
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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, the late Great Whitney Young became our leader
3:30
Speaker 1: and we became a full partner in the nineteen sixties
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Speaker 1: civil rights revolution. Since then, we've been on the front
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Speaker 1: lines working for civil rights and economic opportunity through a
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Speaker 1: dynamic network of ninety affiliates that serve three communities in
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Speaker 1: thirty six states. In the District of Columbia. Were a
3:49
Speaker 1: premier job training organization and job placement and organization. We
3:53
Speaker 1: do home buyer preparation, We serve youth and free after
3:57
Speaker 1: school and academic preparation services. And we serve some fifteen
4:00
Speaker 1: thousand entrepreneurs each year through our small business centers. We're
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Speaker 1: a dynamic vehicle to help people find economic independence, and
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Speaker 1: we're a voice on the national stage for civil rights
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Speaker 1: and economic opportunity. Very powerful, very well articulate. I'm not
4:14
Speaker 1: trying to stomp you here with this question. What is
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Speaker 1: the difference between the p and the National Urban League.
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Speaker 1: We're like brothers or cousins. Uh, you know the double
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Speaker 1: A CP we founded a year earlier. They're primarily a
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Speaker 1: volunteer organization that does civil rights activism. They've got a
4:32
Speaker 1: large network their rural, suburban and urban communities we are
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Speaker 1: in addition to being a civil rights organization, we're also
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Speaker 1: UH do direct services, and most of our work is
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Speaker 1: carried out by a paid professional staffers who've got two
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Speaker 1: thousand employees across the nation and UH ninety physical locations
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Speaker 1: in those communities. So we work closely together on a
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Speaker 1: wide range of issues, but distinctly we have the same mission,
5:01
Speaker 1: but we carry out our work sometimes in complimentary sometimes
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Speaker 1: in different ways. Right, I always view, this has always
5:08
Speaker 1: been my view that you know, the national urban lee
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Speaker 1: was more business. They always always felt that you guys
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Speaker 1: had they had had more of an active role in
5:17
Speaker 1: the shaping the economics of of African Americans or blacks.
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Speaker 1: Was I was, I was as I'm wrong or incorrect
5:23
Speaker 1: one as you're accurate. Yeah, we have a distinct focus
5:26
Speaker 1: on the economic opportunity, on helping people find jobs and
5:30
Speaker 1: helping small black businesses and medium sized black people's businesses
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Speaker 1: grow and develop, helping people become homeowners. There's no question
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Speaker 1: that our focus on economic empowerment is what I call it,
5:41
Speaker 1: which is opportunity, it's justice, it's independence. UH is really
5:45
Speaker 1: really what makes us unique, what makes us what I
5:48
Speaker 1: call sweet, generous was not the Latin word. It means
5:52
Speaker 1: water a kind. Now, let's let's go to the book
5:55
Speaker 1: now because of the fact that I just wanted to
5:57
Speaker 1: such a stage. Let everybody know what you're doing current,
6:00
Speaker 1: how you've been doing that job since with two thousand three, correct,
6:04
Speaker 1: two thousand three, after eight great years as mayor and
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Speaker 1: my beloved hometown New Orleans, of two terms because two
6:10
Speaker 1: terms was the limit, right Uh? And then I found
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Speaker 1: an opportunity, after practicing law for a year in between
6:17
Speaker 1: city hall and this job, to to to lead this
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Speaker 1: incredible urban league movement. I'm standing on the shoulders with
6:24
Speaker 1: some great people like Whitney Young and Vernon Jordan, just
6:26
Speaker 1: to name a few. Vernon Jordan's powerful name right there. Um,
6:32
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine. I'm gonna call a good
6:33
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Lavelle. Uh. Saw you in New Orleans
6:37
Speaker 1: and talked about a book I did. Now you you
6:40
Speaker 1: know your type of I look at your life that
6:42
Speaker 1: that book almost feels like a TV show, Okay when
6:45
Speaker 1: I read it, and so so that means a lot
6:47
Speaker 1: of people have come your way and tapped you on
6:49
Speaker 1: the shows. You should write a book. You should write
6:50
Speaker 1: a book. What what does she say to you, Lavelle,
6:53
Speaker 1: say to you that sit you in the direction you
6:57
Speaker 1: know it's time. She did, you know, she she's that down.
7:00
Speaker 1: And she said, you know you should write a book,
7:02
Speaker 1: but you should write a leadership book. I said, interesting,
7:06
Speaker 1: she says, not a memoir on autobiography with the book
7:08
Speaker 1: about leadership, because she says, that's what people want to hear.
7:12
Speaker 1: They want a book that they can use, they want
7:15
Speaker 1: a book that they can learn from. And you know,
7:17
Speaker 1: I was impressed. I mean, here was a sister uh
7:20
Speaker 1: connected with the major publishers, HarperCollins, Uh, and Uh, it
7:25
Speaker 1: was really really exciting. And you know, she pushed me,
7:28
Speaker 1: she pushed me and she and I said, I said yes,
7:33
Speaker 1: And I kind of said, well, you know, walked me
7:36
Speaker 1: through the steps because I do have an idea because
7:38
Speaker 1: my mom wrote a book. But walked me through the steps.
7:41
Speaker 1: And so, you know, we sat down, she said, put
7:44
Speaker 1: some ideas on paper, right up, an outline. Let me
7:46
Speaker 1: take a look at it. So one thing led to another,
7:48
Speaker 1: and we spent lots of time together working on this book.
7:52
Speaker 1: And her guidance and insight was just so helpful to me,
7:56
Speaker 1: just so helpful. I couldn't have done it without her,
7:58
Speaker 1: and really her challenge you. And I wanted to do
8:01
Speaker 1: a book for a long time. Myself published a book
8:03
Speaker 1: of speeches in the ninety nineties. About fifteen years ago,
8:07
Speaker 1: I started working on a book. I had an agent.
8:09
Speaker 1: I got too busy. I lost sight and lost I
8:12
Speaker 1: guess I just lost sight and lost interest. And so
8:15
Speaker 1: Lavell you know, she she she challenged me. And I'm
8:18
Speaker 1: just excited that something that was a little intimidating at
8:22
Speaker 1: first has come together. I think it's a great book.
8:25
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful bit. It's a beautiful will inspire people.
8:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you. You know you hear the worried.
8:30
Speaker 1: A lot of common sense used in common This book
8:33
Speaker 1: is a smart common sense. And when I say that
8:37
Speaker 1: is that I'm a successful guy. I can say that.
8:40
Speaker 1: My resume tells me. I can say that publicly and uh,
8:43
Speaker 1: and I have plans to be successful in the future.
8:46
Speaker 1: This book. When I started reading it, okay, it's a
8:49
Speaker 1: little bio pick in the beginning, okay, because it sets
8:51
Speaker 1: everything up and then but at the end of each
8:53
Speaker 1: chapter you do a recap about what you just read
8:56
Speaker 1: it just to outline and detail exactly the bullet wants
9:00
Speaker 1: that you can take. In fact, when you buy this book,
9:02
Speaker 1: you can you can almost rip out every recap and
9:05
Speaker 1: just stayplose together and put them on your refrigerator and
9:08
Speaker 1: put them on your mirror, and that can be your
9:10
Speaker 1: vision board at your house. That's how you say this,
9:14
Speaker 1: you know, when it comes to I say, the most
9:16
Speaker 1: important education I ever had was not the undergraduate degree
9:21
Speaker 1: I have from the University of Pennsylvania, not the law
9:24
Speaker 1: degree I had from Georgetown, not the twelve to fifteen
9:29
Speaker 1: honorary degrees that I'm so privileged have been awarded. It's
9:34
Speaker 1: the PhD in common sense I got from my mama.
9:38
Speaker 1: My mama, like so many mamas, was just basically a
9:43
Speaker 1: person of common sense. She knew how to read people.
9:47
Speaker 1: She knew how to read people in terms of who
9:49
Speaker 1: she could trust, who she couldn't trust, who to be
9:53
Speaker 1: weary of. She understood, and she sort of, you know,
9:57
Speaker 1: willed that into me. You know, I learned watching her.
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Speaker 1: I got an incredible dad, but my mom in terms
10:03
Speaker 1: of really influencing you know, what I think and who
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Speaker 1: I am, it was just such a powerful, powerful, powerful
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Speaker 1: influence and it was all about common sense and keeping
10:14
Speaker 1: your feet on the ground and never getting a big
10:16
Speaker 1: head and not thinking you you all that as as
10:21
Speaker 1: we say. And uh, you know, I love my mother
10:24
Speaker 1: for for for teaching me that. And that's why I
10:27
Speaker 1: love about this book. She she taught it to me.
10:30
Speaker 1: But it's almost like I didn't know I was being
10:32
Speaker 1: taught it. It just kind of is from the powers
10:35
Speaker 1: of observation and the lessons she taught you. But you
10:38
Speaker 1: but you're giving those lessons back to us in writing
10:41
Speaker 1: in an organized manner, which is a blessing in itself.
10:43
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Mark Maureal. He's currently the CEO or
10:46
Speaker 1: the National Urban League. He has a book called The
10:49
Speaker 1: Gumbo Coalition, Ten Leadership Lessons that help You Inspire, unite
10:53
Speaker 1: and achieve Now from Houston, Texas. So when you start
10:56
Speaker 1: saying the word gumbo, I knew exactly what you're talking
10:59
Speaker 1: about from all from a cold special thing about special
11:04
Speaker 1: thing about gumbo is no two gumbos are just a
11:07
Speaker 1: lighte And and when you always when you when you
11:12
Speaker 1: think you finished preparing gumbo, you can also you can
11:15
Speaker 1: always add a few actually ingredients and make it just
11:17
Speaker 1: that much better. And that to me is the essence
11:20
Speaker 1: of Gumbo is that it as a collection and an
11:23
Speaker 1: amalgamation of various ingredients in America and the communities that
11:27
Speaker 1: we live in are that today made up of all
11:30
Speaker 1: types of people, ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, all sorts of
11:35
Speaker 1: dispositions and orientations. That's the beauty. See the Gumbo Coalition
11:40
Speaker 1: reflects that very essence, the essence of of of diversity,
11:45
Speaker 1: of inclusion, of a multifaceted Uh if you will, nation,
11:50
Speaker 1: We know you would like you said that. We are
11:53
Speaker 1: taking this from the book, the Gumbo Coalition. It was
11:56
Speaker 1: built to include not only African Americans, but also white
11:59
Speaker 1: Latino Asian, Straights, gage, young, old, and all religious groups
12:04
Speaker 1: of my marvel. So the diverse hometown New Orleans, that's
12:07
Speaker 1: where it started. And you've carried that same mantral, that
12:10
Speaker 1: same lesson or that same common sense, put it in
12:13
Speaker 1: this book, but also you use it to us it
12:16
Speaker 1: in your everyday practices. And that's how you carry it
12:19
Speaker 1: through the various chapters in the book. Correct, New Orleans
12:23
Speaker 1: was a city that in leading the city, you couldn't
12:26
Speaker 1: win an election without a coalition. If you couldn't put
12:29
Speaker 1: a coalition together, you couldn't win an election. But you
12:32
Speaker 1: have to have a base. You have to have a
12:34
Speaker 1: powerful base. I had a very strong base of African Americans,
12:38
Speaker 1: but my base is also made up of you know,
12:40
Speaker 1: public housing residents, uh, young people, small business owners uh,
12:45
Speaker 1: you know, activists made up my political base, and it's
12:49
Speaker 1: what I started from. But the base was not enough
12:52
Speaker 1: to win an election. The base is not enough, uh
12:55
Speaker 1: to carry me to victory. So we had to build
12:57
Speaker 1: off the base and build this broad and wide coalition
13:01
Speaker 1: in America to day. To lead effectively at any level,
13:05
Speaker 1: you have to build coalitions. You have to operate off
13:08
Speaker 1: of a base, but build a coalition that allows you
13:11
Speaker 1: to lead with effectiveness. When I read a book like
13:14
Speaker 1: this that the Gumbo Coalition tend leadership lessons that help
13:17
Speaker 1: you inspire uniting the chief is about putting the right
13:22
Speaker 1: people around you consistently understand that you cannot do it alone.
13:26
Speaker 1: Each chapter screams that, each chapter screams to you that
13:29
Speaker 1: you better have a plan that just don't jump out
13:32
Speaker 1: there on faith. Jumped out there on faith with a
13:34
Speaker 1: plan in both hands. And also when you land makes
13:38
Speaker 1: you landing with people who believe in you and can
13:40
Speaker 1: assist you in your plan for success. That screams in
13:44
Speaker 1: your book mark it really does well, you know, I
13:48
Speaker 1: tell you my hope is that the book is going
13:50
Speaker 1: to inspire the next generation of leaders. And I talked
13:54
Speaker 1: about setbacks. You talk about challenges and talk about h
13:58
Speaker 1: the unexpected, and I also talk about where the expectations
14:02
Speaker 1: of me were not that high, like when I had
14:05
Speaker 1: to argue before the State Supreme Court in Louisiana as
14:08
Speaker 1: a twenty six year old and the name partner in
14:11
Speaker 1: the law firm that I was in told me going
14:13
Speaker 1: into the Supreme Court that I was going to lose
14:15
Speaker 1: the case. And I remember thinking I was so angry
14:18
Speaker 1: with him for telling me that, but I didn't say
14:20
Speaker 1: a word. I got up, gave an argument, and then
14:23
Speaker 1: as we were walking out of court, he asked me.
14:25
Speaker 1: He stopped me, said where did you learn how to
14:26
Speaker 1: argue like that? I never saw a young lawyer argue
14:30
Speaker 1: that way before before this court. And anyway, I said, well, coach,
14:35
Speaker 1: I've been on your team for a year. You need
14:38
Speaker 1: to put me in the ballgame because your lieutenants had
14:41
Speaker 1: me sitting on the bench. And a month and a
14:45
Speaker 1: half later, I won the case and I decided to
14:47
Speaker 1: leave the law firm and do my own thing, and
14:49
Speaker 1: so you know, they're setbacks and people trying to diminish you,
14:52
Speaker 1: even you know, unintentionally, and it was intentionally unintentionally, And
14:59
Speaker 1: so you know, the book is not all you know,
15:01
Speaker 1: not all roses. It's also about setbacks. It's also about challenges.
15:06
Speaker 1: It's also about low expectations. It's also about overcoming great
15:10
Speaker 1: challenges and and it's also it's about networking. It's about innovation,
15:15
Speaker 1: you know, it's about compassion. Uh, great lessons, it's about teamwork.
15:20
Speaker 1: Great lessons I learned, and I learned them from others,
15:24
Speaker 1: and I learned them from observing, and I learned them
15:26
Speaker 1: from getting kicked, getting pushed, getting knocked down and having
15:31
Speaker 1: to get back up. Well, you know, it's interesting every
15:33
Speaker 1: Let me just compare something. Um I currently marriage is
15:36
Speaker 1: Steven A. Smith. Wanted the highest profile talents and sports man.
15:40
Speaker 1: I love steven A Smith, that's my boy. I managed
15:43
Speaker 1: him now and but when I met y'all was managing
15:45
Speaker 1: Steve Harvey and we originally start. I'm just starting a
15:48
Speaker 1: comparison to you, and that's why I feel as you
15:50
Speaker 1: started in New Orleans, but what you're doing at the
15:53
Speaker 1: National Urban League is what's your destiny is where we
15:56
Speaker 1: needed your voice Because Steve we was great in l A. Man.
15:59
Speaker 1: We was at l AG tearing it Up Man and
16:01
Speaker 1: number one morning show in l A from two thousands
16:04
Speaker 1: and two thousand five. But I would look at him.
16:06
Speaker 1: I always felt that he had more to offer in
16:08
Speaker 1: a national platform. So we left l a huge contract
16:13
Speaker 1: and took a lord deal to be uh syndicated nationally
16:18
Speaker 1: because we figured we'll step back but go up and
16:21
Speaker 1: we did, and his voice as in a national level,
16:24
Speaker 1: I feel responsible for President Obama being elected twice. I
16:29
Speaker 1: feel responsible for a lot of the movements that are
16:33
Speaker 1: positive in music for Black Americans. Uh. But more importantly
16:37
Speaker 1: so when I hear your journey, I'm not saying you
16:40
Speaker 1: are the same people, but you are. You are an advocate,
16:43
Speaker 1: a game changer in New Orleans if you were just
16:46
Speaker 1: staying in. So it was a blessing to me in
16:48
Speaker 1: this country that you were only given two terms, okay,
16:52
Speaker 1: because we needed you to come out and and and
16:55
Speaker 1: and talk about the five point empowerment agenda that's right,
17:00
Speaker 1: which is about education. And you know, I'm only you
17:04
Speaker 1: know when I when I started at the National Urban league.
17:07
Speaker 1: I had no idea where the journey would take me.
17:10
Speaker 1: But you know, I was blessed, really blessed and privilege
17:13
Speaker 1: to have a chance to serve as mayor, serve as
17:17
Speaker 1: a Louisiana State Senator at a young age. I mean
17:20
Speaker 1: I got elected at thirty six. I raised my hand.
17:23
Speaker 1: I just turned thirty six years old and accepted the
17:26
Speaker 1: challenge to be mayor. Well, most of my colleagues who
17:29
Speaker 1: were mayors of major American cities, they were fifteen to
17:33
Speaker 1: twenty years older than me. I mean I would sit
17:35
Speaker 1: in the room with all the other mayors and I
17:37
Speaker 1: was a young kid on the block. Well, six years later,
17:40
Speaker 1: they elected me to be their president, the president of
17:44
Speaker 1: the U S Conference of Mayor. So I was the
17:45
Speaker 1: youngest mayor to ever service president of the U S
17:48
Speaker 1: Conference of Mayors when I took that post in two
17:52
Speaker 1: thousand and so, you know, the opportunity to serve. The
17:56
Speaker 1: reason why I make that point is because I say
17:59
Speaker 1: to young people, you're never too young to take all
18:02
Speaker 1: the challenge, never too young to serve, never too young
18:05
Speaker 1: to excel, and don't let anybody diminish you. But you've
18:08
Speaker 1: got to know you're ready you've got to have the
18:11
Speaker 1: confidence in your ability, and you've got to be mature
18:14
Speaker 1: enough to make the difficult and challenging decisions. And you know,
18:18
Speaker 1: I feel so so especially that I want to give
18:22
Speaker 1: back the lessons I've learned. I want to give back, uh,
18:26
Speaker 1: the insights that I've that I've I've learned, and that's
18:29
Speaker 1: some motivation, uh, indeed for the book. And UH, the
18:33
Speaker 1: chance to serve at the national level is something special
18:36
Speaker 1: because I've literally visited almost every state in the Union.
18:40
Speaker 1: I've been to every city. I've been on the uptown side,
18:44
Speaker 1: on the downtown side. I've been in the fancy homes,
18:47
Speaker 1: I've been in the neighborhoods. And that opportunity to meet
18:51
Speaker 1: people and see and witness and experience their hopes, their fears,
18:55
Speaker 1: their cheers, and their aspirations is just unlike anything else. Uh.
18:59
Speaker 1: And I always feel humbled and appreciative with that. It's
19:03
Speaker 1: it's two things I want to make sure we talk
19:04
Speaker 1: about before we leave the State of Black American Court,
19:08
Speaker 1: which is like a phenomenal this is our needle vision.
19:11
Speaker 1: This is something on your vision that was resurrected. And
19:14
Speaker 1: then the then the five point Empowerment agenda that was
19:19
Speaker 1: under your agenda as well as the National Urban Correct Yeah.
19:23
Speaker 1: So we started out in two thousand and three. We
19:26
Speaker 1: needed to have a framework and a plan to go forward.
19:30
Speaker 1: So we picked five issues education, economics, social justice, and
19:36
Speaker 1: civic engagement, and we transformed that into five empowerment goals Education, Economics, Housing,
19:46
Speaker 1: health and justice. Uh, And we transformed the work so
19:52
Speaker 1: all of the work of the National ly is aligned
19:55
Speaker 1: around those five issues, around those five goals, around those
19:59
Speaker 1: five things. And we're clear we can't be all things
20:02
Speaker 1: to all people deal with every single issue that might
20:05
Speaker 1: be a concern to Black America or to urban communities.
20:08
Speaker 1: We needed to create a coherent framework and focus, and
20:13
Speaker 1: that's indeed what we did. The State of Black America
20:15
Speaker 1: is started by Vernon Jordan in six and when I
20:20
Speaker 1: took over in two thousand and three, it needed to
20:22
Speaker 1: be revived. It needs to be strengthened. So we added
20:25
Speaker 1: a statistical component, a permanent statistical component where we measure
20:29
Speaker 1: the same numbers every single year in an index called
20:33
Speaker 1: the Equality Index. We compare blacks and whites, unemployment, health outcomes, lifespans,
20:41
Speaker 1: how homeownership rates, and across the board. So that every
20:44
Speaker 1: year we can report on the numbers, on the facts
20:48
Speaker 1: in so far as America's disperation of disparities are concerned,
20:52
Speaker 1: and we report on that, and we continue to report
20:54
Speaker 1: on that every year, and it continues to show disparities
20:57
Speaker 1: not only in health, but the greatest parities are in economics.
21:01
Speaker 1: Not only in health and economics, but in education and
21:05
Speaker 1: how the criminal justice system treats us, in civic engagement.
21:09
Speaker 1: This is the work you know of the Urban League
21:12
Speaker 1: movement today. This is the work is framed around the
21:15
Speaker 1: state of Black America. And we compare blacks and whites.
21:18
Speaker 1: We compare blacks, whites, and Latinos because we need to
21:21
Speaker 1: understand where we are as a nation if economic parody
21:26
Speaker 1: is our objective. And that was and that's that's what
21:31
Speaker 1: I'm just talking to when I'm on speaking to you,
21:32
Speaker 1: is that when I'm reading the book and I'm breaking
21:36
Speaker 1: down different chapters, the one thing that I kept hearing
21:39
Speaker 1: ringing out to me was this the plan, the plan,
21:42
Speaker 1: How you having a plan and then how you deliver
21:45
Speaker 1: the plan. That's what this That's what this book really
21:48
Speaker 1: talks about. You know, you have a lot of brilliant ideas.
21:50
Speaker 1: Basically what you're saying, build a house, you have to
21:53
Speaker 1: have a plan. To cook a good meal, you have
21:55
Speaker 1: to have a recipe. To be a great musician, you've
22:00
Speaker 1: got to have a musical score, even if you improvise
22:03
Speaker 1: in between. UH to UH. To lead, you need a plan.
22:09
Speaker 1: To fight a war, you need a plan. To bring
22:12
Speaker 1: about peace, you need a plan. So planning is a
22:16
Speaker 1: really important element of leadership. And then knowing want to
22:20
Speaker 1: modify the plan. There are times that come when you
22:24
Speaker 1: might have to throw the plan right out the window,
22:28
Speaker 1: right out the window, and respond. So right now, we
22:31
Speaker 1: have to respond to this pandemic. So we might put
22:35
Speaker 1: a plan aside. But what we quickly do is develop
22:39
Speaker 1: a new plan, and it might be let's develop a
22:42
Speaker 1: short term plan. Let's focus on what we need to
22:45
Speaker 1: do uh in order to confront the challenges now. So
22:49
Speaker 1: planning is critical and learning how to plan and then
22:53
Speaker 1: communicating your plan, knowing how to communicate you money, knowing
22:56
Speaker 1: how to talk to your constituents, to talk to your
22:58
Speaker 1: followers a bunch. But not just have it living in
23:01
Speaker 1: a file, not just have it living on your computer,
23:04
Speaker 1: not just have it living in your head. You know
23:07
Speaker 1: when I when I when I was reading the book.
23:08
Speaker 1: You know, I'm talking to Mark Mareal. He's they are
23:12
Speaker 1: Currency or the National Urban League. He has a fantastic
23:14
Speaker 1: new book called the Gumbo Coalition. Ten leadership lessons to
23:17
Speaker 1: help you inspire that will that will help you inspire
23:20
Speaker 1: united and to achieve your goals, your dreams, your organization
23:23
Speaker 1: and rising to the top. When I when I when
23:26
Speaker 1: I was reading this and we were talking about the plan,
23:28
Speaker 1: and then I got to the the you know, the
23:30
Speaker 1: five points of an agenda, and then I got to
23:33
Speaker 1: the state report, and then I started and I read
23:36
Speaker 1: the report and it was something that really stunned me.
23:39
Speaker 1: That was talking about Native Americans were denied an opportunity
23:44
Speaker 1: to vote in eighty two and then we're not guarantee.
23:48
Speaker 1: The last state to guarantee you then was New Mexico
23:52
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty two. And I always tell people my
23:54
Speaker 1: degree is in mathematics. Numbers don't lie. And that's why
23:57
Speaker 1: I like the way you do business. I would like
23:59
Speaker 1: the way you all you in your book, you talk
24:01
Speaker 1: about numbers, you bring up statistics, You lay out a
24:04
Speaker 1: plan that this is not a theory, this is how
24:07
Speaker 1: you should do business. You showed examples of how you
24:10
Speaker 1: did business, how you had to maneuver the people you
24:13
Speaker 1: had to maneuver with, the people you had to work with,
24:15
Speaker 1: people who didn't like you, how you had to bring
24:17
Speaker 1: them on your side of the table. And I always
24:19
Speaker 1: tell people, I said, in the percent of the people
24:21
Speaker 1: that I make money with, I don't really care what
24:23
Speaker 1: they for breakfast, I really don't. It's how I do
24:26
Speaker 1: business with them in public. And that's what your book
24:29
Speaker 1: is about. My book also talks about networking and working.
24:33
Speaker 1: When we talk about different kinds of friends. You know,
24:36
Speaker 1: you have intimate friends, and then you have, uh, those
24:39
Speaker 1: who you are acquainted with, and then you just have
24:41
Speaker 1: those that you professionally know. So the idea is you
24:45
Speaker 1: can have you know a lot of people, but just
24:48
Speaker 1: because someone's your friend doesn't mean there's your intimate friends.
24:52
Speaker 1: But then many times acquaintances have great value. They validate, uh,
24:58
Speaker 1: they they're they're what seem at your reputation or can
25:02
Speaker 1: undermine your reputation if you develop a bad reputation. So
25:07
Speaker 1: you know, in my book, it's all about practical tips,
25:10
Speaker 1: it's all about experiences that I've had, and it's all
25:14
Speaker 1: about the people who have helped me become who I've become.
25:18
Speaker 1: But more important than are relatable experiences. That's what I
25:21
Speaker 1: appreciated most about your book. I wanted to let you
25:23
Speaker 1: know that social media almost a million followers. I have
25:27
Speaker 1: a fan club Newsless every Friday at nine am, two
25:31
Speaker 1: anty thousand fan club members. I want to put a
25:33
Speaker 1: banner of your book in the man. I'll just let
25:36
Speaker 1: you know the man, I appreciate you. I appreciate you
25:39
Speaker 1: and uh to come on my show and allowed me
25:42
Speaker 1: to let you know the greatness that you've accomplished in
25:45
Speaker 1: your life. What you know, but sometimes, like everybody, you
25:48
Speaker 1: need to remind it that you are a gift to America.
25:52
Speaker 1: You are changing. Not only you've changed my life, but
25:54
Speaker 1: my daughter is twenty two and you're laying a path
25:57
Speaker 1: for how to have a great life. So thank you
25:59
Speaker 1: for coming on to make a conversation. Mark Maria, I
26:01
Speaker 1: appreciate you so much. God bless you and be safe,
26:04
Speaker 1: be healthy and keep the faith always, and get those
26:06
Speaker 1: banners to me so I can promote your book. Okay,
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28:05
Speaker 1: That's O T T e r dot ai. My next
28:08
Speaker 1: est is a Chinese American actor, hosts chaff singer songwriter
28:13
Speaker 1: who hosts a very popular YouTube cooking show called Feast
28:16
Speaker 1: of Fiction. With his co host Ashley Adams. They create
28:20
Speaker 1: their real life interpretation of fictional dishes to pay homage
28:24
Speaker 1: and the genuine geeky and live the way that's pure genius.
28:27
Speaker 1: Right there, I'll just tell you right now the fact
28:30
Speaker 1: that they came over that and doing it is pure genius.
28:33
Speaker 1: He's on the show to talk about their new cookbook,
28:36
Speaker 1: their new cookbook, The Feast of Fiction Kitchen, their Feast
28:40
Speaker 1: of Fiction popular YouTube channel, and his role and Disneys
28:44
Speaker 1: new live action movie that he's co starring in called Mulan.
28:49
Speaker 1: Maybe you've heard of that Mulan. Please welcome to Money
28:52
Speaker 1: Making Conversations. My man, Jimmy Wong, how are you doing, sir?
28:57
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. Thank you so much, glad to have
29:00
Speaker 1: you had me on, and thank you for the very
29:02
Speaker 1: kind words as well. Kind of worry. Come on, jim Jimmy,
29:05
Speaker 1: what you're not gonna do is come on the show
29:06
Speaker 1: laid back. I've seen all this energy I've seen I've
29:09
Speaker 1: seen selling. I'll see you take a pie in the face.
29:13
Speaker 1: I know you're a gamer now you Thank you for
29:15
Speaker 1: coming on the show. I would appreciate the nice statements
29:19
Speaker 1: that you say about me. So wait, what what Jimmy?
29:22
Speaker 1: Am I gonna get? I'm not going to get Jimmy
29:23
Speaker 1: that that's exciting. That makes me laugh and I go,
29:26
Speaker 1: he's crazy, he's a nut, He's a fool. That I
29:29
Speaker 1: said a YouTube channel. Who is the real Jimmy? Maybe
29:31
Speaker 1: I should ask you that question. The real Jimmy is
29:35
Speaker 1: probably someone that has too much on his plate. Now,
29:42
Speaker 1: when you said too much on your plate, what does
29:43
Speaker 1: that me? Well, I mean last week was quite an
29:47
Speaker 1: interesting one given the current world circumstances. Actually, this whole
29:51
Speaker 1: you know, last two months is they're interesting. Mulan was
29:54
Speaker 1: originally played to come out in March, which obviously was
29:57
Speaker 1: pushed because we want to keep everyone safe. The cookbook, however,
30:01
Speaker 1: is a physical print thing and the digital thing, and
30:03
Speaker 1: so that actually didn't need to change its release date,
30:06
Speaker 1: which was last week in the April. So you know,
30:10
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of releases and stuff around all
30:12
Speaker 1: that stuff to do all the promotion that you're not
30:14
Speaker 1: going out and doing a book tour, but you still
30:16
Speaker 1: need to be very much up to date on interviews
30:18
Speaker 1: and everything else. You need to make sure you get
30:20
Speaker 1: the word out there because selling a book is you know,
30:22
Speaker 1: it's no one easy simple task. Unfortunately, well you have
30:26
Speaker 1: you have. The great thing about it is that I've
30:28
Speaker 1: been fortunate. I've managed to harvey and we had three
30:31
Speaker 1: number one best sellers. Our first book sold over three
30:34
Speaker 1: million copies. Collecula they think like a man. It was
30:37
Speaker 1: translating in the thirty languages. So I know what you mean.
30:39
Speaker 1: We just a lot of work. A lot of people
30:41
Speaker 1: would love to think that you just write a book
30:43
Speaker 1: and people buy it. You have to promote it, you
30:45
Speaker 1: have to you have to be in their face and
30:47
Speaker 1: and unfortunately this situation, you can't do any book signings,
30:50
Speaker 1: which really does enhance book sales and also allows you
30:54
Speaker 1: to beat your fans. And so, like I said, the
30:56
Speaker 1: book is available now. Uh, I'm pretty sure you're doing
30:59
Speaker 1: a zoom interviews for the book, correct, Yeah, za interviews, Skype, Google,
31:05
Speaker 1: hang out, you name it. Basically if you can video
31:07
Speaker 1: in somewhere that or you know, phone interviews and stuff
31:10
Speaker 1: like that. So whatever works. Right before we get to
31:14
Speaker 1: the to the to the YouTube challenge. But let's go
31:17
Speaker 1: back to the movie Boulan. Okay, you know Disney is
31:20
Speaker 1: big into live action. You know last year Lion King
31:24
Speaker 1: Starr and Beyonce it came out, It made over a
31:27
Speaker 1: billion dollars at the box office. Aladdin with Will Smith
31:30
Speaker 1: it made over a billion, and then we had in
31:32
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen The Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson.
31:35
Speaker 1: Now we have Mulan coming out Now, I'm a big
31:37
Speaker 1: fan of the of the nineteen eight and Mulan would
31:41
Speaker 1: start Eddie Murphy. Now, that character, the dragon sidekick that
31:45
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy played in that movie, will not be in
31:47
Speaker 1: this live action version. Correct, yes, correct, that is not
31:52
Speaker 1: a mooshoe that the beloved dragon sidekicks from the original
31:57
Speaker 1: Mulan is not in this new movie. Okay, but you
31:59
Speaker 1: play the beloved link correct. Yeah, So there are some
32:05
Speaker 1: things that are fault them have translated over from the original.
32:09
Speaker 1: It's an adaptation that's not a straight one for one recreation.
32:12
Speaker 1: It's also different than that. This version is not a musical.
32:15
Speaker 1: So that's actually the first Disney live action realm that
32:18
Speaker 1: takes I think more significant steps away from just doing
32:21
Speaker 1: a full on, sort of like carbon copy paste of
32:24
Speaker 1: the original. This has been sort of reimagining, a real
32:28
Speaker 1: restructuring a little bit of reskinning of what the original
32:30
Speaker 1: movie was to something that's a bit more effuentially authentic
32:33
Speaker 1: and obviously a lot more action. So if you saw
32:36
Speaker 1: the trailers, so what would that be and say that
32:39
Speaker 1: when I when I go through your bio, I see actor,
32:41
Speaker 1: I see Holst, I see chef, I see seecret songwriter,
32:45
Speaker 1: I see gamer, what what what any particular lanes that
32:50
Speaker 1: you favor when I when I when I shout him
32:52
Speaker 1: out like that, I think hosting and gaming like the
32:55
Speaker 1: two that I'm the most joined two or the most
32:59
Speaker 1: like Trouble West. Gaming is something that I've just been
33:01
Speaker 1: doing since a very very young age, and it's also
33:04
Speaker 1: something I often find is tangential to the hosting gigs
33:07
Speaker 1: I get or the things that opportunities I see. You know,
33:10
Speaker 1: and hosting is something that comes really naturally to me
33:13
Speaker 1: on someone that's podcasts for a decent amount of time,
33:16
Speaker 1: So being able to just present information in the clear
33:18
Speaker 1: concesse way to people is something that I like doing
33:21
Speaker 1: and it comes naturally to me. Um. I love acting
33:24
Speaker 1: to don't get me wrong. Why I moved to LA
33:25
Speaker 1: originally was to be an actor. But it's not an
33:28
Speaker 1: easy world out there coming any minority groups in general.
33:31
Speaker 1: I'm onnority. I know, as you get older, the opportunities
33:36
Speaker 1: get even less and for our minority and so and so.
33:40
Speaker 1: But so you see the value of having multiple strings
33:43
Speaker 1: of income or multiple strings of opportunity, and you will
33:46
Speaker 1: preach that to people who are trying to pursue in
33:49
Speaker 1: any lane of entertainment that you're in, especially acting. Correct, Yeah,
33:54
Speaker 1: I mean it's I'm in a very unique position. I
33:56
Speaker 1: don't think most people can just pick up their lives
33:58
Speaker 1: and say I'm gonna do five differ of things that
34:00
Speaker 1: once right now. But entertainment is a very fluid industry.
34:03
Speaker 1: And for me, you know, the reason I started pursuing
34:06
Speaker 1: making a cooking show and hosting and doing all sorts
34:09
Speaker 1: of other things that we're sort of running parallel to
34:11
Speaker 1: the acting industry was because of the lack of opportunity.
34:14
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, new booming industry
34:18
Speaker 1: at the same time when it came to l A
34:20
Speaker 1: was the YouTube content creation one. So for me, it
34:23
Speaker 1: made perfect sense to at the very least see what
34:25
Speaker 1: that world had to offer and see if I had
34:28
Speaker 1: a place in it or if it's something most comfortable with,
34:30
Speaker 1: and then sort of reevaluate and constantly be shifting and
34:33
Speaker 1: nimble on your feet when it comes to developing out
34:35
Speaker 1: what your brand is in your brain, and your brand
34:38
Speaker 1: is very diverse. Let's let's talk about Mulan a little bit.
34:41
Speaker 1: Because of it's a big disnel movie. It comes with
34:43
Speaker 1: a lot of it's gonna open strong domestically, it's gonna
34:46
Speaker 1: be worldwide, and we know what we're dealing with from
34:49
Speaker 1: a pandemic standpoint, and may even damage the the the
34:53
Speaker 1: China market, which is a which is an incredibly fast
34:58
Speaker 1: amount of money comes out of that particular the movie
35:00
Speaker 1: industry over there. So will you get an opportunity? You
35:03
Speaker 1: know you were cash for this? Why do you? Why
35:05
Speaker 1: do you? Why do you lay that down? Do you do?
35:08
Speaker 1: You see it as just a stepping stone one of
35:09
Speaker 1: the many things that come in your life. Are you?
35:11
Speaker 1: Are you way the importance of what it could do
35:13
Speaker 1: for your brand right now? Because you are a brand,
35:15
Speaker 1: right Jimmy? I guess yeah, I guess you could describe
35:20
Speaker 1: my essence as a brand. It's the sort of thing
35:22
Speaker 1: that you are constantly keeping in mind when you go
35:25
Speaker 1: out to make videos or to even approach other brands
35:28
Speaker 1: to see if they would like to sponsoring content. You
35:31
Speaker 1: need to think of yourself as more than just like
35:32
Speaker 1: a person. You're a personality and influencer. There are a
35:35
Speaker 1: lot of different ways to skin it um when it
35:38
Speaker 1: comes to a movie like Mulan You. I think the
35:41
Speaker 1: first impression that I had when I got the role,
35:44
Speaker 1: was like, this is it. This is my big break
35:46
Speaker 1: the language that has commonly used for actors in Hollywood
35:49
Speaker 1: and the movies and writing and all that um. And
35:52
Speaker 1: you know, that was almost three years ago at this point.
35:55
Speaker 1: I first time I was gonna be in the movie,
35:57
Speaker 1: you know, and then the next year filmed, and then
36:00
Speaker 1: other year and stuff for plus production. So over time
36:03
Speaker 1: you get to sort of resample that same plate, that
36:05
Speaker 1: same dish that got you so excited in the first place,
36:07
Speaker 1: and get a little more context, to get a little
36:09
Speaker 1: more understanding about what it means for you and what
36:13
Speaker 1: your career is and all that stuff. And I think
36:15
Speaker 1: that the most important fact that was currently that I've
36:19
Speaker 1: been I've realized, especially after this delay, is that this
36:22
Speaker 1: movie is obviously a great milestone. It's a stepping stone,
36:25
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot of different things. But what it's
36:28
Speaker 1: even't going to do is be the one thing that
36:29
Speaker 1: breaks it all open, because that's not solely on the
36:33
Speaker 1: movie to do. You know, you as a person, you know,
36:36
Speaker 1: my character's name is Link, my character's name is not Moulan.
36:39
Speaker 1: I'm not the main character of the movie. I'm a
36:41
Speaker 1: side character, but I'm in a lot of the movie,
36:43
Speaker 1: So I need to make sure that I manage my
36:45
Speaker 1: expectations and also understand where I'm coming from when I
36:48
Speaker 1: got to promote the movie and talk about it, and
36:50
Speaker 1: also understand that, like, hey, this isn't going to instantly
36:52
Speaker 1: make you famous. Nothing really does, unless it's like a
36:54
Speaker 1: sex tape or something. But what this will do is
36:57
Speaker 1: provide opportunities. And if you're able to, you know, manifest
37:00
Speaker 1: what you want from those opportunities or take advantage of
37:03
Speaker 1: those situations that arise, then you're going to find yourself
37:05
Speaker 1: in a much more comfortable position because you're at least
37:08
Speaker 1: in more control of what's happening instead of just sort
37:10
Speaker 1: of saying, hey, I hope this mix it all work
37:13
Speaker 1: and then letting the sort of the river flow from there. Well,
37:16
Speaker 1: it's really important because it is a you know, it's
37:18
Speaker 1: a place as you know, being that African American. With
37:20
Speaker 1: certain movies come out that specifically impact who I am
37:23
Speaker 1: as a person, who I am as my race, it
37:27
Speaker 1: puts an extra layer of importance zone there is this
37:29
Speaker 1: Is this movie important to you? I mean yeah, absolutely, Like,
37:34
Speaker 1: like I was interviewed by another African American on the
37:37
Speaker 1: Red carpet and he was like, how excited are you?
37:39
Speaker 1: And I was like, I mean, how excited where you
37:40
Speaker 1: when Black Panther came out? Like yeah, I mean like
37:44
Speaker 1: we can share some Jim Jim. That was that that
37:47
Speaker 1: was our moving that that that's our moving that, you know,
37:50
Speaker 1: Black Panther. Like, I mean, here's the thing. When you
37:54
Speaker 1: are a marginalized group or a minority and you don't
37:57
Speaker 1: have as much representation as the majority, then you kind
38:00
Speaker 1: of just have to even let's say the Black Panther
38:03
Speaker 1: was I love like other by the way, I thought
38:04
Speaker 1: was a great movie. But let's just say in an
38:06
Speaker 1: altar reality, Black Panther was a bad movie. Yes it
38:09
Speaker 1: was bad. The writing was bad, that everything was bad.
38:12
Speaker 1: It was still in a low voice has to become
38:14
Speaker 1: people's de facto movies because just there hasn't been anything
38:17
Speaker 1: else that exists like it. So that's like the position
38:20
Speaker 1: that I think marginalized groups and minority groups are put
38:22
Speaker 1: in that people don't realize is that sometimes you can't
38:25
Speaker 1: ask for you know, the world, when you get something
38:28
Speaker 1: like this, sometimes you just have to clasp your hands
38:29
Speaker 1: and go, man, I really hope this is good, because
38:31
Speaker 1: we really don't have that much else out that are
38:33
Speaker 1: representing us. I can, however, say it was confidence that
38:36
Speaker 1: both Black Panther and The One are great movies. So
38:39
Speaker 1: it's amazing to be able to say, oh, great, that's awesome,
38:41
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a good movie. Uh, it's going
38:43
Speaker 1: to represent a lot of people in a lot of cultures,
38:45
Speaker 1: but more importantly open the doors for more filmmakers and
38:48
Speaker 1: young ones especially to come out there and say, Hey,
38:49
Speaker 1: I want to make a movie about my Asian culture
38:51
Speaker 1: or my Plank culture and hopefully be empowered by movies
38:54
Speaker 1: like this existing to say that they can. I do
38:56
Speaker 1: you want to talk about touch on this a little
38:57
Speaker 1: bit before we get into YouTube job, because I think
38:59
Speaker 1: it was because as minorities, you know, a lot of
39:02
Speaker 1: people don't understand the things that we have to deal with.
39:05
Speaker 1: And I wanted to go back to that situation that
39:07
Speaker 1: happen to you in college and how you felt about
39:10
Speaker 1: it and give us some detail and then how you
39:12
Speaker 1: reacted to it, which led to a very popular music
39:16
Speaker 1: video that you created. Talk to us about that because
39:18
Speaker 1: a lot of people do understand as a minority that
39:22
Speaker 1: they might think it's funny and cute, but it really
39:24
Speaker 1: plays back in a different manner when it affects us
39:27
Speaker 1: talk to us, Jimmy. Yeah, that's a great that's a
39:30
Speaker 1: great way of describing how I saw that at the time.
39:32
Speaker 1: To back in t read after college, I was in
39:37
Speaker 1: Los Angeles trying to pursue it as an actor, and
39:39
Speaker 1: after a year sort of you know, just deagling around
39:42
Speaker 1: not really doing much, I decided, you know, let's make
39:44
Speaker 1: music videos of this music. And right around that time,
39:47
Speaker 1: there was a sorority student from u c l A
39:49
Speaker 1: that decided that she was going to launch on her
39:51
Speaker 1: own content creation uh kick, and it would start by
39:55
Speaker 1: vlogging from her computer about people and things that she
39:59
Speaker 1: did not And the very first video she ever made,
40:02
Speaker 1: and the only videoship made to that matter, was about
40:06
Speaker 1: Asians in the library and specifically how loud they were
40:09
Speaker 1: being and how disruptive that she felt they were being
40:11
Speaker 1: when she was trying to study for her own work,
40:14
Speaker 1: and she created a racist caricature impression of them as
40:18
Speaker 1: well in the video, and unfortunately for her, back fared
40:22
Speaker 1: quite magnificently. The video itself was viral. News outlets everywhere
40:26
Speaker 1: picked it up nearly going who is this person of
40:28
Speaker 1: why are they being such a dumbo? Essentially that no
40:31
Speaker 1: one really called her a dumbo, and you know, to
40:33
Speaker 1: her face, um and death threats are flying in. And
40:36
Speaker 1: this person was receiving a lot of flak for this
40:38
Speaker 1: video shop post because it was very clearly just racist
40:41
Speaker 1: in nature, you know, in like the very benign way.
40:44
Speaker 1: This person in retrospect just was trying to make a
40:48
Speaker 1: comedy vlog and clearly didn't realize that her brand and
40:51
Speaker 1: humor was not only offensive, but it was a caricature
40:53
Speaker 1: of one that was based heavily in racist stereotype. So
40:57
Speaker 1: as a result, I made a music video that sort
40:59
Speaker 1: of took the entire encounter and reframed it and tried
41:02
Speaker 1: to give her an out. If that makes sense, just
41:05
Speaker 1: say like, hey, what you're saying, you know everyone's misunderstanding you.
41:08
Speaker 1: I just get it. You're trying to say that you
41:09
Speaker 1: love us, blah blah blah, and the start of put
41:12
Speaker 1: it into a song and took it in a satirical,
41:15
Speaker 1: such parstical way where it basically mocked her but encouraged
41:18
Speaker 1: her and glorified at the time. As a result, that
41:22
Speaker 1: response to a very vitriolic situation went viral. And five million.
41:27
Speaker 1: Don't don't see people just throw their word out their
41:29
Speaker 1: viral five million? You a is a phenomenon. Okay, that's
41:34
Speaker 1: a that's a slap in the phase that you that
41:36
Speaker 1: you should have done that. And people reacted to it,
41:39
Speaker 1: and well do you see that was that was key
41:41
Speaker 1: to use your creative system? Okay, man, what I do?
41:45
Speaker 1: People react to it because you know, we all need
41:48
Speaker 1: that little stepping stone of going man, I have talent. Uh,
41:52
Speaker 1: I just want somebody to understand it. And you did
41:54
Speaker 1: this just like as a as an improv moment, I
41:57
Speaker 1: guess of creativity and it was viral. What was the
42:01
Speaker 1: next day after that? I sort of described it to
42:06
Speaker 1: people as like a tidal wave that hit my career.
42:08
Speaker 1: But I wasn't strong enough or you know, in this case,
42:12
Speaker 1: mature enough and had enough years in the industry to
42:14
Speaker 1: know how to ride the way about just sort of
42:16
Speaker 1: carried along fire, which is just as fine, especially they're
42:19
Speaker 1: starting out. Um, just because that way of activity and
42:22
Speaker 1: attention and potential you know, really exploded and it was
42:26
Speaker 1: great to see it happen and all because I think
42:29
Speaker 1: it was a common thread and something I still see today,
42:31
Speaker 1: which is people especially marginalized groups of minorities need of voice,
42:36
Speaker 1: and they need a way to be able to communicate
42:38
Speaker 1: their needs and wants to the world in the way
42:40
Speaker 1: that's going to be heard and respective. And you know,
42:43
Speaker 1: we still see this every single day in modern America
42:47
Speaker 1: with black lives matters and with the recent outbreak of
42:51
Speaker 1: racist tacts against Asians, like, there are still many issues
42:55
Speaker 1: that people need, you know, we need strong voice and
42:58
Speaker 1: to be able to speak out, to be able to
42:59
Speaker 1: stand behind. And I didn't realize that when I made
43:02
Speaker 1: the video, but what I did was addressing a source
43:06
Speaker 1: spot in what what has now sort of materialized itself
43:10
Speaker 1: in modern day America is like, hey, this is still
43:12
Speaker 1: very much a real source spot, that it still exists,
43:14
Speaker 1: and that there's a lot of fear in xinophobia. How
43:17
Speaker 1: do we combat that in a way that's not just
43:19
Speaker 1: you know, taking an eye for an eye. First of all,
43:21
Speaker 1: congratulations for standing up for congratulations for doing it in
43:24
Speaker 1: the creative manner, and congratulations for an impacting and you know,
43:28
Speaker 1: not so much changing people, but making people aware. That's
43:30
Speaker 1: all that's all you can do. You can't change a person,
43:33
Speaker 1: but if you can make them aware and make them
43:35
Speaker 1: think about what their actions. It can't make a difference
43:38
Speaker 1: and slow down that level of ignorance that people minorities
43:42
Speaker 1: often have to deal with on a regular basis. And
43:43
Speaker 1: a lot of people go, what's the big deal? There's
43:45
Speaker 1: always a big deal when you walk in the room,
43:48
Speaker 1: and you know, I always telling people a walk in
43:50
Speaker 1: a room, I'm a black man, I'm black. You know,
43:53
Speaker 1: you know you can't you can't. You can't think I'm white.
43:55
Speaker 1: You can't think I'm Jewish, you can't think I'm a tag.
43:58
Speaker 1: You can't think of some other skies, you know. And
44:01
Speaker 1: I deal with that, and I championed myself when I
44:04
Speaker 1: realized there's a responsibility that comes with that. And because
44:07
Speaker 1: of that, I don't allow it to to to become
44:10
Speaker 1: the driving force to why I'm successful. I'm successful because
44:13
Speaker 1: I've been blessed with a lot of talents. And you've
44:15
Speaker 1: been blessed with a lot of talents too, Jimmy, and
44:17
Speaker 1: I transition that to the whole YouTube channel that you
44:20
Speaker 1: launched in twenty with Ashley Adams tell us because that's
44:26
Speaker 1: a phenomenal, that's a that's a big that's a big deal.
44:30
Speaker 1: It's the same year, but that's a big deal because
44:32
Speaker 1: it started as an idea, but now one point three
44:37
Speaker 1: million subscribers, that's a money making conversation right there. Yeah,
44:44
Speaker 1: like a passion slash question slash you know need, Like
44:48
Speaker 1: my brother and I are sitting around the kitchen table
44:50
Speaker 1: going what does the internet need that doesn't have right now?
44:53
Speaker 1: And this is twenty eleven, after I made the music
44:55
Speaker 1: video and try to muse the Galt YouTube for a
44:57
Speaker 1: whild and it wasn't that it didn't feel a sustainable
45:00
Speaker 1: fun as I wanted to be, and so my mind
45:01
Speaker 1: started hopping into the next thing, just like, what can
45:03
Speaker 1: I do now that's that's interesting and fun to me?
45:06
Speaker 1: And the cooking show just had to be on the list,
45:09
Speaker 1: and so we launted piece of fiction then and it's
45:12
Speaker 1: just sort of been like a steady progression of a
45:14
Speaker 1: passion project flash love between myself and my co host
45:17
Speaker 1: actually for the past eight years. And about two years
45:20
Speaker 1: ago we were like, you know, it's time, let's make
45:22
Speaker 1: a cookbook. I think we have the skills necessary. We
45:24
Speaker 1: don't want to do it too early, you know, we
45:26
Speaker 1: were still rookies, and so we're like, I think we're
45:29
Speaker 1: mature enough. I think we understand this market and what
45:31
Speaker 1: we want to do here and how we want the
45:33
Speaker 1: book to look specifically as creators um and so we
45:36
Speaker 1: launched into it and made a book. And you know
45:38
Speaker 1: that again, like you said, it's not just staying down
45:40
Speaker 1: and writing something that took two years of editing, photos,
45:43
Speaker 1: working with a publisher and they're finally released in two
45:47
Speaker 1: years after we started it. Now, let me ask you this,
45:49
Speaker 1: but the YouTube channel at one point three million subscribers,
45:53
Speaker 1: we're along the way. You went, wow, this is a
45:58
Speaker 1: business this you know? You know, because like I said,
46:03
Speaker 1: you're just sitting in the kitchen with your brother trying
46:05
Speaker 1: to think of an idea of what's the next step,
46:07
Speaker 1: what's missing? You come up with this brilliant idea. And
46:10
Speaker 1: I don't laugh when I say that this is a
46:12
Speaker 1: brilliant idea of my friend. Obviously one point three million
46:15
Speaker 1: people think so too. And well, your talents at all
46:19
Speaker 1: time to cooking or baking, because I know you you
46:22
Speaker 1: give your gamer and you give all credits over there
46:24
Speaker 1: to Ashley. How did that relationship come about and how
46:27
Speaker 1: did you start saying that this is truly a direction
46:30
Speaker 1: that's gonna catch on. No, it was we were at Disneyland.
46:35
Speaker 1: Of course that happens uh for a mutual friend's birthday,
46:40
Speaker 1: and we didn't know each other, and at that time
46:41
Speaker 1: I was still formulating the idea of my head. I
46:43
Speaker 1: met actually asked what she did. She showed me a
46:46
Speaker 1: couple of pictures of these like little fun takes that
46:48
Speaker 1: she made for her friends using fonding and you know
46:50
Speaker 1: the sort of stuff you see on cake Boss of like, wait,
46:52
Speaker 1: this is perfect. You want to come and help me
46:55
Speaker 1: out make a recipe? And before I knew it, I
46:56
Speaker 1: just sort of de factive man or my co host.
46:59
Speaker 1: But I think that the moment that we realized that
47:01
Speaker 1: I realized at least that this was a business um
47:04
Speaker 1: was the moment that a brand approachest and went, hey,
47:07
Speaker 1: do you want to do something together and we can
47:10
Speaker 1: pay for it, but if you guys are cool with it,
47:13
Speaker 1: then we're cool with it too. And it took a while, right,
47:16
Speaker 1: It was like a few years before brand started picking up.
47:18
Speaker 1: And when I first made the show, I was like,
47:20
Speaker 1: you know what, what movie wouldn't want this? This is
47:22
Speaker 1: great promotion, it's organic. The entire show is based off
47:25
Speaker 1: of the franchises, So don't a question if you support
47:28
Speaker 1: or sponsor a franchise. But it didn't happen at first
47:31
Speaker 1: because I think the show is still picking up steam.
47:32
Speaker 1: And then maybe it was there of a newer industry
47:34
Speaker 1: for that sort of stuff. But after a while, you know,
47:37
Speaker 1: after doing a couple of brand deals, I looked at
47:39
Speaker 1: the whole operation and when you know, this is something
47:41
Speaker 1: that we could scale up. This is something that we
47:43
Speaker 1: could just make more than just a hobby for fun
47:45
Speaker 1: um because I actually wanted to be a TV host
47:47
Speaker 1: when she came here originally, and so this was definitely
47:49
Speaker 1: in line with her dreams. Fun for us to do
47:51
Speaker 1: without having to worry so much about turning a profit
47:54
Speaker 1: or whatever for the first couple of years, because it's
47:56
Speaker 1: just again a passion project. Now let's talk about the book. Okay,
48:01
Speaker 1: because of the fact that UM is you have five recipes,
48:06
Speaker 1: and I like, I liked. First of all, I love
48:08
Speaker 1: the book. Okay, this is five recipes because I want
48:11
Speaker 1: to cook immediately after reading the book. Um. The shrimp cocktail,
48:15
Speaker 1: which is for some reason, if you if you go
48:17
Speaker 1: and you know something going the restaurant and the order
48:21
Speaker 1: shrimp cocktail, it's something about it's such a simple dish
48:25
Speaker 1: that it's so tasted me that I love it. That's
48:28
Speaker 1: from Beetle Juice. That's on page fifty three, the movie
48:31
Speaker 1: Beetle Juice. That's when the shrimp started dancing around. And
48:34
Speaker 1: then you, uh trade to my heart the crabby sliders
48:40
Speaker 1: from SpongeBob Crap SquarePants. Oh my god, I I gotta
48:44
Speaker 1: make that the Tianna Tianna's come Gumbo from Princess in
48:49
Speaker 1: the Front. And then oh, hey, look at it. I
48:53
Speaker 1: read the recipe. I'm from Houston, Texas by way of Louisiana,
48:57
Speaker 1: so I would not be telling you. I would not
48:59
Speaker 1: be telling you I'm gonna make gumble if I didn't
49:01
Speaker 1: look at the recipe and go, uh, this is crap,
49:04
Speaker 1: some crap. No, No, I looked at the recipe. Jimmy, y'all.
49:07
Speaker 1: You guys are the real deal, A real deal, okay.
49:10
Speaker 1: And then uh, the thing, I'm I love oatmeal cookies
49:14
Speaker 1: to death, my friend. That's my favorite cookies. Oatmeal. So
49:17
Speaker 1: when I saw the giant oatmeal cream pie from Honey,
49:21
Speaker 1: I shrunk the kids. You have me, brother, you have it.
49:24
Speaker 1: But then you closed out, You closed out with this
49:26
Speaker 1: one from my one of my all time favorite shows
49:30
Speaker 1: with the worst inding in the history of TV. Game
49:33
Speaker 1: of Thrones, the Lemon Cakes, the Lemon Cakes, so Almra,
49:39
Speaker 1: Sean McDonald. And what I'm gonna do is you know
49:42
Speaker 1: what I got. I got. I got seven hundred and
49:44
Speaker 1: eighty four thousand Facebook followers. Eight of my followers are female,
49:49
Speaker 1: and I always post food. IM gonna post your book
49:51
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, tell everybody to buy it. I'm
49:54
Speaker 1: gonna make a couple of these recipes and and and
49:57
Speaker 1: post them on my social media because Jimmy, I'm a fan.
50:00
Speaker 1: If Ashley ever has time to come on the show,
50:02
Speaker 1: please invite her on the show. I just want to
50:04
Speaker 1: bring you on the show and just you know, let's
50:06
Speaker 1: slow it down, talk about your story, talk about and
50:09
Speaker 1: I haven't touched the entire story, but I just want
50:11
Speaker 1: to touch enough of it to let people know how
50:13
Speaker 1: special you are as a as an individual man, because
50:17
Speaker 1: you know you you're you're you're breaking ground, my friend,
50:19
Speaker 1: and and you're doing it with a high level of respect.
50:23
Speaker 1: You're doing it. And the money making conversation and you're
50:25
Speaker 1: a leader. And that's why I wanted to bring you
50:27
Speaker 1: on money Making Conversation. Congratulation on Milan. Congratulations on the
50:31
Speaker 1: YouTube channel Feasta Fiction Kitchen. The book almost I'm gonna
50:35
Speaker 1: push it as hard as I can, because not that
50:38
Speaker 1: you need my help, but I'm just gonna be a little,
50:41
Speaker 1: a little, a little bit of help for the bigger pictures.
50:43
Speaker 1: That cool. Jimmy, Well, you know, you know how it goes.
50:46
Speaker 1: We will always take the help that we are giving,
50:48
Speaker 1: So I appreciate it, man. And you know actually is
50:51
Speaker 1: from Austin as well, so she's right around the corner. Oh, absolutely,
50:54
Speaker 1: your Texas girl. Well, I gotta get on the show,
50:56
Speaker 1: my friend. I want to thank you. I want I'm
50:59
Speaker 1: glad I the first time we met, first time we talked.
51:01
Speaker 1: I want you to consider to be a friend of
51:03
Speaker 1: the Money Making Conversation. You have some other projects coming
51:06
Speaker 1: down later on this year, and if you want to
51:08
Speaker 1: come back on the show, please come on because I
51:11
Speaker 1: will not get enough of talking about you, and I
51:13
Speaker 1: can also dig into some of that gaming area of
51:16
Speaker 1: your career that we didn't talk about on this But
51:17
Speaker 1: we want to talk about the book. I want to
51:19
Speaker 1: talk about that book, want to talk about the movie.
51:21
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your impact and standing up
51:23
Speaker 1: for who you are as a person and who you
51:26
Speaker 1: represent as a people. Keep winning, Jimmy Wong, thank you
51:30
Speaker 1: for coming on my show. All right, we're at home
51:33
Speaker 1: with Claire, who was warming up for a bit of
51:35
Speaker 1: boxer size. Yep, she's welcomed in the new year with
51:38
Speaker 1: a fancy new workout setup. Look at that Brandon punchback
51:40
Speaker 1: with matching gloves and a gorgeous coordinated at leasure. So
51:44
Speaker 1: coordinated she is working out and working well with prices
51:47
Speaker 1: this good undesigner workout, Gere, How couldn't she? WHOA, She's
51:51
Speaker 1: back on the sofa with her feet in an excellently
51:54
Speaker 1: braced foot spot iconic. Get those toes to Marshall's fabulous brands,
51:59
Speaker 1: feel good price at Marshall's. And we're live here outside
52:04
Speaker 1: the Perez family home, just waiting for the and there
52:07
Speaker 1: they go, almost on time. This morning. Mom is coming
52:10
Speaker 1: out the front door strong with a double arm kid carry.
52:13
Speaker 1: Looks like dad has the bags. Daughter is bringing up
52:16
Speaker 1: the rear. Oh, but the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers
52:20
Speaker 1: and toys are everywhere. But mom has just nailed the
52:25
Speaker 1: perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And now the
52:28
Speaker 1: eldest daughter who looks to be about nine or ten,
52:31
Speaker 1: has secured herself in the booster seat. Dad zips the
52:34
Speaker 1: bag clothes and they're off. Ah, but looks like Mom
52:37
Speaker 1: doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on the roof
52:40
Speaker 1: of the car, and there it goes. Oh, that's a
52:44
Speaker 1: shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't sweat the
52:47
Speaker 1: small stuff, just nailed the big stuff, like making sure
52:50
Speaker 1: your kids are buckled correctly in the right seat for
52:51
Speaker 1: their agent's eyes. Learn more n h t s a
52:54
Speaker 1: dot gov slash the right Seat visits a dot gov
52:58
Speaker 1: slash the Right Seat brought to you by MESA and
53:01
Speaker 1: the AD Council. If I could be you and you
53:04
Speaker 1: could be me for just one hour, if you could
53:06
Speaker 1: find a way to get inside each other's mind, Walcome
53:10
Speaker 1: Mile in my shoes. Welcome Mile in my shoes. Welcome shoes.
53:16
Speaker 1: We've all felt left out, and for some that feeling
53:19
Speaker 1: lasts more than a moment. We can change that. Learn
53:22
Speaker 1: how it belonging begins with us dot org brought to
53:25
Speaker 1: you by the AD Council. Welcome Out. My next guest
53:33
Speaker 1: is a Peabody and Golden Globe Award winning writer, director,
53:37
Speaker 1: and producer He's on the show today to discuss this
53:39
Speaker 1: new Netflix original film on Court, where he is the
53:43
Speaker 1: writer and director. Will also be talking about hbos Insecure,
53:46
Speaker 1: where he is the showrunner and executive producer. By the way,
53:50
Speaker 1: Insecure was renewed for a fifth season. The fourth season finale,
53:54
Speaker 1: Uh Insecure will air in the middle of June. Please,
53:58
Speaker 1: welcome to Money Making Conversations, my man, apprentice Penny Pretty good,
54:05
Speaker 1: pretty good. So I'll tell you something, Mr penn I'm saying,
54:07
Speaker 1: Mr Pennic because I saw your movie twice and one day.
54:10
Speaker 1: So it's not often in my life because I can
54:13
Speaker 1: say I saw the same movie from beginning to the end,
54:17
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Uncorked its own Netflix twice in
54:19
Speaker 1: one day. So, um, that's a compliment, man, because of
54:24
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, first of all, he has
54:26
Speaker 1: some people in that I really loved the death nis
54:28
Speaker 1: Nisi Nash and Court in advance, uh and so talk
54:32
Speaker 1: about but before I get into the store, just complimenting
54:35
Speaker 1: all about the movie, tell us about Uncorked the premise
54:38
Speaker 1: and how how you developed it. Yeah, I mean it
54:42
Speaker 1: really started from a place, you know, I wanted to
54:45
Speaker 1: make sure I wanted to write uh, and direct a movie.
54:47
Speaker 1: And I wanted to to you know, other things, like
54:49
Speaker 1: I wanted to fund that's kind of personal, but I
54:52
Speaker 1: could sort of, um, you know, find my voice that writing.
54:55
Speaker 1: When you writing television, you know, you're often writing in
54:57
Speaker 1: other people's voices, and so I wanted to find mine.
55:00
Speaker 1: And I felt like I was a big I love
55:02
Speaker 1: father's son dynamic stories, and I often felt like with
55:05
Speaker 1: black fathers and some stories usually the spine of why
55:09
Speaker 1: the father that I have conflicts because the father was
55:12
Speaker 1: absence and I just wasn't my experience, and like a
55:14
Speaker 1: lot of friends of my run experiences, and so I
55:16
Speaker 1: wanted to see and I felt like white people get
55:18
Speaker 1: to sort of have experienced my father some movies, whether
55:21
Speaker 1: they get to kind of be basic, like if you
55:23
Speaker 1: think about good Will Hunting or Manchester about the Sea,
55:26
Speaker 1: you know that that they get to be kind of regular.
55:28
Speaker 1: And I thought, and being basic and regular is what
55:31
Speaker 1: you find your humanity. And so I wanted to see
55:33
Speaker 1: if my men to be regular, not be you know,
55:36
Speaker 1: not about our pain or our trauma, is just to
55:38
Speaker 1: sort of like this is what life is like kind
55:40
Speaker 1: of an everyday basis for this family. And so that's
55:43
Speaker 1: sort of what drew me into, like, wa, did you
55:45
Speaker 1: tell that kind of a story? Right? Now? Here's the thing.
55:48
Speaker 1: Now I'm watching the movie enjoy it, laughing. It's kind
55:51
Speaker 1: of like almost like a drama Day to Meet its
55:53
Speaker 1: comedy with a nice little blended comedy stretched out through
55:57
Speaker 1: a dramatic movie with a lot of emotional values. It's
56:00
Speaker 1: romantic story as a family story is a common of
56:04
Speaker 1: age story. So it had a lot of a lot
56:05
Speaker 1: of descriptive moments in the movie that I enjoyed. And
56:09
Speaker 1: but the detail, that's what really uh took me back.
56:14
Speaker 1: The detail of what was of what he was trying
56:18
Speaker 1: to accomplish, the lead actor was trying to accomplish. Talk
56:21
Speaker 1: about that, is that something personal or where did the
56:25
Speaker 1: detail come from? Yeah? I mean in my real life,
56:29
Speaker 1: the sort of jumping off point in front of the
56:32
Speaker 1: family was really like my my grandfather started her furniture
56:35
Speaker 1: story compon in the fifties when my grandfather had a
56:38
Speaker 1: stroke and couldn't run at the full time my father
56:41
Speaker 1: would happen to be a college time. My father thought
56:43
Speaker 1: out of college, no questions to ask, and took over
56:46
Speaker 1: the business. And I was the next son in line
56:48
Speaker 1: to do that, and I didn't really want to do that.
56:50
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a writer and do other things.
56:52
Speaker 1: And so again I wanted to talk about again like
56:55
Speaker 1: that that anging. So I knew when I wanted when
56:58
Speaker 1: I was writing the story that I wanted one part
57:01
Speaker 1: of the family's business to be a family business, to
57:03
Speaker 1: be sort of more blue collar. Um. And so that's
57:06
Speaker 1: sort of how I got to barbecue. And I knew
57:08
Speaker 1: I wanted the son to do something that was a
57:09
Speaker 1: little bit more elevated and creative and the way that
57:12
Speaker 1: I was doing something, and I just felt writing would
57:14
Speaker 1: be kind of visually not really that interesting. Um. And
57:17
Speaker 1: I took a trip to Paris for a cousin's wedding
57:20
Speaker 1: destoration wedding, and I didn't even drink wine at the time,
57:24
Speaker 1: but I was like, if I'm ever gonna like wine,
57:25
Speaker 1: it kind of has to happen here. You know. It's
57:27
Speaker 1: like if you go to New Orleans and don't like
57:29
Speaker 1: gum vot New Orleans, you just maybe just don't like
57:31
Speaker 1: gum vote. So I was like, Paris is the spot
57:33
Speaker 1: for wine, and so if I don't like it here,
57:36
Speaker 1: And so I took a class and the guy made
57:38
Speaker 1: it really easy to understand wine and what I was drinking,
57:41
Speaker 1: and um, I said, oh, like this should maybe be
57:44
Speaker 1: what the sun should want to do. This is kind
57:46
Speaker 1: of cool. And that's really how I stumbled into that arena.
57:49
Speaker 1: And I was watching documentaries and movies about songs and
57:52
Speaker 1: things like that, and they just became And then obviously
57:55
Speaker 1: as you think about your like food and wine or
57:56
Speaker 1: distal pairings, and the way that the father of senses
57:59
Speaker 1: of the wood is the same way that people use
58:01
Speaker 1: us about the grapes, and that became obviously very um
58:04
Speaker 1: you know, things that became connectors in the movie um once.
58:09
Speaker 1: But that's sort of how I found the world of wine. Well,
58:11
Speaker 1: you know, I'm talking to the writer, director, and producer
58:14
Speaker 1: of Uh. I want to say, hot, new movie that's
58:17
Speaker 1: on Netflix. I know we are all in these pandemic time.
58:20
Speaker 1: I would say hot, because I watched it twice. I
58:22
Speaker 1: would see you just get you know, I really loved
58:26
Speaker 1: the movie because my wife, she's a connoisseur of wine.
58:29
Speaker 1: It's okay. So when I when I watched the movie
58:32
Speaker 1: at my office, I went, man, that the detail you
58:36
Speaker 1: know that because he wanted to be a wine Somalia, right,
58:39
Speaker 1: and uh, and so that was his goal. His dad was,
58:43
Speaker 1: like you said, Uh, his father was a barbecue owner.
58:47
Speaker 1: He dropped out of school to be to take over
58:49
Speaker 1: the business, even though he wanted to be a teacher,
58:52
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden that he didn't want
58:54
Speaker 1: to do it, just like you had in real life.
58:55
Speaker 1: You didn't want to do the furniture store. He wanted
58:57
Speaker 1: to be. He wanted to be a connoisseur of wine.
58:59
Speaker 1: He wanted to be and like I said, as a
59:01
Speaker 1: as a very exclusive club to be able to accomplish
59:04
Speaker 1: that task. And so, so if I watched that, so
59:07
Speaker 1: I went. So I came home and said, I said, baby, uh,
59:09
Speaker 1: I want you to watch this movie because the detail
59:12
Speaker 1: in this movie about this one because I don't drink
59:14
Speaker 1: wine and so and so she was so so so
59:17
Speaker 1: you know, but I'm just amazed at the detail of
59:20
Speaker 1: what I'm going on. And we're not even talking about
59:22
Speaker 1: the how you were setting up the barbecue and chopping
59:25
Speaker 1: it up. That that whole world, because that's my world
59:28
Speaker 1: right there. When you're talking about Memphis, you I'm from Houston, Texas.
59:31
Speaker 1: I'm a Texas boy, grew up my nephew. He's one
59:34
Speaker 1: of the best bobbecue people. Yeah, he one of the
59:36
Speaker 1: best barbecue people in Houston, Texas. He got a little
59:38
Speaker 1: side standing recognized her. He was on Kelly Clarkson for barbecue,
59:42
Speaker 1: and so I know about bobecue. And so when I'm
59:45
Speaker 1: watching the detail of the barbecue and then I'm watching
59:48
Speaker 1: the detail on the wine, I'm going like, who is
59:51
Speaker 1: this guy? You know, I said, wow, the details. So
59:55
Speaker 1: let's talk about your attention to detail, Mr Penny. I'm trying.
59:59
Speaker 1: I gotta respect Mr O Penny. You missed opinion on
1:00:01
Speaker 1: this show. Okay, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I'm
1:00:06
Speaker 1: gonna call you Mr mcdonalaruck. Okay, Uh yeah, I mean yeah,
1:00:11
Speaker 1: you know, I mean we didn't like, well you keep
1:00:14
Speaker 1: it like that and uh but no, I mean, you know, obviously,
1:00:17
Speaker 1: you know, I worked you know, on my other show
1:00:19
Speaker 1: from Intercure, like I've worked with a lot of them
1:00:21
Speaker 1: amazing directors. When you learn a lot from you know,
1:00:24
Speaker 1: you said, like you you know, you learned like from
1:00:26
Speaker 1: people just by how they work. And so that was
1:00:29
Speaker 1: one thing that I felt like the movie had to
1:00:31
Speaker 1: be a super spot on about it. It It was like, like,
1:00:35
Speaker 1: you know, Memphis is one of the I equated like
1:00:38
Speaker 1: the Mount Russian cities barbecue, right, so you got there,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: or surely you have Texas barbecue, you have you know,
1:00:44
Speaker 1: the Carolina barbecue, you have Diffen barbecue, and you have
1:00:47
Speaker 1: kind of you know St. Louis, Kansas City barbue, kind
1:00:50
Speaker 1: of like talking for barbecue. You know what I'm saying,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: talk the barbecue had to do. Yeah, I mean it's real, right,
1:00:57
Speaker 1: and so uh so I knew because obviously in the
1:01:00
Speaker 1: movie that the barbecue has to be so serious because
1:01:03
Speaker 1: that's the dad is placed as a premium and like
1:01:05
Speaker 1: how important the family businesses. So it's not just like
1:01:08
Speaker 1: you're doing barbecue in l A. It's like you're doing
1:01:10
Speaker 1: barbecue a place where like that's it's everything for us,
1:01:13
Speaker 1: and it's it takes care of our family. It's more
1:01:16
Speaker 1: than just the barbecue, right And so um so to
1:01:19
Speaker 1: me that that just had to be official, and so
1:01:21
Speaker 1: we enlisted a lot of Memis barbecue places that are
1:01:25
Speaker 1: especially black family places, like we're called Cozy corner Um,
1:01:28
Speaker 1: you know, barbecue shop. The places that we hired a
1:01:31
Speaker 1: lot of the background actors that actually have lots all
1:01:33
Speaker 1: worked in barbecue spots, and so because I needed them
1:01:36
Speaker 1: to know what they were doing versus like having kind
1:01:39
Speaker 1: of extras coming in not really knowing what they were doing,
1:01:42
Speaker 1: they had looked like they knew with it. That was
1:01:44
Speaker 1: important that all the background people know what they were doing,
1:01:47
Speaker 1: and so that was grand. Then conversely, in the wine world,
1:01:50
Speaker 1: like we had one of our actors who playing one
1:01:54
Speaker 1: of the black song teachers is amazing black son A
1:01:58
Speaker 1: d Lynn, who was also a part of the inspiration
1:02:00
Speaker 1: for the movie too, and and so obviously to have
1:02:04
Speaker 1: him read the scripted and really be teaching me as
1:02:07
Speaker 1: I was writing the script about wine and things like that.
1:02:09
Speaker 1: And obviously on the set we had another wine personal.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: They run right in foes like our on set person
1:02:14
Speaker 1: like our day to day to make sure everything works
1:02:16
Speaker 1: and make sure everything looks percent official in terms of
1:02:19
Speaker 1: how they hold their glass, how they you know, smell,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: how they taste, and how they how they do everything
1:02:24
Speaker 1: you know with so again that level of detail, because
1:02:27
Speaker 1: if you don't believe it, then you're just not not
1:02:29
Speaker 1: going to be into the movie. And the fun part
1:02:32
Speaker 1: about it is that you used up and this is
1:02:35
Speaker 1: a good word comedic word. You used ignorance to be funny.
1:02:40
Speaker 1: Like for instance, when he was saying he wanted to
1:02:41
Speaker 1: be on Somalia and they go, you will you want
1:02:44
Speaker 1: to go to Smalia? You know, it's just like and
1:02:47
Speaker 1: he goes, I ain't said nothing about Africa. You know.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: It was like he's like, you know you're your humor,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: your writing style, man is dead on. But again you
1:02:58
Speaker 1: gotta have the talent to be to pull that off.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: And you're casting and was dead on man dead on.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: I I w know I won't tell the movie, but
1:03:09
Speaker 1: the Nissy Nash relationship, uh, just coming out there just
1:03:14
Speaker 1: just niece is just brilliant and uh and then coording
1:03:17
Speaker 1: advance his role as uh as a dad man that
1:03:21
Speaker 1: uh he if any black man is over for you,
1:03:25
Speaker 1: that's your dad. That that courting advantage your day. He
1:03:28
Speaker 1: was your day. And so I was looking at my dad.
1:03:30
Speaker 1: You know the statement he has come out by racism
1:03:33
Speaker 1: but anything, it was just irreverenced. But it was just
1:03:37
Speaker 1: about the whole process. And then the sun and I
1:03:40
Speaker 1: want you to say his name because I messed up
1:03:42
Speaker 1: the lead guy who who really carried this road throughout
1:03:45
Speaker 1: and it really so that sold me on the fact
1:03:48
Speaker 1: that it could actually happen for this young man. But
1:03:51
Speaker 1: it's a journey. So I just we're talking about the
1:03:54
Speaker 1: movie on Cork, and I just wanted to compliment you
1:03:56
Speaker 1: on the ability to put a dynamic family story, wrap
1:04:01
Speaker 1: it around a romantic story and then with a seed
1:04:05
Speaker 1: of trying to find himself and seek an opportunity along
1:04:09
Speaker 1: the way that he doubted himself, that he kind of
1:04:12
Speaker 1: believed in himself, then he doubted himself. In the end
1:04:15
Speaker 1: he made a decision that this is what I want
1:04:16
Speaker 1: to do. That's that's fantastic man. Congratulations, thank you. Yeah.
1:04:22
Speaker 1: I mean Victoria Thomas, who has you know, everything from
1:04:26
Speaker 1: you know, our show to to Queeness Limb to all
1:04:30
Speaker 1: the Tarantinos movies. And Victoria such an amazing costing um
1:04:35
Speaker 1: like director that she was the one that like, you know,
1:04:39
Speaker 1: like suggested, like she's the one who suggests the cordin.
1:04:41
Speaker 1: She's the one that the girlfriend Sasha, She's the one
1:04:44
Speaker 1: that of a cousin JT. She's the one that was like, oh,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: mommay is gonna be great, Like she just helped put together, um,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: such an amazing talent for me. And uh and obviously
1:04:53
Speaker 1: they all just delivered. I mean, they're they're just also great.
1:04:56
Speaker 1: And see I got a peak that this movie was
1:04:58
Speaker 1: coming down the line because I had a a young
1:05:00
Speaker 1: mentor young man I meant to when he was an
1:05:02
Speaker 1: actor way back in the day when he was trying
1:05:04
Speaker 1: to act with his sister sister. His name Wastari Turner,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, he came on My show man. He
1:05:12
Speaker 1: told me about the movie, said, Rashaan, when it comes out,
1:05:14
Speaker 1: it's gonna mess you up. It's really a good movie.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: And and he says, this is the type of movie
1:05:19
Speaker 1: he wants to be involved, to tell a good story.
1:05:21
Speaker 1: Great casting, and you guys did a wonderful job and
1:05:25
Speaker 1: and more blessings. All right, I put you know, put
1:05:28
Speaker 1: I put this on my social media, put it in
1:05:30
Speaker 1: my newsletter, you know, just just to carry the brand
1:05:33
Speaker 1: of excellence. And again I'm recommending everybody, uh to see
1:05:37
Speaker 1: this movie or probably gonna see it again because I'm
1:05:39
Speaker 1: a type of person. I'll sit down there, you I
1:05:43
Speaker 1: watch it again. Come on, I watch again. That's how
1:05:45
Speaker 1: good it is. I watched the game. Let's let's go
1:05:50
Speaker 1: to the to you other series. It's just you know,
1:05:52
Speaker 1: just got renewed. Let you know some checks are coming.
1:05:55
Speaker 1: It's always good to note checks are coming. That's a
1:05:58
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. That's a kid that come on, come on,
1:06:03
Speaker 1: brother in the world. You know entertainment, man, you can't
1:06:06
Speaker 1: buy a house wondering that I just rent. I just
1:06:09
Speaker 1: at lease because they say the episode, but I wait
1:06:16
Speaker 1: and buying the cash. After the episodes and finished that.
1:06:20
Speaker 1: The girls, man, they mad at each other. They I'm
1:06:25
Speaker 1: gonna talk to the show, but I'm not gonna give
1:06:27
Speaker 1: away the show. But this has been a dynamic season man,
1:06:31
Speaker 1: for for the relationship of the Ivan and East. So
1:06:37
Speaker 1: talk about the steps of Oh, you know, because I
1:06:39
Speaker 1: got a feeling I know where it's going because I'm
1:06:41
Speaker 1: an old school writer, you know what I'm saying. But
1:06:44
Speaker 1: when I saw her coming coming down at that line
1:06:47
Speaker 1: of the promos when she's on vacation, so I go,
1:06:49
Speaker 1: I think, I know where this is going, and uh
1:06:52
Speaker 1: but yeah, okay, but you know. But but you know,
1:06:58
Speaker 1: it's about relationship I can think about. I think you're
1:07:02
Speaker 1: very gifted at that, you know, and being able to
1:07:05
Speaker 1: write characters that are very human and normal and make decisions.
1:07:09
Speaker 1: But this is what I'm complimenting you on. Um Insecure
1:07:15
Speaker 1: is a very millennial type urban show, and then on
1:07:21
Speaker 1: corks a family drama. Language is not even close to
1:07:24
Speaker 1: the language and Insecure and you are naturally pulling that off.
1:07:30
Speaker 1: That's a gift, my friend. You know, I was a
1:07:32
Speaker 1: sitcom writer. I was talented, but believe me, my skills
1:07:36
Speaker 1: didn't even come close to yours. I could write a script,
1:07:39
Speaker 1: But you got a gift, man. And I'm not gonna
1:07:41
Speaker 1: sit on this show and act like me being a
1:07:43
Speaker 1: sitcom right and you being a sitcom right that we
1:07:45
Speaker 1: were the saying you are, your skills said is a blessing.
1:07:49
Speaker 1: And I got and I get to see it every
1:07:51
Speaker 1: Sunday night on HBO, and I got to get to
1:07:53
Speaker 1: see it probably gonna be a third time on on
1:07:55
Speaker 1: Corked on Netflix. Talk about the whole process of being
1:07:59
Speaker 1: a show, your staff because we all know you don't
1:08:02
Speaker 1: do it by yourself, and that amazing cast that you
1:08:05
Speaker 1: have with Insecure. Yeah, I mean it really is a team.
1:08:10
Speaker 1: I mean, it really is a team effort. I mean
1:08:11
Speaker 1: we've been east and that I've been super blessed too.
1:08:14
Speaker 1: You know, we like mostly had the same writers from
1:08:18
Speaker 1: the from the first season, and so I think that
1:08:21
Speaker 1: brings like a level of you know, people being super
1:08:24
Speaker 1: familiar with how we want to tell the stories and
1:08:26
Speaker 1: and the way to tell stories and what works and
1:08:28
Speaker 1: what doesn't work on our show, but still offering you know,
1:08:31
Speaker 1: fresh new insight and fresh takes on it. Uh. And
1:08:34
Speaker 1: so I think that And obviously we have an amazing
1:08:36
Speaker 1: cast between you know, Jay Evan and Easa of course,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: and you know Amanda Seals, you know Natasha rock Well.
1:08:42
Speaker 1: I mean, so many amazing again, so much amazing talent
1:08:45
Speaker 1: that it just makes our job easier. And I always say,
1:08:47
Speaker 1: like when you first create a show, you know, the
1:08:50
Speaker 1: first the hardest part of the beginning is like you
1:08:52
Speaker 1: sort of write the character as a suit and then
1:08:55
Speaker 1: but it's kind of off the rack. And the longer
1:08:57
Speaker 1: the care longer the actors sits in the character, you
1:09:00
Speaker 1: start tailoring the suit for the actors are not a seat.
1:09:03
Speaker 1: It's better because the actors getting more comfortable with the character,
1:09:07
Speaker 1: you know, the writers getting more comfortable with the character,
1:09:09
Speaker 1: and then you get to get get deeper into the character,
1:09:13
Speaker 1: um and and and continue like like to Nuance. And
1:09:15
Speaker 1: so it's been honestly, it's been a blessing to be able.
1:09:18
Speaker 1: And you're absolutely right that that first season of character
1:09:21
Speaker 1: development is rough because you don't really know the relationships.
1:09:26
Speaker 1: But when you enter this fourth but to go into
1:09:28
Speaker 1: the fifth, you know, now you have the actors coming
1:09:30
Speaker 1: up and say something like that, I wouldn't say that.
1:09:33
Speaker 1: That's not my care. That's that's real. It is real.
1:09:38
Speaker 1: It is real. You know I'm telling the truth that
1:09:40
Speaker 1: because Yeah, they bought into what you've created, and then
1:09:45
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they want to keep it on
1:09:46
Speaker 1: course because of the fact that that's why the characters
1:09:49
Speaker 1: are natural, and that's why I buy into the anger
1:09:52
Speaker 1: that's happening between the two characters, and and and it's
1:09:56
Speaker 1: gonna build up to I'm pretty sure a tremendous season
1:09:59
Speaker 1: for now because of the fact that it's relatable. This
1:10:04
Speaker 1: is why I love it. Because it's on HBO. There's
1:10:06
Speaker 1: not gonna beat. It's nothing slam on BT is not
1:10:08
Speaker 1: on it's on HBO. We know that's a dominant white
1:10:11
Speaker 1: network that's being renewed. That means that the content that
1:10:14
Speaker 1: you're lift delivering is relatable to everybody. It's good quality content,
1:10:19
Speaker 1: and that's all you want as a as a talent.
1:10:21
Speaker 1: You want to you want, you want your your information
1:10:24
Speaker 1: to be welcomed by everybody, not to be pigeonholed, you know.
1:10:27
Speaker 1: And that's brilliant that I've been blessed the season to
1:10:30
Speaker 1: see chairs today if able to do a name. I've
1:10:34
Speaker 1: been blessed to see the Cure movie uncorked. Uh. Every
1:10:38
Speaker 1: Sunday night, I'm enjoying HBO's Insecure, my friend. Uh. I
1:10:43
Speaker 1: just wanted to bring on the show and say, hey, brother,
1:10:45
Speaker 1: you're younger than me, I I, which is great. That
1:10:48
Speaker 1: means that, uh, you know, the spike leads in the
1:10:51
Speaker 1: world are getting up there. And I feel that our
1:10:54
Speaker 1: future and the directing and the writing and the producing
1:10:58
Speaker 1: business and the film and tele vision, it's gonna be
1:11:01
Speaker 1: all right. Thank you, I appreciate. I'm glad to be here.
1:11:07
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Look to your children's eyes to
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Speaker 1: Forest Service, your state Forrester and the AD Council. My
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Speaker 1: next guest is to own a Puncho's Late Night Fry
1:12:41
Speaker 1: Trap as f r Y Fry Trap is a pop
1:12:45
Speaker 1: up kitchen based in the Atlanta metro area. Pacho features
1:12:49
Speaker 1: a menu based on loaded French fries. Right there, He
1:12:51
Speaker 1: got me right there, y'all, French fries. I am a
1:12:54
Speaker 1: French fry food with his own Atlanta Fair Flare Atlanta.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: Parto features the menu based on loaded French fries within
1:13:03
Speaker 1: Atlanta Flair. Please work on the money making conversation to
1:13:07
Speaker 1: owner Paco's Late Night Fried Trap, Brandon Puncho Williams, Oh many,
1:13:13
Speaker 1: thank you kind Uh definitely definitely enthoos to be here
1:13:18
Speaker 1: and I have a money make a conversation with I'm
1:13:21
Speaker 1: golt Man. First of all, I want to when you say,
1:13:24
Speaker 1: what is French fries, loaded French fries within Atlanta Flair?
1:13:28
Speaker 1: What what does that got? I got that from your bio.
1:13:31
Speaker 1: So if if anyone is familiar, poutine is a normal
1:13:37
Speaker 1: thing in Canada and in some parts of America, but
1:13:41
Speaker 1: also loaded fries are very popular around the country, especially
1:13:45
Speaker 1: in l a, so we know that it already exists,
1:13:49
Speaker 1: but we bring it to the We bring it to
1:13:51
Speaker 1: the South when we put all little flair on it. So,
1:13:53
Speaker 1: for example, instead of instead of the flavors of l
1:13:56
Speaker 1: A you might find with avocado, old cornea, sada, and
1:14:00
Speaker 1: uh and a lot, we bring the fried chicken bides
1:14:05
Speaker 1: with buffalo, with the buffalo sauce, ranch drizzle, and then
1:14:08
Speaker 1: the tub of sprinkles um as well as a few
1:14:12
Speaker 1: other flavors that were noted for in the South, and
1:14:14
Speaker 1: some not so much. But that will really catch you
1:14:17
Speaker 1: or your attention, like the sea boop shout, which is
1:14:19
Speaker 1: like you were, don't hear to that, don't don't go,
1:14:21
Speaker 1: don't jump too far. We're gonna get to that. I
1:14:23
Speaker 1: got the whole menu in front of me, all right,
1:14:26
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about that menu. Man. What you're not
1:14:28
Speaker 1: gonna do is come on money making conversations and and
1:14:31
Speaker 1: and leave me home with because I gotta have that.
1:14:34
Speaker 1: I gotta have at least at least dream of the
1:14:36
Speaker 1: food that you have at your shop. Okay, is that cool?
1:14:40
Speaker 1: Because I've heard this a lot. What is a pop
1:14:42
Speaker 1: up kitchen? What is that? When you used to turn
1:14:44
Speaker 1: pop up kitchen. What does that mean? So at the moment, well,
1:14:50
Speaker 1: from the beginning, we knew that we needed to approach
1:14:52
Speaker 1: it the food entreneurship and the restaurant idea very slowly.
1:14:58
Speaker 1: So the pop u kitchen, we this kindcept around the
1:15:01
Speaker 1: city and just essentially present everywhere we go and spread
1:15:06
Speaker 1: it as many places that we can. So in that
1:15:09
Speaker 1: mobile farm, we we we got the word out and
1:15:11
Speaker 1: was able to really test the concept. So so so
1:15:15
Speaker 1: basically you're tied to a food truck right now, we
1:15:18
Speaker 1: don't actually have a food truck. Okay, we go out
1:15:20
Speaker 1: and bit up tense bring out our equipment and we
1:15:24
Speaker 1: bring out so you really do set up a little
1:15:27
Speaker 1: a little kitchen type layout where you you on that spot.
1:15:31
Speaker 1: There's no food truck. You set up a little kitchen
1:15:33
Speaker 1: where you serve food on the spot and people can
1:15:36
Speaker 1: can request uh door Dash and grub Hub and Uber eat. Well,
1:15:43
Speaker 1: we we do that is the true true ess and
1:15:47
Speaker 1: stuff and we do go out of cephilf kitchen, but
1:15:49
Speaker 1: we are on door Dash and Ubis and grew up
1:15:51
Speaker 1: up yet. But we do offer delivery on our through
1:15:54
Speaker 1: our own operations, which is a very small um. We
1:15:57
Speaker 1: just have some some prod family that really believe in
1:16:01
Speaker 1: US and they do some delivery sports when we get
1:16:03
Speaker 1: them cool. So let me let me let because I
1:16:06
Speaker 1: have a nephew. You know, he has a very popular
1:16:08
Speaker 1: barbecue play staying. You know he does you know, you know,
1:16:12
Speaker 1: the Hurricane Harvard came through town in Houston, destrought his
1:16:16
Speaker 1: business and I helped him rebuild it out. And now
1:16:19
Speaker 1: he has does business with the Houston Texas and a
1:16:21
Speaker 1: couple of the arenas. And now the pandemic has slowed
1:16:25
Speaker 1: his catering and of course with the Texas and that
1:16:29
Speaker 1: may not be summer football with the NFL. We don't
1:16:32
Speaker 1: know preseason football. But he is surviving with the with
1:16:36
Speaker 1: the door Dashes of the world and the uber Eats
1:16:38
Speaker 1: and the grub hubs order to go. How how is
1:16:41
Speaker 1: your business being affected by the pandemic? So of course
1:16:45
Speaker 1: we're the shutting down of everything. We can't do pop
1:16:48
Speaker 1: us and we can't do large events, and it puts
1:16:52
Speaker 1: us back into the state, and really not back into
1:16:56
Speaker 1: because we stayed in, but into the state where we
1:16:58
Speaker 1: kind of have to to pop up from home and
1:17:00
Speaker 1: do do things in the way that what we're done
1:17:04
Speaker 1: and in times with things were much harder, but much harder,
1:17:09
Speaker 1: but hard as well. So we actually we we we
1:17:14
Speaker 1: went right back to the track. That's the nature of
1:17:15
Speaker 1: the business and show, and I just have to be
1:17:17
Speaker 1: frank about that. And so far, so good. We're very
1:17:22
Speaker 1: grateful to still be busy. Uh, We're We're grateful to
1:17:26
Speaker 1: feed people and be able to help people as well.
1:17:28
Speaker 1: So I can't do anything but speak to how grateful
1:17:33
Speaker 1: we are about still being in there just and you know,
1:17:35
Speaker 1: still being at We know. That's what I brought you
1:17:37
Speaker 1: on the show, Brandon. The truth is what I want
1:17:40
Speaker 1: people to hear because a lot of people in your position,
1:17:42
Speaker 1: a lot of people were caught off guard by the pandemic.
1:17:44
Speaker 1: I was called off card, you know, I was, I
1:17:46
Speaker 1: had plans I was doing in April. I had plans
1:17:48
Speaker 1: I was gonna do it May. I expect to be
1:17:50
Speaker 1: making money in April and May, and the live events
1:17:53
Speaker 1: got canceled and all advertising and marketing basically ceased in
1:17:56
Speaker 1: the second quarter of this year, so it really threw
1:18:00
Speaker 1: for a spend. With that being said, what lessons have
1:18:03
Speaker 1: you learned from this experience as a businessman who's growing
1:18:07
Speaker 1: his business, growing his brand, man, who week, that's a
1:18:12
Speaker 1: I have a load of ask for that because it's
1:18:14
Speaker 1: so it's so deep for me. Um take take, So
1:18:19
Speaker 1: I'll just take it straight to the route I knew.
1:18:23
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a serious entrepreneur in the sense of I
1:18:26
Speaker 1: feel that many businesses, so I leew that coming at
1:18:29
Speaker 1: to this point, I need to have everything squared away
1:18:32
Speaker 1: from the concept to the reasoning behind it and the
1:18:36
Speaker 1: reason behind it not only just being surviving for the day,
1:18:39
Speaker 1: but having a business that maybe surviving any any time,
1:18:43
Speaker 1: and that would just be something that we could grow
1:18:46
Speaker 1: in the sense of us a legacy in Atlanta, but
1:18:49
Speaker 1: also for a legacy for our sales. But the line
1:18:52
Speaker 1: and in that is just something that lasts and that
1:18:55
Speaker 1: will be viable in any situation. So where the pandemic
1:18:58
Speaker 1: proved and show he was hey man, you you you
1:19:02
Speaker 1: need that on the mark because right now you could
1:19:04
Speaker 1: be in a whole lot of situations. But it's several things,
1:19:08
Speaker 1: and one of them is he's not worried. You're not
1:19:10
Speaker 1: painted and you see lighte and you you again back
1:19:14
Speaker 1: to back to the gratitude is like I recognize every
1:19:18
Speaker 1: piece of it. So again that that affirms me in
1:19:22
Speaker 1: many ways that all right, you picked the right thing
1:19:25
Speaker 1: and and the hit the mark in that regard of
1:19:28
Speaker 1: my home with some others. Uh. And that's something I
1:19:31
Speaker 1: think that's important in business and when people approach businesses.
1:19:34
Speaker 1: You might have a great idea, but will it last?
1:19:38
Speaker 1: Is it something that's not necessarily essential but sustainable and
1:19:42
Speaker 1: something that you can mane and it's just if you
1:19:44
Speaker 1: need to. Also, is it's something that you enjoy doing
1:19:47
Speaker 1: and that's fun that you're gonna get bored of or
1:19:50
Speaker 1: you know, I want to rip your hair out, So
1:19:54
Speaker 1: let's talk. There was the things that important to me,
1:19:55
Speaker 1: and it's what punch os is for you. Again, I'm
1:19:58
Speaker 1: not it's really hot that you saying these things, because
1:20:01
Speaker 1: you know, we all want to be successful. Like you said, Brandon,
1:20:04
Speaker 1: you're a serial entrepreneur, which means that you've been out
1:20:07
Speaker 1: there looking for the right thing that can you know,
1:20:10
Speaker 1: make your brand work, make money for you, make you
1:20:13
Speaker 1: make you happy, because I always tell people all money
1:20:16
Speaker 1: don't make you happy. If you're making money unhappy. It's
1:20:20
Speaker 1: not long term money. Whether you're employed or have a
1:20:23
Speaker 1: successful business, you have to be happy in the long run. Plus,
1:20:27
Speaker 1: you don't want to go down the line ten fifteen
1:20:28
Speaker 1: years doing something that was that was that you weren't
1:20:31
Speaker 1: happy about and realize you're given away your best year
1:20:33
Speaker 1: is to make you happy. So I'm assuming that punt
1:20:36
Speaker 1: your You're a happy guy right now. I am extremely
1:20:43
Speaker 1: so many reasons, So yeah, I am good. So now
1:20:47
Speaker 1: how did you get this idea? Now let's start listen
1:20:50
Speaker 1: to this is what the people want to know. How
1:20:52
Speaker 1: did you get this idea for late night fry trap Punchos?
1:20:59
Speaker 1: All right, so let me start with Plusho. Puncho is
1:21:02
Speaker 1: my nickname. A's my real nickname, and it's birth giving
1:21:05
Speaker 1: and it's a uh I say, a street nickname in
1:21:09
Speaker 1: Atlanta that's kind of popular. So there are a lot
1:21:11
Speaker 1: of everybody got a cut as the nuns and I'm
1:21:13
Speaker 1: the Pluto of my um. So that was that was
1:21:16
Speaker 1: automatic because the brand is based around at Nanta and
1:21:19
Speaker 1: then that's that's where we started. So late night was
1:21:23
Speaker 1: kind of fulfilling a missing need where we have late
1:21:27
Speaker 1: night food and late night each but not necessarily fun
1:21:30
Speaker 1: late night experiences, and that's what I wanted the brand
1:21:33
Speaker 1: to kind of be based arized, so that when we
1:21:35
Speaker 1: did the mobile version, we can take experiences along with
1:21:38
Speaker 1: the food or appair path of food up with various
1:21:41
Speaker 1: experiences so that we know that we carry our audiences
1:21:44
Speaker 1: attention and create a culture around the brand. So late
1:21:49
Speaker 1: night we wanted to have it to the late night
1:21:50
Speaker 1: audience everyone and everyone knows Atlanta is a a Turk
1:21:53
Speaker 1: bulk city. So that's kind of the audience that we
1:21:56
Speaker 1: shoot for. And we attract others as well. Frou to
1:21:59
Speaker 1: other once you know the fries, we love fry. We
1:22:03
Speaker 1: know a lot of people love fried and when we
1:22:05
Speaker 1: put our touch to it, we know we can attract
1:22:08
Speaker 1: the right people in the trap and went off to
1:22:11
Speaker 1: know and that is the trap. I mean, we hustle
1:22:14
Speaker 1: in any in every way. Uh and then this sicular fall,
1:22:18
Speaker 1: but so is its trapping fried. So that was a name.
1:22:21
Speaker 1: That's the man cousin cool. Now I'm just tell you something, man,
1:22:24
Speaker 1: you know McDonald's my all time favorite fry. I will
1:22:27
Speaker 1: let you know that Donald's say just something about that Friday,
1:22:29
Speaker 1: just that Friday got over there gets me. Now, five
1:22:33
Speaker 1: guys they love their fried. I give me a medium
1:22:38
Speaker 1: and they just pile all of so I get a
1:22:39
Speaker 1: little extra. I never get large fries because they're gonna
1:22:41
Speaker 1: get a bunch of fries anyway. Anybody buying a large
1:22:44
Speaker 1: fry at five guys ain't small. Okay, just get your menu.
1:22:49
Speaker 1: That's how they got got it kicked off. And then
1:22:50
Speaker 1: we're gonna go through your whole menu because I printed
1:22:53
Speaker 1: out your whole menu because everything that was on it
1:22:58
Speaker 1: I wanted to eat. And I gotta find out where
1:23:00
Speaker 1: you at because this week you gotta see me. I'm
1:23:03
Speaker 1: gonna have my facial mask on so you won't recognize
1:23:05
Speaker 1: me because I'm coming on and get my fries. Okay,
1:23:07
Speaker 1: let's talk about that. Okay, cool talk, all right? How
1:23:11
Speaker 1: did you see you fries? Kick it off? So I'm
1:23:16
Speaker 1: a part time foody myself, and one day, just well
1:23:19
Speaker 1: not even one day, like every day that's scrolling around,
1:23:22
Speaker 1: I kept seeing these frides that had shrimp and crab
1:23:25
Speaker 1: and some type of sauce on them, but they would
1:23:28
Speaker 1: Encounterfornia like too far away. So when I got sick
1:23:32
Speaker 1: and tired of it, I finally like convinced my girlfriend
1:23:35
Speaker 1: and partner co finally, every let's try to eat fried.
1:23:38
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trying to meet something. She was like, okay, whatever,
1:23:41
Speaker 1: and I didn't put something together, not necessarily put up together,
1:23:45
Speaker 1: because I have a decent paleque, like said, I'm not
1:23:49
Speaker 1: a shelf with my mother taught me well. So we
1:23:53
Speaker 1: got the wild shrimp, we got the wild crab. We
1:23:57
Speaker 1: uh we tied out there using quality potatoes particular time
1:24:02
Speaker 1: that makes it uh integrate with all the other ingredients
1:24:05
Speaker 1: so well. And it was a hit that first time.
1:24:09
Speaker 1: So after being a hit the first time, we got
1:24:11
Speaker 1: to that next weekend, it means like they're trying the
1:24:16
Speaker 1: people prizes again. And it started to become a thing
1:24:19
Speaker 1: like week by week, and we tried the following when
1:24:23
Speaker 1: we could try the olden Latin, which is the bustlo with.
1:24:26
Speaker 1: We started to try different players and realized like, okay,
1:24:29
Speaker 1: we should invite some friends over and see if they
1:24:31
Speaker 1: like this tested um, and you know, it just started
1:24:35
Speaker 1: to build from that. We took a step out there.
1:24:37
Speaker 1: We we we didn't end up doing like a group
1:24:40
Speaker 1: party anything, but we did invite some family over the
1:24:42
Speaker 1: taste test and it got to the point where it
1:24:46
Speaker 1: ate as you so much and I didn't want to
1:24:49
Speaker 1: see it done somewhere else, and knowing that I had
1:24:53
Speaker 1: all the other branding and elements and connected certain diets
1:24:56
Speaker 1: like just do it, just go forward, um and and
1:25:00
Speaker 1: and that is simply with it. That's how to seek prices.
1:25:02
Speaker 1: But at all. Okay, now, Brandon, before we get into
1:25:06
Speaker 1: them in you, let's talk about your ordering, your auderent process.
1:25:09
Speaker 1: You have a new online ordering order is now enabled
1:25:13
Speaker 1: for pick up and delivery. Just place your order and
1:25:16
Speaker 1: we're prepared for your organizations will pay prayer as fast
1:25:20
Speaker 1: as you can. All orders are tied manually confirmed by us.
1:25:24
Speaker 1: We'll send you a text message as well. Right select
1:25:27
Speaker 1: cash as payment. You do not accept cash due to
1:25:31
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen safety practices. Once your artists confirmed, send payment
1:25:35
Speaker 1: via cash app. Then you'll send your location where you're
1:25:39
Speaker 1: at right and when you arrived, d M a text
1:25:43
Speaker 1: and we'll bring it out to you. You can also
1:25:45
Speaker 1: track your delivery with the link in your email. So
1:25:48
Speaker 1: you really using technology to market your brand and to
1:25:52
Speaker 1: sell your business correct. Indeed, Yeah, to have uh the
1:25:59
Speaker 1: system in place that help move the business. So although
1:26:05
Speaker 1: we have other ways that we're gonna evolve into different
1:26:09
Speaker 1: and more technical ball right now, we want to go
1:26:12
Speaker 1: ahead and go to all our order and especially during
1:26:14
Speaker 1: the quarts and when everything starts to kind of move
1:26:17
Speaker 1: a bit, a little bit more and faster. Uh, just
1:26:20
Speaker 1: so that we can keep us keep track of our data,
1:26:23
Speaker 1: keep advocate the deliveries and the pickups in the order.
1:26:27
Speaker 1: And you had that place for dashboards and go from now,
1:26:31
Speaker 1: what does social media? How does social media playing your game? Oh? Man,
1:26:36
Speaker 1: social media? So that that's the band of our existence
1:26:42
Speaker 1: in the sense because my background is also branded and marketing.
1:26:47
Speaker 1: Uh from a freelance perspective, Uh did media production and
1:26:51
Speaker 1: I assisted a lot of brands and just shaping their business.
1:26:55
Speaker 1: So I was able to and strategizic West. So I
1:26:58
Speaker 1: was able to do that for us too, in the
1:27:00
Speaker 1: sense of knowing how to said the logo. This knowing
1:27:05
Speaker 1: set up the logo, set up the colors, knowing how
1:27:08
Speaker 1: to take the pictures, understand a lot of things that
1:27:11
Speaker 1: go along with the media. Prior to launching Pazos, uh
1:27:16
Speaker 1: is really was really a sense of to launching, so
1:27:21
Speaker 1: using those tricks and knowing that the food with the
1:27:25
Speaker 1: quality and hopefully it will go over where I just
1:27:29
Speaker 1: kind of created that formula and launched it. Um. I mean,
1:27:34
Speaker 1: it's so many elements to other elements to it, but
1:27:37
Speaker 1: taking that formula. Having a formula and launch and social media.
1:27:41
Speaker 1: It's just a tried and true way to market freely
1:27:44
Speaker 1: because once you just go borrow in the smallest sense,
1:27:50
Speaker 1: it carries your business and kind of answers and poses
1:27:54
Speaker 1: questions that you can answer to the kind of move
1:27:57
Speaker 1: it forward. So I don't know, is that for for
1:28:01
Speaker 1: a lot of people who may not speak that language
1:28:03
Speaker 1: is understandable. But whatever it is, you know you say, look,
1:28:06
Speaker 1: that's what you're saying. Never, I'll never break it down
1:28:08
Speaker 1: because I'm a social media guru. You're talking about, Look
1:28:10
Speaker 1: I got not only do I have great food, but
1:28:12
Speaker 1: my food look good. So you take nice pictures of
1:28:17
Speaker 1: your food and you post it and said, you can
1:28:19
Speaker 1: get this right here. You might be some people might
1:28:22
Speaker 1: be eating your food, but it's always edible looking photos
1:28:26
Speaker 1: and the engagement that happens the likes or what you're
1:28:31
Speaker 1: seeking here so people can share that or make comments,
1:28:35
Speaker 1: and when they make comments, I've eating that, it's fantastic.
1:28:37
Speaker 1: That's what you're trying to do with social media. You're
1:28:39
Speaker 1: trying to get people to sell your brand. And the
1:28:42
Speaker 1: way you sell your brand is by you gotta do
1:28:45
Speaker 1: your homework. If you're gonna if you your presentation is
1:28:49
Speaker 1: really key in social media correct, branding, correct, absolutely correct,
1:28:55
Speaker 1: It was, it was critical, and it's from the photos,
1:28:58
Speaker 1: it's from the videos, any type of content. And I
1:29:01
Speaker 1: chose a mix of three to focus on and to
1:29:05
Speaker 1: have as our our roles so to speed so that
1:29:08
Speaker 1: if you look at our timeline you can kind of
1:29:10
Speaker 1: see a flow that everything isn't in same You don't
1:29:14
Speaker 1: do one uh one particular thing, but the way that
1:29:17
Speaker 1: it flows it looks like we do. But um, you
1:29:21
Speaker 1: have to look at us to understanding. And that was
1:29:23
Speaker 1: critical because you want people to kind of look at
1:29:25
Speaker 1: your feed the same way they look at individual posts.
1:29:28
Speaker 1: And it's all about impressions even even if you don't
1:29:31
Speaker 1: like it, even or even if they don't like it,
1:29:34
Speaker 1: even if they don't make a comment, you can see
1:29:37
Speaker 1: how many impressions photo head or you can well and
1:29:40
Speaker 1: you don't know as well, um, once they do begin
1:29:43
Speaker 1: to like it, what photos work or what type of
1:29:46
Speaker 1: content works and what doesn't work, And you got to
1:29:47
Speaker 1: say the information and use it and also also your approach,
1:29:52
Speaker 1: and that that's pretty much how you know social media
1:29:55
Speaker 1: works for us. It's it's a way when you do
1:29:59
Speaker 1: it right to avoid it's spending too many digital marketing
1:30:03
Speaker 1: and marketing dollars that would be necessary if you don't
1:30:05
Speaker 1: have those did so for us it's like luckily, not
1:30:11
Speaker 1: not even lifically, but faithfually, like intercuting that plan. We've
1:30:14
Speaker 1: been able to build our social media page, I mean
1:30:17
Speaker 1: on Instagram page up to see thousands or sixty five
1:30:20
Speaker 1: nothing followers now and this is like a year and
1:30:24
Speaker 1: three months in not eve than that. So uh, you know,
1:30:28
Speaker 1: we don't pay for following when we don't pay for life,
1:30:30
Speaker 1: well we're not. I'm not fans for nothing really aside
1:30:33
Speaker 1: from just uh really just your your your work, your work,
1:30:38
Speaker 1: taking the photos, your work, sitting down with your team,
1:30:41
Speaker 1: being creative, because people have to understand that you gotta
1:30:44
Speaker 1: have a plan. Social media has changed the game because
1:30:47
Speaker 1: it allows small entrepreneurs and major entrepreneurs to go out
1:30:51
Speaker 1: there and engage with regular people not only in the
1:30:54
Speaker 1: in the market of Atlanta, but you're actually marketing it
1:30:57
Speaker 1: around the world and around the country and people I
1:31:00
Speaker 1: know because I do that when I post I'm up,
1:31:01
Speaker 1: I'm up. I'm gonna post some stuff for you man,
1:31:03
Speaker 1: because you know what happens is when I posted because
1:31:06
Speaker 1: I'm a foodie, I got seven Facebook followers, eight and
1:31:11
Speaker 1: of my followers a female, and so I knew all this.
1:31:14
Speaker 1: And so you know, seven of my audience is under
1:31:17
Speaker 1: the age of sixty four. So all my people eat,
1:31:20
Speaker 1: they eat, okay, and so and so when I talk
1:31:23
Speaker 1: about your your product, that means that when I post something,
1:31:27
Speaker 1: I'm gonna post it on the resar Rushaun Eats, recommending
1:31:30
Speaker 1: this is a place to go. But before we in
1:31:32
Speaker 1: this interview, I got to tell people why I got
1:31:34
Speaker 1: excited about your business. You do a lot of other
1:31:36
Speaker 1: things on your menu, but I want to focus on
1:31:38
Speaker 1: those fries and the Old Atlanta, the seafood Shalty, the Bluff,
1:31:45
Speaker 1: the game game, the nineties six Olympics, the Magic City,
1:31:49
Speaker 1: the buckhead, mobster, lobster, and shrimp. Come on, now, now
1:31:55
Speaker 1: here's the deal. His pricing, I feel is really good,
1:31:58
Speaker 1: like the Old Atlanta's fifteen dollars. The seafood shalty that
1:32:02
Speaker 1: has shrimp and crabbing it okay, not shrimping, crabbing, and
1:32:04
Speaker 1: that come on that wild called shrimp. Okay, I apologize.
1:32:10
Speaker 1: I showed at you on that brother. The seafood shot
1:32:13
Speaker 1: is only eighteen dollars. The bluff is fifteen dollars, The
1:32:17
Speaker 1: gang gang is fifteen dollars. Then Si Olympics and fifteen dollars,
1:32:21
Speaker 1: Magic City fifteen. Now the buckhead and the mobster, lobster
1:32:26
Speaker 1: and shrimp are The buckhead is thirty five dollars. But
1:32:28
Speaker 1: check this out, fried cajued lobster bites drizzled with the
1:32:34
Speaker 1: homemade lemon garlic. Whoa boy right there? Come on now?
1:32:40
Speaker 1: And then you got the mobster, lobster and shrimp as
1:32:44
Speaker 1: broad lobsters, shrimp or butter oh on some French fries.
1:32:50
Speaker 1: That's only twenty eight dollars. What is your most popular
1:32:54
Speaker 1: French fried? Order their top two? What are your top two?
1:32:58
Speaker 1: The talk to be first would be the bluff that's
1:33:02
Speaker 1: the hot hunting lenon pepper and that goes over where.
1:33:06
Speaker 1: And the second, I would say the seafood shouting because
1:33:11
Speaker 1: the people who love it absolutely love it and they
1:33:16
Speaker 1: rarely you know, uh er from it. Now, le let
1:33:21
Speaker 1: me ask you this. Now there you do you? You
1:33:24
Speaker 1: do you cut your own fries? Do you make your
1:33:26
Speaker 1: fries or you order your fries? Your hand could freshly
1:33:30
Speaker 1: season and buy two people who love fries and do
1:33:34
Speaker 1: it like six days a week. So yeah, we we
1:33:37
Speaker 1: everything is hand made. So you ordered the big old
1:33:39
Speaker 1: bags or potatoes, that's right? What what what do they
1:33:43
Speaker 1: shipping man from? What do you get them shipped in from? Well,
1:33:46
Speaker 1: i's got a matter of the ship and we're not
1:33:48
Speaker 1: doing any any pecurement yet for those kinds of uh delivery.
1:33:53
Speaker 1: We're gonna pick it up, just gonna pick up. Okay,
1:33:55
Speaker 1: you do a lot of local. You just said, we're
1:33:57
Speaker 1: not there yet. We're gonna get all our potatoes and
1:34:00
Speaker 1: then we prepare our orders. So I love this man
1:34:02
Speaker 1: because you know that you have a dream that you're
1:34:05
Speaker 1: dealing with and you're making it happen every day and
1:34:08
Speaker 1: every week. What's the future for Puncho Late Night Fry
1:34:12
Speaker 1: Track to be an institution of a now right now
1:34:16
Speaker 1: we're small, but mighty right Yeah, we have a vision
1:34:19
Speaker 1: to be an institution of Ala. And that's why you
1:34:24
Speaker 1: just here Atlanta and so much of good brand is
1:34:27
Speaker 1: because that's what we're tied to, not in the sense
1:34:30
Speaker 1: that that's what we want to stay in this what
1:34:32
Speaker 1: we want to keep it. That's where we know this
1:34:34
Speaker 1: concept lives and um, where we wanted to bubble from
1:34:39
Speaker 1: my man, I really appreciate you taking the time coming
1:34:42
Speaker 1: to my show because of the fact that you are
1:34:44
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur that's at the early stage of and you're planning.
1:34:48
Speaker 1: You got a clear understanding how to market, You got
1:34:50
Speaker 1: your apprecentation. You get it. You know a lot of
1:34:52
Speaker 1: people don't get it. They think they can open the
1:34:54
Speaker 1: doors and the people just gonna come right on end.
1:34:56
Speaker 1: People just gonna find and what they why when they
1:34:58
Speaker 1: put up their tent. That's not true. That's not true.
1:35:01
Speaker 1: That's preparations. You have to be able to deal with
1:35:05
Speaker 1: the bad days because there's gonna be a lot of
1:35:06
Speaker 1: great days. But those bad days I call them turn
1:35:09
Speaker 1: back days. Those are days that can make you go, man,
1:35:11
Speaker 1: out of this. This ain't for me. And you know
1:35:14
Speaker 1: that you've survived those and this is one of the
1:35:16
Speaker 1: big turn back days that's happening right now in everybody's life.
1:35:19
Speaker 1: Keep winning that, Puncho, and I'm glad you came on
1:35:21
Speaker 1: Money Making Conversations. Man. Thank you. I appreciate you recognizing
1:35:25
Speaker 1: that and recognizing earth. Um. I can't wait until to
1:35:29
Speaker 1: the future. I can come back in and you give
1:35:31
Speaker 1: you enough there doing even better. Well, I'm gonna put
1:35:34
Speaker 1: your rushawn eat and I'm gonna give you update right now.
1:35:36
Speaker 1: You're gonna be on rushawn eat. All my followers on
1:35:39
Speaker 1: my Facebook page seven four thousand, and I got thirty
1:35:43
Speaker 1: six thousands on my Instagram account, and we're just gonna
1:35:46
Speaker 1: if if you're not busy, you're about to get busy.
1:35:48
Speaker 1: Young brother, You're about to get busy, and we don't
1:35:52
Speaker 1: have to figure out how to get you start too.
1:35:54
Speaker 1: So just letting me know. I appreciate you, man. I
1:35:56
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on money and make it cover says
1:35:58
Speaker 1: you've done your You're you're done your duty. Man man,
1:36:01
Speaker 1: thank you for having a platform and hate for all
1:36:03
Speaker 1: y'all from all across the world. I appreciate him. Rashan
1:36:07
Speaker 1: and you as aware um while it's on Instagram and
1:36:09
Speaker 1: before our trap awesome. If you want to hear more
1:36:12
Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation interviews, go to Money Making Conversation dot com.
1:36:16
Speaker 1: I'm Rashan McDonald. I'm your host. Adoption of teens from
1:36:20
Speaker 1: foster care is a topic not enough people know about
1:36:22
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Speaker 1: Visit adopt us Kids dot org, slash podcast, or subscribe
1:36:40
Speaker 1: to Navigating Adoption Presented by adopt Us Kids, brought to
1:36:43
Speaker 1: you by the U S Department of Health and Human Services,
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Speaker 1: Administration for Children and Families and the Council. What grows
1:36:50
Speaker 1: in the forest trees? Sure you know? What else grows
1:36:53
Speaker 1: in the forest? Our imagination, a sense of wonder, and
1:36:57
Speaker 1: our family bonds grow too, because when we is connect
1:37:00
Speaker 1: from this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other.
1:37:07
Speaker 1: The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
1:37:10
Speaker 1: near you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org.
1:37:14
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and
1:37:17
Speaker 1: the ad Council. What grows in the forest trees? Sure no?
1:37:23
Speaker 1: What else grows in the forest? Our imagination, our sense
1:37:26
Speaker 1: of wonder, and our family bonds grow too because when
1:37:30
Speaker 1: we disconnect from this and connect with this, we reconnect
1:37:36
Speaker 1: with each other. The forest is closer than you think.
1:37:40
Speaker 1: Find a forest near you and start exploring. I Discover
1:37:43
Speaker 1: the Forest dot org brought to you by the United
1:37:46
Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the AD Council. My next guest,
1:37:50
Speaker 1: she's here. She's based in Atlanta. She's an award winning chef,
1:37:54
Speaker 1: TV personality, owners slash chef of Twisted Soul, cook house,
1:37:58
Speaker 1: and poors A differ from kind of Chick, which is
1:38:01
Speaker 1: a new chicken pop up concept and Chicken I say
1:38:04
Speaker 1: chicken chicken, cook cook chicken chicken pop up concept in
1:38:07
Speaker 1: the letter. She's been featured on the Food Network, Travel Channel,
1:38:10
Speaker 1: The New York Times, Huffington Posts and BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed You
1:38:14
Speaker 1: never got a little fast desert about thirty seconds you
1:38:16
Speaker 1: cook up the world. Please welcome to UH Moneymaking Conversation.
1:38:20
Speaker 1: Chef Deborah f Treats. Thank you so much for that
1:38:25
Speaker 1: in productive Well, first of all, I didn't make anything up,
1:38:30
Speaker 1: you know, And that's the beauty of having a career
1:38:32
Speaker 1: and being recognized for your talents. How do you feel
1:38:35
Speaker 1: about it? Where you at right now? We're gonna get
1:38:37
Speaker 1: to the restaurants and the pop ups, and this about
1:38:40
Speaker 1: when I bring people on Money Making Conversation always, it's
1:38:42
Speaker 1: always a journey because a lot of times when you
1:38:44
Speaker 1: come on my show, we're just talking about the end results,
1:38:47
Speaker 1: and we all know that even we were talking about
1:38:49
Speaker 1: their results, they're still goals in place to make that
1:38:52
Speaker 1: even bigger. But but as you speak of being a
1:38:55
Speaker 1: featured on in the New York Times and Huffington Posts,
1:38:58
Speaker 1: which is a big digital imprint for magazines and online
1:39:02
Speaker 1: uh concepts and buzz Feats which is also video driven
1:39:06
Speaker 1: and travel channel which you know that's TV. We know
1:39:09
Speaker 1: the Food Networks TV. How does that do it? What
1:39:11
Speaker 1: does that do for your brand? And how has it
1:39:14
Speaker 1: allowed your brand to be uh recognized throughout the world. UM,
1:39:19
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's um immeasurable, you know, the now
1:39:24
Speaker 1: the positive impact that it's had on brands, UM, you
1:39:28
Speaker 1: know it. You know, it was a text of textbook
1:39:33
Speaker 1: way to have done that. UM. Some things just kind
1:39:36
Speaker 1: of fell in the right places at the right time. UM.
1:39:40
Speaker 1: And I took advantage of all the opportunities that were
1:39:43
Speaker 1: presented to me. UM, seeing the big picture of this
1:39:47
Speaker 1: marketing that you know I was getting, and you know,
1:39:51
Speaker 1: being able to development. UM. You know, a brand that
1:39:55
Speaker 1: was recognizable worldwide, and that's really important. I like what
1:39:59
Speaker 1: you said, you say, you know, sometimes you just gotta
1:40:02
Speaker 1: be ready to pivot when the opportunity presents yourself, because
1:40:04
Speaker 1: we can't plan. Somebody calling you said, well, you make
1:40:07
Speaker 1: an appearance on the Food Network and you can't sometimes
1:40:10
Speaker 1: say I don't know, let me check my calendar. You
1:40:12
Speaker 1: have to say yes. And because these appearances somebody's you know,
1:40:20
Speaker 1: if they call you, somebody is ready to say yes
1:40:22
Speaker 1: if you say let me let me check, or they say, uh,
1:40:27
Speaker 1: I don't know, well all this what what do you
1:40:29
Speaker 1: want me to do? Even if even the tone you
1:40:31
Speaker 1: may ask the questions could could lose you the opportunity
1:40:34
Speaker 1: to make an appearance on the network. What you know
1:40:37
Speaker 1: is what you're using your resumes to be able to
1:40:39
Speaker 1: get other opportunities. It really becomes a blessing. You gotta
1:40:42
Speaker 1: you gotta not look at it as a as a
1:40:44
Speaker 1: as a difficult moment or a conflicting moment. You have
1:40:47
Speaker 1: to say, how can I do it and make it happen?
1:40:49
Speaker 1: That's really what this is all about, right, That is
1:40:52
Speaker 1: really exactly what it is. It's like I've always gone
1:40:56
Speaker 1: with that. I'm going to say yes and I will
1:40:59
Speaker 1: figure out how I'm going to do it. But you know,
1:41:02
Speaker 1: the opportunity, when it's there, you have to grab it
1:41:05
Speaker 1: because as as you just said, now they really keeps
1:41:09
Speaker 1: going um and somebody else will grab at that opportunity.
1:41:13
Speaker 1: So um. You know I I always look to see, Okay,
1:41:18
Speaker 1: what how does this help me build my brand? What
1:41:21
Speaker 1: what positive impact is it's gonna have on it? And
1:41:24
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say yes now and we'll figure out the
1:41:27
Speaker 1: details of it later. Yeah. I want people to hear that,
1:41:29
Speaker 1: because some things are not always uh you know, well,
1:41:32
Speaker 1: let me plan it out a month in advance. Well,
1:41:34
Speaker 1: when you get reached a certain level of notoriety, yes
1:41:38
Speaker 1: you can think about it. Let me check my calendar.
1:41:41
Speaker 1: But when you're under the hustle of getting your brand recognized,
1:41:44
Speaker 1: getting your brand word of mouth, creating word of mouth
1:41:47
Speaker 1: within the industry, you gotta ride with the opportunity that's
1:41:50
Speaker 1: given to you. And sometimes it might not be what
1:41:52
Speaker 1: you want to do, but you make it work for
1:41:54
Speaker 1: what you want, what you needed to do, and that
1:41:56
Speaker 1: is positive exposure for your brand. Now, here's something interesting.
1:42:00
Speaker 1: Was going through your bio and said protest barking on
1:42:02
Speaker 1: her culinary career. More than twenty years ago. Mr Van
1:42:05
Speaker 1: Trees was a flight attendant for American Airlines and the
1:42:09
Speaker 1: reason I wanted to bring that up because you know,
1:42:12
Speaker 1: you're a chef and I've traveled a lot. That's which
1:42:14
Speaker 1: allows me to eat a lot of good food and
1:42:16
Speaker 1: different cultures and things like that. You said throughout your
1:42:19
Speaker 1: your destination with throughout Europe, Latin America, the Middle East,
1:42:22
Speaker 1: and Southeast Asia. What effect did all this travel have
1:42:26
Speaker 1: on your cooking style or or your culinary style today? UM?
1:42:31
Speaker 1: It is you know, actually what makes my my cuisine
1:42:35
Speaker 1: a little bit different? UM. I tell people my cuisine
1:42:39
Speaker 1: is telling a story, and my story UM. And so
1:42:45
Speaker 1: you know, you need to be able, you know, to
1:42:48
Speaker 1: you know, think outside of the box. I did not
1:42:50
Speaker 1: want to be like everybody else. UM. And so I
1:42:54
Speaker 1: can find all of those travels UM, and I put
1:42:58
Speaker 1: them together to you know, come with the cuisine that
1:43:01
Speaker 1: I call globally inspired UM soul food. UM. So you know,
1:43:06
Speaker 1: I looked at different cultures and the foods that were
1:43:09
Speaker 1: considered a regular or comfort food UM of those cultures
1:43:14
Speaker 1: and brought it back and kind of yeah, put it
1:43:18
Speaker 1: with my UM, African American culture of soul food and
1:43:22
Speaker 1: yelps that the dishes that I come up with a
1:43:25
Speaker 1: combination of all those travels and of my upbring. Well,
1:43:29
Speaker 1: it's really funny because I'm gonna get to your definition
1:43:32
Speaker 1: of soul food because I want to ask you that.
1:43:34
Speaker 1: But I was reading nearby, Say and Russia, French fries
1:43:37
Speaker 1: are more coveted than caviar seven first fry may I love?
1:43:42
Speaker 1: So So it basically go you go to France, they
1:43:44
Speaker 1: look at you and talking about French fries, they look
1:43:45
Speaker 1: at you like huh. You go to Russia and you
1:43:47
Speaker 1: talk about French fries, they go where And it allows
1:43:52
Speaker 1: for you, it's allows to us to see those different
1:43:53
Speaker 1: cultures and how they react. And then you say soul food,
1:43:57
Speaker 1: I have to ask you, chef, Chef Deborah, what is
1:44:00
Speaker 1: so food? Um? You know, I think it means different
1:44:04
Speaker 1: things to different people. UM. For me, it is food
1:44:07
Speaker 1: that comes from the soul. And when I say that,
1:44:11
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like it's the food that is
1:44:13
Speaker 1: cooked from love. Um. The food that evokes memories, um.
1:44:19
Speaker 1: The food that you know, reminds us of where we
1:44:23
Speaker 1: came from. Um. Now, and those are the foods that
1:44:27
Speaker 1: touch our hearts, they touch our souls. So that is
1:44:30
Speaker 1: what soul food is. Okay. So, now when I look
1:44:35
Speaker 1: at the so food because it's very popular. You know
1:44:37
Speaker 1: when you get to uh when you get to certain
1:44:40
Speaker 1: places they're calling Southern delicacies and then you get as
1:44:44
Speaker 1: you call it, soul food. UH person in the African
1:44:48
Speaker 1: American community, when I look at yams and yams at
1:44:52
Speaker 1: uh on a southern restaurant, is the same that type
1:44:55
Speaker 1: of yams I have at a soul food restaurant. Or
1:44:58
Speaker 1: sometimes the greens are different. You know, put a little
1:45:00
Speaker 1: ham or ham hops in your collar greens to give
1:45:03
Speaker 1: it that flavor. Some people, now we have vegans, they
1:45:06
Speaker 1: don't want meet and so they have the red beans
1:45:08
Speaker 1: without the sausage. And so there's so many different people,
1:45:10
Speaker 1: so many different palates that we are playing and we're
1:45:13
Speaker 1: dancing around nowadays. How do you find a menu that
1:45:16
Speaker 1: are you trying to find a menu that works for
1:45:18
Speaker 1: the masses or trying to find a menu that will
1:45:20
Speaker 1: draw the masses to your your place of business? How
1:45:23
Speaker 1: does that menu develop and work? Um, it's it's a
1:45:28
Speaker 1: menu that Um it's interesting. I don't want to do
1:45:35
Speaker 1: what everybody else is doing. I don't want you to experience,
1:45:39
Speaker 1: you know something, I want you to have the experience
1:45:42
Speaker 1: with me that you're not going to find that's true
1:45:45
Speaker 1: somewhere else that's true. And even though we might be
1:45:48
Speaker 1: saying the same thing, right, even though we might be
1:45:50
Speaker 1: doing the same chicken, the chicken experience is different. And
1:45:54
Speaker 1: you see that with Hamburgers. You know, you have five guys,
1:45:56
Speaker 1: Bud Rutgers, McDonald's, Wendy's. Everyone is trying to draw based
1:46:01
Speaker 1: on the experience that you will get at their establishment.
1:46:04
Speaker 1: And that's what you're doing, is two places of business
1:46:07
Speaker 1: continue exactly. So you know, even if we look at
1:46:13
Speaker 1: the traditional African Americans, UM, soul food by definition, going
1:46:20
Speaker 1: from region to regions, it's different, you know. So it's
1:46:24
Speaker 1: it's more combined, you know, with with food than you know,
1:46:29
Speaker 1: just a recipe. You know, it's a whole story behind it.
1:46:33
Speaker 1: And so it's in developing my menu, I'm trying to
1:46:36
Speaker 1: tell stories, you know. I want you to ask me, Um,
1:46:40
Speaker 1: how did I come up with this dish? Um? I
1:46:43
Speaker 1: want to listen to you tell me stories you know
1:46:47
Speaker 1: about what is comforting to you? What is soul food
1:46:50
Speaker 1: to you? Um? And I want to go and I
1:46:53
Speaker 1: want to interpret it in my way. UM. And I
1:46:56
Speaker 1: think that's what sets me apart for Um. Other restaurant tours,
1:47:01
Speaker 1: which is important, you know, to find my own little niche,
1:47:05
Speaker 1: you know, and my own brain and established it. So
1:47:10
Speaker 1: those are the that's the process that I go through
1:47:13
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to develop a menu. You know, I
1:47:16
Speaker 1: wanted to be interesting, I wanted to be diverse, UM,
1:47:20
Speaker 1: and I wanted to have a story behind it that
1:47:23
Speaker 1: touches my heart. Awesome. Here's a question before we go
1:47:26
Speaker 1: to the next break, because of the next break, I
1:47:27
Speaker 1: want to talk about your two restaurants, especially the pop
1:47:30
Speaker 1: up restaurant Chicken Restaurant that you have in Atlanta that
1:47:33
Speaker 1: launched this month. Um. What did your skill? Did you
1:47:36
Speaker 1: go to schools to develop your skills? They just naturally
1:47:39
Speaker 1: talk about the training that's tied to your skills as
1:47:42
Speaker 1: a cheft. Um, it's a combination. You know. I grew
1:47:46
Speaker 1: up um with the family of great cooks. Um. I
1:47:50
Speaker 1: grew up in the Midwest. Um, and then I had
1:47:54
Speaker 1: a father and grandfather that were, you know, big barbecue teams.
1:47:58
Speaker 1: So I grew up learning how about Um, Kansas City.
1:48:05
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna say Kansas City, that's that's barbecue
1:48:07
Speaker 1: town right there, exactly exactly, and it's like every chance
1:48:13
Speaker 1: I can, I'm barbecueing something up to putting it on
1:48:16
Speaker 1: the menu. Um. And then I did go to culinary school, um,
1:48:21
Speaker 1: you know, and that traveling. So at one point I
1:48:25
Speaker 1: was married to a basketball player who played overseas, UM,
1:48:30
Speaker 1: and it gave me the opportunity to live in that
1:48:34
Speaker 1: culture and absorb it and going to people's homes, not
1:48:37
Speaker 1: just restaurants. So it's a different experience, you know. So
1:48:41
Speaker 1: all of that combined is the training that I have
1:48:45
Speaker 1: that's gotten me to the place that I am today.
1:48:49
Speaker 1: It's created your voice for the food that you make
1:48:52
Speaker 1: on the phone. I have a chef, Deborah band Uh.
1:48:56
Speaker 1: She is um, a chef, a straordinary travel the world
1:48:59
Speaker 1: to her talents, going into homes, eating restaurants, places like
1:49:04
Speaker 1: Middle East, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe.
1:49:08
Speaker 1: But she's on the show to talk about She's based
1:49:10
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and she's on the show to talk about
1:49:12
Speaker 1: a couple of restaurants once to pop up Once, an
1:49:15
Speaker 1: established place called Twisted Soul Cookhouse and Pores. I'm assuming
1:49:19
Speaker 1: pores means liquor or poors means something else there. Okay, good,
1:49:25
Speaker 1: let's talk about that at First, let's talk twisted soul.
1:49:28
Speaker 1: Cook house. Cook house. It sounds like barbecue. That sounds
1:49:31
Speaker 1: like some some heat being generated in this building. Cookhouse
1:49:35
Speaker 1: and poors talk about that that that place of business.
1:49:39
Speaker 1: Uh well, it's it's um a warm gathering spot, gathering scribe,
1:49:46
Speaker 1: a warm gathering spot. UM. Uh you know, it's a
1:49:51
Speaker 1: great location in west midtown here in Atlanta. UM. You know,
1:49:55
Speaker 1: I have a very diverse clients, hell, very diverse group
1:49:58
Speaker 1: of cooks and for bass and those working. UM, we're
1:50:02
Speaker 1: very big on customer service. And we UM we love
1:50:07
Speaker 1: to serve your good food. UM. We use sustainable products.
1:50:12
Speaker 1: We UM utilized the local farmers, UM as much as
1:50:16
Speaker 1: we possibly can in our cooking. I mean you change
1:50:19
Speaker 1: this seasonally, UM, you know, and we just we have
1:50:23
Speaker 1: a good time with what we do. We've been there.
1:50:26
Speaker 1: I think we're in our fourth year business. Thank you,
1:50:30
Speaker 1: thank you. Things are going good. Um, you know, and
1:50:33
Speaker 1: and you know now we're finding you know, this this
1:50:36
Speaker 1: new world that we're trying to navigate. You know, but
1:50:39
Speaker 1: we talked about that part later, right, we don't do
1:50:42
Speaker 1: anything about it. Let's talk about the new world a
1:50:44
Speaker 1: little bit. I don't you know, because I have a nephew.
1:50:46
Speaker 1: He has a he has like a roadside stand type
1:50:50
Speaker 1: restaurant on the in Houston, Texas. And he was really
1:50:53
Speaker 1: ahead of the game with door Dash and uh we
1:50:57
Speaker 1: Eats and uh I think um one more after I
1:51:01
Speaker 1: apologize from not being said, but and it really so
1:51:04
Speaker 1: his business really was not affected by the pandemic, and
1:51:08
Speaker 1: so because of the fact that he'd already focused. And
1:51:11
Speaker 1: then he told me that I was talking to him
1:51:13
Speaker 1: the other day and he was saying that a lot
1:51:15
Speaker 1: of businesses are trying to get into that the door
1:51:18
Speaker 1: Dashes and the uber Eat to the world, and they
1:51:20
Speaker 1: can't grow up Hub. That's the other one. Grew up
1:51:22
Speaker 1: Hub because of the fact that it's starting to get
1:51:24
Speaker 1: backlogged and they can't handle the amount of applications to
1:51:28
Speaker 1: being made. And then people don't know how to process
1:51:30
Speaker 1: works and can I cannot you know, because their fees
1:51:34
Speaker 1: tied to everything that you do. These are none of
1:51:36
Speaker 1: these services are free. And so that's one of the
1:51:39
Speaker 1: things that not only African American business but business in
1:51:42
Speaker 1: general have learned that they have to change their whole platform.
1:51:45
Speaker 1: Instead of being just a stand alone building that you
1:51:47
Speaker 1: come in and you process, you while you eat that
1:51:50
Speaker 1: did that affect your your your cook house, the cook
1:51:53
Speaker 1: house and poors facility. Um, it's literally you know were
1:52:02
Speaker 1: we saw a maybe six drop in sales immediately, um,
1:52:09
Speaker 1: and quickly made the decision, you know, we needed to
1:52:12
Speaker 1: close the doors and rethink this. Um. We weren't utilizing
1:52:18
Speaker 1: any of the delivery services. So it wasn't as if
1:52:22
Speaker 1: we could just you know, switch over um to that
1:52:25
Speaker 1: and then to be quite honest that the fees that
1:52:28
Speaker 1: they were charging were just ridiculous. Um, it wasn't would
1:52:33
Speaker 1: not have been so bad if we you know, were
1:52:36
Speaker 1: balancing that you know, prior with the restaurant actual in
1:52:41
Speaker 1: house covers and then you know, your few takeout orders
1:52:44
Speaker 1: here and there. Um. But we were just really in
1:52:49
Speaker 1: house you know, and never ever had a need um
1:52:52
Speaker 1: to utilize the service because most of the people coming
1:52:55
Speaker 1: to Twisted, those are coming there for that warmth, fuzz
1:52:59
Speaker 1: environment that coming to have a good time at a gathering. Um.
1:53:04
Speaker 1: Real quickly we did through the scramble initially to you know,
1:53:08
Speaker 1: try to get the grub hubs, the uber eat you know,
1:53:12
Speaker 1: but with all that was going on, we also felt
1:53:16
Speaker 1: like we had to lower our pricing structure and lower
1:53:20
Speaker 1: the pricing structure and then get possibly thirty of it
1:53:24
Speaker 1: away to a service which Nana was going to be
1:53:30
Speaker 1: handling the predominant amount of your business. Um. It just
1:53:34
Speaker 1: was not a plan that was going to work for us,
1:53:37
Speaker 1: you know. So initially, UM, we slipped to a concept
1:53:42
Speaker 1: of doing pre prepared meals for people to take away
1:53:47
Speaker 1: and having our service staff turned them into delivery people. UM.
1:53:53
Speaker 1: It was actually a little bit more efficient because at
1:53:55
Speaker 1: the point when all this was happening, you know, the
1:53:58
Speaker 1: big companies did get flooded and you know, they were
1:54:01
Speaker 1: taking two hours and three hours to get people food. UM.
1:54:06
Speaker 1: You know, so that worked for us as a temporary.
1:54:09
Speaker 1: UM solution was to just have our our own people
1:54:12
Speaker 1: doing our delivery. But on a broad scale, that's not
1:54:16
Speaker 1: what we do, you know. So we knew, really, you know,
1:54:21
Speaker 1: this is not something that's gonna sustain that's for very long. UM.
1:54:24
Speaker 1: So we had to come up with a better solution
1:54:27
Speaker 1: than that. And that better solution is what the better
1:54:31
Speaker 1: solution was, or is the pop up concept that transition
1:54:36
Speaker 1: I just transition you to a shift that's all just
1:54:38
Speaker 1: just sliding over to the to the better solution is
1:54:41
Speaker 1: the pop up chick place better solution. It was the
1:54:47
Speaker 1: thing that I had been thinking about for years. Um.
1:54:51
Speaker 1: You know, so the concept was already there was very
1:54:54
Speaker 1: clear in my head. Um. And it was something I
1:54:57
Speaker 1: foresaw you know, us doing in the future. UM. You know, well,
1:55:02
Speaker 1: you know the future was here. You know, it was
1:55:06
Speaker 1: you You got to make some changes. Um. You have
1:55:10
Speaker 1: to be able to sustain yourself to move forward to
1:55:14
Speaker 1: ever do twisted soul, you know our chief twist to
1:55:17
Speaker 1: sol a lot, you've got to right down do something
1:55:20
Speaker 1: that's going to sustain um. And the concept of a
1:55:24
Speaker 1: different kind of chick um was what we decided to
1:55:28
Speaker 1: put in effect immediately. UM. You know. It was more conducive,
1:55:34
Speaker 1: or is more conducive um for carry out, it's more
1:55:38
Speaker 1: conducive for delivery. Um. The price point could be lower
1:55:43
Speaker 1: because now we're we're trying to go with volume. Um.
1:55:46
Speaker 1: And the most important thing about it was, you know,
1:55:49
Speaker 1: we were doing chicken that was you know, free range,
1:55:52
Speaker 1: you know, certified organic foods again still with our farm
1:55:56
Speaker 1: to table vegetables. You know. So it's kind of a
1:56:00
Speaker 1: ways that we're starting to happen in the food industry anyway.
1:56:04
Speaker 1: We just jumped on it real quick, which is very small,
1:56:08
Speaker 1: Which is very small, And that's all. That's all I
1:56:10
Speaker 1: was just saying about my nephew. You know, he had
1:56:12
Speaker 1: been doing it prior to the because you have to
1:56:13
Speaker 1: make an adjustment in your menu prices when you bring
1:56:16
Speaker 1: on these grub hubs and these door dashes and the
1:56:18
Speaker 1: uber ease, And because he had already been doing it,
1:56:22
Speaker 1: and I was a major adjustment in the pricing for
1:56:24
Speaker 1: these customers. I had already been in place then, when
1:56:28
Speaker 1: nobody was stunned by because he didn't have to make
1:56:30
Speaker 1: the switch. But like you said, new customers like you
1:56:33
Speaker 1: that go to those services go wow, really, I gotta
1:56:36
Speaker 1: pay this, well, I'm gonna charge for this. And so
1:56:40
Speaker 1: this concept that you have now a different kind of
1:56:43
Speaker 1: chick something you had in the back of your mind.
1:56:46
Speaker 1: There's not been moving to the front of your mine.
1:56:48
Speaker 1: And it is proven to be the profitable way for
1:56:51
Speaker 1: you to make business in this in this new world
1:56:53
Speaker 1: that we live in today. Correct, Yes, exactly. Let's talk
1:56:58
Speaker 1: about that business that. Come on, let's talk about that.
1:57:00
Speaker 1: It's gonna get fire up here, because I don't want
1:57:02
Speaker 1: to you know, I don't want this to become a
1:57:04
Speaker 1: down and you know, I'm trying to make it with Sean.
1:57:06
Speaker 1: I'm I'm trying to get there. What exactly is a
1:57:09
Speaker 1: pop up? Though, you know, we get that term a lot.
1:57:11
Speaker 1: What is a pop up? U pop up is generally
1:57:16
Speaker 1: something that is, you know, coming up temporarily. It's something
1:57:20
Speaker 1: you're doing for that moment. It's like, our pop up
1:57:24
Speaker 1: is just gonna be a long term one, you know. Um,
1:57:27
Speaker 1: and what the plan is is one thing stabilized and
1:57:31
Speaker 1: we can actually you know, get back to the restaurant
1:57:35
Speaker 1: as we knew them, which is going to be a while. Um,
1:57:39
Speaker 1: We'll be able to continue with Twisted so cook House
1:57:43
Speaker 1: in that location that we're in presently and then transition
1:57:48
Speaker 1: out a different kind of chick and put it permanently
1:57:52
Speaker 1: in another location. Awesome. Awesome, Well, let's talk about this
1:57:57
Speaker 1: long term goal. Let's talk about this menu. Because the
1:58:00
Speaker 1: menu involves fried chicken. And I'm from Houston, Texas. I'm
1:58:03
Speaker 1: living in Lata, but I am a fried chicken food.
1:58:07
Speaker 1: I love me some good fried chicken. And so the creator,
1:58:09
Speaker 1: you have a creative menu featuring four different types of
1:58:12
Speaker 1: chicken dishes. Let's talk about those chicken dishes that is
1:58:15
Speaker 1: available at the at a different kind of chicks, a
1:58:17
Speaker 1: pop up that's in temporary locations around the city of Atlanta.
1:58:21
Speaker 1: How do you notify people, chef? Actually, social media. Social
1:58:27
Speaker 1: media has been incredible and um, you know, we sent
1:58:31
Speaker 1: out a press release and the press jumped on it quickly. Um,
1:58:35
Speaker 1: we've had several articles written already, and you on my
1:58:39
Speaker 1: show this is great too. Yeah, And I'm like, yeah,
1:58:42
Speaker 1: this is this is perfect, this is perfect. You know.
1:58:45
Speaker 1: I think, um, it was helpful to do such an
1:58:50
Speaker 1: extreme pivot and do it quickly. UM. So you know
1:58:54
Speaker 1: it's something to people are paying assistance because we're all
1:58:56
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to maneuver um. You know.
1:59:00
Speaker 1: So this is you know, one of the ways that
1:59:02
Speaker 1: you can possibly run from maduver um. So we've got
1:59:06
Speaker 1: the four types of main entree chicken, UM, fried chicken
1:59:11
Speaker 1: with a staple. It's actually the same dish that we
1:59:14
Speaker 1: have on our original Twisted goal Um cook house menu, UM,
1:59:19
Speaker 1: except for now you get one extra piece of chicken
1:59:22
Speaker 1: and it's a little bit less expensive. Um. It comes
1:59:26
Speaker 1: with the incredible side that you get to choose. Okay,
1:59:30
Speaker 1: let's talk about those sides because those sides are to
1:59:33
Speaker 1: a good bill. Talk about those sides. Now, that's not
1:59:36
Speaker 1: let's got past. The chicken is the is, the is
1:59:39
Speaker 1: the brigger to the table. But it's the size that
1:59:41
Speaker 1: makes you sit there and savor at the moment. Come
1:59:43
Speaker 1: on now, exactly exactly, So your chicken is your big bird,
1:59:47
Speaker 1: and what's your big birds? You get two sides? Okay, Um,
1:59:52
Speaker 1: so you have a choice of a garlic mashed potato. Um.
1:59:57
Speaker 1: You have raised greens. We have mac coronians cheese. We
2:00:02
Speaker 1: have a brown rice pea loss so we have a
2:00:04
Speaker 1: healthier option. And then we have so I played farm vegetables,
2:00:08
Speaker 1: which changed weekly depending on what we what's available through
2:00:12
Speaker 1: our local farmers. Brown rice, I've become. I've become such
2:00:16
Speaker 1: a big fan of brown rice. Now you know, I'm
2:00:20
Speaker 1: a white rice guy. I grew up, you know, for
2:00:24
Speaker 1: white rice on the thing on my table. So I've
2:00:26
Speaker 1: resisted the whole you know, brown rice world. And now
2:00:30
Speaker 1: when you say brown rice p lof I have to
2:00:32
Speaker 1: try that because I love p lof rice period. And
2:00:35
Speaker 1: when you say brown rice, that really that really piques
2:00:37
Speaker 1: my interest on exactly what that is is the taste
2:00:40
Speaker 1: of that because that sounds sounds good and original. That's
2:00:43
Speaker 1: the whole portion you was talking about your whole brand
2:00:45
Speaker 1: being very creative and coming up with creative menus because
2:00:48
Speaker 1: of the fact that you know, we all, like said,
2:00:51
Speaker 1: everybody's selling chicken out there. What makes your chicken different?
2:00:54
Speaker 1: What makes your service different? But I'm assuming that service
2:00:57
Speaker 1: plays a big role in your brand anyway. Correct, definitely
2:01:02
Speaker 1: plays a big role. UM. And then sourcing where we're
2:01:05
Speaker 1: getting our foods from, UM, and we are paying attention
2:01:09
Speaker 1: to the trends UM. You know in our customers that
2:01:13
Speaker 1: they want to know where their food is sourced from.
2:01:15
Speaker 1: They want to know that their vegetables are fresh. Now
2:01:18
Speaker 1: that I hand picked the chicken that I would use,
2:01:22
Speaker 1: they want to know those things, and those are the
2:01:24
Speaker 1: things that we're playing upon UM, you know, and I
2:01:28
Speaker 1: think those are the things that makes this this pop
2:01:31
Speaker 1: up work well. First of all, tell us how we
2:01:34
Speaker 1: can go to your social media, so that's how we
2:01:36
Speaker 1: can find out about to pop up. I definitely want
2:01:37
Speaker 1: you to send a banner to me so I can
2:01:39
Speaker 1: post it on my social media. I really want to
2:01:41
Speaker 1: support businesses. I want to give it's free as an
2:01:44
Speaker 1: avenue that I've created to be able to bring exposure
2:01:47
Speaker 1: to these to any the small businesses. You know, they
2:01:50
Speaker 1: can say the state's reopening, but it's not reopening, especially
2:01:53
Speaker 1: when it comes to this social distancing. So we have
2:01:55
Speaker 1: to be small. So give us some our ways that
2:01:57
Speaker 1: we can reach out and follow you so we can,
2:02:00
Speaker 1: you know, make our way to one of these pop ups. Uh, definitely,
2:02:04
Speaker 1: um our website twist us so cook House and towards
2:02:07
Speaker 1: dot com. We're on Instagram a twisted so cook House
2:02:11
Speaker 1: or follow me on Instagram at Debra at Chef Debra
2:02:16
Speaker 1: van Tree um and we're always posted Facebook, you know
2:02:20
Speaker 1: you name it social media, we're on there. Well, I'll
2:02:23
Speaker 1: tell you something. It's fantastic to hear from you. I
2:02:26
Speaker 1: really appreciate you taking your time to come on the show.
2:02:28
Speaker 1: But more importantly, we will support you through our social media,
2:02:32
Speaker 1: through our newsletters, because as a family is how we're
2:02:35
Speaker 1: gonna get through this. As a family is how we're
2:02:37
Speaker 1: gonna win this. We know how this pandemic is over
2:02:40
Speaker 1: overtly affecting overly affected I should say, African Americans in
2:02:44
Speaker 1: our communities around the world, especially in this country. More importantly,
2:02:48
Speaker 1: thank you for coming on my show. Chef Devera Van Treats.
2:02:52
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me on the show.
2:02:55
Speaker 1: It's really important that we do support each other. And
2:02:58
Speaker 1: I so so appreciate being able to stick figure audience today.
2:03:02
Speaker 1: Are they're gonna respond? Believe me, Maya. Every time I
2:03:04
Speaker 1: post about I'm a foodie, and go to my social
2:03:06
Speaker 1: media at Rashaw McDonald. On my Facebook page, you'll see
2:03:09
Speaker 1: when I talk about food, my fans love me. And
2:03:12
Speaker 1: so this a restaurant we're gonna support. I'm asking some
2:03:15
Speaker 1: photos so we can quick feature in rashawn Eats and
2:03:18
Speaker 1: so we can build this brand out so you can
2:03:19
Speaker 1: wheel big so you can win big time. Is that cool?
2:03:23
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I will take that awesome. Awesome.
2:03:26
Speaker 1: If you want to hear more interviews money Making Conversation interviews,
2:03:29
Speaker 1: please go to Money Making Conversation dot com. I'm Rashan McDonald.
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