GREG PLUMMER - Creamy Cajun Pasta

Thanks for having me. And we're talking hospitality industry today, so we're gonna be eating real good this This this has a lot of moving parts. I would like you to tell me what are the ingredients? Sure, well, Colleen, thanks for having me. I really appreciate you for bringing me in today. So today we're making a creamy Cajun pasta. Creamy Cajun pasta. I would say creole, but I'm not creole and I'm not Cajun, but just creamy pasta, very

comfort food. Feeling good when you were broke, Yeah, well, yeah, absolutely. I always wanted to eat good, no matter if I was broke or if I had any money, So I still like to eat the same type of things. I get to eat out and get to try a lot of different food down, but I like to eat the same thing that brings me comfort and it reminds me of something that takes me back to like a nostalgic place. So yeah, I mean when I was growing up, I

did a lot of cooking. But when I when I think of broke in the real true sense of it, uh, it's college, and it's right after college when you needed to be able to stretch, to stick to your ribs, whether he was drinking or whatever. If you had a couple of people over the house, you wanted something that you can go a long way and then everybody just be like, oh yeah that was cool, whether it be you know ladies or you know, your buddies or whoever

you wanted to impress them. So and I've always been one that I really liked to, you know, kind of treat my friends well. So you know, yeah, even if I'm broke, you know, back in the day, I would spend my last just trying to make sure everybody else say, I mean that's that's the truth. Though. Yeah, Well, well we'll see you gotta you gotta tell today ingredients. We have a chicken. We have some bell peppers, yellow peppers, red peppers, green onions, white onions, and Dowe sausage. We

have some heavy cream. I want to see. I hate heavy cream. We have some crisscoat garlic, and then you know any kind of creole ss with tony statuaries today chicken stock just for a little, you know, to cut the heavy cream. It's crazy. I kind of have the foresight. You didn't like it. And then and then there's nodles. Have some noodles here as well, this sausage and had sausage. Yeah, and I'm not you know, so so this is the meal is super confident, filling. And then you know, let's

get to it. Let's get to it. My problems, my problem. So I'm really excited to try this dish. Go ahead, let's start awesome. Well, let's let's heat our paying first. Are you used to working with electric? Not really, but I'll make it work. I like my paying hot, so I'm gonna turn it up hot. Put oil in it, not too much oil, because we're gonna brown the meat first. Now you're you're from the hospitality industry, absolutely so, did you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Yes,

I mean, I'm spend time in the kitchen. When I was a kid, I was really fascinated by cooking and watching cooking stuff and uh and then you know, working in restaurants. My first jobs in restaurants, well, one of my first job was at a golf course concession stand in Detroit, and uh, after that, I went to work in restaurants downtown. I worked in one of the busiest restaurants in Detrode from fifteen as a bus boy hostess.

And it was amazing to see how like how much energy came to a restaurant and whether people were celebrating the birthday or you know, just getting the lunch or having a meeting. You know, it was all around food. So it kind of clicked to me. And you know, ever since then, I just really kind of been really

into it. And I went to college and when I was in college and morehouse you know, would try to work different jobs, whether it be entertainment, internships, or you know, working for a family longer had a uncle down there. It was doing well at the time, and he let me, you know, kind of work for him, and you know, always would end up going back to restaurants. So so for our listeners, because I don't think I was able to share with you guys what Concorde Collective is, what

enjoying repeat is. Can you break it down for everybody so that they can kind of I have an idea of yeah, yeah. So Cancre Collective is a restaurant hospitality company based in Los Angeles, and we operate bars and restaurants and airports, and we have over thirteen locations today at l a X. So if you travel to l a X, hit us up um and you know from there, you know, uh, we also have restaurants outside of airports that we're working on and soon the launch in the

very near future restaurants. That's correct, That's crazy. It is good. I mean I worked at l A X. I started my career in two thousand five and I came in as an assistant manager after leaving MORGANE. Stanley. I was unhappy as in finance, and I thought that you don't want to do something. I really got it got me going. I got a chance to meet a friend of mine's father who was in the business. He interviewed me, said you can have a job, but you know, just be careful.

This is not glamorous, is not what you probably expected to be, but you definitely have a job. We definitely did to help. And I was like, and you were a manager at a concession standard. I was the lowest of the lowest manager and I was the assistant manager, closing manager who you know basically you know, worked on holidays, airports between seven So I worked on holidays. You know, there was no there was no like regular days off. My days off for Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the middle

of the week. So as a young guy trying to figure out l A and then try to also navigate uh a career, I just kind of buried my head and worked and we had a lot of fun. And you know, I still have my fair share of fund but I did a lot of work. Yeah, and how do you go from that to phoning all these concession stands? Like, well,

what happened in between? So in between U and you got I got a chance to continue working for the gentleman, my mentor, and through CMS, the company I used to work for, we were able to go from being a small you know operator at l A X with you know, four or five locations to ultimately growing the company from two thousand uh eleven to two thousand and sixteen to

nineteen locations. And I was a big part of that growth with my dear friend and his son or and you know, really we had to prove ourselves and we were competing against much larger companies. So and then also as a small business, you get to you know, touch a lot of parts of the business. You don't just work in one focus that's my job. I go home. We were thinking big, big time, and like how do we get to the next level. It required us to do a little bit everything, even if we don't want

to do it. I hate to bring up the racing, but where are you guys all black? Or yeah? I mean so your boss at the time was black. Most of the employees of minority. So the airport, they have a program called the a c dB Airport Certified Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. So that is a program that really promotes women and minority own businesses being included in contracting opportunities

and airports. So for the a c d D program, uh, you know, you have to be a minority and a woman, and you have to obviously go through certain certifications to get to make sure you meet the requirements. And um, he was a c d V company and he eventually sold his business. No, I like it hot as long as everyone can still hear you. It isn't too hot, it's too high bloody, be louder. Uh I like it hot, And uh probably people like what are you doing that? So yeah, a c d VS for people that don't know.

There are opportunities for women's minority own businesses to get into the airports. Yeah, but do you have to have a lot of money to get in there? Like shooting people? See, that's a that's a tricky thing. And you know there are a couple of ways to get into it. But you know, access the capital is really challenging for minorities in general, and then a lot of predatory lenders out there.

But if there's a will, there's a way. And you know, I think there's a bunch of access to capital now and a lot of resources out there for you to learn where to go get those things. And I want someone that I always love to talk to people and kind of like give my story because I didn't come from money. I didn't have money, I didn't have someone to say here's a bunch of money for you to go start a business, and you shouldn't wait for that. Um. But I fast forward, you know, really working for that

company taught me everything I did. I learned on someone else's tign And that's what they tell you, like, don't go out there and say I want to start my own business, but you really haven't worked in that and you gotta learn what's going on. You gotta learn what the opportunity is and then how you can provide about I just had to be a sausage. My hands a clean on. So we're mixing a sausage of the chicken out any season that with the creole season, season with that,

and I had a little more at the end. Just brought it off the chicken and we're gonna put it to the side to find the vessel to put into the side. You can use uh, you can use my plate for now because I want to get so Yeah, so you know, fast forward that company. He ultimately had a chance to sell his business, which is great because a lot of people don't get a chance to realize that.

He sold his business in two thousand sixteen. That was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, trying to get everything ready to package up for him to realize his goal. His goal was to realize success. I mean, he's been operating for a long time. He had really took a lot of risk and it was time for him to kind of focus on retirement. And you were the guy that had to package it. Me and the team. It was a team of us, but I was a

big part of the team. And we were obviously cleaning cleaning up a lot of things, things that really need to be fixed that weren't you know, getting his real value to go in and tweet those things, change brands. If we had a location that wasn't doing well, we had to change in something than that was so you get the real value for it. Because it's the real estate is really real estate in the airport, so it's

a different type of sense of real estate. But the better the real estate, the more valuable it is from operating standpoint, when you're talking like I don't know if the correct terms are like retail on hospitality, but don't you guys look at it by like the square foot is like how much money you produce per square foot?

Is that how it works that retail typically does that, but for restaurants is a little different because yes, you want to maximize the revenue and square footage, but you also have a lot more components, Like there's a lot more labor intensive to to to execute a restaurant. It's a lot more equipment to execute the restaurant and the retail. You get products that are finished and they come in and as much stuff you can fit in the box

that someone want to buy, you do it. But for us, it's about getting the right product mixed and being able to execute in an airport in the time, we managed to be able to get people to the destination without being angrier way too. So it's kind of like a a little dance that we do. But it's fine if you like, if you look at it that way. I worked at McDonald's once, and uh, I wasn't successful at all. I wasn't even successful waitressing. I learned that food and

me in that business was way too much pressure. There's some things that I'm just not good at, and that is those those two jobs I would feel horrifically well. So you got to we have a great personality to be able to serve. So I think I leave you to your table. You know, if you're not into and you're not into it, and that's the that's the real driver to it. I think anything you do got to be passionate ball yea, even even if you flip in

burgers like you gotta be. I want to make this burger so good, like I don't want to eat it my guys. I see him with guy's a girl thinking they're cooking, and it's a lot of pride that goes into that. So I always love it. And I agree, something's not into I'm not into. I wasn't in the finance, so it didn't work for me and I was miserable. Couldn't pay me to go there. Uh, And I was you know, late, and I wouldn't be in the best version of myself. So I think you gotta be into

whatever it is you do. You went to school for business, Yeah, um, did you foresee that you were going to be an entrepreneur because he said you went straight into finance. You know what the funny thing is, whether I knew it or not, I was an entrepreneur before I really like I thought about it, and I in college, I mean well before that, in high school, me and my brother and my best friend at the time. We threw um one of the largest parties in the city of Detroit,

and everything you could imagine went wrong. We had We had done an incredible job and promotingly hit every venue, Every school from every neighborhood came. But I didn't think like, oh, well, I'm putting this from creating a really hostile situation. Yeah. So we actually had one of the few parties at this place called the Bella Casino. You been how old were you when you did it? You had at the casino? It was it was the call that casino. What so

we had? You were talking about a house. We got there, It's February. It was a Valentine's Day party. We handrew a flyer like hearts with a little SPECIs like come to my party. I wish I could find but we passed them out. We had a huge turnout, and then you know, obviously people start fighting and shooting. People were dancing in the trade. We danced, so I mean, you guys had the hustle and all that. This guy was dancing with this girl and he punched a hole in

the wall. So I'll see that and like, oh, they're gonna charge us for that. We got there to night of the menue. I don't want to overcook this, and they say you can't take money to do it. So all the things that could went wrong went wrong and then we end up still walking away with a little money and we paid it out. We had to fix the grass, got beat up. It was it was kind of a mess. It was kind of as they were shooting. Thank you, and you guys are only six. Where were

your parents? They were there? But you know, I beg my dad he was a police officer, and I beg my had to give me the money to do the party because I needed like I thought I had the money and it was a shorts so I'll go to him and my uncles are like, yeah, that's the plan, and like I don't know, this sounds kind of crazy, but they took a chance and we got their money back. Okay, perfect, And then we had so you are a real entrepreneur.

You know, it wouldn't have lc anything like that. And then in college we threw parties, were parties and we did promotion. We passed off flyers. We passed off flyers for some big promoters that I won't name that never paid us, so we got a chance to learn earlier. But being an entrepreneur was you know what we should do better to to kind of better serve the guests of the clients. So yeah, all right, so this is about brown got the boom. Okay, we'll use this. Oh yeah,

you can use that one. So I only get all the grease of it because I want to use some of that for these veggies. So next to was edges. It's okay, we'll get that. Always make a mess. I the cleanest guard, one of those people like I cook and clean at the same time. Right, I don't, but you have to. Okay, So now you got the veggies, Okay, I want to do I want to do these first. Let him sweat a little bit and man and I challenged him for all you listeners. I was like, can

you make this dish in under fifteen minutes? So he's under a lot of pressure right now, pressure as he told his story telling telling an impressive story. So the thing that caught my attention about you was I was reading that during the during the pandemic, when most people were crying like myself, I was in fetal position, like, oh my gosh, my business is going under in micro Sacks. I had an events company, so needless to say, it

shut down really fast. Um, you were you were out there working and I guess looking for your next opportunity or was it just a natural pivot? Like what was happening? Um? I remember being at the conference that the industry conference we had. I'm just Sautetia Peppers. So we were at the industry conference and then everything was kind of We're riding high and then come home, people started getting sick and I was working on I was doing some consulting at the time, and I was with a dear friend

of mine up in San Francisco. And then we were at a restaurant which is a missing Star restaurant, the Angler and his beautiful restaurants. You're hard to get a seat in there. But we're on business in San Francisco, and we look around, were only person in the restaurant. We're like, this is scary. And then later that night the mirror San Francisco Learning breed shut down San Francisco, so we're like, can we get home? And I was

the first city to shut down, if you remember. So I went home and I was still kind of like, uh, what's gonna happen. And then immediately overnight, you know, air traffic really kind of shut down down across the country, which is our business. Yeah, you're in the airport and our businesses struggling. Beforehand, we were having a hard time just trying to get, you know, things on the right track, because when you open a new business, they're always gonna

be things you need to correct. So this kind of took the wind out of ourselves. And you guys opened right before the pandemic. Yeah, you know, we open right before the pandemic. And then you know, we opened and to know, we opened two dollars eighteen, like end of two dollars eighteen, a year before the panic. So you know, I was a partner and I wasn't very involved, but I was also doing consultant, trying to get new opportunities and trying to chase new deals. And then everything kind

of came to a screeching home. So when I say yeah, I was really affective because we had to all go home and I'm thinking on stuff, what's gonna happen. But then at the same time, we were doing, uh, myself and some other partners mine, we're working on golf course project, Ratio Park golf course, and we're supposed to take over Mark and they're like, well the golf course closed down, you can't take over, okay. So we end up taking over into April when they started to reopen and quickly

got it going in April. The golf courses were the first thing to open the city. Well everything else, the grocery stores, with everything, other venues. Because we're outdoors, I didn't know that. Yeah, it was people are allowed to go play golf, and golf just skyrocket. But then I had no idea that was the place to be at this whole time. It was and golfing, and we were there and I spent time there, and then we were working on like okay, how do we take advantage of

the opportunity. We can't start construction, And we found a contract with the l a Homeless Authority UM which has lost of and they had a project for people experiencing homelessness to take them off the street, and they interviewed us to do meals for these individuals that they had housing hotels doing so the government. You know, we're a government contractor. So it's like, okay, how are you government contractors because of l a X. Yeah, we're Yeah, our

businesses we operated government control facilities. You know golf course is owned by the city of l A. I didn't know that. Yeah, for the most part. And then also you have the airport, which is owned by the city of la So I say government contractors, yet we work with government instince. Okay, So we got there where we want to be. We don't want to get too soft because boom, your favorite part of it? First? Wait, did you add green onions? Gotta keep it? Okay, So guys,

you just sautay the garlic onions, peppers. He's adding the chicken stock just a little. You're a real chef man. No, no, not at all. I definitely do not cook like this at home. You gotta start. I'm going to I'm gonna take this. Whenever there's a really good dish, I try to pretend like I created it in front of my husband. He's gonna like this because we got we have a special type of taste, but betrayed. We all know there's a lot of lorries in our house. We're like, we're

very colorful taste for us better word. Really, I feel like Jamaicans have more a little heavy. There we go. Man, I hate heavy cream, frost, build the sauce left the store, barg alfredo sauce. You know that garlic onions, You got the peppers. So you're gonna like basically give all the heavy cream. It's gonna be good because with the chicken stock. So he's gonna kind of like let this kind of blend together. Don't mind my face everyone, because I really

really hate heavy cream, but a passion. But cheese is gonna kind of all work out. He makes chicken stock with heavy cream, Okay. And I thought heavy cream was like a milk you could eat it. Yeah, water milk will like separate, but heavy cream it's good. You need the Farmeersan cheese okay. Okay, So yeah we're gonn how to make alfredo. Guys, it's just cheese. I mean a lot of people use lozarella cheese, but parmesan is good

for us today, right. Um. And then so we're doing meals for homeless people experienced homeless nest and we didn't have the background for that. We just kind of figured it out and we end up making one day it was three hundred and then the week later said, well, can you make a thousand meals, like so imagine you know, the trial and error. So think that was a big part of me like kind of figuring out like, man, you really can do anything you want to if you

want to do it. And uh so I really kind of just we we were working like seven days, were trying to figure out how to how to you know, come up with meals and I was your creating recipes or like look at the recipes and then trying to

figure out how do you mass produce them? Yeah, and that's I was gonna ask next, like how do you go from getting the contract so now entering a space that you've you've never really entered before, right, because it's it's like meal prep right now, here's here's meal prep, but here's the here's the cheetode. Right. Most people say yes, I'll take the opportunity and then say, but I need you know, a lot of time to figure it out.

If you just say and it's probably not everybody because if you're not if you're not built to handle this kind of thought process, if you say yes, I'll do it, and then you just quickly jump in action and figure it out because right now, even today, people are still dealing with whether the business is telling them, yeah, we don't have the ability to do that. We know the

band when you do that, we can't do it. And I think we want to be, you know, for as a company that kind of runs towards that kind of stuff, because you know, you solve problems, you get opportunity, and that's we were like in the problem solving business. A little more cheese, want the sauce that thicking up, and then we're gonna return the meats to the kind of

bring it all together. It looks good. Yeah, I'm one of those people that say yes and then uh, I look at my schedule like, oh, we're gonna fit this today. But you know, I watched a lot of pinking in the brain, so you know what, I'm gonna take over the world. I literally, during the pandemic, painted a mural of pinking in the brain in my garage. The neighbors all driving my lake. What are you doing? What's going on? I'm making myself happy. So we're gonna end up adding

more cheese. But I just want to start building this in just go when we get the right consistency. So he's pouring the chicken and the sausage into the sauce, and you gotta try not to make a big mess what you look like I'm doing. So you don't need to add more seasoning throughout this whole thing, I think absolutely. But you know you always can add, you can't subtract. I've learned that lesson before. Yeah, I give remind all the time. Yeah, I've done that before. Maybe you try

to drown it out. It's not start over, start over. Uh So, Yeah, we were doing the meal thing and that kind of ended up being something big, but it was exhausting work. And then the opportunity with with SSP came and I was a partner with them and there it was a great relationship. But you know, they made a business decision where they wanted to kind of look at to exit from the l a X market. Can you explain to our listeners what SSP is. SSP is

a fabulous company, shout out the SSP. Uh, But they're really one of the leading industry leaders for food, beverage, hospitality and airports. And they're based their London owned company, but they have a Northern North American division and they are really you know, we essentially do the same thing as we managed food beverage contracts and airports and you know they do travel centers and uh in Europe London, but for the most part, Yeah, SSP is as a

food beverage hospitality management company. So you had your own concessions in the mark in the airport while you're doing the homeless food and you're a part of SSP. Yeah, so I had more or less, Yeah, we had. We were a joint venture partner with SSP through the a c dB Airport Concessions Disadvantage Business Enterprise. It's allful program and SSP UM myself and we had my company and enjoy Peat and several of the companies were partners in l A. We had operated eight restaurants in the airport.

They were the managing partner and then they operated the day to day restaurants and we served on the management committee. And then you know, because I had worked for the company previously CMS and I managed the business myself and I done kind of everything. I built the rapport with the airport and you are w R landlord where they knew that one I had the experience to do it UM and they were quickly able to get behind me

and say yeah, we like this. And it was really at the time where uh not just airports, not just cities, where everyone was saying I want to see more minority participation in a real way, like a meaningful way. And then to me that was kind of like a light bulb like, well, they can't say no if you said you if you want to see more, and I'm bringing some to you. Because this is not an easy thing. It wasn't like oh yeah, sure, just like you signed

off on a document. It's a lot of work that goes into this and a lot of people's livelihood of state. You know, this business had over two other employees um that quickly they had to furlough a lot of them, you know, because there was no business in the airports. So it was a lot of a lot of things to consider when we really addressed the opportunity and say well, how do we do this? And then trying to go raise capital. I mean I took I made about a

hundred phone calls just trying to raise the capital. People you knew, what, people you didn't know. Both people a little more cheese. I think that's it for us on cheese. And now we're gonna we're gonna mix with the pasta because I like to mix um season first though, So you have this opportunity. Now you're cold calling, You're trying to raise the capital. So no part of you was like, I don't have this capital. I should just quit. You're like, no, I'm gonna go out and get it. We're gonna do it,

and you become a salesman. I didn't do. I've never done that part of the business before. I just knew how to operate the restaurants. I had a bunch of relationships. And the crazy thing about it was, you know, you learned every pitch you go and you learn something you should anyway. So would go in a beating and you know certain things would stand out to certain investors and certain people looking at my deck, and then I just asked for help, like I asked friends that I knew,

take a look at this. Tell me what you think. Do you think that I missed something here? And I still do that today because you need perspective, like I don't know everything. I know that to be a fact, like, and I've always I kind of have a disadvantage. I'm a twin, so I have a twin brother. Are you kidding me. Family, I love it a lot of turn you if you sat us the next to each other, you can tell we tell we're brothers. But you know,

he's a love brother. He's extremely intelligible. He knows it all, and he'll tell you the same thing. So I'm not saying anything you don't know. And so I would always have someone in my ear telling me, oh no, you know they you know if I'm always used to take in criticism, So all right, listed friends took a bunch of calls, you know, a bunch of pitch meetings. People weren't meeting in person. So imagine trying to like sell

an idea via zoom. It was a special skill. I got a lot of respect for people who do that kind of stuff. The thing to touch it because it's hot. Sure, this is not hot. I just want to taste it first. Make sure to go for it. Oh it's too cheesy. It's too cheesy. That's hilarious. It's not. It's not too cheese. It's little cheese. And I'm like, okay, okay, So you told me it was hard to do this, and it is. Uh so you're selling, You're you're selling on zoom exactly.

I'm selling on zoom, FaceTime, you know, sending people emails, you know, having a follow up every single day because no one you know, when you have money, even sitting there like we get to you. And I was getting more more gesture by the moment. And then every time my partner would say, hey, where we at, I would say, oh, yeah, we're on the home stretch, you know, like work with me. But they knew, but did he was he responsible for also raising capital? No, my partner's SSP. I med SSP.

They're like, okay, the people you're you're trying to buy them out, yea, And they're like, we're under pressure. Kind of give us an update, what's going on? And it was. It was a lot of a lot of pressure. But at the end of the day, we had a relationship, so and this was the right thing to do. And you know, I called all the favors I could, what I need to call them, and you know, I would do it all. I would do the exact same way if I had to do it again. Right, So, um,

now we're gonna kind of mixed up. So you're telling them you're in the home stretch, but you really weren't. What was keeping you from quitting at that point because I told everybody I was gonna do it. Oh, you're exactly like me. That's how I am. If I say it out loud, it's like, oh my god, I have to do it now that I mean. I literally told her buddy, oh yeah, so I'm I'm doing this and they're like, what's you up to? How's everything? You know,

he was checking in how things doing the pandemic. We were trying to get like, you know, the airport to give us rent relief for different uh you know things that you know that really were hindrance on our business. It was a lot of that, right, um so we were doing YouTube videos the first time, trying to tell our story so uh so, but then you know, you talk to friends and what are you up to, like, oh, I'm doing this or this? So it's the real thing.

Like once I said I was doing it, I couldn't have I couldn't face the noise of not saying, not being when to get it done. And I think a lot of people doubt it that we would get it done. A lot of people thought you're crazy if you're doing it, Yeah, you're crazy, Like why would you want to do this, and um, I found a fantastic group of partners UM through our industry who who quickly got it. They believed in You call people in the industry at this point

smart well I started looking on saw the industry. You had to come in. Inst're like, Okay, somebody here wants to do it. A lot of people will take your calls and say, yeah, we want to do it, but we gotta you know, typen this up. We gotta do this. Well, how do you know they're not even gonna kind of overstep over you, right, because that's kind of tricky, right,

because you're calling your competitors essentially, right. Yeah, but I had I had a UM noncompete or exclusive for a little bit of time that quickly elapsed after I couldn't get it that they couldn't tell to anybody else until we reached this deadline. So yeah, for the most part, it was a little bit of a little bit of that for sure. So we're ready to play. Okay, okay, yes, let's play. Let's play UM do you Yeah, we'll play UM.

What a crazy, crazy, crazy story. So you end up raising the capital and then we're gonna we're gonna end up trying this meal, and yeah, I'm trying to get it all this in. And you know I said it was cheesy, but it's not easy being cheesy. It's fine. I'm gonna rate your dishes. I'm gonna race it. I'm gonna I'm gonna be like salmon cow with it. Okay. I mean, look, you had me, uh preoccupied, so I'm not. So I'm moving here and then I'll bring it here. Here we go. I want to make it look good.

Ready on a second, you got this? Oh, just a little more right, and then we'll do like we'll like plate it and then we'll put a little on top. Awesome, a little uh there you go, a little hot sauce if you want plate We're gonna do this. We're gonna switch it. We're gonna throw the commercial. Great, well, it looks cheesy, it looks delicious. Okay, it's a little red brna and you how very much you like? Oh? Yeah, yeah, let me try. Let me try and be you for

a second. Hit it all right, and then this yeah a little bit of that. So I use hot sauce, but we don't. We're not gonna do it today because I like it hot. Here we go for the taste test. Everyone ready, here we go. First of all, it looks beautiful. Well, let's see how cheesy. Didn't do it? I don't taste great. It's not cheesy. No, it's cheesy. Do you not like cheesy? I like cheesy, but oh yeah, the noodles balance it out a little concerned, thank you. I'm definitely gonna bring

this home and pretend like I created this dish. It's very comforting. I don't say that. I just have one question. Why did you use chicken thighs and not chicken breasts because it's cheap? Yeah, well you don't. Back in the day, you can do this meal for all. Now you might depend on what story you go to. You gotta go to Rouse or trade to Joe's, or you'll be in real trouble. I lived by Gilson's, and I've never seen a more expensive groceries for my life. This dishes extremely delicious.

It's definitely like one of my top favorite dishes. Hopefully my crew can enjoy it in our little in between break. I'm gonna table. That's good news. Did you tell everybody that? Though? Won't I've been hesitant to tell people when their dishes are really bad. Useally the second we wrap and they leave, I'm like, the dish was really horrible. Yeall saw some of my stuff. I'm like, really, people, ain't that Um yeah, i'd say it like I'll tell you on this episode

my most hated dish is uh, the tuna castro. I love it. Tuna castro. Right, I'll never do it again. Don't ever want to hear hear it again. It was it was. It was out of all the dishes of it. I've even had the muscles on the crackers. I will do that before the tunic, the muscles like from the camp. Yeah, it was pretty bad. We had a We had a guy in our neighborhood named t and he would eat the Vienna sausage are like the oysters and the muscles

from can. I'm like, dude, obviously he had a drinking problem, so he was whatever being connects. Now, we're gonna close this inner, this episode out, but I do have a question for you, out of just two more questions, out of everything that you've accomplished in your career thus far, what would you say was the hardest accomplishment. I think the hardest part for me was actually believing that I was good enough to do with myself and like I was able to bring value to so many other people.

But then when you you know, you don't look at yourself as the guy who should be you know, receiving the blessings is easy to put yourself there. And I was always good at like showing up for people, And the biggest part was me to show up for myself, and I really show up, And you know, I had a lot of pressure, not just you know, from a dead standp but pressure pressure to perform because I really want to be great at what we do. I really want us to be recognized as one of the best.

And that's not gonna be easy. That's something you can't say that and not not say that. I'm putting the work to do it. So the biggest part for me was believing I could be the guy and I could actually make it happen for myself. I know it may happen for others because there are so many components I'm

really good at. But then you gotta surround your people with you know, surround yourself with people that are really good at the other stuff, so you can actually you know, get to the to the to the to the commonplace, so where you really want to be at. So that was the hardest part. Um the rest of the stuff, you know, this deal was was great because it energized me. It gave me a whole new purpose coming out of

this pandemic. And it was it was it was someone who said it to me and I was like them books and listen to the podcasts and they were you know, really, opportunity comes when there's chaos. Opportunity comes when you least expected. And I know I was ready and I put in, you know, fifty years doing this, so for it wasn't about at that point can I do it? It was like, oh, I'm I'm doing it and let's go um. Because I also like making decisions and uhsion, Oh yeah, I love

making decisions. I love it. I want to be the gout to make a decision because I'm equipped to do it and I know the right decisions and I don't I'm not a scary person. I don't think from a scary mentality. So because when I'm there, I've never had anything,

so it's not like I'm gonna lose everything. I didn't have any I didn't have anything, so it's easy for me to say to take the leap, but then yeah, that's it really once you mentally get yourself there, and it's kind of all downhill from there, do you U? I look at you, and I feel like there's a lot of your success kind of goes back to you being able to say that you're going to do something and then doing it. So I think that from an outsider looking in, we didn't get to dive as deep

as I would have liked. But I feel like the reason why you were able to even raise the capital to do what you were able to do is because people knew your work ethic and they knew if you said you were going to do something, you were going to do it, you know. I mean the people that invest in me, I don't even know that they were

paying attention from AFAR. And one thing I probably myself on is showing up for people doing the right thing and and really kind of doing not just doing it to say I check the box, but doing it too to do it and you did it with integrity, I mean, I mean, and obviously there are moments where you kind of you kind of have to like been been the been the your your standard of internity because you know, I was telling my partner, yeah, I got it all

figured out. I got it all figured out, but it was it was a white line because I was gonna figure it out. But there was a moment where I had to basically come clean and tell them like, you know, I got some real challenges. And you know, I wish I would have just did that from the beginning because it took a lot of pressure of myself because they were really coming at mean, the SSP was really coming

position like wanting to help me. This was the right thing to do, Like I was helping them so they solve a problem like being able to get out of this opportunity and then provide an opportunity for for someone else who wanted it. And it made a lot of sense. So I think, yeah, integrity was critical, but just just being honest with yourself and saying all right, you know, uh, I may I may not be able to pull this off.

Ware here's the challenges because people want to help you, but if you if you're acting like it's all good, then can they really help you? Because where do they help you? How do they do to help you? Yeah, I agree with that. To to a certain extent, but at the same time, I feel like you put yourself under just the right amount of pressure to like create diamonds. My last and final question, I promise you we will wrap this is This is the This is the question.

This is the thing that I admire the most about you and I struggle with as an entrepreneur. Is the pivot. I love your pivots. Like your pivots, they look from a far very graceful and very like, Wow, what an amazing pivot right there. How are you able to pivot as much as you have? Like, what is the secret behind your pivot? I just want, I mean, I don't you know, thank one, thank you for the compliment. I'll say that the second pieces. If you have to, you

have to. Like I didn't really have a choice. I couldn't said yeah, I don't have to deal with it one way or another. And I wanted to control my narrative. I wanted to be in, you know, kind of driving

the ship. And I thought that, you know, this is my opportunity, this is my moment to like kind of make history in our industry, do something that you know, it's been talked about for a long time, and really you know when I was looking a capital that was a big part of a really aligned with the right people who also wanted to do the right thing and kind of like make history and do something that really

had never been done before. So the pivot comes when one you have to be ready and prepared, so you know, uh, well not all the time you're ready and prepared, like ready, be ready. I mean, you gotta have you gotta have a framework to bring you gotta be in the building to reading. I was in the building and from the outside, people thought, oh, you got this. You know you're you're all the percentage of business, which I own percentage. They have partners, right, I have great partners, and we all

want to see each other win. But I woul business where I was really kind of just along for the ride, whereas today I'm making a difference. And the pivot came because I wanted to be the person I always knew

that I could. I could do this, And you know, that's kind of really the driving force behind everything our team is doing, because we really are like really competing against big boys, like big companies who who do this on a on a global scale, and I think we speak to a different person who wants to work for a company. They say, I want to work for a company that looks like that, and give me they come from where I come from. I come from the same

background and many of the people that work force. Uh, I worked in the industry. I did all this, I did all the work. I'm not telling them to do something I haven't done myself, and I still do it. So it's all about just remembering all of that, kind of putting it on in a pot and kind of making it work, making it work, you know. So well, thank you for an amazing meal on another episode of Eating Wild Broke. Thank you, thank you, yeah, thank you so much. It's awesome, So bring our energy levels up.

That's because in the back of my mind, I'm like, dang, I gotta cut it short. I gotta cut it short. We cut a lot of feel of her. Well, thank you so much for blessing me with one of the my favorite meals on the show. And even though we're on camera and I'm not you know, I'm going to

clean this plate the second camera coup. Yeah, yeah, no, you did an amazing dish, And thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule and answering my LinkedIn d M. That's as the only DM I'm looking at because that's where the actually is it like what somebody wants to be on the podcast. So thank you for having me and thank you for finding me

interest enough interesting enough to be on your show. And now when I go to the airports, which I'm I'm always at the airports, uh, instead of just going straight to the Delta lounge because I'm adulta lounge fanatic, UH, I will be like, where which restaurant we're going to today? So we in Delta. I'm a Delta a person too. We are opening um Alfred with Alfred the coffee brand in the Delta terminal and uh later this year. So that'll be our our kind of latest and greatest. But yeah,

please feel freedom. We're gonna put you on the v I P List. They're gonna see their face and say, oh, there's such thing. There's no such thing as that is. It's an unofficial There are people that you get all in love when you come through. Okay, you guys heard that here on Eating Wall Broke, I'm gonna hold him to it, all right, peace yea for more Eating while Broke from I Heart radio and the Black Effect. Visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.