I go to the production, I'll be like, Yo, I got this idea, I got this great name.
Then they're like, oh, that name will never work.
So me being like on some Larry David, Moka Joe Shit, was like, all right, we're gonna show these motherfuckers how this get on Gaso Shit Rock.
So we just started doing our own things.
Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's most influential brands and the teams that built them. If you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the power of collaboration, join me Yoah Callahan Bever each week as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture, because the only way to truly understand success is to look at it from all angles. Idea Generations All Angles is
a will Pator Media podcast. In twenty twelve, a group of friends in New York City formed Ghetto Gastro, a collective of chefs and food enthusiasts with a mission to bring their culinary culture to the masses. In a decade that's followed, Ghetto Gastro has grown from weekly house parties in Long Island City into a full blown global brand, offering large scale events, their own food products, kitchen appliances, cookbooks,
and much more. On this week's episode of All Angles, we talked to founders John Gray, Lester Walker, and Pierre Sirot to get the full story behind Ghetto Gastro and hear how a few chefs and hustlers came together to form one of the most unique brands in food and media. But before any of that happened, years before the Sneaker collabed with Brand Jordan or throwing parties at Rick Owens House, John Gray was just a kid running around the Bronx, giving menu advice to strangers.
Born in nineteen eighty six, All Lady Emrcity Hospital on two thirty third White Planes is now like in Manta Ferry Hospital.
This is John Gray, bounder of Ghetto Gastro, bounced.
Around a little bit, wasn't Yonkers, Harlem, and that ended up landing in co Op City when I was about eight years old. I come from raised by black women. My pops wasn't in a picture, so it was my mother, my grandmother, my grandmother's sisters and then my mother's sister. And it's interesting because all of the women in my family are like educators and super well educated, so having
that foundation was really significant. Food has been my main thing since I was five years old, six years old, like living in El Barrio with my mom, was going to First Whack on eighty eighth and third Avenue, hit in the Indian.
Spots, and like just going out to you with my mom.
Because she was in school and worked, didn't always have time to cook, so we would go on dates and have dinner together. And I remember just being very analytical with the menus and thinking about how flavors go together, almost like.
Some Rainman type shit, you know what I mean.
So I remember the woman that was a regular at First Way right now known as WAK eighty eight on eighty eighth and third Avenue.
She was a regular too.
We used to see it like a few times a week, and I knew I was always a talkative, like charming young boy. And I was like, hey, what are you ordering? Like what do you always order the same thing? She's like, oh, I get the lemon chicken. And I was like I tried the lemon chicken once and I was like, Nah.
This ain't it.
And then I told her, I was like, yo, look you need to order the orange chicken or the sessame chicken, because you'll get the citrus flavors. It comes with the broccoli, which is good for you nutrition, and it has the fried garlic, which gives it a beautiful flavor. And then she ordered it that night, right, And I remember believing, a spot older Jewish woman, probably in her eighties, right, just eating alone, and she stopped me in my mom She's like, yo, your son is a remarkable boy.
And I just remember his saying that.
She repeated it like three times, and it just resonated with me and gave me such a level of confidence that always stuck with me.
While John showed early indications that he had a gift for the culinary yards, he had less success in the classroom.
I think my neurology set up a little bit different. So I had difficulties in school in terms of behave what they called behavior issue. But the books, the book smarts were always there. But I always was social and like to turn up and you know, be a little bit of a menacine, mischievous kid.
John became the neighborhood's newest troublemaker, following in the footsteps of another eventual partner in Ghetto Gastro.
We grew up in co Op City, Section five, northeast, part of the Bronx.
This is Lester Walker, co founder of Ghetto Gastro.
I lost my father at the age of three. You know, my mom did her best to keep me out of harm's way. She was a very strong woman. All of my characteristics and my attributes to my mom.
My brother and I grew up in a single family home.
Unfortunately, but not really unfortunately because she, you know, she raised us. As I got a little bit older and I was able to, you know, reach the stove. That was one of the ways that I contributed. That's what I owe to my success of being a being an entrepreneur, being being an artist, and being a chef, and being a storyteller.
My mother used to do hair in the house.
She was in the house a lot, and she would have customers come to the house.
They would be in the hall way where she come head, talking shit, you know, doing.
What they do, gossiping or whatever, hanging out, having fun, laughing.
You know.
I used to make breakfast in the kitchen. I'll make like pancakes, I'll make like wild foods, and I would have some left over, and they being they'd be out there like, damn, that smells good what you're making. That's that's your son. And so you know, I would come out there and hope the pretty ladies up with you know, some plates. You know, they would be like, wow, this is good.
You made this. Oh, these eggs are perfect.
So that's kind of when that was like one of the times that I've realized that I had a skill, you know, And I was like very young. I probably was like I don't know, man, eight nine, I didn't get no recipes.
I'm making it up on a fly.
Man.
I was reading the back of the box. It was pancakes, you know.
Add water, add eggs, add milk, grits whatever, add you know, read the back of the packages. But you know I would add a little bit more butter. I would add you know, sugar to my grits. I was being creative in that aspect at a very young age, Like I knew the basics or how to make something. If my grits were coming out too thick, I would add more water. It's like, you know, just your science, just common sense.
But I guess it's not that common. If you know, to a lot of people, because a lot of people could fuck up with all the grits, you know what I mean. Like, I guess it wasn't common sense. I guess that was a skill that I had.
Leicester found his calling in the kitchen, but John still struggled to figure out his own path.
Wanted to be an athlete, played ball, but didn't have the discipline and really like do the extra work it took to reach the level to get to the league and all of those things.
I played in school, but I got kicked out of the high school that.
I went to to play ball like three months into my freshman year. So then I went from Ohillos to Truman High School, which is my zone school in the North Bronx and carp City, and it was just a whole different story.
It's like you go from.
Like if I didn't do my homework at Ohillows at the Catholic school, they had a thing called homework Clinic right where you would basically go to detention, do the homework that you didn't do, and then not.
Get credit for it, you know what I'm saying.
So the work was always getting done. Him ain't going to Truman where it's like every man and every woman for themselves. It's like you could go to class who could not go to class. Going to school was like going to the Guardia airport with metal detectives. There was a precint inside the school. The time that I went there was like the time that Truman was the worst school in New York City in terms of ranking.
There was just like a big culture shock.
And one of the things that also changes is when you go to Catholic school, you got a uniform, so you might switch up, get fitted hat, get a fly book bag, a fly jacket for the winner, and then switch up the footwear. You know, get some wild beans, some East Lands or whatever, some Thames, you know what I'm saying. But in public school you got to be fresh every day. You can't wear the same shit, you know. So that led to external pressure having to like get
some money. You want to get fly for the honeys. And you know what I'm saying, it's a whole different type of vibe because I was going to schoolhere. I was going it's like it's hustlings in there too. It's like people that get money, people that a ged up. It's a whole it's a whole different atmosphere. I remember asking my mother and my grandmother some money and like, yo,
get a job. And then I went to apply every store in the mall in my neighborhood because it's the mall over there, big plaza, and everybody was like, you got your working papers, but you don't got.
No work experience. I'm like, how can I get work experience without you hiring me?
So that's when I made up my mind, like yea, I'm gonna have to hit the streets and get this paper. And I ended up doing that, excelling in that field at a very young age. I started selling weed at first, and then I graduated to the snow after high school. I think I was probably when I was eighteen or nineteen. This girl had said she was pregnant by me. She
ended up not being pregnant by me. But I had made up my mind like damn, if I'm gonna be a father, I don't want to be selling drugs into my twenties.
So I was like, let me just The.
Logic I had was like, all right, let me just go hard and get a lot of money right now and start this new game.
Desperate for any kind of income, John resorted to hustling in the streets to make some bread. Meanwhile, Lester continued to sharpen his cooking skills.
So I'm gonna say the summer of like my two last years in high school, like junior year, you know, eleventh grade, twelfth grade, that's when I started, you know, having girls come over the house when my mom's wasn't home all right, and then you know that would be my way to get him to come up stairs, y'all. Made some shrimp with some with some linguini. I made a little pasta come through. We watch a movie I This,
that and the third. So I would do that. But I wasn't even thinking about becoming a chef, like at this point, I was just you know, I was just macing, like figuring it out, like you know, having something to bring to the table, like have a date. I ain't have no money to take him out to go to go out, Like I didn't have money, but you know, if moms was out of town, I was taking advantage of that and I would cook.
That was my thing.
I like, you know, shrimp, pasta, mostly pastas.
At this point, I'm just like going crazy with pastas, shrimp, Primavera Linguini with the Alfredo garlic butter. YadA, YadA, YadA. Then I had a little problem with authority. So I wasn't really lasting in my high schools for that long. Like every high school, I was pretty much like getting kicked out of these high schools.
You know.
I had a problem with authority. I didn't like to listen. I knew I wanted to do my own thing. In hindsight, I kind of knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn't want to take orders from anybody. I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to be my own boss. My last year of high school, my mom's like, yo, you gotta figure something out. And it was a school called Park West downtown Manhattan on West fiftieth Street, and
I'm looking through the book of high school. So when my mom was just like, YO, just pick out a high school. You're gonna finish up, you're gonna graduate, and this is what's gonna happen.
So I found Park West. They had a cooking.
Program in the school, right, So I said, all right, I've been cooking these past two summers. They really jacking my food. So let me see what it's heding for went to the school. Then a kicker to that was they were like, we go out off campus after school to cater events. I said, okay, cool, and we make money too, straight cash. At the end of the event, samet word like say, let's I'm in there. So I started to do these k re in events with my
school making money. My teacher caught a liking to me because the things that I would make, you know, regular recipes in class, double baked potatoes, you know, pasta, making little pastries or whatever. I was good at, like my food tasted good. And I used to watch cooking shows on Food Network, but my mother would put me on punishment a lot, and I would stay in the room and I would just watch Food Network all day and I'd figure out how to like make plates look cool.
So my teacher was like, oh shit, you kind of you know, you got a little bit of skill. Why don't you enter this omelet making competition. The winner of the competition gets a scholarship to go to culinary school.
I said, okay, sounds good, boom, sign me up.
So I was going up against kids that were in like a culinary foundational school for I would say at least four years. This is my first year, and I came in third place, and they gave me ten thousand dollars to go to a cooking school. They gave me ten thousand dollars a Good in New York school, and I spoke to my mom about it and were like, all right, cool, We're gonna do the culinary school thing.
But then I started to get like.
Letters from like Johnson and Wills Culinary Institute of America. They said that, you know, I could have applied my scholarship to good to one of these schools.
So I said, We're gonna check out. I'm Johnson and Wills.
Johnson Wells had a University of Rhode Island, that's the main campus in Providence. But then another kick, I found out that there was a campus in Miami, So you already know, I.
Was like, we going to Miami.
We're taking this show on the road to Miami. So I ended up in Miami, got a scholarship, got financial a lester, took.
His talents to South Beach to pursue his dreams of being a chef. Meanwhile, John's career in the streets had resulted in some harsh lessons, including multiple arrests. As he searched for other hustles, he stumbled on the up and coming world of streetwear.
So I go to the funk Master Flex car Show and this is the first year they had the sneaker show in the streetwear show. To be honest, I see all of these kids that look very suburban doing this thing called streetwell, and I'm like, hold on, I'm really in these streets, so like for real, like I think I got something I co offer bring to the table here,
you know what I'm saying. That's kind of when I was like, I think the pivot's going to be into like doing streetwear, doing something in the power space because I've always been created, Like I thought I was flying, you know, And I'm like, all right, we can figure this out.
So I just went full full throut.
It was just a store called Fashion Decks, right, and they sold all of these fashion books like styling, how to merchandise online, how to think about cogs and price. This is before YouTube tutorials in and I just signed up for FT and take night courses, I think a bunch of courses from the Learning Ax. So I just went full emerging into like soaking up game, right, And I'm the type, like even with Ghetto gash Or, I
have an idea or interest. I'm not necessarily going to learn how to design the shit or to make the shit, but I'm gonna find the best people to put it together and just direct them. So that's kind of what I did with Fashionable.
While John dove headfirst into the world of fashion, another crucial member of the Ghetto Gastro ensemble was about to enter the mint.
Well.
Unlike John the Less, I wasn't born in the Bronx.
This is Pierre Siro, co founder of Ghetto Gastro.
I was born at Hartford, Connecticut, and I was raised between Harford. My mom's from Harford, my dad's from Barbados, and I was raised between the two growing up as a child, mainly going to school up in CT and then summers and like long vacations in the winter and stuff we would spend down in the islands from a young age. My father's always had that and sale in myself and my siblings. You know, wake up, brush your teeth, exercise, you know, iron your clothes, make.
Sure you leave the house look in a certain way. All the things.
And my mom is more of a hustler in a sense where I've always known her to always have like a steady job, but also have like a side hustle more along the lines of doing things creatively. She used to hustle like cakes and stuff were like that when I was a child.
She used to move cakes.
And then she also had an events company called Party Your Way. She had a pink band and she used to drive around like a Scooby Doo band, but as she was pink and said party your Way on the side. And I remember that was my mom's first real sort of events company, and that was like my first job and basically ad an events company. And when I think about it, because I was working with my mom, but I was real young.
At that time, but I always saw my mom.
Like dibbling and dabbling into the space using food and or like an event to try to create business and like a sense of entrepreneurship. As I got older, that kind of all came together and like a mix of my mom's hustle and my father's work ethic kind of just got me literally to the place where.
I am right now. I always used food as like a sort of a hustle tactic.
So when I was in high school, I used to hustle like breakfast sandwiches or like deli sandwiches and subs and shit like that. I used to hustle to the kids in between class basically, like the day before you would put your order in. My man Demetrius Lazarritas, his pops had a deli, So we used to take the orders from the kids the night before and then pull up with the fresh sandwiches and the chips and all
that and like put them into kids lockers. Kids would give us their locker combinations, so then in between class we would just go in drop their sandwiches in their lockers, being bong. When they come out, they got their lunch. It's perfect. Honestly, it was such a good operation. And when the school found out about that, they try to
suspend us and all this shit. They should have really just invested into the young entrepreneurs that we were as opposed to like trying to you know, trying to punish us for taking Basically, they saw it as us taking money out of their pockets and they're like, oh, you're not a licensed to sell food and this and that all sorts of shit. Anyways, they were just mad that we was getting to the bag and I got the last laugh.
Because I'm you know what I'm saying. I got my food products and stores and shit now.
So after high school, Pierre headed to Barbados to pursue a more legitimate career in food.
Moved to Barbados.
For like three and a half years, I was working in like in a couple of hotels, doing some private work with some celebrities and shit. Every time like some celebrities would come into the island, basically they would call me to do the work because I had an international experience. Honestly, those are my least favorite days of my life because I didn't like working for people and being on hand and foot and they tell you like I want this, I want this.
I don't like it like this.
And as a chef, you know, you're an artist and you want to create and be able to cook your own shit. Some of the people I was cooking for they were really picky and finicky and didn't like certain things.
And I don't do that shit.
I'm pulling up to cook what I'm cooking and like y'all gonna eat what I'm cooking is going to be super tasty. But like these people just misguided and haven't been introduced. A lot of people haven't really been introduced to food, I'm saying.
And then I opened.
Up this spot in this lifestyle center and it was like an epicario shop.
Basically, I was like nineteen years old in nineteen twenty. It was really dope.
It was like a grocery store slash retail food store, almost like an Italy sort of vibe, but like in the Highlands.
But then I had a fallen out.
With the woman who owned the company, and that's when I had my first lesson on getting finesse out of your IP, out of your.
Basically like your sweat equity and like your working shit.
And because I had a contract, I didn't go over the contract properly.
I didn't have a lawyer look at that shit. And basically that lady.
Didn't end up paying me the money that she owed me and was able to build like three or four more locations off of the IP that I had created.
So that was like a really eye opening experience for me.
And that's also one of the things that drove me to move back up north to to the City because I was done with it.
I was done with that bullshit.
I was like, all right, fuck, I gotta get out of here, and so left Barbados moved up to New York.
Pierre left Barbados for New York City. I began working in different restaurants around the same time. Lester, still in Miami at culinary school, decided he'd rather be back in New York as well.
I did two years of culinary school and I was just like, you know, I'm not doing this four year shit.
It's not me.
School's not me. I jumped into working in restaurants.
First kitchen was Marriot, Marquee, Downtown, forty second Street, Times Square, forty Dukes. I was on forty Dukes man Light's cameras in action. It was destined for me to live this life. It's like I was taking my show to Broadway. Went from Miami to Broadway, you know what I mean. Worked on Broadway, New York, Marriot, mal Keuye for about a year and some change, and I'm just working at restaurants at this point. Then I finally get a job with John Jor George Spice Market, so I leveled up. I'm
in Spice market working with Gean George. This is where I met my mentor, Anthony Rico still to this day keeps in contact with me, you know, still to this day has my back. So I was working at three restaurants at the time with Jean George. Like I'm gonna say, like two years, two and a half years. During this time I lost I had a kid, had a daughter, and they was Jay. During this time, Jay was born,
she passed away from SID sudden infant death. Like I said, these traumatic things that happened to me in my life, they all happen for a reason, you know, And I don't regret any of it. It's like there's nothing I could do about it. If it's if it's something that's out of my control, out of my hands, what can I do but just keep pushing, keep being better. But the only thing I regret about that is not healing right, not you know, doing up taking the proper steps for morning,
because like I just jump right back into work. I didn't take off, like I didn't get any type of therapy, like which was a very traumatic and you know, a life changing event that happened to me, you know, So due to that, due to not functioning correctly mentally due to the traumatic instances. I lost the job at Jean George. You know, I got into a little squabble with somebody there. It was on camera, and I got you know, they
had to let me go. But Anthony Rico, I loved his brother man, my Italian brother man.
He was like, yo, I gotta let you go.
But we always kept in contact and I ended up like getting another job.
Well.
Lester grieved over the passing of his daughter and search for a new job. John's foray in the fashion was flaming out.
Nobody was taking a chance for new brands. Burned through all my trap capital, you know what I'm saying. And Bill try to hustle it and figure it out for like another two three years, just through the grindstone, but that shit just wasn't working out. And then I realized, like, yeah, fashion is I'm really my calling. Making things and being creative is my calling. But you quickly get into the SMATs of business to fashion business and realize.
It's not that much of a creative business.
It's really about margins, operations, logistics. And I didn't have that counterpart. That's why I realized, like I'm a creative. I thought I was super business because I got money in the streets, but I definitely skew towards the right side of the brain more.
So than the left side.
I was just super depressed because I was kind of broke, Like I started selling weheed a little bit again, and I had promised myself after I beat my case, I made a promise to the universe I wouldn't sell no drugs. I rationalized it by saying weed is not a drug. And I'm just like, yeah, what the fuck am I doing with my life? And I just had to do do some soul session, like what would I do if it wasn't about money? Because I had to release the attachment to being defined by having money. So but then
I was like, damn, food is what I love. I was a part of this business program that Allen Houston had done with City Bank called the Allen Houston Foundation, and it was a business plan and competition and teaching course.
And I was going there to learn how to put.
Together a business plan, et cetera, et cetera, to get into it.
And I would take those plans and I'd run in the less on the block.
And this is after he's done school, he's back in New York and I'd be like, yo, I'm in this class. I ain't fucking with this with the streets no more. And this is what I'm doing. And he was like, damn, I want to do this food thing. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna give you the lesson plans. I'm gonna tell you what to do, how to think about the plan.
He was doing his thing with the street where I was doing my thing, working in high end kitchens all around New York City and where we would connect you with like, yo, less what are you working at now?
And I would tell him.
I'd be like, Yo, I'm at John George, I'm at Spice Market.
You know, I'm at toad La Yo. Pull up, like come through.
And he you know, he used to like to go to Nice Rest, So he would pull up to the establishments that I was working in and we connected and were from the same block. He like hanging out with me, you know, just like everybody else does, because I have that.
Energy, you know.
And then we just started talking about, you know, opening some shit up, like because he was at the time he was going to Alan Houston's School for Business and he was learning how to write business plans and that intrigued me. And we would just hang out right around, go to different spots downtown, good at parties, you know, cop gear because we was fresh. We always been fresh, and you know, that's how we was building, That's how we was bonding.
John and Lester began planning a business together. It wasn't clear exactly what it would be, but then an appearance by Lester on a popular cooking show would change everything.
So I was a chef in his restaurant. It's not even a restaurant actually, and my manor Anthony Rico, got me the job because it was straight a thousand dollars cash every week. I was guaranteed to get paid. And it was like this nightclub kind of thing. And they wanted to do a restaurant during the day, nightclub at night, and they hired me to do that.
I did a tasting for him, blew them away.
One day, a scout from Chopped from Food Network Chop came into the restaurant and I was running a special.
It was coconut lemongrass seafood soup.
Was really delightful obviously because the girl that had the dish, came to the back, came to the kitchen where I was at, and she said, did you make this dish? I said, yes, it's amazing. Would you like to audition for Chops? So I'm like, I'm like, okay, but what is Chop? So she tells me it's a show on the Food Network. So I went, I auditioned, I made it to the show. Next thing, you know, like a month or so later on, I had this show and
I won. And so from that point on it was like, Yo, I really started to believe in myself even more once that happened.
Leicesterre's victory Chopped brought new attention and credibility to the chef. Looking to keep the momentum going, John pitched the idea that would eventually turn into Ghetto Gastro.
My initial idea was the ghetto gas shows like Yo, me and Les. We could do some fly recipes, talk shit like how we talk, bring that street credibility, bring that vibe, and make content. You know, we make make videos on some epic meal top ship and shit that's actually delicious and not just ridiculous.
You know. I come up with the name ghetto gas Show during the nap. You know.
My shout out to my homie and Larry Menza because I was like, yo, we think about ghetto astronomy. She was like, what about getto gas And I'm like, oh, that's a good one. That's I like the I like the symmetry, I like the alliteration. It was the production company that I wanted to do like a docu follow based on what I was doing in the fashion game and what I had going on. And I go to the to the production company like, yo, I got this idea, I got this great name.
Fuck with us. And they're like, oh, that name will never work.
This and that. So me, being like on some Larry David, Moka Joe shit, was like, all right, we're gonna show these motherfuckers how this get a gaso shit rock. So we just started doing our own thing, doing a house parties, making his name, making a high on these streets, and turning.
Up having his media brand turned down by the production company. John focused on building ghetto Gastro from the ground up. This included throwing dinner parties at his house with great food, important guests, and immaculate vibes. Lester now working at a high end restaurant inside Madison Square Garden, found that his job had some added benefits that would help keep John's partygoers fed.
I'm mad Madison Square Garden. At Madison Square Garden, we have this huge budget. We get to utilize all different type of you know, exotic ingredients, high end ingredients. I'm talking caviar, sturgeon, caviar, beluga. We're getting like the best of the best, like edible golds, wag you beef, Kobe beef, you name it.
We didn't have a budget. It's like whatever we wanted.
To work with my Cassidy and I we would have suit chefs at Delta Club.
Whatever we wanted we could get.
We can order to create a menu to cater to our high end guests. So they have all of these products and these ingredients. But at the end of the night, if we don't use the product, we don't use the ingredient, they would tell us like, don't even worry about it, throw it out. Like would be like, it doesn't matter, just throw it out. So me being from the Bronx and having a personality having the background of never letting anything go to waste, zero waste. This starving people that
can eat this food. You know, my family, my neighbors can have this food. I'm not throwing anything out. One man's trash is the next man's treasure, and it was definitely a treasure for me because we would hope we would throw dinners at John's apartment that he had at the time.
In Long Island City.
We would throw dinners with these ingredients that were going to trash, like we utilize them. We turn an active service into an act of luxury, into something luxurious, into something sustainable. With these ingredients that Madison Square Garden were put in the trash, we utilized it. These are the first parties. These are the hash house parties at this time. We're throwing hash house parties. Were just inviting all of the fly people that we know to the crib. We're
doing a three course, five course dinner. All ingredients courtesy of Madison Square Garden. Courtesy of fourteenth Street Union Square. Farmers Market.
They had so much overage, so like some wagu was going away, so some far growd caviard. We had the food stamps rocking, so we go get some produce from Whole Foods. With the food stamps that hit the farmers Market and just put together exquisite meal for the homies.
The first official ghetto gastro parties were underway at John's apartment in Long Island City, became the epicenter of the bread I was living.
In Long Island City at the time. My man k from Kutian Cheek Created Control was out there. He's like, yo, come fuck with Long Island City.
I'll ember going. And I'm like, Yo, this sh is kind of hi.
So I got a spot in Long Island City created community with Cheek. We used to hit the gym on a regular Okay, We're working out and I overheard Pete talking about tune of Tar Tar from Morimoto and shit like that, and I'm like, you know, that's not usually Jim conversation or gym fighter. And I'm like, well, you know about the Morimoto tartar. He's like yeah, I'm a chef. I'm like, oh, what's your name.
Pierre, now, having returned to NYC from Barbados, ended up living down the hall from John.
Yep.
Him and I were neighbors in Long Island City. Him and I had met in the gym. We were cool, kept on just building a friendship. I was selling weed I was hustling.
We just became great friends.
Right, Like, he always had the weed and my girlfriend used to always be stressed out, so when she was acting up, I'd be like, yo, pee, can you just come over and bring this girl to blunt, you know what I'm saying. And then we just bonded. He became like one of my closest road dogs. Me and him cheek it. I was like the LC crew.
And I had another homie who lived in his building, and he was actually John's neighbor at the time.
I used to go to my man's apartment.
And I would see this orange extension cord running down the hallway going all the way to the last door at the very end of the hallway on the left hand side. This orange extension cord is running from the hallway underneath the door into this apartment now, and I used to wonder what the fuck was going on, and then just to come and find out, like that was John's apartment. He wasn't paying his electric bill and he was just using the building's electric to run all of
the electric in his apartment. So he had like this extension cord that was basically from the hallway that was powering his entire apartment. Yo, incredible, man, Like that was the sort of character that he was.
John's apartment running on free electricity became the place to be, and soon the party started to build a real buzz around the city.
Initially we wanted this shop ghetto gashow around as media corporation, as immedia platform. But I would get so many good ingredients and I was cooking all the time, and we were doing dinners that we just.
Said, Yo, listen, let's let's focus on like it was.
Pop ups at the time were very popular, you know, so we focused on like doing pop up restaurants and doing in the crib, supper clubs, things.
Of that nature, inviting people over.
We had the liquor program, we had the cocktail program. We were somaliers, we were chefs, and we were just getting it popping, man.
We were getting it popping out of the apartment.
Man.
We strategically planned everything from the guest list to the menu to the beverages. We invited certain people over that were maybe heads in the PR department of these brands, or you know, just in general worked at these brands, and we would invite them over and we would get the idea and it had that you need this, you need this type of vibe with your brand, we should collaborate and that's how it happened.
It starts to grow.
The food was delicious.
We were doing more than We started to do this thing called Free Style Friday.
Every Friday.
We invited people over from the likes of Asad Ferg the whole Asad Mob and so many damn people Man Coodie and Cheek. They were getting everything on film, Ebro Low Styles. We went on the show to promote this pop up that we were doing Featherbed Lane with Scope at the time. That got even more people to come through. We were talking shit on the High ninety seven. That stirred up a buzz and we always were creating buzzes
and we had track. Also we had traction because I had just one chop too, so it was like chef Lester, Walker, Chop Champion, Ghetto Gastro, Freestyle Friday, coming up with whimsical names Free Style Friday, Forties and Shorties, Waffles and Models.
The big traction kind of came initially after we did this party called w and Models like and we did that at le Beron. Shout out to Simon as forgetting us to space. We did it at Leboron during fashion week. It was definitely the best party of fashion week that year. We had exotic dancers this twenty thirteen. One of the dancers happened to be Cardi B who I had met the night before in Long Island and she just had the star quality and stage presence then.
And I after to come over and I spoke to him.
I'm like, yo, come come fuck with me tomorrow. Get some money, man. She was like all right, Like I'm would pull up and I remember her pulling up doing her things.
She was so smart.
We had these girls, Spider and Magic, who was like Magic City legends, like when you talk about doing the tricks and going crazy and all that, and Cardi's like, yo, I can't. I gotta go before them. She was like, I can't go after them. If I go after but I ain't gonna make no money because all the money go up be gone from them getting on the tips. So she always been being a hustling and to fly like being a sex DJ Mamay and Rufio, Brendan Fallis Vashti.
It was as.
Ghetto Gastro grew. It was only a matter of time before Pierre, still living down the hall from John, brought something to the table.
One day there was a Playboy party that there was happening.
I could see his apartment from my window, so whenever there was some shit going on, I would just like look outside, pull up and come.
Across, and he was like, Yo, bring your blades and break some food over.
Playboy came to my crib in Long Island City. We threw a party at the crib and Playboy film deals for they was giving us a cover story.
So I pulled up with a couple of dishes to the party, and those two dishes that I brought were the first two things gone. And at that moment the guys were like, okay, well we see that he's going to bring something to the table that we're missing.
In a sense.
He brought like some dishes and people loved it.
I pulled up with a keen wat salad and the kale salad.
Those were the first two things gone at that function, and everybody was like all right, cool, and then I got busy with everything else too. That was probably the moment where every it was like all right, cool, pease, God, some shit that we missing because there was no salads and stuff like that on the table.
It was just like a bunch of burners and chicken wings and stuff like that.
So bringing that balance to the team and being able to see the gaps was definitely one thing.
I'm like, oh, you can fuck with us.
You official And I had to taste this food over the years and I'm like, yeah, like he solid, you know what I mean.
And then then we just got an in it. It was a vibe. It was a vibe.
We had a lot of beautiful people there.
It was just a vibe.
And we did the play Boy spread and then once we killed that and we saw that Peak hold his own, he became a member of the team. I just think that we were diligent, We were consistent, and every time we got a little bit of traction, we kept we kept going, We kept the momentum up. We worked hard, we worked smart, we worked strategically with.
The team complete, the events got bigger, the food got better, and the brands looking to be affiliated with Ghetto Gastro started to call.
Jack Daniels, Microsoft, Apple, Ralph Lauren, Polo, Timberland.
Homies that work at these brands have been coming to our parties for years, you know, and we've just been building and not forcing anything and just letting the universe be aligned when time is right. And when these brands saw that and felt that energy at their functions, you know, it was something small, maybe you know, a little Timberland dinner or something with Jack Daniels or the event in
the South of France with Microsoft. It was really about us seeing the value and knowing that these companies will pay us big money to pull up and do our day. But it's just about how you approach yourself, your food, the work that you do, how you speak about yourself, how you carry yourself. All those things really matter. So like people treat you, how they meet you. So if somebody's gonna say that they're looking for a caterer, it's like, now,
we're not caterers. You know, we provide culinary experiences. We're artists and storytellers, and you know, we'll pull up and we have this offering because food is only like cooking, food is really only one part of what we provide at Ghetto Gastro, you know what I'm saying, Like it's way more than just us putting some food on the plate.
We curate the entire experience from the guest listen to the music, to the plate where to the ambiance, the table settings, everything like we really design and curate the entire experience from soup to nuts, if people have the bag. And the fact that we were able to show improve and be consistent as a brand and always show up and show out as opened the open the doors for us to do collaborations with Beats by Dre and do a set of headphones and you know, uh, our own
line of Jordan's. We did the Jordan's One, the Fearless, the Fearless One, React the Lows.
It was a new silhouette.
It wasn't our first choice, but you know, we were glad to have the opportunity to be able to design a sneaker with Jordan and to have you know, a national release with a sneaker like that.
In addition to the Jordan collab, the team started looking to other ways to reach new audiences. This includes throwing larger ghetto gastro events and putting their own products on shelves and stores near you.
One of my favorite events ever was Thanksgiving at Rick Owens and Michelle's house, and it ended up being like two hundred plus people in their house. We cooked off like I don't want to say eight or like ten big ass turkeys. It was a vibe yo, and it was crazy because like that was a huge introduction for us into the fashion world. And like when I say that you show up in disrupt spaces, it's like ghetto gastro showing up to do Michelle and Me and Rick
Owens Thanksgiving meal. When we did that, it was just a certain level of status that we had got because we killed that shit too. It was an incredible meal turned into a wavy ass party afterwards.
I'm the ABC and the XYZ right, So I love of the inception of an idea and I also love being a closer, like drop me in a target and let me secure that three year partnership. So we're launching the edible packaging like we're at irawuon now, but like on a big scale to make it accessible, you know, we're bringing it to targets.
We started to focus in on recipes for the waffle MiGs, focusing on steasonings. We put out a season a blend of different spices and herbs. We put out collaboration with Sky farms at the time to create a sovereign syrup. We were working as well on designing kitchen appliances with crucks. We put out my waffle iron, a grill, a smokeless grill, air fryer, a toaster, a coffee machine. We put out all of these different products during the time of the pandemic, and we turned it into a pandemic before.
We were chefs or cuts with storytellers. Right, its food is a metium. So approaching product development from the story, like, all right, what's the story of this ingredient?
How do we make something delicious.
But that had that's layered right, and it's something different, So thinking about how do we bring a certain consciousness and a level of flavor and vibe to it. Because I go to the grocery store, I don't necessarily see
anything that is speaking to me. So wanting to be able to put that out in the world and be able to take our privilege of being culturally relevant and all of that, and hopefully making better products that can change health outcomes and communities, and figuring out how to make it accessible because how many people can access The getto Gastro event with fifty seventy one hundred maybe two hundred tops. It's like the gospel needs to spread further, so us dropping a book is a big part of that.
Black Power Kitchen.
The book is the book is in target right now as we speak, being sold, many units being sold right now, thousands of unit of being sold, becoming a New York Times bestseller with Black Pot Kitchen.
With the best selling book, Black Power Kitchen, products on shelves and live events on the regular, Ghetto Gastro has evolved from a popping house party into a full three sixty media brand. But it's no accident. It's evolved hard work, a unique vision and team chemistry.
Man, I think it's just an amazing sort of testimony to the work that with John Less and myself have been doing, all the people around us have been putting in over these past ten years. That's a great outlook onto the places that we've been and how they've inspired the moves that we make.
And also that gives you like a little glimpse into.
The future when we're talking about the future of the future of our community and where we really see the world going, how we see food, how we see Ghetto Gastro in the next decade, and just also the importance of the black and brown contribution to the cultural space across the world since day one, from food to music,
to the arts, to fashion to everything, you know. And it's really just an ode to the community, to the Bronx for being such a resilient place and a place that I like to call home and that I feel has adopted me over the past, you know, ten years that I've been working with the company and rocking with the guys and shit like that.
That's the true definition of success right there. When we inspire others and we're a catalyst for the next person's success. That's what success is to me.
Man, It's just taking something that is in your mind and manifesting it into the tangible asset or a femeral experience. I find great pleasure in that, and just the community, like just being able to be in the Cayman Islands with our families and working and hanging and.
Just being like, yo, look at what we've built, Like look, it's a beautiful light.
So being able to just build this with my brothers and have this bond and it's really a family.
You know.
I mean, I'm really just looking forward to everything else that has to come.
But right now, Black Power Kitchen were on a mission. Man, more nutrition to your kitchen. Let's get it.
The story of Ghetto Gastro is one of ingenuity, skill and immaculate vibes. When John Gray wanted to be an entrepreneur, there was never a shortage of business ideas for him to pursue. When Lester and Pierre showed signs that they were gifted in the culinary yards, they pursued their passion and they willed themselves into being master chefs. And when they all came together, the energy was undeniable and that recipe could only lead to success for Ideas Generation. I'm
Noah Callahan Bever. Thanks for listening to The All Angles Podcast presented by Will Packer Media. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't hesitate to like, comment DM or tell a friend to tell a friend about Idea Generation and the All Angles Podcast. We can't do any of this without your help, and honestly, your support means everything. We do this for you, and we can't do it without you.
This episode was brought to you by Will Packer, Executive produced by John Balachick and Helena Ox original music by Valentine Fritz, edit and sound mixed by Nonsensible Production and hosted by me Idea Generation founder Noah Callahan bever Idea Generations. All Angles is a will Packer media podcast