Episode 204 "Big Dave's Cheesesteaks"

I think it's my grandfather, to be honest. Like my grandfather, he uh, he gave me all my skills, not even knowing because when I was coming up, if I ain't go to church with him on Sundays, I had to finish the Sunday's dinner, you know what I'm saying. So along the way, when I came to Atlanta, when I wanted to go open my first business, which was Days Philly Ward, I aced I I was just selling Italian nice we call the warder. I nobody knew what it was.

So when I'm making the cheese steaks and I hired to cook, it wasn't coming out the way I wanted to. It wasn't authentic. And my grandfather, you know, he went back to the roots and you know what I'm saying, gave me the water oil mixed ratio. So that's what helped out the stake to not dry out. I mean, it never missed, like Mrs literally, no matter what day,

what time. I think it's at its best right now too, because my company right now, we're about to scale a whole lot of locations and I got the right people right now following the right s op manual. So it's it's like a real system to really doing the same way every single time. So right now, man, I'm just happy about all that because all the years of me just ground in the kitchen, building all the fan base,

everybody coming to support the brand. If it wasn't me making it or my two big guys that started with me, they would say, ah, you know, we went them in the kitchen, I went, you know, being the kitchen. Now anybody can make it and it's the same product coming out every single time. I feel like it's always hard to manage multiple locations like Chick fil A for example. I am honest, like, you go to Chick fil a anywhere, and it's pretty much damn near, you know, consistent, Yeah,

every single time, every time. Is there any fear that, you know, even though you're giving them the information and you're showing them how to do, is there any fear that you may grow so big that you can't really manage what these locations are doing? Um? I used to think like that until I got around the right people and write people on my team that scaled locations before it. Because when you got the systems in place, like it's like when you hire somebody, they just ain't jumping right

in and cooking cheese steaks. So getting on the register, they're actually learning the brand and learning the process and the protocols, the procedures, everything you need to do. Tactually scaled the business. So now it's just like a puzzle was coming together every time you build a location. And right now I got a good location about the coming and like another month and a half and I think that's gonna be my big work. Where you're putting one,

you're putting that come on this ball show. It's coming out of a sap, all right, it's gonna be in Jones bro. Yeah, So listen, how did you know that like you was popping like you like man, all right man a bit instance is just went from zero to a hunting um. To be honest, it's when Eve ate

the sandwich. When she uh, you know, when I had the gas station location and I can't coming and she was shooting barbershop And the first day I heard she was coming, I waited like a kid on Christmas because I needed that pop. I'm like, yeah, she coming, and then she didn't show up, so I got a lord of discourage a little bit. But then the next day she came, and to be honest, I just blew over.

You know seven Figures party in Atlanta that year. You know what I'm saying, So why I'm making this chicken cheese steak. I'm saying to myself, like, damn, this sandwich is gonna save my life or what's gonna get rid of me? So I'm just like, I gotta make this sandwich. So I'm sitting there chopping it, and the people behind her, that's where are she Like, they're not gonna order until she eat the sandwich. So I never knew that a cheese steak was gonna save my life, like like really

saved my life. So when she ate it, she posted her social media networks and the next day I had the biggest line I ever had at that time. From there it just was it was just up. But over the years of me growing the brand, as it grew from year to year, I had the popularity. I had people, you know, saying the food was good. But then I'm trying to figure out, now, how do I open our location it because you start getting like spoil to it, to be honest, like you know, it's like a rapper

that come out with a song, what's the next hit? Like, what's what's coming next? So that was my problem when I was going through. And now you know, I got three locations in the Mercedes Bend Stadium that's never been done by honestly, it's three is on every level. But I came in there, you know, telling them, like listen, I'm going to change the culture in the stadium, give me my shot. So sometimes we don't understand that we gotta ask for what we want, just wait for it.

So I went in there and letting them know that I was going to be the trend setter in the stadium. I was going to be the culture change and We're gonna change the whole dynamic away, this whole thing running through the food system right now with the highest gross in restaurant the stadium. I mean, you can't miss it. Like it's literally on every floor. You cannot miss it.

And for me dedicate in the business to my father, you know what saying watching him down in front of my face is like that was my willpower to never quit, to keep on going. What happened with your father? Yeah? Cancer. So it's crazy because before I moved to Atlanta, I was, Um, I was in Athens. I used to play basketball. Um, you know, my dad moved me out of Philly when I was in the ninth grade. I was getting in

trouble stuff like that. So I wind up going to this lower town where you know it ain't the city life. So you've kind of been in Georgia for a little minute. Yeah, but I went back to Philly and oh five when my aunt passed away, So ancer really hit. My family hired. But the person that was helping raising me but my grandparents, was my she had passed when oh five, So I moved back to Philly oh nine. My dad just magically,

you know, he was coughing. He thought he had a cold, went to a couple of hospitals, found out he had numonia. He had cancer. So we came down to uh Emery University. I'm driving back and forth from you know, from Philly, trying to help him out. And then the mr of all this, he wound up passing away in Emery. And the rich day of my life was July six. And then this year I had my son at Emory University. On July six, I think my dad died, you know what I'm saying, So like all this was a full

circle moment of my life right now. So I know my story already written and I'm building up being out the company right now and my father. Well, people be able to get this in your book, because I know you're happy what's coming. You got a book coming out that I'm like two months out right now. Um, just

working on the last finishing touches of it. But um, I'm really excited about that because this night, that's not my memoir, but this is gonna be the book that like take people like if you had a dream, you had a kids, some alter you know your situation now and you kind of took a pause on it, this book on bring you back to life and everything you want to do, because you're looking at somebody that got over forty some tattoos on his body. I'm not your

every CEO. I come from the ghetto. I didn't had a narcotics cases and then arrested all these things, and I built the multimillion dollar company off for nothing, and now I own multiple multi million dollar companies off of believing and everything that I was. You know, my mission on my dream. Now, we just interviewed your fiancee. She's in love. You're in love? Oh yeah, definitely. When is the wedding day? My brother Joe wave you guys excited? No, definitely.

I feel like we're already married though you know, it's like we already talked about that because on paper, we got too many assets together, so it's already. She told us a story. I'm trying to verify some things now. She said, uh, broken window, she slid in your d M. The truth she told her. Okay, so I know that that was accurate. Now, she she left out of detail of how I got into y'all have them kids? So did you make the first move because y'all had a

business relationship first. Correct, Yeah, yeah, we had a business relationship. What did you how did you get personal? My brother? Um, did you did you realize? No? I just you know, you know, like you know how you you you're cool with a chick, but you'd be like, damn, you can see yourself dating. But like this was different. This was like somebody that I've seen myself. It was like my shadow. You know what I'm saying. So we was talking to each other. It's like the first moment we we need

some clarity speaking to the mike, sir. What I was saying is like the first initial meet up place that we went to, it wasn't a date. It was just for us to you know, get to know each other and all that. When she reached out to me when my windows got bust out from George Floyd were setting, um, sunflower ahead. No, it's it's never had no vegan food in my life. This vegan food and my cousin that was there, he got murdered last year. He was the

only one that really She said the same thing. And we're sitting there talking and he keeps like tapping my foot. She don't notice. He like, when we're out of here, I got him just chilling sitting here, but we're get in the car and he told me he was like, Yo, that ship person, like that's gonna be the person you're gonna be with. And I'm like, man, no, what you're talking about. We're just doing business together, trying to you know,

help these communities out. But when I realized she was really the person, and for me, it's when we literally said we was like one of the build the communities out with different things. Like you know, usually when you started talking to a woman in no shading the other woman, but most of the ship you're talking about is like some of the stuff like material or it's like what club you're going to the night or whatever. That hers was like more like let's be a hundred inmates out,

you know what I'm saying. Let's let's uh get some let's get some community centers rolling stuff like that. So, you know, sad to say in the situation for shop Brooks was murdered, you know what I'm saying, And we did our first initial gear back was you know, buying his his wife of a vehicle, providing life insurance for

his kids. CEU partner at was six hundred thousands in scholarship money, and I'm just like, damn, who else I could have did this with in the world that would have believed in what I believed in how to do it? And from there they just started getting stronger and stronger. Babies just don't pop up, sir. I want to know what happened? Did you exactly one of the day that

you leave it for the kids? First? What happened? We'll be right back with more of the Baller Alert, y'all real listeak to a special edition up the ball Alert Show. What's up that your boy d Hayes from Big Dave Cheese stay chilling on the ball Alert Show? You did? What happened? No? She can't. She I think it's her fun what I wanted? Yeah, real life, I think um, I think she went in for the kill. But kid,

I was ready. So you just probably didn't feel like, well, I wanted to out of all the people that you know me growing up and I've been around different females and you know, this was something different from me. This was like, this is like not even on those soft ship. This was like, Damn, I really know what love is now, because like you can like lust somebody for a long time. You know what I'm saying, should get real then you see who really love you? You know what I'm saying.

But this person was like, I don't got to go through all these battles and you know what I'm saying, see if this person and love me? Because we literally set our ass out so as assets out on the table, like when we start dating, like what do you got? What you got? Like you're gonna meet me halfway on this like and it was real because honestly, I don't think nobody wants to jump in a relationship where they got to take care of somebody or they can't meet

the you know, the other end of the stick. And for us, you know, I had my ship together, she had hers together, so it worked out. How do y'all turn business off? Because you guys are partners, you know, you are intimate partners. Like it's been like, how do you turn that off? Or do you feel that your relationship thrives because you guys are so much like in business? Yeah? I think because like I said, you, I paid it

to you this way. When you when you wake up four o'clock in the morning, you've got an idea and you can wake the person about their sleep and they can jump right into it with you. It's never hard, it's never worked, it's it's a purpose, it's meant. You know what I'm saying. We both do the same thing. So like when people ask us, how do we leverage out the business the personal life, all that ship mixed? Then you know what I'm saying, like first before anything

is my friend. You know what I'm saying, everything else fast in line of everything else, Like we don't have the battle the love life because we could be talking about some business ship and we can start making love five minutes. Because it was like that's our stipulation. Stimulation

what I'm saying, like like mental stimulation. You know what I'm saying, learning and learning where we went from each other and how we're building and that's how we did it, and that's how we had two kids and two years along with your two daughters. It's a great extended family. Yeah. I just had um all my kids together last night. UM, and it was a beautiful thing. When you're watching you know, three girls and then my young king. You know what

I'm saying, like he growing fast. But I'm actually sitting looking at my kids and looking at my dynasty that I'm going to build for them, So I'm gonna get them all the resources and stuff I never had and a real you know what I'm saying, a lot of people use this word because it's popular. The whole I'm breaking generational curses. A lot of people don't even know

what that means. So I'm gonna give it to y'all, like it ain't just money because if I if I leave you a bunch of money, you don't know how to manage it, You're gonna blow all of the legacy that I did. Work my ass off the bill. So you got to actually teach financial literacy before you teach the generational curse part because if you don't know how to control the asset part of it, you're never going

to keep the asset. And the reason why they call it generational you know what I'm saying, curses because they're thinking like, oh, yeah, we're gonna now get to the next generation ain't gonna be to carry it. But that's what we go through. That ain't where a lot of

other generating no cultures go through. Because they're teaching their kids that eighteen percent and what I'm saying of credit card is already going over your limit before you pay the bill, if you pay, you know, at the last minute, or learning how to send your kids the college off cash forwards money like you know, you got a credit card and every every time you spend it, you can transfer that money to a bank account. That's free money. Imagine you did that for eighteen years, they could be

a kid of college fund. So that's the different ways that you can control the financialiteracy part of it to break the generational curses. So you know, I think we all use that and interviews and everybody like, yeah, I'm trying to break my family generational curses. But what are you really breaking If you're the only person breaking it when you leave it, they ain't going out of control it. Yeah, if you're not sharing the information. And still now you

gotta share the information information. I mean they say that, you know, by the third generation, the wealth tends to deplete because that person wasn't taught or given the proper resources and education. So I think it is really important to make sure that you're instilling those key values because

that's all you know. Because think about it, some of us in here right now, our families could have actually had the bag early on, like we don't even know you know what I'm saying, never carried on to us. So whatever your last name is, back in the seventeen hundreds, you might have been cool, you might have had all the gold, you know what I'm saying, But it didn't

get carried on that way. So we can't just use that thing and saying that we don't have a fair shake when we know now we're getting tricked out our spots to get the right spoon, you know what I'm That's how I look at everything. Okay, all right, well sir uh you had anything to talk about the founder Shaw, What's what's some of the work that that we can

look forward to you accomplishing with the foundation? Um? Well, right now, man, pinky Uh, we're doing this life insurance initiative on on black men us UH make thirty thousand dollars a lesson income, you get a life insurance policy, pay for the fresh year and prudential partner with us UM. I think that's big because me coming from Philly, I lost a lot of my friends or people in my neighborhood and then they got to go have go fund

mese or fish fries. You know what I'm saying. Now days, we're trying to provide something that they don't have to go through with that. But people don't understand that life insurance is just not a life and the deaf thing, you know what I'm saying. That's the real financial literacy part of it. Because if I had life insurance and me and you cousins, and I got mine policy for like a year or two, I can add you onto my policy and now you're gaining your own, you know

what I'm saying. So it's like you're passing on the sticks. And I think a lot of us go through UM, a lot of trauma. UM trauma is a memory inside of your brain that stored until you learn how to control that. And we take that up, you know what I'm saying, from filthood, and then we try to you know, when we get to adults, were still kids in our minds because we're blaming all the things that happened in

our lives, and we gotta stop doing that. So this initiative was solely for that and the other things that I've been doing, like even in the pandemic, my foundation, we've had forty hospitals every single day. Um, I've seen a lot of people standing down. We wanted to stand up because we know the community has built us. Without the community, we was nothing. Um. I gave out probably two hundred dollars throwing out throughout that year, two businesses

to help stay open. You know, a lot of things that we did was to keep everybody around us going because we was the only will rolling. You know, we eventually was gonna go down. A lot of people scared of get next to another popping thing because they think it's gonna hurt them, But that's gonna help you because that community gonna stand strong together. And that's what I was trying to do with my foundations. And I named

it David and Derrik Cage Foundation after my father. So this year, um, actually j what was like two weeks ago, I was on Tamaran, so I just did Tamara hall. Um. I gave a school twenty dollars from my foundation. They named the hub athro me in the high school. So I'm getting honored with that after the holiday. So I'm saying, like, damn, I ain't from Atlanta, but now they naming schools after me. Yeah,

So that was that was the real special thing. So it's it's showing that people appreciate, you know, all the hard work that I'm playing out on the community because we're community based. Like I already got the food popping, already got the business popping. But what's that if you got another young brother look like you struggling and you can't give him information on what's really going on out there. And I do a lot of talking to the community.

So that's basically what I do with the foundation. Your fiancee is vegan, you are not? Uh do y'all use the same you know? Uh, one side of hers one side of yours? Now, Um, we got a flat top so we got like burners just like stove and then we got like um flat tops like using the restaurant. But we do have um dishes that we we do cooking. But we respect each other in the household. It ain't

like you know, what you eat ill or all that hand. Naturally, by being around somebody that eats a little bit healthier, you go Eventually, I was just gonna, yeah, it's a certain things. So you know a lot of stuff I eat now days. Um, No, I'm not vegan. I love seafood. So I always just ate seafood anyway, So I still eat chicken, and I eat a lot of seafood. Do

you see yourself leaning towards veganism one day? No? And not and not and not even just because um, I would say not because that I wouldn't want to or I can't uphold or some thing, just that type of food. I really love seafood, you know what I'm saying, Like, I really like I gotta have like the blue crabs, shrimp,

I gotta have oysters, all of that stuff. Like yeah, I really I grew up off of that, you know, like Philly is like you know, it's it's right next to bottom or it's so we get all of like the blue crabs and all that. So like that's something that I really like can shake. It's like a real dress. You guys, um RaSE your kids, uh in the vegan lifestyle or just they just you know, you just give

them free will No they vegan. The kids is vegan, but my son he might be uh you know, he might be a little pesketian like yeah, but I'm gonna give him that option. If they want to be vegan like their mom, they could be vegan. But it's it's it's a it's a good thing for me because a lot of my family died from cancering. A lot of stuff they pain in foods. We don't really you know, what we eat, and so you know, a lot of that education, you know, you know, rubbed off on me

and I'm learning different things. But also where I'm learning from her with the food, she's learning from me because a lot of people don't know that, Like even in Big Davis, we don't. We don't sell um steak that has hormones in it or any any of that in it, you know what I'm saying. So we have a healthier choice of if that's what you know. I'm saying, if that's what you want to eat. And I always wanted to build my brand that way because I didn't want

to just you know, sell trash meat. Like a lot of people don't understand that that steak that we sell is expensive. We just set a lot of it to me to uphold the profits. But we didn't have the traffic that we had, I probably would have been buried, you know what I'm saying, Because it cost a lot, like one case of steak cost to twenty and we and we're selling ten thousand pounds of steak almost every week. Damn you know what I'm saying. You can definitely tell

this quality. Yeah, for sure, I gotta be. We'll be right back with more of the baller Alert Show. What's up y'alls? Your boy d Hayes. The motivation I'm gonna get y'all right now on this show that I'm talking on. Its life is not attracted me as a marathon is all about how you and run your race. I can't get enough of baller Alert. Follow us on all social media platforms at baller Alert, go on to baller alert dot com