Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club Morning.
Speaker 2: Everybody is DJ Envy Charlamagne the Guy. We are the
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club. We got our guess co host Lauren the
Speaker 2: Roaster with us, and we got a special guest in
Speaker 2: the building. Brother's name is Keith Lee.
Speaker 3: Welcome brother, Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure to be here. How are
Speaker 3: you doing, man, I can't complain, man, blessed ay favorite.
Speaker 2: Yes. Absolutely for people that don't know who you are,
Speaker 2: you've been going viral the last couple of months and
Speaker 2: years because you're a food creek. Absolutely, but you're a
Speaker 2: food creek the hood way, like you pull up to
Speaker 2: the spot and you eat it in the car pause.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say the whoday. I just eat food.
Speaker 3: I critique it everything, and it's not even from a
Speaker 3: critique and standpoint, it's just I experience everything. So at
Speaker 3: first I will go in and I will eat food,
Speaker 3: and I will experience the whole thing, like sitting down
Speaker 3: the restaurants. But I've always had social anxiety, so I've
Speaker 3: never been really big on sitting down and like sitting
Speaker 3: and talking to people. Really, so I'm getting a lot
Speaker 3: better being around my family and being around the situations
Speaker 3: that I'm in. But really, my family goes in and
Speaker 3: they get the customer service experience for me now because nowadays,
Speaker 3: if I go in, I get thirty backs to food
Speaker 3: and get the experience that it's not authentic. And if
Speaker 3: I go in and I say, hey, the customer service
Speaker 3: was amazing or the food was amazing, it's only because
Speaker 3: I have fifteen min million followers. It's not because the
Speaker 3: food is actually amazing or the customer service. You're gonna
Speaker 3: get the same customer service experience. So I want the
Speaker 3: same customer service experience my mom gonna get if you
Speaker 3: going the next day.
Speaker 4: Oh that's interesting you said that. You know, you being
Speaker 4: the food critic, you don't get an authentic experience.
Speaker 1: And the absolutely it might front now, Oh it's immedia.
Speaker 1: It ain't. No, Mike.
Speaker 5: Might be knowing where you're going to. Like when they
Speaker 5: say you in a city, they sit out an alert
Speaker 5: on Twitter. They'll be like, oh, Keith Lee is.
Speaker 1: In New York.
Speaker 6: It's like, okay, people got tightened up.
Speaker 3: A lot of people ask me why I do that.
Speaker 3: So the reason I put out an alert before I
Speaker 3: go to a city, every food I pay for everything.
Speaker 6: He doesn't go in hisself.
Speaker 1: He said that, okay, so.
Speaker 3: Get a little backstory, because I know a lot of
Speaker 3: people aren't familiar with what I'm blessed enough to do.
Speaker 3: So I basically, I go to restaurants, and I'm a
Speaker 3: marketing platform for absolutely free to these restaurants that don't
Speaker 3: have marketing platforms, but they have great food and great
Speaker 3: customer service. So I go in and I go to
Speaker 3: small mama pop shops. I go to places who might
Speaker 3: have just opened, or I go to places that have,
Speaker 3: like I said, great food and gret because of services
Speaker 3: with people don't know about them because they aren't either
Speaker 3: on social media or they don't do a great job
Speaker 3: of word of mouth, because a lot of these places
Speaker 3: are either ran by older people who aren't on social media,
Speaker 3: or people who've put they all into making the resources
Speaker 3: that they have work and not have time to actually
Speaker 3: go out and outsourced marketing. And a lot of people
Speaker 3: who are on social media or are food influencers they charge.
Speaker 3: So I don't consider myself a food influencer. I don't
Speaker 3: consider myself an influencer, a celebrity or anybody. I'm just
Speaker 3: a vestable of God and I just do what I
Speaker 3: feel like i'mupposed to do and that comes with eating food.
Speaker 7: Use an MMA fighter too?
Speaker 1: Professional?
Speaker 3: Yep, wow, at eight years ninety five is a professional
Speaker 3: four no as amateur.
Speaker 7: So how did you go from MMA fighter the food creek?
Speaker 3: So I've always been really big into food. As MMA fighter,
Speaker 3: food is one of the most important things because you
Speaker 3: got to lose a lot of weight. I fought at
Speaker 3: one thirty five, but I always waited around one to
Speaker 3: sixty five and one to seventy, So really cutting from
Speaker 3: one seventy to one thirty five is ninety percent in
Speaker 3: ten percent dedication. So it's really I've always had a
Speaker 3: passion for food and cooking and really being focused on
Speaker 3: a food aspect.
Speaker 1: So it just, honestly, it's God man. One thing led
Speaker 1: into another.
Speaker 3: I started doing TikTok just to get over my social
Speaker 3: anxiety so I can do interviews for MMA, and then
Speaker 3: by the time you know it, I was I'm here.
Speaker 2: How do you rate when you go to a lot
Speaker 2: of these restaurants and spots, Because, as I was saying earlier,
Speaker 2: a lot of times when you go to a restaurant,
Speaker 2: it is the experience, right, It's you know, when you
Speaker 2: go to the South, you usually get a warming feeling
Speaker 2: from people. New York is a lot colder.
Speaker 1: And we're very cold, very cool when you go to
Speaker 1: those restaurants.
Speaker 2: So how do you rate a restaurant on experience? Based
Speaker 2: on that?
Speaker 3: So really is based on the experience from traveling the
Speaker 3: world and being able to do that through fighting. I've
Speaker 3: took that experience that I've had from that into the
Speaker 3: actual food world. So most of the time it's either
Speaker 3: based on a customer service, the food, or the overall
Speaker 3: experience itself. So if let's say I go into a
Speaker 3: restaurant again, this is why I don't go in by myself,
Speaker 3: because I go into a restaurant, I walk out with,
Speaker 3: like I said, thirty five bags of free food. And
Speaker 3: that's never been my My mo is to help restaurants
Speaker 3: and to help people and to be a blessing that
Speaker 3: I feel like I've been called to be. But in
Speaker 3: order to rate sufficiently, I get the food in front
Speaker 3: of me, I eat it like everybody else. I give
Speaker 3: my opinion like everybody else, and I make sure I
Speaker 3: pre EMPHASI it that this is my opinion. These are
Speaker 3: my taste bloods. Yeah, I just taste food. Bro that's
Speaker 3: really what it boils down to be. But I'm blessed
Speaker 3: enough to where if I go in like a restaurant,
Speaker 3: or if I actually am super fond of a dish,
Speaker 3: it might be a four to five hour way time.
Speaker 3: And we've been able to do it in Houston, We've
Speaker 3: been able to do it in Detroit. We've been able
Speaker 3: to do it in Miami. We've been able to do
Speaker 3: it here. We've been able to do it in Vegas,
Speaker 3: New Orleans. So we've just been blessed enough to go
Speaker 3: to places and once we leave, we might leave a
Speaker 3: like I said, a five hour weight time, six hour
Speaker 3: way time. The places who haven't been blessed enough to
Speaker 3: have that experience or that exposure.
Speaker 6: The location called the I think it's the puttery what
Speaker 6: you said.
Speaker 5: They had to close down and get themselves together to
Speaker 5: reopen because of all the business.
Speaker 3: You absolutely within the span. So all that has really
Speaker 3: started for me in January last year. So within the
Speaker 3: span of a year, we've been able to raise over
Speaker 3: forty thousand dollars for a restaurant owner who has cancer.
Speaker 3: In less than twenty four hours, we've been able to
Speaker 3: raise fifty thousand dollars for a food truck owner. In
Speaker 3: less than twenty four hours, we've been able to keep
Speaker 3: thousands of where I would say thousands hundreds of doors
Speaker 3: open from restaurants who would email me and say, hey,
Speaker 3: we about to close tomorrow or we're about to close
Speaker 3: the next few days because we don't have the marketing
Speaker 3: and nobody knows about us. And then within twenty four
Speaker 3: hour span, Like I said, it's a line around the corner.
Speaker 3: And I don't take anything on the back end. I
Speaker 3: don't take any money. I don't take any endorsement deals
Speaker 3: from these small companies. I don't take anything from them.
Speaker 3: What I get out of it is knowing that whatever
Speaker 3: I put in the world, I get back.
Speaker 7: Yeah, as soon as you do that, your word is done.
Speaker 4: As soon as people realize like oh somebody paid him,
Speaker 4: or somebody gets or something, your word is done.
Speaker 7: All this is over.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: What was the first one that went really really big
Speaker 7: for you?
Speaker 3: It was a place called Francis's Piece of Reda in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas. They emailed me and they basically said, hey,
Speaker 3: we're about to close those doors because we same thing.
Speaker 3: We don't have a marketing, No nobody knows about us.
Speaker 3: But the food is amazing. And my dad is the
Speaker 3: owner and his name is Frank, and he put all
Speaker 3: his money into this business. But he's afraid that his
Speaker 3: business is about the clothes. We just want you to come.
Speaker 3: We don't want you to do a review or anything.
Speaker 3: We just want you to come and eat the food.
Speaker 3: I went. I met Frank the second I walked in.
Speaker 3: He had no idea who I was, and he just
Speaker 3: was one of the nicest men I've ever met. He
Speaker 3: gave me a frigator rad. He tried to gave me
Speaker 3: freegated I turned it down. He tried to give me
Speaker 3: free food. I turned it out and I just took
Speaker 3: the food.
Speaker 1: I ate it.
Speaker 3: I recorded it, and then within less than twelve hours
Speaker 3: they went from having two customers a day to being
Speaker 3: around the corner. And to this day they have a
Speaker 3: section for luggage to where you come straight off the
Speaker 3: plane you put your luggage because so many people come straight.
Speaker 1: Off the plane.
Speaker 2: And where are you from.
Speaker 1: I'm originally from Detroit, but I live in Vegas.
Speaker 2: From Detroit with So you've been in all these different places, right,
Speaker 2: So you said New York is cold. So when you
Speaker 2: say New York is cold, explain to people when you
Speaker 2: get service in New York and compared to service in Detroit,
Speaker 2: compared to service in the South.
Speaker 3: Culture is different. Culture is different, the people are different.
Speaker 3: When I walked in, you asked me or you said
Speaker 3: that I'm a ghetto food critic. So it's like that
Speaker 3: alone New York. So it's like New York is cold.
Speaker 3: They play with you a lot, but I got I
Speaker 3: got thick skin. So it's like what you say to me,
Speaker 3: don't bother me. I just don't like when places or
Speaker 3: people go to these smart restaurants and they get that
Speaker 3: that energy that.
Speaker 2: But your food creek the hood way, like you pull
Speaker 2: up to the spot and you eat it in the car. Pause.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing, that energy that you gave me
Speaker 3: when they give it to smart restaurants.
Speaker 1: That's what I don't like when you get it to me.
Speaker 2: I don't mind it's not the same because I'm from
Speaker 2: the hood, but I'm not ghetto. I'm from Quities, but
Speaker 2: I call it the hood, but it's nigga.
Speaker 7: You are so ghettle I'm not.
Speaker 1: You think you not gettle.
Speaker 7: You're one of the most ghetto is niggas.
Speaker 3: You got to you gotta he got a white beeter,
Speaker 3: but he said twenty degrees outside and his rainer.
Speaker 7: Jack.
Speaker 1: Okay, now that you also wear video got no strings
Speaker 1: on it from TikTok.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I would pick up on like
Speaker 6: your actual personality, but you' not like that in person.
Speaker 1: I'm the same.
Speaker 3: I feel like I feel like I am who I
Speaker 3: say I am. Is just that when I'm in front
Speaker 3: of the camera and I can just chill in this myself,
Speaker 3: then you just get me eating food. But that's that's
Speaker 3: one thing about the Internet. I'm always me, but you
Speaker 3: don't really know me because I don't really talk much.
Speaker 3: And I only did this because I wanted to do this.
Speaker 3: I don't have the traditional way of marketing or going
Speaker 3: out and pushing myself because my goal isn't to push myself.
Speaker 3: My goal is to push these smart restaurants and do
Speaker 3: what I feel like I'm called to do. I only
Speaker 3: did this as a scratch off the buckets because I've
Speaker 3: always wanted to do this.
Speaker 4: What you said earlier about you know, not going into
Speaker 4: the stassment yourself, that's why you didn't go into candy restaurant, right,
Speaker 4: because why they want to give you perferctial treatment.
Speaker 3: So they personally invited me. So when we were at
Speaker 3: the music fest, the one music fest, one of her
Speaker 3: team members or somebody who was associated or walked into
Speaker 3: me and was like, Hey, we've been inviting you for
Speaker 3: the last week. We've ben DMU, we've been emailing you.
Speaker 3: Can you please just come get a food to try?
Speaker 3: And I knew if I was to walk in again
Speaker 3: the same experience that somebody with less followers than me
Speaker 3: or somebody with no followers wouldn't get the same experience.
Speaker 3: And I'm a person at the D day. I'm a
Speaker 3: normal person. I'm not like again, I'm not a celebrity.
Speaker 3: And the way I think about it, if we were
Speaker 3: ready to get dropped off in a foreign country or
Speaker 3: a random country and they had no idea who anybody was,
Speaker 3: we'd all be picking the same or doing the same things.
Speaker 3: We all we we would all be the same on
Speaker 3: the same plane field. So that's how I live my life.
Speaker 3: So they literally asked me I went, and I knew
Speaker 3: if I walked in it would be completely different. So
Speaker 3: I sent my family in as always, and they immediately
Speaker 3: told them like, hey, it's a two hour to two
Speaker 3: and a half hour away time. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: if we're gonna wait, we're gonna just sit and wait
Speaker 3: like everybody else. That's one thing. I never skipped lines. Again,
Speaker 3: I'm a normal person. But we I sat in the car,
Speaker 3: I waited fit them to go in. They came back
Speaker 3: and it was like a two hour way time. I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, let me go in and see if
Speaker 3: it's gonna be different if I go in, because my
Speaker 3: experience to why Atlanta that whole time was if I
Speaker 3: go in, I get literally five minute wait times, two
Speaker 3: minute wait times, and it's like in Atlanta, I think
Speaker 3: it's different because it really takes status to be able
Speaker 3: to eat or to be able to do anything out there.
Speaker 3: So me walking in immediately, she was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you can come sit down. And I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you just told my family it's too our way time,
Speaker 3: and she was like, oh, well, I called a bunch
Speaker 3: of people and they didn't come and pick up the reservations.
Speaker 3: So that's why we're on a first come, first basis now.
Speaker 3: But a few minutes ago you went on the first
Speaker 3: first her basis. So it was just things like that
Speaker 3: that made me highlighted and made me turn around and
Speaker 3: go sit in the car.
Speaker 7: How many people in your family? Though? How many people is?
Speaker 1: I can't tell you all of that because sometimes it's
Speaker 1: a lot of us.
Speaker 7: So that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: I don't want to blow the cover nobody because it
Speaker 3: only works if nobody knows who we are.
Speaker 4: Because just to be fair, if eight people walk in,
Speaker 4: I might not be able to come.
Speaker 3: Oh of course not no, actually walk We actually a
Speaker 3: five person tape when my family asked for a five
Speaker 3: persona but I came and asked for a seven person
Speaker 3: table and they gave it to me in two minutes.
Speaker 2: But you know, when most restaurants have celebrities, most they
Speaker 2: give them you know, you know, they feel like a
Speaker 2: celebrity is gonna post.
Speaker 1: It, which I want to see celebrities.
Speaker 2: And they'll want to come to the restaurant even more.
Speaker 3: But that's why I only go to places that I'm
Speaker 3: invited to, because if you invite me, you invite me
Speaker 3: on the pretenses that you know what it is. You
Speaker 3: know what it is that I do. So if I
Speaker 3: go into a spot and you automatically know that I
Speaker 3: don't want preferential treatment because I want to get the
Speaker 3: same experience that everybody else kids. Then once you give
Speaker 3: it to me, it shows that you didn't invite me
Speaker 3: for me. You invited me for the opportunity. You didn't
Speaker 3: look at me as a person, You only looked at
Speaker 3: me as an opportunity.
Speaker 2: So you only go where you're invited. You only go
Speaker 2: to the restaurant. So like if you're in New York,
Speaker 2: and then let's say Lauren or all myself say, yo,
Speaker 2: this restaurant is dope. You don't go to those. You
Speaker 2: only go where.
Speaker 3: New York is different because I feel like a lot
Speaker 3: of restaurant owners out here have an ego.
Speaker 1: I'll here.
Speaker 3: Nobody invites anybody. So it's like everything out here is
Speaker 3: word of off. So the way I've been planning out
Speaker 3: here is I only go to places that I've been
Speaker 3: recommended to over thirty times.
Speaker 1: So if got recommended to you a thousand.
Speaker 3: Times, yeah, So it's like if I can have a
Speaker 3: backbone to because what I don't want is I go
Speaker 3: and get my opinion in the restaurant immediate, like, oh,
Speaker 3: we didn't ask him to come here, he just gave
Speaker 3: his unsolicitate opinion, or we didn't Nobody asks for.
Speaker 2: That isn't that the best thing? Like, because I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people look at you as when I
Speaker 2: come to a city, let me see what Keith Lee
Speaker 2: says is good, and I'm gonna go there, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, because I can trust in his opinion.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But if I don't personally like it, then the human
Speaker 3: reaction is to be deflective, or the human reaction is
Speaker 3: to immediately be like, don'tbody asks him to come here.
Speaker 3: But if you ask me to come here and I
Speaker 3: give you my opinion, once you do something like when
Speaker 3: we was in Atlanta, the real mc honey, they asked
Speaker 3: me to come or I got tagged a thousand times
Speaker 3: to come, and then the second I made the video,
Speaker 3: the owner went online. It was like, who is Keith
Speaker 3: Lee but the one of the main I don't know
Speaker 3: exactly what they rolled that the company was, but one
Speaker 3: of the main people in the restaurant. Once I walked
Speaker 3: in and they told me it was a five minute wait,
Speaker 3: I walked back out. They chased me to my car
Speaker 3: and tried to get me service. So it's like, how
Speaker 3: you don't know, but either way.
Speaker 5: Your review stands harder than that deflection because people still.
Speaker 3: I'm a person at the end of the day. I'm
Speaker 3: a customer at the end of the day. That's why
Speaker 3: when you say I get free food, I made sure
Speaker 3: I made it clear I pay for everything. So it's like,
Speaker 3: I'm a customer at end of the day. Regardless if
Speaker 3: you think that I'm somebody or if you think I
Speaker 3: have a status, I'm a customer and I pay my
Speaker 3: money and I want to experience everybody else.
Speaker 2: If you give a negative review on a restaurant, do
Speaker 2: you ever go back and be like, because you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes the chef might have a bad day or staff
Speaker 2: might have a bad day. People I always say that,
Speaker 2: do you ever go back and say, you know what,
Speaker 2: we'll try this again or once it's a wrap.
Speaker 3: It depends on the circumstance, and it also depends on
Speaker 3: Now we're on tour, so we're on tour, we're going
Speaker 3: around to different cities. I'm only here for a certain
Speaker 3: amount of day, so it's almost impossible to go and
Speaker 3: track back. But when I was back in Vegas, I
Speaker 3: will go back because I would have time to go back.
Speaker 3: And eventually I plan on going back to different cities
Speaker 3: or going back to different spots and then some spots.
Speaker 7: I won't go back to it's cut and slices. Not amazing.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely amazing. Yeah, you had it? What have
Speaker 1: you had it?
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 6: I have had it yet. I've heard of it, though
Speaker 6: I've heard of it a lot.
Speaker 4: It's I've had it personally. I've had it catered. When
Speaker 4: I did the Daily Show, I had it catered because
Speaker 4: it's really just that good. Which slightly did you have?
Speaker 3: I had the curry oxtail, I had the chicken and waffles,
Speaker 3: and then the I had a bunch of them. I
Speaker 3: think I had six of them, but the curry oxet
Speaker 3: was the one that stood out to me the most,
Speaker 3: the chili oxel.
Speaker 1: I think it was single.
Speaker 7: He said that here we go. He said that you
Speaker 7: that you hurt are people's business with your reviews. Have
Speaker 7: you all spoken?
Speaker 3: I made a response video, but we haven't spoke directly.
Speaker 3: I saw his response to my response and I appreciated it.
Speaker 3: But I also think a lot of it was based
Speaker 3: on uh misinformation, and a lot of it was based
Speaker 3: on I said, when I walked in, you had no
Speaker 3: idea what I do. So I get that, and people
Speaker 3: make opinions based on that, and they only see like
Speaker 3: one or two headlines and say, oh, he gave a
Speaker 3: negative review the Candies restaurant. He must be doing bad
Speaker 3: for busines. But they haven't seen the amazing things we've
Speaker 3: been blessed enough to do. And I think that just
Speaker 3: was the case with ch Ad, And once I broke
Speaker 3: it down, I think he was a understand whre I
Speaker 3: was coming from.
Speaker 4: I mean, because the reality is, you know, the reason
Speaker 4: you have the following you do is because you are
Speaker 4: clearly impactful for people's business, whether it's positive or negative.
Speaker 7: You know, so you have to that's that's being a critic.
Speaker 1: Is I think that? Yeah, I think that gets long.
Speaker 2: I think I think it's dope because a lot of
Speaker 2: times we go to these places and we don't know
Speaker 2: where to go to eat right, and we because we
Speaker 2: haven't tried the food or we just heard it, you know,
Speaker 2: and reviews online or most of them are fake a
Speaker 2: lot of times because these people do it themselves. So
Speaker 2: the fact that you got somebody that can go to
Speaker 2: the restaurant, the only thing that ever bothers me is
Speaker 2: is some people don't like a ribbean food. Some people
Speaker 2: don't like spicy food. Some people don't like this. So
Speaker 2: if you're not into that, and I am that that
Speaker 2: can you know, skew you a different way. But I
Speaker 2: think it's dope because you get to you get in
Speaker 2: effective people from the real right. And and that's that's
Speaker 2: my point. You don't really have too many people that
Speaker 2: do it that you can really say. Now, he's like me,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try that food.
Speaker 3: You know. See, I always prett emphasis I want everybody
Speaker 3: that wants to go try it to go try it,
Speaker 3: no matter what the food is, Like, I want everybody.
Speaker 3: I don't want anybody's taste budds to be the end
Speaker 3: all be all. And I think that's what we lost
Speaker 3: on social media is that when people put their opinions out,
Speaker 3: it's like, this is my opinion and you gotta take
Speaker 3: it for the end all be all. And I feel
Speaker 3: like I always try to preemphasis that this is my opinion,
Speaker 3: this is the way I taste, and if you want
Speaker 3: to go try it, or if you think different than me,
Speaker 3: absolutely go try it.
Speaker 7: Question you said you walked out after a five minute waytime.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's too.
Speaker 4: Much for you.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, it wasn't the way time. It was
Speaker 3: the fact that my family had just got a different results.
Speaker 3: It was two hours that was the issue. It wasn't
Speaker 3: the I was willing to wait in the two hours.
Speaker 3: So that's that's one thing I want to make very clear.
Speaker 3: I'm willing to wait in a three hour way time
Speaker 3: to four hour way times. I just want the same
Speaker 3: surface to everybody else.
Speaker 2: kIPS. Have you ever got threatened? I'm sure I own
Speaker 2: I had the threaten if.
Speaker 1: You get in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: They supposedly gave us step threats once we left Atlanta,
Speaker 3: But I'm covered by God.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: I ain't worried about nobody excited, So you can have
Speaker 2: somebody right up, I ain't worthy nobody.
Speaker 4: Do you post like if you hate everything about the restaurant,
Speaker 4: food service, everything, Do you post those type.
Speaker 1: Of reviews constructively? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But I've been blessed enough to where I haven't really
Speaker 3: granted to that many spots like that. But yeah, absolutely constructively,
Speaker 3: because again, if I only gave positive reviews, if only
Speaker 3: gave out the good, then it wouldn't hold any weight.
Speaker 3: It only holds weight if you know I'm being honest,
Speaker 3: regardless if you agree with my taste buzz, if you
Speaker 3: don't agree with them, it only holds weight if you know,
Speaker 3: I'm authentically being myself and I can only look at
Speaker 3: myself in the mirror knowing I'm authentically be me.
Speaker 2: What food don't you do? Is there any food that
Speaker 2: you don't do? I don't like charlomage.
Speaker 3: I only alergs of shellfish. Everything else, I'm I'm open book. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my wife does when I want. When I can't have shellfish,
Speaker 3: my wife does the reviews for me. So like crab legs,
Speaker 3: shrimp and all of that.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, So you've never had that.
Speaker 1: You've always been, always been since since birth.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm so sorry to.
Speaker 1: Be honest with you. Chelfers don't look that good either. No,
Speaker 1: it is my review.
Speaker 6: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Understand. Understand.
Speaker 2: Now let's talk about this. You went and got some
Speaker 2: chop cheese.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they was mad as would mad at you. What
Speaker 1: made you go to people?
Speaker 2: Was like he went to Queens to get a chop cheese?
Speaker 5: And how do you even pick that when you go
Speaker 5: into places like New York because each borough is its.
Speaker 6: Own like place.
Speaker 3: So I didn't pick anything I got it suggested. So
Speaker 3: any any place that I go to again, if it's
Speaker 3: not directly by the owner themselves. It's suggested a thousand times.
Speaker 3: So I always show the d MS or the emails
Speaker 3: that I get directly from whoever tells me to go.
Speaker 3: I get New York is a very hard market to
Speaker 3: do anything new.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: The second you try to break any tradition out here,
Speaker 1: it's a rap you try to break. I didn't try
Speaker 1: to break it. I didn't try to break it.
Speaker 3: They tried to break it because it's a black owned
Speaker 3: business that just opened not too long ago and they
Speaker 3: have a salmon chop cheese that they were trying to
Speaker 3: break into the market. But instead of it being opened
Speaker 3: or welcome with like oh they trying something new, is
Speaker 3: immediately like we don't do that over here, what you're doing,
Speaker 3: And it got towards turned towards me, which again I
Speaker 3: don't mind. I just didn't want that restaurant to be
Speaker 3: tore down, which unfortunately is being tore down as they
Speaker 3: trying to do something different. It was decent, but again
Speaker 3: I don't really I don't really like chop cheese like that.
Speaker 3: It's cool, but I don't get the it's I think
Speaker 3: it's based nostalgia. I think it's wrapped nostalgia. I think
Speaker 3: it's wrapped in the fact that you ate it growing up,
Speaker 3: or you ate it in places where you had memories
Speaker 3: tied to it, like leaving the club, leaving leaving places,
Speaker 3: like all of that has to be tied to in
Speaker 3: order it to hit.
Speaker 2: When you leave, you just need something.
Speaker 3: I believe it's attached to memories, and I feel like,
Speaker 3: since I don't have those memories, I don't get the
Speaker 3: same experience, which again I understand, but I feel like
Speaker 3: it's just one of those things. Again, it is wrapped
Speaker 3: in nostalgia, and people won't get out of that nostalgia.
Speaker 3: They just immediately see an outsider. And then New York
Speaker 3: is one of those places that have like real strong
Speaker 3: patriotism to they city. So it's like, if you're from
Speaker 3: New York, you're from New York and you don't want
Speaker 3: nobody outside in New York come in and given the opinion.
Speaker 3: But again, I'm covered by God. I go everywhere I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to go.
Speaker 2: What about Detroit? What was your favorite spot?
Speaker 3: Detroit Cony is number one, obviously, but it's a food
Speaker 3: haul that just opened. It's a black On food Haul
Speaker 3: and they have over twenty different black On restaurants in there,
Speaker 3: and we went and it.
Speaker 1: Was amazing Atlanta.
Speaker 7: Every spot in there.
Speaker 1: Every spot wasn't amazing, but it was a lot of
Speaker 1: spots where do.
Speaker 6: You actually cook yourself like I just at home.
Speaker 1: So that's how it started. That's how it originally started.
Speaker 3: Like I said, to get over my social anxiety, I
Speaker 3: would just turn the cameron and I would talk like
Speaker 3: it was three hundred people in front of me. But
Speaker 3: my wife was pregnant at the time, so at first
Speaker 3: it started with me going to get her pregnancy cravens.
Speaker 3: And then it turned into me cooking because again fighting,
Speaker 3: you would have to fighting and cooking goals is synonymous.
Speaker 3: So I literally would cook for myself four times a
Speaker 3: day and I would cook my wife four times a day.
Speaker 3: And that's how it started. And I did that for
Speaker 3: like a year straight, and within that year or two years,
Speaker 3: it took me to get to a million. It took
Speaker 3: me less than nine months to get to fifteen million.
Speaker 2: Wow, do you step outside the box? Like I know
Speaker 2: Charlomagne's talking about eating deer before or raccoon or things
Speaker 2: like that, or bear? Do you go today say.
Speaker 1: You like I know you from.
Speaker 4: I then be showed I ain't no red, I ain't.
Speaker 2: Never have you have you stepped out the box to eat?
Speaker 1: I haven't.
Speaker 3: I would I would, Yeah, I wouldn't eat bear shoulder?
Speaker 3: What bear shoulder tastes like?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 7: That shit was great. It tasts like beef. I had
Speaker 7: it in West Virginia.
Speaker 4: Actually, when I went to West Virginia, everything I ate
Speaker 4: they either hunted or grew themselves.
Speaker 7: So we had bed shoulder, deer hash and squirrel dumplings.
Speaker 1: Understand, Yeah, you ever try? I would? Would? I say,
Speaker 1: I would like it? I don't know.
Speaker 6: Do you ever get sick from eating food?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 3: I don't get sick, but so much. I don't get sick,
Speaker 3: but sometimes my stomach do be a little.
Speaker 1: But again, it comes with the job. It comes with
Speaker 1: the job.
Speaker 3: I'm blessed to be here, and I'm thankful that I'm
Speaker 3: not getting punched in the face for a living and
Speaker 3: trying to make ends meet.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: This time last year I was literally on food stamps,
Speaker 3: trying to figure out where my next meal was gonna
Speaker 3: come from. So from to be here now? Again, I
Speaker 3: don't do many media interviews. I don't do many like
Speaker 3: speaking engagements to boost who I am because I truly
Speaker 3: believe whatever's meant for me, it's gonna be for me.
Speaker 3: I just do things like this because again, it's a
Speaker 3: check off the bucket and I just want to show
Speaker 3: my kids later like, whatever you put your mind to,
Speaker 3: you can absolutely do it.
Speaker 4: So you've just been in a food critic for like the
Speaker 4: past year nine nine much Okay, okay, wow, just last year.
Speaker 7: He was going fu SAMs. That's crazy.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, That's another thing you could do, showing people who
Speaker 4: are on food stamps, you know, what meals they could
Speaker 4: be eating out.
Speaker 7: Like my homegirl Colleen Witch.
Speaker 4: She has a podcast called Eating While Broke and basically
Speaker 4: she brings people on to talk about, you know, affordable meals,
Speaker 4: meals that you can create on a budget.
Speaker 3: I just do what I feel like I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3: I don't I didn't write this out. I didn't plan
Speaker 3: this out. I didn't write this out. If you would
Speaker 3: have asked me at the beginning of the year when
Speaker 3: i'd be here, I look at you and laugh. So,
Speaker 3: so what's the future, Like, whatever it's supposed to be,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be everywhere I'm supposed to be. I believe
Speaker 3: I'm gonna walk in every room I'm supposed to be
Speaker 3: in and I So the reason we went on tour
Speaker 3: directly is because a lot of TV companies, every TV
Speaker 3: producer you can think of, each to us in March
Speaker 3: and they were planning our shows and they were putting
Speaker 3: our shows, but it was very cookie cutter. It was
Speaker 3: really like, we already had to show plan, but we
Speaker 3: just want to make you the host of it. And
Speaker 3: they kept reversing diners driving and dash at my saying
Speaker 3: that right, yeah. They kept referencing that, and they were
Speaker 3: basically like, we just want to make you the host
Speaker 3: of this show that's already created.
Speaker 1: And I don't like that.
Speaker 3: My family moves with me everywhere, so I want to
Speaker 3: make sure my family has involved in anything that I do.
Speaker 3: So I took it upon me and my family and
Speaker 3: we just hit the role on our own, and we
Speaker 3: went out to show these TV producers and these TV
Speaker 3: companies and everybody else that we're blessed enough for this
Speaker 3: to work and it can work in every market. So
Speaker 3: we just going and we're doing it on our own.
Speaker 3: So by the time we go back to these companies,
Speaker 3: we already have concrete evidence and concrete facts of how
Speaker 3: many businesses we've been blessed enough to help with the
Speaker 3: system that we have. So by the time we get there,
Speaker 3: ain't no changing up.
Speaker 6: And are you feeling right now?
Speaker 4: I would love to see that, because I when you
Speaker 4: think about it, I can think of guy Guy Fi
Speaker 4: pronounce this last name right, Anthony Boardin.
Speaker 1: We ain't got many that looked like me, not at all. Everywhere.
Speaker 1: I got dred, I got locks.
Speaker 3: I'm a black man, I got a black wife, I
Speaker 3: got black children. So it's like, it's very important.
Speaker 7: What do you think of Darius Cooks?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think of nobody.
Speaker 7: Okay, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think nobody we got we gotta run to the rumors.
Speaker 2: But we appreciate you for joining us. And and again,
Speaker 2: I don't want you to feel like I was belittling
Speaker 2: you by saying hood whatever, No, No, What I was
Speaker 2: saying was.
Speaker 7: He's not gonna grab you after Mary. Relax.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying because I want to eplain it because
Speaker 2: I don't I don't ever want somebody to do I'm
Speaker 2: belittling him. What I wanted to What I was saying
Speaker 2: was I was doing it to saying no, I don't
Speaker 2: have a restaurant coming. But I was saying, is I
Speaker 2: love the fact that you go to restaurants that we
Speaker 2: go to. I don't see a lot of people critiquing
Speaker 2: the restaurants.
Speaker 1: That we go to, and the restaurants we go to
Speaker 1: ain ghetto.
Speaker 2: No, they said that what ghetto? He stopped saying. I
Speaker 2: said that. The reason I said that, I did not
Speaker 2: say yetto ghetto didn't come in my word. I said,
Speaker 2: you said, hood I loved the restaurant. No, I said hood.
Speaker 2: I said the restaurants that we come in my hood.
Speaker 2: When I talked about Queens, that's my hood. When I
Speaker 2: talk about Brooklyn, it was of my hoods. I don't
Speaker 2: mean ghetto. But the fact that is, you see somebody
Speaker 2: do a critique of taal, you'll see critique somebody do
Speaker 2: a critique of carbones. When it comes to a taste
Speaker 2: of seafood, or when it comes to cuts and slices,
Speaker 2: you never see that. And I love to see my
Speaker 2: own people doing it. That's what I meant by it.
Speaker 2: And I didn't mean to belive you if you felt
Speaker 2: that way, I apologized, but that.
Speaker 1: Was he didn't mean.
Speaker 6: Charlotte didn't mean to be on.
Speaker 3: His phone, you know, because I love it. I love
Speaker 3: that for you, of course, and I think you capreciate you. Also,
Speaker 3: media platforms keep un the scuorely. We just dropped merch
Speaker 3: uh and this is one thing that's really big for me.
Speaker 3: We just dropped merch and my family and myself created it.
Speaker 3: My cousin created it for us and a bunch of companies.
Speaker 3: We was going back and forth because they really wanted
Speaker 3: us to charge the highest because it's a really high quality.
Speaker 3: They wanted me to charge one hundred and eighty to
Speaker 3: one hundred nine jollas for our hoodies. We charged seventy five.
Speaker 3: They want us to charge one hundred and twenty one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty for our t shirts. We charged in
Speaker 3: forty five. Because the profit isn't the mango for me.
Speaker 3: The mang goal is to have people who follow me
Speaker 3: and people who support me to be and stuff that
Speaker 3: I am proud of and stuff that I will wear,
Speaker 3: and I just walk on my purpose and I'm just
Speaker 3: apprecia to be here.
Speaker 7: You can give me one for free so I can
Speaker 7: critique it and see if the fabrics.
Speaker 6: You don't get nothing for free, so you need to
Speaker 6: buy it.
Speaker 1: God bless y'all, appreciate you'a having.
Speaker 2: It's the Breakfast Coming love for y'all.
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club