Top 5 Tips to Make Your Creative Ideas a Reality

You know, what needs to be focused on now versus what can wait, the consistency element, the dealing with adversity element, all of that, and really be able to push it into your business, because I think there is some corollary there. And so hope you enjoy this episode of Top 5. Well, hey, I appreciate y'all doing this today, man. This is awesome. Yeah, man, of course. We're happy to. I love chefs because they take just like, they just imagine shit and then make it real, right? And so that's kind of what I want to talk about today is really like, how do you take a creative idea? I'm like, A, where do you kind of draw the inspiration from? But then also, how do you take it and make it real? Yeah. So I mean, I don't know. I draw my creativity from, I think, my family.

You know, I grew up with parents who were very supportive of my wandering brain, I would say. And, you know, ever since getting into cooking, which was 15 years ago at this point, I've, you know, followed my chef's footsteps as far as watching them very closely in terms of how they conceptualize dishes, how they execute dishes, where they draw inspiration from. And everyone has, you know, and everyone has, you know, their own methods and, and it works differently for different people. I personally get excited about food in general and just when, whenever I see something, I'm a note taker.

I just start writing stuff down. So it could be an individual method that I've never seen before or something I have seen before, but it's been a while and I want to remind myself of it. So I put it on paper. And then, you know, I guess when I'm coming up with dishes, it depends. I mean, it's, it's based on the concept for me, but, you know, if we're talking about within my restaurant. So right now we're at Bami's, our Caribbean restaurant here, my aunt's Jamaican, I grew up eating Caribbean food. So I draw a lot of inspiration from, from her family and the food that I was fortunate enough to enjoy growing up. But, you know, just yesterday a friend came in and, you know, I wanted to make her something special. So I ran in the back and I, you know, everybody's brains work differently, but, you know, you think about it kind of as like a blank canvas, right?

And then all the different paint colors you have, it's kind of the same thing with ingredients. You know, if they're in front of you and you can get eyes on them and you're like, okay, cool. I have this, I have this, I have this. If you have the experience to do so, and even if you don't, you know, it's, it's what I like doing is just kind of putting things in front of me. And I'm like, okay, I could put this with that. And that would taste like this, but then like, I'm going to need something texturally. And then I'm going to need this and you start kind of layering it in. And it's all about, you know, as I'm sure you've heard and there's cookbook called this salt, fat, acid, heat, you know, you get, you get all that going. You need texture, you need, you know, pops of color, all these different things that come into play to truly create what, you know, ultimately you hope to be a really great dish. Um, that all is, you know, it's, sometimes it's off the cuff.

Um, and that's kind of what I'm having the most fun. Um, but there's definitely also a lot of sitting at home, pen and paper, writing a menu, uh, hating it the next day, rewriting it, hating that one. Uh, I always joke, I have no tattoos, but, uh, you know, I've had a million bad tattoo ideas, right? Kind of the same thing with my recipes, like all like, or, or a dish, like I'll write something down and be in love with it. I'm just like, oh, this is going to be the greatest dish ever. And I wake up in the morning and I'm like, what was I thinking? I'm like, and I haven't even made it yet. I just, you know, I just know that I'm not going to like it. Um, but it's a, you know, it's a, it's a process, you know, so it's you, if you, when I, at least for me, it's very helpful to write things down.

So when I put something on paper, I go back and I look at it and I'm like, well, maybe I don't like that whole dish, but maybe I like this one concept I had. And I think I was headed the right direction, but then I deviated at some point, whether it was the protein or whatever it was, you know, even if it's like a side dish or a salad, you know, sometimes you start off with a cool idea or you don't. Um, it doesn't always, you know, hold value long-term, but when it does, that's usually when I end up creating my best dishes is when I come up with something and I'm like, okay, I hate that. Let me think about that for a while. And I'll come back to it like a day later over like morning coffee and, and then, you know, take that individual idea that I had that I did like and build off that. And then it's kind of this, it's like, you know, just a bunch of different iterations.

And then ultimately, hopefully you land somewhere where you have a fun and exciting dish. All right. So a couple of questions off of that. I want to go all the way back to almost the very first thing you said, which was you grew up with a wandering mind. So how did you get into, this is what I want to do with my life being a cook from, I mean, was it just like school was not great for you or. Or no, um, I, uh, I was actually, I did really well in school. Um, I have kind of an unconventional entry into restaurants. Um, I went to, uh, four-year school for economics, um, UNC Wilmington. I graduated, I'd always had restaurant odd jobs, you know, everything from like Panera to fine dining restaurants to help make money, um, growing up.

Like we all did in college, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, and I had interest, you know, I don't think I ever thought for a second that I would be, that would be my line of work. I don't think I, you know, I thought about it like that as much. I did enjoy it, you know, the camaraderie in the kitchens and the, I love eating. So that was easy enough. But, uh, you know, I went to a four-year school and when I finished, I went home and I had a job offer. And I remember looking at the job offer and I went to an interview and I came home and I was like, I looked at my dad and I was like, I don't think I want to do that. And he was like, well, what do you want to do? And I was like, I want to go to California. And I, I, I surf. So my, you know, my thought process was, oh, I'm just going to take some time. People do that, right? You know, after school, I'll take some time.

I'll go out West. I had a Wrangler at the time. I threw my board on top, grabbed three of my buddies and just moved out West. Um, which was the best decision I ever made. Um, you know, I ended up seeing more of the country than I ever had before. And then, um, when I got out there after just, uh, you know, kind of roaming around aimlessly and surfing and not making any money, uh, I decided I did need to make money. And the thing I knew how to do was cook. So naturally I started doing that again. Um, and it took a while, honestly, for it to like, for it to latch on for me being truly, truly passionate about it. Um, I think it, it took, I don't know. It took, it took probably two, two or three more restaurants before I was like, you know what?

I've gotten pretty decent at this and I always loved it. It wasn't that I didn't like it. I just, you know, I was so hung up on the fact that I had this economics major and I should be, you know, getting back to that and whatever. And maybe eyes on the dollar signs a little too much to, um, there were expectations, right? Um, that's another thing. My parents didn't really care as long, as long as I was happy. And there's still that way. And I mean, that was a huge benefit for me throughout the entire process, because when I went from having a, you know, a six figure salary job offer out of college to working $7 an hour, they were like, uh, are you sure? Um, and, uh, anyway, no, I ended up, um, I bopped around.

I worked in LA, worked in San Francisco, worked in Lake Tahoe, then went back to San Francisco and I went to culinary school, um, at, uh, La Cordon Bleu, um, which no longer exists, um, or the California Culinary Academy. Um, and, and I was working, uh, nights at the time and I had this chef who, you know, most kids went to culinary school and they went home and, or they went to the bars and they were like, oh, let's go to the park and smoke weed at San Francisco. Um, I, uh, I didn't do that. I went to, not that I didn't go out and drink with my buddies, but, uh, I went, I had a job that started immediately after culinary school ended every day. So I did culinary school 7am to 2pm. And then at 2 30, basically I was in my restaurant called company restaurant at the time and, uh, the mission in San Francisco.

And I had this chef, Karen Hoffman, who was the first female, uh, executive chef ever for four seasons restaurants group. And she is probably my biggest inspiration of all time. She would, uh, not only would she put me to work and, you know, and, uh, whip me into shape as soon as I walked in that door, she would also ask me what I learned in culinary school, um, and make me show it to her. So if I learned how to like laminate dough, she would make me do it that night after service, meaning she'd make me stay late and we would do it together. Yeah. Um, and I didn't have like unlearning and teaching you the right way to do it. Or was there like, yeah, sometimes, yeah, actually a decent amount of the time. She'd be like, your teachers have no idea what they're doing, um, but she was, I mean, she was the, uh, kitchen manager at Jardin air, which is one of the most prestigious restaurants in San Francisco's history for a long time where I worked for a little while.

And, uh, and she knew her stuff. So I listened to her and she slowly started giving me more and more and more to do. And then because I was so interested in committed, you know, working overtime, working, you know, after hours, helping her clean, you know, she just opened the restaurant. She entrusted in me a lot and then slowly started to show me her methodology behind creative cooking and, and, and, uh, yeah, I still to this day, keep in touch with her and she's by far, and I've worked for a lot of amazing people. She's definitely my biggest inspiration. Austin, I can't leave you sitting there just like not talking. Oh, that's all right. Hey man, I can go. I like to hear Chris talk.

How about, how about yours? Like, like you're, you came up, you have, I mean, I know your sister, right? So yeah, of course. You have like a whole Midwestern influence plus a whole like, central American thing going and yeah, you know, Chris's, Chris and I's stories are, are kind of similar, but different, but similar in past. And that, you know, I, I went to a high university like Rennie, um, like our dad did as well. And I, I had two degrees in Spanish and international relations. And I was kind of geared towards that path. Like I thought, you know, maybe I shouldn't be working for like an NGO or whatever, whatever. And I graduated and I went home back to Ohio. And I was like, uh, it's kind of the same thing.

I was like, I don't really want to do this. So I actually did the same thing. And I was like, well, I'm going to go to California for a second. Uh, so I, I didn't even know. Yeah. I went out to LA and San Diego and I was just actually, um, I had worked, I had bartended and, and worked in a few restaurants through college. And I, I was cooking fish tacos actually in San Diego for a while. And, uh, a roommate of mine from college called me and he was like, what are you doing? Uh, so I'm, I'm doing nothing. He's like, do you want to move to DC? And, uh, I'd never been here actually. Uh, um, my other sister, Nikki was living here at the time. And I was like, Oh, DC sounds cool. Like my sister lives there. Why not? So I picked up, I called my dad and, you know, kind of similar to bounce off Chris.

Like I'm pretty fortunate in the same way that, you know, I have parents that were kind of like, okay, but very supportive in the sense that they always kind of let me figure out the realm that as long as I was comfortable and I could take care of myself, that they would support that. Um, so I, I moved out here and, you know, I started applying for, you know, different positions. I looked on the Hill, I, I got some opportunities and there were all these like entry-level jobs that I don't have a problem with entry-level job. Like kind of to say, Chris, you know, he was working $7 an hour in a kitchen. I didn't mind working for eight bucks an hour as a bar back, but these office jobs, just, I went for some interviews and everything just seemed very stale to me, but I needed money.

Uh, so I, I met some friends and he was like, uh, you know, at the time I need a job. So I, I got a job working, uh, at a pie shop. Actually, it still runs in DC. It's called, uh, the pie shop DC. They're very good friends of mine to this day. So I was doing front of house stuff there. So I would go in at like seven in the morning, watch some baked pies. I ran the front of the house. And then at night I went to the bar next door and bartended. Um, and then that kind of just set a trajectory of, for me, I've always enjoyed hospitality business. I, I enjoy as much as it can be difficult of, you know, dealing with patronage and people and difficult stuff. I don't, I don't mind that. Um, I, and I tell my staff this all the time, you know, like, let me be the bad guy because I don't, I don't, I don't have any issues with that.

I, I like navigating those realms so that, you know, after years of, of working, I worked at, um, I went deep into like the club realm. I worked very late nights, you know, four or five, 6 AM and bartending and clubs and all of that. Um, that's kind of where Chris and I met up. It was like six, six, six, six plus years ago. I took on a general manager position, uh, at a restaurant in DC and, and Gerald, who is the other owner of, uh, Bami's along with Chris, they had just taken on co-executive chef positions of that restaurant in order to open another one together as well. And, um, that kind of spurred it. And that's also, it was probably the first place that I worked in as far as food goes. That was really fun to see like creativity from the chef side because I had managed before, but I wasn't really integrated to the back of the house.

Everything was very segmented. And that's what became very, pretty intriguing for me, or especially working with him was like, Chris would come and be like, yo, I have, I just like this real fucking crazy idea. Try this. And it would be like some weird shrimp thing doused in some sauce thing. And we fried it twice. And like, like, what do you think? Eat this. And he was constantly coming to me, like, go try this, try this, try this. Um, which is made for a pretty fun marriage of, of relations to work with. Um, and there we go. So from there we worked together, um, we left respective positions and then we, we came back together, uh, to open Bami's, um, it's been fun. So let's go through that process. Yeah. You walk in and he's like, here, try this.

Right. And you know, if you're like me, anytime somebody says, try this. The first thing I do, I don't know why I smell it. Um, cause I'm like, no, if it smells like that, I don't want to put it in my mouth. Um, how many times do you have to make something before you get it right? How many times do you mess up a dish before it gets right? Uh, that is really hard to answer. I would say some rarely you do it once and you're like, wow, that's amazing. Last night, last night though, that happened. Nice. Weirdly enough. Um, but oftentimes it's, it's multiple, multiple iterations. Yeah. You know, you have your idea written down.

Yeah. I mean, we made jerk chicken. For, for example, you know, we, we, I, we travel a lot for inspiration. So, you know, my aunt's Jamaican. We've been, I've been to Jamaica a bunch of times and Gerald and myself went to Jamaica for inspiration and went to Boston, which is in my opinion, where the best jerk is in Jamaica. I don't hate me. People from other parishes, even though my aunt's not from there. Um, but we tried every piece of jerk chicken we could find when we were there and we came home. And I mean, I'm not, when I tell you, we tried 50 versions of jerk chicken, that's probably an understatement easily. And we tried smoking it different ways, marinating it different ways. Okay. We like the smoke on this, but we need to marinate it differently. I mean, that's just one protein. Then you talk about an entire dish. I mean, there's some things you just know.

I don't want to say that. I mean, you kind of know in your head exactly what you're looking for. You usually do. At least I do. I'm like, I have a good idea as to what I want and I'll know when there's that like aha moment. Um, dish composition, though, if you're talking about multiple components on a plate, that's definitely more, uh, complicated and we'll take a lot, a bunch more passes, at least in my experience. But once again, sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you're like, well, fuck me. That was good. Let's put it on the menu. So let's, let's talk. So what was, what was the idea last night? Uh, so my friend came in and sat down and I want to make her something fun. And this is like a very snacky thing. So it's not the most technical thing to have to come up with on the fly.

But we have, um, we have beautiful shrimp in house and we have this dish called Escovige, which is a traditional Jamaican dish, fried fish, um, with, uh, covered in Jamaican condiment called pickle. It's like sweet and hot peppers, carrot, onion, garlic. Um, and you basically dress the, the fried fish in the pickling liquid with all the pickles. Um, it's phenomenal. Um, it's like one of my favorite things to eat. Super good. Um, and last night I was like, okay, we have these shrimp. I really want to give her a shrimp for some reason. I have no idea why. And then I was looking around, looking around once again with all the, you know, the cold stations set up and I was just kind of trying to figure out, figure out. And I was like, okay, shrimp and pickles that that's it. I was like, I want to do shrimp and pickles, but what am I, how am I doing the shrimp and pickles?

And I was like, you know what? I love fried pickles. And I was like, why have I never tried frying these? And we have pimento fried chicken on the menu. So it's like a pimento seasoned flour and pimento being all spice berries. Um, so I thought about just dredging both the shrimp and the pickles in this flour and frying it. And then we serve the Escovich, our fish here with an all spice mayo that's sweetened with cassava syrup and lime and a bunch of scallions. And I was like, why wouldn't that be the most tasty bite on the planet? It's like, you know, a fried shrimp and pickle plate. And then the same set basically as the fish. So it's not the most creative thing and the planet, but it turned out to be the most delicious thing I've had in this restaurant in a little while.

You know, we always, we always argue like finding perfect bites. And like, I know when like Chris will come to me and he'll just be like holding this and he's like, just open your mouth. And I'm like, yeah, that's a wrap. Like, I know this is going to be a great bite. And we made a sandwich out of it last night with our cocoa bread. And that's the, that was the, the bite of to rule all bites last night. I think super nice. So what I'm hearing you say is you have, there's a process, right? And you know, we, we deal with the same thing on the business side of things is an idea comes to us half the time we write it down. The problem with entrepreneurs. And one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you about how you get something from concept to plate is entrepreneurs tend to be really long on ideas and really short on execution. Right.

All of us have a to-do list that has 50 things on it that are all like 26% done and won't ever get more than 26%. And so when you come up with an idea and you've got it written down, is it literally just, let's go experiment and play. Let's just figure this out. And we try it 19 different times in different ways. Like, how does that come to fruition in the real world? Well, before you answer that, I can tell you from my perspective as like running the front of the house of the restaurant and working with Chris, one advantage that I feel like I have is working with Chris and his background in economics and kind of just the way that he is geared. He's an extremely efficient person.

So like all of these longevity of ideas, like we all might have ideas. They typically don't sit long with him or in Bammies because he has like a ton, a huge note list of things, but they don't sit long in the idea of like, oh, I'll get to it later. It's either like, I'm going to address this or I'm just, I'm shelving it and it's done. Hang on, Austin. Let me stop you right there. Yeah. How do you decide which one's which? Which one? Which one gets shelved and which one gets actually tried? Well, we try a lot of stuff, but we try a lot of, I mean, we, we go through, even if it's something as simple as like the other day, we have like a curtain that is in front of our restaurant to keep the cold out. And we bought some magnets and it's like, is this going to work?

Okay. No, we try it real quick. And then it's done. Something as simple as like, we're going to try it real quick. And if it works, it works. And if it doesn't work, then we probably just move past it. You can always kind of tell with ideas, both in food and outside, if you're headed the right direction, at least in my opinion, you know, there's a pretty, I think there's a point after like the inception of idea where you're like, okay, this is actually going in a direction where I think we could land somewhere where it's actually possible. And I think a lot of people hold on to stuff for too long. I'm not one of those people. I'll just be like, you know, I I'll obsess over certain things. Don't get me wrong. I'm, I'm crazy about there's certain dishes that I've tried to make for years and still trying to figure out how to perfect. And I don't know if I'll ever get there, but I don't have a laundry list of those.

I have like one or two for the most part, I'll work on a dish. And I'm like, if it just, if it just seems like it's not going where I want it to, I'll shelve it. And I'm just like, you know what, we'll come back. Maybe I'll come back to this and it could be six months, could be a month, could be a year, could be never. But if I obsess over it for too long, you know, it'll, it'll hold me back from being creative in other areas. And I try, but there are, there are certain things that I'm like, we have to nail this. Right. I also think, I also think keeping like, keeping in mind, like the palette of the consumer. Right. So like, I would consider Chris and myself like pretty comparable, regular dudes, except for the fact that he has a palette as a Michelin star chef and we've both worked. Like I always like to say, we've all worked between anywhere between dive bars and fine dining.

And that's kind of where we consist ourselves. But at the same time, like we're like, I love very regular Americana food, but I, Chris can also go out and eat something very spectacular at a three star Michelin star place. So with that in mind, the way that he'll approach things or I'll approach things is like, what looks cool for us as like, what kind of diner or what kind of patron or what kind of chef? Like, what are we trying to accomplish? Is this something that I think this is dope? And I would want on the regular, or am I trying to blow the roof off as like a, maybe one spectacular item. And I think that helps compartmentalize at least ideas for something that's just on the regular or like, I need to focus, hyper-focus for one concept for once, you know, one particular day or whatever.

Gotcha. Okay. So on that note, then let's talk about consistency versus being fresh and new and something, right? So a restaurant, most of the restaurants have, you know, like these are the, these are the staples of this restaurant, like Escoviche, right? If that's, if that's the staple of Bami's or one of them, how often are you, we need to move away from something that's been consistently good for us to bring something fresh and new in, is it a twist on that? Is it a, nope, we've got to keep this basically forever. And then we'll just add new stuff seasonally. I think there's, there's a, well, seasonal, seasonality is huge. I mean, we, we, I'm really big on supporting our local farmers and making sure that, you know, and that's, we draw a big piece of our inspiration, which is a total, totally separate subject.

I won't go into from what's available and what farmers are growing as opposed to being like, Hey, grow me this. Cause I think that's a backwards way of looking at it. But yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's certain staple items that I, I know Gerald, myself and Austin know that we will never be able to take off, even if we wanted to not to say we do want to, but you know, jerk chicken being one of those, the Escoviche being another jerk pork probably, I mean, curry goat, like those will never come off this menu. Um, there are also staples of the cuisine, um, as much as they are, our crowd favorites and our own favorites. Um, you know, and they're really fun. I think there's, I think in any restaurant I've ever worked in, you know, ah, that's not true.

But in, in a good amount of the restaurants I've worked in, there's, there's been a couple dishes like that and you kind of, and they're beautiful in the fact that they stay the same. They're consistent guests who come back to your restaurant are excited because they know they can always get that. And I worked at Zuni cafe in San Francisco and they're famous for their chicken and their Caesar salad. And those items will never come off that menu. I'm say that and haven't looked at their menu in a long time, but, but they, they are famous, literally famous for those two items, but they make a million other things. And the fun thing is those are kind of things that the menu is built around, right? So you're like, you're always going to have this. You're always going to have that. What else are we going to put in between? And it almost gives you a little bit of a creative advantage in my opinion, because you're not completely rewriting the playbook every time you go to write the menu.

You know, whereas I worked at, I was the executive sous chef at a restaurant called the Dabney here in DC. And that's a from scratch menu start to finish completely seasonal Jeremiah Langer. And he's one of the best chefs in the country. And we, we would rewrite the menu almost daily and actually very much daily and on a chalkboard where we just sit there and stare at it and think about what we can get seasonally and what seafood we could get and erasing and rewriting. And sometimes chef would have an epiphany in the middle of the night and just call us. Be like, hey, we got to meet at the restaurant tomorrow at 630 in the morning. We're rewriting the menu. And we would have rewritten it the night before in, you know, in preparation for the following day. And, you know, that's a totally different approach, but a very real one in the restaurant world, because a lot of restaurants do function like that.

Mine, this restaurant is, you know, an authentic Caribbean restaurant. So traditionally, more traditionally Jamaican, I'd say by a large margin. And the last restaurant where I was the chef owner made on as a Middle Eastern restaurant that was also, you know, was proud of the fact that we were cooking recipes from grandmothers and people who we traveled and learned how to cook with. So it's less of that, like, every day, let's get creative and rewrite the menu. It was kind of more of the, okay, we love this on the menu. Let's see what other dishes we could incorporate here, here, and here. Kind of puzzling things together on a seasonal basis, but also to keep things new and fresh. So that kind of leads me into what you were talking about a second ago, rewriting daily versus rewriting seasonally.

Do you set aside a certain amount of time that's just, let's go into the kitchen and be creative? Or is it, as it hits you, I got to go try this out or I'm not going to do it? It's a mix. Sometimes, I mean, there's like times of the year where myself and my business partner will say, hey, let's spend the next two weeks working on the menu entirely. As an owner now, I spend more time in the front of house than I have in the past. I'm still in the kitchen all the time. But, you know, we, you know, we, it's usually a little more structured, at least at this restaurant where we do, you know, say, hey, let's go in there and let's, let's, let's sit down, pen to paper, and then start writing ideas. We do it separately because we don't want to, you know, when we're at the same table sometimes and he'll say an idea, I'll start thinking about his idea instead of my own idea.

So we like to do it independently and then come together. And then he's like, oh, I like that. I like that. And then we pull components from each other's dishes oftentimes and create like a harmonious dish, which is a really fun way to work when you have a co-chef, which is an uncommon thing. Yeah. That's actually one of the more enjoyable facets of like running a restaurant where the owners are also the co-executive chefs is that their mindset also comes from what is like delicious and cool and caring about the food. So there's like an added advantage, like, especially for someone who works in the front of the house and works with people, they have such a vested interest in like how that food comes out. Not to say that other chefs don't, but when they are owners and they are both now more on the floor with me, it's been a fun experience to see like, you know, when they come out, like there's, there's a very cool, you know, you know, relation when somebody is having a conversation and it's the chef dropping off a dish and they can explain in more detail than any server than myself and the bartender, like I made this and this is what I think is really dope.

And you should try this with this. Because who wouldn't want that? Like if I was sitting at a restaurant and the chef came out and I was like, you know what? I really like this and this pair really well together. I would absolutely do that. And then you have that bite and you're like, wow. Yeah, no shit. Of course it's great. He made it. And that's cool that he took the time. So that's a, that's a fun interaction. I feel like it's almost probably one of those placebo effect type of deals where if the chef tells me it's good right in front of my face, it's undoubtedly going to be good. I wish that was always the truth. I would go to, I would go to every table. This is delicious. This is all good. I swear. Yeah. All right. So Austin, I'm going to bring you in on this one because I think this is probably more your department. So you can have really great food. What else from an experience standpoint, run in front of house, whether it's pairing it with good drinks, just what, how the restaurant is set, like all of that, what all goes into.

Yeah. And I asked this, the obvious correlation is I can be a really great Realtor, but if everything else that is part of the experience of working with me sucks, it's not going to be, it's not going to be something that people are going to come back to. Right. So in y'all's case, how is that? Well, I think that a lot actually, you know, for me, I have worked in some really great, like everyone I've worked in really great places. I've worked in really terrible places, but the places that stick out, especially within the restaurant industry, because the reality is you see the same people for many hours every week. So there has to be an inherent bond that is both respectful, communicative, and also unique.

And I think that what makes like Bami's, for instance, is that, you know, I could call any one person in this restaurant at any hour of the day, either to talk, to talk shit, to grab a drink, whatever, and feel very comfortable doing so. And everyone has their respective personalities that I think we allow to shine. Like, I'm very big on letting people have personality, having, you know, we don't have a dress code within reason. I think that showing that is kind of important, that shows some personality. I think that having, we don't have a very stringent policy on what you should and shouldn't say when you greet a table, just that you're, you know, formidable with the knowledge that you have, but also that you can engage. And one big thing with, especially with this restaurant, is that you, the culture of Caribbean food is also mixed very intensely with music.

And that was actually one of the driving forces when Chris and Gerald, you know, got this concept together. It's like that we wanted this concept to be like, you can't pull the food from the music. You know, you go to the Bahamas, you go to Jamaica, you go to Trinidad, you go to Guyana. Like music is, is very much, you know, adhesive to the food and we wanted that. So part of that was like, you know, I spent a lot of time talking to friends from St. Vincent, New York, Mexico, Texas, whatever. And I was like, you know, we're, we're building this restaurant, like send me your ideas, artists, music, culture, whatever. We worked with a friend, sent me another friend. She's a Guyanese artist who lives in New York. She came in, did a bunch of freehand stenciling of like some really beautiful peppers and sunrise.

And that's all of our art on the walls was kept within the culture. The music is a whole correlated experience from a lot of different people. And that is something that is really driven excitement. I just, I want everyone to feel like my whole motto going into like running a restaurant, opening a restaurant is that I want everyone to feel comfortable. I want everyone to have fun. Like that's why you go out to eat, right? You go out to eat, to have fun, to have a drink, to, to laugh, to listen to music. And that should be it. And, you know, we, we take ourselves not too seriously in the sense that we want it to be casual, but we take our product very seriously and we take our service very seriously. So I want people to feel comfortable, but also knowing that the product behind it took a lot of effort and took a lot of work and took a lot of explaining and took a lot of, a lot of, a lot of hours of something that we want to deliver with that comfortability feeling.

So I, I think it's, it's, it can't just be the food, right? Is that, is that a, is that a thing anymore? I mean, I guess like if you're going to a food truck or you're going, you know, something like that, it can be just the food, but if you're sitting down to a, to a dinner these days, is it, is it more the experience or I don't, I think it's a culmination. I don't think you can have one without the other. And I think there's something about going to a food truck that is experiential where the food, where you still have an experience. And I think there's a beauty in that, you know, like I love going to pick up windows, like carry out windows are just like when the food's good coming out of that, there's something about that. I'd rather eat that food every day. I'd rather sit on the hood of a car with a cold beer and just be like, this is my spot. Yeah. And this is the food I'm eating. And this is amazing.

You know, not to say I don't like going to restaurants. I do. I love restaurants, but there's something I think in every, no matter whether you're getting roadside food, you're getting a food truck, you're at a fine dining restaurant, you're at a casual restaurant, wherever you are. The experience needs to be there. Otherwise it's just not fun. And I went to a fried chicken place the other day and it was just very stale. There's nothing going on. There was like, the music was turned way, way down. Not that it needs to be loud. It just, it was just like a box, but it had no love to it at all, you know? And it doesn't need to have much with fried chicken, but I feel like there's, there's a way that you can be clever in the creation of a concept to make sure that everybody that comes in at least feels something.

Was the food good? No, but also that can affect, I have to say that I think when I don't enjoy the experience, it will affect how I, how I like the food. As you said, I think that definitely, I think that definitely has an impact on how much I enjoy the, the food itself. You know, I think there's a, there's a balance between the two. Like you can have places that the food is like, so, so, but the experience was so great that it'll make up. And even vice versa, you know, that the environment can be like, eh, but you have such like a, a bomb meal that you're like, I don't even give a shit. Like how it was, but that is not the, the norm, you know? But would you say, I would say though, that I am more keen to go back to a spot, the environment experience is better.

A hundred percent. If it's bad food, but the experience is awesome. I'm more likely to go back than good food and bad experience. A hundred percent. Cause I'll find something that I'm like cool with. Yeah. If the environment, there's plenty of places I go to where the food's mediocre, but I love being there. Less and mediocre, but yeah. So, I mean, that was, like I said, like a big driving force of that is like, I'm fortunate. Like in working with these guys and Chris and Joe, both, they have a lot of transparency with me, which is, I would say, I don't want to say not the norm. Cause I can't speak for everyone in every restaurant, but in my experience, I would say there tends to be more of a division of back in house and front of house. And like, you know, front of house just serves what's coming in the back and back of house just cooks what front of house is serving. There's a lot more transparency here and Chris and Jill are very keen to, you know, interloop every person, whether it's the host, a bar back, a food runner, me on exactly what they're doing.

Hey, we're making this come try this. This is what's in it. What do you think? Um, because opinions matter here. Uh, and that's cool because then, you know, that's what makes people come to work and be excited. Like if, you know, if your work doesn't suck, you're probably more inclined to do a better job. Right. And if you feel like you're part of something, like you get, right. When we, when we bring people on our first, Gerald and I take pride in this is does Austin. We always ask people like what they want out of being here. And if we were able to be picky, the ones that say they, well, they just want the money to go home. I probably wouldn't hire them in this day and age kind of have to, luckily we don't have any employees like that. Everyone here is like, you know, I want to be working somewhere fun and exciting. Maybe they want to own their own restaurant. Maybe they really just, they do want a paycheck, but as we all do, but they want to have, be in a place that's enjoyable.

And, you know, we try very hard to create a culture. And I think we've done a good job of that here where, you know, we, it's like a family. And I think that's so important. And to be, go back to the creativity thing, when the employees are happy, I'm happier. And I'm going to be more creative and more successful in my own, in my own right. And I think when you're with, if I'm frustrated because everyone else is frustrated, I'm going to be in a creative rut, most likely. And it's going to take me away from what I do best. And it'll take the employees away from what they do best. Because it's so very, you know, it's so important. Right. So last thing before I let you go, because I know you're busy running a restaurant. You just mentioned this day and age. Can we talk about the last two years? Sure. I mean, every, every, every restaurant in the country struggled with the pandemic.

So faced with that kind of adversity, like that's where I feel like you have to get real creative with shit. Right. I mean, we opened, we opened the day before. So we were in orientation the day before DC shut down restaurants. Like literally Austin, myself and Gerald had to walk into the other room while we had 20 some odd employees in here for like a menu set training session to turn back around and say, Hey guys, we're not going to open. We're closing in fact. And we closed for a month and a half. And in that time, I mean, the first week I kind of just sat in a corner and did puzzles and drank wine. And then I was like, okay, I have to get serious. We have a restaurant to open. And it was scary. I mean, it was really fucking scary. You know, and I've opened, I've opened over nine, 10 restaurants.

I'd have to count. It might be even higher than that at this point. And this is the scariest one. I mean, it's my own for one, but it, it was definitely a, you know, I was on the phone with Austin and Gerald and being like, all right, so that, what are we going to do? What do we think? Let's pay attention. And what we did, which I think was smart is we kind of step back and looked at what other people were doing and trying to see what the landscape in front of us truly looked like and then react accordingly. And, you know, we, we came back into a world where it was carry out delivery only. So we had to completely pivot the menu, completely pivot the model. We had to, you know, call it, you know, unfortunately call employees and tell them that we didn't have a job for them, which is the saddest thing we had to do by a mile.

You know, a lot of these individuals were so excited to work here and, you know, really needed the money and we couldn't provide a job for them. And as a business owner and a manager, like that broke our hearts. And, you know, but what we did is we just tried to stay positive. And I mean, that's really all you can do in that scenario, right? If you get sucked into the vacuum, you're just going to start, you know, I would have bought another box of wine. I probably wouldn't be here today. But, but yeah, man, I mean, I think, you know, creativity was important. I mean, I mean, keeping a positive mindset was important for creativity, both in the front of house and back of house. And I think we luckily we did a good job of that. Yeah, we just it was weird. I mean, opening a restaurant during the pandemic was not on my 2020 bingo card.

Sure. But we like Chris said, we had to get creative. We had to do carry out. We kind of, you know, redefined what we had to change our cocktail program. Like, OK, we're doing to go like, what can we what holds like, you know, you're looking at drinks that are meant to be consumed, for instance, like on the spot. But is that going to taste good in an hour? Is that going to taste good in two hours? Is the food going to hold like what can we sell and not sell some things like that we have on the menu are meant to be eaten immediately. Like, if you're not getting it for an hour, like, is it worth us selling that and then somebody being pissed off because it's like, you know what I mean? So we had to do that and that sucked. But we got through it. And then fortunately, we were able to, you know, bring back a lot of people.

And that was good. And we still didn't. We took a long time before we opened our indoors. And our intention was always to be like a late night spot to like a neighborhood bar. I mean, we're still not even there yet. We're slowly getting there. We've we've gotten some cool stuff. We're doing DJs. We have day parties. But we are slowly getting back into that realm. But, you know, you look around you, it's like we're now almost two years after the fact. And we still haven't gotten there yet because it's just not viable. But it will be. It's just been a it's definitely been you see the people that the nice thing has been the support. There's definitely people that are, you know, very well conscious that like this sucks and nobody wants this. And, you know, you kind of got to do what you got to do.

And that support has been very nice. I mean, we're still here. Like, that's the one thing I tell people, like people that have come from we have some really cool regulars that have been coming from day one of like early pandemic and some Baltimore carry out from like Baltimore, like picking up food masks like when no one even wanted to look at each other, you know, and, you know, they still they call. They're like, you're still open. We're still open. So that's that's been fun. The rest of the stuff, you know, the bad stuff. And that's pretty much water under the bridge to me. I don't get too hung up on if you get a bad review or an angry person like that's, you know, part of life. So the good very much outweighs the bad. And also, I feel like, you know, when you're serving jerk chicken and painkillers and we have some really cool cocktails, like it's pretty easy not to be upset.

You know? Yeah. Just transport yourself to Jamaica for a couple hours and you'll feel all right, you know? That's right. Throwing a Bob Marley album, order some jerk chicken from Bambi's and enjoy your evening. Exactly. Get a bottle of painkiller and a few jerk chickens and everything. Check in on Facebook from Jamaica. Just make it real. Yeah. There you go. Hey, guys. I know y'all are busy. I sure do appreciate y'all taking the time to chat with me today. No, thank you very much. Thanks for having us, man. It was nice to meet you. Yeah, you too. Thank you so much. I hope to see you next afternoon. Yeah. Anytime you come up, come visit, man. For sure. I'll be there in May, actually. I will be here. We'll be here. All right, brother. Take care. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Top 5. We hope that you took a lot out of this.

I think there's some great takeaways to be able to bring into your business, and we will see you on the next episode of Top 5. Take care.