Ramsey "OC" Alexander

Episode 3 | Ramsey "OC" Alexander

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

So welcome to the LJ's Lounge Podcast. An opportunity not only where we want to serve food, cuisine, provide for a sense of community, from a dining experience perspective, but we also have this passion where we want to take opportunities to provide some enlightenment, some perspective, some education, uh, particularly from a cultural perspective. So Kenny Jackson, um this thought came to my mind. But this special episode, we have one Ramsey Alexander that uh this idea was in my head and in my heart. But sitting on a bench in the city of Orange after a very good breakfast and brunch at snooze, uh, we're sitting, I think you grabbed a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

And then we were sitting on a bench. And at that point in my journey, after 27 years with Toyota, I was about to uh receive or get a package uh that they were offering, and I knew that I wanted to embark upon something, and I'll never forget that pivotal moment of uh knowing what I wanted to do, and I said, What are you thinking about you you're doing? Ramsey, what do you what do you want to do for the future? Any ideas, aspirations? And you slung it right back at me, and it was unexpected and quite emotional and impactful. And you want to share that?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah, I said straight up, I'm waiting for you. It was it was it was that simple. And you know, anybody who knows anybody who knows you, you when you get silent, you're either emotional or you're thinking. It's one of the two things. And I think in that moment you was both emotional and you was thinking because at the end of the day, uh it started off where uh, you know, as you said, you were trying to figure out, you know, what you wanted to do and what path you wanted to take, and and I'll never forget you saying to me that um you said to me that I uh I'd rather bet on myself. I'd rather bet on myself than to basically continue doing what's being done in this, and and and at least I can say that I've attempted to do it or I've done it, opposed to never just thinking about it and never doing it. So to kind of go back how we kind of got there, we kind of started off right when I first got out of college and we started talking about, you know, I got to hang out a lot, and we first came and picked me up, all my homeboys, and we all jumped in the uh one of your rented um leases that you would get from Toyota, and you picked us all up and we went to Sensations or something, I think. But from there, uh we had did a lot of things uh individually, uh together, uh excuse me, together as a group. And um, a couple things I remember, one of the big things I remember we did back when was we did um the comedy show over off of um Bristol. That was the Double Tree at the time, and Mike Epps was just starting out. I don't know how fresh he was into the game, but he was really new. Uh, we had had him maybe three or four times uh during that time frame. Uh Red Grant, who's still around doing his thing. And then you remember Red? Yeah. Um, and then uh there was the other dude who was from who was on the original cast of um The Real World, the Black Dude.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yes, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, he was one who got kicked out that night because he kept making fun of the owner. But so we had done a few things together, and so once I started to realize like this is kind of your lane aside from your regular work, I'm like, okay, well, and you know, for me, I like being in the environment. So by being in the environment, it lets me be exactly who I am, and that's basically gives me the opportunity to network, talk with my friends, make new friends. Um, so yeah, that's kind of how that all started. But it it definitely started that day on the bench where you kind of wanted to, and again, I don't know if you wanted to hear me say it or you needed to hear somebody say it. But we went out to breakfast that day, like we usually did. And yeah, you you you basically told me what you were thinking, and and I said, bro, I'm just waiting on you. And you stopped, and I was like, got him. Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah, so so Ramsey knows me extremely well, even though um, you mean we've been we've been we've been hanging for a couple decades. Um almost three. Yeah, almost three decades. And life kind of goes through these different, you know, stages of life. And anyone listening to the podcast knows between having kids, getting married, not being married, and you know, kids being different ages and little league, and you you go through these stages. And I think um life is always special when you have certain friendships that, regardless of those stages or proximity or frequency of communication, when you link up, it's like you never left. And so we've always had that relationship where it doesn't, it doesn't matter, and I'm grateful for it. And I I will never forget sitting on the in that bench in the circle, and uh you did, you got me. And then at that point, it further initiated my freedom to start planning. And at that point, I I had already, I don't think many people knew how much I was already working on business plans and information and you know, people that know me as a man of faith. I was like, things were just getting set up. I was like, okay, and when you said it, it was that it was that lift and that inertia that really helped get things accelerated. Right. And so then um I'll move forward to kind of topic number two or chapter number two. So then I approach you a couple months later, and at that point, um, I had been doing a DJ residency at Hotel Laguna for a couple years, and ironically, that started. I was there just hanging out Memorial Day weekend, I want to say uh 2023, 2023, and I was hanging out there and um didn't expect it. They had a DJ on a Friday night that I went back for some reason on a Saturday night, I think before going maybe across the street to Skyloff to hang out. And the DJ was gone.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

So I went up to the bar manager and I said, Hey, you had a DJ last night. What happened? What happened? And he was like, Oh, she called out sick. Well, I had my equipment. And so I go out, I say, hey man, uh, I don't have a speaker, but if I go get my if I get a speaker, you mind if I spend tonight? Yeah. I finished DJing that night at Hotel Laguna, Memorial Day weekend, 2023, I'm pretty sure. Event of the night, and I the my equipment wasn't on point the way I would want it. My headphone was broke. But again, it's like riding a bike. I've been doing it for four decades. Right. I finished DJing that night, and Neil came up to me and he goes, I want you here every Saturday night. And that started, that was another thing that got him. I started DJing and it let me re-hone my craft to get, I was doing a little, you know, doing it. So that helped me kind of reclone the craft. So then, fast forward, at that point, Skyloff started to have me DJ a little bit. So I was getting back in the game while I was still working corporate. But then I came up to you and I said, hey, I'm gonna do this. I went to this spot, they're not open on Sundays. I want to do brunch to start doing a proof of concept for what we agreed upon in the bench. Right. So I was like, hey, I got this spot, you down. I said, we can do Thursday night and we can do Sunday. We can do the link up on Thursday night and we can do so-to-so on Sunday. Yeah. And you were like, let's go. Right. And I want to pause and just give you your flowers publicly that were sitting here out of your belief and out of your support. And during the whole time, you just you rolled with it. And I'm grateful for that. Um, you know, in life, when your friends believe in you and your family believes in you, but especially when you're friends, it means a lot. And so I want to give you your flowers of that belief. And so we went through that proof of concept and I laid out to you the syllabus. You teased me having a syllabus, but I laid out to you, I said, hey, we got four goals when we do this. I said, I said, number one, we're gonna learn. I said, we're gonna learn so much that we didn't we didn't know. So we're gonna learn. I said, number two, we're going to build credibility with owners of these establishments. No doubt. Number three, we're going to build a network for ourselves and start building our own entity and our own brand. Right. And I said, number four, that may not happen. I said, it'd be nice to make money. But if we don't make money, at that point I was retired. We accomplished all four of those goals. Yeah. Talk to me about some of your biggest learnings and some of your early thoughts when I said, hey, we're gonna do Thursday night, the link up at 237. We're gonna do so-to-soul brunts on Sundays, which we did really well, but give your own version of how those things came to fruition and what you learned through those.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

So um, so the the link up actually was um, that was a really dope concept, and we got a lot of traction from it once it started. Um, I was uh surprised um just because it was a new concept. I mean, it's it's an old concept, it's just a new concept that we brought to the table. I mean, it's been around forever. Um, but yeah, the first thing I learned, which again, you you know, you you you kind of know it when you when you're going to the club yourself or going to hang out, but you bring the ladies, the dudes are gonna follow. So, you know, the problem was we were having too many ladies and not enough dudes. So we were calling our buddies, y'all need to come out here because there's too many women here, and you know, I we not on the market, so we we have to make sure that you know you bring bring fellas. But we had a um, it was a good concept. Um, it was a it was a cool little spot uh for as as small and as coinant as it was. Um, you know, the location is cool. You can never go wrong in Laguna. Um it was a it was a cool little location, but um, yeah, it when it started, I you know, I was just surprised that when we opened the door, folks are just showing up. That was the thing that was really interesting to me because it's like, yo, I mean, we literally just came up with the concept, put it together, and now they're here. So that was for the leakup. That's that's where I was surprised. The the uh the Sunday brunch, that was that was cool as well. Um, the the thing what we learned in that process though was we were trying to stack people in the brunch process, right? And so the stacking was give them an hour and a half here, then those people got to go. Then we have another group, and we started figuring out real quick three three groups is not gonna work, bro, because we were working in overtime, right? We were having to move tables, you know, and then the problem is making somebody leave is kind of tough too, right? Because then you learn as you go through it, like you don't want to ruin the experience, especially if somebody came out from Minnefee, which we've had people drive out with no reservation from Minnefee. That's a three-hour drive from Minnefee to Laguna Beach. So um, yeah, we learned as we went on in that process that as we go through it, we have to kind of retool things. But yeah, um, you know, we can control and we had good success with what we can control. We realize that there's other things that, you know, as you go through the process that are not our control. And we started running into that. And as we run into it, we had to figure out how to pivot off of it and and what needs to be done. And we did a good job, I think, of of taking care of week in and week out of what we can control. But you start realizing, and I think this is kind of confirming right now, it's like, listen, it's cool to be able to use this as a platform to kind of um uh what's the word, jumpstart everything and get things moving, but it can't be like this forever because this is not gonna work, and Kenny ain't gonna let it work like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, you know. So, you guys, he's being extremely, even though I'm the corporate one, Ramsey typically, he definitely tells it like it is. I'm gonna be a little bit more PC typically, but I'm gonna keep it real on his behalf. I still keep it PG 13 and clean. The operational challenges we ran into um as far as other ownership, people not understanding the vision, people not planning appropriately. We would come into the brunch, dishes weren't clean, um, you know, napkins weren't wrapped up. So that gets back to that number one. We learned very quickly operationally it was good to cut our chops because we would go in and still smell like alcohol. The bathrooms weren't clean, right? And we're like, we're trying to make you money.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

That was the part that was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

We're trying to make you money, and you're being a hindrance.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

And I think again, we we needed to get those lumps, but I think that's where I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna better myself. Sure. We'll do this way better. And again, I'm gonna give Toyota props. 27 years of the Japanese way, yeah, definitely is it's ingrained in me. Well, as it should be, but it's just no way that we were like, we're trying to make you money and you're hindering. We're like, we're out. And then we went to another location.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

We went from Laguna to Tustin. Yeah. Better from an infrastructure, particularly on the musical front, no doubt, but still operationally, we're like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So I mean, listen, we're grateful to everybody because of, of course, at the end of the day, nobody had to do anything that they didn't want to. Um, but I think, again, I think it was testament to the fact that we're bringing something to them that they ain't doing every week, and that's money. And at the end of the day, if you can bring money to it, they they should be able to listen. So I think that definitely opened the the gateways for us to show what was capable of. And um, so again, I you know, I I I thank both of them.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

You know, agreed, agreed. Well said, well said and totally agree. So, as a very principled investor in this, um, you have a nice chunk of change, as well as myself. Not only do we have capital equity, we got a ton of sweat equity. Um, you know, you've been very trustworthy as far as on the side, you know. Hey, me managing it day-to-day and you know, the marketing, the execution, the planning. Talk to me a little bit about what does it feel like to actually be sitting in our own venue, patiently waiting through that process, because most people would not describe me as patient, but that's a different topic, a different day. But what does it truly feel like for you to be sitting here knowing from the bench in orange if this is coming to fruition, what does that feel like and what do you envision?

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Well, at the end of the day, I knew it was gonna happen. It was just a matter of when. Um, you know, I've said before, uh, you know, and I've I'll say this to the day that I die. I say this to all my friends, even when they ask about it now. Um, you know, if you got a friend that speaks on something for so long, they're either one of two things. They're crazy or they're on to something. That's all it comes down to. They're either crazy. I mean, I was just telling my friend as I was driving in, I got homeboys that, you know, you got homeboys that, bro, we can do XYZ, da-da-da-da, they say they want to do this, you're like, cool, but then you get to a point, you're like, yeah, but I don't know if he's really the person I can do all this with. Like, it sounds good and then it dies off three weeks later. Okay, that's why I didn't do it to begin with, because it died off three weeks later. But you've been talking about it for 30 years, almost 30 years, bro. So, I mean, at some point, like I say, either the man is crazy or he really is on to something. He's got a passion project. And the the fact of the matter is, I've been a part of pretty much, I mean, dude, we used to do the remember we used to do the joint at Rudy's? Yes. I told you, Rudy, the owner used to actually go to school with my son, his kid went to school with my son. But we used to do so, bro. If I've been a part of all these things and I've been in the trenches in it, it's almost like it would be stupid for me to sit here and watch it all and then just let it just pass me by. It'd be the dumbest thing I could ever do. I think the best thing that could have ever happened in all this, to be honest with you, is the time. Because even when you started talking about it, as much as it was a passion project for you, you probably didn't have all the knowledge you needed. The I mean, the passion is there, but it's everything else that goes behind it. You, you, you know, you probably didn't know how to do things because you were fresh in the business at the time. So you didn't gain all the experience that you had, nor did we have the finance in order to make things happen, right? Yeah. So you take up, you take the the finance portion and the experience of everything and say to yourself, things happen, you start to realize things happen for a reason at a certain point in time. You know? So yeah. Uh, but how does it feel? Um, bro, listen, I mean, you know, once it's on, it's on. That's all I gotta say. I I can't, I can, I can't imagine just being in my element knowing that I'm an owner. That's that's the crazy part. So um, you know, like I said, I thank you for for you know staying true to what you said you wanted to do. Um, and again, you know, I I look at it this way, and I I've I even told Kyle this before, listen, we're gonna bump heads at some point. I already know this. This is gonna happen. But here's what I know I would rather bump heads with somebody who I know is getting things done than somebody who's being lazy. I don't care what no one says. We can we can argue over this, that, and the other. It's gonna be love afterwards, but we may argue about it. Tempers may get up a little bit because we're two strong-headed individuals, but at the end of the day, knowing what the main goal is, bro, we we we're gonna kill the game once we once we understand it the way we and run it the way we want to. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

I uh and I want to paint note for anyone viewing, he said kill the game, you take that one, and it's also change the game, absolutely change it. Um, you know, listen, coming out of the automotive industry, uh, I don't agree with a lot uh, you know, of Mr. Musk per se, but he did challenge the status quo and turn it upside down from an automotive perspective. And that's exactly what we want to do, very candidly, is men of color, hospitality game. Um, there's a lot I think we have to offer, and I'm excited to challenge the status quo. Um, so I'm super excited. Um what a lot of people don't realize about us is we are local kids. Yeah. So I grew up on the border of Garden Grove in Santa Ana. I think you grew up predominantly Santa Ana, Tustin. But take a moment to educate, you know, the viewers where you're from in EOC, why this is so important to you, you know, in your little elevator speech.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

So um uh originally I'm from Los Angeles. So I was born in South Central Los Angeles, um, lived there probably till between Inglewood and South Central LA for about seven to eight years, and then we moved to Orange County. Um, once we moved to Orange County, we were kind of like on the border of Santa Ana, um off of uh harbor. We started over there. Then um we ended up moving into uh we were on 17th and Ross over there, um right across the street from Willard. And then uh from there, we ended up moving to I went back and forth between LA and Orange County for a bit. So that was part of it. We were going back and forth between LA and Orange County, and then when we finally came back and like really settled in, it was my fifth grade year, uh, we moved to Tustin off of Pasadena and um McFadden. And that's where all the Tustin folks, everybody knows Pasadena and McFadden because that's where all the high density apartments are. So all the black folks was living in that particular area because there's not a lot of houses in there, and we didn't have no money for no houses. So really, you drop over the McFadden Bridge from Santa Ana, and you're literally right in Tustin now. So we all live there. Um grew up in Tustin pretty much my um from fifth grade on, um multiple places, probably eight or nine different places within uh within um within Tustin during that time frame. Uh elementary, junior high, high school, obviously went away to college, went to Cerritos, played football there, left there, um, scholarshipped up to Montana State, stayed three years there, and then uh came back and has basically been an Orange County boy pretty much. As a matter of fact, when I was at Cerritos, that was my nickname, Orange County. That's what they call me because you know I had Cats from Compton, uh uh Paramount, Downey, Long Beach, you can name it, but Orange County was my nickname. So, but yeah, so I've been uh uh Orange County uh kid uh pretty much from that point on, um, really connected from a sports perspective with you know peers and people whom I've played with, um uh grew up with, played with, and against. And um, and then just being on the sports scene, you know, you kind of get a reputation of, you know, that dude, once they know you, they know you. So you know, you know, so that's kind of been uh the whole deal. But yeah, pretty much been here my entire life doing uh the same thing, you know, partying, hanging out, frequenting these places and whatnot. So if we didn't run into each other uh because of our mutual friends, we'd have ran into each other regardless. 100%. Regardless.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

So think about that. You started that saying you got here, and it's similar. This is a crazy similarity. But you said when you embarked or got here to OC, we're on Harbor Boulevard. Yeah. Our address is 1870 Harbor Boulevard.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, absolutely. That's crazy. First place we moved to when I was little, uh, my mom was married to my stepfather, and we lived off of Harbor. You know where that jack in the box was on the right hand side? Around the corner from that jack in the box. Yep, right over there.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

So, so again. Where our stories overlap, yeah. When I grew up going into junior high at Doway and then Santiago High School, right there in Garden Grove, but on the border of Fairview, my high school, Harbor Boulevard.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

It's right down the street.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Harbor Boulevard.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

First, one of my first jobs, Chuck E. Cheese, Harbor Boulevard, and Garden Grove Boulevard. Now I get to sling pizzas, but 40 years later, I get to sling pizza for a whole different perspective. So I'm I'm excited about it. No, I don't got it. No, no, no. No, no, no. It was disgusting. That's right. So two more questions as we kind of get ready to land the plane, trade tables up, seat back, upright position. For those that are listening, um talk about the importance of this project is to you. We have a group of 11 investors, really, 10 of the 10 investors, but we have a restaurant consultant. But of that group of 11, eight are black, two are Hispanic, shout out Lucy and uh Bonaire. Absolutely. And then one is white, Monty, our front of house manager. But talk about this opportunity and what it means to you as we try to bring culturally play at a different level.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

So well the first thing I would say is it's um it's a pretty awesome experience when you think about it because um I'm not sure that you know I've ever thought to myself I want to own a restaurant or be involved in something like this. Um the main reason I want to is obviously because I've you know I've been with you with everything. I've seen it all, so it made it that much more easier to say, yo, absolutely I want to be a part of this. But I've never known myself to necessarily want, I would I want to own something, absolutely. What? I didn't know necessarily what that was. This actually just was like a train that came along, and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna jump on this bad boy and just run with it because I've I've seen everything that goes along with it. But when you kind of look around at everything that we've done and been a part of, we never really had no equity in none of it, right? And so by not having any equity in anything is um, you know, it's one of those things that as you get older, you you you really just start to pay attention to it more. When you're young, you don't really care. You know what I'm saying? Because, you know, it's like, listen, you know, I'm going home, I'm worried about me, it's about me, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and the other, which is fine because you really need to focus on yourself at that particular age. But you you we really didn't own anything. So you start to think to yourself, you're like, man, we go, we do this, these folks is playing, you know, our music here. They got all these folks here, but it ain't, it's not us, right? So, and again, not that's not to take anything from anybody because at the end of the day, listen, you you still want, but I think what I've learned by talking to people uh while we're doing these things is there have been people who've literally told me, like, I'm just so happy that you guys have this opportunity to do this because we haven't really seen nothing like this, or we're we're you know, where we're in control of doing something for ourselves and whatnot. I mean, there's other places in Orange County that do stuff and they do a good job of it, but and and not take anything from them, but you know, from what we were doing specifically, someone will say, Listen, I haven't seen anything like this. And by not seeing anything like this, um, you know, we're we're happy that this is now there. So I think when you when you look at it and and just think to yourself, yo, you know what? I mean, this is one of those situations when it's all said and done, you could look up and you could say, Mama, I done made it. You know what I mean? Mama, I made it. So I know you're gonna tell Linda, Mama, I made it once once we get there.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

You you you that transition is just phenomenal. Uh so when you say mamas, uh, for those that may or may not know, LJ's is a tribute, namely to my mom, Linda Jean, but it's to all mothers, you know what I mean? All mothers, um, you know, we don't we don't come into this planet by ourselves, you know what I mean? And so um I think it's about welcoming people home. It's coming to a home-cooked meal. And so with that, let's land the plane and tell me when you walk through the door on that grand opening and you just get to soak it up. Like, what are you what are you most looking forward to, and what is it that you want to soak to, and how do you think you'll be feeling that first night we open up?

SPEAKER_00 26:34

So the first thing I'm thinking about is my outfit. Just keeping it real. I'm thinking about what I'm gonna wear that night. Bottom line. Um You gotta be fly. I mean, come on, I can't be nothing less. I couldn't do that to myself. Um the the second thing is, you know, if we're going to be up on this stage thanking folks on the grand opening night, what I'm gonna say. Obviously, I I definitely want to make sure that um I speak the right words at that particular time just to um explain to everybody kind of my my sentiments about the the situation and and whatnot. But um, I mean, yeah, you know, I I would lie if I said I I haven't thought about it because I have, but I think it's gonna be one of those things like right now I'm we're sitting in an unfinished product right now. So when you look at the unfinished product, it's kind of like there's a ways to go. So I'm not really too focused. I, you know, I am entrusting in the fact that you, the rest of the crew, Monty and Sherro, will will do what needs to be done in order to get it ready by the time it needs to be. Um, and I just need to show up and be fly. You know what I mean? So, but when I do get here, I can guarantee there's gonna be a sense of, damn, for real. Like, this is real. This is real now, right? So, um, and I know, you know, I know we're gonna we're gonna hustle hard from every angle in order to make sure that you know we're we're touching every uh aspect of this to the best of our abilities and maximizing the potential of it. But as I said, man, I've you know, I've you know, the beauty about what we've been doing over the past nine to ten months is you know, you're DJing kind of running point from on the stage, but I'm Cheryl and I were actually in the mix, right? So we're dealing with whatever it is we're dealing with, whether it be operational situation, whether it be dissatisfaction from whatever it may be, and trying to figure that out, but then we also get to sit with people and we talk with them. And and I mean, I've had man, I've had a number of conversations with people. I mean, I've had people give me their phone numbers saying that, you know, uh, I work for the mayor of this particular um city. So when you guys get dialed in, let me know, we'll we'll hit them up and make sure. So that just tells me that, you know, and and I know with the you know the corporate backing that you you're gonna know how to, you know, reach, outreach every particular business and whatnot, and just do whatever needs to be done in order to make sure, and you know, and to be able to have a place for you know my friends and family to come. I mean, I got birthdays like everybody, and everyone's bugging about when we're gonna be open. I'm like, listen, I uh there's things that still need to be done, so can't really say until it's all said and done. But yes, when it's when it's all said and done, and and we walk in here that night, yeah, I can I can definitely see um you know a little bit of emotion as we you know try to navigate through starting from the bottom, now we're here. You know what I mean? So bottom line, starting from the bottom, and now we done now the whole the whole damn team's here. So bottom line. Cool man.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Um I want to thank you um for believing in this project, for believing in me specifically. Um, Ramsey Alexander, uh principal investor, um, but more importantly, principal friend uh and brother that chose to ride along for this journey. Uh I have nothing but high expectations for LJs, and so um this will be one of many conversations. We'll use this platform to highlight um different opportunities to give back, to educate, to inspire, to uplift, um, and just be you know, be a positive impact and blessing to others. And and thank you for being along with the journey. We'll have a better setup next time, right? Maybe. Absolutely.