SPEAKER_01 0:00

So, welcome to another edition of the LJ's Lounge podcast. Kenneth Jackson here, proprietor. So excited to have a special guest on this week's episode. I think it was very clear to me in this endeavor of pursuing LJs that I wanted to have chase this pursuit that I think God clearly gave me direction on. My three passions of sports, entertainment, and hospitality. And so as I've embarked on LJs, we're now sitting here. Today is Monday, April 13th. And this Friday will represent one month of having the keys. And the work that has been done in three and a half weeks to me is just amazing and a blessing. But as any good leader knows, that your team and your vision is only as good as the people in the team that you have wrapped around wrapped uh around you and that you have surrounded by you. And so it's my pleasure. We've had some talk with other investors, but today is about talking to what I consider to be in many regards my right-hand man that I'm entrusting to help me bring this vision to life. One Ms. Mr. Monty Martin. So we're not too hung up on titles. But I think formally we're saying front of house manager, but I think that doesn't begin to touch the scope, the depth, and the impact that you're gonna have on this. And I truly believe with you operating at a high level that I feel you're capable of, I think this is only LJ's establishment number one. And so I want to take a little bit of time today to chat about you and introduce you to someone that's gonna be seen on a daily basis and help bring this vision to life. And so let's start with how did you um get into the hospitality industry and how did you uh make that transition and why did you make that transition to LJ's?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

So started off, I was I was a little bit of a troublemaker as a kid. Uh I had a next-door neighbor who owned a restaurant, talked my mom into having me go work for her because she thought she could uh whip me into shape. So I was about 13 at that time, so uh up in Napa, and so just loved the restaurant industry, stayed in it for the past 30 plus years. I've taken a couple different hiatuses and went and worked at a bottling company to uh bottle custom custom crushed wines. Um, did that for about two and a half years and then just got back into the business and everything from restaurants to hotels. And then about this, um, I mean, you and I have been talking about this for about six years or so, something like that. Um, so I feel like it's something that I've been involved with for quite some time already. Um, also the music um is a major thing. Uh the connection with your mom is a major thing. Uh, this this type of food that we're gonna serve is something that's near and dear to me, having lived in Atlanta for quite a while and living in uh Ohio for quite a while as well. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Cool, cool. So all this work we've put in, let's advance. We handle some business that you and I are know we're working on a myriad of things, permitting and licensing. We won't get into that and bore the people with that, but LJ's opens. What do you envision a typical day will look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Oh, it's chaos. I mean, you've got you've got well, you've got a thousand different things going on, you know, everything between your staff, your kitchen, the food, uh, you know, the guests. So there's a there's a lot to it. Just kind of knowing what is the number one priority at that particular moment, which is sometimes challenging, especially in this business. Um, but putting out lots of fires. I mean, I've always told every owner when they do my business card, could you put camp counselor, glorified door locker, and firefighter? Uh, because that's what you're constantly doing. So cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Cool. One of the things about your background that has really interested me, and I feel that I'm excited, because truth be told, and you know this, but the audience may not, I don't really drink. Uh DJ for 40 years, and it seems just countercultural, it seems, you know, counterintuitive that I'm in the middle of the mix, pun intended, and I really don't drink. And, you know, people will come up to me, Kenny, here's, you know, here, hey, can I buy you something? Can I get you a? I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I I get my satisfaction off the crowd. But I do enjoy a dope mocktail, you know, and some of my friends, my sister who gives me a hard time because she can drink me under the table. Um but you've got me excited about some of your drink menu thoughts. And do you mind maybe sharing what people can expect from a cocktail or mocktail into some of the things that excite you that here being so close to the beat and in this community down the OC coming down from Norkau, what what what are you gonna bring and offer?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Well, I'd like to, because I haven't seen very much of it since I've been down back down here, but I've only been back down here for about three weeks, um, is classic, making drinks the proper way, you know, knowing what spirits you shake and what spirits you stir and things like that, which is for some reason a lost art. Um, but then also utilizing some of the ingredients that uh we really wanted, like the orange soda, the grape soda, incorporating those into some of our cocktails because those were two things that we really wanted to have and offer. Um, still trying to work on see if we can get the strawberry one, but um, but you know, so things like that, and then just uh keeping it simple. I think that people, you know, I've been to places where, you know, they've got a drink on their menu that has 16 components that to me is just overkill and it's silly and it doesn't showcase the actual spirit. And I think with the wines, especially like for you, because you say you don't drink, but you do you do like moscato, but um you know, you'll but wanting to show there's other wines like that that are really fun with our food, you know, Rieslings from Alsace, uh bringing in some Gewürz demeaners that are, you know, sweeter, but not as sweet as sometimes moscatoes can be, but that play great with all of our food. You know, I think people missed that a good Riesling or a good, you know, Gewürzdemeaner with fried chicken is an amazing pairing. So I think we're gonna be able to uh showcase some classic ideas, but also put our southern twist on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

We're gonna do a remix.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, well, fair enough. Good good point. Good point. And typically the remixes typically the remix is sometimes better than the the original, so fair enough. Actually, we were just talking about the buddy song. Where you were, where we were.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

You love De La Soul.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

I love De La Soul.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

That is true. I will make sure that we get plenty of De La Fort. Okay. I got that. I got that.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

If you do that, then I'll let go of Morgan Wallen for a little bit. Fair enough. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Fair enough. Y'all don't know the inside joke to that. You should wear me out. Oh good. Um, I think you and I have some really good alignment. And I've said it to you kind of one-on-one, um, and I'll say it on camera, and I'll say it to our audience. It gives me a lot of peace and comfort knowing that we're aligned a lot on our philosophical leadership values. And so we have the acronym for LJs for me is CLEAR. And again, for the audience, they're probably gonna get tired of hearing it. Staff is probably gonna get tired of hearing it, but to me, uh repetition. Um, I used to tell Kyle, you know, my son, you know, practice doesn't make perfect, it can make permanent, you know what I mean? And he's just getting it in there, right? You know, there's no such thing really to me as perfection, it's about excellence. So with clear, it's community, which excites me, and you know our culture well and understand that. Um, the L is for love, um, and the E is excellence. Uh, the A is for adaptability, hence COVID and being able to kind of navigate and move and shift. And then the R is I want to be responsible, and that responsibility to me is how do we serve our community as leaders, how do we take care of our team? Um, employee satisfaction to me is just as important as guest satisfaction. We've had a lot of those conversations. So talk to me a little bit about whether it's Claire or your leadership specifically, um, some of your values and your philosophies on that point.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Well, um, I mean, to be honest with you, it is the people because if you take care of your people, they're gonna take care of your guests, so it comes all together. Um, I'm definitely about, you know, education, you know, uh trying to educate staff, especially because, you know, I've seen this market specifically that there's not a lot of wine knowledge down here. And having lived in Napa for so long, where there's a boatload of it, and literally you can throw a rock at any restaurant, and that server is probably almost of Somalia level in their knowledge. So that's gonna be something really big. Um, you know, education, I've always prided myself on the fact that when I've went to another restaurant after leaving one, a lot of my staff would want to follow me to the point where I usually had to be like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to, I don't want to piss off my other owner who's who's a who's a friend still, things like that. But I think that getting your staff to buy into uh the product is huge. And I think the way that you get them to do that is by having them a part of it, you know, having the staff be part of the tastings, have them give input. We were talking about the bar manager, the bartender, you know, um, the specifically the one that we just hired, you know, having her put her spin on some stuff and have her, because then they'll buy in. And when once they get the buy-in, then it's easy. All you got to do is take care of them. I agreed, I agree. Yeah. And then and then also the other benefit for us from a business and fiscal standpoint is turnover is one of your biggest bottom line killers. Outside of waste and things like that, it's it's murderous. So if you have to constantly train people and retrain people, it's you're just wasting money.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Agreed, agreed. Well, well said. And for those that may be interested in working on our team and with us, we we have the philosophy um we will pay a bit above the market average because to Monty's point, we we definitely believe that we want this to be like family. We talked about love. We want this to be like family, and life is not easy, expenses aren't easy, um, and we want to grow and we want the team to grow with us. So well said. So kind of as we put the tay tables up, seat back in the upright position, kind of land the plane on the conversation. Um two questions we'll get into very similar variants of it, but the first thing, like we get through all everything, we open up. What are you looking forward to? What do you what are some things you're most excited about when you come?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

So so funny enough, I reconnected with a very dear old friend. So I guess I didn't I should have said this, is that I was born here, uh, grew up here until I was about 10 or 11. That's when I got into a little trouble, got shipped to my other parents' house. But um And here is in the OC. Here's in the OC. Well, yeah, yeah. Well, I've known you since I was eight or nine. So yeah, I mean, yeah. So it was here. We used to go play ball together. So I bounced back and forth between the parents for a while. But the the point is that I reconnected with a really close friend of mine. Um, she lives here in town, and so she's you know already super hyped about it, and you know, is telling other people that I grew up with. And so now I'm having people that I haven't seen in 25, 30 years reaching out. So being able to show them, and then one of two of my really good friends growing up, both of them still live down here. Um, and so being able to get them to see, and they're both African-American, well, one's mixed, but getting them to come and see what we're building here and what we're doing here, especially having grown up with these guys, I think that's gonna be super cool for them. And actually, one of them uh coaches at Ramsey's old high school, at Teston High School. So uh Cedric Gay, if you're listening. Um, but uh yeah, so I think that's gonna be a lot of fun, and then just getting to see, because already, because you know, obviously we're here all the time, so I don't think I've eaten a home cooked meal outside of the outside of uh Bible study, but I think you actually that wasn't that was bot, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

You're right, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

That was bot. So um at any rate, we I oh wait, did you make it? No, well I did not, but yeah, okay, so so that's been the that's been the first one in in three weeks. Yeah. Uh so being able to go to other restaurants um and talking to people, it's just crazy to me how many people are excited, not just for you know, kind of what we're doing, but just the like the energy and the fact that there's nothing else like this. I mean, I can't, I don't know. I've heard somebody mention a place called Memphis, which I haven't gone to yet, which I should. Um, but you know, I think that we're bringing something that people have never seen down here. Cool. And I've gone to RB brunches up in Sacramento and they're a blast. Yeah. So we can have that RB brunch five three meals a day.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Well said. Um thank you for being not only a part of this conversation, but even more from my heart, thank you for being a part of this journey. Uh, I do believe, and I'll say it again, I think this is location number one. I think this is very scalable. Um having a retirement home in the state of Texas. Um I've shared it with some of you know other colleagues, some of our investors, fellow investors, because Monty, you are one of the minority investors in this, so you are not only emotionally but financially attached to it. But I think this can, I think this is needed, and this and our values and what we're trying to do is gonna be very doable in other markets. So I say thank you. I'm excited, appreciate you having a conversation, and uh I would like to let's let's revisit the conversation once we get open.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Okay, now now I'm a little bit more comfortable. Thank you, Kyle, especially for all the the faces that you're making to me back there. So you made me feel a lot more comfortable. I'm not as nervous. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Cool. Yeah, we'll see you next time on the next conversation, and we out. Peace. Cool, cool, good job, yeah.