The Exchanges

Q Did you have enough food to feed everybody?

A No, no, we didn't. What's funny is like, as we got there, we were really nervous and we kind of didn't know what to do. And then our dads kind of gave us a little courage, like, don't worry, you guys got this. And we're like, wait, we got this. And as we started setting up, I kind of like walked everybody in line. I said, Hey, thank you guys so much for coming. We're a very new operation. So it's going to take us a long time to set up. And I'm like, our fryer makes about four orders every 20 minutes. We might not be able to serve everybody. And that first day was hectic, dude. It was hectic, but we adapted quick. So after that night, me, Tommy and Dave, we kind of got Together. We're like, Hey, we need to adjust our system, dude, because this is not going to work. And we had just enough to buy another fryer. So we went and we bought a bigger fryer that made like 18 orders every like 10 minutes. So now we were ahead of the curve. So now, even though we had this long line, we were actually producing orders really fast.

AI assessment note: “No, no, we didn't.”

Q is okay. I mean, a celebrity is a celebrity. Like, it doesn't make them a good investor because they're famous. It just makes them, it just means they have money to invest. Um, you, and then eventually Drake became a significant investor. You're obviously in LA, the center, world center of celebrities, but I mean, how critical is, is having celebrities as investors on board to the success of Dave's?

A Um, it's pretty, I think Drake was the more critical one. You know, I think what it really helps with this franchise sales, right? Because, uh, as you're going after these really big franchise groups that own hundreds of stores, you know, they don't want to take a risk on a one store or two store concept, you know, as popular as they might be in Los Angeles. So, you know, having investors like, let's say saying, oh, Samuel L. Jackson is an investor and Drake is an investor. It gives them a little bit of assurance of like, okay, so Maybe if they've invested, like maybe there's something here. So you, we would really use that to try to sell stores initially until the stores would open up and then they would kind of, you know, the numbers would speak for themselves. So you wouldn't necessarily have to use Drake's name as much or Samuel L. Jack's name as much. So then they eventually over time just became investors. But at first they were pretty key to us selling stores to big groups while only having one or two stores open.

AI assessment note: “at first they were pretty key to us selling stores to big groups”

Q So you start to, so basically you say to him, let's kind of brainstorm this thing. Let's just start talking about what this could be. Is that, is that kind of what, what, how it started? This is, I guess in late, late November of

A So Dave was on board, and then what we kind of talked about is like, okay, well, we don't have too much money, but what we could probably do is ask a bunch of our friends and see if anybody is down, and we can gather up, like, you know, our initial idea was get, like, seven friends or eight friends, and all of us invest whatever money we have, and we buy a food truck. But as we kind of started asking all of our friends, nobody was like, everybody's like, no, why would I do that? I don't want to do that. Tommy was like, immediately, he's like, I'm down. I'm down with you guys. Like, whatever you guys want, I'm with it. Let's do this.

AI assessment note: “what we kind of talked about is like, okay, well, we don't have”

Q And I mean, you must have been pretty nervous when he finally tried the food. So what happened? How did he react?

A Um, so he had a tender and he didn't give an overwhelming reaction. So we couldn't gauge whether he loved it or not. You know, he was like, he was like interesting. You know, he was, he was kind of like more like that. And just, he wants to kind of get to know us. Right. And I remember mentioning to him, I'm like, Hey, if you're going to write an article and I'm like, I don't know if you are, I'm like, but please, if you are, please make sure to mention that we're like a weekend. We have a very small friar. And if anybody comes, they should expect very, very, very long wait times. Which is funny enough, when he wrote his article and he wrote, uh, late night chicken stand will blow your mind, down at the bottom he had written, you know, get ready to wait because they're a very new operation.

AI assessment note: “he didn't give an overwhelming reaction. So we couldn't gauge whether he loved it”

Q like, you know, Haven't really yet kind of figured out what you want to do, which is fine. Totally normal. Nothing wrong with that. If you're listening, you're 24, but it can create anxiety and you watch your friends and they seem like they have it all figured out, even though they don't. I remember that time in my life. How are you feeling at that time? Were you anxious?

A I mean, obviously we had our parents that weren't putting pressure on us, but we can kind of see that they can't work as hard as they used to. Right. So you have that pressure on you. You're obviously have a little bit of self regret. You're like, Should I have studied? Should I have stayed in school? Would it have been easier to do something? You know, you start thinking to yourself like, okay, what life skills do I have? How could I, you know, so you have, you do have a lot of anxiety. You have a lot of self doubt, but at the same time, what's, what's interesting is me and Dave always kind of had in the back of our heads that something is going to click for us one day. So it was like a mixed mindset, you know, it was a lot of like belief with a lot of doubt.

AI assessment note: “so you have, you do have a lot of anxiety. You have a lot of self doubt”

Q A food truck. Okay. And, and this is like the height of food truck mania in America. I mean, so, so this, so this is a great idea. Buy a food truck. Okay. So what happened?

A Um, okay. So, but we realized before anything, we kind of needed like obviously a recipe and we needed a foundation for the restaurant. So we kind of, Uh, again, talk to ourselves like, well, what are the problems that we thought we saw with Hall and Ray's? One of it was a really big menu, right? But the reason their sandwich was so good is because they cooked it right before they gave it to you. It wasn't precooked sitting in a heated area. And we realized people either like to eat chicken by hand, you know, kind of like grab it with bread and eat it by hand, or they like to eat it in a sandwich. Um, so we're like, well, what's, what's one piece of chicken besides the breast? Because we, we kind of didn't want to do the same thing Hall and Ray's was doing. You know, we didn't want to, As much as we were inspired by them, we didn't want to copy them. We wanted to do our own version of hot chicken, right? So we thought to ourselves, okay, what's the one menu item that they don't have? That's a piece of chicken that could be in both ways. And that was the chicken tender. It's part of the breast, but it's not the breast.

AI assessment note: “we realized before anything, we kind of needed like obviously a recipe”

Q Yeah. And, and he came on like day five or six. Did you know that he was there? Did you recognize him?

A Yeah. We, I talked to him and I, we, you know, we, me and him had like a conversation and I was like, yeah, you know, he's like, I'll come around. And yeah, sure enough, like he showed up and he was, he did, I don't think he realized like what a small operation it was because he kind of looked at it and he's like, he's like, this is what you guys are doing. He's like, he's like, why is, and he was really curious, like, why do it like this? And, you know, we kind of explained, like, we have no money and we just had a recipe and we felt like the recipe was good. And This is the only way that we could sell it to people was just kind of setting up in the middle of the street and just, you know, bootstrapping it.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. We, I talked to him and I, we, you know, we, me and him had like a conversation”

Q That's, um, so I mean, okay, what about the guy who let you use the parking lot for free?

A That's the thing is like, dude, he came in, he came in like a month in, and he saw, he's like, what is this? Dude, he's like, the guy's got a whole restaurant over here, because there was like a hundred people. He's like, I thought this was a hot dog, so I was like, I'm gonna have to Start charging, and every month he charges a little bit more until we eventually got out of there. But like, he was a great guy, and we kind of understood that allowing three kids to do a pop-up in your parking lot is taking all the liability. If, if anything happens, it's on you, it's your property. So we kind of appreciated that he was taking that risk for us, and we kind of understood that paying him rent was just part of business. So we were happy. We were just happy to be there, you know.

AI assessment note: “he came in like a month in... Start charging, and every month he charges”

Q And he's like, you guys can have a pop-up. And was he going to charge you?

A At first he said no. He's like, you guys can have it for free. He's like, you guys have one spot for free. Yeah. And then Tommy was like, let's just do it. And he's like, and funny enough, it was like early morning. He's like, let's do it tomorrow. And we're like, what do you mean tomorrow? He's like, okay. He's like, we have the spot, right? We're like, yeah. He's like, we have the rest. We're like, yeah. He's like, so why don't we do it tomorrow? And we're like, we have no equipment. We have no nothing. He said, okay, how much money do we kind of have? And we all kind of like, um, I had like a few hundred bucks that I had saved up. Dave's like, well, I'm getting my paycheck in like a day or two, and he was going to quit anyway. So he's like, I'll have like a few hundred bucks. And then Tom's like, okay, I'll cover whatever's left, you know? So we had like a budget of like 900 dollars that we set, right? Okay, we have 900 bucks.

AI assessment note: “At first he said no. He's like, you guys can have it for free.”

Q So how are you going to do it?

A Um, ok so, Tommy's parents had a little flower shop in Hollywood, in like, this little plaza. And, uh, Tommy's like, well, I could potentially maybe talk to the landlord to see if he'll, you know, give us a little space there. And, uh, we asked him about it, and so he's like, I can give you guys a little parking lot space across the street in this parking lot plaza, where we eventually ended up. And it's funny because we didn't like it. We're like, ah, dude, we're like, it's not visible, we're like, it's dirty, we're like, it's a Parking lot. Like, this place isn't right at all. You know, we're like, this is not going to work here.

AI assessment note: “I can give you guys a little parking lot space across the street”

Q So you sold four meals and what was the verdict? Did they, were they like, oh, they loved it. Yeah.

A But, um, the second day when we went back, we're like, okay, we have to get more serious. So we got back and, uh, we obviously didn't have that many customers. So the first thing we did is, um, we cook like three chicken tenders. We cut them up into little pieces. And, um, me and Tommy kind of like walked around the block and, you know, there was like a few, there was like Jumbo's clown room, which is a pretty popular, like burlesque bar down the street. And they had a long line. So we went and we kind of started handing out pieces of chicken to people in the line, whoever would take it. And what was really cool is a lot of the people came back like a couple hours later, you know, that second day we might've made like. 80, 90 dollars or something like that, but we were like, wow, like dude, and they were all real people. Like nobody was like Girlfriends or friends, they were just real people that came in from either trying a sample or just passing by. Um, you know, and then the third, again, the third day, even more people came by. People, you know, would bring a friend and be like, this is the place I tried yesterday, and it was really good.

AI assessment note: “what was really cool is a lot of the people came back like a couple hours later”