A Sudden Firing Forces A Chef To Bet On Himself

He gets fired 89 days into a six figure job, then wakes up to EMTs in his bedroom after a seizure he never saw coming. That could have been the end of the story, but for Gary it becomes the moment he stops waiting for “security” and starts building something real.

We talk with Gary from TNC Custom Catering Events about the messy, unfiltered road into catering and entrepreneurship: learning to cook as a kid, the anxiety that comes with food being so subjective, and why one negative comment can hit harder than a room full of compliments. He shares how a cloudy day run and a simple message in his head flips his mindset from stuck to moving forward, even when he has no clear next step.

From there, we get practical about the catering business. Gary explains why catering can be a lower overhead entry point than a restaurant, what it’s like to cook for 150 people out of your own kitchen, and how equipment, timing, and food safety shape every decision. We also get into menu strategy, why he lets customers dictate the menu, how travel expands his flavors, and why his default answer to tough requests is “yes” followed by the work to make it happen. Finally, we dig into growth, big client budgets, free tastings, building a one stop event experience, and what changes when your spouse becomes a true partner in the business.

If you got value from this one, subscribe, share it with a founder friend, and leave a review. What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken to bet on yourself?

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Gary

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the You Can't Afford Me podcast. Real entrepreneurs, real truck, and the unfiltered drink. Let's get into it. Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the You Can't Afford Me Podcast. Now I hope before you're listening to this that you've had lunch, because you're probably going to get hungry while we're talking about what we're talking about today. Again, this is another individual. You guys are seeing, we've had a quick chat, but uh this is really the first time we're meeting in person. Uh so this conversation is gonna be 1,000% organic. Uh but today on the show we have Gary. Gary, how are you doing today, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I'm good, man. How about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Fantastic, man. So give everybody a quick rundown of who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So, again, my name is Gary. I have my own catering company called TNC Custom Catering Events that I run with my wife and my other business partner, Cecil.

Learning To Cook As A Kid

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Nice, nice. Now, I always like to start at the very beginning of the journey. Okay. How did you even get into the food industry?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

You know what's so crazy about that? Like, it's it's not like really one thing. It was something I grew up and I was my father, he could cook, so it was like a blessing that I just kind of got that gift. Gotcha. You know, and I started cooking when I was like 10 years old. True. Yeah. First thing I've ever called.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

So mom and dad's still in the bed, you making breakfast?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

And that, yeah, exactly what it was too. And about burnt the uh kitchen down, you know. And it was just something where I did it, and it was like, okay, this was this was pretty cool. And then as I got a little older, um, it became a necessity because like uh my mother wasn't able to cook, um, she was disabled. Um, my father, you know, he wasn't able to cook as well either. So it was something that kind of just was that that gift became a um a necessity and I had to do it. Yeah, so that was kind of how it started from there. Um but on the flip side of that, it was something I was naturally good at, but it was something I always ran from as well, too. Because when it came to like doing stuff for like large groups of people, um it was like, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. Yeah, it was like that just the whole time. And I don't know why that was. I had bad anxiety from it. Um well, you know, I'm not gonna say that. I think I would say it was always one of them things because food, like anyone knows, is so subjective.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Oh yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Food subjective. I'll never be able to um beat your mother's collar. Right? If you grew up on those and that and that's what it was, and you ate those for the first 20 years, I don't care how good I make them, they'll never be hers. Yeah. And it was one of those things where it was like, okay, I could cook for a hundred people. And everyone can say the food was great. And that one person could be like, man, it was okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

And they used to shatter my confidence. And I'd be like, man, everybody don't like my food. I'm not good enough. And it was just that, it and that was the only thing. I've I've thrown parties, I've done different things, but food was that thing where it was like I always was really critical of myself when it came to cooking.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah. Yep. Where do you think that criticism came from?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

You know, I've just always been hard on myself. I'm a perfectionist. Yeah. Maybe it's the Virgo in me, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Which can be a very good and bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. So I'm I'm always pushing myself, and I just think that when I when I cook, I'm never comparing myself to like what my father did or what you know other people do. I watch other food network. So I'm always like, I'm looking at people like the Bobby Flays of the world, you know, the uh Michael Simon, those people who are like, they're really, really gifted. So when people taste their food, you can see in their face like this is just incredible.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

You know. And for me, it was like, okay, I want I want that type of no to write. I want that when I cook. But I also was like, okay, I didn't I didn't realize I had to put that pro, it was like the process I was trying to skip. Yeah. Right? You can be that, but how good it may take you some time, but how much work are you willing to put into it so you get to that point where you're saying people can say, hey, no, this guy's food's legit. Yeah. He's that dude.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

That's what's up. What what did you do? Because you said you ran away from the food industry for a while doing this professionally. What were you doing career-wise leading up to this point?

Detours Through Corporate Work

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Um I had multiple jobs. I had went at first I was in grocery retail for a little bit. I grew in the company with that.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Stayed around food.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah, exactly, right? Um, so I did that. I was at like I went to Walmart and then I was like family dollars, so I became assistant managers and department managers, things like that. Um, then I actually went to college because at first I didn't go. When I got out of high school, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna get a job. Yeah. I hated school my whole life, my whole life, not even gonna lie. Like, I just I hated school. I was like, when I get up out of 12th grade, I'm done.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I almost dropped out, but I was like, you know what, I gotta, I gotta finish this. Plus, mom was like, you gonna finish school.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

So I was like, you know. Exactly, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

What college did you go to?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Um, I went to actually I just went to um um MCI. Yeah, I went to MCI over there off uh off and Lothian. Yeah, you know, so um I was there, um, I did my I got my bachelor's degree there for a little bit, and then um I was there for what four years from like 2012, 2016, and then I went into Capital One.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Everybody in Richmond is working Capital One at some point.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yes, that's where I met my wife at, and she's still there. She's been there for 12 years now.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Um it is one of those places where people say it's a great starter company after college, but there's so much growth and opportunity there. Um I don't speak highly of many jobs, but that's one of those ones I can say, you know what, it's it's um if you get in there, you get into the right space, you'll be all right there.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yeah, I know some people that have been there 15, 20 years. Yeah. Capital One, if you want to sponsor the pod, holler at your boy.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Exactly, right? Exactly. Um, so I was there for a little bit and then because I I I got my degree in um uh health information management. So after Capital One, I got into the field of just the healthcare field. So I started off with uh Cover Virginia where they were um they did with a lot of Medicaid and Medicare insurances, right? Applications. So I was there for a little bit, did that for about a year and a half, then after that I went to um um HCA. I was HCA for a little bit where they you know they did all the stuff for like uh what was it like with Jonathan Willis and HCA and Chip and Ham, things like that. So I was I was in the calls in the part where I did more of the insurance part of it. Um so I was there for about three years. Um and then I went to a company called Science and Medicine Group. Uh Science and Medicine Group, I would they set me up, right, to to fail, but I would always say, God, don't make mistakes. So, you know, they offered me about six figures to come and run their department. This was right after COVID.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Um so while they were doing downsizing, they were trying to still hire, which is really, really weird. Long story short, they hired me to the job, and about three months after getting the job, it was like 89 days later. 89 days later, they let me go.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yeah. No warning, just let me go. Right out of the year, I didn't do anything wrong, wasn't written up, nothing. Um so that was I was already, I've already had, I have always had a bad taste of my mouth with companies, anyways. I've been one person where I felt like I needed to have my own business.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

But I was I never really had the I would call the courage to do it.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Right?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Which it takes a lot of courage to step out. But let's pause right there for a second. What was that moment like your let go? What's your initial first thought? Because I'll I'll share a portion of my story with you when my last corporate job almost 12 years ago now, I just saw the writing on the wall, I saw that they're about to eliminate my position. And I went to dust off my resume, but the thought had always been in my mind of being an entrepreneur. And I'm like, if I don't do this now, I didn't have kids, I didn't have a wife, I had a roommate, like overhead expenses were very low. I'm like, if I don't do this now, I'm not sure I'll ever get another right opportunity in my lifetime to take that leap of faith as an entrepreneur. So for you, at this moment, are you you're married at this point?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yes. So No, no, no, I wasn't. It was just my I was with my fiance.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Okay, fiance, so y'all know the path that you're going down. Um, and you get that call, you're being let go after 89 days. What was the first reaction in terms of am I gonna look for another job or you know what? I'm sick of this, it's time for me to finally go out and do something on my own.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

You know, the first reaction was a lot of pain because I didn't do anything wrong. You know, um, I put my best foot forward, I took the job they wanted me to, and they let me go due to budget cuts.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

You know? Um, so I was I was very frustrated, but I was also very scared because it was like, man, like what do I do now?

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Where do I go from here?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Um and I I didn't know what my next move was at that point.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah.

Stress, Seizure, And A Wake Up

SPEAKER_00 8:57

You know, and that but and and here's a true story. After that, um I I was I was completely like spit at that point. I actually, because the job was what it was and what had happened, I actually had a seizure every time in my sleep. First one ever never had one before. Yes. Um my wife woke me up at the time my fiance woke me up. Um actually I woke up, she was she was shaking me and trying to wake me up, and when I woke up, I seen all these people around me, and I'm like, what are y'all in my room for? And they're like, you know, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Taylor. And I literally like looked up and was like, maybe I'm dreaming. I turned over back to sleep. Yeah, and you know, they kept shaking, waking me up, and they was like, You just had a seizure. And I was like, no, I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Were you still at your house or at the hospital?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

They were in the room surrounding my being like like six EMTs. Well, I was in the Yeah, this is this is in my sleep when this happened. And um, they woke me up and then um they told me to get dressed, and my wife helped me walk down the steps because they the steps were narrow, they couldn't bring the stretcher upstairs. So they helped me walk down the steps, and then they put me in the back of the the um truck and they were asking me my name and for like five, five minutes, ten minutes. I couldn't remember my name. I didn't know where I was. Like only thing I know is like they told me I had a seizure, and I was like, no, I didn't. That was kind of where and everything was just kind of just like lethargic and blurry for a little bit. But that's a different story. So, you know, again when they fired me, I'm kind of figuring out what was my next move. And this is around a time that I was really, really heavy um in the gym at the time. I need to get back to that. Uh but I went out running right after that. And um, I never forget it was really, really crowd uh cloudy that day. Um and I'm trying to figure out you know what I should do. Now both my parents have have passed away. Um I'm trying to figure out what's my next move. And anytime I ever get to that point where I'm trying to figure out what I should do next, I always just try to tell my mom, like that's my thing, right? And true story, um, as I'm running, I'm on like my fourth or fifth mile, um, and it's cloudy that day, all of a sudden the clouds kind of like separate a little bit and the sun kind of hit me. Um and I heard a voice in my head say, You have everything you need, just keep going. And that for me was everything I needed. Because I was really like, I was just, I was depressed because I again I didn't do anything. You know? Um, but once that happened, I kind of just I thought I could do something else. I don't know what's my next move, I don't know where I'm gonna go from here, but sitting here moping about something I can't change is fix anything. I need to figure out what's my next move. And then I just started working on some other things and figuring things out and trying to take this seriously, and here we are.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Man, that's powerful. Like one, I don't understand how people don't understand that God's real. Yeah, because I sign like that, and it's always one one big nugget to take away from what you just shared there is that when you open your mind, your heart to the universe, to God, yeah, things just seem to happen. That is true. It's those moments where you have a closed mind and thinking, oh, this is all I can do, like this is the corner I put myself in, versus like, man, the world's my oyster. What's the next move? What are we gonna do here? Absolutely. Um that reminded me of something I heard the other day, a guy was saying, because as scary as it is being an entrepreneur, I heard a guy say this on a video the other day. He was like, you know, people talk about living paycheck to paycheck. He said, in your first one to three years of starting a business, try living invoice to invoice. Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole nother because you're pretty sure, even if you're not doing the best of work, um, that paycheck's probably coming every two weeks. Every two weeks, yeah. But that invoice, so many different things could happen. Klein has issues, the money ain't right, they gotta wait a couple weeks to get you right, or like a number of things can happen.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Like, man, I gotta figure something.

Why Catering Beats Restaurant Overhead

SPEAKER_01 13:11

For sure. But to have to be in such a scary moment where one, you had just lost your job. Man, that's stacking the deck against you. You just lost a job, you have a seizure for the first time ever, yeah. And like figuring out that next move, all the while engaged, knowing you got a wedding coming up, like all these different things piling on. So, yeah, that's that may be the most interesting story I've heard as a for the start of an entrepreneur. Um, now talk to us about once you got the business going because I've publicly said so many times the hardest business in the world to run is something dealing with food. Yeah. Restaurants, bars, anything like that, like food service, it is I've been in several different sectors, and I've always said the one business I will never touch is restaurants. So I fully believe that restaurant owners, chefs, people in that space, you guys are a whole different breed of entrepreneurs because the level of tough skin that you guys have to have, because you're dealing with so many different metrics. It's like I don't have to worry about a camera going bad because I've had it on the shelf for a month. You guys, when you buy a product, you gotta get it out between a certain amount of time, otherwise, that food goes bad. Now you're losing on your profit margins.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

So talk to us about starting out as just, I'm assuming, just starting out as a solo one-man operation. What was that model like for you that you decided to launch with? Um specific just the catering or yeah, I I went catering first.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

You know, and I and I and I think it was a the the blessing on catering first was I don't have to have uh high overhead. You know? Um, because if you come to me for a service, I don't have to buy anything. Some people are coming to you, you know, six months in advance, a year in advance, two years in advance, right? I have people that come up this year that that signed with me last year for catering, and again, I don't have to buy anything for them, right? Or the things they need me to buy, I can go over there, buy it, put it in my deep freezers that I have, and I can just let that sit for a little bit, right? Um, so I don't have to do like, all right, man, I gotta make sure that this is fresh and ready to go. Now, when you get into having your own food truck and you know your own restaurant, that's a whole different animal. You gotta have those things on deck. And having fresh foods or fresh meats, which is why a lot of places have businesses and run them the way they run them with fast food restaurants and things like that, where there's more frozen foods and things you can just put in a deep fryer because having fresh meats really does hurt your business.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

If business is slow for uh uh a week, there's no telling how much you probably throw them away. Because you're looking at you have to look at your overhead and your inventory, and you have to say, okay, based off of last year's projections around this time, especially if it's a holiday, this is what we did. Right? So, what if something happened? COVID happens, and now, based off of your last year projections, you can't use that. So you got to figure that part out.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

So 30% of that cow. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

So now you're like, man, how do I do this? So a lot of companies are doing, you know, let me freeze these and frozen burgers and frozen fries and frozen vaccines. So that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

So that's why like the food delivery services are probably picked up because those profit margins they can preserve that product longer.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Absolutely, absolutely. And that's that's a really big thing right now. It's like, how do we save, you know, ourselves from like really, really like killing ourselves from the profit margin because we need to sell. That's why you see a lot of times where I don't do this anymore, um, certain places like smaller convenience stores, stuff like that, um, you'll see they'll keep something on the shelf. They don't check those dates.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Oh, yeah. They'll, you know, you'll look at a bag of Doritos from last year or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

It happens so many times. You'll look at oatmeal cream pies like 2024, wait a minute. Because they're like, I can't throw this away. We don't make enough money for us to just give that food away.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Same thing. I used to own a vending machine business, and we'd have to go in there when we've refilled stock. We'd go through and check the dates on all that product.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah. Yep. It it is it is really one of them things where people are like, now let me just have something frozen or you know, things like take quick to fry and good to go from there.

Cooking Big Orders From Home

SPEAKER_01 17:15

So when you first started, is this you're operating out of your own kitchen? Yes. Like break that down how that was looking.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Yes, I operated in my own kitchen when I first started, um, which is very, very tough because I think one of my first clients was like um, man, I think it was like 150 people. And you operate out of your own kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

There's so many different factors you have to go into that. Number one, how do you keep the food warm? Time management. How do you keep your time together and how many days in advance can you cook without jeopardizing the food? With you so all the different things until you can say, okay, now I gotta get another freezer. You can because like that's why you lose so much money, I believe, in the first year, people say, because you have to invest into the business. You have to you don't have those things a lot of time. You have to buy the big deep free, you have to buy the big refrigerators, you have to buy the the industrial pots and pans you can use because using your regular skillet, you can't cook fast enough, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

And you can't cook for 150 people on the George Foreman group.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Exactly. Now you're cooking on Tuesday and the wedding's on Saturday, so by the time Thursday comes, that food is not good anymore. So you're like, man, I really gotta figure this part out. Yep. So, you know, that was one of the biggest um issues or hurdles that I had. Um but with that, I think that I was able to well, obviously, a lot of my clients wanted more southern cuisine type items, right? So the beauty of those things, you cook those in both, right? Macarena and cheese. You make a pan of macaroni and cheese, a big one, the sheet ones, feeding 50, 60 people, you know, you can do two of those, even if you're at your home, right? You got a top shelf and a bottom shelf, right? You just that's 120 people right there off of those two pans, right? Yeah. Only people. Um, same thing with like maybe green beans, stuff like that. So that helped out a lot as well, too. And then you have to look at it and say, okay, cool. People may love your flavors, but you must do like some other people do, right? Like I've you may go to a store and they may outsource some of those things where you know, like, hey, I can pay them to bring me a product, and then I could add my you know, add to my overhead. Um, so those things may help you as well, too. So until you can get to where you need, you have to figure that part out.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

So, like instead of making the spaghetti sauce from scratch, you're getting some stuff and then you're adding in your little thing. So we used to do back in the day, man. Yeah, you get that little check, you got your oodles and noodles, but this time we can throw a little shrimp in there, dice up some green pepper, nuts.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Exactly, yep, yep. Exactly. And and and you know, it it it does make a difference when you can make a when you have an emotion blender and you could make your own spaghetti sauce because you taste the freshness in that, you taste that basil, you taste that garlic. But at first, you might have to go with the canned stuff, right? And and to be honest, a lot of people, they I'm not gonna say they don't care, but they want, as long as the flavors are there, yeah, you're you're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

You know.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Most people aren't food connoisseurs. They can't tell with picking up little hints, like it ain't like being a wine taster where you're able to taste the wood and all the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Most people are like, yo, the slaps or it doesn't.

Quality Drops With Speed And Delivery

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yep, yep. And you think about that, even with even with like um food trucks, right? You have a lot of people with food trucks, and I'm not knocking anybody for what they do, but if you ever, you know, you ever been somewhere, right, and they have a brick and mortar, and they have a food truck. Sometimes that food truck food does not taste like the brick and mortar food.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Most of the time it doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Exactly. I don't want to say that. I'll say, I'll say it.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

I'm not in the industry, I'm gonna say it.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

But yeah, and it's because they sacrifice, unfortunately, have to sacrifice their quality for quantity because you can't have people waiting 30 minutes for that stuff, right? You can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Now the rest of the same thing with like Uber Eats and stuff too. Like exactly one of my favorite uh burger joints in town. I'm I'm a burger connoisseur for sure. Particularly smash burgers. Sleigh burger, in my opinion, has the best smash burger in town.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

I mean, they're really good.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Oh, but I ordered from Uber Eats the other day.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Because you know it's been sitting there for 30 minutes by the time it, if not longer, by the time it gets over to you, it doesn't have that same texture, flavor, like a lot gets lost in that.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Fries are cold and all this type of stuff. It it's really bad. It's really bad. So um, you know, a lot of people don't know. So I think the beauty of that though is you have to look at it and how you make the money from it, it's like to look at how people look at it, right? Are you saving people time or money? If you can do one of those two things, I don't care what your industry is, if you're saving people either time or money, you will make money.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Right?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

If you if if that's why people like McDonald's is gonna always be in power, because there's one you can drive a mile, there's one on this side. You drive up 30 more seconds, it's one on This side because they know that it's not about the quality, it's about the quantity, right? And then it's like, okay, cool. Well, if I can't save on quantity, or or you're not, you're not saving me time, then all right, cool. So it's like, you know, if a person is like, man, I don't tired of waiting on this meal at this nice restaurant, you with your girl, your lady, and you're like, man, look, they better hear and bring my food. They bring it, it's piping hot and it's good, you like, well, I swear. Y'all, y'all, man, y'all look at this food good. Exactly. So it's the same thing, right? Can you save me time or money? And if you can do one of those two things, you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

I always say cheap, good, and fast. Those are the things that clients ask for. And I say you can only have two of the three. Yep. You don't you can't get it, you can't get cheap and good and fast.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

You can't. You cannot. Something's got to get. Yep.

Letting Customers Shape The Menu

SPEAKER_01 22:48

So that that model with you initially starting out, when did you have to graduate from? Actually, no, let me ask this question first. Did you let your customer base dictate the menus that you were gonna develop, or did you go into this thinking these are the particular dishes? Because I think a lot of times we may go into a business with our own bias. I always try to make sure, and this is on my employee side as well as my client side, I always try to make sure that I'm hearing other people's opinions because I may get set my ways and see things one way, but that doesn't mean it's the right way. Yeah, and a lot of times I've had team members come to me and say, Sam, why aren't we doing this? And so they're like, damn, I don't know. Why aren't we doing this? Like, break this down to me. Let's okay, sounds like a good idea. Let's implement that. So, did you allow the customer base to dictate your menu, or did you let your menu dictate the customer base?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

I let my customer dictate my menu. And the reason I wouldn't have done that if I didn't start traveling first, right? When I started traveling, I started to learn about like flavors and stuff like that. One of the one of the first places I ever went to try out new food was Costa Rica. And I think Costa Rica has some of the best flavored food I you've ever tasted. When it's fresh over there, like example, I do not like guacamole. I don't. Yeah. I think it's I don't like the texture.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

It's just I don't like Chipotle's guacamole. I can eat it at the right spot. For real.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

I'm just not a fan of it. But when I go over there, man, I'm tearing it up. I can eat it with just a bag of chips. What is going on? And they're there, everything tastes so fresh and so good. So when I when I went there and then I was in Jamaica, and then I went to like Paris, so these places started to like open my palate up. And when you when I came back here, I already knew I was good at southern cuisine foods. That's what I grew up on. Most of my people have you know grew up on that.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

And I wanted to expand that. So when I would see different chefs and caterers, they always have a set menu. And they're gonna make those different those things. I was like, you know what? Let me try something different. Because I don't want to say, I don't want nobody to be like, well, I wanted to go with him, but he doesn't make this. Right? If you go to Mission Barbecue and you say, I want some fried chicken, they're gonna be like, we make ribs and pulled chicken pork and stuff, you know what I mean? And I've run into that with them. We've had our conversations with uh being in caterer and they've uh they actually mission barbecue at an expo we did last year, so I know somebody took some of their business. Which, you know, I take that. Um but um you you you run into that problem where you put yourself in a where you pigeonhole yourself like that. So just realizing that and me being able to feel like I can cook anything, um, you know, if I see it one time, you know, I could pretty much mimic that if I need to, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Um What was the first dish a client asked you to make and you had to pause and be like, uh I don't know if I can do that, but we're gonna figure this out.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Um it's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Because I think that's a big part of entrepreneurship, is I I used to have a painting on my wall at our last office that said entrepreneurship is jumping out of a plane and building a parachute on the way down. I like that. A lot of times we're just trying to figure stuff out. So like I'll never forget my very first big deal with this firm was with the flying squirrels. So I think still to this day they have it on their website. If you go to their website, um you get like a 3D seat of like where your actual ticket is. Okay. So you'll see the exact view that you have on the site.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Um, we approached them, we saw that this technology was getting big, and this is like you know, nine, ten years ago. Um we saw the technology for that was getting big, and we're like, we want this equipment, but we can't afford it. It was gonna cost us like$2,000 and we have it. Yeah. So I was like, all right, how about we do this? Let's pitch a client that we know could use this service, has the finances for it. So basically, we're gonna get this first job for free. Um, we'll book them out far enough where it's like, okay, we get your money, now we got time to order the equipment we need. We maybe have two, three days to figure out how to use this, and then we gotta show up and and knock this thing out. Um, so it's been countless examples of that where like you don't know what you're doing until you gotta do it.

unknown 26:47

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

So just curious of like, because people are throwing all kinds of things at you where it's like, I'm not used to making this. Would you typically say, like, oh, that's not my wheelhouse, or are you the type that's like, you know what, we haven't done this before, but I'm pretty confident I can I can get this done for you.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

The answer to that is always yes for me. Okay. Even if I've never done it before, by the time we get to that point, I'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

I I'm I have that much confidence in myself, and you have to as an entrepreneur, right? Because you're gonna have people that are gonna ask you for certain things.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Right? Um and it may not be in your wheelhouse, but it's like, can you adjust to that? Because it's it's your name. Can you really adjust to that? And people are gonna want what they want. Um, as a new business owner, you have to be able to say or to to because your name is what it is, right? Clients are going to, you don't have the advertising dollars behind you, right? So if you're saying, hey, Gary, can you do this? And I'm like, yeah, no, I can't do that. You go somewhere else and they do it, I just lost business, and now they're gonna get promoted the way because that word of mouth is really what it is. So how do you because a lot of times it's it's just fear. It's just fear.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

That's facts.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

And cooking, again, is so subjective. It may not be for everybody's liking, right? Everybody's not gonna love what you make. Right? I don't think in anything you do, everybody's not gonna love it, it's not gonna be 100%, yo, this is what it is, whether it be comedy, whether it be cooking, whether it be it, everybody's you're not gonna be everybody's cup of tea, and that's okay. That is okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

And that's a major key of entrepreneurship is understanding that fact of like, yo, I'm not gonna be everybody's cup of tea. And the fact that people go out, start businesses, and think that everybody in the world should be working with them. I always pose a question to people if for your service, if everybody in your immediate area who could use your service came and purchased from you right now, could you handle all that business? Yeah. And the answer is a resounding hell no. Right. There ain't no way in the world you can handle all that people. One business I ran when we uh were initially setting out that uh the business plan for that, we looked and we just saw that we only needed 1% of Chesterfield County. It was something on the educational side we're doing. We're like, yo, if we get 1% of the parents in Chesterfield County to sign on for our service, we'll gross$4.3 million in our first year. 1%.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

But everybody thinks everybody needs to know who they are. Like the entire state, the entire world, like gotta know, like, put me on, I gotta go viral and da da. No, you only need a small collective of people to get everything you want out of life.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

I think that's because people live their life and they look on social media, right? They want to be, they want to be more known than they want to be, you know, more wealthy. And that's not a a healthy way to look at things. Also, people will look at things and they'll say, Well, you know, they'll try a business out and they'll the first people you the first thing you do is you pitch to your friends, you pitch to your family. And those people don't support you the way you want them to. And it's like that may not be your base for what you're offering.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Right. So it's like you can't look at that and be like, wow, y'all not supporting you, I'm gonna forget it or whatever. It's like, no, a lot of the times the people that that that really support you are the ones that you don't know. Yep. I had to find it out the hard way.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Strangers will be your first customers.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Exactly, because they're the ones that will pay you. I remember when I got my very first, like, really big check, right? My very first big check, I was like, okay, wait a minute. Huh? And they paid me. My very first check with catering. I was, you know, I a couple figures here, a couple figures there. Yeah. But then I got one and was like, all right. They were like, listen, we're gonna we're gonna do this, and our budget is 25,000.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

And I'm like, trying to control your face. Like, right. Okay, I think I can work with that.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah, I'm like, yeah, okay, that's fine. But in my mind, I'm like, y'all gonna pay me. What? And I would talk to my wife about that. I always tell her, she'd be like, Are you surprised about it? I'm like, yeah, understand I come from nothing. I come from from like nothing. I was homeless before.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

No.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

So for someone to come to me and say they're gonna give me this amount of money and put that responsibility on me to make their event look a certain way or to have to fit a certain mold, that's something you would never think about.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

As a as a as a young black man coming up, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Um and especially to get that in one transaction and be like, yo, bro, it used to take me months to accumulate this much money. Right now, I'm doing it in one transaction.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Exactly. You look at that nowadays, most people what in Virginia are making what$50,000 right now, something like that. So that's a year and a half for them to get that$75,000, or$25,000, whatever. Yep, you know, um, or your half a year, sorry. So it's like, man, it's no money nowadays, the way the the housing market is, the way food is, it's no money. But you know, for people to sit up there and say, you know what, I like what you have, I like what you do, you know, here. Um, and part of my selling point with everything as far as catering with that was uh I always do free tastings. Right? So once you sign a contract with me, I'll do a free tasting because I want you to know one thing. When you do business with me, the way your food tastes at the tasting, it will taste that same way at the day of the event. So you say, hey, this is too salty, hey, this is too spicy, hey, I want more salt. Tell me what it is so I can perfect that on your day. I don't want to get cussed on the day of your wedding. I don't want that. You know, I'm willing to take that criticism because I have to know what you're looking for. You know?

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Um on the family piece, too, like one thing to dig into that a little further. The reason why a stranger is gonna be your first customer versus a family member is because a stranger has no bias against you. That's true. Your family there, like you go to your auntie, younger, boy, I used to wipe you over hand when you were a little boy, like they just look at you as a little peanut or whatever it is. Right, yeah. They don't see what you've grown into.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

So in the back of their mind, they're still like, man, this dude got a little business with who he thinks he is, type thing, versus a stranger. You're just promoting yourself and saying, announcing yourself to the world, hey, I'm a chef, this is what I do. And they're like, Yep, all right, I'll give this guy a try.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Every time.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Every single time. And it is a it is a blessing that when you you know, when you step out there and you start to see that, that it's it's it's so much, it's so humbling. Changing the world. It does, man. I think a lot of people just have to they have to think about it that way. They have to stop looking at the world being as big as that block that they know or the pe the people in their family. It's not this, it's not that.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Get some stamps on your passport.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yep. It look, that will change it change my life. It changed my life.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Stuff that's going on now. I might I might have to take a uh citizenship somewhere else based on what's going on right now.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Right. Go south or something, figure this thing out.

Targeting Weddings And Business Events

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Something's gonna have to happen. Let's talk about the the population of clients that that you serve. So like you briefly mentioned weddings. Um who are who are your target clients that you're going after?

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Right now, I want to I'm focusing more on business clients. Um I know that right, business and weddings, and the reason why is because they allow me to be that one-stop shopper one. Right? They want, you know, uh a certain aesthetic, they want a certain look, they want the food, they want the vibe, they want a certain energy. And those clients allow me to do that. When they're like, hey, I want you to do the whole thing. They don't have time to go searching to do this and that. It's like, okay, where am I? You have a videographer? Yes. Do you have a photographer? Yes. Do you have a dance floor? Yes. Do you have a building? Yes. Do you have a host? Yes. Do you even when I didn't have it? The answer is always yes. It was always, I'll find it. Yep. How many months I got to do? Perfect. It'll I'll have them by that day.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

My goal is always to be the guy who has a guy. When you ask me if you need a connection zone, even if I don't, all right, give me 24 hours, I'll have one for you.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Exactly. Yep, yep. And that was was that, you know, for me, that was really what like I was a catapult to me like that. You know?

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Nice. And then on the so on the business side, well, because we're, I know you chatted with my team before I I walked in here today with you. Um, we had taken a pause on weddings for a while. A big part of that was because my staff had shifted, and it takes a very special videographer, photographer to work. Wedding, it's not the same as like filming for a business.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Weddings and business are two completely different categories. Um, but we took a pause on that because one, I was initially the one out there filming all the weddings, and I'm like, this ain't the life I want. I don't want to be working every single weekend.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Like, the money's good. Don't get me long, don't get me wrong. But the only way I'm gonna continue to build this is if I can create a system in which I have others out there doing this work, um, and we can just kind of funnel it through here.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

On the business side, like the beautiful thing is you work between nine and five hours, Monday through Friday. Yeah. Um, because I've had to make strategic moves in terms of making sure I'm separating my business and personal. Because especially like in the early days, just like with you, my office was at me and my wife's townhome. Yep. Like, and I'll remember the days where she'd be like, all right, I'm going to bed, and I'd be sitting there at my computer in the office, like, all right, like I'm gonna wrap this video edit up and I'll be there in a little bit. And then next thing I know, I look up, it's one, two o'clock in the morning. I'm like, oh damn. So once I got to the point where I could separate the two, yeah. So now when I come home, um husband and father.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

My kids rarely see me pull out the laptop during those two hours they have before uh they go to bed.

unknown 36:05

Yeah.

Protecting Family Time While Building

SPEAKER_01 36:05

So being able to separate those two. So talk about how you've been able to do that with the client base that you're working with. Do you find it difficult to separate that time and say this is for me, and not having too much bleed over into like your personal life?

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Um I would say I have I found balance with my wife actually working with me. Um that is the only way, because right now it is a lot. Yeah, right. Um we've just gotten to a point where we're we have like a space where we can have events, we have a kitchen somewhere else, we have these different things that allow us to kind of separate, but it's still a it's still we're still building on it.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Um where our I would say where our balance comes in at, we do have a newborn as well, too. Oh, nice. Congrats, man. Thank you, thank you. And that's your first? Yes, my first. Yeah, my first son, yeah. He's a handful. Learn how to be a father at 40 is is it's a little tough.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

It's a little tough. I'm getting there with the. And the boys are way different than the girls. Yeah. Boys, like, man, as soon as my son could move an inch, he's like jumping off the top of the couch and trying to suplex me every chance he gives.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

He said he did. How old's your son?

SPEAKER_01 37:22

He's four now. Gotcha. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Gotcha. Yeah, it's it's a lot, but I think now the way we do it, because she does see how locked in I am, um, and she respects that, right? Because she's locked in too, where she works for Capital One, but she also works the business. Um, me, I'm just full on business. Um the the I would say when we need a moment, we take a moment. It's like, hey, we haven't had a date night. And we can't have a date night, right? Um, just because we're trying to build that, continue to build that clientele to the name, to our name is like synonymous with what it is, right? We we need a cater. Okay, cool. We'll reach out to them. So sometimes people will reach out to us on weekends and we, you know, cool, whatever. But we also have uh uh uh we also set up like consultations for people as well, too, so they'll can reach out through us, reach out to us through a link called Kellingly. And once they do that, we can email them back if there's an issue. Hey, can you, you know, can we reschedule this for another day? Things like that. But for the most part, we're able to just say, okay, cool, you know, let's shut our phones off for a couple days, let's go take some time, me and you get away. Yep, you know, send send Gianni, our son, to his grandma's house, and then we'll we'll find balance that way. But for the most part, we're always locked in because it we are still so new.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Yeah, and I think that especially in the early days, like the first, and I I was blessed enough that like I got the vision for what I do now over a decade ago. So like at 30, it hit me, and I was like, yo, bump this corporate life. Like, yeah, I I'm not built for this. Yeah, this is the direction I need to go. And the thought was always in my head, before I have kids, before I have a wife, I never, and kids are still so young, I'm not dealing with this yet, but um, I never wanted there to be a moment where my daughter's like, hey daddy, are you gonna be at my ballet recital today? Or my son being like, yo, are you gonna be at the game today? And I'd be like, uh, daddy's gotta work.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

I wanted to make sure that I had something established to the point that when that came along, we're good. Daddy's not gonna miss the moment. I'm not gonna miss the first steps, I'm not gonna miss the first pitch, I'm not gonna miss any of that stuff. Right, right. Um, but I think that's a very difficult thing to try to do in the first three years. Like, you just gotta have your head down and like getting at it. You do. But doing that consistently over that two to three year period, so many people just don't realize what's on the other side of that.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Like this is this is a temporary situation. Yes. It's just grind I always use the example of uh, you know, gathering momentum. So like if there's a huge boulder sitting in the middle of my office and we gotta push it, those first couple put, it's gonna be real hard for us to get that moving. But once that thing starts rolling, yeah, I mean, I can basically just hit it with my finger and that thing's gonna keep rolling.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

That's all you're doing in the first couple years, is like you're just building up that momentum. And once that momentum gets there, yeah, whoo is sweet. But then again, it's also the the nature of an entrepreneur. Yeah, I like to work. Yeah. Like this is my life's work. Like, there's no doubt in my mind, this is the main reason why I'm here on this earth. Yeah, is to do what I'm doing now. Um, secondary to that is being a father and a husband. I told my wife that on our our first day was a blind date. I said, hey, before anything, I'm an entrepreneur.

unknown 40:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

If you need me by your side 24-7, this ain't gonna work out. Yeah, but yeah, I'd like to take you out again if you can roll with that. She said, No, I can roll with that. So never has my wife been able to come back and be like, Well, you didn't tell me it was gonna be like this. No, I told you before you even knew my last name. Yeah, like we got that out the way. So I think that that balance when you got that hunger and you got that dog in you, it's like you know, that phone rings, and now you made a valid point because I never thought I'd do this. I brought my wife into the business a few months ago. Yeah, so she's on as uh administrative assistant, so she's a stay-at-home mom for for our kids. But um we had a position switch, and with that person, she had two or three roles that were really under her. My wife was like, you know, I can do some of that, right? And I was like, I always thought in the back of my head, I was like, if I have to work with my wife, we're gonna end up killing each other. But it's actually been one of the greatest things, one of the best business decisions I've ever made because one now she has full access to my calendar.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

So there are some days where like I'm just getting it. Like, she knows if she texts me and I don't respond for an hour and a half, two hours, she's like, yo, he's slammed today. Right. So she'll look at the calendar and be like, hey, if you need to work a little later tonight, I got the kids, like, don't worry about it. You can stay, stay some extra time. Like, so talk about how that's been weaving your wife into the business.

Bringing His Wife Into The Business

SPEAKER_00 41:49

You know, I think when when I first started doing this, um, she was a person that, you know, I think like any man who has a good woman, they understand.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Right? They understand. But they're not fully invested into your dream. Right? And I didn't even know catering would be my dream. It was entrepreneurship was that was my dream. Um but I think what happened with with that and with us was I think she started to see, okay, he's not just locked, he's not just focused, he's getting a response. People are starting to gravitate to him for what he's offering. And as she started to see me move a certain way, she started to see, okay, well, you know, he's getting a little like, there's like a lot going on now. So he maybe need he needs my help. Right? So it was like, okay, hey, I can do this for you, and I can do that for you, and she had extra time. And then as you started to do that, it was like she started to see, and I it was when I got that first big check, it was like, wait a minute. No, he has something going on that this is this is something where this is gonna benefit us, you know. And then she started to not just help, started to enjoy doing it. Right, to the point where she was like, look, hurry up and get me out of Capital One. And I told her that's my goals where it's like, yo, I'm you know, end of 2026 is over. We gotta we gotta cut you off of that because it's just not worth it. We're gonna do this on our own. Um, and I think that was just what it is. It was just like she just started to see the work ethic again. You have a lot of people that say they're gonna do something, right? But it's very contagious, right? Where even if you're busier as a man, right, you're doing something, you see it. It's not like the wife says, okay, the money's coming in. It's like, no, she sees what it means to you. And she follows the suit, like, yo, no, this is something that's benefiting us. This, this is, I love to see him living in his purpose, doing what he does. Let me support this. And that's just how what it was. And then it became a love for her. So it was like I brought her into the business because it was like, no, I handle this part now when it comes to like my decor and all this type of stuff. She does all that. She does my website designs for people, she'll do mock ups for people when they're saying, Hey, I want this to look like this. Okay, cool. This is what we offer. And then she'll send them like three or four different mock-ups. This is what it's gonna look like. This is what we're gonna do. She's I'm able to like employ her so now she can hire her own staff to put that decor together, put those pieces together, those elements that make that event look great. And she's like, Well, I can't believe that I'm actually an entrepreneur now. Because she's always had it, her work ethic is like that. Her work ethic is probably better than mine. I didn't tell her that, but until she sees it.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Um edit this out for you. Okay, cool, cool.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

But she always had the work ethic, but I think she always had the fear because it was like I've never done it, she's always been very, very safe. And now she sees this guy, or she has this man who's not safe, who will take a chance on anything. And a lot of times my I took a chance because I had no choice.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

All right, so it's like, man, I gotta do something. Where she was moving up in company, she was able to have certain things. For me, it's like, man, I gotta do something. And then she's seeing it was like, no, it's not just him taking a chance. This guy is really moving, and people are responding, and people are cutting checks. They're just saying, No, we believe in you. We've heard about what you did last time. We no, I want to deal with you. And that is what creates that balance for the both of us because now she's fully invested, and I've created a part of the business for her where she's able to eat off of that as well, too.

Services Offered And How To Book

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Man, that's beautiful. That's beautiful, thank you. And then also, once I brought my wife in, it's beautiful to see that salary that I was paying somebody else come right back in again. Exactly. Yep. That's a beautiful thing. I was like, now I see why they all these families on businesses together. Like, bring it right back in here. Yep, absolutely. Dude, this is awesome. So if people want to book it, well, first go through your whole list of services. I want people to get a concrete idea of everything that you guys offer.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Okay. If you have any type of event, we do everything, especially with the weddings. Again, we have either past, we have past. We have videographers, photographers, we have uh we do the catering.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

He's about to have the best videographers and photographers at Enzo Media. That part, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Um, you know, if you need uh uh a catering setup, right, where you need more um uh a buffet setup for whether you need dessert tables or with floral decor, all those type of things. You need a dinner table setup, all those other things, plated, whatever. We do regular table decor, we have lighting, we have a DJ. Oh do it all. Yeah, we do the whole thing. All right? We do the exact even if you're getting married overseas, we will set up the whole thing for you. We will book all the rooms for you, we will call, make those reservations for you. We do everything. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

That's a white glove service.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

I'm telling you, we want to make sure, listen, when you when you come over here, you ain't got to go nowhere else. Don't worry about it. Stay right here. Love that. You're gonna we're gonna work, we're gonna work on it for you.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Love that.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Um, so yeah, we we do everything that you can think of. And if there's certain things that you may need, I promise you we'll get to it by the time your uh your event comes out.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

We'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out. So if people want to book you guys, if they want to learn more about your work and they go to get more info.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

They can go to our Instagram page, which is uh TNC Catering, excuse me, T T C Custom Catering and Events, or you can email us at TC.customcatering and events at gmail.com. Or you can go to our Callendly link. Um, it's a hard word to say. Uh Callinly, um, and you can book a session with us or whatever. We do free virtual consultations where you can talk to us um for about 30 minutes. If you need to talk to us more times than that, we're always available. Um, you can always give me a call if you pick up our information. Um, you can also go to the um the RVA wedding expo. They have us up there as well, too. So if you have a wedding coming up, you can pick us up there as well, too.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Love it, love it. Well, dude, appreciate you being on the podcast today, man. Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Absolutely. We'll see you guys on the next episode.