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Real Lives of Real Estate w/ Brendan Da Silva
Welcome to the Real Lives of Real Estate, a brand new real estate podcast unlike any other. Your host is the #1 Realtor in Newark, NJ, Brendan Da Silva, and every week he interviews real estate professionals about how working in the industry has affected their lives and stories.
Real Lives of Real Estate w/ Brendan Da Silva
David and Kreshnik Crafting Community Through Cuisine
From the bustling cityscape of Tbilisi to the cozy corners of a Newark coffee shop, Kreshnik and David's story is a mosaic of resilience and friendship. As they unravel their past, marked by cultural hurdles and personal triumphs, you'll find yourself captivated by their journey—a testament to the vibrant tapestry of Newark's immigrant backbone. They regale us with tales of their transformation from waiters to proprietors, navigating the choppy waters of the food industry with finesse and a touch of humor. Their story isn't just about making it in America; it's a rich narrative of how roots can shape ambitions and foster a community within the concrete jungle.
Sit tight as we explore the intimate dance of partnership, cultural integration, and the delicate balancing act that is starting a business amid a global crisis. The synergy between Kreshnik and David defies the ordinary, illustrating how diversity fuels innovation and empathy within the business realm. They reflect on the real estate ventures that sprang from necessity, the strategies that flipped chaos into success, and the poignant insights gained from their real-world MBA. It's a chapter that will resonate with anyone who's ever dreamt of turning a vision into reality, showing us that the strongest foundations in business are built on trust and shared values.
Culinary enthusiasts, prepare for a treat as we whisk you away to Fairy Street, where gastronomic delights await. Kreshnik and David serve up their top picks from the local food scene, with an emphasis on flavor, community, and tradition. Their recommendations aren't just about satisfying your taste buds; they're about savoring the essence of a neighborhood. It's a celebration of the quirks and charms that make Newark City's culinary landscape a microcosm of the world, with each bite an invitation to experience the stories behind the storefronts.
To get more insight on episodes and to apply to be on the show, visit www.BrendanDaSilva.com!
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Who'd you guys work with? How'd you guys do the? Construction no it's not about the. You have a GC or you guys stopped. Yeah, we had the.
Speaker 2:You're looking at the construction, guys, stop.
Speaker 3:We scrub every brick and that's what I'm saying, YouTube, YouTube. And then how to paint the wall. That's how we would.
Speaker 1:You're telling me you open up a cafe.
Speaker 2:You learn on YouTube not just how to run the cafe. I used to watch YouTube videos on how to do latte art.
Speaker 1:Get ready for Real Life's. Real Estate, where the world of real estate meets the essence of your life. We fill up as we unravel stories, homes and the heartbeat behind it all. Let's dive into another episode. I hope you share and are encouraged. I'm here with Kreshnick and David, friends of ours, local new workers, small business owners, so I would always like to share my number one question guys, what did you guys grow up in? Did you guys grow up in a house? Do you guys grow up in a apartment, a farm?
Speaker 2:Kreshnick, go ahead, david, go first, because mine is not very glamorous.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 3:So I grow up in the house in the city.
Speaker 1:You were a city worker.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm from Georgia, so Kreshnick is from Albania. I was born in the city, the capital city of Georgia, tbilisi, and I was born in the house. I was not born. Unfortunately, I was not born in the village, because I always wanted to be born there and had I don't know why but it's not too late. I wanted always to have the village like the farm and stuff like that. But no, I was born in a city.
Speaker 1:And now your apartment. Was it like how many apartments were in your apartment building?
Speaker 3:It's like five floors and on each floor there's three apartments.
Speaker 1:In America. We had this guy in the city he was talking about and I just found this, you know, from living at 55 Union the guy was talking about how, in his building, people got to know each other. He said he was growing up. They were like play outside, Exactly. Oh my gosh, yes, and it's very.
Speaker 3:It's like your family all the neighbors you should know. Not you should, but eventually you're knowing all your neighbors in your neighborhood. So, even two blocks away, you know them too. So you know who is friendly and who is not friendly. So not everybody is friendly, obviously, but most of them, like 80%, are super friendly and in Georgia when you have a guest, it's like everything to you. The guest is like your family, so they can take, they can eat, they can drink anything they want.
Speaker 1:Wow. So you had a big sense of community, even though you grew up in an apartment building.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, Wow, I'm pretty sure it's the same in Albania.
Speaker 1:How is Albania? What did you grow up in in Albania? Apartment as well, or house.
Speaker 2:No, contrary to his situation, I was born in a very small town, roughly 700, less than a thousand.
Speaker 1:People, yeah, very small. Oh, my gracious.
Speaker 2:It was an area that was allocated post World War II for people who were dissidents of the regime at the time. So Albania went through a very isolationist period where it became the only Stalinist regime in Europe. So I was born under those circumstances in a town where it resembled a bit of a concentration camp setting without all the barbed wires and the you know the mass killings, but definitely very, you know, like under surveillance. And yeah, it was a situation where Albania, at the time when I was born, was the poorest country in the world, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:Albania was a poorest country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, per capita it was in the 80s. It was the poorest country in the world. That includes the entire globe.
Speaker 1:When did you come to like? When did that click in your head Like, hey, something, because you didn't know any different right?
Speaker 2:Right, right, no, I mean when you were near born. In those conditions it's hard to know what else is going on, especially with the lack of mass media and forms of communication. So you're kind of living in an environment that you're just taught, you know, you just it's kind of you're just living in it.
Speaker 1:And this was a. So I imagine this village you probably have. I mean, maybe I'm being, like you know, forgiving for me, rude, but I imagine you have like a small, like cottage house, like a farm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was it was similar to a cottage. I would say a little a little. You know some stucco in there, you know, but surrounded by, you know, olive trees. So this was. This is the Mediterranean, so you know you don't really suffer for, like good vegetables and fresh fruit and things like that, so I definitely had a very fulfilling life as far as like things like that go. You know my early childhood, however, when we were talking about paved roads, that was not available and electricity was only one to three hours a day available.
Speaker 1:You kind of see very different. Right, you have Georgia very industrialized, you're running. Right, you have these beautiful buildings or, you know, maybe not beautiful buildings, I imagine beautiful. There's a lot of community happening. You kind of have this like foster, like, hey, we're safe, this is good. Right, boom, then this, you're just like just basically surviving. Right, the pulse of this country is like do do kind of that impact your like mindset as you like would grow on.
Speaker 2:Another seismic shift happened in my life where, when I was seven years old, these circumstances changed for me and we moved as a family from this particular situation to Istanbul, turkey, which is like another contrast that you get. Yeah, so like you go from a very small town of 700 people, as I mentioned earlier, to over 10 million folks in a very large city overnight, and then then you start really putting things in perspective and you know, then you start looking at what you know larger community, living in tales, you know, having you know transit, having you know a large empire be present around you. Yeah, istanbul at the time still is. It was the longest empire to have gone on for.
Speaker 2:It was about 500 years, so you could see different centuries on every road that you pass by. So you know, that was it. That was quite the difference.
Speaker 1:Were you told before you moved or was like hey, pack your bags, we're just going to head out, I was told.
Speaker 2:but what was that going to mean?
Speaker 1:to me You're seven years old.
Speaker 2:I thought I was just going to another town, right, you know something, something that was real.
Speaker 1:People think it's just sales, sales or development these buildings. But the way that our communities are like, stationed, even you know, there was an architect and Norck, right next to the Prudential Center, there's a big, big parking lot. He was going to make all that. He was going to try and make it into a park. All those parking lots were going to be a giant park.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I saw the drawings of the, the Deets building or the Reeds building across the street from 55 Union, the Deets building yeah. I met the owners there. They showed me their father proposed a plan and was raising this.
Speaker 2:The father was one of the founders of NJIT.
Speaker 1:Of the Deets building yeah.
Speaker 2:Really so? Yeah, he's very involved with the city. Oh yeah, apparently he just passed.
Speaker 1:Literally like last year. I was I, because they had an open house in their building. I hit it off and talked to them anyways, but he showed me, and it was so unbelievable to see him Like how would that beautiful park have impacted the community, right? Or impacted the way that people live life on a daily basis, right, right? So if you're.
Speaker 2:If you look at the way cities are set up in Europe let's take, for example, Paris and I was there in the summer for school the way they're set up is that the apartments are smaller, they live in, you know, confined spaces compared to like how we live in America. However, the city there is set up in a way where the parks are, like the essential, you know, places for people to congregate, so Sundays especially, but other days as well, after work, people get together, you know, in a piazza, plaza. So they have that mindset from an earlier, you know time, whereas in America we're now just starting to look at how we build our cities and you know how we look for spaces where we can have more areas located for family, for children, for leisure, entertainment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, because the cities that we know are they tend to be larger, like New York City. That's what we know around here. If you go to New York City, you don't have the things that we just spoke about, although you have Central Park.
Speaker 1:But even then they just cut. The parks were cleaned on a daily basis. Now they're reducing them like three times a week or something. They're cutting them cleanings in like half.
Speaker 1:So, like the maintenance, like trying to save budget in New York City. So, like the people are saying, like we already have so little, the parks are like what we care for. I saw all the Latinos right. They're there, dude. They're having a great time. The what the Latino community has out there. They're playing soccer, they're playing basketball, they're grilling. They're enjoying life to the fullest. I'm over here and like simple, simple, simple clothes, everything simple. I'm like these guys are living it.
Speaker 2:I'm over here.
Speaker 1:I'm stressed on a Sunday after church I'm like, oh God, I've got to do this. I'm like I said, two different worlds.
Speaker 2:But David mentioned earlier in the way the cities were set up in the Soviet era because both Albania and Georgia were, you know, for a brief period together in the Soviet Union is that the larger buildings, the apartment buildings, they had this sort of setup where they had, you know, a considerable space allocated for a large park in an area where people would, you know, get together. So that's something that was really present in the cities, like you know, tbilisi, where David grew up. So, like the Westerners, they have a different mindset about how cities should develop and the Easterners they kind of follow that blueprint, whereas in America we're kind of like a mixture of ideas.
Speaker 1:After Georgia David, where did you go?
Speaker 3:So, after Georgia, I moved to the United States. Okay, how old are you when you moved? I moved in 2016,. In the end of the 2016.
Speaker 1:And what did you do for work when you first came here in?
Speaker 3:the.
Speaker 1:United States. I was a busboy, oh, so you were in hospitality industry, since they weren't exactly. Now you guys are running five corners. You guys run Sahana. Is there any other? That's what you guys have right now, right? Unless I'm missing something, I'm not missing, right?
Speaker 2:We're in the talks of doing something larger that we've been thinking about for a very long time.
Speaker 1:They're in the talks. There we go. They're in the talks.
Speaker 2:Tune in next week.
Speaker 1:Okay, and now? When did you come to the States?
Speaker 2:My family moved here in 1998, July 4th.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, so you went from InSymbol to the US to July 4th Correct. Did you know it was Independence Day when you moved here?
Speaker 2:I did because.
Speaker 1:I was hugely impressed.
Speaker 2:I was hugely infatuated with American culture when I was a child, when I was living in Turkey. So it's that thirst of not being able to have access to things and then being able to have it, and then your imagination starts flowing freely, and I used to get up at 4 am and watch NBA games.
Speaker 1:In InSymbol, you said yeah, utah.
Speaker 2:Jazz versus Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, John Stockton so I used to be a huge NBA fan. And then that American soft culture like movies, music.
Speaker 1:How did the InSymbol Turkish community welcome you as an Albanian in all these things? Do you ever have like a racial tension there or anything like this?
Speaker 2:So racially, I mean Albanians. They're white Europeans and the Turkish are slightly. Their complexion is a little darker. They're brown. However, there's millions of Turkish people who look German or who look Albanian. So that's not as evident there, and also because Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, they have mostly positive attitude towards their former colonies.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, you moved in 1988, 18 years before David. Yeah, what did you do? Were?
Speaker 2:you working? Were you in school. Well, when I moved to the States, well, I was in middle school, oh nice idea.
Speaker 1:Oh my God.
Speaker 2:I was very young and then I lived in Linden, not too far from here, finished middle school in high school there, and then I went to and then I went to the University of Rhode Island.
Speaker 1:What did you do in Rhode Island? What were you studying?
Speaker 2:Well, initially I had dreams of becoming a professional soccer player that didn't didn't work out so well, but I was able to play D1, which is half, half the dream half the dream, yeah, so I played for a year, year and change.
Speaker 1:Are you still able to play now or no?
Speaker 2:We tried, but you know I don't have the same skill set and you mentioned actually the Latino.
Speaker 3:Community. Yeah, we played them sometimes. So, they beat us badly.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm guessing. Oh, you're big. I know you're a big soccer fan. Yeah okay, okay, and you still play.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we some, we sometimes we go out in that parks that you mentioned. So, yeah, yeah, okay, sweet.
Speaker 1:All right, let me dive into the business side of things. So I kind of have a very broad idea.
Speaker 3:How do you guys meet? So when I used to live in in Wellington and I was working in Kellenorth, so I was yeah, my, my troubles like to go from Wellington to work. It was like one hour drive. So when I was to save some money, I was not paying tolls, avoiding the tolls, so I was going through the. New York oh and that's how I met New York by going through this route 21, right, yeah, yeah, and then one time.
Speaker 2:This is how we keep our expenses low.
Speaker 1:No, it all makes sense Acumen and then Couple times.
Speaker 3:I just stopped by in New York to eat and then I was like tired Driving one hour to the work, so I was like let me find something here. Google did some restaurants and the first restaurant that pop up was for no subspeed and I just walked in and they gave me work right away, in a second.
Speaker 1:They were like you can and now you live right next door exactly. Wow, full circle.
Speaker 3:So I used to work there for three and a half year. We didn't have a lot of crew members, so, and one guy, the Albanian guy, walked in the restaurant. And they it was funny how that happened, and they hired him as what?
Speaker 1:were you a bus boy as well? No, no, he was a waiter.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a waiter, Okay, and then I trained him.
Speaker 3:I was he's, he was my boss for a while.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait. Okay, I'm sorry, this is a Nobody actually believes us.
Speaker 2:Sometimes he tells people that we met on like chat chest calm.
Speaker 1:What was that conversation like this? Because right now you guys own two different, you know restaurants. Well, yeah, both restaurants.
Speaker 3:So the converse restaurant conversation between me and him, because he's European Mm-hmm, and at four knows, because it's Spanish restaurant, there's 89% of People were Latino people.
Speaker 3:So, I was the only one from Europe. No, there was like couple Spanish people from Spain, but everybody spoke Spanish. So it was me who didn't speak Spanish at all. So when a question can't enter, so I have, my first question was do you speak English? He was like yes. I said finally, I can speak my my bed. I can speak at least my bad English to someone that speaks good English. So and then so he told me that he was from the second question was do you speak Spanish?
Speaker 3:No, so but. But the funny story was that while I was working for knows, everything was in Spanish, even the computer. The system was in Spanish and I was, and I and I told my manager I said I don't speak Spanish, I speak like in, in Georgian. No, I said Georgian, if you need my Russian and I mean my broken English, if you need so, but I don't speak Spanish. Why did you hire me? He was like I don't care, you have to learn. I said learn what Spanish? I said I barely speak English. You want me to learn Spanish? He was like yeah, you want a job? I said okay. After that I went to Spanish school in in New York, so I was going there for every once a week to learn Spanish. So now I kind of speak Spanish. I'm not fluent, obviously, but I do understand a lot of Spanish.
Speaker 1:I've heard you speak some Spanish. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I hear it sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do speak Spanish.
Speaker 1:I can communicate with the workers, at least you know how do you guys end up going from there saying, hey, we're gonna partner and open up One-of-a-kind corner, coffee shop, restaurant, etc.
Speaker 3:Super hip Meanwhile get right During the pandemic because we got no we were always going out on the break, on the, after the work, for having a beer, you know, whatever, dinner, lunch, you know. And we were always going to the different restaurants in Ironbound because questioning was not familiar With Ironbound that much. So he was. He's anywhere he goes, he likes to explore everything. I'm not like that kind of person. He goes, you know, he knows anything, everything about the New York. Right now I still don't know because I'm not, I'm not interesting to go there and explore, I don't know why. And then we were sitting down and we were like he had an idea of, he had already the name idea, and he always, always, wanted to open Coffee shop right.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, yeah. And then I, I just wanted to have some Business, you know like restaurant, coffee shop, whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, you should talk about your background. He has a very extensive background in restaurant management.
Speaker 1:Oh, as well.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in back in Georgia I used to. Okay, yeah, you kind of let that one slip there.
Speaker 2:That would have been helpful. He has a master's degree in restaurant management.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was hungry one day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I used to. I used to work in a Wendy's in Georgia.
Speaker 1:So when, in 2012, and you were one one rich guy.
Speaker 3:He bought the franchisee from Wendy's in. Georgia and, and I become then district manager.
Speaker 3:Then general manager, the district manager, I, they, I got the visa to USA. I got, I came here. This was my second time when I got. First time when I got here, I, I was in Ohio. We went to the Wendy's Headquarters. We learned they teach us how to open the drive-thru restaurants. I went back to Georgia. We opened four restaurant drive-thru restaurants there and then it was. It was really nice for my age when I was 22, 23, 21 to 23 years old I had a really nice salary. I had everything there pretty much, but it was not. I was like, okay, so what? I'm gonna do more you know I'm not gonna become.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not gonna be. You got a million error. Yes, yeah, yeah, what? What was it like taking the jump? A lot of people don't want to partner, right, they feel like, hey, I'm my own person. You guys think about your experience. I think in Albania, you guys, like I, would be in my mind. I would think my family and I, how we would grow up and that's how we would reflect. I would just imagine we'd be like oh, we're gonna, don't trust anybody, don't trust anybody.
Speaker 1:Don't trust anybody, so how do you trust another person in business going into it?
Speaker 2:I mean, we're wildly different Characters, so that's that's number one. However, that doesn't mean that's a weakness being different is not a weakness in my view. But on the other hand, there's the cultural integration that we have embedded in both of us because of how we grew up. Albanian culture and Georgian culture are not very far from one another. They're both very ancient nations, they both went through a similar recent history with communism and they're both countries. They're entering globalization right now. So we kind of have similar Viewpoints on the macro stuff.
Speaker 2:The reason why it works with us too is because we have a way of getting out of the way of each other. When we're Aiming to do something, when we have a task, we almost instinctively know to stay out of the way of. You know the person who is leading that particular task and also what Plays a key factor in getting things done, I think, is that when you see that someone is taking the lead, it becomes imperative to just be a supporter of that as much as you can and have the person who is leading have all the resources that you can Deploy for them while they're doing it. So we've kind of done this Instinctively now in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Obviously it wasn't like that, because we were still getting to know each other. Yeah but another thing that's hugely imperative, I think, is the, the human element. You know, if you have faith in the, in the fact that the next person to you Is a good person, yeah, it helps a lot. That's. It's a very good beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know it's it's like a starting point. That um Saves a lot of trouble. I think, because people go through these Um, like you mentioned, people, they, they get enthusiastic about starting a business. However, you know, you don't know the intention of the person that you're starting a business with or how they're gonna behaving a particular situation with money, with sacrifices, with their time.
Speaker 2:Not everyone is ready to do what is required to do, and you also don't know what is required to do unless you go through it, which is another issue. I mean, you could read about it all you want. I went to business school. I read a lot of things about a lot of things that are related to business. However, until you're doing it, it's not the same. I'm sure that's the situation with you too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I have no educational background in business whatsoever, so I just got into real estate because I couldn't get a job. That was literally the only thing. I applied for a job. I didn't get it. I walked away crying. I was like oh I can't believe you're doing this.
Speaker 2:We can't drive down MacArthur without seeing your face every day.
Speaker 1:Newark has been good to me and I do love Newark, especially the houses of Newark and the people Come on. But no, in all seriousness, I had no idea For me. Actually, I had the opposite. I don't know if you've got experiences. I had the opposite problem. So I would make. I thought making money was almost a mission impossible. When I sat down with my first broker, I asked him. He asked me how much money do you want to make? I said I want to make $60,000 a year. At the time that was the most amount of money humanly possible anyone could make in my mind, unless you were a doctor or born into money, I don't know. My brother he speaks like six languages went to Harvard on a full ride, very intelligent, worked for the white, worked for Michelle Obama like a very smart guy.
Speaker 1:I'm like my brother is a tough person to make more than that, than $60,000. But I'm not, so that's my approach. Well, I made more than $60,000. I kept making more than $60,000, and then I made a lot more than $60,000. And then I realized the bigger problem that I had actually in business. It became honestly a big challenge in my business and how we were servicing customers, because I was able to market well, I was able to get clients well, but our service plummeted and our financial management plummeted which then our referrals plummeted.
Speaker 1:So it's one thing to make money and get sales. That's actually not the hardest part. The hardest part I've learned is actually to keep the money and keep the quality of your service with your clients. Because now there was a point I would say three years ago I would never recommend someone work. I wouldn't recommend people work with us Three, four years ago. Honestly, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1:We were so messy, it was chaos all the time. As a business owner, I would go to work. Honestly, I would need caffeinated as hell just to be like, oh man, this is insane. There was no systems, no documentation, retraining, turnover. It's like, oh my god. Then I have clients complaining and the one thing I used to love helping people buy a house, turn a house to home now it's a small business owner. I was like I actually hate this with all my soul. Don't call me to sell your house. I felt like that. Thankfully, I hired good people, I read a few good books and I learned now that I hate the business. It's just I was not running a real business. I was just running chaos.
Speaker 1:So then as we got more structured, the profit margin at first actually shrunk a lot. When we got more structured, we made a lot less money, it was like. And then actually the profit margin went bigger and our service and our referrals got bigger. Because it was like a 12 or 18 month turnaround that we started getting referral clients of people saying, yeah, you know what Brennan did, do a great job for me, you should work with them too. And it was like a year, a year and a half, of doing that. But once again, I think if I had gone to business school or something like that, maybe I would have learned that stuff like how to do a P&L, how to manage people. We were doing crazy stuff. But okay, I'm sorry I'm rambling now. So for how long have you been in this business? We were in real estate as long as you've been in the country, Literally.
Speaker 3:I'm not kidding, I got into real estate 2017.
Speaker 1:2017, I got into real estate Like on the date on April or May 2017. Yeah, so I've been here and I grew up in a very low income family. I don't have any connections or like hey, let me hook you up.
Speaker 2:We open the cafe with how much money in the account the first day we opened.
Speaker 3:First day we had in bank account we had minus $2345.
Speaker 1:No, no, no no no, no, no. The first day we opened First day that's how we opened you opened up grand opening, cut the ribbon. We're negative.
Speaker 2:There was some sort of bill that we knew was going to come in. It was going to go like a direct payment or something Minus $2000, $3000.
Speaker 3:So you didn't open Sahana with a ton of money. You opened Sahana with a negative. And we had $30 in cashier. That's what you mean $30 cash in cashier.
Speaker 1:No cash register. Cash register yeah.
Speaker 3:And then minus, and then we and that's why Were you guys crazy. You know what happened then and then when we opened up and we had to open because, I'm telling you, we had minus in the bank account we had to open. And we opened during pandemic and there was a regulations and rules, no mask, blah, blah, blah. That's it. We are doing only mask, nothing else. And then it was like they, it was kind of Wait wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:The design of Sahana is one of my favorite. Honestly, aspects of Sahana is the design and I think it's usually underrated. People think like, oh, things look good, but it doesn't really matter. You know aesthetic matters. It affects your mental psyche profoundly. I do a lot when I saw how the New York I walked in these houses. It's filthy, there's a bunch of crap everywhere, there's mold, dark. How can you not be depressed in that environment? It's so depressing.
Speaker 1:I walk and I feel heavy, like almost like spiritual. It's like, man, this is dark. You walk into Sahana. How do you feel? Huh, you breathe, you feel like breath, you feel like a fresh breath. You go, wow, that's all David's plans.
Speaker 3:When we opened it wasn't that's kind, it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that. When we opened, we couldn't see anybody inside, so we did it for no, for in the beginning we couldn't see anybody, so it was for nobody. I mean, it was beautiful. What gave?
Speaker 1:you guys, the experience you kind of only saw the shell in the beginning when we were open, but it was still, we still haven't entirely finished the cafe today Till today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've kind of almost given up some of the ideas that we wanted to establish in the cafe, because it's been so long now Does it even matter anymore? Because it was like a metamorphosis that kept happening and happening every year. I don't know if you remember when we used to have the big table yeah. The table and then the large wooden beams for the shelves.
Speaker 3:That we just sit there and we put the books on top. It was super chaotic.
Speaker 3:It was super chaotic, but a lot of people liked it they thought that was on purpose First time when we opened and we had to open like this right, and then we had drills, screwdrivers, like the coffee cup Like used coffee exactly used coffee cup. And then we were like we have to open what we do, like just put it everywhere Like we put it on the shelves and then people are coming and they were like, oh my god, this is so nice.
Speaker 3:Who put this drill there? Wow, I was like. I was like they thought it was an art installation. That's so cool. I was like what? I was like I just forgot that there I was like, and they were like, oh my god, that's so nice, that's so cool. I was like cool one like the used coffee cup there, it's not cool. I said just by the touch of it was a wild time.
Speaker 2:I think people have forgotten how crazy the pandemic was.
Speaker 1:They're in the beginning, but I will tell you the story.
Speaker 2:No, I mean in general, like the months following the lockdown, those three, four, five months, they were incredibly different and it feels now like it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but it was just four years ago. It's 2020.
Speaker 3:We were dragging in people. Just try this coffee, try this food. Ok, let's pause.
Speaker 1:And then Wow, my level of respect for Sahana and you both have just increased tenfold. You open up a restaurant. You have no previous opening up a restaurant experience of your money.
Speaker 2:You open?
Speaker 1:up with little to no capital. Yes, you open up as both immigrants.
Speaker 2:Negative capital. Negative capital, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Not little, no Negative capital. You open up both immigrants from as far as, and from Newark, as could be, you might as well be from China, right Literally opposite side of the world.
Speaker 3:That's actually true, yeah.
Speaker 1:And literally so distant culturally, everything from the Iron Round. Yes, you guys come in, you guys are waiters at Forno's to Spain, we're at Forno's to Spain, and then you guys say you know what? We are going to get this corner spot and we're going to make it a vibe, we're going to really make this something special, all this craziness. You guys go into, you open, you want you survive, coming on for years.
Speaker 3:Congratulations. You know how we survived? Tell me, we would make it. We had to open at 7 AM and then we didn't have workers. Right, we couldn't afford workers. We had, like, only two workers, one in front, one in the back. So and then, sometimes I was the dishwasher, sometimes question was dishwasher, I was sometimes like waiter outside.
Speaker 2:Not a very good dishwasher, not a very good one, I wasn't.
Speaker 3:And then, and then we would close at 7 PM, but we were tired, right, so we would take one hour break. But this hour, one hour break was at 7 AM, and then we were cleaning entire 7 until 1 AM.
Speaker 1:But it does take a toll on our lives. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The social life takes a hit for sure. The restaurant business you've got a lot of hours, You've got a lot of weird hours.
Speaker 3:It's an eccentric business. It's not a very straightforward.
Speaker 2:There's the human element that's involved in it, more so than other industries. It's a very intense human element that goes along with it, and it's hospitality. So people are always expecting excellence all the time. You know, and you know humans are not robotic. You know it's not possible to have that sort of outcome every time it's not possible. It's not. It so that that part is can be a little draining, so that there's a spillover effect with your personal life, social life, personal family life, things like that.
Speaker 1:If I may ask a question, how now you guys, you survive Sahana four years. What led you guys to take the decision? And this is actually really into another fame, really, I would think famous real estate space, right, which? Was the five corners. Location at the five, literally five corners. Very historic space used to be a florist. Yes, Santos florist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got to go back a little bit in the history of how the cafe came about, anyway. So, similar to your brother, I used to live in Boston and the concept for a hospitality restaurant group was kind of born there in an innovation lab. So, a lot of the elements that went along with with the cafe were kind of drafted while I was at this innovation lab studying there, and the idea has always been to create spaces in underserved communities, hard to reach communities, places where we definitely conduct enterprise.
Speaker 2:you, know, we're a business. However, there's a social impact component that's attached to the, to the running of the business. So the idea is that we would create these concepts where we can maximize on the social impact, and the cafe does that in a very targeted way. You know, we are part of the working kitchens program, together with the EDA and Audible and City of Newark where we've cooked over, I think, how many? I think we're approaching 200,000 meals 200,000?
Speaker 2:200,000 meals. So you know community centers right across the street from you, places of faith, churches, mosques 200,000 meals in general, or no, no, just us just our restaurant.
Speaker 1:This is a program that has served more meals, obviously with you know the encompasses other restaurants but this has where these meals for the general public, community or, like, for these nonprofit locations?
Speaker 2:sometimes they're for NGOs, sometimes they're for churches, sometimes for mosques sometimes for senior centers, sometimes they're for civic associations.
Speaker 1:It depends every week, so I think 50,000 meals a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot. This was a program that kind of flourished during the pandemic due to the fact that a lot of these again these were hard to reach.
Speaker 1:Individuals, yeah, folks, you know these are the.
Speaker 2:So the idea of our business is that, ok, we're going to conduct enterprise, but at the same time let's look at ways in which we can you know, serve our community in a very creative and impactful way. On top of that, we're the only secondhand bookshop in all of Newark in the cafe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the cafe has a lot more to offer than I would originally have thought. You were in an innovation lab. When you went to innovation lab here in up there in Boston, Boston, my father actually was in Boston as well. Funny enough now, but did you ever think yourself Newark would be your location?
Speaker 2:Well, I always knew about Newark because you know, I grew up here. And you know this was also like a cultural center of New Jersey Tri-state area. So people who are from here they know, like I used to, when I was a kid, I used to come to Broad Street and buy white teas and, you know, bootleg, dvds, all of that, that's. This is where you came to the spot. Yeah, you know, or if you wanted to buy rock aware, things like that you know that was, that was the, that was the look back Coming.
Speaker 1:you love the American culture.
Speaker 2:It was like no, I was always, you know, super in love with it. You know it was something that, like it, just kind of it became like second nature, you know. So I always thought that this a play, a concept like this, could only flourish in a very like hard to reach space. And you know, these, these type of opportunities, they're positive opportunities. They're not, you know, just you know, strictly like money driven things.
Speaker 1:There's a, there's a cafe I'll go unnamed here for the podcast but they are like, they take the like cool vibe and they monetize the hell out of it in like a local here in Nuttley, right, and they were actually really.
Speaker 1:They actually run a really cool business. The guys at DJ for Miami. He ended up opening a coffee shop here in Nuttley so random, unbelievable, I think it's called like I'll say it's like sugar tree or something like the sugar tree cafe. You guys should visit. It's very, very cool they have. But they the way they monetize stuff is so interesting. They are about the money. You see, every item on that menu is for the money. With the money, how the money, everything to do they made. They made that spot with one thing in mind how can we get this on Instagram and how can we make money? That's all they. That was like the vibe Boom. It was a very beautiful spot. They have a tree in the middle of the place like a fake tree, but you feel like it's like a real tree and it shine. With that said, with you guys, as a Hanna, what would you say was the biggest personal, like positive impact it had on both of you guys?
Speaker 1:On us personally like positive wise, because there's a lot of hardships, right, but there has to be some positives.
Speaker 2:Of course, you know, I think the main thing that occurred for me is that, you know, I started looking at all the things that I can do better and kind of like conquer your old self. You know, when you, when you start reflecting and you look at you, look back at the things that you could have done different. The idea would be to conquer the self that was not doing those things correctly. So the cafe gave me the opportunity to become a better student. I went back and finished two master's programs.
Speaker 1:Would you have gone back?
Speaker 2:to school if it wasn't for the cafe. You know I was in the midst of finishing one, but I don't know if I would have went for a second one which you know I'm doing here at Rutgers, newark, um, and I'm concluding in May. Wow, that's really cool. But you know the business, the pandemic, the, the combination of both. It was an opportunity to a lot of self reflection, looking at the way you're doing things before and kind of shifting and adapting to a new environment.
Speaker 1:Inspired. Hey, I'm serious because that's one of the things like I don't think I would be as in like knowledgeable in my I read. I read now quite often and I really never truly read up until business, business shaped my like reading habits.
Speaker 1:And it's only because, like I do, like what the business? Every time that I grow, right, the business grows. The business can never outgrow the individual. Yeah Right, my clients will never get my business, never be able to offer a service to the customer if I don't increase my ability to offer the business the service that the business needs. That's right. So when I look at you guys, I'm like no, you are right. When it comes to oh sorry, rather, when I listen to you said question, I think you're right because, being in business, I've been listening to this, I've been forced to be better. Right, you can't just coast because the business doesn't coast.
Speaker 1:No it doesn't cost. It requires you to be better every single day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were yesterday. Yeah, that's one of the attributes of, you know, owning a business too. It's, it's, it's like that it has that motivating factor built in, it's like intrinsically comes with it, whether you like it or not, it's you know. At the end of the day, think about it in these terms you have to wake up in the morning and open the door. Starts with that.
Speaker 1:Okay, david, how about you? One positive impact that's a Hanna opening up the cafe here in a fairy street to Hanna has had for you.
Speaker 3:So it, I grew a lot, I learned a lot. I, I'm telling you, when I got here, I barely spoke English. I was literally writing the new words, new slangs, like like I, I, I learned a lot, like I literally grew up in United States. You know, and especially when I opened the business, it was kind of you know, like in Georgia, the country Georgia is like you can open business like this. You don't need to yeah, it's super easy.
Speaker 3:It's the most easiest countries to open the business, you know. Obviously then it's difficult to run and keep it up.
Speaker 1:Hey, you can open it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can open it.
Speaker 3:Here, here, to open the business, you have to have like 10 different lawyers in 10 different stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the customer service is different too. Oh that's true, Then?
Speaker 3:then, then in Georgia. So I had to switch on this side of customer service. You know, like there in Georgia you have to be very strict. Like strict I mean, like serious.
Speaker 2:You know you cannot make jokes with the customers. No, it's not exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, here it's. You have to be very friendly.
Speaker 2:You know, like you have to.
Speaker 3:You have to know customers here you know, like, by, even by the names, by the, where they leave, where they drink dog names, you know dog. You have to know. I mean not to have to, but it's good to like when you go somewhere and they know your dog's name. You know like it's crazy, right?
Speaker 1:No, it makes a difference, for sure.
Speaker 3:I didn't. I didn't like questioning when to look to the school, right, I didn't go to school here in United States, right, but that's what I. I studied a lot Like, for example, doing taxes. You know like doing Speaking to lawyers. You know like the doing the contracts, like reviewing the contracts feel obviously, yeah, I mean crash make. He helps me a lot and he teaches me a lot, like all these small details that I don't know.
Speaker 1:So I make a big difference.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, yeah, no. Now, like I know everything when take, like I can, I know how to open LLC. I know to who should I go, who's? You any, anything in the city. I know every door, every cabinet like where to go. What should I ask?
Speaker 2:Like what you finish his bachelor degree since he opened the cafe? Yeah, I know, I literally know every every license, which which department needs any license who?
Speaker 3:should I call? Why should I call? What is first? What is second, what is third? What is here? Can I ask you a question here?
Speaker 1:David, let's say when you were, if you could time travel, boom four years ago. You're just about to open the cafe, a few months into opening, right before you open the cafe, before the pandemic, what would you? What do you wish you would have known Back then? If you could go back?
Speaker 3:for just tell yourself one or two things four years ago we would have think if we were to open a cafe, because we didn't know it was.
Speaker 1:Wait, yeah, let's wait the storm out or let's renegotiate the terms this is right for sure.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, yeah, a lot of people got killed because your lease had no, forced their mirror right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, god, kind of we, we, we, during the pandemic we we had, we paid Every, every month the same SBA loans or anything.
Speaker 1:That no, no, no, yeah, we couldn't get it too new right, we couldn't we didn't have access to the PPP Program you just too new to new we were a bummer.
Speaker 3:And we didn't get any relief from the run too, so we paid the entire brand and you guys were commercials.
Speaker 1:There's really very little to no protection, yeah at all yeah.
Speaker 3:This is my yeah so what was the question?
Speaker 1:so if you could go back, let's say no pandemic, okay. What would you? What do?
Speaker 3:you wish you would have known like. In my opinion, more stressful and stressful was during the the construction period. Hmm, construction period was very, very stressful.
Speaker 1:Would you guys work with the hand? You guys do the cut. No, it's not about the you have a GC or you guys stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had the you're looking at the construction guys. Stop, we scrub every brick and that's what I'm saying ourselves.
Speaker 3:We cleaned, whatever you down the sea, whatever you see at Tihana. We did the foreign no, that's not true.
Speaker 1:Come on during the pandemic.
Speaker 3:We would part two, turn, turn the my, you took, you took, and then have to paint the wall. That's how we would there's no way.
Speaker 1:This is true. You know what I mean. I learned I'm not a lot on. Youtube. You didn't. You're telling me. You open up a cafe. You learn on YouTube.
Speaker 2:I just. How do you run? I used to watch YouTube videos on how to do latte, or Brendan entire.
Speaker 3:When you enter To see Hannah and you look up. Yes entire ceiling is. Entire ceiling is painted by us, repainted in Tarsie.
Speaker 2:You said the you guys did, you guys, you guys are not meant to the bar.
Speaker 1:What bar did you guys not have? Like you know, you guys are the type of people, honestly, that go like you know that there's a squirrel suit right. You go like this is what kind of looks like to be entrepreneur with you guys. You guys like squirrel suit, you have these little things right here and you guys jump off the cliff.
Speaker 3:Electrics, electric.
Speaker 2:So when I told them my profit that we made went into therapy.
Speaker 1:Wow, you guys are crazy in Georgia. Good for you.
Speaker 3:I didn't know how to change the Exactly. And when I told my mom that I did in tariff yeah, obviously with the help, yeah, the Alexa she said no way, you didn't do it.
Speaker 2:I was like without even turning off the panel.
Speaker 3:He was just no, no Sometimes.
Speaker 2:But one time I caught him hyperventilates.
Speaker 1:Would you guys say the Sahana was a successful venture? Oh no, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Why it's not one answer? Obviously, because, but if you look at it from like birds-eye view, right, you look at the fact that, like, what I'm most proud of is that we almost honored Everything that we targeted as far as, like, the social impact part of it. On top of that, we never compromised on pricing, knowing that we're serving working-class people Hmm, in the, in the city and in our neighborhood when, during the pandemic, you know, avocado costs went from X amount to 30 times more we never changed our prices when eggs from 40 dollars to 200 dollars.
Speaker 2:We never changed our prices. That part we're I'm very proud of because, we never, sort of like, lost our purpose.
Speaker 2:We always stayed faithful to what we wanted to do, even though there were hardships in all kinds of forms, and we some of those we just kind of mentioned ultimately, when you look at the roadmap and how we got here, it was difficult, but at the same time it's it's a. It's a very simple notion, like if you set a target, you have these objectives, you stay faithful to your values and principles and you keep Straight road, you're gonna be successful.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately we we in the lease agreement. We have to close at 8 pm, we would. We wanted to experiment and do more cool stuff after 8 pm.
Speaker 1:Can you negotiate the lease or that guy's not with it.
Speaker 2:Maybe we should hire you, you could do it.
Speaker 1:Well, honestly, just like okay, we're gonna leave. You guys are like perfect tenants right. But there's not really anything for your 22, 23 to 35. What's your vibe? There's nothing. That's why, when you guys did the, when that guy, what's his name? The guy who does the Pesic River fishing Club?
Speaker 2:Yeah many those things.
Speaker 1:Even that is great. So simple. It's not like, but it takes off. So if you guys could do something at night, it would be amazing. I think you guys have a big, big response.
Speaker 3:That's why we open the five corners.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, so do you know. I don't know another Italian spot in Ironbound at all is no there is none right.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:I was talking of you, a guest came. Yet I wanted my guest yesterday at my house that you guys, five corners, shout out great catering service. They came to our house. We had a great meal. You know the ravioli Delicious. So what is the plan with five corners? Do you guys want to build it more? It's, what is the plan there. We didn't even start yet, so that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because of the issue with the liquor license, but finally we went through everything and we're gonna have liquor license the in the end of the, in the beginning of the year. Oh, congrats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a huge blessing, that's very good news. I will say to you guys are the raising caught when you guys didn't have the liquor? I'm glad it's coming back. You guys had a great menu the cocktail drink, yeah.
Speaker 3:But now but now, now we're gonna change entire menu off, but okay, don't get scared. It's not gonna be heard here first we gotta. We we're gonna keep our own Chini. I'm gonna just we're gonna just make it different. We're gonna add more different stuff and we're gonna a little bit like make bigger menu, like add different kind of fish, nice meat, You're.
Speaker 1:You're catering to a hard-working class, right. So I think it's beautiful things. But for me, my mindset is very like this if you guys are not proud, like you guys are profitable, I'm not seeing that. But you like, as a business, I've been negative in a month, thirty thousand dollars, right, I've lost 30,000 month. So for me I've had the experience multiple times they're over. Yeah. So for me, I have a key we cannot be, cannot, I cannot either. So I have a key calling in my life. I do not care if I am not profitable, I can't help without a margin. I can't be on a mission. I need to have a margin protected. And I used to be like, oh no, I feel guilty, maybe I shouldn't charge money. No, no, no, no, I need to make money and you're a true capitalist. Oh, I'm a true capitalist.
Speaker 2:To the core. But you know, you got to think about the time when you didn't even have $40 for your. This is why I pay Taxes, you know.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a quick story. I made it like my first time I ever had to pay a larger tax. Well, I had to pay like 47,000 in taxes. I only pay my taxes. In April had three forty seven thousand. It was like, oh my god, this is crazy. My money, oh what the? I felt like the government was gonna kill me. Right, because when you get paid W2, you don't really notice it. But 47 goodness at, this government's crazy. So I call my big brother and I say Brian, the guy who went to Harvard. I say Brian, you got to help me out here. Anything financial always go to him, or he's the only guy you know who made me any money. Yeah, I'm like I got me out here. The government is a thief.
Speaker 3:He's like what?
Speaker 1:are you talking about? I said the government wants my forty seven thousand dollars. That's not right. And he doesn't. He said I'm gonna hang up the phone here. You ever call me again like this. When I see I'm gonna punch you, I'm a smack in your face. I said I'm like bro, chill out me. He goes. Do you know how disgusting you sound right now? Do you realize that we grew up on food stamps and you know how food stamps are paid for? By people paying taxes. Yeah, so shut up, pay your taxes, be grateful, you made money move on hey it's that's me.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, I felt so guilty. I was like, gosh, okay, so you got the five corners. You guys said you're working on another project. Can you mention what the other project is, or is it secret?
Speaker 2:We can only say very minimal, small things about it.
Speaker 3:However, it's in restaurant or cafe.
Speaker 2:It's a secret, it's a restaurant. It's two restaurants plus a market marketplace.
Speaker 1:It's a secret.
Speaker 3:Part three.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, okay. So to what you say to restaurants. So it's like two different like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's in one space. It's about 15,000 square feet, so it's a large project 15,000 square feet in Newark. No secret, not in Newark. Yeah, it won't be a new or 15,000 square feet.
Speaker 1:That's where you find 15,000 square feet. Okay, guys, look, I deeply appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much. I am like overjoyed with gratitude. Check out five corners on fairy street. It's not fair street, no, wilson.
Speaker 2:Wilson, 10 Wilson Avenue and 71 fair street.
Speaker 1:Yes, 10 Wilson Avenue for the best Italian food and 71 fairs, fair street or some delicious oh, and I just had this really great sandwich the farmers. The prosciutto with the Turkey? Oh, no, true, prosciutto with turkey, is that what?
Speaker 2:it's in the Rueble.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that yours? No, no, no, thank you, we were talking about it. He was like we should take out from the menu.
Speaker 1:No, it's great. You should never take out that's great. No, that's this thing. Can I only recommend one thing? A little bit, a little more cheese. Okay, what do I?
Speaker 2:know, I'm just write that in the comments More cheese. All right guys. Thank you very much.
