Team Behind Cafe Lola Saint Honore & Three Little Chicks I Alexandra Lourdes & Steve Jerome DSH #365

No, they gave us a three star because our donuts were too big.

Yeah, like they they and so for us like okay, it's to me it hurts not number one, right?

It's like I think that they think that we're like this such a big business that we can take it, you know, but they don't realize like that we actually have so many employees that depend on us and like when these people are leaving reviews like that on small businesses, like they can actually affect that the business for sure.

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Ladies and gentlemen, we are back.

We're here with some Vegas legends today, Alexandra Lourdes and Steve Jerome.

How's it going, guys?

How you doing?

Hi.

Doing great.

I'm great.

So talk to me about all the restaurants you guys own.

Can you name them?

Oh, gosh.

Okay.

So we have Cafe Lola.

We have five locations.

We have Saint Honoré, and then we have Three Little Chicks that we just opened.

Wow.

So that's seven spots?

So we have seven, right?

Yeah, we have the five Lolas, the two Saint Honorés, and the Three Little Chicks.

That's amazing.

One of the Lolas is in the form shops, right?

Yeah, Cafe Lola, we just opened a year ago inside form shops.

Wow.

Is that the most successful one, I'd assume?

Yeah, it's definitely our most popular now.

It's the

highest revenue generator,

but obviously the highest rent.

So

in terms of profitability,

I can't even ask.

It's doing well.

It's doing well, yes.

It's been great.

I always see it because I go to that escape room in that place.

Oh, right.

Yeah, I've done every room there.

I always stop by there.

The drinks you guys make at Cafe Lola, phenomenal.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, how did you come up with

the menu and the drinks and all that?

So I actually am very new to the restaurant world.

It's funny because Steve and I are so different.

So me and my business partner, Lynn, actually started it, and Lynn's his wife.

Okay.

Lynn and my husband work out of the office and they do mostly like the business side.

And then Steve and I work in the outlets and do a lot of the food development side.

The creative programming, anything food or drinks.

You guys compliment each other.

Yeah, it's definitely an amazing team.

And so Steve and I also

develop a lot of the menu items.

So the drinks, I actually started,

to be honest, I never made an espresso drink in my life before we started Cafe Lola.

Like, I never ever drank espresso.

I never even used one of those professional espresso machines.

And so we hired somebody and they taught us, right?

I mean, that's what I think a lot of people don't realize: is that like, if you have an idea and a dream, like, you can really, you know, you just hire someone better than you, and they teach you how to do it, right?

So we hired someone, they taught us, and Steve and I just really jumped in and like, we just really loved that side of the world.

And I'm super creative.

I actually have a degree in art.

So I feel like that just, I love it.

I love the colors.

I love mixing things.

You know, it just, it felt like art to me.

Nice.

And so, and I'm also really, really, I love ingredients.

I love being more on the healthy side.

So we, I try to do a lot of things with with more like organic maple, you know, agave.

I try to keep things a little healthier so people, you know, feel good about drinking it.

So when I created all the menus or all the drinks,

I always keep those in mind.

Like what would I want to drink?

Right.

And so I keep them a little bit less sweet.

Because I know when people go to Starbucks, they hit sugar bombs, you know?

And I know people like that.

So I always tell our staff too, I'm like, make sure you educate people that

our drinks are a lot

less sweet.

So if they want them sweeter, you know, you can add more sugar.

But I like to go less.

And then we like to keep it seasonal, too.

So, like, every new menu item or every new season, we come out with new menu items.

So, that's really fun.

And then, Steve actually develops a lot of the food items.

So, because of his, he has a culinary kind of background.

He's been...

You want to talk about it?

Yeah, walk me through the process of creating a food item that goes on the menu.

All right.

So, I'll take you back all the way to, I guess, the beginning.

So, Lynn and Alex had a marketing company and had this idea to start

a cafe.

So, they had signed a lease and said, okay, we need a chef because we're going to do food.

And so they had this elaborate idea on how we wanted to do healthy food, though.

We wanted it to be a different cafe.

Like we wanted it to be like, because I used to go to coffee shops.

Like Lynn and I used to go to coffee shops and work.

And we'd be like, we can never eat here because I'm gluten-free.

And then, like, I'd always have to leave.

They never had gluten-free things.

They never had dairy-free.

And so I told Steve, I'm like, when we create food, like, I want it to be healthy stuff, like avocado toasts.

I want all these different toasts.

I want, you know, things that I can actually eat, like eggs.

you know that's what I want at my coffee shop so

we we sat down and I said well come to the house I'll do what I think you know it should look like you know this will give you a framework at least and then we can hire a chef and like you know put it put it to life yeah um I think we did the first like maybe and some of those things are still on the menu yeah avocado toast avocado toast

avocado toast yeah

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Honey salt's a good one.

Yeah.

But like again, always like kind of as a front-of-the-house operator.

And, you know, but so I just put out the food the way, you know, I thought it should look.

And

she tried it.

Lynn tried it.

And they were like, this is it.

This is exactly what we want it to look like from the establishment.

It was really small to start.

Small, yeah.

We started with just like five toasts, I think.

And she said, you're going to be the chef.

And I said, whoa,

it's perfect.

do you know how to cook yeah i mean he's italian yeah all italal

i've been around food my whole life okay um you know working for wolf i think i got um

just a ton of experience um we used to do like cooking classes and during the day dinner only restaurants so we had the rooms during the day

wolf gang okay we call him wolf yeah oh there was classes there during the day so yeah we had uh tratoria delupo which was uh in mandalay bay yeah um it was a dinner only restaurant but they had like these world-class chefs that were just kind of like hanging around during the day so all these convention convention like people would come in and we used to do cooking classes and they would need, you know, just help like, you know, prepping.

And I was just around it like all the time.

And then you learned how to like make sauces and you learned how to, you know, just watching chop vegetables, just everything.

I think I learned very visually anyways.

And I did that for like 10 years just working, you know, but I was an operator, you know, as a restaurant operator.

Yeah.

But I've, yeah, I've always like at home I cooked, you know, my growing up, like Italian recipes with my mom.

So I've always been around it, but never like, you know, as a skilled, like professional chef.

That's cool.

And really what we're doing in the restaurants, although it's elevated food, it's certainly not, you know, Michelin star food.

I mean, it's not, it's not meant to be.

Yeah.

It's

casual food, homestyle, I think, but always with an emphasis on quality.

I think where we're again, if we're talking about the partnership-wise, it's like she has the idea, I can help with the flavors, and then we kind of come together on the aesthetic and the plating of it.

And it always looks, you know, looks great.

Yeah.

So I think that's kind of like the origin.

But no, no, no formal training to your question.

Wow.

No, that's fascinating because to me, it looks like a lot of restaurants fail, right?

And a lot of cafes fail, but it seems like you guys have a great partnership, and that's why you guys are killing it.

Yeah, I'll speak a little bit to that.

Alex touched on it earlier.

I think the four of us kind of

really came together and we kind of stay really in our

really clear lanes.

Like my wife, Lynn, has the law degree.

Michael, Alex's husband, comes from the finance world.

He was a COO of Raising Canes

and has an HR background.

So they are, you know, my wife's finding real estate, looking at contracts and deeds.

Michael's, you know, helping us with finance and budgeting and forecasting, things that I certainly know how to do being in the restaurants and as an operator, but certainly don't love to do.

Yeah, yeah.

My passion is in the restaurants.

It's creating its, you know, guest experiences and creating that kind of stuff and that's having those two kind of behind the scenes i think has allowed us to really um like flourish and do the things that we're passionate about yeah um i think the four yeah the four of us working that way um and it again it allows us to be creative and go in there and and be nimble like if she wants to create a drink you know today for tomorrow for some you know TikTok viral sensation or some something that's no something that's kind of cool and relevant or like Taylor Swift's coming in town so we got to do donuts for her like we can do that on a dime you made donuts for Taylor Swift we've done donuts for a lot of people I just not for her but I did them like to to celebrate her coming so we did them for the store you know what I mean like yeah that's awesome but I've done donuts for a lot of different celebrities which is that's cool yeah I saw even Louis Vuitton right yeah and a few other big

brands corporate brands yeah and that's the power of the marketing you guys have right because you guys have marketing backgrounds yeah so you've done great with the branding thank you yeah that's again what C was saying.

It's like really nice that we've been able to focus on that.

And the branding part is something that I think that I'm really passionate about.

I came from social media.

So before I started this restaurant, I was a foodie.

So I like would post all different, I'd go to all different local restaurants, I would post and like celebrate them, right?

And I would be like, this restaurant, you should go check out.

It's so amazing.

And so, and then I think that really helps us, I think, because I came from a consumer standpoint, you know, and I'm like, I know what consumers like.

I know what consumers like to take photos of.

I know what, like me as a foodie, what I want to see on the menu.

So that's kind of where my perspective comes from and kind of where.

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Where I give ideas.

I always come up with these crazy ideas.

And like we, when we, I now, now, just recently, I started posting our development ideas.

So like when I come up with some crazy idea, we do a video, and those have been going so viral.

It's so funny.

We've had millions of views.

It's impressive.

Crazy, yeah.

Like, just us doing a pickle pizza, right?

And some of that's exaggerated for the camera, but that's truthfully like how we, how it goes down.

She'll come in and she'll be like, and I'm like, really?

We're doing this?

And then it, like, it'll evolve, right?

And it happens.

And now it's going on the menu.

Yeah, now, and now that's it.

There's going to be a pickle pizza.

There's going to be a pickle pizza.

Yeah, I've never seen that before.

Starting in December.

Wow.

So how do you stay on top of all these food trends?

Because the food trends are insane.

It's so fast.

I know.

It's so fast.

Mostly I think I'm the one that really immerses myself in social media because I live in it.

Right.

So I'm constantly on social media.

So

if there's ever a trend that comes up,

we'll pretty much jump on it pretty

right away.

Yeah.

Nice.

And if not,

I mean, we pick and choose which ones obviously we go through, but for the most part, we try to jump in.

They have to be true to what we're, you know, the core of our business, right?

Like, it doesn't make sense for us to do something that isn't Cafe Lola for Lola.

Yeah.

And it doesn't have necessarily food trends.

It's just kind of things that are

kind of trending or like sounds or like

songs, you know?

Songs, yeah.

I try to turn anything.

Like I try to, I feel like that's like, he always says like, that's just like my talent, you know, it's like figuring out how I can like make this trend into my business, right?

So like I turning donuts into songs, like I've done that before too.

And those also go, like get millions of views because it's just entertaining, you know?

It is.

I don't see anyone else doing what you're doing with the donut stuff.

Thank you.

It's super funny.

Now, was this successful from day one or was there?

Uh-uh.

Okay.

It actually was.

I mean, even today, I know people just assume, I feel like, that we're just like so successful because of TikTok, right?

Or for social media.

But there are months that we like lose money because

we're not busy that way.

It's the reality of running a restaurant, right?

I mean, not they're not always like, you know, it's low margin or something.

Yeah, it's low margins.

It's hard, right?

You asked why a lot of them fell earlier.

Like, there's a myriad of reasons why.

I think why we've been able to stay above is because we are, to what I said earlier, we're nimble.

We're able to change things rather quickly if things are, we see things are getting sideways.

We're able to say, hey, we got to, you know, like a great example.

Like the donut business, nobody was going out.

We had a, you know, a staff of people sitting around.

We said, you know, hey, let's, let's.

start a new concept basically in the middle of we started making pizzas right you know so like you have to be like

able to to do that I think we actually had to close down the donut shop during

so that was crazy and then before that we were only open for a year before that and we would only make like 12 12 donuts per flavor and there were days where we would throw out 50 of them because we didn't sell them and we were in this small parking lot like no one knew where we were and I remember telling Steve I was like I if people just tried our donuts I know they would love them like I remember but there was that was before TikTok blew up and enter social media and that's kind of what's propelled it like to where it is because without getting that messaging out there yeah like that's the other thing you could have the greatest product in the world and like if people aren't they don't know if you they don't know if you're alive i mean

especially in this city

i think about it i'm like what do people do back what did they do back in the day you know that's a good point yeah because i'm like you could have such a good product but you don't make it no but that's so true because i stumbled across your donut shop on accident um i was just in the area and it was the best donut i've ever had in vegas and i was like this is way better than like pink box or whatever it's called.

Yeah, no, no, nothing against those.

I mean, we're just a different, it's a different concept.

I mean, we make everything from scratch.

You're talking about like 24-hour brioche dough.

Yeah, the quality is noticeable.

Those custards all from scratch.

I've got four of them.

I ate like two whole donuts.

That's great.

I mean,

for us,

that's like

for us, that's like amazing to hear because that's what we really want you to be able to tell difference.

Like, that's all we care about.

I don't want to compare myself to any other one else, but I do think that we have the best donuts totally in the city, I mean, or in the world, probably.

For sure.

And even in the cafe, the quality is so noticeable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Because I've been to a bunch of breakfast spots out here, and you can notice

for sure.

And I'll always pay a little more for healthier options.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's something that we're, you know,

it's a core value for us.

It's like always has to have that quality.

We have to be proud to serve it or else, you know, we're just not going to do it.

Yeah.

So coming from the corporate restaurants, what's been that shift like for you?

So for me, it's like, I kind of, I think I have kind of a unique background.

So like working for the win is certainly that, right?

You're talking about corporate America, stock traded, you know, union staff.

Working for Wolfgang is kind of a little bit of a mix.

I think you get

certainly big, you know, tourism spot, celebrity chef, and all of that.

So I think I've learned a lot from both of those, you know, working in those two environments.

But working for yourself and doing this for yourself every day,

it's just a different animal.

I mean, it requires so much of your time.

It requires just,

I mean, you have to give it everything you have.

And

it's literally 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I mean, if we're not in the restaurants operating, we're at home, you know, talking about concepts or talking about ideas or looking at, you know, PL statements and trying to figure out profitability, it just doesn't stop.

We have over 120 employees now that are

coming to work every day that are relying on us to, you know, to feed their families now.

So um it's it's a it's a it's i think the weight um is is a little bit different when it's yours right yes you guys are feeling a lot of pressure totally yeah yeah people don't talk about this you know no yeah that's important that's and i was telling steve actually earlier is that that um even when people like leave a yelp review or example or like a google review and they like bash your business you know for something small oh does that happen you guys

all the time you know oh yeah like i wouldn't go look at our reviews oh it's that bad like they're i mean i would say some.

No, I mean, I think overall, and again, like, I don't think it's indicative, like, of what actually is out there in terms of our reputation or a thing.

But there are, you know, like we get comments like, went to the donut shop and

they gave it like a one-star review because you're sold out of donuts.

No, they gave us a three-star because our donuts were too big.

There were no donuts.

Yeah, like, they, they, and so for us, like, okay, it's to me, it hurts, not number one, right?

It's like hurtful, but also, we I think that they think that we're like just such a big business that we can take it you know but they don't realize like that we actually have so many employees that depend on us and like when these people are leaving reviews like that on small businesses like they can actually affect that the business you know like and like see people will not not go there because of that review you know and

now we have to pay like I mean we're paying out of our pocket anyway some months you know because some months we need it but most for the most part i'm like if you went to like a like mcdonald's like and had a bad experience like no one would leave a one-star review, but they're like leaving you bad reviews on these local businesses who support all these other families.

To me, that's crazy, you know?

That's a good point.

Yeah, so to me, that's like where I feel the pressure the most.

That like, I'm like doing this whole Yelp thing now.

I'm like, I need to, like, get our stars up because I feel like I want people to really love us, like, and not just, but I don't know how to tell people that.

Like, I don't know how to be like, hey, like.

just address it.

Email me, you know?

Like, we, we don't want you to have a bad experience, you know?

Like, and obviously a one-star review for not having donuts at two o'clock, like, to me, that's not warrant.

That's not warranted.

Like, that's not fair.

No, I will say when I do see low reviews, like, if it's below four, my subconscious is telling me, like, the food won't be good.

So I usually won't eat there on it.

Yeah.

So it is damaging, especially for small local businesses.

So, I don't know.

So what's the reviews out right now?

I think we're at three and a half.

What?

Some of them are four, but some are four.

That's crazy.

The donuts are so good.

Dang.

That's shocking to me.

I know.

I don't understand how someone could eat.

Well, like I said, some of it is like, hey, we came at 2.30 on a Saturday and they're they're sold out.

Like, okay, well.

A lot of them are that.

A lot of them are.

Oh, so they don't even eat it.

No.

Yo.

No.

No, I would say 50% are one stars because we're sold out of donuts and they're pissed because they Ubered there and they can't get

sucks.

And they're like, why hasn't it been like, you know, pre-order, you know, come early?

But also, don't all donut shops sell out of donuts at some point?

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, the good ones do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

You know what they should do?

They should.

Right.

I mean, it's not like you can, it's a 24-hour go.

It's like you can't just make donuts.

They should have a way where it connects to your CRM or at least you upload a receipt where only customers can leave a review.

That would be more fair.

Totally, yeah.

Yeah.

So some of that, but you know.

Do you guys want to keep scaling?

Are you content with seven locations right now?

I think ultimately we do.

I think right now we're at a place and a time where we got to kind of pump the buzzwords.

Yeah, it's just, it becomes,

I mean, like the Lolas, I think we could do it fairly easily if we had, you know, enough capital to do it the right way and get into the right markets.

We have the infrastructure.

I could see those crushing it in Cali.

Yeah, I think they would do well just about any major market.

I think that they certainly resonate with

folks and I think that

the concepts are viable.

I think the donut concept

has probably the greatest potential out of all of them because it's such a great concept.

It's labor intensive.

Like I said, we're hand decorating everything every day.

Must take hours to make those.

They do.

Yeah, I think our baker gets in at 6 p.m.

the night before.

What?

He works overnight.

Yeah, yeah.

He works overnight.

It's a 24-hour operation.

Oh my god.

Team of decorators come in at four in the morning.

They're hand decorating until seven, eight in the morning just to get donuts out.

I didn't know that much went into it.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

It's a project.

Yeah, because we don't use any machines yet, you know?

So everything is literally like he's literally cutting 2,000 donuts by hand.

Hand dipping them in Glasgow.

So 2,000 a day?

We do about 1,500 to 2,000 a day.

Yeah, dang.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I think ultimately, I think we'd love to see these things kind of, you know, sprawl and make it regional.

To me, it's like, you know how Crumble did it like to me St.

Honore has that potential you know like a couture cookie you know we're like the couture donut you know so I feel like it does have potential but I think we need to streamline it a little bit more like maybe get a couple machines to help out the labor is really high you're not doing when you're doing that kind of large

yeah we just need some equipment crumble probably had all machines right oh yeah well cookies are different right because like to me they're you just you you make huge batches you know and then i think that they just bake them all the toppings aren't as intense i don't think no i mean we're making all the creams there's a lot to it and we're making so many flavors but even if you talk about our new concept with three little chicks this is a fried like fast casual fried chicken sandwich concept yeah yeah um i mean there's no reason we kept the menu real simple with just two sandwiches right yeah two sandwiches and like uh tenders and then you can do grilled or fried couple of salad options that kind of stuff but that again that those choices are made

I think through the lens of like, hey, this isn't just going to be a one-stop store.

We want to be able to roll these out, you know,

multiple stores in multiple cities, multiple states.

So, I mean, certainly our focus is on scaling and growth, just not maybe right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What made you get into fried chicken?

Because that's a totally different market than donuts.

I know.

Then all of us, I mean, honestly, everything, like Cafe Lola is so different.

Then there's the donut shop.

And then we actually have a bunch of concepts on our, we like always, anytime we think of a new thing, like I told him, I'm like, my next thing I want to do is a Mexican restaurant because I think it's needed.

Like we didn't need to be a little bit more expensive.

There's no good Mexican invasion.

But like a fast casual Mexican that has really bomb food, like I feel like it's needed here.

Definitely.

I used to eat Chipotle, but that's not even Mexican.

So I told him that's next.

But, you know, I think.

Yeah, we'll,

we'll get to it.

But, like, I think the same thing.

We try and,

you know, there's no secret, right?

We're getting into, somebody said it, like, we get into really crowded spaces, but we're doing it a little bit differently.

We've kind of found our niche.

Coffee, I think, was the first one.

Certainly, donuts are on every table.

I mean, obviously, my husband comes from raising canes, so I think we had a little bit of background in chicken with him.

Yeah, Keynes crushes it.

Yeah, the scaling part of it and the math, you know, be able to produce on that kind of a scale.

But it's, you know, it's, again, something that we're passionate about.

It's named Three Little Chicks because we have three daughters.

I have one daughter and Alex and Michael have, you know, two.

Nice.

So, I mean, and it was, again, you know, Lynn and Alex coming together and saying, hey, we want to put out better food, you know, that isn't.

you know, like

that isn't better for you, right?

Like

we're going to.

Yeah, so like the breading is, the breading is made with quinoa quinoa flour, so it's actually naturally gluten-free, the chicken.

That's cool.

Yeah, so it's um we wanted to make it like Steve said, just a little bit healthier, you know, like but still really delicious.

That's why I stopped eating fried chicken, honestly.

Oh, really?

Because the seed oils.

I like the breading.

And then we, um, all of our sauces are made in-house.

We're using avocado mayo for the base of the sauces.

So, yeah, so just better choices of making, you know, just a little bit of a better product.

Yeah, I love that.

I'll definitely try it.

I'll post it this week.

All right, come check it out.

I think you'll love it.

Since you guys have extensive food backgrounds, I think you're qualified to answer this question.

Okay, fire.

What city in the United States has the best restaurants?

You're probably good at this.

I don't know.

I would probably say

it's hard not to say New York City.

Okay.

That's how I was going to say that.

Basically,

my 20s, basically, all my 20s, 30s, and into my 40s, that's all I did.

Like, I'd had a weekend off or a week off.

I'd go to a city to eat.

Wow.

That's cool.

I want that lifestyle.

Well, I mean, it wasn't so glamorous.

You'd You'd have a weekend.

So, like, we'd go everywhere.

We went to San Francisco.

San Francisco is probably in the top three.

Okay.

I think San Francisco, too.

I haven't been there in so long.

Yeah.

And I've heard, I don't know.

I've heard that it's I've never eaten there, actually.

The food scene was amazing.

Okay.

But there's, there's, like, pockets in this country that are awesome.

Like, Portland, I went to Portland for a weekend.

Oh, really?

It was awesome.

Wow, I haven't heard that one.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

I mean, and it just, I guess, too, where I go, like, seasonally, like, you go back east, like, it's Boston, like the North End, like for Italian.

Like, there's pockets of like some really great

food.

But if you get gone to my head, one city to eat, you have to go to New York

per capita.

Miami has some good spots, too.

Okay, so you guys haven't mentioned Vegas at all.

Well, Vegas, yeah, I mean, this is my hometown now.

I'm out of Vegas.

If I'm leaving,

Vegas has everything.

Yeah, I mean, we've brought every celebrity chef.

But I think what's really cool about Vegas, and I think we're kind of playing a part in that, is the local restaurants now.

Yeah.

You know, cool things like Sundry that just popped up, up, you know, and that.

The neighborhood spots that are that are honey salt and we talked about earlier.

Like there's, there's starting to be like, you know, some of that too, which I think for a long time, like when I came here in the mid-early 90s,

there wasn't much of that at all.

Yeah, I could see that.

I prefer the non-strip spots sometimes.

Yeah, it makes it cheaper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's fun that you can go to the strip if you want, kind of that bite.

Yeah, if you're feeling like balling out a little bit.

Like Toca Madeira is one of my favorite.

I like Toco.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I go to Carbon's like all the time when I got friends in town.

Like those restaurants are those are great restaurants.

Yeah, their time of place for them.

I open Cut Steakhouse.

I opened Cut Steakhouse.

Like I like you open that?

Yeah, I love that stuff.

I've actually never been to Cut.

Really?

Really?

Yeah.

There's so many steakhouses in Vegas, it's like impossible to go to all of them.

That's like top.

I'm going to the one in Red Rock tonight.

I forget.

T-Bones.

T-Bones, yeah.

Yeah, have you been there?

Yeah, I've been there.

Okay.

Yeah, really good stuff.

Yeah, I'm excited.

All right, so we answered cities.

What about best country for food?

Italy, not even close.

Oh, Italy.

I should should say Portugal, maybe.

Portugal has really good seafood.

I was going to say that.

We went once.

Yeah, there's.

Yeah, we'd have to probably break it down by cuisine to be fair.

But Italy is just, there's nothing like it.

I haven't been to Italy.

I want to go.

Oh, yeah.

You definitely got to check it out.

It's amazing.

The food there, the pasta, obviously.

The whole thing, just the lifestyle.

But you can't compete with Portugal with

the

seafood?

I don't know.

The Amalfi crab.

That big crab.

Yeah, no, it was amazing.

I have to say, when we left there, I was completely blown away.

And it's a great, great Portugal.

It's a great country.

I do like crabs, so great place to visit.

We went to this place.

They bring out the crab, and they're like, is this one okay?

It's giant crab and it's like moving, you know?

And you're like, yes,

they did that to me at Mott 32.

Oh, yeah.

And it was like a thousand bucks.

I was like,

but what's crazy is that this restaurant, they bring it back to you and it's like flipped upside down.

They turn the inside of the crab into a crab soup.

Yeah, wow.

Yeah.

And then you eat the crab.

You eat the brain, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I've seen that.

People eat the crab brains.

Yeah, it was pretty crazy.

Yeah.

So, what about refined agency?

Is that sort of your marketing agency?

So, that's actually Lynn and I's business.

When we first left UNLV, Lynn and I started a marketing agency, and

it was social media.

And we call it interactive marketing because it wasn't just social media, we threw like these events as well.

And that's Elizabeth Blau actually is our first client.

She's like, I want you to run the marketing for honey salt.

And obviously, that's an amazing first client.

She knows everybody.

I was running Andiron

at the time.

And we were launching Happy Hour, right?

Yeah, I remember.

Yeah, and we said, he was like, yeah, let's do an event.

Let's get them in.

Get people here.

So they did.

Yeah, we got like 300 people out of it.

250 people.

I've never seen 300 people at a restaurant.

It was insane.

It was crazy.

Because I, with Lynn and I, like, so Lynn was always this organized, like, she's always very organized, and she's a lawyer, obviously.

She had, and she always threw these events.

So she knew how to coordinate the event.

And she always, and I knew, and I knew social media.

So I already had a little bit of a following, and I was able to, I posted the event and I told everyone about it.

And I'm, I think I'm like just a good storyteller.

You know, I think that's like a skill that I have for on social media.

So it's very, it was easy for me to like, you know, invite people and get them there.

And then we got newsletters out.

And yeah, everyone, everyone came out.

It was crazy.

The next day.

I didn't know the power of it at that time.

We hired them as

our marketing agency.

I'm serious.

It was like that quick.

And that's how it started.

Yeah.

And then, so we basically created a marketing agency overnight.

And I didn't know, we, Lynn and I honestly didn't know we were doing marketing at the time.

We thought it was more just like, because back then social media wasn't very popular, you know, like for restaurants, it was more like an individual thing, right?

It was just,

so now for, so to get restaurants on social media was kind of a newer thing using Instagram for business.

So we kind of jumped on that train real quick and were like, let's do it.

And by the end of the first year, we had probably like.

How many clients?

Like 20 clients or something.

Dang.

And it was not just restaurants.

It was like fitness studios and just all the, you know, all these people are like, oh, wow, like our business needs to be on social media too, because they saw what we were doing.

Yeah.

So we definitely jumped on that quick, like, which was really fun.

And we learned a lot.

And we learned so much from all these other businesses that we honestly were like, okay, I think we could do this ourselves.

Like, we can open our own restaurant because that helped you guys a ton with your restaurant.

Completely.

Yeah, inspired us to really open, want to open our own at least.

And that's why we opened the first Cafe Lola.

Yeah.

Cause there's not many restaurants that have that.

you know, that loyal audience like you guys have.

I see the same people eating at your spots.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

And I feel feel like some restaurants, they don't have that emotional attachment.

It's just like a spot you go to and you chill, but you guys have people posting your drinks.

Like you do very good with the branding.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think it has to do with just sharing our story and sharing like everything about like who we are.

Yeah, it's always been genuine and true, I think, because

it is, right?

And like that's our, we started them because of that.

And I think that that's always kind of been the messaging.

And I think the people kind of embrace that.

Yeah.

So what's next for you guys?

Three little chicks just opened?

Yeah, three little chicks just opened.

We have a lot of improving to do, obviously, and all the concepts.

We want to, you know, streamline it a little bit.

And

we have GMs now at all of the restaurants, which is crazy.

You know, we, at first, we were like, maybe do we need GMs?

You know, we're not sure.

So we hire GMs at every one now so we can really focus on kind of like the strategy and really like, you know, we're going to be launching a bunch of new stuff, obviously, for Christmas.

Then we're already doing Valentine's Day.

My assistant's over there, like writing down everything we're doing.

She's amazing.

She's She's with us every day.

We wouldn't be able to do this without her.

Wow.

Yeah.

She scheduled this.

I know.

Yeah.

She's amazing.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, we, we have just, I mean, every single day, I feel like we're doing something new.

We're creating something new for the business.

So that's cool.

Yeah.

And do you guys think raising capital is in the plans?

Definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think in order to grow

and grow the correct way, I think you kind of have to do it.

We've kind of funded and done all of these

with the four of us doing them.

And it's worked.

But if like we want to like really grow this and build this the right way, you need infrastructure.

Yeah, yeah, you know, you need it, not just like equipment and like, but you need it from like the human resources and, and the people, you know, having a controller and having yeah, I think we're right actually at that point, you know, we're just talking about it, yeah.

That's like our goal for this year to hopefully get this fundraised.

And yeah, that's super exciting.

That's probably what Crumble did, right?

Scale this thing.

I think so.

Scale it the right way.

I think, yeah, I think they did.

We just talked about that.

Yeah.

Wow, that's exciting.

I can't wait to see what you guys do.

Anything you want to close off with or promote?

No.

Just come visit.

If you have a good experience, leave a five-point review.

Let's fix the reviews, guys.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

No, come talk about it.

I think we'd love to see you in the restaurants.

Cafe Lola's great.

Cool.

Donuts and Pizza is fantastic.

And our newest Three Little Chicks is.

Yeah, let's do it, man.

Do you guys do bulk orders?

Yeah.

For the donuts?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll order like 100 because I have events.

Oh, that'd be great.

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

We could put your logo on them.

Yeah, we can do whatever you want.

Yeah, face on it.

Yeah, I mean,

we'll see.

We'll see.

All right.

Thanks for coming on, guys.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching as always, guys, and I'll see you tomorrow.