Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Today's Daily Highlight from Elvis Duran in the Morning Show,
Shawnee from Shawnee's House, Statton Island is here soul food.
It's all about soul food, you know, Shawnee. Welcome to
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm so super happy to be here. I am so
so grateful. I have to like really like center myself
because I was overly excited. I had a whole speech
going on. I was like going to take over, like, yeah,
the thank you Mom's speech. I was gonna, well, let's
talk about what's going on. This is gonna be big
for New York City. New York City.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Of course, there's always something to do in this little
town of ours. Now we have another thing September one.
It's New York City's Soul Food Festival, powered by Shawnee's House,
of course, happening one of my most favorite places in
the world, Snug Harbor Cultural Centers, Ston Island. Have you
been to Snug Arbor?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
No, All guys have to go there.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It's unreal. Oh yes, and it's a perfect spot for
the Soul Food Festival. Now talk about this. So this
is your You woke up in a cold sweat when
I going Oh, my god, I got a soul food.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
You are absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And when I say that it's like soul food, I'm
saying it like, it's not about food.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It is about the labor of love.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
It is about people coming together and sharing their passion,
their creativity and their ideas with each other. And so
that's the food that we're like really like fueling ourselves with.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's like, oh, my god.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
You started a candle business, you know, like, or you
started a T shirt business, or you wrote a book
or you know, you do financial literacy, Like these are
the things that I want people to come together and
do in this space, and I want it to be
good to your soul.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Well, don't forget the food.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
The food gotta be there, so like macaroni and cheese
and stuff and you know, sugar daddy wings of course.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
And I also do.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Soul rolls with the macaroni cheese and collar greens and
your chicken inside of it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And those are the things that my table is gonna sell.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
But like we have, we do have some really great
people that already trust me. So this is not a
Ponzi scheme. I'm not snatching festival. Yeah, I'm not doing
the fire island thing or anything. You know, this is
something that is really happening because I need us to
like pull ourselves out of whatever this thing was that
(02:14):
we were in during the pandemic. So like just telling ourselves,
you know, this is not a great depression. We are
not suffering. You know, we are not stressed, we are
not beat up, we are not you know, having a
bad time. We can actually like put our minds together,
work together and maybe like barter ourselves out of a situation.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So like how you're doing this, Yeah you see that. Yeah, No,
I love how you're doing this. And this is so
you by the way, I mean, this is this is
as they would say, this is Shawnee on a cracker
right here. Here's here's what's going on. Tickets rowdy on
sale by the way, Yes they are. And people are
still signing up to vendors and other restaurants and it's
going to be a major, major thing.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yes, I want everybody to come out, sign up and
be a part of this. It's an opportunity for people
to network, like to have a conversation. A lot of
times people are saying, oh no, you're gatekeeping information, you know,
and I don't know how to do it. And honestly,
I was in that seat when I was a new entrepreneur.
I didn't know what organizations were assisting businesses. I didn't
(03:13):
know who to go to. I didn't know how to
build or you know, figure things out. So my business
plan was just my reckless way of starting my business,
you know, like going into a restaurant or starting to
cook food and just selling it and saying, this thing
has to just work.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
But let's talk about this. Yes, I don't mean to
interrupt you. No, go ahead, but no, I shouldn't interrupt you.
No good shawn A's house. Let's reel it back to
that so people have it more of a foundation of
who you are and what it's about. Well, I got
a call for our friend Matt to tone one night.
He said, you got to come to this place. He said, Elvis,
you're born in the South. You haven't had great soul
(03:48):
food since you were a kid, and I haven't. I said,
oh yeah, okay, let me see what this Shawan? Who
is this Shawna? So we went in. I felt like
it was in my best friend's living room, and the
food started coming out, and then Shawne came over and
she looked. She just looked at me. She said, Mmm,
who are you. I'm Elvis durand whatever. She said, there's
(04:11):
something about you and we you you're sparked clicked. Yeah,
I mean sparks started flying out of my nipples and stuff,
and we started eating food. And since then, Shawna's House,
I mean it has been written up as one of
the top restaurants in New York City. You might to
go ahead, seriously, yes, and it's it's it's and it's
getting a lot of buzz, a lot of talk. And
(04:32):
now I'm now you. I don't even know how you
find time to sleep. You're always just thinking of new
things and coming up with soul food festivals.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
That's the beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you
lose sleep. But you're losing sleep for the purpose of
a legacy, right, So like I'm building this legacy, and
so yes, it requires time, and I you know, I
have to like constantly be thinking about things to do.
But like like you said, had I not done it,
had I not jumped off the cliff to to start
(05:00):
this business, I wouldn't be the only restaurant on Staten
Island in its history to receive two stars in The
New York Times by Peter Wells, who I have to
just really say thank you for because after twelve years
of service, he's announced he's coming off the table.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
He's not doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
While some of the last great things he did, you
say put me on Yeah, Shawnee's on the map. Now
I can leave. Yeah, you want to expand, like I know,
I know you said you did. Okay, sonight you do
because the last time you were here, you weren't sure
about getting a bigger place.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
You know. I don't want to expand what I have
there because I think that that's kind of like operating
as my flagship.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I think that that's the place where people are going
to want to go.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
And when I do decide to open up another space,
it is going to be another extension of Shawnee's house.
So it may be a den, or it may be
a living room or maybe a deck or maybe you know,
like something that's cool and cute, and it's still a
part of me, and it's still a part of my
lifestyle and the things that I do. But it gives
me an opportunity to kind of like be creative with
the space.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
People listening right now, going God, this is what I
want to do. You can do it now. There's a
Shawnee and Philly listening to us right now. There's a
Shawnee in Miami listening to us right now, and they're like, yeah,
I get this concept of the soul food Festival, which
goes outside the boundaries of food and to all sorts
of other things, finding vendors to be a part of this.
We have to get into that because there's people that
(06:24):
want to be a part of this. Yes, Gandhi.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So it's like a soul and food festival.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
It's a soul and food festival. So now you know,
I utilize the word soul as an acronym. So it's
before I was like having this epiphany that soul meant
the spirit of unconditional love. And then God said, no,
you can't do that because you're not the spirit of
unconditional love, but you are a servant of unconditional love.
And so this is about me serving my community in
(06:50):
order for me to build up this global you know,
movement of us being creative and growing and really like
doing fascinating things that make us happy.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
You know, like we cannot walk around not being happy. Anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
So we have to do the things that make us happy.
And it doesn't have anything to do with money, because
that's not where Shawnee's house is at. So I got
two stars April first, that was no joke. And then
on that same week I was top fifty. I was
in the top one hundred at number fifty. And I
only have six tables. I'm only opened three days and
(07:26):
I'm only open for five hours per day.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And I have in the last eighty days served someone
from every continent, all fifty states, and multiple islands. So
a global business coming out of that little tiny space
means anybody can do this.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
This is what I'm loving about this conversation because there
are so many people out there, There are so many
Shawnees out there.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
There are you guys got to wake up, y'all gotta
get up kind of early, though, and you got to
be chipper and happy and excited at even if.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You're not it, maybe almost die. You have to almost die.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And I did do that.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
So, like, you know, we have to really want to
put ourselves out there, you know, like I'm I'm just
me and so me doing what I do. I'm doing
what I am supposed to do what I can do.
I'm not doing anything outside of what I can't do,
and this festival is something that I believe I can
(08:21):
do successfully because I have the I have a gift
to communicate, network, reach, encounter and engage with people.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Let's do it. Let's get some people signed up.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Can we sign up? Please?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
You need Okay, we need to sell tickets and we
need to get vendors. All right, So is everything everyone
needs at Nycsoulofood Festival dot com.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yes, everybody goes their vendor, sponsors, participants, people who desire
to come and buy a ticket.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
You go there, the whole thing. And we're gonna put
this up on our on our socials as well, because
I mean that's NYC Sooul Food Festival dot com. People
are driving going what was that?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, they want to see soul food.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
You can remember, right, So okay, so a message. Okay,
we'll start with only a few seconds here. We'll start
with vendors. What kind of vendors are you needing right now?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
We have some food vendors, we have candle vendors, we
have is it mostly food? Have we have some people
that are being like super creative like, uh, what's there, Nadia? Huh.
Doll vendors like people that are coming out and doing
like passionate things. But I would like to see people
in fashion. I would like to see some people who
(09:24):
wrote some books come out there and sign and create
your own space to do a book signing right there.
We want to see baked goods. We do have a
few right now. I also would like to see, you know,
like things like sneaker pop ups. You know, people are
going around, they're doing their hustling, and I don't want
you to hustle. I want you to come out and
I want you to hustle in that space. So like
(09:46):
everybody that's selling something, as long as it's not drugs,
then I want you to come out and just hang
out and have a good time.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Okay, Jewelry would be a good idea.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Jewelry we definitely want and we have some people that
are going to be selling jewelry, and we have some
also other people that are like doing like the paparazzi
type of jewelry, like you know, like pamper Chef type
of thing, like you know that are in those things,
those sort of situations or spaces. But we want people
from all over to do things out there, and so
we have some informational booths as well. So if anybody
has information, if they want to pass along, if you're
(10:21):
in the community and you're doing something, whether it be
historical or whatever, reach out to us and set it up.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Tacos, Oh my god, our taco.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Why is the taco guy gonna come? Because we definitely
have some trucks. I have a tru.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yes, okay, we got things to do, right. We don't
have a month. We got a month to get some
vendors and sell some tastes.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's like selling tickets and raising money like Electric Boogoloo,
like they did back in the day.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Let's you took us back list do it. It's New
York City Soul Food Festival, powered by Shawney's House of
course Snug Harborcultural Center in Statenino, which is so beautiful,
what a gorgeous place.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Tickets info on all of the above, ny Csoul Food
Festival dot com. Shawnee, we love you September and we
appreciate you, and you got to come back. We have
to do another last push for tickets closer to the
event on September.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Absolutely, thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I appreciate you brought a lot of food. You guys
go ahead and we love you. Shawnee, thanks for coming
to see us today