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July 19, 2024 11 mins
Shawnae Dixon of Shaw-Nae's House announces the first ever New York City Soul Food Festival at Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island. To get your tickets head to NYCSoulFoodFestival.com!

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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, Staton 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 am 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.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I was gonna do.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, let's talk about what's going on. This is going
to be big for New York City, New York City.
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 favorite places in the world,
Snug Harbor Cultural Centers set in Island.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Have you been to Snug Arbor? 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 food.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
You are absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
And when I say that it's like soul food, I'm
saying it like, it's not about food. It is about
the labor of love. 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. It's like, oh my god,
you started a candle business, you know, like, or you

(01:24):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
So this is not a Ponzi scheme. I'm I'm not snatching.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Them away fire festivals.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
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 we were in during the pandemic.
So like just telling ourselves, you know, this is not
a great depression.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
We are not suffering.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
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 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. I mean
it's going to be a major, major thing.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
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.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know, and I don't know how to do it.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
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 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,

(03:26):
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, God,
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 shawn Who is this Shawna?
So I felt like it was in my best friend's
living room and the food started coming out, and then
Shawna came over and she looked. She just looked at
me and she said, Mmm, who are you. I'm Elvister

(04:10):
Rand whatever. She said, there's something about you and we you.
You're sparked. I mean, sparks started flying out of my
nipples and stuff. So 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
better go ahead, seriously, yes, and it's it's it's and
it's getting a lot of buzz, a lot of talk.

(04:32):
And 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 (05:17):
While some one of the last great things he did,
yes the time put me on Shawnee's on the map.
Now I can leave.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, you want to expand, like I know, I know
you said you did.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Okay, so now you do because last time you would
hear 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. I think that that's the place where
people are going to want to go. 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

(05:54):
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 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. You know, like
we cannot walk around not being happy anymore. 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

(07:12):
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 I'm
only open for five hours per day.

Speaker 1 (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.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
So a global.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
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's
so many people out there. There are so many Shawnees
out there.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
There are you guys got to wake up.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Y'all got to get up kind of early though, and
you got to be chipper and happy and excited at
even if you're.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Not it, maybe almost die. You have to almost die.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Right, I did do that, 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

(08:19):
I believe I can 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 Nycsoulfood 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 3 (08:53):
Yeah, and want to see soul food you can remember, right?
So okay, so you're amal message. Okay, we'll start with
on even a few seconds here, We'll start with the 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?

Speaker 1 (09:09):
We have?

Speaker 3 (09:09):
We have some people that are being like super creative like, uh,
what's there, Nadia?

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (09:16):
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
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 want like to see you know,
like things like sneaker pop ups. You know, people are

(09:39):
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
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 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,

(10:19):
if they want to pass along, if you're 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 3 (10:29):
Why is the taco guy gonna come? Because we definitely
have some trucks. I have adult truck.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yes, okay, we got things to do, right, We only
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.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
In the day. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Listen, do it. It's New York City Soul Food Festival,
powered by Shawney's House of course, Snug Harborcultural Center at Statenino,
which is so beautiful. What a gorgeous place.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Tickets and info on all of the above at ny
Csoul Food Festival dot com. Shawnee, we love you September
one and I appreciate you, and you got to come back.
We have to do another last push for tickets. Uh
closer to the event on September five.

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
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