June 6, 2023 • 42 mins
Keith Corbin never thought cooking could be his way out of the hood. After a stint in prison, Keith needed a change from a life of hustling, and a series of chance encounters led him into the culinary world. Now a celebrated restaurateur, Keith has made a name for himself through his restaurant Alta Adams and his interpretation of soul food - West African style meets California ingredients.
You can find Keith's book California Soul: An American Epic of Cooking and Survival wherever books are sold.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. The other day I drove up from my home
in Long Beach to a restaurant called Alta and the
historic West Adams neighborhood of LA. This is a beautiful
space you have.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I thank you, thank you. Have you been here?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I have not?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I gotta I gotta put you on? Did we get that?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Great? Were opening with that?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
My apologies, man, you can make here for the interview.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Keith Corbyn, the man you just heard grilling me, grew
up about ten miles south of here in another LA
neighborhood called Watts. In the nineteen eighties. Watts was pretty
much the epicenter for the War on drugs, and like
many others growing up in the area, hustling became a
way of life for Keith. But it was also in
Watts where through his grandmother, Keith developed a love of cooking,
(01:10):
and as you'll hear in our interview before becoming the
trendy restaurant tour he is today, that love of cooking
saved him when his hustle landed him in prison. This
is started from the body hard earing success stories from
people like us. Keith and I jumped right in to
(01:32):
talk about what it was like building this black owned
restaurant in West Adams and how people in this quickly
gentrifying neighborhood reacted when Keith first opened All TOA back
in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, it was ugly the beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
How so, I mean when we first came in here,
we first came into West Adams, I got a lot
of slack for, you know, from our own people, for
being the quote unquote face of gentrification. It was only
on Instagram and you know, and it was just like
in my what I was trying to do was elevate
(02:07):
our food. I wanted to represent it and present it
in a way that it hasn't been done. I wanted
to bring a restaurant into a community like mine. I
wanted to provide opportunity, jobs and training to kind of
like infistrate this industry that doesn't have a lot of
black and brown influence in it. So I was very
(02:29):
intentional on what I was coming in to do. No
one asked me, it's just like part of the gentrifying
the community. Bullshit, excuse me? Yes, So, but you know,
it passed and now people see what the mission is,
to see what I'm about and understand it, and has
been very very supportive, but it was hard in the beginning,
(02:51):
you know, like it was it was eating at me.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
What do you think it says about as black folk,
like our relationship with success, that when one of our
own opens up, like a restaurant like the one like
Alter that you've opened in our own neighborhood is viewed
as betraying the community.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I mean, I don't know, you know, I try not
to be this believer in black folks pulling black folks down.
You know, I don't come at our folks like that.
You know where they say black folks pull black folks down,
White folks lift each other up, and this, that and
the other. I just think it's years and years in
(03:37):
years of trauma and experiences, right, it's brainwashing, Like it's
America has a lot to do with the way black
folks think, you know, from our ancestors and what we've
been through to get up to this point is going
to take a lot of healing, you know, it takes
a lot. It's gonna take a lot of healing and that,
(03:59):
you know, I don't think that we intentionally want to
pull each other down.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I don't wake up to pull another black person down,
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
But I can't say that ten o'clock at night and
I'm on the street, you know, and I got my
eye out, you know what I'm saying, Like in certain communities,
you know, if I'm turning the block and it's kind
of dark and you see the like your own fellas
on the block, like you might you know, fly past
(04:28):
or busty you or whatever. Right, Yeah, but yeah, that's
going down a whole other lane.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
You had an interesting I mean, plenty of trauma in
your life, plenty of trauma. How have you managed given
all that to become comfortable with success?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So for me, success changes with my goals. I don't
look at it as monetary or buying a house in
Westwood or any of that.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
But you did, But I did.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
When I first came on from prison in twenty fourteen,
I had a conversation with my daughter where she was
made whare of my lifestyle, and in that moment, I
realized I wasn't proud of the lifestyle I was living.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And if I died in that moment, you know, I was.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
No longer proud of the conversations that people have, you know,
and about me. So I set out to change my
narrative and my legacy and the narrative that people were
having around me, right, conversations, and we're having different conversations today, Right,
my legacy has changed. So I'm successful in that I've
(05:40):
accomplished that, right, So that's a level of success. So
then once I accomplished that and I had an opportunity
to open my own business, my goal changed, right, and
my goal became to provide opportunity to people in similar
situations in which I came from.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Right, So maybe we should start at that first moment
coming out talking to your daughter. Yeah, your goal was
really just to create a different narrative for your life.
That's it than you've been given.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That's it, And that one not the one I've been given,
the one I've created. Right, So, both the circumstances were
created before me, Right, I was born into these circumstances.
But the narrative of the gangster and the drug dealer
and all that, even though the choices were limited for me,
(06:35):
so it was kind of like a forced path for me,
I still own responsibility and accountability and choosing to go
that route, right, So I created the narrative the drug dealer,
the gangster, the shooter, the X, whatever the case may be. Like,
I own some responsibility in it. Yeah, So I created
(06:56):
this narrative about myself because one I had pride in it,
and I set out to have this larger than life
reputation in the streets and then the drug trade. That
was my goal, in my mission, my aim, my objective. Right,
So I own that. Right, I own that. But then
I sought to change that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
So to change that. So when you come out, what
are your thoughts about how you can change that? After
that conversation, I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I absolutely had no idea, right, I just took it
day by day, and when I found myself in situations,
I just made the best of it, just like when
I was in my youth, you know, when I found
(07:46):
myself in situations at seven and seven world on wheels,
locked in with all these street dudes throughout LA and
the squabble time come up. I just made the best
of the situation. And as things as those opportunities presented
themselves and I stood up and stayed down, the reputation
(08:06):
began to grow.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So I just followed that same model.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
I had no idea, no path on how I was
going to change my legacy or how I was going
to change the narrative.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's just I.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Knew I didn't want to do that anymore so and
avoiding that it put me on another path. And as
the opportunities presented themselves, right, I made the best of it.
When I got my first job at local restaurant, I
had no idea where that path was going to take me.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Did it seem like a good opportunity to you?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
No?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Like work man, please, nigga, I've been hit selling dope
my whole life, like hustling entrepreneur. I ain't want to
work for nobody, you know what I'm saying. Like it
was so uncomfortable. It was so uncomfortable to be to
come up into projects and to go to and lift
this whole lifestyle of with no authority, no respect for authority.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
To then have this white man yelling at me in.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
The kitchen, Daniel Patterson.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Man, that shit didn't work. It just didn't work, like
you feel me. So I tried to.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Quit numerous of times, but Daniel supported me in the role.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So hold, look you walk me through that. So will
you when you go in? Would you just go walk
in and be like yo, I'm done, or he might
yell you and be like I'm done.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
You got to understand that the restaurant right in the hood.
So I just walked out of the door. Yeah you
feel me, like he we yelling in the kitchen. Fuck that, man,
I'm out of here. So I walk out. Then here
Daniel come behind me. She let me talk to you,
you feel me and like guide me back in, Like, man,
I know it's uncomfortable with it. To get comfortable, it
just takes time. And in my mind, I'm like, man,
(09:45):
you just want me here to yell at me, fool
like you know, but I'm seeing it one way and
he seeing it another way.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
He like, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
But at the end of the day, that job, I
didn't treasure it, but I explored it because I had
a goal.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I didn't know that working at Loco that so it
this way.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
There was no representation at the mountaintop or at the
end of this road saying if you take this path,
you're able to accomplish these thing.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
There was no example for me.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
No, there was no representation, nobody, no example, no one
exemplifying that for me. Right, I was carving a path
on my own you know what I mean. So with
not knowing what I can accomplish at the end, I
didn't treasure it, you know what I.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Mean, trust the process because you didn't know it was
a process.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I didn't know what the end result was going to be.
For me.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
In my mind, is just a job in a check
And if it's just about the money, then I know
many ways to get money. But I was committed to
the change. I was committed to the change. And I
think that commitment to the changes would allow Daniel to
tap into to guide me back into the restaurant, because
(11:02):
if I wasn't committed to the change in yourself and myself,
then I would have been out. Yeah, but he was
able to tap into that. And I had a purpose,
like I was doing it for a reason, and so
I went back in and you know, now I'm comfortable.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Was ill.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
How did Daniel and Roy Troy find you for local
to be men?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Well, they came down there. I was still in prison
when this process started. They came down to the community
and kind of like really did the best research they could.
They got with a bunch of the older gentlemens in
the community, which I call my big homies, well some
of them. Some of them are just older dudes in
the community. You know, we'll keep that separate. And they
(11:47):
spent almost a year in the community and so they
were aware of some of the.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Conflicts, the traumas.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
They kind of got an understanding about what the community
culture was like. And one of the things that they
did was really important when they opened Local was they
brought in a counselor. Wow, so we had access to counselor.
That's brilliant, you know what I.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Mean, and like paid counselor.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Like you'll have a you'll be working in a restaurant
and like I'll go have a session if I chose to,
and then I'll come back and tell Tim or whoever.
Now your session up, Like it's your turn and you're
still on the clock getting paid to go deal with
some of your trauma. And then we had group settings, right,
And so that was how intentional Local was. We're coming
(12:39):
into the community and really being intentional on helping.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
The folks that they hired. And that's what I experienced it.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So they found you by talking on the old heads
on the block.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
No, I'm sorry I didn't answer that question. I had
got fired at the OI refinery, and I got a
call for my mother.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
You working at the refinery in.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Else So, yeah, I was working there.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I came on from prison, got a job there, labor job,
because that's the only job I thought X cons can get,
And so I got a labor job, worked my ass off,
got a promotion. At the time I got hired, they
wasn't doing background checks, and then by the time I
got the promotion, background checks has been implemented. So in
order to get the promotion, they had to run my
(13:27):
license to drive company equipment. Running my license brought my
background up, and so they walked me to the gate
and terminated me. They didn't say damn, like, man, he
really worked hard to the point that we want to
invest in him and move him up in the company. No,
they overlooked all that and said background, Oh, yeah, you
out of here. So for a couple of weeks, I
just really felt that the system and society was so unforgiving,
(13:51):
right yeah, that I considered going back to hustling. And
then I got a call from my mother saying, boy,
you better get over here.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
They just build a restaurant in the.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Hood and they hiring on the spot and I was
getting off the freeway and watch on Womenton, the Womenton
exit off the one oh five, So I just shot
over there.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They's show enough.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
They had an application with like four or five questions
first name, last name, birthday, phone number, email, like, no,
do you small? Have you ever been in prison? Are
you black or brown? None of that general information. They
hired us on the spot.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Without even knowing your ability to cook?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Are my inability Do.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You feel you had an inability at the time for restaurants?
Absolutely okay, because cooking that home.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And cooking dope, the's two differents, like it's but however,
there are skills in both of those that's transferable that
I didn't understand until I got comfortable in the restaurant industry, right,
and then I was able to see and understand that, Wow,
(14:58):
I didn't have to forsake all this knowledge I've learned
cooking drugs. There's some things there that I learned that
actually it's transferable. Because when I was cooked drugs, the
main star was the product, right right?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
How do I make great product?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And that's what's starting with a proper base, A great base,
great keilo or cocaine, right right?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So that's like a rue or something like.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So No, it's like when you have an option of
vegetables where you getting it from the liquor store or
the farmer's mark. Starting with great product and the base
of the product has to be great, yes, right, and
then that translates how the end product. So if I
(15:48):
have a bad kelo or coke, then what do I
think the crack is going to be at the end result?
If I have shitty vegetables that's out of season, that's
been on a frozen truck traveling for two months.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
If I have avocados.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
That's coming and that's getting picked off the tree too
early to equate for travel time opposed to going to
the farmer's market and grab an avocado that was just
picked yesterday. So that's what I'm talking about. Like there's things,
and so the product is one. And then when you
(16:25):
think about hustling, it's like, Okay, I had a dope
house and you got all these young dudes on the
block that also have dope sexes.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Like how do I.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Get the customer to walk past the convenient guy to
come to me every time?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Right? How do I distinguish my product? You know what
I mean, and so.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
All these things start coming back to me, like, oh, man,
I can utilize that shit in the restaurant, like focus
on the product, like the base. And then when you
have that, how do you distinguish your product from everyone else?
At least full of restaurants? So how do you separate
your product and your business from everyone else? And so
those lessons that I learned in the streets I utilize
(17:08):
and the restaurants, but just cooking, I had a whole
lot to learn.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
When we come back. Keith Corbin talks about how being
exposed to fresh foods and learning to cook professionally helped
him understand what his community needed, access to healthier meals.
(17:37):
What did you learn at local about cooking properly?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Seeing me full timing shit. I learned a lot of vegetables.
I learned a lot of herbs. I learned a lot
of stuff because you know, growing up, a lot of
of the ingredients came out of can garlic powder, onion powder, lowriesy.
(18:01):
You know, like you didn't really work with raw product,
so loco, I learned that how to deal, how to
work with raw product. And then another thing, how to
properly cook vegetables. Like in our community, we overcook vegetables.
We make everything into mush, right, we boil the heat,
(18:28):
We boil the hell out. So what I'm saying, so
no color. Yeah, So I learned a lot of that,
you know. I learned a lot about how you know,
steaming is better than boiling because through the baill you
you boil broccoli and then you see the water's green.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
That's because all of them nutrients is in the water now, right, Like,
So I learned a lot in Loco.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Incredible. How long were you there?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Ultimately I started in twenty sixteen, probably a year and
a half because I opened this restaurant in twenty eighteen,
so just over.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
A year, just over your half. And then you get it.
Then you go up to then that shutters, that closes.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
No Local Wats, and Local Wats was the last one
to close.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
So six months, not even six months, less than six
months into Loco, I was actually join the executive body
and be part of the expansion of Local and so
I moved to the Bay Area and opened one in
downtown Oakland, one in West Oakland, and then we circled around.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And open one in San Jose.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I flew to Jersey and met with Mayor Barock, now
Barack Obama.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I was gonna say, wait, wait, wait a second man, Brock.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, Barock in Jersey because that was going to be
a stop. I had a deal in place with Nipsey
and Fats to open the second location in La off
of fifty fourth in Crenshaw, right there by Krinshall High School,
whereas you got the gas station at church and then
the structure. So we was going to open one there
(20:06):
and then unfortunately we was Fats untimely death kind of
like ended that because it was his space, and then
we lost nip So so.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You got asked him move, what do you think it
was about you that made them think this is the
right person to come up to the Bay area? And
Daniel Patterson's like, you know, he's like a big deal.
What do you think he saw on you to pull
you up then to his to his restaurant group up
in the Baby I'm.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Asked him that question all the time because at the
time I was a game, banging coke, had of alcohol,
putting in work, straddling the fence, like you know.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You still were you still in the streets?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I mean it was it was in a sense.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
It wasn't an even in the desire to change the
narrative in the legacy. It wasn't like I walked through
a magic door. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. Like,
it wasn't like you walk through a magic door. A
lot of the mistakes that people make when they leave
the street culture is how they exit.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Your exit can be your demise. You can't leave right away.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
There's roles, you know, like people still depend on you,
your leadership, your guidance, the relationship.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
The love.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
You know, you can't abandon, yeah, because then it's like
you're turning your back, right, And so I still deal
with my folks, you know, absolutely, just in a different capacity.
You know, you go from putting in work with people
to counseling people.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Guidance, and you know, you go to and it's just layers. Yeah, right,
and so.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
So you come out and you make this decision you
want to change your life. First opportunity, You're gonna take
whatever opportunity you can, and soinery then there's local absolutely,
the next opportunity is running this restaurant group. And you're
not sure what Daniel saw on you. What did you
learn though? Going up to Oakland I imagine, did you
you never probably never live in the Bay No.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I had.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Up until then, I had been to about twenty cities.
But like selling drugs, you see a different part of
the city. You know, people say they come to l
all the time, but I'm like, which part? Right, La
has two faces, It's two sides. So it's like, and
that's what every city. So depending on what you're into,
what your what your goal is, going into that city, like,
(22:21):
you'll see one side of the city and then there's
a whole other side. So I traveled a lot selling
drugs and been to a lot of cities, but I've
seen a certain part of the city. But then through
local I was able to see these cities in a
different light. And so going to the Bay Area, it
was for me it was like decompressing.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
I was able to ship go to the stores. I
was able to walk to the stores, you know. I
was able to walk the blocks.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I was able to come outside with slippers on, you know,
the simple things of.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Life without without without fear of.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Running into an violence. Not to say that Oakland didn't
have his own shit going on.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Part of the equation.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I wasn't part and that's what people don't gather.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
It's like, well, Oakland's still tough, and they're just yeah,
but they not looking for me.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I don't look like them. I don't walk. So when
that guy spinning the block looking for hisself, he's not
going to see me.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, right past.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
You know what I'm saying, Just like when I was
spinning the block looking for someone who looked like me, the.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Guy with the backpacked the glasses. This that I'm that
guy in Oakland.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, you know, I'm the guy they're gonna pass by
like it was that weirdof I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, yeah, let me read my pringles and shit.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
That's a lowless man must have been. It was a release.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It was absolutely a load off. Absolutely a load off.
But I was thirty four when I came on from prison.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
By the time I moved to Oakland, I was thirty
six going on thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Bro. That was the first time I ever went walked
into a whole foods. Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
The other first I've ever been to a farmer's market
was in the Bay Area, and that was the first
time I seen food come pre loved, pre loved, pre loved,
man pre loved. Yeah, you wonder what I mean by
that acidamn.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Questions free loved.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
My mama was running the.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
It's just you know at the farmer's market, you know
people like literally put their hands in the soil growing
it's food, cultivating this, picking this and bringing it to you.
It's like, uh, it's a relationship with the food all
the way through. They love it like you can like
the love they're pointing to. They're caring for it. It's
(24:58):
a child, right right, they're raising from they're raising up
and then their gift.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
They're bringing this to you. And then you have Whole
Foods the food.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
The same way like you got them in there, and
they're in comparison to food flescing Boys Market. I mean,
it's still a supermarket, right, and I choose Farmers Market
over supermarkets all day.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
But when I'm.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Shopping at Ralfs and Boys Market back in the day,
and which is now food for less the quality or
lack of quality that we had access to compare to
what Whole Foods have to offer, Yeah, it's it's a
drastic difference.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
What was I like walking in the Whole Foods.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Man, you know those big old white barrels. I thought
that was all free so man, I stuck my hand
in there and was walking through whole foods popping turtles
like the cheese is because you know how they you know,
I'm used to ship being in cages. Yeah, you know,
like you don't really have as wrapped up in rappers
so things, you know, so what you just got, like
(26:02):
you just got chocolate, I can just lift the lid
up and I'm thinking they samples yeah you.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So, yeah, but that was my experience.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
But I was looking, you know, just going through them,
like damn, man, I wonder what my granny could have
created if she had access to this, you know, if
our community had access to this, what what can be created?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And what would our health look like?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Boom, that's what alto.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
That's what the men you and the design you just
asked the very question. Then I want to think and
like they say that our number, the number one contributed
to our health problems is our culture's food. And I
am seeing the farmers' markets and the whole foods and
what these other communities has access to.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I said, goddamn it, it's not our food.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It is the lack of resources and access we have
on our community and the ingredients.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
My grandmother had to start with.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
So those can goods that's full of preservatives and salts
and all that for cure and pickling and all. That's
the shit that's unhealthy. Yes, but my grandmother will slave
over the stove probably a bad term, would labor over
the stove and tease all the love out of that food.
She will pour love into that food, cooking it for
(27:24):
hours and hours before we ate it. Right, But that
didn't take away the unhealthiness of it, right, But what
made it delicious was the love she poured into it.
And then here I am up here in the barrier, like,
goddamn food come loved already? Yeah, what can she could
create with this?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
And so that's when I started dreaming up a menu,
you know, along with working in these various restaurants that
Daniel had and learning techniques and seeing what the other
chefs are doing and seeing exotic ingredients, and then I
started to realize how diverse California is, the multicultural influences.
(28:06):
And then I started thinking about California soul food, man,
you know, like what that looked like. So taking something
that I inherited, food that I grew up with, and
just keeping to the trend of our ancestors. Soul food
(28:26):
in New Orleans is not the food that they made
in West Africa. So on their journey, wherever they stopped,
they created a dish. They created food from what they
had based on what was available there. So we've been
(28:46):
doing farm the table, Doctor table. So when I started
thinking about California soul food, it's like, I'm gonna just
deframe and reframe what's already there and showcase the beautiful
bounty that California has to offer, because that's what they
did everywhere they stopped.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
After the break, we get into how Keith was able
to turn his hustling skills into becoming a successful restaurant
tour How did you get into So you're in the
Bay Area, Yeah, party you think you might do Alta
(29:28):
in the Bay or did you know you had to
come back?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Well, I la to do Alta.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I talked to Daniel when I started thinking about these
these dishes and this concept, and I just asked him, like,
you think by the time I'm forty, you'd be willing
to open a restaurant with me partner?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And did you feel nervous asking that?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
You just was like, oh no, I'm for nervous. Yeah, No,
I'm for nervous at all. I've always been a guy
to shoot my shot.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
And so Daniel was like, sure, that's we can talk
about that right up with three year business plan right
there and hopes and dreams going.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Down the dream business planning.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Write no business plan, man, I ain't No, I don't
know how to know where to start.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
At the time, I'm like, man, I don't know where
to start. You know, I don't write no business plan.
I go to a nigga, get a sack.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I go to someone. Man.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Let me get a quarter piece right up. A business plan?
No man, man, let me get a pound of weed
right up? A business plan. No man, you get that
and you figure it out, you know what I'm saying.
And that's I just kept saying, how different things operate,
Like you want to open a business, drop a plan.
(30:42):
Let's go over the plan. No, I'm used to man,
I got this house, he got some weed. Let me
get a pair. Man, I'm gonna just take it to
the house and selling figure it out, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
But business plans some kind of deterred me.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
And so about two months later, Daniel walked into the
restaurant in Oakland. It was like, man, remember, let me
talk to you. So he put me out the kitchen
and he was like, you think you want to go
back down to La. Like of course, he was like
that concept you were thinking about I may have an
opportunity to do it in LA. We found a building
(31:20):
and someone's giving the money to open a restaurant, and
I think your idea will be great.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
There you ready like hell yeah, but like, hell no,
ain't no way if you ask for things. I think
sometimes we ask for things knowing that we can't get
it right, and then when they.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Say sure, you're like, oh shit, what have I stepped into?
But yeah, I wasn't going to say no to an
opportunity to own something I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
This is kind of like the same getting out of prison,
wanting to change things, not exactly, not knowing the exact steps.
It's like now you're in that same boat, like you've
been given an opportunity. You don't know the exact steps
necessarily open a successful.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Restaurant, not at all all.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
So what was the process? Then?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
It was a long process.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
We definitely invested in hiring people to work alongside me.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You know different chefs to you know, one came in
and helped teach me through the opening process, lining up
vendors and setting up accounts and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
And then when we opened, you had one work alongside
with me too, you know, hiring, which I knew how
to do, but hiring and managing and prepro to all
this stuff right, And then Daniel and I worked together
on a design and the concept and it was just
like it was a lot to learn.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I had to learn the facts.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Did you do the business plan?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
No, didn't do the good round plan? Man, I did
it my way. You know the plan I know that works.
Did you get in there? You figure it out?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
When did this place open?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
This place open October eleventh, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
What is this part of your journey? Tire you?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
You know, Daniel and I talked it over, and it's like,
how would it feel to take folks that has come
in work theirself up? And then when you have another
opportunity to open another restaurant, you take those leaders in
(33:39):
your restaurant and you give them ownership in that next project,
and then you keep doing that. Right, And now this
industry or this path where I didn't see no, example
becomes full of examples for people that that's trying to
(34:03):
make a change. Right, can see this industry or this
path that I've taken as a way out, as a
way to rise above right, and not just me being
an inspiration, but now feeling you know what I mean.
It's like I'm standing here, but depending on your struggle,
(34:25):
you can be so far away that I'm a blur, right,
But if I continue to put people alongside me, then
it becomes this brick wall that no matter how far
away you are, you can see us. You're going to
see it, right, and you can look down and say, damn.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I can like I can do it.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
That's what my purpose and goal is now. And I
can say that I'm dis close to success on that right.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Why that close?
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Because we have a lease in place that's going back
and forth with the lawyers where I will be well,
not I, but out to the team me being included,
where be able to take three of our managers and
they will own this next restaurant that we're opening.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Wow, So the owner along with you guys to.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Become an employee to an employer, a partner with us.
So that will be dope and so continuing to do
those type of things.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
That's why I measure my success.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
How did it feel for you to be part of
an ownership team? I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
It changed my life, Like it led me to be
able to write a book, to build a house, not
just buy a house, damn to build a house. It's
been allowed me to be able to travel. One of
the number one contributors to crime is poverty. You get
rid of poverty, you get rid of crime, right, And
(35:58):
I've learned that because shit from where I said, Nigga,
you couldn't get me to sell a rock or to
rob a bank. Yeah, you take it all away and
I'm starving. Might be some missing persons, said, I'm just
getting one on it, right. So if you can remove
people from poverty, bro, yeah, remove them from poverty and
(36:21):
set them up for some type of generational wealth, we
slowly began to make change things, you know what I'm saying.
So for ownership for me was big and very important.
It gave me a pride in myself. It gave me
something that I can leave and I want to share that.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Feeling because they don't know what their pactice.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Man, how many folks I've seen that from my projects
that didn't run the streets, went to college, just stayed
in school, went to college, and then wounded up right
back into projects because there's no network or no infrastructure
in place for them to tap into nothing.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
There's nothing.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Dog. That's why I started the show. I went to college.
You know, my family about a Eujima village not too
far from Watts. Oh yeah, no, that's a gun and yeah.
And you know my dad was like, and my mom especially,
gotta give her credit to You're going to college. The's
no question, like you're going to college whatever. When you
(37:25):
get to college, you think you made it. Anybody's like,
oh a lot, everyone's getting banking, like they're getting Oh
they're they're gonna go to Bank of my Marrie. Oh
they're gonna go to New York to do with chase banking.
I didn't even know, like what.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Because I think we chase after what what success looked
like for white people. Yeah, like their kids going off
to college and getting in law firms and all that.
You gotta think great great grandfathers set that shit up
long time ago, right, set up this infrastructure a long
(37:59):
time ago for their siblings and for their future generations
to be.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Plugged in and tapped in.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
We don't have that infrastructure and place, and so it's
a small part that we do for for me to
go to trade Tech, because I'm at trade Tech next
week speaking and teaching and looking to hire.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
So, so we're infrastructure that's in place that can catch
you when you come out, so you don't got to
spend time going to college and then go right back
to the block and infiluational time.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Right And while you're doing that, meanwhile, one day you're
gonna be that great great grandfather. That's because you're giving
your daughter a different look at life.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
But I'm gonna be yes.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
But I want to be that great great grandfather for
my community, for my folks. It's not even just about
my kids.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
You want me, you need it immediately now.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
You want to see I want. I probably don't even
see the change. I probably don't even see the change,
but I'm gonna start it now. Though I'm gonna start
it now, I may not witness what it become, but
that don't mean I'm not gonna start it now. Like
giving folks entrepreneurship and ownership, giving folks opportunity, giving people jobs,
(39:13):
going back down, talking and encouraging, being tangible and showing
you what success can be coming from here. I'm not
going to not do that because I can't see the results, right.
I just hope someone picks it up. You know, in
any event that I leave deserves someone picks it up, right.
And that's the only thing the great grant grandfather did
(39:34):
was start setting it up for his kids, and then
they can pick it up and pick it up and
pick it up right.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I just wouldn't do that for my community. Do it now?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Look, man, I know you got to open this restaurant,
so I want to keep you too long, but it's
till more. I want to ask you. So when the
next restaurant opens, let's do it again.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Man. Yeah, we never got to the book.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Look to it. There's so much. Look, there's a lot
to get you. We're gonna reference it, don't We're gonna
reference the California Soul. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Did you read it? I didn't read it because you
keep looking over there getting the next.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Now you keep looking at it because it's cool. It's
right there. I've been looking at it. I came in
here and it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
It's some promotion.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yes, sir, I loved it.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Man, do you relate to it?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
I relate to it a lot. Man, there's a lot
of you.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Didn't even grow up in the streets, did you No,
but you can relate to it from it.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I just was what a lawyer friend and he literally
was talking to me and he was like, man, this
book needs to be like some part to educate people.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
He's like, he read it and they helped him understand
would his clients be going through in the county jail?
And I just hope that this book at some point
people just realize it's for them.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Your story was great. Is you get a little bit
of everything. You get that and you get the redemption.
You know, it's the redemption arc man, And it's a
beautiful thing. And you've built a beautiful place singing and yeah,
this is I mean really, when you think about the steps,
it's like you're at the beginning, like it's crazy, like
at the beginning, man, like.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
I started late, but at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
You're shamed me. Man, I'm coming in. I'm gonna I'm
gonna come, bring the family, I'm gonna come somepport man,
I'm gonna come support man. Please, We're gonna be in
all right. California Soul is Keith Corbin's book. Let me
repeat that again. California Soul is Keith Corbin's book out
now wherever you buy your books, you hear that, Keith.
(41:42):
I'm plugging your book, California Soul. Since the interview, I
have eaten at the restaurant and let me tell you,
it's incredible. The food, the ambiance, location, it's all amazing.
And to think it all came from the hands of
someone's society would normally have counted out. It's a beautiful
story and I'm so glad Keith put it down in
(42:04):
a book and I'm wax with us. California Soul, Thanks Keith.
Started from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw, edited
by Keyshaw Williams, Engineered by Bentaliday, booked by Laura Morgan
with production help from Lea Rose. The show is executive
produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all of in the
videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by Bent Holliday
(42:28):
and David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
Listen to Started from the bottom. Wherever you get your
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week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check out pushkin
dot fm or the Apple show page for more information.
If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. The other day I drove up from my home
in Long Beach to a restaurant called Alta and the
historic West Adams neighborhood of LA. This is a beautiful
space you have.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I thank you, thank you. Have you been here?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I have not?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I gotta I gotta put you on? Did we get that?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Great? Were opening with that?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
My apologies, man, you can make here for the interview.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Keith Corbyn, the man you just heard grilling me, grew
up about ten miles south of here in another LA
neighborhood called Watts. In the nineteen eighties. Watts was pretty
much the epicenter for the War on drugs, and like
many others growing up in the area, hustling became a
way of life for Keith. But it was also in
Watts where through his grandmother, Keith developed a love of cooking,
(01:10):
and as you'll hear in our interview before becoming the
trendy restaurant tour he is today, that love of cooking
saved him when his hustle landed him in prison. This
is started from the body hard earing success stories from
people like us. Keith and I jumped right in to
(01:32):
talk about what it was like building this black owned
restaurant in West Adams and how people in this quickly
gentrifying neighborhood reacted when Keith first opened All TOA back
in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, it was ugly the beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
How so, I mean when we first came in here,
we first came into West Adams, I got a lot
of slack for, you know, from our own people, for
being the quote unquote face of gentrification. It was only
on Instagram and you know, and it was just like
in my what I was trying to do was elevate
(02:07):
our food. I wanted to represent it and present it
in a way that it hasn't been done. I wanted
to bring a restaurant into a community like mine. I
wanted to provide opportunity, jobs and training to kind of
like infistrate this industry that doesn't have a lot of
black and brown influence in it. So I was very
(02:29):
intentional on what I was coming in to do. No
one asked me, it's just like part of the gentrifying
the community. Bullshit, excuse me? Yes, So, but you know,
it passed and now people see what the mission is,
to see what I'm about and understand it, and has
been very very supportive, but it was hard in the beginning,
(02:51):
you know, like it was it was eating at me.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
What do you think it says about as black folk,
like our relationship with success, that when one of our
own opens up, like a restaurant like the one like
Alter that you've opened in our own neighborhood is viewed
as betraying the community.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I mean, I don't know, you know, I try not
to be this believer in black folks pulling black folks down.
You know, I don't come at our folks like that.
You know where they say black folks pull black folks down,
White folks lift each other up, and this, that and
the other. I just think it's years and years in
(03:37):
years of trauma and experiences, right, it's brainwashing, Like it's
America has a lot to do with the way black
folks think, you know, from our ancestors and what we've
been through to get up to this point is going
to take a lot of healing, you know, it takes
a lot. It's gonna take a lot of healing and that,
(03:59):
you know, I don't think that we intentionally want to
pull each other down.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I don't wake up to pull another black person down,
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
But I can't say that ten o'clock at night and
I'm on the street, you know, and I got my
eye out, you know what I'm saying, Like in certain communities,
you know, if I'm turning the block and it's kind
of dark and you see the like your own fellas
on the block, like you might you know, fly past
(04:28):
or busty you or whatever. Right, Yeah, but yeah, that's
going down a whole other lane.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
You had an interesting I mean, plenty of trauma in
your life, plenty of trauma. How have you managed given
all that to become comfortable with success?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So for me, success changes with my goals. I don't
look at it as monetary or buying a house in
Westwood or any of that.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
But you did, But I did.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
When I first came on from prison in twenty fourteen,
I had a conversation with my daughter where she was
made whare of my lifestyle, and in that moment, I
realized I wasn't proud of the lifestyle I was living.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And if I died in that moment, you know, I was.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
No longer proud of the conversations that people have, you know,
and about me. So I set out to change my
narrative and my legacy and the narrative that people were
having around me, right, conversations, and we're having different conversations today, Right,
my legacy has changed. So I'm successful in that I've
(05:40):
accomplished that, right, So that's a level of success. So
then once I accomplished that and I had an opportunity
to open my own business, my goal changed, right, and
my goal became to provide opportunity to people in similar
situations in which I came from.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Right, So maybe we should start at that first moment
coming out talking to your daughter. Yeah, your goal was
really just to create a different narrative for your life.
That's it than you've been given.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That's it, And that one not the one I've been given,
the one I've created. Right, So, both the circumstances were
created before me, Right, I was born into these circumstances.
But the narrative of the gangster and the drug dealer
and all that, even though the choices were limited for me,
(06:35):
so it was kind of like a forced path for me,
I still own responsibility and accountability and choosing to go
that route, right, So I created the narrative the drug dealer,
the gangster, the shooter, the X, whatever the case may be. Like,
I own some responsibility in it. Yeah, So I created
(06:56):
this narrative about myself because one I had pride in it,
and I set out to have this larger than life
reputation in the streets and then the drug trade. That
was my goal, in my mission, my aim, my objective. Right,
So I own that. Right, I own that. But then
I sought to change that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
So to change that. So when you come out, what
are your thoughts about how you can change that? After
that conversation, I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I absolutely had no idea, right, I just took it
day by day, and when I found myself in situations,
I just made the best of it, just like when
I was in my youth, you know, when I found
(07:46):
myself in situations at seven and seven world on wheels,
locked in with all these street dudes throughout LA and
the squabble time come up. I just made the best
of the situation. And as things as those opportunities presented
themselves and I stood up and stayed down, the reputation
(08:06):
began to grow.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So I just followed that same model.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
I had no idea, no path on how I was
going to change my legacy or how I was going
to change the narrative.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's just I.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Knew I didn't want to do that anymore so and
avoiding that it put me on another path. And as
the opportunities presented themselves, right, I made the best of it.
When I got my first job at local restaurant, I
had no idea where that path was going to take me.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Did it seem like a good opportunity to you?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
No?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Like work man, please, nigga, I've been hit selling dope
my whole life, like hustling entrepreneur. I ain't want to
work for nobody, you know what I'm saying. Like it
was so uncomfortable. It was so uncomfortable to be to
come up into projects and to go to and lift
this whole lifestyle of with no authority, no respect for authority.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
To then have this white man yelling at me in.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
The kitchen, Daniel Patterson.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Man, that shit didn't work. It just didn't work, like
you feel me. So I tried to.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Quit numerous of times, but Daniel supported me in the role.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So hold, look you walk me through that. So will
you when you go in? Would you just go walk
in and be like yo, I'm done, or he might
yell you and be like I'm done.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
You got to understand that the restaurant right in the hood.
So I just walked out of the door. Yeah you
feel me, like he we yelling in the kitchen. Fuck that, man,
I'm out of here. So I walk out. Then here
Daniel come behind me. She let me talk to you,
you feel me and like guide me back in, Like, man,
I know it's uncomfortable with it. To get comfortable, it
just takes time. And in my mind, I'm like, man,
(09:45):
you just want me here to yell at me, fool
like you know, but I'm seeing it one way and
he seeing it another way.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
He like, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
But at the end of the day, that job, I
didn't treasure it, but I explored it because I had
a goal.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I didn't know that working at Loco that so it
this way.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
There was no representation at the mountaintop or at the
end of this road saying if you take this path,
you're able to accomplish these thing.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
There was no example for me.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
No, there was no representation, nobody, no example, no one
exemplifying that for me. Right, I was carving a path
on my own you know what I mean. So with
not knowing what I can accomplish at the end, I
didn't treasure it, you know what I.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Mean, trust the process because you didn't know it was
a process.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I didn't know what the end result was going to be.
For me.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
In my mind, is just a job in a check
And if it's just about the money, then I know
many ways to get money. But I was committed to
the change. I was committed to the change. And I
think that commitment to the changes would allow Daniel to
tap into to guide me back into the restaurant, because
(11:02):
if I wasn't committed to the change in yourself and myself,
then I would have been out. Yeah, but he was
able to tap into that. And I had a purpose,
like I was doing it for a reason, and so
I went back in and you know, now I'm comfortable.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Was ill.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
How did Daniel and Roy Troy find you for local
to be men?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Well, they came down there. I was still in prison
when this process started. They came down to the community
and kind of like really did the best research they could.
They got with a bunch of the older gentlemens in
the community, which I call my big homies, well some
of them. Some of them are just older dudes in
the community. You know, we'll keep that separate. And they
(11:47):
spent almost a year in the community and so they
were aware of some of the.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Conflicts, the traumas.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
They kind of got an understanding about what the community
culture was like. And one of the things that they
did was really important when they opened Local was they
brought in a counselor. Wow, so we had access to counselor.
That's brilliant, you know what I.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Mean, and like paid counselor.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Like you'll have a you'll be working in a restaurant
and like I'll go have a session if I chose to,
and then I'll come back and tell Tim or whoever.
Now your session up, Like it's your turn and you're
still on the clock getting paid to go deal with
some of your trauma. And then we had group settings, right,
And so that was how intentional Local was. We're coming
(12:39):
into the community and really being intentional on helping.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
The folks that they hired. And that's what I experienced it.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So they found you by talking on the old heads
on the block.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
No, I'm sorry I didn't answer that question. I had
got fired at the OI refinery, and I got a
call for my mother.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
You working at the refinery in.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Else So, yeah, I was working there.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I came on from prison, got a job there, labor job,
because that's the only job I thought X cons can get,
And so I got a labor job, worked my ass off,
got a promotion. At the time I got hired, they
wasn't doing background checks, and then by the time I
got the promotion, background checks has been implemented. So in
order to get the promotion, they had to run my
(13:27):
license to drive company equipment. Running my license brought my
background up, and so they walked me to the gate
and terminated me. They didn't say damn, like, man, he
really worked hard to the point that we want to
invest in him and move him up in the company. No,
they overlooked all that and said background, Oh, yeah, you
out of here. So for a couple of weeks, I
just really felt that the system and society was so unforgiving,
(13:51):
right yeah, that I considered going back to hustling. And
then I got a call from my mother saying, boy,
you better get over here.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
They just build a restaurant in the.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Hood and they hiring on the spot and I was
getting off the freeway and watch on Womenton, the Womenton
exit off the one oh five, So I just shot
over there.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
They's show enough.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
They had an application with like four or five questions
first name, last name, birthday, phone number, email, like, no,
do you small? Have you ever been in prison? Are
you black or brown? None of that general information. They
hired us on the spot.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Without even knowing your ability to cook?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Are my inability Do.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You feel you had an inability at the time for restaurants?
Absolutely okay, because cooking that home.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And cooking dope, the's two differents, like it's but however,
there are skills in both of those that's transferable that
I didn't understand until I got comfortable in the restaurant industry, right,
and then I was able to see and understand that, Wow,
(14:58):
I didn't have to forsake all this knowledge I've learned
cooking drugs. There's some things there that I learned that
actually it's transferable. Because when I was cooked drugs, the
main star was the product, right right?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
How do I make great product?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And that's what's starting with a proper base, A great base,
great keilo or cocaine, right right?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So that's like a rue or something like.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So No, it's like when you have an option of
vegetables where you getting it from the liquor store or
the farmer's mark. Starting with great product and the base
of the product has to be great, yes, right, and
then that translates how the end product. So if I
(15:48):
have a bad kelo or coke, then what do I
think the crack is going to be at the end result?
If I have shitty vegetables that's out of season, that's
been on a frozen truck traveling for two months.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
If I have avocados.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
That's coming and that's getting picked off the tree too
early to equate for travel time opposed to going to
the farmer's market and grab an avocado that was just
picked yesterday. So that's what I'm talking about. Like there's things,
and so the product is one. And then when you
(16:25):
think about hustling, it's like, Okay, I had a dope
house and you got all these young dudes on the
block that also have dope sexes.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Like how do I.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Get the customer to walk past the convenient guy to
come to me every time?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Right? How do I distinguish my product? You know what
I mean, and so.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
All these things start coming back to me, like, oh, man,
I can utilize that shit in the restaurant, like focus
on the product, like the base. And then when you
have that, how do you distinguish your product from everyone else?
At least full of restaurants? So how do you separate
your product and your business from everyone else? And so
those lessons that I learned in the streets I utilize
(17:08):
and the restaurants, but just cooking, I had a whole
lot to learn.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
When we come back. Keith Corbin talks about how being
exposed to fresh foods and learning to cook professionally helped
him understand what his community needed, access to healthier meals.
(17:37):
What did you learn at local about cooking properly?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Seeing me full timing shit. I learned a lot of vegetables.
I learned a lot of herbs. I learned a lot
of stuff because you know, growing up, a lot of
of the ingredients came out of can garlic powder, onion powder, lowriesy.
(18:01):
You know, like you didn't really work with raw product,
so loco, I learned that how to deal, how to
work with raw product. And then another thing, how to
properly cook vegetables. Like in our community, we overcook vegetables.
We make everything into mush, right, we boil the heat,
(18:28):
We boil the hell out. So what I'm saying, so
no color. Yeah, So I learned a lot of that,
you know. I learned a lot about how you know,
steaming is better than boiling because through the baill you
you boil broccoli and then you see the water's green.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
That's because all of them nutrients is in the water now, right, Like,
So I learned a lot in Loco.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Incredible. How long were you there?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Ultimately I started in twenty sixteen, probably a year and
a half because I opened this restaurant in twenty eighteen,
so just over.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
A year, just over your half. And then you get it.
Then you go up to then that shutters, that closes.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
No Local Wats, and Local Wats was the last one
to close.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
So six months, not even six months, less than six
months into Loco, I was actually join the executive body
and be part of the expansion of Local and so
I moved to the Bay Area and opened one in
downtown Oakland, one in West Oakland, and then we circled around.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And open one in San Jose.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
I flew to Jersey and met with Mayor Barock, now
Barack Obama.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I was gonna say, wait, wait, wait a second man, Brock.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, Barock in Jersey because that was going to be
a stop. I had a deal in place with Nipsey
and Fats to open the second location in La off
of fifty fourth in Crenshaw, right there by Krinshall High School,
whereas you got the gas station at church and then
the structure. So we was going to open one there
(20:06):
and then unfortunately we was Fats untimely death kind of
like ended that because it was his space, and then
we lost nip So so.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You got asked him move, what do you think it
was about you that made them think this is the
right person to come up to the Bay area? And
Daniel Patterson's like, you know, he's like a big deal.
What do you think he saw on you to pull
you up then to his to his restaurant group up
in the Baby I'm.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Asked him that question all the time because at the
time I was a game, banging coke, had of alcohol,
putting in work, straddling the fence, like you know.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
You still were you still in the streets?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I mean it was it was in a sense.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
It wasn't an even in the desire to change the
narrative in the legacy. It wasn't like I walked through
a magic door. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. Like,
it wasn't like you walk through a magic door. A
lot of the mistakes that people make when they leave
the street culture is how they exit.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Your exit can be your demise. You can't leave right away.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
There's roles, you know, like people still depend on you,
your leadership, your guidance, the relationship.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
The love.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
You know, you can't abandon, yeah, because then it's like
you're turning your back, right, And so I still deal
with my folks, you know, absolutely, just in a different capacity.
You know, you go from putting in work with people
to counseling people.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Guidance, and you know, you go to and it's just layers. Yeah, right,
and so.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
So you come out and you make this decision you
want to change your life. First opportunity, You're gonna take
whatever opportunity you can, and soinery then there's local absolutely,
the next opportunity is running this restaurant group. And you're
not sure what Daniel saw on you. What did you
learn though? Going up to Oakland I imagine, did you
you never probably never live in the Bay No.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I had.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Up until then, I had been to about twenty cities.
But like selling drugs, you see a different part of
the city. You know, people say they come to l
all the time, but I'm like, which part? Right, La
has two faces, It's two sides. So it's like, and
that's what every city. So depending on what you're into,
what your what your goal is, going into that city, like,
(22:21):
you'll see one side of the city and then there's
a whole other side. So I traveled a lot selling
drugs and been to a lot of cities, but I've
seen a certain part of the city. But then through
local I was able to see these cities in a
different light. And so going to the Bay Area, it
was for me it was like decompressing.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
I was able to ship go to the stores. I
was able to walk to the stores, you know. I
was able to walk the blocks.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I was able to come outside with slippers on, you know,
the simple things of.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Life without without without fear of.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Running into an violence. Not to say that Oakland didn't
have his own shit going on.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Part of the equation.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I wasn't part and that's what people don't gather.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
It's like, well, Oakland's still tough, and they're just yeah,
but they not looking for me.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I don't look like them. I don't walk. So when
that guy spinning the block looking for hisself, he's not
going to see me.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, right past.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
You know what I'm saying, Just like when I was
spinning the block looking for someone who looked like me, the.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Guy with the backpacked the glasses. This that I'm that
guy in Oakland.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, you know, I'm the guy they're gonna pass by
like it was that weirdof I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, yeah, let me read my pringles and shit.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
That's a lowless man must have been. It was a release.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It was absolutely a load off. Absolutely a load off.
But I was thirty four when I came on from prison.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
By the time I moved to Oakland, I was thirty
six going on thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Bro. That was the first time I ever went walked
into a whole foods. Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
The other first I've ever been to a farmer's market
was in the Bay Area, and that was the first
time I seen food come pre loved, pre loved, pre loved,
man pre loved. Yeah, you wonder what I mean by
that acidamn.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Questions free loved.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
My mama was running the.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
It's just you know at the farmer's market, you know
people like literally put their hands in the soil growing
it's food, cultivating this, picking this and bringing it to you.
It's like, uh, it's a relationship with the food all
the way through. They love it like you can like
the love they're pointing to. They're caring for it. It's
(24:58):
a child, right right, they're raising from they're raising up
and then their gift.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
They're bringing this to you. And then you have Whole
Foods the food.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
The same way like you got them in there, and
they're in comparison to food flescing Boys Market. I mean,
it's still a supermarket, right, and I choose Farmers Market
over supermarkets all day.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
But when I'm.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Shopping at Ralfs and Boys Market back in the day,
and which is now food for less the quality or
lack of quality that we had access to compare to
what Whole Foods have to offer, Yeah, it's it's a
drastic difference.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
What was I like walking in the Whole Foods.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Man, you know those big old white barrels. I thought
that was all free so man, I stuck my hand
in there and was walking through whole foods popping turtles
like the cheese is because you know how they you know,
I'm used to ship being in cages. Yeah, you know,
like you don't really have as wrapped up in rappers
so things, you know, so what you just got, like
(26:02):
you just got chocolate, I can just lift the lid
up and I'm thinking they samples yeah you.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So, yeah, but that was my experience.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
But I was looking, you know, just going through them,
like damn, man, I wonder what my granny could have
created if she had access to this, you know, if
our community had access to this, what what can be created?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
And what would our health look like?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Boom, that's what alto.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
That's what the men you and the design you just
asked the very question. Then I want to think and
like they say that our number, the number one contributed
to our health problems is our culture's food. And I
am seeing the farmers' markets and the whole foods and
what these other communities has access to.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I said, goddamn it, it's not our food.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It is the lack of resources and access we have
on our community and the ingredients.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
My grandmother had to start with.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
So those can goods that's full of preservatives and salts
and all that for cure and pickling and all. That's
the shit that's unhealthy. Yes, but my grandmother will slave
over the stove probably a bad term, would labor over
the stove and tease all the love out of that food.
She will pour love into that food, cooking it for
(27:24):
hours and hours before we ate it. Right, But that
didn't take away the unhealthiness of it, right, But what
made it delicious was the love she poured into it.
And then here I am up here in the barrier, like,
goddamn food come loved already? Yeah, what can she could
create with this?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
And so that's when I started dreaming up a menu,
you know, along with working in these various restaurants that
Daniel had and learning techniques and seeing what the other
chefs are doing and seeing exotic ingredients, and then I
started to realize how diverse California is, the multicultural influences.
(28:06):
And then I started thinking about California soul food, man,
you know, like what that looked like. So taking something
that I inherited, food that I grew up with, and
just keeping to the trend of our ancestors. Soul food
(28:26):
in New Orleans is not the food that they made
in West Africa. So on their journey, wherever they stopped,
they created a dish. They created food from what they
had based on what was available there. So we've been
(28:46):
doing farm the table, Doctor table. So when I started
thinking about California soul food, it's like, I'm gonna just
deframe and reframe what's already there and showcase the beautiful
bounty that California has to offer, because that's what they
did everywhere they stopped.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
After the break, we get into how Keith was able
to turn his hustling skills into becoming a successful restaurant
tour How did you get into So you're in the
Bay Area, Yeah, party you think you might do Alta
(29:28):
in the Bay or did you know you had to
come back?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Well, I la to do Alta.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I talked to Daniel when I started thinking about these
these dishes and this concept, and I just asked him, like,
you think by the time I'm forty, you'd be willing
to open a restaurant with me partner?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And did you feel nervous asking that?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
You just was like, oh no, I'm for nervous. Yeah, No,
I'm for nervous at all. I've always been a guy
to shoot my shot.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
And so Daniel was like, sure, that's we can talk
about that right up with three year business plan right
there and hopes and dreams going.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Down the dream business planning.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Write no business plan, man, I ain't No, I don't
know how to know where to start.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
At the time, I'm like, man, I don't know where
to start. You know, I don't write no business plan.
I go to a nigga, get a sack.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I go to someone. Man.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Let me get a quarter piece right up. A business plan?
No man, man, let me get a pound of weed
right up? A business plan. No man, you get that
and you figure it out, you know what I'm saying.
And that's I just kept saying, how different things operate,
Like you want to open a business, drop a plan.
(30:42):
Let's go over the plan. No, I'm used to man,
I got this house, he got some weed. Let me
get a pair. Man, I'm gonna just take it to
the house and selling figure it out, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
But business plans some kind of deterred me.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
And so about two months later, Daniel walked into the
restaurant in Oakland. It was like, man, remember, let me
talk to you. So he put me out the kitchen
and he was like, you think you want to go
back down to La. Like of course, he was like
that concept you were thinking about I may have an
opportunity to do it in LA. We found a building
(31:20):
and someone's giving the money to open a restaurant, and
I think your idea will be great.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
There you ready like hell yeah, but like, hell no,
ain't no way if you ask for things. I think
sometimes we ask for things knowing that we can't get
it right, and then when they.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Say sure, you're like, oh shit, what have I stepped into?
But yeah, I wasn't going to say no to an
opportunity to own something I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
This is kind of like the same getting out of prison,
wanting to change things, not exactly, not knowing the exact steps.
It's like now you're in that same boat, like you've
been given an opportunity. You don't know the exact steps
necessarily open a successful.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Restaurant, not at all all.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
So what was the process? Then?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
It was a long process.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
We definitely invested in hiring people to work alongside me.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You know different chefs to you know, one came in
and helped teach me through the opening process, lining up
vendors and setting up accounts and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
And then when we opened, you had one work alongside
with me too, you know, hiring, which I knew how
to do, but hiring and managing and prepro to all
this stuff right, And then Daniel and I worked together
on a design and the concept and it was just
like it was a lot to learn.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I had to learn the facts.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Did you do the business plan?
Speaker 3 (32:54):
No, didn't do the good round plan? Man, I did
it my way. You know the plan I know that works.
Did you get in there? You figure it out?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
When did this place open?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
This place open October eleventh, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
What is this part of your journey? Tire you?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
You know, Daniel and I talked it over, and it's like,
how would it feel to take folks that has come
in work theirself up? And then when you have another
opportunity to open another restaurant, you take those leaders in
(33:39):
your restaurant and you give them ownership in that next project,
and then you keep doing that. Right, And now this
industry or this path where I didn't see no, example
becomes full of examples for people that that's trying to
(34:03):
make a change. Right, can see this industry or this
path that I've taken as a way out, as a
way to rise above right, and not just me being
an inspiration, but now feeling you know what I mean.
It's like I'm standing here, but depending on your struggle,
(34:25):
you can be so far away that I'm a blur, right,
But if I continue to put people alongside me, then
it becomes this brick wall that no matter how far
away you are, you can see us. You're going to
see it, right, and you can look down and say, damn.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I can like I can do it.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
That's what my purpose and goal is now. And I
can say that I'm dis close to success on that right.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Why that close?
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Because we have a lease in place that's going back
and forth with the lawyers where I will be well,
not I, but out to the team me being included,
where be able to take three of our managers and
they will own this next restaurant that we're opening.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Wow, So the owner along with you guys to.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Become an employee to an employer, a partner with us.
So that will be dope and so continuing to do
those type of things.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
That's why I measure my success.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
How did it feel for you to be part of
an ownership team? I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
It changed my life, Like it led me to be
able to write a book, to build a house, not
just buy a house, damn to build a house. It's
been allowed me to be able to travel. One of
the number one contributors to crime is poverty. You get
rid of poverty, you get rid of crime, right, And
(35:58):
I've learned that because shit from where I said, Nigga,
you couldn't get me to sell a rock or to
rob a bank. Yeah, you take it all away and
I'm starving. Might be some missing persons, said, I'm just
getting one on it, right. So if you can remove
people from poverty, bro, yeah, remove them from poverty and
(36:21):
set them up for some type of generational wealth, we
slowly began to make change things, you know what I'm saying.
So for ownership for me was big and very important.
It gave me a pride in myself. It gave me
something that I can leave and I want to share that.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Feeling because they don't know what their pactice.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Man, how many folks I've seen that from my projects
that didn't run the streets, went to college, just stayed
in school, went to college, and then wounded up right
back into projects because there's no network or no infrastructure
in place for them to tap into nothing.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
There's nothing.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Dog. That's why I started the show. I went to college.
You know, my family about a Eujima village not too
far from Watts. Oh yeah, no, that's a gun and yeah.
And you know my dad was like, and my mom especially,
gotta give her credit to You're going to college. The's
no question, like you're going to college whatever. When you
(37:25):
get to college, you think you made it. Anybody's like,
oh a lot, everyone's getting banking, like they're getting Oh
they're they're gonna go to Bank of my Marrie. Oh
they're gonna go to New York to do with chase banking.
I didn't even know, like what.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Because I think we chase after what what success looked
like for white people. Yeah, like their kids going off
to college and getting in law firms and all that.
You gotta think great great grandfathers set that shit up
long time ago, right, set up this infrastructure a long
(37:59):
time ago for their siblings and for their future generations
to be.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Plugged in and tapped in.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
We don't have that infrastructure and place, and so it's
a small part that we do for for me to
go to trade Tech, because I'm at trade Tech next
week speaking and teaching and looking to hire.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
So, so we're infrastructure that's in place that can catch
you when you come out, so you don't got to
spend time going to college and then go right back
to the block and infiluational time.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Right And while you're doing that, meanwhile, one day you're
gonna be that great great grandfather. That's because you're giving
your daughter a different look at life.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
But I'm gonna be yes.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
But I want to be that great great grandfather for
my community, for my folks. It's not even just about
my kids.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
You want me, you need it immediately now.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
You want to see I want. I probably don't even
see the change. I probably don't even see the change,
but I'm gonna start it now. Though I'm gonna start
it now, I may not witness what it become, but
that don't mean I'm not gonna start it now. Like
giving folks entrepreneurship and ownership, giving folks opportunity, giving people jobs,
(39:13):
going back down, talking and encouraging, being tangible and showing
you what success can be coming from here. I'm not
going to not do that because I can't see the results, right.
I just hope someone picks it up. You know, in
any event that I leave deserves someone picks it up, right.
And that's the only thing the great grant grandfather did
(39:34):
was start setting it up for his kids, and then
they can pick it up and pick it up and
pick it up right.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I just wouldn't do that for my community. Do it now?
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Look, man, I know you got to open this restaurant,
so I want to keep you too long, but it's
till more. I want to ask you. So when the
next restaurant opens, let's do it again.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Man. Yeah, we never got to the book.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Look to it. There's so much. Look, there's a lot
to get you. We're gonna reference it, don't We're gonna
reference the California Soul. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Did you read it? I didn't read it because you
keep looking over there getting the next.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Now you keep looking at it because it's cool. It's
right there. I've been looking at it. I came in
here and it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
It's some promotion.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yes, sir, I loved it.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Man, do you relate to it?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
I relate to it a lot. Man, there's a lot
of you.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Didn't even grow up in the streets, did you No,
but you can relate to it from it.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I just was what a lawyer friend and he literally
was talking to me and he was like, man, this
book needs to be like some part to educate people.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
He's like, he read it and they helped him understand
would his clients be going through in the county jail?
And I just hope that this book at some point
people just realize it's for them.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Your story was great. Is you get a little bit
of everything. You get that and you get the redemption.
You know, it's the redemption arc man, And it's a
beautiful thing. And you've built a beautiful place singing and yeah,
this is I mean really, when you think about the steps,
it's like you're at the beginning, like it's crazy, like
at the beginning, man, like.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
I started late, but at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
You're shamed me. Man, I'm coming in. I'm gonna I'm
gonna come, bring the family, I'm gonna come somepport man,
I'm gonna come support man. Please, We're gonna be in
all right. California Soul is Keith Corbin's book. Let me
repeat that again. California Soul is Keith Corbin's book out
now wherever you buy your books, you hear that, Keith.
(41:42):
I'm plugging your book, California Soul. Since the interview, I
have eaten at the restaurant and let me tell you,
it's incredible. The food, the ambiance, location, it's all amazing.
And to think it all came from the hands of
someone's society would normally have counted out. It's a beautiful
story and I'm so glad Keith put it down in
(42:04):
a book and I'm wax with us. California Soul, Thanks Keith.
Started from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw, edited
by Keyshaw Williams, Engineered by Bentaliday, booked by Laura Morgan
with production help from Lea Rose. The show is executive
produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all of in the
videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by Bent Holliday
(42:28):
and David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
Listen to Started from the bottom. Wherever you get your
podcasts and if you want, ad free episodes available one
week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check out pushkin
dot fm or the Apple show page for more information.
If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
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