Is Texas worth saving?

This podcast edition of Kenny Webster’s Pursuit of Happiness features journalist Brandon Waltens and entrepreneur Russell Ybarra. ( @KennethRWebster )

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Giganic government sucks. Suit of happiness radio is DeLux.
Liberty and freedom will make you smile of a suit
of happiness on your radio. Toyle Justice cheeseburgers a liberty
fries at for food happen.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Harvard University says they won't charge tuition to families making
less than two hundred thousand dollars a year. Mikewise, Arizona
State tuition will remain whatever coeds make from stripping for
a living. So that's good. Hi everybody, Kenny Webster here,
Thanks so much for joining us. This show's gonna be
a little different today, not a lot different, but a

(00:44):
little different. I have a couple of fascinating guests stopping by.
One of those people is going to be Brandon Waltons
from Texas scorecard dot Com. Strange things are afoot right
now in the institutions of higher education around the state
of Texas. DEEI and critical race Theory. We're supposed to
be removed from colleges and public schools, respectively. We've been

(01:07):
doing deep dives and audits and discovering that they're actually not.
So we're going to talk about that on the show today,
and some of the things we're learning with a group
of software developers who have been searching through databases of
publicly operated websites and finding some really alarming things that you,
as a taxpayer, paying for. Now, my other guest this
afternoon is going to be a guy named Russell Lebarro.

(01:29):
And if you're a regular enthusiast of talk radio or
tex mex in Southeast Texas, odds, are you know this guy?
He wrote a book called Ancelada Entrepreneur. It offers a
lot of great advice to young people interested in starting businesses,
but also some really interesting stories that he tells, as
well as a foreword by Michael Barry and recommendation from
a guy named Tilman Fertita. Russell is a great friend,

(01:52):
and he has always been very supportive of all the
different things we've done, of this radio show and all
of the different charitable efforts we've pushed over over the years.
And so this afternoon I'm going to try to pick
Russell's brain and get a little bit of wisdom out
of them. And I have a funny feeling it's gonna work.
Stick around quick break, We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, let's get straight to discussion. We here to talk
about something about politics and government and nice hit and
co gut she this show hit.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Ain't you average this podcast?

Speaker 3 (02:21):
You gotta get you told Dan, we can this this
push you happiness.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
When it comes to food, I have very few talents.
I know how to order food. I know how to
eat food. I have a vague idea of where food
comes from, and that's really about it there. And I
understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy food. I will
tell you this. I know bad food when I eat
bad food. I could tell you restaurants that are not good.
I could tell you when a restaurant's not going to

(02:48):
make it Text mex for example a great example. Someone
will sell their business franchise and suddenly the quality of
the food deteriorates at a rapid pace, and then nobody
wants to eat it, like Nin Fuzz the chain anymore.
That's why they have to have original Nin Fuzz or
original Carabas, so people know this isn't the chain, it's

(03:09):
something different. That has got to be confusing for the
franchisees of the restaurant owners, and especially in this economy
right now, what with the tariff war going on in
multiple countries. It cannot be an easy time to be
a guy that runs a restaurant. And yet somehow this
next guest I have on this show off not only
runs a restaurant, he wrote a book about it. Russell

(03:31):
Ibara here right now from Gringos, tex mex and Jimmy
Changa's author of Enchilada Entrepreneur Forward, written by a great
friend of the show, Michael Berry, one of my mentors
in my career. Russell, you wrote a book, Yes, I
sure did. Did you do this whole thing with chat
GPT or did you know?

Speaker 3 (03:49):
No?

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Actually before, way before chat GBT, I had actually been
putting it together over the years, just you know, short
stories here and there and just compiled them. And here
we are and kind of working on book number two
because there's so much more I wanted to say that
was not said in this book.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Nobody from Southeast Texas needs an explanation of who you are,
or at least what your restaurants are. That's obvious to people,
But people do listen to this radio show in other
parts of the country and they might wonder, you know, Gringos,
what's that all about? What is it that makes your
restaurants different from other ones well.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
Probably one of the reasons is because I felt so
many times I kind of learned what didn't work, and
over the years have put together a team and here
we are. I mean, as far as you know. We
just look at food and restaurants differently, I think, and
that's very important. It's a very competitive environment. As you

(04:44):
can imagine.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
You and I have been friends for a while. You
were at my wedding. I won't it was very hot
that day. We won't go into details about what happened
with that, but you're the guy I use as an
example whenever I meet a young person, some one of
these twenty year olds down the hall in the promotions
department that tell me they don't know if they want
to go to college. They don't know if they want
to go this. And I was like, college is great

(05:05):
for somebody that wants to be a dentist or an
accountant or an architect, but it's not for everyone. And
I got to think of all the people I know
in life that are very successful. I put you right
at the top of the list, and you did not
take that path.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
You know, whether you go to school or not, at
the end of the day, you have to have something
of value that other people are willing to pay you
for right to either perform or produce or or what
have you. But you have to bring something to the table.
You just can't receive something from nothing. And all too
often I think we get confused that if you go

(05:38):
to school and you accumulate all this knowledge, that somehow
this knowledge is going to make you money. I'm sorry,
unless you put it to work in some kind of industry,
it's not going to do anything for.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
You in your line of work. Like mid priced restaurant changed,
so it's not cheap, it's not expensive, it's right in
the middle for normal, average people. You have witnessed over
the last few years some of the biggest brand names
in your industry crushed. I mean, look at Benigan's doesn't
exist anymore. Olive Garden is suffering, Red Lobster declaring bankruptcy. Restaurants.

(06:12):
What happened with Hooters? Hooters? There's closing Hooters all over
the place. What do you attribute that to?

Speaker 4 (06:18):
You know, a brand can become very still if they
don't continue evolving and changing, and it could just be
minor changes. But you have to stay relevant and the
only way you can do that is, keep coming up
with new ideas, and a lot of times these ideas
come from your own team. They will tell you, hey,
this is what we're hearing, or this is what's hot
or not, and just you have to be in tune.

(06:41):
You have to always keep your ears low to the
ground and be willing to change along with the times.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
I always like to use a plate of nachos as
an analogy for this, and I figure this will work
well with you given your line of work. Life is complicated.
It's not simple. It's layered like a plate of nachos.
If you take one holopeno away, it's still nachos, right.
So you look at the breastaurant industry and how much
that suffered. I do not go to Hooters. It's not
like it's beneath me. There's just not one around here.
I don't really eat at it. Someone told me recently

(07:07):
they think that the reason that restaurant chain is failing
is because of Instagram and Snapchat and only fans. And
you know that didn't immediately resonate with me. Apparently, twenty
or thirty years ago, if you were a young woman
who was attractive with relatively no job skills, you could
go work at Hooters and get paid a lot of money,
whereas now you can just be a pretty girl on

(07:29):
Instagram and probably get more for less work. Do you
think there's anything to that? Is that why Hooters is failing?

Speaker 4 (07:34):
You know, the technology has changed a lot in the
business world. We're no exception. I mean, every time we
put a plate food out, it's there's an opportunity for
it to make it on it's onto the internet, and
so we always talk about building these picture of perfect
plates because you just never know someone's going to take

(07:55):
a picture. It's funny because sometimes I'm tagged in a
post and I'll look at the dish and they already
tore into it. It's a mess, and I won't share
it because I don't want anything to do with it.
They want to show you half a plate of ribs
or whatever. I mean, Yeah, I mean Enchilada's After a while,
you know, they don't look that great on the plate.
But yeah, I just we run. It's a healthy paranoia.

(08:17):
But we're always paranoid about everything we do. Okay, for
a good reason. Little for you.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
You sell all kinds of stuff, some of this stuff
on your menu, that's the most popular. That's the best
stuff is kind of unassuming, like the ribs or the cheeseburger.
People wouldn't expect that. What's the thing that makes you
the most money.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
It's a little bit of everything, to be honest with you.
I mean, we do have some very popular dishes, our
poemeriscos very popular. Of course, our fiedas as well. But
you know, we just try to remain very very competitive.
You know, we do know what our competitors charge for
the same dish that we're serving. And I'm not gonna
mention names, but for example, we are beef ahitas are
twenty four dollars. Bfvetas for one is twenty four dollars.

(08:58):
There's a competitor, Interloop, selling basically the same thing for
forty two dollars.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
I'm aware of who they are.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yes, infensive to me, Well it's it's pricey, but the
same token. They are in a prime high rent area,
so part of town. Yeah, very very and so, but
nothing against them. I mean, they're they they've added some
there's some added value to that dish that they serve,
and I get it. But you know, we're we're primarily

(09:27):
in the suburbs, and we have to be very conscious
of the consumers spending dollars discretionary dollars.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I have to assume that's part of the business model,
because I'll go to restaurants in the city where it's
crowded and there's nobody at the restaurant. I'll go out
to the suburbs where supposedly less people live, stop by
gringos and you know, wherever I may be, and the
line is out the door because there's just less options
out there. Why is that that?

Speaker 4 (09:52):
Plus, the competition base is different, not as refined as
as some of the interloop operators. There's some really great
restaurants in Houston, and you know when you open up
and you may just spend a fortune on this, on
your build out and equipment and team and all, but
you're just one of so many. And a prime example

(10:12):
there's a there's a brand from California that came to Houston,
Toko Madera. They they spent upwards of ten million dollars
to build that space out and uh and and you
know they put out a great product. But again, there's
just so many other restaurants that are opening almost on
a weekly basis that you know, you just want to
go trying one of my favorite restaurants. I stopped Buy

(10:34):
on Saturday nights at the bar and the bartender was
telling me that, you know, they were slow and and
it's a great restaurant. I mean you're talking about a
James Beard Award winner and which HU goes. Okay, yeah,
I mean great restaurants. It's one of my favorite. I'm weimer. Yeah, yeah,
they're suffering. Well no, no, no, I'm not saying they're

(10:55):
suffer don't want to spread around.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
A popular place it is. Well, they just Backstreet cafe.
Do you know whut they're they're rebuilding. Okay, right, yeah,
they're rebuilding.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
But no, no, they do well, it's just the Bartaino
told me that night that they were slow.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
So in this part of town. I love herbe. Somebody
was telling me the other day the me Tierra, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna. You won't do what I'm about to do.
You're too classy. But me, Tierra, is this Dallas Fort Worth,
tex mex Restaurant? Make casina me Casina? I'm sorry, what
did I say, Meira, that's the place in Santata that's
right for me. Kochina is the place me Cosina. It's

(11:29):
not me kachina. No, Kachina is a different word Cosina.
And it's over here on West Timer. It's a Dallas
Fort Worth place. I went there and I felt like,
no offense, pretty mediocre meal. And my friend comes into town.
She's going to the rodeo and she's like, well, we're
gonna go there because it's popular in Dallas. Takes her
daughter there and I'm sorry, I don't know legally if
I can even explain this on the air, but found

(11:50):
a rock in her taco and they gave her the
whole meal for free. And after that happened, I was like, look,
I tried to warn you that's not a good restaurant.
It's just not uh, and that's the reason there's nobody
ever in there. She's like, well, we're going there because
the line's short. Okay, maybe there's a reason why.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Well, yeah, they opened what almost a year ago or so,
so this is their third attempt here in Houston. I
don't know if you know that they've been here. No, yes,
And they're in.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
The same location where Seasons fifty two used to be correct, Boy,
how about that? Is it a good idea to move
into a location where the restaurant's always failing.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
Well, that's kind of our that's how we we got started.
That's that's your stick. Well, the original Gringoes was already
four different restaurants before we opened. That's right, I hear
that steakhouse. It was already a Mexican restaurant that closed up.
It was our family restaurant, Eltorro. Then it was a
seafood restaurant and an Italian restaurant, and so I was

(12:42):
the fifth restaurant to go in there. And I didn't
want to go in there, but you know, that's what's
that what's that saying, if you're scared of doing something, well,
then do it scared. But I mean I went in
and I was obviously concerned because of the history of
the building, but it also forced me to have a
paradigm shift where my focus is no longer about making
money that was out the door. It was absolutely about

(13:05):
focusing on producing the very best product I knew how
to make and offering at the best value that I
possibly could. And that's kind of what Grugringoes to where
we're at today. But we are a completely different company
obviously than we were thirty two years ago.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Sure, the world changed.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Well that plus we've changed, and we've always when I
say changed, our philosophy hasn't changed. But because of our philosophy,
we have changed. We've always looked at it. How can
we improve whatever? Yeah, I mean everything. I mean we
just remodeled the original Greenos, which is actually the new
building that we built in two thousand and four, eleven

(13:40):
years after we opened Wow, And we just redid a
major remodel in the bar and it's beautiful. And I've
never wanted to continue opening opening new restaurants that are pristine, beautiful,
well designed, laid out and all. And while my older
locations are falling apart, I mean, we're constantly putting money
back in our older locations and that's important.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
You've had people steal ideas from you. You've had people
there were there were restaurants that borrow, Yeah, borrow. Well,
there was a restaurant I won't say who it is,
but wasn't there a guy that like basically opened a
restaurant that almost had the same name as yours, almost
the same exact menu. I won't say who it is
or where it was, but that's that was a thing
you had to deal with a number of years.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
We we we borrow ideas, but we'll take an idea
and tweak it and make it our own. And it
could even be something as like a recipe.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
I mean, we've yeah, but it's not like you're calling
it Taco Bell two point zero or something like a
totally different thing. But somebody did that to you. You
don't have to explain it on the air if you
don't want to. It was in the news that I
didn't hear about it from you. I read about it
in a newspaper and I remember thinking, Yeah, this guy's
stealing from Russell.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
Well, we have to protect the name. Yeah, obviously in
this market. Yeah, you know BUCkies is doing that with
the cartoon character. Any gas station that opens up with
any kind of caricature of an animal, they go after him.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Sure, because it's awfully on the nose.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
Well, yeah, but you're not gonna believe.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
This, but this is not the only radio show where
there's an angry white guy talking about politics. Unbelievable, right,
Hey more with Russell Ybarra coming up in a little bit,
and Texas scorecard dot COM's Brandon Walton stopping by with
the latest from dei in public schools and academic institutions
you're paying taxes for. The book is called Anchilada. Entrepreneur
Russell Leebarro will be.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Back Hitwebstay's Pursuit of Happiness, a radio show that's just
as good when you're driving around Soba as it is
when you're.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Drunk at home. You're not gonna believe this, but the
ceasefire between Israel and Gaza it ended almost as quickly
as it started. Isn't that unbelievable. That's amazing, That is incredible.
We just thought we reached a ceasefire deal between Israel
and Hamas, and just like that it ended. That is surprising,

(15:51):
said people who were born yesterday.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Hey everyone, it's back to school time.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Let's go back to school with Kenny. A lot of
interesting things happening around the state of Texas, and one
of those things is I have me and Texas Scorecard
have some mutual friends from a group called Deep Audit.
I love this. These are activists and their only motivation

(16:18):
is they're jaded. They're very angry computer software programmers, and
they've designed software to go look through publicly funded academic
institutions in the state of Texas, in this case, the
University of Texas Austin, so they can find things that
I thought were supposed to be illegal DEI ESG that
sort of thing. Here to explain some of what they found,

(16:40):
my goody buddy Brandon Waltons from texascorecard dot com. Brandon,
I don't mind bragging a little bit that I handed
you guys this news story. But you guys, you guys
published a great report about this. Can you tell us
what's in the report?

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Yeah? Absolutely, It's very very interesting. It's so cool to
see a group like this doing this. So you know,
actually've got this deep audit group that is using you know,
they're they're going and digging into these course descriptions, different things,
going through you know, there's a ton of this information
out there on the web, but but you know, it's
it's almost impossible to sift through and finding that despite

(17:17):
the fact that Texas band DEI offices and all that
institutions of higher learning last year, uh, the Youth University
of Texas at Austin's School of Education is actually riddled
with critical race theory. And so their algorithm, you know,
went through courses and found quite a few inside especially

(17:40):
that School of Education that that are you know, pushing
d I, and so it just shows that not only
do we still have a ways to go to actually
PURSHINGDI and CRT from our our our colleges and universities,
but also it's cool to see some of the newer
techniques that are being used to help find this out.

(18:01):
You know, not unlike what we've seen at the federal level.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Isn't critical race theory. Isn't that supposed to be illegal
and publicly funded Texas academics. I mean, does that just
apply to like the elementary and high school stuff or
colleges too.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
So you did a CRT ban on you know, K
through twelve. The DEI ban is on universities. There are
some exceptions, right, and I think some of this is
things that Lambakers probably need to look at and see
if there's any holes that need patching. But at the
very least, it's it's very clear that when it comes
to DEI specifically, that's something that's not supposed to be

(18:37):
taught in universities. And I think that most people, those
Texans would be upset to find out that it is,
because at the end of the day, these are institutions
that are public meeting, they are subsidized with all of
our tax dollars.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Look, I don't care what a private university does. It's
none of my business. If Rice University wants to brainwash
kids for eighty thousand dollars a semester, that's that's their problem, right.
I don't go there. I don't attend the school. I
don't have kids that attend the school. I don't give
them money. But I do give money to the University
of Texas, Austin, and I know all of our listeners do,

(19:12):
espec if they live in the lone star state. This
has got to end at some point. Enough is enough.
Now there is good news. University of Texas is following
what A and M just did. They're banning drag shows
on campus. And this is a big surprise to a
lot of people, especially coming out of a publicly funded
or not. It's still considered to be a liberal university
in Austin, Texas. But yeah, this is great progress for reasonable,

(19:36):
common sense people, isn't it.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
Absolutely. I mean, this just goes to show you how
how quickly things can change, especially when they come from
the top. Because what we saw happened was when when
President Trump took office in January, he signed an executive order,
you know, banning this kind of these kind of these
kind of displays on you know, with with government dollars,

(20:01):
right and so. And in fact, specifically, you know, he
had the one that recognized the biological biological reality of
two sexes and prohibited federal funding for gender ideology, which
is what what these sorts of displays would would fall into.
And so that happened in January. That happened like right
away when Trump took office. Then last month you saw

(20:23):
Texas A and M University, their board of regents said, okay, well,
in light of this executive order as well as an
order from Governor Greg Gap that that sort of mirror
that that he put out shortly after, we're not going
to allow drag shows on our campus. They had an
annual event called draggy Land that they would they would host.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
I mean, it is funny. You gotta admit that's a
funny name. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
Yeah, But they said, okay, no more of that. We're
not going to be we're not going to be doing that.
And then I think, in a move that surprised a
lot of people, the university of Texas system. Now following
suit yesterday, you had had their chairman of their Board
of Regents, Kevin el tys essentially that that was going
to stop in light of local laws and executive orders,

(21:09):
that they're not going to allow these university facilities that
are again right supported by taxpayers to serve as venues
for drag shows. You know, these are just more distractions, right,
I mean, I think any taxpayer should be curious that
their money is being used to subsidize us.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, it is absolutely infuriating. All right, let's move from
that to a conversation about what's going on right now
with high school students around the state. And I know
it's not surprising because you publish these stories all the time.
You guys publish a lot of these stories at Texas
scorecard dot com. But boy, just when you think you've
heard enough of them, here's more. Fort Worth ISD Texas

(21:50):
teacher and an athletic coach at the school has been
accused of sexual misconduct with a fifteen year old student.
It's a tale as old as time. There's always another
one of these stories. But boy, no matter how many
of them keep getting caught, they keep doing it, don't
they Brandon.

Speaker 5 (22:06):
Yes, I mean they're happening absolutely everywhere.

Speaker 6 (22:08):
Right.

Speaker 5 (22:08):
We would talk about this occasionally, and this is just
the latest story from up at Fort Worth IICD. Heck,
last week we had stories out of Belton, Iced which
is sort of between like Austin and Waco, that kind
of part of Central Texas, where they had not one,
but two different teachers in the same week get arrested
for this kind of behavior. So it's happening all over

(22:29):
the place, all right.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
I live in uptown for those you know, I most
listeners know where I'm at. I live in uptown Houston
and right by the radio station. You know, I don't
care if people know where I am because it's I'm safe.
But whatever, I just want to make a point here.
Tanglewood Middle School that's just a few blocks from where
I live. Tanglewood Middle schools right down this It's the city,
but it used to be considered the suburbs. To give

(22:50):
an idea of what for those of you that don't
live in the Houston area, Tanglewood is the neighborhood where's
zz Top used to be a garage rock band. But
things have changed a little bit. It's now become a
pretty affluent part of the inner city. And weirdly enough,
even though it is, it doesn't matter because they still
have creepy weirdo purportedly creepy pedophiles working there. Dale Lamar

(23:11):
van Wright taught design at Tanglewood Middle School. He's been
sentenced to defer to adjudication and ten years of probation
for after he pleaded guilty to charge of indecency with
a child middle school. Dude, I mean, this happened right
down the street from my house. This bothers the crap
out of me.

Speaker 5 (23:31):
Well, I should bother anybody, right, I mean, I think
that it's very clear. You know, I see aren't following it, right.
We certainly post a lot of these stories. We can't
even post all of them, right, This isn't an exhaustive list.
We'll be posting them all the time. But this isn't
one or two stories a year in the state, like
I think maybe some people have in their mind. This

(23:51):
is happening almost every day. It's happening multiple times in
the same districts, sometimes even in the same schools. And
you know, I think that I think it's time for
people to wake up and start demanding that there's some
accountability and some act taken from some of these school districts.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Okay, So obviously, with all this taking place at public
schools all over the state, and you know, Texas is
not a small place. These incidents are not isolated. They
take place all the time. Where is school choice? We've
been told over and over again, school choice is coming,
school choice is coming. This legislative session is about to end, Brandon,
what happens next?

Speaker 5 (24:29):
Well, we're about I guess we're about halfway through now
the legislative session. It's one hundred and forty days and
we're about sixty some od dated into it right now.
School choice passed out of the Senate like a month
and a half ago. So the Senate has done that.
The House had a committee hearing on it last week.

(24:52):
That's still pending in committee. They haven't voted it out
of committee yet. You know, you kind of think of
the Schoolhouse rock process of things, you know, goes to the
committee and then it's gonna be voted on on the floor,
and so we'll see what happens. I think that, you know,
there's certainly more reason to be optimistic this time, just
given the fact that you have a majority of members
signed on as co authors to this. Even the Speaker

(25:15):
of the House, Dustin Burrosse, appears to be supportive of it.
Has been been at some school choice events with the governor,
et cetera. But you know this, this is if this
is a priority, this is something I would say that
they should probably try to get out early.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah. Absolutely, Okay, So it's too late now to file
new bills, right, we're at that point in the session.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
Exactly. We are as as of Friday, we are past
the bill filing deadlines. To the extent that you have
an idea for a bill, it might have to wait
for another two years.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, Brandon has always awesome work. Brandon waltons dot com.
Excuse me a Texas scorecard dot com? Brandon Walton's on
ax in Twitter. You got anything you want to promote?
What what do you guys have going on? New podcast?
Stuff like that?

Speaker 5 (26:00):
Actually, just put out a new documentary today called rig
looking into some of the scandals recent scandals in the
Texas lottery. I would recommend checking out.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Isn't that interesting? And so Dan Patrick did the investigation himself,
and I guess people, you know, they can watch it
if they want to learn the whole story, but can
you give us a little sneak peek.

Speaker 5 (26:18):
Well, essentially, you've had you've had some cases over the
last couple of years where some couriers that essentially are
their online couriers skirting the law, that are just printing
tickets pring every winning number, combination and winning and unfortunately,
you know, there's some people that might be tied up
that were actually inside the lottery commission. So it's currently

(26:40):
a Texas Rangers investigation right now.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Interesting they're having the baseball team investigated. I would have
never guessed. All right, go to Texas scorecard dot com today,
subscribe to the email list show.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Radio shows are so hot you'll literally burn your eyes.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Fortunately, this is it one of those shows. I never
listening to you all again. Passuit of Happiness Radio. There
are a few things in life you could do where
people will just look at you like you're crazy. You
could go cliff diving. People will think you're nuts. You're
in a cage dressle a bear. That's an insane thing
to do. Starting a small business probably just just crazy

(27:17):
and thinking that you could grow that small business and
do a and you know, not just up like a brand,
but an empire of sorts. But that's exactly what Ressel
Ybara did. He created I mean multiple brands over the years.
People don't even realize after all these years, you're the
guy that created bol Rito's. You're the guy that you
had a tortilla company. Do you still do that?

Speaker 4 (27:38):
Our family still owns a factory. I was just there
yesterday as a matter of fact, and.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
It involves you guys sell tortillas to prisons.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
I mean my my two siblings or three siblings that
run Elmetadoor Foods and Baytown. They sell product to the
country of Jordan. Yeah, they'll send container fulls of large
rtillas to the country of Jordan.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
That's amazing that a basketball player would buy that from
you guys. That's incredible to me. The book's called Enchilada Entrepreneur,
which is a cool name for a book because it's
what you are, but also it's a fun name. How'd
you come up with that?

Speaker 4 (28:08):
You know, it was going to be called The Master
Enchilada Roller And we just brainstormed and the publishing company
that we worked with they helped direct us and here
we are with the Inchelina Entrepreneur, which I have to
say that one percent of the proceeds does go to
Camp Hope, the PTSD Foundation of America and supporting our
veterans there, so it's a good cause.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Not quite the same thing. But when people subscribe to
my Twitter account or because I already do this for
a living and I'm doing fine, I always tell people
one hundred percent of that money goes to Wheelchairs for Warriors,
which is similar charity. The two of them work together,
they're all friends, and I was like, I don't need
this money, right, So if someone wants to give me
a little money every month for my tweets, I'll just
give it to the people with the wheelchairs.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah? Why not? The book is recommended by some of
the heaviest hitters in the city of Houston. Besides our
friend Michael Berry helping write it with you. The writing
the forward tell Men for Tita, and you and Tellman
have a little something in common because you're both in
the hospitality industry and you both have siblings that do this. Yes,
I always wonder if he's competitive with his siblings, are

(29:15):
you competitive with yours?

Speaker 4 (29:17):
You know, I don't focus on my siblings. They may
they may focus on me. But you know, but you
know that's saying is as iron sharpens iron, so on
one man's strength is another. I think we get better
off each other. And even you know, I have an
open door policy. I've had a lot of restaurant tours.
Competitors come into my restaurant, into my kitchens and look around.

(29:39):
We'll give them a tour, We'll show them we're an
open book. And we do this because the way I
see it is if they were if they are able
to take an idea away that they've got from us,
sure and improve on something. Well, I want to get
better as it as a result of it as well,
and so we all kind of just you know, rise
together in the industry and just improve. I think the

(30:00):
consumer today is experiencing things that weren't around twenty thirty
years ago.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
For sure, people will ask when they buy a book,
who is this book for it. I think it's obvious
who this book's for people that want to start a business,
because you look at each chapter and the title. The
title itself is fantastic advice. I'm always telling young radio
producers personalities. People are at new guys in the newsroom
show up early, leave late, do more than what you're
told to do. That's the name of a chapter here.

(30:26):
Do more than what you're paid for. Yes, And people
will in my industry will complain like, I'm not going
anywhere with this.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Well think about it. I mean, when I opened up
Gringos on January the eleventh of nineteen ninety three in
that building that had been five or four other restaurants
on the fifth, how am I going to stand out
and such? And one of the ways I did it
was to offer in crazy insane value but also great quality.
So I was trying to find a way to get

(30:54):
going and that obviously helped tremendously in the beginning.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
To people that eat all it out all the time whatever,
you know. But somebody out there goes out to eat
once a week or once a month because that's what
they can afford. And when they're trying to decide where
to go eat at, they don't want to eat at
the place that gives them a tiny portion for too
much money, Nor do they want to eat at a
place that's giving them a lot of food that's not
fun to eat. Right, And you you know what I

(31:18):
mean that kind of right. I won't mention any names,
but people know the kind of place I'm talking about.
You've managed to find the middle ground there.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
Well, I mean, at the end of the day, too
little or too much is not good and so we
try to make sure that we focus on a fair
portion good quality, but a fair portion at a reasonable price,
and a great atmosphere and with you know, people that
enjoyed their job. And you know, I think our culture

(31:46):
is unique and different for lots of reasons, and it's
because of how much we we do for our team.
We have done so many we have done so many
things for them, but of course they've done so many
things for us to make us successful. But one of them,
for example, is complete full dental makeovers. We have done
thirty two of them. Now wait what, Yes, team members

(32:08):
that had severe dental needs. I'm talking in some cases
no teeth, sure, pretty much. And they could be a busser,
they could be a kitchen staff member, and we've just
reached out to them, you know, discreetly, and say, hey,
we'd be willing to offer this if you would accept it.
Then of course every one of them does, and so

(32:31):
we've done over thirty right at thirty two or thirty
three complete full dental makeovers for team members.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Not appreciating the talent that you have in a business,
there's probably the reason a lot of businesses fail. I
can think of businesses, I can think of people in
my industry who had brilliant people on their staff that
went on to change the industry itself. And just to
think what would have happened to that business if not
for the fact that those really talented people left, and
some of those shows businesses, media companies don't exist anymore,

(32:58):
probably would still exist if not for the fact that
they let that happen.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
Well, I mean, at the end of the day, business
is all about people. Your customers are people, a mere Yeah,
Your customers are people, your employees are people. So it's
a people business. And I'm proud that the very first
person I hired little over thirty two years ago, Hugo Levera,
is still with me today.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
And he has a nickname dos cabayos, which means two horses,
because in the early days he literally did the work
of two men. And of course today he's in his
mid sixties, late sixties and still with me and you know,
enjoying life because he doesn't have to work nearly as
hard as he did back in the early days.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
I'm dating this woman right now, very attractive, talented, really
successful in her industry architecture, designing and selling buildings, travels
all over the world, fascinating life. And I'm bragging about
me a little bit by talking about her. But she's
in my car recently. We're on our way out somewhere
and I have a Gringos water bottle because I had
just come from the gym, and she says, oh, Gringos,

(34:02):
I love them. I was like, yeah, good food, right.
She's like, no, you don't understand. I had my first
job working there at the one out in Parland. They
taught me how to be a good employee. They made
me who I am as a teenager, I worked there
as a hostess, doing odd jobs around the restaurant. It
taught me how to be a hard worker. Blew my mind.
And then I texted you, which is the reason you're
here in the studio today. You've been a friend of

(34:24):
mine for years. I was like yeah, and had Russell
on the show for a while. Because she said that
to me, I thought I had to invite Russell into
the show. I don't know why I had an edge
in here in a while.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
You know.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
I received a really nice email this morning from a gentleman.
He's a CPA and his family owns some Mexican restaurant
in the north side of town. And he had to
come back into the restaurant to take over because his
father had just recently passed this past February.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
So and.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
He had read the book and he really enjoyed it
and it really helped him, he said, And I was
glad to hear that. It made my morning. And so yeah,
there's you know, again, the culture. So what I did
in the early days, I'm a visual person. I'm a
dreamer a lot like my father was, and you know,

(35:12):
I kind of dreamed what I wanted the company to
look like early on in the days. You know, I
had other companies to look up to, like the Papist Organization,
And I told myself at one time if I had
any hope of being anything like them, I had one
or two choices. I either go work for them or
hire someone that worked for them. And my second general
manager in nineteen ninety six was Joel Perkins, who was

(35:32):
a general manager with Papasitos. But his story is unique
and I don't have a lot of time to go
into it. But he's retired now he's my landlord at
two of the Gringoes. We acquired five of them that
he owned at one time. Really, yes, and he's set,
you know. And that's all started in nineteen ninety six,
and in twenty twenty one we acquired all five units
that he had franchised for me.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
What's that great Italian place that you and I are
mutual friends that closed Carmelo's? Was that I am Carmelo Memorial? Yes,
what an interesting story. Here's this guy comes here from Italy,
opens a couple of restaurants. The restaurants very successful, buys
the property. Eventually the property becomes worth so much money,
he sells the property and retires. I mean, what a story.

(36:14):
That's a great that's the American dream.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
Well, he had several stories in Austin as well. Yeah,
right across from the Hilton. But and then' he was
he invested wisely in the Austin market back in the eighties.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
He's a great guy, and I won't say anything bad
about him, but one time I got invited to a dinner,
a private dinner with you and him and we talked
about politics with very civil conversation. Yes, it was very polite.
And this was years ago, so I never would have
told that story then, but I'll tell it now. He
was talking about at the time how he didn't think
that Americans needed guns. He said, he didn't understand it.
And then he said, I don't feel like I'm in

(36:48):
any danger. I don't need a gun. And everyone's real quiet.

Speaker 6 (36:50):
And then you said, Carmelo, we're in a neighborhood right
now where we're in a gated community protected by an
armed guard exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Everyone laughed, and he's like, yeah, I guess you have
a good point of wrestling. It was a valid point,
you know. All that being said, he's a great guy.
I'm not going to say anything bad about him. But
h chapter three in your book has guard your reputation. Yes, Now,
a lot of people may not think about who owns
a restaurant when they walk in. It doesn't even occur
to them to who owns North Italia, who owns Hugos.
Most people don't even think about that. But that's really important,

(37:23):
isn't it.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
Well, Your your reputation, at the end of the day,
is the most valuable thing you own. And a great
example there is a chef that I know in town
that reached out to me yesterday about recommending him to
someone at some restaurants tour in town because he needs
a job. And of course I know his past, I

(37:45):
know his history, and the world is very, very small,
and people talk, and I could never in good conscience
recommend him to anyone, and nor would I. So you know,
don't the word travels very fast. It's a small industry
at the end of the day. There are lots of restaurants,
but everyone knows everyone. And when it comes to employment,

(38:08):
you can hurt yourself by burning a bridge.

Speaker 6 (38:10):
You know.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
They say if you're if you go around burning bridges,
you better be a damn good swimmer because it will
come back and bite you.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah, I think I know who it is, but I'm
not going to try to guess on the radio right now.
Was it a guy that glug glug?

Speaker 4 (38:22):
No, you don't know that. I don't think you know
this gentleman.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Okay, I'll leave it alone. Yeah, Well, look, hey, I
mean that happens to people.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
A nice guy, but you know, again, he's burned too
many bridges.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
How about this one? What about the successes over the
year that people that you're impressed by, people that stood
the test of time still have you know, restaurants from
thirty four years ago that who would have thought they'd
still be doing it today and successful. Who are some
of those people people you really admire that are your peers.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Well, obviously Johnny Carraba and the Paposes, I mean Chris
and Harris Papos do a fantastic job. And the next
generation is coming up because I think Chris in his
late seventies now, and but you know, they started Papasito
was in nineteen eighty three and that was their first
unit there on Richmond. And at the time, I was

(39:09):
working for my father at El Toro, and their sister,
Vicky Pappas, had an owning company and she was doing
work for us. She put an owning one of my
father's restaurants. We were hoping that that one little thing
that we did to the restaurant was going to turn
the business around. But of course it takes more than that.
It's a little more than that, a lot more than that.
So but she told me that, you know, her brothers

(39:29):
were opening a restaurant. I said, well, just you know,
have him come out. I'll give them a tour in
my father's place and show him around. And they did
come out. Chris came out and toured my father's commissary
at the time.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
I feel like, and I know you're, you know, very diplomatic,
and you're a nice guy, so you may not want
to appine on this, but I feel like what the
former mayor did to the papa's family kicking them out
of the airport, I feel like that was not only
disrespectful to them, it was disrespectful to the whole city
of Houston getting some restaurants in here from Florida. Those
guys are a Houston institution. Why did they need to

(39:59):
leave the airport? I never made anything.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
Especially they were a great operator. And I don't know
all the specifics in the in the contract itself, but
you know that that whole process is on political now.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
It had to be. It was very and it isn't
it interesting that administration had a lot of weird stuff
happened at the airports? Didn't they a lot of the
ninety thousand dollars intern the the musicians performing there that
just disappeared under the new mayor. You know how about
that though. You guys get live music and restaurants, you've
you've done that before.

Speaker 4 (40:29):
Right, Well, we've had Mariachi's come out on on celebration
days like Sinka to Mayo. But it's funny because I'm
reading a book from Ken Taylor, the founder of Texas
Roadhouse Made from Scratch, and his first restaurant, he had
a stage for musicians, but they stayed too long, the

(40:52):
guest did, they wouldn't they couldn't turn tables. Well that's it, right,
So so he got rid of them or from that
point on he never had another stage to his restaurant.
But it's a great book, Ken Taylor.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
I feel like the smartest people I know, the people
that give the best advice are the very extroverted introverts.
And I put like Steve Johnson, my cost on my
morning show, He's like that, and then you're like that,
have you noticed has anyone ever told you that before
you're a very extroverted introvert like you, You seem reserved,
you seem like a deep thinker. But then once you
start talking, you have a lot to say. Well, yeah,

(41:27):
I need to tell my wife that.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
But yeah, so you know, obviously in the position that
I have, I have to be very careful with the
words I use, sure anything I say. And just the
other day I saw this, this segment on Instagram from
the school to Hard Knocks, the kid that goes around
interviewing wealthy people in the River Oaks district or in Austin, or.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
How'd you become a millionaire? That guy, right, Yeah, yeah,
I love that. Yeah, yeah, he's really good.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
Well he did an interview the other day of a
gentleman out of Boston, and the message was good, but
the delivery was I thought it was questionable, using curse
words left and right, and it kind of just hurt
his message. And I thought to myself, you know, I
would never talk like that.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, You're not like that.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
It's just it's just not wise to do that, because
you know a lot of times your staff will mimick
you and what you do, they'll do, And so I
have to be very careful in my actions, my words.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
What's up. Papa John's Pizza that his big scandal. He
was one of the greatest pizza restaurant franchise, and he
had a conference call where he was talking about words
you shouldn't use with his and he used some of
those words. It was the end of his career.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
Yeah, I don't remember exactly what it was, but yeah,
I do remember the story.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
I remember what it was, and I'm not going to
say it on the radio. Yeah, when you wrote this book,
this is it's This is a good average size book.
This isn't like a short book, but it won't take
you all year to read it either. Did you learn
anything about yourself while you were writing this book that
you didn't expect to learn?

Speaker 4 (42:57):
Well, that I could actually have done a better job.
I mean, I'm not ey nine percent pleased with how
it came out. It was done very well.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
You know.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
I obviously hired a very great publisher out of Austin Greenleaf,
and they basically held us by the hand to get
there across the finish line. The editing is always the
most challenging part. But all in all, I'm pleased with it.
But it just gave me the confidence to go forward
and actually do another one. And I haven't decided on

(43:27):
the title yet, but we'll get there.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah, offer a thought on that.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Peter Gabriel, one of the greatest musicians composers of the
nineteen eighties, recorded all these radio hits, tons of hits, yes, right,
a long list of them, multiple albums, more than one band,
a solo project, genesis right. Years later, he re recorded
all those songs with a symphony called the New Blood Orchestra.
Are you familiar with this? And someone asked him, why

(43:50):
did you go back and re record you know, all
your old hit Why would you do that? What big
time with an orchestra? Why would you do that?

Speaker 5 (43:58):
Or? You know?

Speaker 2 (43:59):
He said, the reason why is because back in the
eighties when I did those songs, I didn't have access
to a symphony full of musicians. I just had synthesizers
because synthesizers were more affordable than a room full of violinists.
So that's what I did, even though I didn't like it.
That's how I had to make the music. Now, doesn't
that kind of blow your mind that these were the

(44:19):
greatest hits of the eighties, they weren't good enough to
the guy that created it. I'm sure you see why
I'm telling you this. You may see imperfections in this book,
But to some twenty two to twenty three, twenty four
year old kid who wants to start a restaurant, who
knows who you are that picks this up and thumbs
through the book and reads half of it before he
opens his first restaurant. This way changes life.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
I agree. I agree because I looked I kind of
look at it through the eyes of a twenty five
year old myself. I've actually met a few restaurant tours
in Houston that are in their early thirties, and I've
really enjoyed getting to know them. Great restaurants. One is
called Local Cantina in the Kingwood of Taskeasita area and
another is Space City Biddio downtown Houston. Phenomenal job. They

(45:03):
both put out great product and their stories are interesting,
at least the space that he is. I mean, he
had gotten into the burger business. He had franchised a
burger concept and opened four months before COVID hit. Oh
it just destroyed him.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, and well one of our favorite honky tonks out
in the suburbs. I mean, that didn't help a lot
of businesses.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
He had to pivot, and he did, and now he's
kind of found his lane and putting out a fantastic product,
you know, and we've had He comes to our office
quite often and work actually works out with Jonathan Kim,
my president of the company.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
You own a lot of restaurants. You've been doing this
for a while. You're in your mid forties now. I
take a wish if you could go back in time
and give advice to young Russell when he was hoping
his first restaurant. What would you tell him?

Speaker 4 (45:49):
Probably the most important thing is know your numbers, because
you know, I've done a lot of things over the
years that I basically gave two much in terms of deals.
But at the same token, I look back and if
I had known my numbers, where they had changed the
course of where I'm at today. So I think about

(46:09):
that a lot. It is you know, what's that saying?
Ignorance is bliss sure, because at the time I didn't
know a lot and it worked in my advantage. I
think at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
The book's called Enchilotta Entrepreneur. People can buy it online.
It's easy to find.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
Yeah, or you know, if you want to sign the
hardcover copy, go to our website.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
You'll do it.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
Yeah, either ench Alata entrepreneur dot com or Gringos text
mex dot com. And then I will uh and again
the proceeds goes to camp Hope the PTSD and but
you can. You can buy the paperback on Amazon. You
can do audible. It's also available. What's the next book
going to be about? I may just tell more, for sure,

(46:52):
more history of the family and my years leading up
to Gringos, because there were so many experiences there that
really helped shaped where we're at and where we're at today.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
If you need some good fart jokes, I could go
straight for you. Okay, if you need rustling, borrow good
friend of mine check out the book Angeloda Entrepreneur find
it online. Of course, you just explained how to do
that and go eat at one of his restaurants. If
you've never been to Gringos or Jimmy Changos, or you
don't know what you're missing. I love you all. Thank
you so much for listening this afternoon. I pray for
all of you. I am grateful for you. We'll be
back bright and early tomorrow morning for more of what

(47:24):
you bought a radio for. You are listening to the
Pursuit of that be Miss Radio.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
Tell the government to kiss your ass when you listen
to this show.