- Funding for working capital is provided by the friends of KTWU, Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and Kansas Department of Commerce.

So sometimes in life you may be having a great day, maybe having a bad day, no matter what.

Sometimes you need a little more soul in your life.

So today we're at one of Topeka's finest soul food establishments, 785 Kitchen.

And joining us today is Chef Leveille Jackson.

Nice to - Meet y'all.

Nice to meet y'all.

Nice to meet - You, chef.

Yes, - Yes, yes.

- So this is an awesome place.

I have not been in yet and I feel horrible about it, but I've heard so much good things from my other producers, from my friends around town.

One of the best catfish joints in town.

Yes, - Sir.

But - That's not just it.

So - - Oh, we do a lot.

First - Off, where did you get your passion for cooking?

- Everything is pretty much from my mom and my grandma.

It's like all family recipes.

So I grew up cooking ever since probably like legit, probably in middle school.

So I had a dream about this ever since middle school.

So when I wanted to execute it after college, I wanted to try to see if I could execute what I wanted to do.

So that was the business plan.

When I wrote it down, I was like, let's execute it like the business plan to see if we can make it work.

So.

- Okay.

Then going back, what, what is the first thing you remember cooking in the kitchen with your family?

- Where did it start?

I would say, I wouldn't necessarily say cooking, but the first thing I was doing in the kitchen was like peeling potatoes or shucking greens or snapping green beans.

That was my first start in the kitchen.

And I loved it.

So once I actually got into the phase of actually cooking and everything too, and tasting all my food, it, it, it like completed the whole process of like, "Hey, I love to cook and I love to do this.

I want to do this for a living."

So that's where, that's where my inspiration came from for sure.

- Really that is a good place to start even in a family.

Yes.

- Because - You know, once you get out into a real establishment, - Usually - You're starting off peeling - Chucking.

Yes sir.

Yes sir.

And - That's how I, I started with that too with my family.

- Yes sir.

Yes, yes.

You start with the the the little stuff and you grow and grow and grow.

Everything to - Where the actual thing comes - Together.

- That, that first dish, you remember growing up family wise.

Spices, everything.

What's something that was like a signature for your family?

- Definitely all collard greens.

All collard greens at the house.

Yes.

Yes.

So every time my mom made collard greens, even when I was going to college and coming back home, that was like the number one thing I told my mama to make.

Collard greens and cornbread, please.

And I was like, that was a staple in the house.

If we, if we always had that, I was always happy.

So yes sir.

Yeah, definitely collard greens.

- So was it only family cooking up until after college or did you do anything through school or?

- I played football in college so I was, yeah.

I didn't have much time.

So I was doing a lot of sports and stuff in college.

And then after that when I got done with school and at football, I was like, let me try to venture into this and see how it goes.

So yes sir.

Yeah, that was, that was, that's all that was.

- So you didn't have any of your football buddies going, you're cooking for us tonight because you're the best?

- Yeah, we had definitely a couple cookouts, more in high school.

I used to tell my friends to come over on Sundays because my mom, both my mom used to work in the morning.

So I used to tell them, come over for lunch, I'll cook.

We have the house to ourself.

And that was like the one thing that gave me confidence, like my friends always said my food was good and they always loved to come and hang out on Sundays and cook my, eat my food.

So I was like, man, I can do this for a living.

Why not?

So that was another, another inspiration for sure, I would say.

- I know you started off as a one man fan so you've grown it, but for a lot of us sitting out there that want to start these entrepreneurial journeys, how did you start your business plan?

What was your first thought and your - First instinct - Into this?

- Definitely my first thought was just get a good location where I could at least, I know for sure, well, I would say get a location that you're not going to spend too much money on.

That was the main thing.

Even if I had to find a location that I had to kind of like renovate or whatever, I spend electric extra money to do it.

But I saw this location, this location was on the market for a long time and just where we're at on Gage is - One of the busiest - Intersections - To be.

Exactly.

Even if I have a small little building, I already knew if we had people to see catfish or seeing people walking in and out and saying that we have good fried catfish, there was no reason why we shouldn't be able to at least do something in speaking because no one else sells fried catfish or even soul food.

So I was like, if we executed correctly, we should have hit the market no matter what.

No one else is doing it, so why not?

- Yeah, because it really has to be food first.

Yes.

- Yes.

- Because you can have the nicest looking place.

If you go in there, oh, it looks so great to sit down.

If the service is bad, if the food is just mediocre, you're not going to go back.

So you've wasted money on a lot of stuff.

Exactly, exactly.

So it's nice seeing the passion from when you're growing up knowing exactly how you want the food to taste and where it's going.

Exactly.

Have you had family come in that critiqued and be like, wait a second, you forgot this price.

For - Sure.

Oh for sure.

No one else would know - It.

- No, yeah because when I cook my collard greens, I try to cook them like exactly my mom and grandma, but I did a little different things and stuff like that, but it never tastes exactly like my mom's and my grandma.

But I always tell my cooks and my employees here, I was like, I'm going to have a cookout for my mom one at a time with these greens to see how they taste.

But I haven't done it yet.

I'm still kind of scared, but definitely my mom will come and be like, "Hey, just add a little bit of this or you should do this."

She gave me a little secret one time and ever since I did that, I was like, "Man, my greens have been tasting so much better ever since I did that little secret my mom told me."

So definitely she comes in here and tells me stuff, but not much anymore, but when I first started, for sure.

Yeah.

For sure.

Well - Now you got me thinking we need to have a soul food cook off into pica.

- We - Might get some family foods - A little bit, but I think it might be a good - Yes, because I feel like we bring out the even like people that cook at home too.

Those people at home, they're coming.

Shoot.

They're throw down too.

You go down the rice drink of pica on an afternoon.

You want to stop in.

Yeah.

Because a - Lot of these recipes, they' still hidden.

Exactly.

- Because - There's not that kind of culinary artists - Out - There providing for the rest - Of you.

Yeah.

No one does soul food.

Well, authentic soul food like us here.

As you see, we do the real yams, we do the real cabbage, we do the real matted potatoes, like the whole nine yards.

We do dried beans.

We soak those for overnight and then we cook them next day.

We do like legit soul food here.

Nothing from a can and all that extra stuff.

So yeah.

It means a lot.

It definitely shows in the food too as well.

- So when you were a single chef here, how did that work?

I mean, were you doing any dine-in at that point or was it all - Together?

At first, I didn't do any dine in at first because I knew I was going to be by myself and I wanted people to be in and out.

I didn't really want to have to deal with the dine-in stuff.

But eventually I did go into the dining and stuff like that.

But I mean, just to be honest, yeah, it was rough.

Every day I would be tired as heck or whatever, but I knew this is going to be the start.

So I knew how to get up and this grind.

So I played sports, like I said in college.

You're used to that.

Yeah.

The grind was always like, all right, you got to grind these little bit of time and then eventually you can get to where you want to get to.

So that was my mindset always like, "Hey, get up and get this money."

Or, "Hey, get up and make this food for these people so you can get to where you want to be at."

So that's always been my mindset.

- And you really do love what you do.

Exactly.

People - Who start off - As a single entrepreneur with no one else, they really have to love it.

Oh - Yeah.

If you don't have to - It's a - 24 hour day - Job.

Yes, yes.

It'll burn you out quick.

It'll burn you out quick.

- So what was that biggest hurdle to then hiring your first employee?

What was that major milestone you hit that?

- Just actually getting people in here consistently.

Once I saw that people were getting in here consistently after that first probably like six months that I was open, we finally got on the news.

And then after we got on the news, it started like making us boom real bad.

And I was like, well my mom finally told me, "Hey, you're going to have to get employees if you want to keep growing."

And I was like, "All right I understand that mom."

And once I finally got my first employee, I realized it's a game changer.

People taking orders, I don't have to do this, I don't have to do that.

I can just worry about cooking or my employees can be here handling all this and I can just supervise.

And that, man, it was a game changer for sure.

- So just finding out that traffic, - Knowing - That every week I'm having at least 300, 500 people in.

So you know that one more person is attainable and then you can cut that line down a little bit.

Oh yes.

You get more people in.

- Yes.

You just ride at it slowly, but slowly and slowly and slowly.

At first, I literally have people working probably like two months here, two months here, two months here.

I'll be by myself for a little bit.

And finally I got a good little team after this last year.

We got five people now.

We got two cooks, a registered lady and two dishwashers now.

So it's like we got people cleaning now, we got people taking orders, we got people cooking now.

I get to leave and go home sometimes.

So like it's been a long time.

So you do have a little - Bit of a specialization - Now - Instead of everyone's a cook.

Exactly.

- Yes.

So we got stations for people now, people know what they need to do.

And they understand like, hey, when I come in here too as well, I'm like an employee just like you guys.

I'm here to work.

I'm here to do everything you guys are doing.

I'm just, you guys labeled me as the boss, I guess, but I'm still here as an employee.

I'm still here to work.

I'm still here to show you guys respect and everything like that too as well.

Treat them like - Family.

Yes.

- That's the main - Thing.

- They love - Coming in here.

- Can they - Buy into the vision and - The - Mission?

- Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Cause I even tell, like I'll cook my food here and I'll have my employees even try the food and everything tasting good because I want their feedback too, not just off of me.

And they tell me, hey, add a little bit of this.

And I'm like, okay, sure.

And do that because I feel like some places, bosses, they don't, they just want to do their own thing or whatever.

They're not trying to have employees try the food or get into the- They're - Not bought in.

They're the - Boss.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So I make sure everybody's a family here.

Everybody gets treated exactly the same and everybody, if you got an idea, let me know.

I'll run it through my head and see how it works too as well.

- And that helps in the long run with consistency of product because you're still smaller.

Yeah.

So you guys are bouncing back and forth and you may turn around, oh I forgot to put the salt, a little bit of salt in that.

- Exactly.

And - You don't want 30 people coming in and be like, oh man, - Business and - Salt.

- Yeah, exactly.

You got a - Little quality assurance there - Inside - The family - Here at 785.

Yes, yes, yes.

Definitely.

It's definitely inspiring, especially when my employees come in here.

They love our food and they love seeing our customers come in here and enjoy our food as well.

- Did you think food truck first or did you think this is how to do it just because your game plan and wanting more of a - - I definitely did think a food truck at first because I didn't want to go into the brick and mortar right away.

Yeah.

- But - Once I finally got into a little bit more research of like food trucks and what you need to do with the food truck.

Yeah.

I was like, because even if I had a food truck, I would have to have a building to have my food and all my equipment and all that stuff like that because with the health department and all that, they want you to have, they have strict guidelines and stuff that they want you to follow.

And I was like, man, I ain't trying to have a brick and mortar or like a little small place or try to rent this and have my food truck.

I just have one location.

Everybody comes here.

I planned on sticking and staying in speaker for a little bit.

That was my main thing.

So I was like, if I plan on staying in Topeka, get a brick and mortar, try not to spend too much money on rent.

If we need to renovate, we renovate throughout the time we're here and stuff like that.

So that was the plan.

- We'll talk more in the future in the next segment, but right now though, is this something you could see with your employees wanting to expand to Lawrence, Manhattan, someplace where we do not have these flavors and taste.

- That's when we get the.

Eventually we want to get a food truck so we can start traveling to other places and stuff like that.

We still want to have our brick and mortar so we can stay local for our Topeka folk, but we definitely want to get a food truck or some type of catering van so we can start doing our adventures in the Lawrence, Topeka.

I mean Lawrence, Manhattan, Kansas City shoot.

Someone wants us in Missouri to hope we can do something like that.

Well, not, hopefully in the near future, but in the future too as well.

So yeah, that's the plan on that.

Yeah.

So hopefully we can get this spot a little bit bigger.

We might grow and attach some stuff to it.

We don't know yet or we might find a bigger building, but definitely want to get a bigger building, stay in Topeka, get the food truck so we can start traveling and do our caterings around the state really.

- How much of your business has gone catering?

Do you cater now or?

- We do cater.

When I first started, we were doing a lot more catering, but like today we have a whole pan of chicken Alfredo, a pan of peach cobbler, and a pan of cornbread that someone ordered that they're picking up at five o'clock.

That's like a 15 person little catering thing.

Last week we did a little brunch catering for about 300 people.

And we did what we did, chicken and waffles and then we made some wings and green beans and mac and cheese for them too.

So we do stuff here and there, not as much anymore, but we definitely still do that.

Yes.

- Are your chicken and waffles better than the place across the street that just popped up on their side?

- I would say yes.

Everybody has their opinion.

Everybody has their opinion.

- If you want fresh or - - Exactly.

I would say ours fresh.

I won't say - Who either, - But - You want chicken and waffles, just go fresh - Away.

Yes, yes.

- One thing with the brick and mortar I think over the food truck.

Unfortunately with the food truck, when you have these nice eateries where you're doing a Thursday through Sunday or whatever, the shortened hours in the week, food truck, if there's rain, snow, you still want to get out just in case but it affects it a lot here.

They know the routine.

They're inside, they're ordering.

So there's a lot of benefits from the brick and mortar first in a food truck.

- Oh yeah, for sure.

For sure.

Like you said the weather can stop your whole day right then and there.

Even if it's like a really hot day, that could.

I wouldn't say stop your hustle, but it could slow you down a little bit because people don't want to sit out there on a long hot day and stuff like that.

So I was like, why not get a brick and mortar?

We got AC, we got one location.

If we stay consistent of being open and our food stay consistent, there's no reason why people shouldn't keep coming back throughout the week.

So that was the main plan on that one for sure.

I ain't going to lie to you because.

And I didn't feel like driving everywhere with the food truck too as well.

Travel time and stuff like that, that takes a toll because then I have to take my food truck to the store, to the location, clean up, take it to there and da, da, da.

Now I can just have employees pretty much, at the end of the day, they pretty much clean up everything and I'll come back and check at the end of the day like everything's good.

Okay.

I'll lock up and that's it.

So it's a blessing, boy.

It's a blessing.That's - Awesome.

- Yeah.

- It's time for a short break.

Stick around when we get back.

We'll look in at some of the menu and some of the recipes the chef has in store for us down the road.

Stick around, you're watching Working Capital.

To catch up on previous episodes of Working Capital, scan the QR code with your phone or go to www.watch.ktw.org.

All right.

When you guys pull up outside, one of the things I first noticed was the awesome Soul Train on the side.

Yes sir.

So is that from the TV show when you were younger?

- Yes.

Yes.

I have a - I love that - Show.

And it's iconic to me seeing that and just first thing I - Think about.

Was the idea on that.

We wanted the Soul because we have Soul Food and wanted to have the Soul train as well.

And then I have a business partner as well.

He has his little barbecue, like the train tracks of barbecue ribs as well.

So that's where his little barbecue in the back too as well.

So yeah.

That's - Awesome.

- I - Love it.

So, and local artist - Probably.

I forgot his name, but yes, local artist.

He came in and I think he might've had an outline or something like that, but he came in, free drawed it, painted everything.

Yeah.

- So then also on that, part of this old business is a little bit of marketing.

You - Try to keep it as - Minimal as possible.

Signature return on.

- But - On that soul train in the middle of it and what I see on all here is like - Oh yes.

- You got a - Logo, - Right?That's my business partner's logo, but yes.

- How did you guys, how did you come up with this?

Is it just sketching himself or what are you guys doing for this kind of stuff?

- My idea was with, I knew I wanted my logo to say 785 kitchen and then pretty much I wanted to have a chef and some cooking stuff because I knew that was my main thing.

But - Yeah, the marketing of these small businesses, you don't think about it.

You don't necessarily need a website.

You don't necessarily need big stuff like Facebook, a little logo, word of mouth with this kind of - Business.

The mouth is - What tasted everything.

- Yes.

I didn't realize word of mouth was going to be - As - Big?

- Yes.

As big as what it was until I finally got like regulars and regulars started telling other people and other people started telling other people.

And then we started getting like, we have some people that works for the city coming in here now.

We got some people that are firefighters that come in here, police officers.

We get all different, different demographics coming in here.

It's crazy to think about.

- You're on social media.

Yes.

- So you don't - Have a website per se, right?

- Not yet, not yet.

Yes.

But - It's something you don't necessarily need when you're starting to smoke.

So a lot of people will overspend on that.

Oh man.

Have a big flashy website to put a menu on when you don't need it.

Especially social media wise.

And you get these little pop-ups like it's Topeka my dudes.

And they're going around and seeing all these local eateries.

Exactly.

So you make good food, it's going to get out.

It's going to get out.

Yes.

You make bad food, it's going to get - Out.

Yes.

- It - Goes both ways.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I definitely, yeah.

- I used to work in a few commercial kitchens.

- And - I would say most of them though would not be open to the public like this one.

So I loved walking in here.

You can see everyone cooking.

- Yes.

- It's great because sometimes you wonder what's that kitchen look like?

Especially if the food's ever a little off.

So people walk in, talk with the chefs, see the food being cooked.

Oh yes.

Smell that food right on there.

- As soon as you walk in, you're like, "Oh, it smells good in here."

I'm like, "That's what we want to hear."

Exactly.

Especially when I'm cooking cornbread in the morning.

It smells like sweet cornbread when you walk in here sometimes.

Oh, it's the best.

So even the collard greens when they're going, those are the best.

How - Do you all keep yourself skinny then?

Oh - Man.

I had a problem.

I try to eat my little meals here and there.

That's about it.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

But - I'll tell you what, you do gain your weight in the kitchen, boy.

You gain your weight, especially if you got kids at home, you can't do much.

Yeah, you gain that weight.

- So the main menu, we got, of course, catfish.

Catfish.

- We got - Chicken sandwiches.

- Yes, sir.

You - Have that feta chin you talked about, it's like a sausage and chicken.

We - Have a roster pasta, we have a chicken pasta, shrimp pasta.

Some people do a catfish pasta.

We got a salmon pasta.

We do country fried steak, chicken fried chicken, all homemade, not frozen patties and stuff like that.

I mean, - Country fried steak alone in this area is - - Oh, it's a killer.

- Huge.

- Yeah.

Chicken fried chicken, I didn't realize that was a killer too.

I didn't realize that was a killer because they order that a lot on DoorDash and they'll come in and order it too.

So we have a homemade white gravy that we make too as well.

It's not like the package stuff.

And they love our homemade gravy on top of stuff too.

- With that, so homemade a lot of this stuff.

Lately, we've been seeing all these recalls, all these big farms, all these salad packages.

Yeah.

- How do you insure - Here?

- Where - Do you source - Your stuff to where you know?

We have a food vendor that's in Kansas City, Missouri.

And they usually try to keep up with all the stuff that they supposed to be throwing out.

So we go there mainly.

We don't try to hit like the local stuff here.

We try to hit the big restaurant depot is our main ones.

Because - You still need, - You're - Working with margins.

Yes.

- The - Community needs you to stay here as - Opposed to close up.

Yeah, because I didn't realize when I first started, because I didn't have the capital like I had, but like I needed to go to Restaurant Depot and get the bigger stuff.

So I was going to the local stores and stuff like that.

Finally was able to go to the bigger stores.

Then you realize it's worth the trip.

I tell you, you realize it's worth the trip.

On - That note too, when you started out, it's costing to get brand new equipment, right?

Oh yeah.

- Oh yeah.

So - Really it's looking through and finding good equipment that is used to get you up and going.

Yes.

- And - Then if for some reason it's failing in the future, you plan for that.

Yes.

But you know, as in anything, whether you get into farming or this, it's a huge cost if you go brand new and a lot of people think they need brand new, but sometimes these work.

And even some of the grills, it tastes - Better because of that.

All the stuff is used.

Besides this, but fire department wants you to get new stuff anyways with that.

But I'm telling you, don't think you need to buy all the new stuff.

If you can find some good used stuff on Facebook market or even on an auction, go ahead and buy it, bring it in, try it out.

It might not work a whole year or two years down the line, but just to get you started, that's all you need.

You got to get - Those customers - In, get that money - Built up - In your - Reserves so you can fix those no - Problems.

Exactly.

And start upgrading it all.

Don't slack on, oh, I got a little bit of money.

I'm going to spend it on the.

No, no.

Keep that stuff.

Keep grinding, keep grinding so you can upgrade your stuff that you got here in the kitchen or wherever you're doing with your business.

So you can start making even more money.

So you can start investing in employees, investing in this and that.

So you're not investing all your hard armed time at work.

Yeah.

But definitely still grind so you can get to that point though.

Don't think it's just going to just happen.

- What was one of the biggest problems or hurdles you faced since you started?

Is there something that just, there's something that actually really challenged you?

You seem pretty driven and able to meet stuff head on, but what - - I would definitely say just being consistent.

Because at first you're always tired.

You always want to say, I don't want to get up this morning or I don't want to do this and that.

It's not worth - It today.

- Yeah, you know what I mean?

Especially when you first start off, you're having 10 people, 15 people come in for the whole entire day.

You're like, man, I don't know about it.

But you just got to have faith in God and just keep pushing everything like that.

Mental - Fatigue is probably the worst then, right?

- Yes, yes, yes.

- Waiting for that growth - And to see people come - In.

- Yes.

And then make sure you have a good support system at home as well because you don't want to bring your work life, I mean your home life to work all the time as well because that can affect you too as well.

And the same mentally prepared for all the stuff that is going to come your way when you're owning a small business.

I tell you now, it's not going to be all fun and games all the time.

Majority of the time it's like, man, I got to do this now.

I got to do that.

Or I got to make sure I got this going, da, da, da.

But if you're willing to do it, just keep pushing.

Don't think about the negative all the time.

Try to be.

I always try to tell myself in the morning when people say how you doing this morning.

I'm like, God woke me up today, so I got to make sure I'm blessed and get throughout the day.

You know what I mean?

So say positive stuff to yourself so you can make your life or even just your day to day life just better because you think negative all day, every single day.

That creeps in and that could be your whole life.

Yeah.

Your mental stuff, your mental is definitely.

I'm glad I did sports because that helped my mental a lot.

No man, that is a - Strain.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

It definitely helped my mental a lot.

And I used to work with special need adults before I did this too.

So I had a lot of support and help when I grow - Up.

It takes patience and kindness and caring things.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And all that kind of goes into this.

Exactly.

Because seriously, this is one of those places where all of a sudden you're cooking all day and you're like, you stop worry about something because they're a little too long.

So you always - Have to be - Present.

- Yes, yes.

- Speaking a little bit more about family.

I know your staff's that way, but it seems like the kind of restaurant where everyone comes in over time, they probably become family.

You probably have quite a few regulars.

For sure.

Yeah.

What do your regulars tell you about coming in here?

What kind of feedback have you gotten from them?

- What I love about my regulars, they'll even come in here sometimes and tell me, "Hey, today was a little bit salty today.

I'm just letting you know it was still good.

It was a little bit salty."

And I take that, some people take that as offense, but I take that as like, "Hey, they're telling me the truth.

That means they care about the food and care what I'm doing."

And they're going to come back.

So I can do better on my part so I can make sure they keep coming back.

So I always take feedback as something positive too as well.

Even if it's like sometimes I take too long with food or cooking would get busy or we might forget somebody's stuff.

It's just like, all right, take that feedback, learn from it, and then just keep grinding.

Don't sit and dwell on it.

There's going to - Be mistakes in life everywhere.

Respond to them.

- Exactly.

And how you - Make it a better situation - Alone.

That's what I tell my employees every time they might mess up when I'm gone or something or run into the store.

I'm like, "Hey, stuff happens.

Don't sit here and dwell on it or don't take it out on the customer either."

Just say, "Hey, thank you.

I'm sorry or whatever."

And then move on from it.

So that was big.

- And kind of speaking that work-life balance too, you started in 2021.

- Yes sir.

Yes sir.

- When was the first time you take a vacation or step away a little bit?

Have you yet?

I would - Say I don't even think I have without really.

Because I have, I guess I have tooken maybe three days off on a weekend or something like that.

But it does take a toll at the end of the month or next week where it's like, okay, we got to pay this now.

I don't have as much money as I need.

But yeah, it's not much breaks, I'll tell you that.

There's not much breaks at all.

But definitely if you do have a small business and you are at work all the time, just please make sure you take at least one to two days.

You do need to - Recharge.

Even if it's your passion, - It will - Grind you down.

- Yes, because like I said, I got employees now that I get time that I can go home for maybe two or three hours, take a nap and come back and just be like, work another two hours and the day's done.

So I mean, that right there in itself is a blessing.

I tell my employees that all the time.

Those little one to two hours, maybe three hours I get, I'm telling you guys, it's worth more than you think.

It's worth way more than you think because that gives me time to take a nap.

Sometimes I would take a nap.

Sometimes I'll just go home, hang out with the family, maybe go work out or something like that or just enjoy my time with my baby and stuff like that because at the end of the day, that's what I do it for.

So I mean, it means a lot.

So it definitely means a lot.

- Is your little baby helping you cook yet or too small?

- She'd be in the kitchen walking around because sometimes she'd come in.

She taste - Tested it?

- Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

I don't know if I got a picture.

She was eating my cornbread, tearing it up.

She cracks me up, man.

Yeah, it's my baby because she been eating my food ever since she was in my baby mama's stomach.

Yeah.

Oh.

Yeah.

She got collard greens, the yams, mashed potatoes and cornbread.

Oh yes.

Oh yes.

She been doing it for a while.

And - Yeah, seriously, your sides alone I come in from okra, cornbread, a couple of collard greens.

- The whole works.

We got all of it.

- Yeah.

So how did you decide where to expand or where to limit your menu?

Is it just because of all the inputs you have, you know, that way you can get quite a - Few different - Meals?

Yeah, - I knew I could have a lot of sides because like if we have a lot, a few sides and it's like, all right, if people order a lot of this or this and that, I can make more of that, but I just have a little bit of that for the people that do like the little bit of stuff.

So that was the main focus on that.

And then when I was doing my main menu stuff, I knew I wanted catfish.

I knew I wanted something with a chicken protein, a beef protein and a pork protein.

And if I can use just one of those like my chicken breasts, we use that for our chicken fried chicken, our chicken pastas, our roster pasta.

Our pork chops, we use that for our grilled pork chops, fried pork chops, mother pork chops.

Our shrimp is for fried shrimp, shrimp pasta.

So like all our main stuff, we use all that stuff for our other main stuff too as well.

So it's not like I'm buying a whole bunch of different stuff.

I'm using chicken breasts, catfish, pork chops, beef steak, and I'm using all those other different things and different meals so I don't have to buy a whole bunch of inventory.

Yep.

- Yep.

And those shrimp, the shrimp alone.

They're not the little shrimp.

- We have the big colossum ones here too.

That's - Awesome.

- Yes.

- Because once again, there's just not very many places to get any sort of seafood or even fish.

Fish, yes.

- Yes.

You're - Such a big hole in Dopeka.

- I told my mom, ever since I was young, I was like, if no one hits the market on the soul food, mom, I'm telling you, I'm going to take it over.

And hopefully I can do that and execute, like I said, with the business plan.

- Chef, we appreciate you being on Working Capital with us.

We love being in 785 Kitchen.

The smells are amazing and I'm pretty sure I probably found my next food addiction.

Yes, - Sir.

- I hope you've all enjoyed learning a little bit more about Chef LaBelle Jackson, 785Kitchen, and where you can get a little more soul in your life here in Tapeda.

So thank you for watching.

We'll see you next time on Working Capital.

Funding for working capital is provided by the friends of KTWU, Raymond C. And Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and Kansas Department of Commerce.

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