- Welcome back, y'all!
I'm hangin' out with Fortune Feimster.
Give it up! (audience cheering)
So, before the pandemic started,
my next guest was working at a catering business
but his real passion has always been
serving up his favorite meal, gumbo.
That's good.
So when he lost his job in the shutdown,
he decided to look at it
as an opportunity to pursue his dream.
He opened up Gumbo Social and customers cannot get enough.
It's all part of our country's
much needed restaurant resurgence.
(upbeat jazz music)
♪ Restaurant Resurgence ♪
- All right! I like that!
I feel moved. I like it.
Please welcome Mr. Gumbo himself, Dante Ball!
(audience applauding)
- Hey, what's up?
Well, meet Fortune, Dante.
- Dante, nice to meet you.
- Hey, Fortune. How are you?
- I'm great, bud.
- I want gumbo. That's what I want right now.
- I wanna eat more gumbo
- I know. I like your shirt.
(Fortune laughing)
So Dante, you've been known as Mr. Gumbo for years, right?
- That's right, as long as I can remember.
I learned the craft from my grandmother.
She taught me the elegance of making gumbo.
It's a family tradition.
America's true comfort food.
We unfortunately lost grandma this year
and it was tough.
It was really tough.
Sorry.
- No, I'm so sorry.
There's been so much loss this year.
I'm so sorry, but it is pretty special
that you have this thing that you learned from her
that is now part of your life forever.
So she's kinda with you forever.
- That's right. That's right.
You know, the company is really based off her.
It's her recipe.
I'm just doing my thing with that.
I just do my little extra touch with it.
- Yeah. - Wow! That's awesome.
- Well, can you take us back to when you lost your job?
Because I love that you pivoted,
but like it's one of those things too,
where that's devastating at a time
when people get really nervous, financially speaking.
- Yeah, I was working in San Francisco as a tasting chef.
I had a really great position and the pandemic hit.
It was really difficult.
Got hit with a little bit of depression.
I'm a single father and I took stock of myself.
What am I gonna do?
Later in the year, I ended up getting hit with COVID-19.
Contracted COVID, and that really kinda put me
in a tough spot, put me in a tough depression.
I lost my taste, my sense of taste and sense of smell.
And I just thought to myself like,
what would happen if I could never taste
another bowl of gumbo again?
- And the fact that you just said your job was a taster.
That's scary.
That's like being a singer and losing your voice.
It's like, you can't do that.
I'm so sorry.
How did you turn your passion into a business?
How did you pivot?
- Yeah, so before COVID, I had been doing these free,
kind of pop-up events and that's kind of where
the Gumbo Social name came from,
was I wanted to get people to be more social.
The pandemic came and then I thought to myself, was like,
okay, what can we do to kinda get going?
I had this fantastic opportunity with the Baby Bistro
and they work with small business owners of color.
And they gave me the opportunity and space
to use a commercial kitchen, which was like,
that was the perfect opportunity.
And then from there, I got into a farmer's market
which allowed me to really get the business going,
like full speed.
Right now, we're making like 20 gallons of gumbo a week.
And like, we cannot keep up with demand.
- Oh my God, I wish- - That's so cool.
- I wish I was your next door neighbor.
- [Fortune] I know. (laughs)
- My mouth is watering, it's fine.
- You'll be like, "What are you making over there?"
- It smells good. - You got some gumbo?
- Have you ever turned something like losing a job
or anything like that into like something positive?
- I mean, in this business, you get told no all the time.
So you have to...
- At every stage of your career.
- Oh, every stage. - It doesn't matter.
- Yeah, so you have to pivot and find another opportunity
or just keep working hard
until another opportunity comes.
- Absolutely.
Well Dante, where do you see your business
growing from here?
- Yeah, so, what would be perfect is if we had
a little Gumbo Social all throughout the country.
That'd be amazing.
That's kinda big picture.
I think on a smaller scale,
if we can get into 12 different farmer's markets this year,
that would be super amazing.
And then, a little food truck would be great.
Our little brick and mortar spot
where people can get their daily dose of gumbo.
- Yeah, I like all those dreams
'cause they will benefit all of us.
- That's right. (Kelly laughs)
- Dante brought us some of his famous gumbo to try.
While we taste this, it smells delicious.
- This looks so good.
- Can you explain why your gumbo is so great?
- Definitely. Definitely.
One of the things that is really unique to what we do
is that we do a 50% butter, 50% oil roux.
And so that gives it a nice...
The butter gives it a nice, little nutty flavor.
Then we put our holy trinity in there.
Most people just do green bell peppers.
We do red and yellow. (audience laughing)
Give it a little extra little touch.
And then you gotta have the...
(Dante laughs)
- Oh my God. It's so good.
- You gotta have the pope in there.
A little bit of garlic.
Yeah.
- It makes you dance. - Very good.
- It makes me bodyroll. - That's how you know
its a good bowl of gumbo.
- It is.
It's really good. I love the kick.
- Its got spice to it.
- I know. I love it.
Well, we are not the only ones
who are a fan of Dante's gumbo.
My next guest runs a nonprofit that helps
minority-owned restaurants with funding and resources.
From Feed the Soul, please welcome executive director
Dr. Ashley Atkins, everybody.
(audience applauding)
- [Fortune] Am I supposed to stop eating?
- [Kelly] No. (laughs)
- Am I supposed to stop eating?
- Don't stop eating.
I just have to talk.
But it's so good.
Ashley, first of all, you look stunning.
I'm gonna lead with that.
- Thank you.
- And the most beautiful smile ever.
And secondly, explain a little more about Feed the Soul.
- So, Feed the Soul Foundation is the nonprofit arm
of Black Restaurant Week, LLC.
We actually focus on marginalized businesses
from around the nation.
So anyone who is black, indigenous or Latinx
who's in the culinary industry,
we give them resources like mentorship and grants
to help fund their business because we're aware
of the systemic barriers that prevent
a lot of these marginalized businesses
from being successful.
And so we wanna step in and fill in the gap for that.
And so, we actually launched in the middle of the pandemic.
So in August of 2020,
and we started off with our first program,
which is called the Restaurant Business Development program.
With that program, we actually identified 25 businesses
from around the nation and we give them grants,
and we also give them six months of free consultation
from industry experts from around the nation.
- Wow. - Wow!
- That's awesome. - Yeah, that's so awesome.
So Dante, I understand that you actually applied
for one of the grants, right?
- I did, yeah.
- You did?
Well, there's something that you want to tell Dante.
Right, Ashley?
You can go for it.
- Yeah. So, Dante we love your story.
We love the fact that you actually started
and then got hit by the pandemic and you kept going,
which is really important to business ownership.
The need to endure the need to thrive.
We also really love the fact
that you are taking your grandmother's recipe
and moving it forward.
And so because of that, myself,
Jonathan Howard, the other executive director
and the board of directors for Feed the Soul Foundation
would like to introduce you as our 25th member
of the Restaurant Business Development program.
With that, you get six months of consultation and $10,000.
(audience cheering)
- Oh my goodness! - Man, that's so cool.
- That's amazing.
That is amazing.
Thank you so much.
- Oh my God! - No problem.
You deserve it.
You definitely deserve it.
- Oh my gosh!
I wish you were here, Ashley eating this gumbo with us.
It's delish.
Her legs are kicking.
(laughing)
And if it does this to you, why not have it?
- Yes!
- Well everybody, if you wanna find out more
about Feed the Soul,
just check out our Instagram story right now.