 Welcome to Meet the Founders. I'm Sergio Angelis, host, and welcome to this awesome new TV show where we highlight and interview local founders building and launching and working on incredible businesses here in La Moc, Colorado. To kick off the show, I'm with Glenn Hatreson with Louisiana Glenn and welcome. Thank you. Well, I'm glad to be here. Yeah, thanks for being the guinea pig and for launching off this new series. I'm glad to do it. I'm glad to do it. So why don't we start off with why don't you just tell me more about who you are and your background? Right on. My name once we like we said my name is Glenn Hatreson. I'm from Franklin, Louisiana from a little community called St. Joseph. Okay. And it was pretty nice growing up because everybody in my neighborhood could every every person that you could think of in the neighborhood could fish hunt. Okay. And, you know, it was fun growing up. It was fun. And fast forward, once I got to high school, I got this job in a restaurant as a dishwasher. Okay. At the farthest restaurant in Franklin. And when I did that, that was to see the cooks in there put together plates of food that were spectacular, look good all the time. I knew that's what I wanted to do. Okay. I knew that that's what I wanted to do. And got my formal training from casino in Sharon's in Louisiana. Okay. Cypress by your casino got my formal training from that. Okay. And then from there, I went on worked offshore for a little bit cooked on the offshore on inland rigs. And then did that for a little bit. And then I got a job with a guy named Charlie Fall. Okay. I was the sister manager at a restaurant. He had a meat market at a restaurant and he bought the cube. That's where it really started. He taught me presentation and how to really take your time and cook food and put it and presented to the public. So not fast food. Not fast, not slow food. Not fast fast food because actually he had a meat market so it was fresh meat every day that went from the butcher shop to the restaurant. Okay. And on weekends, he barbecued. And then he showed me the art of barbecuing. And it's fun for me. Barbecuing is fun. Really smoking meat is fun for me. And I'm just, you know, just living the dream. Because I always said when I was young, by 50, I wanted to have my own business. Then how old are you now? I'll be 51. Thank you. I'll be 51 on June 6. Awesome. And happy your early birthday. Thank you. And I'm really enjoying that feeling. It's been a process, but I'm loving every minute of it. You know, being able to meet new people and interacting with other people and really putting my food out there and letting people taste it is real heartwarming. I get excited all the time. I get excited about it. When we talked for the robotic tap, I was excited about it just to get new people to see and taste something different that we don't have in Longmont, Colorado. So maybe this is a good segue to tell people or, you know, the viewers, what is Louisiana Glen? I'm sure some people will deduce it's about food, but why don't you talk about what it is? Louisiana Glen. It is comfortable. Everything made from scratch. There's nothing microwave, no microwave. It's all cooked from scratch. And I use a seasoning called Cajun Nation. And we've been, I've been using it a lot and it's real good, no sodium, no MSG, and it has a great, great flavor, great flavor. So and I'm just trying to get, bring Louisiana to Colorado because we really don't, we really don't have, we have knockoffs, but we really don't have, we really don't have the love and the good food like we have back at home. So yeah, what would you say differentiates your food versus other Louisiana style restaurants in Longmont if you would call them that? I know you call them knockoffs. It's simple. It's simple food. It's simple food that I grew up with that my grandmother could. And different recipes that I tweaked myself and made my own. And it's with love and passion behind it. Because like you said, you can have good food, but to really get into it, you know, it's just nothing fast about it, you know, like with Marbriskes. I stuff them with the whole, with the Trinity. And I enjoy it. What is that? What do people don't have? Onions, bell peppers, garlic, celery. And I also use a chow chow that Kage Nation has. I stuff it with that and inject it with sweet garlic sauce that they have. And it's cooked for 16 hours. Wow. It's cooked for 16 hours. So it's a lot of love. And there's a lot of passion behind it. It's a lot of passion behind it. So truly slow, slow cooked to perfection. All the way to perfection. All the way. 100%. 100%. 100%. Awesome. Yeah, I had the pleasure of tasting your food at Longmont New Tech. And I thought it was incredible. The alligator bites, the booting balls, the brisket. It was, I've never had anything like that. Right. Right. And that was a, that was, that's why I took that opportunity to do that. Because that was, that was the foot in the door to let different people, let people that don't even know me, taste the food and have, and have an opinion about it and have some say in, in, you know, about the food and how it tastes and everything. And it was a lot of good feedback. Yeah. It was, it was a lot of good feedback. It was, it was actually good. I went home and sat back and actually, I smiled for a couple hours that night. I was tired, but I actually sat and was like, this is what you were trying to create. This is what you were trying to do. That was the effect that you wanted on people. That's the effect that you want to bring. That it's always fresh and it's always good. I call it Gav. Gav. Yeah. Good ass food. Good ass food. Good Gav. So maybe, maybe let's take a step back and talk about how, what made you launch Louisiana Clan? I know you're talking about you had wanted to start a business by the time you were 50, but what were there other drivers for that and for the business? To be, to work for myself and to actually work and do something that I love, you know. And maybe in 2016, my fiancee Christina, I forgot where we were coming from. And we were coming, going back home and she was like, you know what? I'm going to call you Louisiana Clan. And from that moment, it stopped. I had a friend that draw the logo and everything and he drew it from scratch. Oh wow. He put it down on scratch freehand and we took the logo and we ran with it. And that's a lot of people asked, you know, you got the the boot for Louisiana here at the moment. And I tell people it's not the way I'm from, it's where I'm at. The bringing Louisiana to Colorado was the whole, that was the drive to bring the bayou to the mountains. That was the whole drive. It's kind of like from farm to table, but from bayou to the mountains. Right. Exactly. Exactly. I like that. Exactly. So where, where are you now with Louisiana Glen's? Right now, we are in the process, we are in the process of trying to get the shared kitchen with over at the Times Collaborative. And we are waiting to do the border, get all that stuff straight. But that's going to be our home on Saturdays. That's the main, that's the meat and potatoes. That would be the meat and potatoes of the operation. That's going to be the meat and potatoes of the operation. So we're waiting on that. And we still do catering. I'm pushing a lot of, we do a lot of catering. We get a couple every month and we want to, when we get to the Times, we want to start with the po-boys. Okay. That's authentic. And it's home, it's from home. And it's not a sub, they say. It's a po-boy. So that's what we're going to, that's what we're going to promote the po-boys, shrimp po-boys, catfish po-boys, sausage po-boys. And we're going to, we're going to do the zaps potato chips. And lemonade, Kool-Aid, stuff like that. Okay. And then what is your ultimate goal? Have a breaking border? My ultimate is to really have a breaking model. Okay. So I can really give people the other side from working in restaurants and with mistakes and the baked fish, the grilled fish, the stuffed fish, the stuff that I grew up cooking from young. I want to really get that out to people. And to be honest with you, I would like, what's the name? I would really love to do something like that, have a setup like that. Okay. You know, I love my Saints. So my breaking model to have all the Saints stuff in it and we can do Sunday football and stuff like that, that would be, that's the ultimate, that's the ultimate. So kind of a follow-up to that would be, yeah, how would you define success? I do awesome. With Louisiana Glen or, you know, maybe you personally as a founder of the business? Just striving to be the best at what I do. Being the best person, being the best shelf and putting out the best quality and tasting food. If I can do that and sustain that, that would be my success. Okay. And that leave a legacy. You know, people go different places to start businesses and they leave a legacy. Their name is basically printed out. It's there. And that's what I'm trying to, trying to leave a nice legacy with with the name and my family because it all started like watching my grandmother when I was five or six. Couldn't leave out the, couldn't leave out the y'all. I couldn't go nowhere. I couldn't leave out the y'all and I couldn't do all my friends had to come over. But whenever she was in the kitchen, I always was watching what she was doing in the kitchen. Do you have a favorite recipe or a favorite meal that your grandmother would make that? To be honest, it might be as simple, but it was baked chicken, rice, very simple. And a second one was her fried fish. Fried fish, potato salad and sweet peas. That was, that was the two. That was the two. And we ate all kinds of fish. We had all kinds of fish. So it was, those two, that was to go to. That was, that was, I will not move. I was a fat kid when I was coming up. I was a fat kid. But that's, it was, it all started with her. It all started with her and watching her just bake, cook, sell a recipe book on the table, cook, maybe open it once, do everything in her head. Everything in her head. She would sit the cookbook out, might open it and just glance at it, but everything else was in her head. It was, she would put it together and the best taste of food I ever had in my life. The best taste of food I ever had in my life. And are you, is part of the food that you create now, I'm assuming inspired from your grandmother or are you using actual recipes from your grandmother? Inspired from my grandmother because like with the, with the brisket, I, you know, it was something I never liked just the basic brisket. Let me stuff it. Let's see how, and I did that for a long time and I do it with all my means. If I'm not smoking, I will stuff pork rolls and bake it on, smother it down and that's, you know, you get all the different flavors and everything. It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. And hopefully this weekend you'll be able to get a chance to get some ribs this weekend and taste those. Well, before we start recording, you were telling me about the upcoming barbecue competition. Right. You want to talk a little bit about that and maybe where some people might be able to go and try some of your food. So it's in Loveland at Stoke the Fire Barbecue. Okay. I don't know the address right off my head, but it's June 12th and it's from 7 to 4. Okay. And it's a real, it's a real ball, real competition and an appetizer competition. So I'm doing both. Okay. And we're doing the ribs and I'm also doing the for the appetizer contest. I'm doing New Orleans Style Barbecue Shrimp. That sounds delicious. Yeah. So yeah, that's one and that's no June 12th. Okay. June 12th in Loveland. And this is my first time ever. Wow. This is my first competition. Smoking meat, barbecue competition. This is my first ever. So I'm kind of interested to see where I land in between 30, 35 different people. Yeah. I would like to see where I fit in. Have you competed in the past? No. So first time ever. First time ever. Okay. First time ever. Excited about it too. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it because I always wanted to do it. Always wanted to do it, but when you start looking at it, that's a lot of money to get in on the scene. So when this came up, I was like, okay, there's my chance. So I can't wait. I'm excited about this one. I'm excited. I'm excited for you. I hope you went to it. Yeah. I hope I went to and that would give me that would give some more publicity for Louisiana Glen. Yeah. That would give more. So talking about, I guess, maybe slightly different from publicity, but what has been challenging for you when starting Louisiana Glen? Funds. Funds. Funds. Okay. It's been hard. I just, I just, it started stressing about the cash flow for it. I just started cooking, putting it out. And then it just started happening. Everything started happening. When I stopped stressing about the cash flow, everything just started falling in the place. Started falling in the place. And, but that's been, that's been the, the challenging part about it. You know, getting them, getting the funds to get all the licenses and all that stuff. Because I don't want to, I don't want to go backwards. I'm trying to, as we have, as we come up to something, and it's been funny the way it's been happening. Every time we needed to get a license or do something, we got to cater and or something happened to where it falls in the place. And I just feel that it's, it's, it's, it's the time, it's time. And I will keep, I will keep pushing because it's my dream. It's my dream. So I will keep pushing and doing everything in my power to make it happen. I'm just taking it to try to build in the brick wall. I'm just taking that brick, laying one brick at a time to try to get that wall. You know, I had to do a lot of pivoting. I had to do pivot from this idea, pivot to this idea that it's been a lot, but it's been exciting. And it's been goals of being accomplished, actual goals of being accomplished with it. Stuff that I had on a gold list like in 2016, it's all scratched out. And that, and that is the excitement part about it. And, and I don't even, like I said, I don't even worry about you know, all that anymore. I just do what I do best, stick to what I do, make it simple, make it plain, and I just go with it. And I think that's, that's the number one thing when I stop stressing about it. It just started falling into place. You know, even with the, the little event that Thursday, when it came up, because I was like, man, I need to, what can I do to get this out some more? And we got the phone call and the email, like, hey, you want to do this? Sure. And you know, I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to worry anymore. And, but that's the hardest thing is, is getting the funding to get everything together. But hard work, it pays off in the long run. Yeah. It pays off in the long run. So you mentioned pivoting. And as, you know, founders and really sort of any business, it's, it is pivoting a lot of, is this going to work or is that going to work? And eventually finding your groove. So what, what things did you try out? What, what eventually led it to, led to this? So actually, you know, I wanted the trailer, the food truck or the trailer. And I started looking at the cause, like, that's not going to work. And I just, I was like, okay, I had already put in some catering jobs a few years ago. And I just went back to that to the stuff I had wrote was like, okay, so we can go to someone and set up a party. If they want a party, we can go and set up cook, do the whole thing, clean it up. And when we were doing the website, I was like, once you try, we'll try it, we'll put the personal shelf in there. That in turn, I started binge watching personal shelves, different cooking shows with personal shelves. And I started putting pieces to the puzzle together. And I got in contact, got in contact with a chef from New York. Okay. And he was like, you don't need to do all that. Go to your local government office or city office and get your personal shelf slash catering license. Then that, and then that opened the door right there. Because from that point, we got the catering job with Firestone, with the city of Firestone. Okay. Word of mouth started getting out. And we started doing gumbo sales and red bean sales. So that started generating the cash to make everything happen. So we just started pushing that. And we found the times on the by accident. We found that by accident. They're talking about the times collaborative. Yeah, we found that by accident. Because I was looking for a spot, looking for the commercial kitchen, walked in and it was like, okay, this is, this, this is what is meant to be right here. So and that's the whole drive right now. That's the drive to be able to accomplish once you set out a goal to accomplish that goal and then have five more goals that you're accomplishing at the same time. It's real satisfying. It's real satisfying and exciting. Definitely. Yeah. What would you say to others, you know, in a similar position or maybe wanting to start a food business, not Louisiana, because they can only be one. Right. And that's you. Right. But you know, any other type of maybe restaurant, what, what advice would you give them? Stick to your guns. Because when you have a dream, not just anybody could come in and tell you, well, yeah, you can do this, you can do that. If it was that easy, you will be doing it. Stick to your guns, set your goals, set your goals high. You're going to get knocked down. But as long as you can get back up and brush it off and continue, continue to fight down your dream, your passion, you have to, you have to stick to it. Because if you don't, if you're going to have the days to where you're going to not want to do it, you're going to feel tired and everything. But you got to keep on going. You got to keep on driving. Even with me, it was in the middle of the night, I'll get ideas and stuff. So I had to write them down. Or if I didn't write them down, it would come back to me. But you have to, you have to stay on your path. You have to stay on your path to beat that path. Don't let that path beat you. It might feel like it, but all you got to do is fight and keep on, keep on striving to be the best at what you do. Be the best at what you do. Take the best things that you know how to do. And in the restaurant business, you don't want to make a big old menu and have all stick to what you do best. And if you do that, that will, you'll get to meet potatoes. You'll get to meet potatoes with it. You'll get to meet potatoes with it. But just stick to your goals, stick to your dream. And if it's your passion and it's something that you like doing, nobody, nobody can stop you. Nobody can stop you. That's great advice. Thank you. And what would you say is, what's your favorite dish? What's the, your favorite thing that you cook? That you want everyone to taste? If it can only be one thing. That I do? Yeah. Man, my croff is a two-fake. Yeah. My croff is a two-fake with potatoes, salad and sweet pea. How would you describe it? It's creamy. Oh, you get, you know, you have the fish, the croff fish in it. And it's made with cream or mushroom. Okay. So I make, I don't make mind whatever, I make it with cream or mushroom. And with the holy trinity, with the onions, bell peppers, garlic, celery, green onions. And it's just, it's just a slow cook. And it takes maybe 30 minutes. It's, it's, I call it my, my retro rate, my 30 minute meal. Christina don't say that. She said take, she said, I like to draw it out the whole day. But the croff is a two-fake is my, my go-to, whatever, whatever I want. That's my go-to. My second go-to, my second go-to is a Smothered Short Ribs. Smothered Short Ribs. Well, we, y'all say I'm here in Colorado brazed. Y'all say brazed. Okay. I smothered, but we engraved it. That's, there's some lingo differences there between Orazian and Colorado. Right, right. Because, you know, basically we, we like the Waffle House in the Wiesel. We scouted Smothered and covered everything. You know, we scouted Smothered and covered everything. That's, that's what it, that's what it's all about. You know, the grave and the rights. And, and that's, that's what we don't have out here. That's what we don't have somewhere where you can just, you can go in and get nice gravy and rice, cornbread, stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Just, just a comfort food. A comfort food. To make you, make you want to feel like you're sitting on a bike or sitting, you know, you're sitting in the Wiesel. Yep. Yeah. I remember when, when we spoke at the event, um, you were mentioning that you were, uh, I wouldn't say importing, but maybe importing. Getting shrimp. Shrimp. Yeah. Almost seafood. So it's being flown over from Louisiana. From Louisiana. To maintain the quality. Authentic. Authentic. Because I can't go, I can't go to King's Super the same way and, and, and, and put some shrimp and tell them it's Louisiana. Glenn, I can't do that. So I'm working. That's another thing I'm working on getting all the seafood together. Okay. All my, uh, to get it flown in fresh, whatever, whenever we have seafood. And that's why I don't really promote the seafood right now. Gotcha. Because I'm trying to get everything, put everything together on that. Just pivot to that. Make it show all the seafood is fresh every time you get it. And that's, that's, that's the whole, that's, that's the meat and potatoes behind Louisiana Glenn. Making sure I get the fresh seafood from Louisiana. And actually trying to get together with the farmers out here and getting the fresh proves. Okay. Trying to keep everything. Yeah. Me, you know, grass fed meat, the local farmers with the onions, bell peppers, all the stuff that I use. And just having it all come together. In my head, I just, I smile every time I think about it at home. I smile every time, you know, I could get the fresh seafood in. I've got the fresh produce. And it's just, it's gonna all come together real nice. And it's gonna all come together real nice. Yeah. I'm really excited for when you're able to open up a brick and mortar. Yes. And have a, yeah, an incredible Louisiana experience. Exactly. Bringing the experience up here to Colorado. Bring that experience to everybody here. To everybody here. Absolutely. Yeah. Is there anything that I guess to just kind of wrap up this episode? Is there anything else that you'd like to tell our audience and viewers about you or your business? Just be looking for Louisiana Glenn real soon. And you can get in contact with us through the website or on the Facebook at Louisiana Glenn. Okay. Or at Glenn Hadreson on your TikTok. TikTok. I put a lot of videos up on TikTok. Yeah, that's at Glenn Hadreson. Okay. And like, yeah. And I'm trying to think. Obviously the barbecue competition. The barbecue competition. Yeah, barbecue competition will be out there again June 12. Okay. From 7 to 4. And I think that would be a nice turnout. But just, you know, and short with the fault. With the fault.com. You can go to the website and like I said, we give quotes pretty reasonable in facts. We give, you know, you get in contact with us and we'll, we have different items up on the website. And it's basically whatever you want. I'm creating it for the customer. Every customer is different. So every customer gets handcrafted, the best food for them. And the personal shelf. And we'll also do some cooking classes. Once we get over at the times, you know, the basic, the how to make a basic room and different stuff like that. You know, it's just being able to teach people how to do stuff. Yeah. And you still leave a legacy with it. But actually, you know, you can get there and do this. It's not hard. You know what I'm saying? It's not hard. If you, if you got time, you can do it. If you got the time to spend in the kitchen for a little bit, you can do it. I know everybody don't like to be in the kitchen like that. But you know, you have time. It's, it's, it's wonderful. I love it. If I can, if I could cook everything, I'll be the happiest man in the world. They make money with it too. And you are, right? Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Glenn. Thank you for being here and for telling your story and for telling people about Louisiana Glen. Thank you. If one more last note. Absolutely. The Cajunation season. Yes. Cajunation.com. Okay. You can get it on Amazon. Awesome. It's in your bunch of Frank here in Longmont. Oh, there you go. And it's about to be in Stoke the Fire Barbecue in London. Sounds good. Well, thank you, Glenn. And as Glenn would say, that is the meat and potatoes of this episode. So thank you all for tuning in and watching and we will catch you next time.