 What's the black market without a food court? I mean, you just put that one all the way in perspective. And what's a food court without a soul? Come on now. I mean, we got to talk about it, man. We got some special people here. Oh, do you see this billboard beside you? Yeah, it looked like the cover of a black novel from the 90s. That's what that looks like. Boy, you were this close. That looked like something since the soldier wrote right there. Come on, man. That's how you look at this. When you got this many accomplishments, do you have to print it on the long paper? Yeah. Come on, Chico. All the way. Chico, man, we got some very special guests in the black market with us today. Without further ado, you know, you see the grits. Yeah. And I want to just start right there with the grits. Pick up from the grits and introduce yourself to the world right now. Well, we don't introduce ourselves like this. We Nouveau. First and foremost, Nouveau. That's who we are, yeah. We appreciate everybody for recognizing us, but we Nouveau. Right here is the owner, the CEO of Nouveau, Ebony Austin, which is my sister. OK. That's what maybe y'all see right there on that Sheen magazine cover, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I'm her brother, Rob Grover. The director of operations for all the Nouveau brand. We just trying to do something great out here, man. This your sister? Indeed. Your little sister? Yeah, she a little younger. But she been on her grind for a long time. What is it like telling your big brother what to do? I don't. He pretty much runs it. Like, we think a lot alike. So I think when both people think a lot alike, it just makes it that much easier, right? Yeah. And you are from the south side of Chicago. Negative. I'm from the west side of Chicago. Who fuck broke it? Who broke it? Who printed this wrong shit? Wrong ass, wrong ass shit. You ain't got this lady all mixed up, right? You got the south side of she from out west 290. Y'all tripping. How you know about that 290, man? Come on, man. I know about Chicago, man. We go, we on our way to the shop, man. That's why we give the most love, man, as is Chicago. Oh, what's your son? Transitioning from Chicago, it says in, you know, I hope this part is right. Did you always dream of moving to Atlanta? Or is that a type 02? Absolutely. I love Atlanta. You love Atlanta. So where did that love come from? I think I used to come down a lot for a little weekend. And just to see the support that Atlanta would give when we would just come down for his charity event, it just gave me a different love. For Atlanta, I would go to the different restaurants and see that it was black owned. We had different clubs. And you see all of these black entrepreneurs, these promoters. And just to see what black excellence looked like, right? When you think of that, you think of Atlanta. And so for me, it was, hey, I need to get to Atlanta. Let me get my business set all the way together in Chicago. And then the next move would be Atlanta. And that's just what happened. Hey, Luda be saving people. Because I damn sure did some community service over there at the Ludacris Foundation. And got extra hours and credit. Shout out to the Ludacris Foundation, bro. And you had to do it for some reason. You think I'm playing, bro? I don't think you're playing. I had to do black and yellow. You're giving out greens for Christmas and turkeys and everything. Yeah, that's why I'm playing. That's why you write about Atlanta. Ain't no places to do no shit like that while I was living there. I had to go to the Goodwill with the white people. They made you do every hour. I'm out there sweeping up dust in front of the Goodwill. It's like, man, this shit's supposed to have dust on it. It's the Goodwill. This is crazy. So you say your business in Chicago. So did you start Nouveau in Chicago? No, so I started my own real estate investment company in Chicago. I wanted to kind of change the community of where I grew up in Chicago. So I started with one property at a time, rehab and properties, buying different properties, flipping properties. And then I kind of moved on to another state and started building houses from the ground up. And now I'm in Atlanta building as well. I still have my real estate company. OK, well, what made you want to go into the food? Did you have a love for cooking? I love people, most importantly. And knowing that I love people in cooking, I just tied the two together and did two things that I absolutely enjoy. And that's where the restaurant came from. That's dope as hell, especially keeping it in the family, though. Absolutely. I love your pearls on your necklaces, on your glasses. It just gives a seriousness to it that just makes everything believable. I just don't feel like you're playing. I'm not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can tell for that. And it says you started during the pandemic, so you went through. I'm sure that was a very unique process, starting your business and then everything shut down. But it says you paid your rent a year in advance, which is amazing, because any black person that pays rent a year in advance is a special type of new girl, so you get through those for that. So talk about the process of making it through that point to get to where you are now. Oh, it was hard as hell. Just looking down Main Street, you think of all of these black owned businesses, right? That's on Main Street. And at one point, we had just kind of got a flow. And then all of a sudden, everything shut down. So you go from seeing hundreds of people outside and to seeing literally yourself outside. So there was times when it would just be me, my chef, and my bartender, like literally on a Tuesday, we would make $12. And that would be because of the bartender buying food. So of course it was hard, but I mean, those type of situations are only for the strong, right? If it don't scare you, then why even do it? And so in my mind, I trusted God's plan. And outside of that, I knew that my staff was taken care of, not only that we have the rent paid up, but we had what that salary would look like for my staff for a year paid up. So my staff never really caught the pandemic because they were always in a good situation. I just like how y'all get that. That ain't me who comes you up with it. I love it. One of the things that her and I talked about a lot was how the pandemic was a blessed curse. Yeah. Everybody shut down. But this one here, soon as they said, open it back up, she opened it up. And that's where we found a lot of people that were looking for that escape to get out of the house. They had been in the house for a while. And it was like, they just started coming to Nouveau. Then they start telling another person, hey, y'all heard about that spot on Nouveau? That spot in College Park on Main Street? Man, they got a rooftop. They got a patio. They got this. They got that. The food is bustin'. Like, and then we started with the relationship with Mamosa Jams. Absolutely. Explain what that is. So Mamosa Jams started out between her creation and our DJ named Allende and Kondo. And it became something where they said, hey, we need to get something to get the people together. We want to do a celebration of life. There's so much death going on. Let's get a celebration of life going on. So we sell our bottomless Mamosas on the weekend. On Sunday, we do the celebration of life. We have a host with the DJ and the energy inside of that place. If you walk in with a bad feeling bad, you will walk out of there on cloud nine. He touches, the host touches each person in a certain way, whether it's a kid, whether it's an 80-year-old woman. We've had 80-year-old women in their dancing. Off the Mamosas. Off the Mamosas and off that energy. You thought it was the energy. It's no drink, man. So the Mamosas do it now. It isn't the Mamosas. The Mamosas do something. They do something about the energy. That's why they didn't drink. That whole, that whole, the pandemic really was a blessing for us because that's how people started to truly know about us. Like, getting that escape. Come on, man. How many of us were in the house? Like, man, I want to get out, man. But nothing was open. I went back to Chicago. She hit me and said, no. Get your ass back down here. And I came back down. And next thing you know, we were right there. And you said she don't tell you what to do. She don't. She don't. Now, speaking of what you just spoke to about just the celebration of life and having a division and be able to give people a different experience. Like, does that come from, a lot of that come from what you guys' background is coming out of Chicago and the stigma that Chicago has? And you don't know until you go to Chicago is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The people, I mean, everything, like that stigma that they get about it being so violent, it's like that everywhere. And I don't know why they project that. But coming from the city and then moving to somewhere like Atlanta where the environment is totally different, do you feel like that's something that motivated you all to want to give people here that experience? You go out way more than I do. All right, so I love Chicago. Anybody that's from Chicago will tell you, hey, they love Chicago more than anything else. Like, I don't care what you say. Like, don't get me wrong. Atlanta's, I've been coming to Atlanta since 2006. Every year I came for Luda Day weekend with Luda and all them. We was together all the time. But Chicago is just something about it from the food, to the environment, to the energy, to the whim. No, Atlanta women, let me stop, let me stop. No, man. Let it go, please, man. Man, if you go to Chicago, women, you fuck around and get you some grits, and then you ask them what you got to do with it. That's the way it is. But truly, when you talk about, and you said it best, they try to put this image about Chicago like, hey, it's all this, man. Everywhere you go, you got violence, you know? Poverty brings about violence too. You know, the critical decision-making skills, you don't learn that in the hood. Like, you respond to a problem, man, I'm finna get at this dude, you know what I'm saying? So when you take that and you put that in these urban areas, of course it's gonna be crazy. But then you got suburbs, you got downtown, you got all these places where it ain't happening like that. And it's great to live there. I tell people all the time, don't go to Chicago in the winter. Go to Summertime Shot. Absolutely not. Go Summertime Shot. Experience the lakefront. Experience people to walk. Hell yeah, just gunshots in the distance. The gunshots is down that way over there. In the distance, man. I'm not worried about you. I didn't been, I just was in Chicago this past summer, and I forget what, I went to a Jamaican restaurant. I can't remember the name of it. But I just went out and then walked, and just walked around. It was like people on the corner playing music and, you know, just black people everywhere. And I'm from DC and I grew up in a city that had that type of culture. And anywhere that I go that still has that type of feel, I love. So Chicago is one of the most beautiful cities, but when you come from Chicago and come to Atlanta and see the difference, like you said, and the difference, like what parts of Chicago do you guys bring to Atlanta? Like what makes you guys unique in y'all experience being here? The food for one. We gonna say that right off the bat. Like the level of taste that we bring as a brand is outstanding. We cook a little different in Chicago. We cook a little different. The seasons hit a little different. Atlanta got some. You know, cause they, in Chicago, we were Mississippi, so a lot of them, you all. A lot of them. So we cook a little different, but most importantly though, I think the experience kinda puts you in that downtown vibe when you go to a rooftop party, a day party, right? That's kinda the experience that we want people to feel. But I also want people to come in with their families, their kids, and still have a great time. I mean, literally, we cater to people from nine years old up until your 70-year-olds that want to twerk inside a Nouveau, and I mean, it's just really the different. That's what I'm saying. I wanna come host one of them Sunday devotions with bottomless mimosa. 70-year-old twerk competition. Just be in there with a suit on. No shirt. Get your ass in here. 68 Know will come sign up for the twerk competition, baby. It's going down, but you gonna stay up. That's what it is. It's gonna be loud. I wanna host Nana Jam. What's in the bottle? Nana Jam. You just say Nana Jam. Nana Jam. Nana Jam. But one thing about Atlanta that I love, right? And this is a straight fact. In Chicago, we ain't helping each other. It's just not like that. It's just, in Atlanta, you might be doing something. You gonna pull her on here and get to expose her and say, hey, tell us a little bit about yourself. It's a lot of hatred in Chicago, especially when you have somebody that's successful. And then the politicians in a bureaucracy, as far as getting a liquor license, if you ain't white, you're not getting a liquor license. I'm telling you that you have to have a white partner. And if you don't, if you happen to get lucky, if anything happens, they shutting you down immediately. Right. Absolutely. It's a weird- It's really segregated city. It really is. Remember, we as black people, we can change that. Because just like you said, we got this platform. We want you to come on and tell everybody about it. So when we do an event, we can do it at your spot. And then other people in the city can say, oh, I want to use that spot. So we're going to create our own network. That's what this whole thing is about. That's a lot, man. Come on, man. That's real. It's all in about the network and the exchange of information. Absolutely. Because we're still 100 years behind in communication. Because it used to be against the law for us to congregate and speak and exchange the information. And that was not for a reason. So all of this is new. We're still a young culture as black people. We're still a young people. Because we've still got 5, 600, 700 years of discommunication to catch up with. So we're still learning how to do business with each other. Still learning how to treat each other. Absolutely. How to treat each other, how to respect each other. But as long as we have platforms like this where we can come on and we can exchange this information, and you can drop your location, and you can tell these people where to support you and where to hit your website. Because these people watching this all over the world, somebody want to make them reservations. And I want you to feel the impact of the people that support us. Because they support the people that we support. So that's why we appreciate y'all bringing y'all business to the black market. And the black market is over. Now tell us where to get these goddamn grits. Yes. Yes. Yes. Indeed, indeed. We want to talk about the grits. So yeah, the grits, you can go on our website and order them as well. You can go to Shopify. And there's Nuvobar, ATL, as well. And then all of the proceeds go to HBCUs. I went to HBCUs all. Which one? So I went to Lansing University in Lansing, OK? Lansing? Absolutely. And I just remember the struggle, right? I remember working two jobs, barely keeping my scholarship, keeping my grades up. I remember my mom telling me, like, yo, you're going to have to figure this out. I'm not going to pay your tuition. I'm not helping with financial aid. You're going to have to figure this out. Same thing my mama told me. Yeah, but in that, right, it gives another beauty of strength, right, that we don't even know that we're getting, right, until we are actually at another age and now it's time to perform. And now little things, you just look at it and you keep going, right? Because now you feel like you're unstoppable at this point, right? And so for me, it was like, OK, how do I finish school with no support, right? What does that look like? And so I never want people to go through what I went through. So when we did Nuvobar, my grits would do so well. I said, hey, you know what? I want to give back to the HBCUs, but not once a year, right? I want to give back every single day that Nuvobar is opening and what that does is it looks like my grit line. Every single purchase goes, Nuvobar don't see none of those dollars. It literally goes to other African-American students that had the same struggle that I had growing up and going into college. So for us, this grit line, that's my baby. Because this is my way of giving back to people that looked like me. I'm not going to say how many years ago, but. Why not? You sure as shit. That's a blessing. Look at how good you looking on the guy there. Look at this. Look at you. Yeah, they're on the man. Just put everybody on the front of magazines. Exactly. You should be. And that's the thing. That's another thing. I want to speak to that just to be proud of the progression and the transition that you made, no matter how long it's taken, how many years it's been. It's a blessing because look at you, you know what I mean? You look like it's bigger than just what you putting on paper or what you selling to somebody. When they see you, they see that you are the personification of what success looks like. You got pearls on your glass. Stop playing. In that level of progression that you've made is the motivation that not just the money. The money is great. Don't get me wrong. You need that. But you need also the motivation to know that there's somebody that I can look at and see that has walked this journey and made it to a certain point so I can be motivated no matter what it is I go through. Because I see you. I see a winner. I see a success story. So that's beautiful, man. If we can't let y'all get out of here without you giving some advice to the young black girls who are watching this and you drop some game on the young black man who might be watching. I guess for me, I say this all the time. When I think about myself, I tell people all the time, just do it. Whether you're scared, whether the finances are there or not, like, figure it out, just do it. Whatever it is that you go to sleep thinking about, you wake up in the morning thinking about, whatever it is that you're extremely passionate about, just do it, be consistent in it. And trust God, the rest is history, though. Once you do that, the rest is history. Once you do something every single day, you learn to perfect it, right? You learn the mistakes that you've made, you learn the things that you've done right. And most importantly, you're at some point, it'll reach where it needs to reach, right? Because you're trying it every single day, but the key is being consistent and doing it. For me, it's more so of a, man, listen, everything that glitters ain't gold. For all our young brothers who are out here trying to live a certain way because of what you're seeing on Instagram and all that, man, that ain't real. That ain't real. What's real is getting up every day, making a goal for yourself and focusing on it. Like, man, what somebody got today don't mean they gonna have it tomorrow. What you work for every day to get to, man, you can achieve it. I don't care what you, when people really know somebody's story, you got a story like you just talked about earlier, like, man, I had to go through this, I had to go through that. And you're here now, saying what you, saying with me, I got a story that, man, it's probably gonna come out one day to be able to tell people, like, everybody go through trials and tribulations, man. Don't give up. Just keep on striving, man. Keep going. Keep on pushing. Keep pushing all the way, man. This is a beautiful thing. So Main Street location and now the Jones. Jonesboro. Hey, y'all just did a firehouse. Was it a firehouse subs? Or was it a firehouse? Like an actual firehouse. It was an actual firehouse museum. Okay. Man, let me, let's give her her flowers, because everybody around was telling her, man, don't put nothing out there. Don't put nothing out, ain't nothing out there. And she said, that's exactly why I'm going to put something out there. And when I tell you, the blessings have flowed from that space, like, we, I don't know if y'all even heard about, like, we do the R&B Thursdays out there, where acts everybody from Tank, Vito, Tamar, Cressette Michelle, K-Michelle. We've had so many talented acts come out there and perform. I'm about to start loving it. Me and y'all. I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm doing work in this. Man, maybe at night, couldn't do it like it's real. We got a sneaker ball coming up on Thursday. Tank is performing. We got some other special guests performing. I see the kicks. We got the sneaker ball, the sneaker ball, come on, man. They don't want us to come through. Yeah, we do. Man, man, man, man, it'll be. And I got my shirt off like my bag. Hey, y'all, man, it might be unfair we come through there. What a lose, man. You can't guess. But God bless you. Hey, man, we more than appreciate y'all stopping through the Black Mardi and y'all. Drop the website one more time. Let them know where they can reach y'all and all that. No, don't forget. Social media, everything. We got to do something for the community, for Thanksgiving, and then for Christmas, we're going to put some people in houses for Christmas. We're going to do laptops, X-boxes, playstations. This is our third year doing it. So our Christmas event is definitely going to be amazing. Coming down there to get me one of them houses. Come on. I'll take a turn. I'll take a turn. Yeah, I'll take a turn. Our website is www.newvobar.com. What's the Instagram? NewvobarATL. Yeah. NewvobarATL. And we definitely want, you can make your reservations there. You can purchase things there on our social media platforms, everything. Well, wait, wait, wait, before you read that mail, before you read that mail, I see the ringer, ringer, ringer coming. I want people to know a lot, like they know about the brand. We're getting our brand up. I need people to know about her. She won't promote herself. So we have, you see her on that magazine cover for one, but follow her at evaneeakira on Instagram, at evaneeakira. We're about to make people know what this woman is doing, what type of effort she's put in this community. She's not going to tell you that she bought all these books from black authors and gave them to schools. She ain't going to tell you all that. She's going to tell you all the things that she does. That's what you're supposed to do. And that's why I'm doing it. You feel it. You feel it. So, Evanie, what are you? Evanie Akira. So it's E-B-O-N-Y-A-K-I-R-A. A-K-I-R-A. Go start back with the old pictures, Chico. I'm going. Go do that, baby. Go wave back to 2015. Not there doing that. I was 290, the guy there in Chicago. You're not too far, Karen. Let's say, I'm not far from 70. I know about the city, man, all the way. Yeah, he know for real for real. He started footworkin'. Yeah, for a show. But yeah, that's what I want people to really get an idea of who she is. Like, she not going to brag on how much real estate she did. She can brag on this show. She don't like to. Brack. Give us a break. I'll just say, God is amazing. We know. And I think I'm an example of what young people can do. I came from the west side of Chicago off of Independence, off of the 290, where everybody that you seen, majority of them was on drugs. And then the other half was trying to figure it out. We were taught that, hey, you're going to go to school. You're going to work a nine or five, and that's life. And for me, that just wasn't enough. So when people look at me, I do want people to see that anything is possible. My faith in God is extremely high, of course. But I mean, to have the real estate and where I've come from, and to have properties that's in my hood. I didn't want to go to the suburbs. So all the properties that I purchased are in my hood. And that's the beauty of it. So for other young people, I just want people to know that it's possible you're a step away from your dreams. That was the classiest brag. That was the classiest brag. My properties are in my hood. In my hood. Because that is going to go outside on my hood. My hood. That's right. We love it.