 Yeah, so we ran out of food and it was mortifying. One of the guys that's a part of our church that we brought in to help us serve, I'm like, dude, you go tell people. We made him, he was totally our stay-go. You made him. Before I die, I would love to cook for Gordon Ramsay. And so I try out for MasterChef, and long story short, like I make it on the show. He loves me right now. Did you just say Jesus loves me? Yes. Everybody, welcome to the show. As always, well, you know what? Listen, have you watched other shows and you listened to podcasts where they're talking about, like, how brilliant I am? And here's all of the 10 things I did to be successful with my marketing campaign and make tons of money. And look, I started a wine business. Like, that's not this show. I mean, there's tenacity and people recover, and they do great things, but we're really focused on, like, people screwing up, because we all screw up. And we all screw up whenever we're making anything that's important to us as well. It's not smooth sailing. That's what we're going to talk about today. And today, we've got Lada, Gilbert, and Sean. Or Sean, Lada, Gilbert. A lot, a lot of Gilbert, Sean. They're both going to be, all three of them, are going to be on the show. And the name of their business is FatPastor. And I'm going to assume that we're talking about food or we're talking about God, or we're talking about bugs. But I'm really excited. Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. I'm here with Sean, Lada, and Gilbert from FatPastor Productions. Yep, and you are the FatPastor. The FatPastor, yes. I really have a hard time saying that. Everyone does. Straight up, like, looking you in the eye, because I don't think that you're a big fella. That's what makes it really fun, you know, when people introduce us, and they're like, I just don't know how to do this. Before we even get into, like, sort of backstory and everything else, like, first, just the name. Yeah. Like, where does the name come from? Well, you know, I am a pastor, and these guys are pastors. We all are pastors at a church together. You're all pastors. So we're all pastors, yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be a really fun day. I'm drinking with pastors. You know, I was doing some food blogging a few years ago before we ever started the business, and I wanted to be able to, you know, throw something out there to be fun, and so I thought, you know, the fat is where the flavor is. When you're cooking food, the fat's where the flavor is. That's true. So that's where it comes from, is where pastors and the fat's where the flavor is, so where the FatPastor Productions. For us, it was just like a passion, it was a hobby for all of us, you know, food is something we loved. Oh, were you all doing food? Like, yeah, just for fun, you know? Yeah. He grew up, you know, cooking with his dad, I grew up cooking with my dad. She grew up loving food and just everything that makes food exciting. I love that you grew up cooking with your dad, too. I mean, like, I get it makes sense. I don't want to make stereotypes, but so many people just grew up cooking with their mom. Yeah, right, right. Cooking with their grandma in the kitchen. Well, that's a big part of the story too, right? That is a back story to that because you're talking about cooking with your dad in a culture that it's not a man's, the kitchen is not a man's place. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm going in the kitchen, a place where it is stereotyped when it comes to men in the kitchen. Saturday, he says, we are going to the market to do what? I want to teach you how to pick good vegetables. I said, that's what mom's supposed to do. Yeah. Like, cooking is not already enough? No, you want to take me to the market? No! And we are sitting there, women are whispering. Right. They're looking at Gilbert. And he looks at me. They're raising that boy. That's wrong. Exactly. And he looks at me like, you know, everybody else think you are stupid now. Yeah. Trust me, you're going to be the smart one tomorrow. That's true. And boy, was he right. We'll get you now! No, I mean, no! You know, here we are. He's like, he's literally smiling. That's amazing. It was not easy. I went in screaming and kicking. He's like, no, you're going to learn this skills, son. And I did not like him for it. Well, where did you grow up? Africa, Zambia, South Central. Zambia. Yes, sir. So you guys all like, and then you learned from your dad as well? Yeah, I mean, my dad wasn't like an amazing chef or anything. It's just that that's where we connected. My parents were older when I was born, and so my dad was 51 when I was born. Oh, wow. And so, you know, we didn't play a lot of games outside. We didn't do any of that stuff. We'd go fishing every once in a while. But if he was in the kitchen, man, I was racing in there to be with him. And so like Thanksgiving is my biggest memory. I'd get up as early as I could, 4.30 in the morning, I'm running in, he's stuffing the turkey, and I'm jumping up right next to him so I can help him out. Really? And so that was really where just the love of cooking started. For me, I think it starts really first with experience and then builds on flavor from there. So that's what I always look back on. My dad's gone now, so a lot of that passion and his desires for cooking started with him. So tell me then, did you all meet from food blogging or did you all live in the same place? Like how did you meet? Yeah, so we, because I started a church with my wife about four and a half years ago, these guys started coming to church at some point with their families. And so about three and a half months into it, I meet Gilbert and we fall in love with each other. And then before long, he's on staff, about a year into it, Lada and her family start coming to the church, fall in love with them and their family. And so her husband, Glenn, is our worship pastor. And so we just started working together in church and then we started cooking together. Then you started cooking together? Yeah. And then it started, so tell me more about Fat Pastor, like what's involved, what do you do? So Fat Pastor Productions is kind of, we do a bunch of different things in the culinary world. I always thought that food was just gonna be a passion, just gonna be a hobby. And I had made a bucket list in 2009. I said, you know, before I die, I would love to cook for Gordon Ramsay. And so in 2016, they were doing tryouts for Masterchef in Portland. And my niece called and she said, hey, you need to come try out for this. I'm like, that's really fast and I'm freaking out. She's like, no, you said that you wanna do this, you need to come do it, right? And so I try out for Masterchef and long story short, like I make it on the show. And so our story really goes to that moment where I'm standing in front of Gordon Ramsay and I'm cooking against my competitor. We're trying to see if who's gonna make it on the top 20 and so I lose in the first round. But Gordon Ramsay had loved my food. He really had voted for me to stick around. And he looks at me and he goes, Sean, your food is awesome. He goes, it's clear that you were born to serve your community, but it's also clear that you were born to cook. And he goes, don't stop. And so at that point, I'm a home chef. That's all I do. That's all I care about doing. I walk away from that and I'm like, man, maybe I have something here. Maybe there's something more to this. So came back, we live in a city in Yakima that Yakima's gone through some trouble with gang violence and different things. And so they started talking about this program that helps kids and takes care of kids that come in to do different programs. And they said, yeah, we got this big, huge commercial kitchen that we're not doing anything with. And so I met with a guy that was in charge and I said, yeah, I got an idea. And what if we started a free business and culinary school for these kids? No way. And so we started a program called Urban Kitchen Yakima. And that's the first thing that we started doing. Yeah. And then I realized, oh. Was it the three of you that started that? No, he started that. Yeah, this was me and a couple other people that are in the community and a part of our church. Really, really good people and other classically trained chef. I think Jack is taking pictures of his drink to post on Instagram. Oh, that's awesome. Which tells you that something amazing is about to come out. It smells awesome. Jack, what are we drinking? Oh my gosh. Today we are drinking and you're probably, you're like this, this is the 1891 Edenberg. Oh. Also known as the Triple Threat. Did you just say Jesus loves me? Yes, all the time. Okay. Also known as the Holy Grail. So this drink is taken from inspiration of three pastors. Also taken from the inspiration of innovation. And 1891 was the creation of the very first triple. 12 gauge. So not a double barrel. Wow. But a triple barrel, 12 gauge. And they first named it the Holy Grail. Lotta is so happy. Oh yeah. She's like tearing up. All right, do you have a favorite way to toast? Salute. Salute. Okay, we'll do that. All right, I'm tapping up. Salute. Okay. Salute. These are the coolest little challenges. There we go. Yeah, I want to make the, yeah. What a miniature Holy Grail. You have chosen wisely. Indeed so, sir. You all met and then you became, like you became pastors, but you started the church. Yeah. Right? Did you know you wanted to do that? Yeah, I knew from a very young age I wanted to be a pastor. Were your parents religious as well? Yeah, I was raised in a Christian family. And so, you know, they were amazing. My parents really are probably the reason that I didn't run away from church because I had some bad experiences, like a lot of people. Yeah, I think most people, yeah. That's hard. I think that's probably why we do church the way we do it is because we've all had bad experiences in church. But there's something inside of us that really keeps us grounded in what we believe is true about God and who he is. So you guys met through there, but then with Fat Pastor, do you, it's not a restaurant that you do. So you do different services related to food and the community, is that mostly? So, well, it was Urban Kitchen and then so Fat Pastor Productions kind of got started. And then, well. Notice Urban Kitchen still exists? Yes. Okay, and then Fat Pastor Productions got started. So we all cook together, like we get together, cook, and we all have similar experiences cooking. And we needed to raise money for the Urban Kitchen program, too. Yeah, yeah. And you would do that from cooking. Yeah, so yeah. Yeah, so that's part of how it got started. Right, so he comes to us and he says, I have this cool idea. What do you think if we start an underground dining club in Yakima? Because Yakima is not yet the food sensation. I like the yet. Yes, that's good. So it's begun, it's begun. So we thought that this would be a really cool thing to do on our terms, you know, we get to make the menu, we don't need a space. So we find really cool locations. We've done it in Barnes and Old Buildings at People's Homes, just outdoors. We did it on the golf course with the fifth hole at a golf course. We had a cart, our whole kitchen grill, like five grills, a smoker, tables, everything, and a golf cart. And here's the clincher. I mean, most underground dining clubs are illegal because it's a way for chefs to be able to showcase their talents without having to worry about all the taxes and the places to get a location and, you know, evading the health department. We're like, well, crap, we're pastors. Like we can't do an illegal dining club, you know? So how do we do this, you know? Well, I think you have to be above board. We have to go to the health department and be like, how do we do this? And they looked at me like straight up and they're like, we don't know. Like we have no idea how to classify this. And so we met with this one guy who knew about our Irving Kitchen Probe. He's like, dude, you guys are doing amazing things with these kids. I'm going to do everything I can to help you. And so he really became our champion and he fought with us and for us to be able to get this legal. So we're actually one of the only legal underground dining clubs in the country. By the way, pretty sweet. Sounds great to say legal underground. Right. I know. We don't. We don't. We don't. What did you run into that, like things that you wish you would have known that you didn't know? Or like f*** up your things where you're like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't going to work anymore. Or I think we're going to have to close shop. Like we did, we quit. We quit 6% to it. You quit? We quit. We didn't know the business. And so none of us have culinary training. We don't have any culinary mentors. Like we have no experience whatsoever. We're just a bunch of risk takers. They're like, hey, let's try it. See what happens. Thinking it was going to be just a hobby and something we could just do, make a little extra money, whatever. And so six months into it, we are sitting down on a Wednesday night as part of our regular church staff meeting. And we're like, man, the church needs more attention. We've been doing so much with the food stuff and it's not even going that well. And people aren't signing up for bike club like we thought they would. Not knowing it was just the time of year. Not knowing where we were going. And we sat there and we looked at each other and we're like, this is too much. Let's stop. Let's just quit. And we literally, on that night, we said, we're done. We're done. What? Yeah. Just on that night? Yeah, we're done. And we're going to give people their money back. February, 2017. So that was for both the bike club and fat pastor? Yeah, we were just going to keep Urban Kitchen going because that was important. But we're done with all the bike club stuff. We're going to quit doing the catering. We had done a little bit of catering at the time. Not like we're doing now. And so we quit. And the very next morning, a lady in our church, an older lady in the church, and if anybody knows anything about old church ladies, they're dynamite. She emails me and she goes, Sean, I just wanted you to know I was praying for you this morning. And she said, I've never prayed for you like this before. She said, I found myself in tears. And I was on my knees. And she said, and she was straight up. She goes, I saw Jesus in front of me. And Jesus looks at me. And he goes, tell Sean, don't quit. Tell Sean, don't quit. Wow. And we hadn't said anything to anybody about our conversation the night before. Wow. And I wrote her back. I was delusional at that point because I'm like, oh, man. We just upped our commitment to the church. Like, we were stopping all this other stuff. And I'm not even thinking about it. And she writes back and she goes, all I know is if I didn't hear from God, I've never heard from God. Really? Yeah, dead serious. And so I went to the team that Friday. So it was Wednesday that we quit. Friday we get together. And I'm like, here's the conversation I just had. What are you guys thinking? They're like, do you remember the conversation we just had on Wednesday night? Yeah. Like, oh, crap. Like, maybe that's it. And so we re-upped our commitment. We decided to stop quitting. And we jumped back in. Equipping quitters. Yeah, we quit them quitters. Looking back from the moment the three of us sat down to start by club, we all looked at each other like, what are we going to lose? Let's give it a shot when it was being born. And I remember our spouses looking at us like, oh, here we go again, something new. For me, from the time I met my wife, I actually have a message that I've taught entitled, how much is your dream wife? For example, the richest man you know walks in this room, whipped out a page, is a checkbook, and say, I want to buy your dream. How much is it worth? Ah. You know, so in other words, the value that you put on who you are and what you are bringing to your community matters. I just want to make somebody's life better. I love that. Tell me more about, so when you're working with food and you guys are doing now catering gigs, putting that stuff together, have you had experiences where, I mean, you've had to learn that on the fly. I mean, you've all said, you're kind of figuring that out as you go and you're putting those things together. Have you ever had the experiences where, like, not enough food, the wrong food, and I didn't go? Once or twice, maybe. Oh, yeah. Like, what was it? West Valley Schools. West Valley Schools. Without question. I love it. We ran out of food. Both of them. I'm like, come on. Like, bring it up in the same class. It was a nightmare for us. West Valley Schools. Oh, yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So, OK. Was it the only way we ran out of food? Vlada, you don't remember it? Yes, no, now I do. I think she walked it out. I did. Because she was so mad. What happened? What happened? We ran out of food. Just ran out completely. Like, for school children ran out of food? No, it was for grownups. You know, we're used to doing plated dinners. So we buy enough mains for, like, OK, this half of the people are going to eat this main. Half the people are going to eat this main. But we served it the face out. And people took both. And so we were. We didn't take that into consideration. We didn't. Just so it was the face out. It was our first catering gig we ever did. Yeah, it was the first big one. I'm like 250 people. I mean, it was, yeah. We used to serve in 30 people. Yeah. Right. Some people's eyes are bigger than their stomachs. Yeah, so we ran out of food. And it was mortifying. Torrible. We actually, it was really bad because we had one of the guys that's a part of our church that we brought in to help us serve. And he's like, he's a younger guy. He's like really good with people. And I'm like, dude, you go tell people. We made him. He was totally our savior. You made him do it? Thank you, Jeremy. Are you guys, his name's Jeremy? Yes. Jeremy, you're an amazing human being. I know, right. You should demand favors forever. So I hit what happened? I went and stood by him as those communicating. Oh, good job, Gilbert. I hit. Slot and I were high. No, I did. But we walked away knowing that we owe them big time. Next time we get to do an event over there. And we did. We got to make it up. We took care of them. And we did. And we gave them a killer's meal. They came back to us. They came back to us. You did the event again? And we slayed it. Yeah. After you ran out of food, you did the event again. They came back to us the next year. So again, one of the other story, too, it was the fact that a lot of people came up. They're like, finally, we get to eat real food. We've had these events for a while and we have not eaten real food. So they get to eat real good food that time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that alone was a plus, despite running out of food. I can't believe they came back to you. That's wonderful. Oh, yeah. They've been voted Yakima's favorite caterer this last year. We've been voted Yakima's favorite chef two years in a row. And it's crazy, because we've only been doing this professionally for two years. Yeah. But we've worked our butts off. We're committed to quality. We're committed to serving people really well. Yeah. And we may mess up, but we're going to own it. We're going to be responsible for it. And we're going to come back and fix it. Yeah, well, a lot of the members of Bite Club have become our friends. And we've gotten to know them personally and just really fall in love. Like, we support their businesses and they support ours, essentially, you know. And so, yeah, it's just we've really garnered relationships with people. At Christmas time, we come out and we'll sing to people. And we'll, like, you know, it's fun. And we interact with them. Our spouses all serve. You know, they're kind of the front of house. And it's just a really neat and special experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's a lot of people that are there in love with serving their community. Like, they want to do something like that, whether that's through church or through something else. Yeah, sure. And they're in love with food. I mean, not just like, I like to eat food. I'm not going to eat. What recommendation would you make to somebody that's looking to do that in order to get something started, in order to make something happen? What would you say? I mean, you've got to look at your community and you've got to see what's going on in your community. You know, where can you get something out of you? In your community, you know, where can you go and make a difference? And where can you add your talent, your gifts, your skill set into changing and transforming your own community? Yeah, yeah. And people will get behind that. Like, if you have something to offer, people will come alongside you. We found that people weren't exactly sure how to get started. So because we got started, they said, OK, we'll support that. We'll get behind that. And now we want to do something. Totally. I mean, it's remarkable. We also have a tendency of looking at the gifting that we have. It's just not for us alone. It's to be able to impact the community we live in, the culture that we live in, the nations that we are in. We are in. I have a gift that will not only benefit my family, but can benefit a whole lot of people out there. And trust me, some of our members will be like, OK, we love your food. This is amazing. But you guys, just you guys, something about you guys just the way, what is it? They ask that question because they see more than just what we interact. No, we love one another. There's something there beyond just you guys cooking in the kitchen and giving us grateful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes it feels like church. Like that feels a bike club feels more like church. Than church. Than church. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we hosted for the first time last year what we call Northwest Burger Jam. So we wanted to do a Burger Festival. A Burger Festival. Yeah. And so we're like, this will be fun, you know. Wait, Jack, did you hear that? There's a Burger Festival in Yakima. Yeah, come on. All right. Just so that we're clear. It gets better, too. I just moved here. You got a trip to make. And you and I, you're my only friend. We both know this. All right, good, good. OK, Burger Festival, Yakima. Yeah, so we had no idea what it was going to look like. We hosted it at a brewery of Cowichy Creek Brewings, an amazing place. And so we thought, let's do it there. And so we host this Burger Festival. We're not even sure who's going to show up. Like almost 1,000 people show up. And I'm looking out at one point after the whole day is almost over. There's been concerts. There's been competition. People are just having fun. Looking out at almost 1,000 people who are just having fun and laughing and smiling together. I got less than 100 people in my church. And I'm standing on the stage and I'm like, this feels like church. Everybody's having a good time. There's people out here that are of totally different perspectives. They're all coming together and celebrating this family time around food. That felt more church to me than a lot of times what I felt on Sunday night. And that's what I want to experience. That's what I want to bring to the table for everybody. The opportunity to, let's come to the table. Let's just come to the table. Well, you guys, thanks. Thanks for being on the show. Like, if you guys want to keep hanging out, we can keep hanging out because it's amazing. All right, what are we saying? I want to say, like, Nostrovia. Oh, whatever, like, I don't care. Oh, my God! What the? Woo! There you go. All right, thanks, you guys. It's a long round. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Lada. Thank you, Gilbert. And thank you for watching. And if you like what you see, then subscribe. Ring the bell, make a comment, like what we're doing. And if you have your own, got your own story of redemption or recovering, then go to effups.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for watching.