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Man, hey man, this guy here today don't need no introduction. This guy is known, if you've been out to Los Angeles, California and you've been over the Culver City, man. You can find him over at Jenga Derrick's, man. This guy is a restaurant owner, business owner. This guy also has now opened a ghost kitchen here in Addison, Texas, man. And we're so happy to have him today, man. Jenga Derrick's is in the building, man. My friend Derrick, what's going on, man? It's all great. It's all great? It's all great, man. I just wanted to bring you on the show, man. We came by your kitchen and we had a great time, you know. The food was, as always, superb. Ever since the day we met you, you've gave us great food, right? So, man, we want to talk about that a little bit, but I know Ms. Jamaica, she probably want to take it a different route for you. So, I'm going to hand it over to Ms. Jamaica for a second. Yeah, because, you know, all our listeners know I like to dig deep into your background. See why you even started cooking. So, tell me about yourself first. I know you're born and raised in Jamaica. What part of Jamaica? I'm in St. Anne. Do you know that God created heaven and earth in six days? And on the seventh day you want to rest. There was no place. I created Jamaica and you rested in St. Anne. Okay. So, raised with your parents? Yes. Same household? Same household. Same household. Because a lot of people who sit right here, they're always, you know, split parents. You always have one father over here, but they're, you know, born and raised with their mom. You usually don't see them in the same household. But how many siblings do you have? Well, I used to have four. One passed away. Boys and girls? Two boys, two girls. Are you the oldest? Yeah, the second one. Second one. But the oldest boy? Oldest boy. Yes. So, you were a protector? Still I am. Still. So, what was it like growing up in St. Anne with your family? Tell people, people don't know about St. Anne. People want to think about Jamaica, to think about Kingston, and to think about Ocherius, Montego Bay. Tell us about St. Anne. Well, Ocherius is in St. Anne. If you've ever been to Ocherius, in the North Coast, well, St. Anne is a big, is a big inspiration to Jamaica. And just to give you a rundown, that's where Bob Marley, Bella Fante, and Marcus Garvey, and Derek is from. Wow! That's big, right there. That's one of the things we hear so often, when somebody comes on here, it don't matter who they are, what walk of life they're from, they all lift up Bob Marley, man. That's something that I've seen ever since we started this show. Well, you know, you got a lot of words with them. So, it's talking to you. Wow. Tell us something about Bob Marley, that maybe a lot of people in the public, I may not know that, you know, Jamaicans normally know about. Well, I met Bob in person. He used to have a record shop on Beeston Street and King Street. So we used to walk by in... And that's in Kingston? In Kingston. I walked by and he was standing by the door. Hey, Bob. How old was he at that time? Oh, young. Bob was young. He got a 36, so he was pretty young. Okay. So he was just a regular person. Never acted like a celebrity? Never, never, never. And then he blew up. And so after that, I was able to see Monday's screen and buy his records. And in fact, I went home maybe six years ago and I went to his grave site and it was great. Wow. So when you think about Bob Marley, when you would send him back then and to see him blow up like he did for his status throughout, what did you think about that? Just seeing that from seeing him from not being who he ended up being. You know, just how did that affect you for how you thought about it? I didn't really affect me. I just see where if you have a talent for something and you work hard towards it, you start from something small to where it grows bigger. That is possible. And that's possible. Wow. So who in your family was the cook? Was it your mom or dad? Well, both. We love when our dad cooked because you get more protein. Oh, he loved the meat? He loved the meat, so you get more meat. And on Thursday, you would do something very legal in my house. We grew up Adventists. My dad is not a church person. Okay. So you cook some pork on Thursday. So you'd have us eat it before mom comes home. I was about to say what did mom say so she never knew. We couldn't talk about it. So she never knew that? That's what he did. Maybe she did after a while, but she never said anything. You know, about time. That was making my mom's back. So how did mom cook? What did she cook? You know. What was your favorite dish that mom cooked? Recipes and chicken, brown stew chicken. What was your favorite dish that dad cooked? Other than the pork. Other than the pork. We could do a good curry chicken. But if we didn't look forward to the curry chicken, we wanted the pork. It's because you guys weren't supposed to be eating it. Because we couldn't ride. Man, I just, like I said, you know, being that you were in California, when you first opened your first restaurant, I want to get into that. Like, what drove you to open in your first location? Where was it at? What year was that? Um, I actually started on June 10th. We used to live in Pomona, close to Pomona Fairgrounds. And I liked to cook. I grew up cooking. And I started cooking some chicken and some roast fish. And I was roasting trout. Everybody was, oh, this is so good. We never had it like this. You got to open a restaurant. You got to open a restaurant. So I had a regular job. I'm an engineer by profession. Making a lot of money. I made a dollar or two. And I started going to events, festivals, and jazz festivals, regular festivals. And people started having my food more. So it encouraged me to... Oh, so you were cooking and doing your food at these festivals? Yes. Seven, seven. Seven. Okay, and at that time you didn't have a restaurant or nothing yet? No, no, no, no. Okay. And because I'm Adventist, we grew up on pretty much natural food. And so I just used those recipes and used natural herbs and spices to do my stuff, as most Jamaicans do. Right. And then I started doing bigger festivals, the Bob Marley Festival, of course, and we did a big job for the Democratic Convention in LA. That was my biggest catering thing. And that was even still before a restaurant? Right, before a restaurant. Wow. And that was only because they loved your food? It wasn't even because... People always say it's networking. Was it because of somebody you knew? It was networking. Okay, okay. It was the mayor of Los Angeles that did a thing for his children, children corner at the zoo. And he recommended me. Okay. That's what I did. Okay. I had a really good job. Mm-hmm. And at that point I realized, oh, I make more money. I actually make one half of my salary because doing that one job for the year. And you enjoyed it more? Oh, I enjoyed it, yes. And I decided I'm leaving. Mm-hmm. And I was encouraged that restaurants fail. I got to come back and what my head was, wow. So I... What year was this? This was 1992. Wow, 1992. Mm-hmm. And I opened a first restaurant in the city of Commerce. It was a food court. And it does blow everybody away that I came on the scene and my lines were so long. Because everybody already knew you? Well, yes, a lot of people knew me, but then the food, and you could smell the aroma and all the stuff, you know. And you were the only one in that neighborhood that had a Jamaican restaurant? Jamaican restaurant, yes. Okay. So my contract was five years. And I said, I can't stay here because it was limited to lunch only. Oh, really? Yes. Because it's commerce, a lot of industries. So then I looked for the new one. That's the one where I met you guys. Okay. And opened that one up. And it become a spot in LA where if you go in the map, they'll say, oh, I'm going here. I said, oh, go by Derek's, and you go there. Mm-hmm. And how long was that one there for? 18 and a half years. 18 and a half years. That's a long time. Mm-hmm. Wow. Okay. Now, you know that you're, you know, how many people have you seen and influenced? Because when you first started, it wasn't a lot of Jamaican restaurants out there. No, no, no. But how many did you see start popping up after your success? Oh, a lot. There's a lot of restaurants in LA. But we were, we were the one, two, maybe they had three sit-down restaurants. We were the only one with a full liquor license. Oh, okay. Why is that so? Is it hard to get a liquor license out there? Oh, yes. Mm-hmm. It's very hard and it's expensive. It's very expensive. It's like $100,000. That's crazy. A year. Or is this at one time? No, it's a nice initial payment for the license. Okay. And once you're selected. Mm-hmm. And then in a year, the basic to pay like, that's like $6,000 to pay. Mm-hmm. Wow. You've been here in Texas now for about seven, eight years. Eight years? Eight years. Definitely love when you have the cookouts, you know, over at your house. I've enjoyed coming over there eating those meals, man. But just when you, when you, I remember talking to you one day and I was like, man, I'm going to get you on this show. I was going to get you on this, this cooking show. This, well, not just cooking show, just business owner show, right? Mm-hmm. And I introduce you to... Breakfast Brothers. Breakfast Brothers. Rick. Wasn't it Rick? Yeah. And you went on that show. How was that experience for you? Like, how was it just, you know, talking to him, him being a restaurant owner, you being a restaurant owner, and then just, you know, talking about the foods and stuff. How was that? That was great. It kind of pushed me because there was a bunch of different restaurant owners when I went on a day. So I've been procrastinating about putting a place in Texas. And just when I was about to start, then COVID hit. Mm-hmm. So I had to push it off. And I was so anzoned in LA because I was going to be catering jobs. I got to be on site to make sure it done how I wanted to do. And I decided to start something here in Texas. So I came out and I looked around after COVID, and I decided to do the Ghost Kitchen, because it was more manageable. We could do catering from there. There was a lot of people to deal with. And the staffing problem going on in the restaurant industry right now is very, very bad. So wait a minute, you tell me the reason you've done it, the way you've done it is because of the way the staffing is and just dealing with, you know, the way that, I guess, the industry is right now, you decided that you would do a Ghost Kitchen in Texas because of staffing. Yeah, well the Ghost Kitchen, the Ghost Kitchen is one of the futuristic thing about the trend of what's going on. Okay. A lot of people aren't going out. You still have a COVID shot hanging over your head. So people don't want to be in a lot of crowd. And a lot of young people don't want to just order the food. It comes into them and... Keep it moving. If I want to go back to that day when you was with Rick and y'all were over there and you was doing the show with him, the TV show, he ate your food and he stopped. And he said, man, that ain't never a taste. What did he eat? He had the jerk chicken on the jerk pork. And the jerk pork. And he stopped. And he's like, man, I'm not kidding, you know. That was iconic for me, like to have another chef do that. So how did that make you feel to see him react that way to the food? It let me feel good. It take me back to where you asked the question about Bob Marley. It took me back to where, oh, I started stuff from ground up. And I was never a chef. I incorporate what I learned at home. Then I started going out to Las Vegas to different catering events to learn. I am catering. And when he stopped and said what he was doing there as the host of the show, I was like, oh, I better get my body rolling right now. I think that was, I thought that was great, man. Just to see you in your element and him in heels, man. I thought that was wonderful. Shout out to him at breakfast brothers over there. Definitely want to shout him out and just the love that he showed my friend Derek, you know. He said love to you and the new baby. Yeah, he do got a new baby. I didn't think about that, man. So just moving on, man. What can we expect? What types of foods can we expect coming from the ghost kitchen here out of Addison? Well, out of Addison we're doing a couple of things. We have like a, not a complete menu like what's in Los Angeles. Come up to that. But we have jerk chicken, curd chicken. We have three different pastas. Shrimp pasta, dirt chicken pasta, and salmon pasta. We have grilled salmon with a blackened garlic salmon. We have jerk pork and it's all meat, no bones, tender. I have curry goat. Curry goat. We have a vegetarian dish and we use fresh products like if you ever had my kale. Which everybody talks about chicken? I just got a call. I just got, this just came in from Alvestus who came and got a plate today. He just left. He says, this is the best jerk chicken, this is the best jerk chicken ever. The beans and rice are amazing. Thank you guys so much for the invitation once again and the food, man. Great. So how does it feel when people come and eat your food and then you get those type of responses? It feels like when you show, you see the chart moving up. Yeah, yeah. All right, all right now then. It feels pretty good. I know you had some reservations about opening the location here in Dallas. How do you feel now? I have overcome a big obstacle and the obstacle was freedom. I set it from LA. I got a good staff in Los Angeles. They do a good job. So I let them do what they do over there. I want to talk about that. Now that you said it, I want to talk about how when you came in the Culver City, where your restaurant is in LA, just the layout of it and just what made you choose that location. And I kind of heard you allude to it before, but just let's talk about you going in the process of moving from a place you've been at for 18 and a half years and then moving over to Culver City like that. That had to be big. That transition. Let's talk about it. And some of the obstacles that you had there and how you overcame it. Yeah. Wow. Let's talk something else. You're like this guy. You don't know. The interview process is totally different than just sitting back watching the show. You know what I'm saying? Culver City was different. To be honest with you, I've been doing Culver City forever. I've been living in Los Angeles for a long time. Well, my wife took me one night to go into the movie and it was like 12 o'clock at night and she said, I want to take you to some place. So she took me to a place called Father's Kitchen. Mm-hmm. It was 12 something. At night? At night. Oh. And the place was packed. Mm-hmm. You have a line going in there and when I got to the door, the guy gave us a menu. I said, find yourself a seat. Mm-hmm. That's strange. Yeah. So we got inside here. There was no vacant. And I'm looking around and I found a space for two. And I went and held the spot. She went to the bar and I was a bear and we had something. I think it was a lamb leg or something like that. Well, I'm like, whoa, at 12 o'clock at night it's popping like this. So the next Monday I went back over there looking for a space. And the space that I know have, I saw that there was two restaurants and the center was left undone and I asked. And they said, yes, it's vacant. It's available. So I called the owner and when I called him up I said, I'm interested. And they said, tell him who I am and things like that. I said, okay, we'll get back with me. So the Thursday, that was the Monday, the Thursday I went to and I was sitting there about to go home. And two guys walked through the door and that's me. I greeted them. What are you doing? Welcome to Derrick's. How are you doing today? And that wasn't even your place? No, that was his first place. Oh, the first place. Yeah. And I said, fine, come to have something to eat. But they were different to me. There was just something about them that was different. So I went over and I started off with a cold red strap bear. And the guy said, absolutely yes. And started a conversation. And they were just straight in one. They wanted to look at my menu. But I spent a little too much time looking at the menu. Mmm. And then they could do to itself. Oh, we are the owner for the restaurant space over there. So we come to check you out. That's it. Mmm. Well, this is what I have and I'll bring life to that spot over there. We sit down and we start talking and I said, I know about you. You have all those satchits placed at the Coliseum. I said, yeah, I said, oh, you know you. Wow. And so I never used a real term. They, with us, set the deal, got it. Wow. It was dirt inside. The walls were dirt. So I billed that out when you saw, when you see there. Wow. And we are the only full service black owned restaurant in Culver City up until today. Wow. And that area is so busy. So energetic. There's a lot of life in that area. Well, in front of us is the Amazon Studios. Amazon Studios. Studios. Well, the main office is in front and then behind us is our Culver Studio, Amazon Studio. To the left of us is Apple. Then you have HBO. Then you have Sony Studio. A lot of I-tech companies over there. So it's a very, it's popping. You know, and the design of the city, you just have to walk. It's easier to walk than to drive. Wow. But it doesn't sound like you ran into any road bumps. Yes, I ran into a few. Tell me about one. Culver City is a hard city. In what way? You know, in the LA period, putting up a restaurant there's a lot of oops, you got a drum trough because they didn't do the laws there. We're in one. We are building a ramp for the wheelchair and there was an electrical box there and it's my project for six months to get it approved. And finally, I had to make a call and made a call and send somebody over and said, oh, this is not operating now. But don't block it up. So I said, no problem, I'll work around it. Have it. Okay. But apart from that, the city worked with me to get everything as fast as I could. That's good. Wow. That's good. I just, like I said, you know, when you think about just great food, great restaurants, man, over the years that we've been knowing you, man, all the way, you know, tier 10, you know, top of the line. So thank you for always providing that service for us, man. Just like, do you, you're not cooking oxtails down here. Not yet. Special order. Special order. It is open. It is open. It can happen. It can happen. But then also, I want you to elaborate on some of the big, since you've had that restaurant over there, tell me about some of the big catering jobs that you have had. How? We do a lot of catering jobs over there. We do, it's real, and then we do that party twice. So you did it, wait a minute. You say you did Rihanna's party. How do a person get to do Rihanna's party? Yeah, you was recommended. I didn't promise you that. Like, how did you end up even getting that? Making that happen? Honestly, to today, we don't know. We got a call, and they said, we have a client who is interested in using it to the birthday party. Wow. And you didn't even know who the client was. Didn't know who the client was. And then, what is big, is big company that do all music stuff. Where you buy tickets from? The controller. Like ticket masters? Time Warner? No, no, no, no. I don't remember right now. It'll come to me. Okay. So, the guy, his name is Jay Brown. Mm-hmm. And, I took out a driver went over there and talked to me. He said, well, Rihanna wanted to do a party. Oh, he told you then? Yeah, he told me then. And he was like, the location is secret, and he cannot satisfy the one. Really? Yeah. So, if he was in the movie with Brittany Houston. Mm-hmm. Bodyguard? Bodyguard? You see that house where it was? That's where it is. That's where the party was? That's where the party was. Really? Yes. Wow. It's the biggest house I've ever been into. The swimming pool was like a mini ocean. Mm-hmm. Wow. So, we did a party there twice. It's on the internet. You can see us on there. Well, did you have any, once you found out who it was for, did you feel any pressure? You know, I pressure myself to, to achieve the best at all time. So, we had one, two, three, four, four food locations. We had a lot of bars, because all the liquors were donated to her. Mm-hmm. We had so much stuff going on. And, of course, it was our 23rd, birthday. At that time, right? At that time, and they had champagne. Mm-hmm. Very, very expensive champagne. What brand was it? I think it was Boit or something, but very expensive. Okay. And I had waiters carrying the bottles of champagne, 23 bottles. Mm-hmm. A champagne, liquid or anything. Liquid. Uh-huh. After her. And, I mean, all the, who is who, musicians. Of course. It was there. And then her bottle, I heard it cost $10,000. For her bottle of champagne? Her bottle of champagne that she got. And I taste a little bit and I make sure I didn't pee all night. So were you able to speak to her in person? Oh, yes. She's real cool. We did a lot of her shoots for her. Events that she, she does a lot of marketing behind the scenes stuff that people don't know. Okay. And so she would recommend us to come over to do our shooting and stuff. Okay. That's awesome. And you know, we do we used to have 17 locations. We have there, the turkey sausage and the coliseum for all the games. Why did you stop doing that? COVID. COVID. So who are some, who is somebody else that sticks out to you when you cater to them? I'll do one more before we get up. We did the Democratic Convention in LA in Los Angeles. We do well, Tyler Perry when he was okay. When he was just recently. Yeah. So the candidate flew me back out there so we could set up a big party for it. So you just did this recently since COVID. Yeah. Oh yeah. This is last year, right? No, no, like three months ago. Three months, yeah. So how was that event? Great. How did you even get that event? Recommendation again. Recommendation. So you did I mean, if you see the stuff we do, it's all over the internet. Yeah. I did something. I jumped into 110%. Wow. So how did you know that you was doing this for Tyler Perry when you were doing this cater event? I didn't know that up front. You know, a lot of those stuff is not made public until you get there and you meet the host and, you know. Because of the privacy and because of who it is. Yes, yes. Wow. Has there ever been a dish like what would you say would be the most difficult dish you ever created? Yeah. What would be your element? Because I know you do a lot of Caribbean food, but I know you can cook anything. Oh, well, yes. What do we do? We can take anything and bring a Caribbean flavor to it. Mm-hmm. Meaning herbs, spices, flavor, but that's not about food and all that stuff. Right. I think a dish I created was a green mussel. It was a seafood dish with green mussel and lobster that we made and seafood you cannot overcook it. Mm-hmm. You can't either cook it. Mm-hmm. And I think that was very difficult because the crowd was a big crowd. So it went fine. Everything was great and the taste was good and, you know, like the green mussel, the half-shelled green mussels. Right. That's almost like oyster when people think about it. Right. You eat it like that. So it was delicious. Mile not spicy. So everybody was like, what kind of sauce is this? But we just use the shell of the thing to create the sauce and that's where all the flavor is. Mm-hmm. You know. So a lot of things you create your own. Yes. Like I said, I create flavors in my home. Mm-hmm. My jerk season is all fresh herbs and spices that grind up and make. Mm-hmm. We supply the LA Unified School District with the jerk sauce for the school lunches. Okay. You need to do it out here because I know my kids tell me that some of these school lunches is not anything to talk about at all. So you need to talk to Dallas, DISD for them to, you know, put some spice to their food. Yeah. Well, most of the food in the schools are, they come pre-cooked, marred and all the gadgets eat it up in the lunches. Mm-hmm. So they use my sauce to create a flavor for the kids. Right. Wow. Man, thank you so much for coming on the show. Man, how can people get ahold of you if they're trying to reach out? What's the name of the restaurant? Jenga Derrick's again. We just give the location. The address, everything. Do you know that? Wait a minute, let me stop right quick. Let me let you guys in on something. Boss Talk 101 will be coming through periodically. We will be showing you special dishes that he's preparing. It'll be a thing where you'll see it pop up randomly. I'm not going to give you a set time, but be on the lookout for that. Jenga Derrick's Boss Talk 101, we're going to be in that kitchen, man. It's going down, man. Now, let's go to And how can people order? How can people order? Okay, so we are in 32, 30, so it's a ghost kitchen. So we are all over Rub-up, UberEat, DoorDash. We're going to do a special meal prep. So if you are too busy, don't want to cook. You can call in and order your food. And we'll prep the food. We have packages that we're going to send out. So you can choose a package you want to have. So you can have you can come to Farmer's Ranch and you can place the order right there. The chaos right there. And we're going to have a system called Executering. So you could call us up, Executering. We take the order and they'll deliver the food to you. Okay. So I'm catering. I'll give out a new number we're going to use over there. Okay. I'm going to order personally in an order. An order. Okay. That's all. Thank you so much, man, for coming on the show, man. We love you for sure. We will be doing this periodically in the kitchen with Jango Derrick's, man. You guys make sure you get in touch with Jango Derrick's, whether you in Culver City in California, LA, whether you in Addison Slash Farmer's Branch. Man, if you go Jango Derrick's, number two or Jango Derrick's, will they see this location here in Dallas? Yeah, it's going to have Dallas, your first Dallas and it pops up. Okay, cool. So if you all want, have any questions about anything at all, go ahead and comment below and we'll get them to answer anything you have. Anything. And just remembering now, our food is fresh and healthy. You stay healthy, healthy. Man, hey, it's been another great segment of Boss Talk 101 What a Boss is Talk. And we out.