 This is Startup Storefront. One in three restaurants won't survive their first year. Profit margins are razor-thin, staff turnover is high, and there's a lot of competition. As David Kuo, our guest today and self-titled head fatty will explain, discovering product market fit is a painful process of personal sacrifice. His first restaurant specialized in California-inspired cuisine, and as much as he wanted it to work, it just didn't get the support he wanted. So he doubled down, put it all in the line and reopened the restaurant as Little Fatty, a Taiwanese soul food restaurant. New cuisine, new name, and new processes. The restaurant exploded in popularity. The number one on Uber Eats for the LA area, and if you don't make a reservation beforehand, good luck getting in. But now, David is taking this concept to the next level by opening Fatty Mart and Hunto's Market. There were food, culture, and community intersect to provide convenience without compromise. In this episode, we discussed with David what it was like working for a Michelin-star restaurant in New York City, why he slept above the walk-in fridge at his restaurant, and how he is partnering with local growers to make the best food possible. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Chief Fatty, David Kuo. Thanks for coming on. People don't know. What do you do? What's your gym? Yeah, so my wife and I own Little Fatty Accomplice Bar. We're about to open Fatty Mart and a project with you. That's right. In downtown and another project right next to all our other restaurants. What got you into the culinary food space? What was the thing where you're always interested as a kid or what was the, you were just hungry, you were a big Fatty? Growing up a food like any other family. Where did you grow up? I grew up in West Covina. My parents are from Taiwan, specifically Taizong, and they came here in 1967. And so I was born in 1978. What brought them here? Luckily, you know, it was kind of a complicated story, but like in the 60s, 70s, they struck down like the Chinese Exclude, whatever, act. And they allowed Asian people to come in. So there's a big influx in the 60s and 70s of immigrants coming in. My dad got in for chemical engineering at UCLA. And so he came first. And then two years later, my mom and brother came. That's pretty amazing. Hence the I Love Taiwan hat here. For people wondering the I Love Taiwan hat on the YouTube channel, you can see it. OK, and then at what point do you start finding like an interest? So your dad's an engineer, right? And so I don't, OK, so what happened? So growing up, food was always the focal point. Weddings, birthdays, holidays, that kind of thing. I had three older brothers, so it was four siblings. You're the youngest of four? I'm the youngest of four. You're the baby? I'm the baby. So my grandma and my mom would be cooking traditional stuff. We grew, I mean it was embarrassing growing up, but they grew like garlic chives and like, you know, the yam leaves. And people would come over and be like, what are these things that smell like the basketball roll into the garlic chives? And you'd be like embarrassed. But now looking back, I was actually really lucky growing up with like a little farm in the back. Yeah, that's amazing. My mom would tell me to go cut some green onions and stuff like that. So that was pretty lucky. So food was always pretty integral. With three older brothers, my oldest brother was like 12 years older, so you would have to eat fast. So you always got left out. Yeah, so then I started learning to eat fast, and that's how I became bigger. And they called me Xiaopang, which means little fatter. When you say bigger, you mean? Like taller and fatter, yes. Taller and fatter. So Xiaopang means little fatty. OK, Xiaopang. That was my nickname growing up, and so it kind of carried over. And we thought it'd be a good name for the restaurant. But wait, wait, so what about your culinary? So at some point your. Yeah, so we skipped the whole chapter there. So I went to UCLA like my father. Two of my brothers went to UCLA, so three of us. I heard they have a great culinary program. No, they do actually have some good dorm food back in the day, but I don't know about now. Yeah, so even in college. What did you study? I studied economics and barely got not kicked out. I went to school maybe. Oh, I shouldn't say this to me. I went to school maybe 100 times and still graduated. Like physically, I don't know. Don't watch UCLA. You can't turn it back, right? Wow, OK. That's a first. So I switched majors to political science. In the middle at some point. And so even at the dorms, we would make our own concoctions out of like a salad bar or burger bar or whatever it is. But one of the most memorable things is once we moved out of the dorms, we used to have barbecues. I guess our house was like the house that everyone congregated at because it was like a four bedroom with your college house. Yeah, patio. I mean, we rented it. We used to have like Iron Chef was the big deal back then. So we'd have Iron Chef competitions and stuff like that. So food's always been part of it. We always drove to SGV or, you know, where the good food was, where we heard good food was. So you never were in culinary school, though. This is just a hobby. So after college, I did some property management and one of the properties had a restaurant. And so I started dabbling after work and then finally got serious with the cooking school and past. Were your parents on you at all? About? After three older siblings, both, you know, three older sons, they kind of just like, oh. Let him do everything. I hope he turns out all right. OK. That's fair. So you weren't getting pressure, the typical, let's call it Asian parent pressure. Yeah, yeah, I mean, of course, there's pressure to be a doctor and lawyer, but I knew I could never work in office. So went to cooking school, worked at, you know, some restaurants out here, but then got serious after cooking school. I worked at a three Michelin star place in York and it's called John George. It was at the Trump Tower, still there. What kind of food was that? It's like, so he's pretty famous. He's like 50 restaurants around the world, couple Michelin stars, but he's famous because his mentor sent him to Thailand in like the 70s. So it was like him cooking French food but using Thai ingredients. So he was like the OG fusion guy, but it wasn't really fusion. If you eat his food, you'll taste the complexity of like replacing butter with other flavorful things. For people that don't know, what is it actually like working under a person that you were like a Michelin star famous, let's call it a well-known or a savant? Yeah, so I worked in maybe two or three Michelin star restaurants. It's always a lot of pressure, but that's why I went to New York. Some people say it's like really hard or whatever, but if you really want to see what the best is or what it's like to have three Michelin stars, then you go work for one and just see what it takes. Obviously after NOMA, it's not a right system, but to be part of something that can attain those three stars is pretty amazing. What was like a day in the life? When I first started, it was a real wake up lesson that I thought I could cook, but you couldn't. But by the end, I could work every station on a Friday and help everybody at the same time. That's what the goal of a good line cook is. And it took me about three or six months to figure that out. To figure that out. Yeah, I think after the first or second month, I got tired of yelling out, so I started even on my off time. As soon as I walked out the door, I started writing down all the things I could do to get faster, better, how to get ahead because you always didn't have enough time. Did everybody do that, or was that just something you did? I didn't worry about everybody else. Wow. I didn't want to get yelled at. I always wonder, obviously from, I've never been in the kitchen of that caliber, but at least when you're watching some movies sometimes, it's like everyone has a notebook of some kind and it's either used for ingredients or different things that they can improve upon. But I always wonder, is that unique to that individual or is that unique to the culture? Yeah, I didn't really ask other people how they did it. I just had a book and usually it's recipes in the front, things that you need to prep list in the middle and other things way in the back, things that you learned or whatever, like glossary. And so you learned you really couldn't cook at all? Yeah, that's fascinating. But through him, actually he was probably the most influential chef. The person that I went to New York with, they were working at per se. And if you look at the food versus the two different styles, like one's traditional French, one's French Thai, and then there was less use of butter, cream, I think that's just like cheating. And so I got introduced to all these great ingredients that were Asian back then before the internet could really help you. And so we actually got hands on real star anise, like green star anise, like real fresh butter, fresh chestnuts and like crazy finger chilies and all that stuff. And then at some point, you're done with your time with this chef. And then do you decide to leave? Like what is leaving that way? Yeah, I was gonna stay but my dad got cancer and so I had to come back and take care of him. Okay, so he came back to California. It was pretty much terminal cancer, so it was like the last, he was like, I need to come home because I'm gonna die like within a year. Jesus. And so all my other brothers had legitimate jobs, so I was tasked with the honor of taking care of him until the end. Yeah. Wow. So that was a little heavy. Did you cook for him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess. What he could eat? Yeah. Wow. So that's what brought you back here? Yes. And then what happened? After that, did some property, I mean, did some property management always helped other people in their kitchens? I mean, this is a long time ago, like when Kraft opened, we helped out there or when Nancy Silverton opened a burger shop, helped out, opened Bestia and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, just volunteering, not like managing. And then at some point, you go, okay, I have the chops or the intellect or- No, I think always like, I knew I wasn't gonna be a line cook, I just wanted to open a restaurant. Okay. And I thought I could do it. And boy, was I in for a lesson. So what was the thing that you did first? First, Was it convincing your wife? Yeah, convincing my, luckily my wife had a stable tech job. Okay. And I had a little money saved up. We flipped the house in the Bay Area. I never, because my friend had a whole system and my like best friend from college. So like we went up there once, didn't even see the house. We just knew the areas. He showed us the areas and we had to pull the trigger real fast. Okay. Made some money and use that to find a place. And so then you decided to start, is this the one in Marvista that's the first place? No, actually School Hard Knocks is like, we signed a lease like in 2010. 22, that's very far. Cause I remember, cause then they didn't start construction until like December, 2012. And so I spent money on that thing. And then, you know, by the end it was just like taking too long. So I just walked away. You walked away? Yeah, it was a big learning lesson. So did you lose all your money basically? No, no, a big chunk. Okay. So we had a little bit left Luckily it was patient. She's like, you know, this is your dream. You better go chase it or whatever. That is a patient life. And so like a year later, we signed a lease for the Marvista space. You have no kids at this time, right? No. And then it took another year to build it cause I didn't know what I was doing. It was only like a thousand feet or existing kitchen. As you get closer to, let's call it like an opening day. What are some of the things that you remember that you wish you kind of, like you reflect on it today. And you're like, wow, if I had known, you know, like one or two things about opening. It was clearly not the right concept. And I was living in a fantasy and it was never going to be successful. It was like 16, 18 seats, a rotisserie shop with some California cuisine. Okay. A little bit confusing. So it wasn't high volume enough. It wasn't fancy enough. And I'll never have the staff or the firepower of the people that are doing the same thing. I think the hardest part about the restaurant business is probably the staffing and the people I would imagine. Is that right? Yeah. So that was the very beginning. Okay. And so opening day happens. Oh, it's crazy. The GM who was a seasoned veteran from New York and he, you know, ran some high profile places in New York. You could tell when people get nervous, they turn like the deer in headlights, they get a pale. And so he right like 15 minutes, like I kept saying on your eye, you know, we got this, it's only 16 seats. And then he up and left, like right before we opened. So we didn't even have a manager. Yeah. So we had like one waiter, me, one cook, dishwasher. Why did he leave? Cause he got scared. Oh my God. It was 16 seats. And he got scared of 16 seats. Yeah, he got scared. All right. So then you have this opening, it went well. And then what did you realize you were missing and you had to grow into do other things? No, I mean, we just kept making it work. It actually got better and better. And like we did brunch better as in like from zero to like $1,000 is better. Yeah. We got better and better. But the idea was always to expand and get a bar. So luckily, you know, I built relations with the landlord. He's they're really nice. They're actually the landlord of all our, you know, the market that we're opening and then the next concept we're opening next to the market. So they gave us the right to do it. So as soon as I opened, I started the CUP process. But you know how long that takes back then. So that was like, you know, year, year to get it, year to build it, whatever. So that's, so two years later, you know, we were doing this thing. It was okay. It was like not losing money, not making money. And then, but I was spending money for the construction. So, you know, how that goes. Then once it opened, my wife had our second child the day after. And so, so then we had to hire a chef and like, you know, we did the new California thing, doubled down cause we got cocktails. And you think, oh my God, I own a bar. I'm going to be so rich, but you actually lose more money if you don't know what you're doing. And so like, so yeah, if you don't manage it right. Yeah, you learn, you live and learn. So after three months, you know, you know, I was at home and taking care, you know, my wife and my family, she said that I can go back to work. And so we decided to pivot and just try. The runway was closing. And so we thought, well, if it's going to close, let's just cook the food that we always wanted to, which is like, you know, Taiwanese Chinese food. Oh wow. So you do like a hard pivot. I was like, this is it, man. I got six months. And, you know, cause you got to spend money to pivot. Right. We got new equipment, we got to walk and, you know, new PR, new dishes, a lot of stuff. New name, same name. Yeah, new name. Okay. So all that, we had to pivot. Okay. And luckily, since then, every month has been going up and up. So it was like well received. Yeah. Ever since then. It was the right move. Yeah. And so that was my school of hard knocks for the next two years too. I think I finally graduated the school of hard knocks and I'll get you there. So I think. In the next half hour guys. I think. The way I interpret this is like, as an entrepreneur, you struggled for a long time, effectively finding like your product market fit, let's call it. And it's interesting that once people see the end, like once they know, oh my God, I have a year left, six months left, three months left. It forces the brain. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm always thinking. I don't know about other people. You had the signals there. It's like, I have an endless mind that just keeps thinking how to get better. I think it was a Japanese term called kaizen for it or something. Kaizen, yeah. And constantly improving is what that means. So I realized that my ego got in the way. Like I worked at these three mission stars. I'm going to charge $30 for this and I'm not going to sell this. Like I'm not going to give you ketchup or whatever. But then you realize that didn't make us money and it's very painful. So why not give them the orange chicken? Okay. But then you can do chef-y stuff. Like we spend a lot of time on our Dandan, right? Our Dandan has like 57 ingredients. We make our own pasta at a sudden, like a Western style pasta, Malfa Dean. So we pick and choose, you know, what's going to set us apart and give the people what they also want. They want dumplings. They want fried rice. Reduce the friction. Yeah. Interesting. So in entrepreneurial perspective, like give people a sense of how long you're working. Like what are the days like? Maybe at the beginning. In the very beginning it was very terrible. I used to sleep above the walk-in. Like one time I forgot I had 1,000 sandwiches to make before 6 a.m. And so, you know, at 12 I had to go grab someone who's already drinking and like help me make sandwiches. Yeah. It was really painful at the beginning, but now we have a staff of like 60 that's going to be like 150. Yeah. And like two months, yeah. Let's talk about your Fatty Mart. And so what was the sort of the signals from the market that this concept could work? So, you know, because of the humble success of Little Fatty, I always looked. Restaurant, cocktail bar. I mean, what's the next thing? How do I make revenue outside the walls? Or what's the next, how to keep it going? And how to stay ahead of like trends and you know, what's the next step? Obviously restaurants are very burdensome. I love cooking food. Originally, we wanted to, we looked into CPGs. We talked to some, you know, co-packers and like, you know, distributors and like it just seems so daunting. The minimums, the shelf life, the startup cost. And so I said, you know what? Maybe a better idea is just to make like an Asian 7-Eleven but my way. So that's where Fatty Mart came by. I think after having kids and you know, seeing how hard it is to run a restaurant, I didn't want to open more restaurants, not yet. But I thought this avenue of prepared foods, super authentic, easily available at the 10 to 20 range that you can go and pick up stuff for your family, for your kids and for tomorrow. And I think that's where Fatty Mart came out of, yeah. And when's it opening? It should open in March, but don't hold me to it. Yeah, it's actually legally, legally. You're able to open to it. We're able to open, but right now we're just practicing, hiring, teaching and getting everything right because it's taken so long and it's like our baby. So we want to get everything right before we open. Not to promise everything's gonna be right, but as much as we can. You do a million things in a day I've learned. And so when it comes to giving people a window into like the things you're working on, whether it's food prep, whether it's building these relationships with different people that you can partner with, what is a day in the life like? Yeah, so it's crazy. You have to wear so many hats and people say that, but like you can't just wear the hat. You have to be good at that hat. Otherwise you'll be buying multiple hats. You might as well just bought the Louis Vuitton hat and level up. So like yesterday we finally nailed down after like the eighth person are branding. So that's really, really exciting. Like we didn't settle like these weren't good or I mean not to say they weren't good, but it just wasn't representative of us. And so we finally found a person that really, really gets it. And I think that's what's happening now is like all my experience of failing networking. Like I used to like go meet brokers or random people and I'm always down to meet someone once, but like if you don't get it then I'm not gonna be meeting you again. Like if you're gonna reach out, great. I'll mentor you or whatever. You know, like I kind of allow a lot, some time during the week to help other people out up and coming people. Cause it also helps me keep sharp and give back. So you started the commissary, you're at this, you're there. You know, you got the, like we have a whiskey you're working on that we have in front of us here. Yeah, externally we have so many people helping us and like you got to manage that and like it changes, you know, new social media or whatever new branding, different purveyors onboarding new people, how to train them. It's not even built yet. You got to train them. We're going through a lot right now. I think nationally, California, some of the highest labor rates as it relates to minimum wage is a lot higher. They're trying to get, they're trying to get it even higher to be more of a livable wage as they call it. And I think COVID proved this too, but I mean, it just feels like they're making it impossible for restaurants to exist. And there needs to be like a reframing, right? And so it forces you to get sharper but that's just like a bell curve. Like most people won't. And then it forces the discussion around like what would you do different? Or you've seen him saying like as you think about just improving your business and growing your, let's call it empire, what are the things that you view as real problems going against you? I mean, how long is this show? Well, I mean, it's great that you bring this up because, you know, I spend a lot of time thinking about these things, not just like laws, but it's actually people. How do I take care of the workers that, you know, it's not easy working in the kitchen. You know, you get burned, it's long hours, you don't get to spend time, you don't get to watch Super Bowls, you don't get to spend Christmas with your family. How do I reward them, pay them as much, build a system where it's benefiting employees, the earth, the community, the investor, the customer, and the founder? So we kind of came up with a system in my own mind. So, you know, we're opening Fatty Mart, that's gonna open in March, but you know, the project in the future is Hoontos. Hoontos is gonna be employee-owned philanthropic, the next iteration version of Fatty Mart, but more Latin-focused for my employees. And so that's your way of addressing that. That's the way to ensure that I'm taking care of my people, that works so hard for me, but also ensures that we can keep opening things because everyone gets a share of that. You know, it's like 50-50. Like an ownership. Yeah. And so, you know, employees get generational wealth and we get to open more things and do more fun things. I think what's missing is like, I'm not all about the money. It's about changing the way people eat, doing it with the people that you like to be around and changing the way people interact with food and sharing culture and community, I think. That's a dark time in America. And in LA, if I can open a market and people come and learn about, you know, different cuisines and different cultures and why certain things, I could move the needle a little bit through food. When it comes to this model, have you seen it done before? Is there anybody else doing this employee-only or this employee-only? Yeah, so the funny thing is I was on my equipment purveyor and he was crying that, you know, this market's taking too long, that we're paying storage fees and that we're losing money and I said... Like he's losing money? Yeah, so I said, what do you care? You don't own the company. He goes, oh wait, no, we're an employee-owned company. It's an ESOP. So we all have shares in this, so I am losing money. So that got me thinking. That's an interesting point of view. So it's always great to talk to people. I always try to talk to people and learn new things and that got my mind going. I have some mentors out there that I talk to. Maybe it's you, maybe it's my other friend that give us advice and it makes me think, we're trying to build something that's sustainable, like different and that's never been done before. That actually makes sense. I always try to think, what happened to common sense? Like, take care of your employees, they'll take care of you. Okay, let's do it. So how do you do that? So I give them this whole revenue stream or this whole concept, right? So who does this is gonna be the first one? Yes. People don't know, David and I are collaborating on a project as we're purchasing a building in the Chinatown area and we're in the design process of making this thing a pretty epic market slash restaurant, outdoor area, greenhouse, cool vibe. It's gonna be a lot of fun. So someone just came up with a new term, I think it's called Groscherant or something like that. Groscherant. But I don't wanna use it. Okay. So that's like an Italy. An Italy like a Groscherant? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Do you feel nervous about this concept? No, I'm actually really, really excited. We talked about it all the time. There's so many, I mean, I don't wanna give everything. Are we supposed to give everything away? No, never. Never. So I mean, in 20 months or whatever, 12 months, I hope to bring it to market. And it's in Chinatown, Lincoln Heights. We're gonna provide services. We're gonna give back to the community. There's gonna be education. It's gonna be a place where you can hang out, bring your dog, drink a coffee, eat a croissant, get some awesome grilled meats and tacos and seafood. I can't wait. What other prepared foods are you working on? For Fatty Mart, or well, Fatty Mart will be inside Hunto's too. We're working on, you know, our Korean line's called K-Fatty. We have Fatty Drip, which is coffee. Our own roasted coffee. Fatty Drip. I thought you were gonna say it's like gold chains. So we have Fatty Slice. Not everything's fatty. There's Amma, which means like grandma in Taiwanese. And so it's like simple, homey, you know, Asian stir-fried things to eat with your main dish. We're gonna have a carne serrita aspect with Korean American and Latin. Try to get all the best accoutrements, side dishes, panchan, salsas. The tortillas are from the last two years of KCRW Tortilla Championship. La Prezacita and Mejarado. We're trying to curate things, but I don't like that word, but also it's a lot of us making things. We do a lot of research. We put a lot of love. And this is what I love about it is like, I'm learning to cook these other cuisines and why they cook these things and how. And trying to paint homage and try to bring it to light on the west side because I think it's missing on that side of town. When you think about the hat that you wear, do you feel like it's a political statement in any capacity given today's situation? Yeah, I mean, I think they... It feels like China will invade any day now? Yeah, so someone said Taiwan's the most dangerous place in the world. It is because basically, you know, for all the political reasons, but also they make all the chips. Microchips. Yeah, microchips. And so it's a little, it's going to be a fight over it. You know, I was going to do a Taiwanese documentary series and that got me thinking and talking to people and like, what is Taiwan, what is Taiwan, what is Taiwanese people known for and you know, what's the culture? And it's kind of crazy is like we ride this line where even when you compliment something, you don't compliment it because we're so used to like living on this fine line of not being out there too much to get attention from China. But you still have to like learn to live your life and find a balance. And like, I mean, we're the best chip maker, but you can't go around saying that because we're the best Chinese chip maker, I guess, right? So it's kind of like weird if you say the old generation, I guess, I don't know about now is like, oh, what's the traits? We work hard. We don't talk about bragging about stuff and like, you know, we love food and family and doing work. Are you worried? Worried for Taiwan? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, after Ukraine, I think everyone's worried about the whole world. I mean, not just Taiwan. There's, you know, everywhere you look, it's crazy. Gasoline, global warming, no water, earthquakes. Who's leading us? I mean, come on, there's so much. I wanted to touch on this. So during COVID, obviously, there's so many restaurants closed down, but you guys were like a shining example. And I think you attribute that to probably the to-go, the Uber Eats that really took off for you guys. Can you just touch on that? Yeah, so I think what I learned through the school of hard knocks of restaurants is you can't just be what you were in the past. It's like every day you're improving, every day you're seeing what's going on because people's tastes change, or like maybe you mispriced something, or maybe you missed the mark on something. And so immediately when I heard, I was supposed to go to Asia, so I kind of knew what was going on. I actually got really sick. I think I had COVID. Early, patient zero. Like I gave it to all of Spain because I went to Barcelona. For you. San Sebastian, but I literally, for eight days, was walking around with Robotus in my hand. And so I knew something was coming and I knew it wasn't gonna be short. Like two weeks, I'm like, nah, man. They're not gonna figure this out. So immediately it happened. We closed for like a week or a day and that was really scary because your bills keep coming, but your income doesn't keep coming. And so luckily we got back open. I knew we had to pivot because we were on a ticket system. And so like every station had tickets, the old school way, like in the Bayer, his nightmare is like that, that DD. Great show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So everyone had one of those. So then we invested money in technology and figured out a way to streamline and automate ordering. So we taught our customer, you can't walk up, you can't call, and you have to use our online platform, whether it be ours or Uber, only because how long would it take you to take a phone order? Right, right. And then how long, like everyone has a tablet. So all these tablets are beeping, which one do I do first? And then like, what if I mess up? Right. Right. So the human error part was, yeah. But now every station has a computer, they know what to make. And then like it's triple checked from like two chefs and two baggers before your food goes out. Okay. So it's kind of crazy. So right now we're like number one on Uber on a Friday. Number one on Uber Eats in LA. Uber Eats Postmates. And Postmates. Yeah, well, they're the team. So we have a partnership with them, like I just texted them today, like what are we doing? We're rolling out like a whole plan. I mean, what are we doing? Cause my sales were down. So then I'm like, what promotion should we do? You know, the algorithm, we always take into account how to throttle like Chinese New Year. We set up a whole system cause on Christmas, on Christmas we got destroyed. Sorry about that guys. But we figured it out, like putting ticket times, like only so many tickets per 15 minutes and stuff like that and streamlining things. But, you know, we do 1500 items on a Friday. And so that's in five hours. So that's like five or six fulfilling. It could be a drink, it could be rice, but it could be compound chicken. So it's crazy if you just think about it. Five items, five items per minute we fulfill. Do you ever have a desire to go back and to find dining? No, actually it's kind of funny that it's all coming to light now, but ever since I've had kids, anytime me, my wife or friends, or friends get together, it's always ethnic food. So it's like stuff you can't cook at home, stuff that you can't get, what's authentic. And so we go seek it out. So it's usually Kriya town or, you know, SGV or OC or, you know, little India. That's interesting. For me, that's like any, any things I can't cook to save my life. Anything else you want to rant about? Oh yeah, so we have a farm. Merge your farm. It's called Little City Farms LA. It's in midtown. So it's a test program. Like we said, you know, we're getting an ESG made for us or compiled a report for us. So it makes sure that everything we do falls in line of our goals, which is always, you know, people, planet, you know, food. And so we came up with this idea during the pandemic. I have a farmer friend. So it was a test case of like, let's plant an urban farm. This is like 15,000 feet in mid city. It's a whole lot. It's really cool. We went there. Half event space, half event space, half farm, but it's a, event space is awesome because we can start talking. This is the pilot. And we have two more spaces lined up. I ordered two Rivians, five canoes. If they ever get here, we'll be using them, but the idea- Canoes, what's a canoe? It's an awesome modern day delivery truck. That's electric, a little lightweight. That's, you know, more for us than moving pallets. So the idea is like, let's get this one up and running and we maybe get 5%. And now all the produce from our Fatty Mart is going to be coming from the farmer's market. We talk to them and say like, anything you're going to throw away or you can't sell or you don't want to take home, we'll buy it. And so coupled with that and our staples, you know, people want onions and garlic and our farms, I want to go from like, you know, three, five, 10% the first year. And then we open two more and maybe it was 15, 20% and then we keep doing it until we, you know, get as close as to 100 and prove to people. 100 farms? No, 100% for the farms. Got it. Yeah. So the idea too is like- How do you do that? The warehousing of farms or you're doing vertical stands? Yeah, so the next, the idea is like, you know, we already designed Hoontos, but the next Hoontos or Fatty Mart, really want to take over like a huge public space that needs to be repurposed like a Sears or whatever. But we can't buy that, I guess. That's, it's already bought. Yeah, so like a bigger space and do a vertical farm. We have some context that, you know, say that they can build in a 40,000 square foot space, you can build 400 acres of vertical farm. Not the whole thing, but you know, if you have that space, you can grow 400 acres vertically. And now you're in the farming business. Yeah, so you're developing on the vertical. You have to. So you got the construction, you got the tenant. Yeah. Right? So it's all seamless. The concept. Yeah. All right, what else are people to know? Anything else you want to, you want to bomb? You want to drop? Yeah, so at the market we're really, I hate the word curating, but you know, we're picking stuff that I wouldn't want to eat. You know, it's awesome. We get the tour. I mean, we were going to sell Sior bread. We got the tour of their facility. It's really amazing. I heard they had like a thousand versions of flour. Yeah, so he's really into it. He's like in the international bread bakers guild. There's only like 12 of them. He has a starter from like the 1200s. He has his own herb garden. He knows his own flour. He has a pita making factory that's like not even on yet. So he wants to take over the world of Israeli pita using nice, organic, freshly milled flour. This is the great thing is like, we get to help tell his story about his passion for bread. And he made us a pizza. It was really, really amazing. He made this sweet corn brioche thing that was not even on the menu yet. So he's super talented and he's gonna be giving classes and maybe we get some of the experimental stuff. Yeah, so at the market we're gonna feature a lot of great producers that we feel like that should be shared with the world. What else, what else? So you got this amazing bread. Yeah, and so, you know, we're doing daring foods. We're doing Scout. I remember that. I didn't know that we're actually helping the planet by eating canned tin fish, you know? So wait, you're working with Scout also? Yeah. All the formal podcast guests? Yeah, yeah, who's who you got? We're the good one, Scout's a good one. Orbo is great. We're the fake cheese. But we're also supporting a lot of up and coming young people trying to, you know, they don't have to start storefronts. They can start selling it in our storefront. Yeah. There's gonna be a lot of great food, but also a lot of recipes from our own. So like all the Latin foods gonna be from our staff. So it's super authentic with a little twist. Korean food with all the panchon, all the stews. I think trying to share that experience of if you went to your Vietnamese friend's house, so you got the whole spread. Not just far, you know, by me. Trying to share that culture. I love it. David, what a legend. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Little Fatty, Fatty Marvista. Coming soon to Chinatown. Thanks for watching. Check us out in the Fattyverse. It's Little Fatty LA and Accomplice Bar. Fatty Mart. Chef David Ko. And soon, hoon toast. That's what's up. Thank you. If you made it this far, I bet you loved the episode. So you should join our YouTube channel membership for only $2.99 a month. This gets you access to one, the whole on a bridge conversation. Two, you get the episodes on Monday, one day earlier. Three, you get two additional entries to our giveaways. Check out our Instagram to see what we've given away. And four, you get access to seasons one through three. That's over 100 episodes of wisdom and life-changing advice. What are you waiting for? Join.