 My first job was a cooking job and not because I went out looking for it's just because the restaurant was next door to me And the guy was drunk and he was like hey come work for me. I'm just like, okay, and that's what happened I'm Charlie Pierre. I am the chef and owner of free tie at the St. Rock market It's a Haitian restaurant with a little bit of a Creole twist. This is a Charlie twist. You can just taste it I Feel like I'm a little bit of a chef and an artist at the same time when I'm cooking I take strokes of food just like an artist would with their painting There's so much of a new market out there and we're just trying to reach everybody New Orleans is like such a creative and beautiful place And I think a lot of it has to do with Haiti's influence If we look throughout the history of New Orleans, we look at shotguns gumbo second lines voodoo Even bounce music though, you know the drum rhythm all these influences are Haitian and so many people don't even know that I'm here to kind of bridge that gap. I Feel like especially me being a transplant. It's only right that I not just live here But live here and give back to the community I make sure that I'm not just hiring Transplant who are just coming in and out all my employees and everybody who's around me as part of the community I want you to understand that you know, this job is meaningful. We can grow and have opportunity to grow people I join inspiration from everything from New Orleans my mom I find inspiration in Haiti My employees, you know seeing them happy like I was taking a shower and I was just like I can't believe like I'm the reason why these people get to cash a check because we have free time That's like this community that we're building and that's amazing