Prosperity Market’s Black Business Scavenger Hunt Preview

Pablo Chacon, Nancy Cruz, Carmen Dianne, Kara Still, Vanessa Punche (LA Grind), Peace Love Reedburg (Grilled Fraiche), Darryl Wash (Band of Vices).

Pablo Chacon 0:05 A month long event is inspiring Angelenos to visit and shop local black owned businesses and it’s all in honor of Black Business Month. Nancy Cruz 0:12 Yeah, we have a lot of folks here with some yummy food. We’re gonna start with Carmen Diane and Kara Still, you guys are the co-founders of Prosperity Market, Black Business scavenger hunt. Very exciting. Why start this and what’s it all about? Carmen Dianne 0:27 So the scavenger hunt is a month long scavenger hunt and we’re highlighting over 50 black owned businesses here in LA. So we put out clues on our website that leads to each business. We also have interactive treasure map and word bank to guide you on your search. Pablo Chacon 0:41 What about this Prosperity Market? Explain that. Kara Still 0:43 So Prosperity Market is a mobile farmers market that supports black farmers, food producers and chefs. so we’re building our mobile trailer so that we can be a farmers market on wheels and in the meantime, we pop up all over LA monthly so that we can create food access and expand the reach of our vendors. And our grand finale market for blank Business Month is going to be on August 27 at the Obama Sports Complex Nancy Cruz 1:06 All right. Well, let’s get to work here brew iced tea lemonade I’m very happy about this. This is Vanessa Punche, she is the owner of LA Grind Coffee and Tea Bar. You’re in the mid city area? All right, welcome. Good to see you. I think she’s already said I can have all these muffins. So it’s good. Thank you. So tell us about your place. Vanessa Punche 1:26 So I am a mobile and I have a brick and mortar. So we just celebrated our one year anniversary in our space this past weekend. Again, in mid city, we can be found also online. I also have a coffee truck that I use for catering. So Nancy Cruz 1:46 Yeah, what do you think makes some good coffee? I’m a coffee addict! Vanessa Punche 1:49 Oh, well, I’m a coffee snob. Yeah, you gotta come by. Nancy Cruz 1:52 Okay! Vanessa Punche 1:53 Actually, I’ll probably give you a bag okay, but um, what makes a great coffee? I think my coffee makes a great coffee. It’s from Cameroon. It’s strong, rich, bold. Flavorful, but not acidic. If you’re a coffee snob or a coffee enthusiast, you know how important that is? Nancy Cruz 2:12 Yes, for sure. Well, and you’re going to be doing the scavenger hunt. Vanessa Punche 2:15 Oh, yes. I’m so excited. I’m very excited that they even included me. This is the second year. So yeah, it brings about awareness to small black businesses and yeah, opens up opens us up to the community and gets our reach out even further. Nancy Cruz 2:31 Okay, Punche . Thank you. Thank you. Pablo Chacon 2:33 All right. With me here is Peace Love Reedburg. He is the owner of Grilled Fraiche. Tell us about your restaurant locations. And why you feel it’s important to participate in this. Peace Love Reedburg 2:43 It’s a beautiful thing to grow up in a neighborhood and bring quality food. Grilled Fraiche is a eclectic fusion concept. We have three locations one in South Central, one in Hyde Park and we have one in Long Beach and we’re working on our newest location at the SoFi stadium but yeah, it’s just it’s very important quality food is what we’re about and we didn’t see the communities where we you know, we grew up at Pablo Chacon 3:05 talk about this quality food. This is some interesting looking dishes here. Peace Love Reedburg 3:09 So this one right here is our vegan crab cake bowl, in which we have Belizean stew to black beans, red kidney beans, coconut and veggies. Vegan crab cake. That we make in house and vegetables where you have zucchini, squash, red bell peppers and in every bowl we put a fried plantain on it. Pablo Chacon 3:26 Right and that’s here. Peace Love Reedburg 3:27 This is our grilled salmon with garlic noodles with a plantain and our famous sauce which is house sauce which is a honey Chipotle spice like garlic blend. And down here in front. That’s our newest sandwich. Grilled Panini sandwich was like a chicken with plantain inside as well with some steak fries with occasion and season on top. And then we have a grilled chicken salad with our vegan dream sauce which is a plant based sauce over a grilled chicken we use halal meat with the veggies and a plantain. Then, we have a oxtail bowl one of our famous oxtail bowls, was one of our number one sellers. Oxtails with the same beans, Caribbean beans are the Belizean stew, to plantain, veggies. And then we have the salad, which is the mixed greens, veggies and we have a bleep stew. This is where we have everyone coming for when they first come to the restaurant to taste if they’ve never been there before, or they come with their guests. We’ll go ahead let them taste it for the first time. Pablo Chacon 4:28 can certainly be served at a Rams and chargers game. Peace Love Reedburg 4:31 Yes, it is. Thank you very much. I Pablo Chacon 4:33 look forward to that. Peace Love Reedburg 4:34 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Nancy Cruz 4:36 fine. And then our next guest is Darrell Walsh. Good to see you. He is the owner and CEO of Band of Vices an Art Gallery in the West Adams district. How are you guys going to be participating? Darryl Wash 4:46 Well, this is our second year we’re honored to be a part of it. We’re a location where people can come and earn points as part of the scavenger hunt. We’re also going to be doing an activation with Prosperity Market on the 20th which is very exciting. So bring some of the local businesses in the community. Hopefully we can get our friends over here to bring some food. So that Nancy Cruz 5:06 Yeah, exactly. Darryl Wash 5:07 So we’re looking forward to that. And you know, we’re just we think it’s really important thing. Yeah. Nancy Cruz 5:12 And the art gallery is basically where the public it’s open to the public to purchase art? Darryl Wash 5:17 It absolutely is but you don’t have to purchase we intentionally put the gallery in communities that look like us so that people could see and experience. And we have many people come through in fact, my partner and I often just drag people off the street. They see the fine art they see the high walls and the bright ceilings and they think oh well no we said no, no, this is for you. Please come and experience and we do sell art. So anybody who does want to purchase art, we’re happy to sell to them. But we have people come from all over the city to attend our events and purchase and they kind of subsidize when people come from other communities and buy the art and that allows us to stay in business. Nancy Cruz 5:54 and art is important. Darryl Wash 5:56 Absolutely. Nancy Cruz 5:57 Thanks for being here. Darryl Wash 5:58 Thank you. Pablo Chacon 5:59 So basically when you get there and get yourself a good cup of coffee, peruse around check out art, build up an appetite and then have a good lunch. Prosperity market Black Business scavenger hunt is happening right now through August 27 more information go to their website. You can also follow them on Instagram.