Growth & Grace

Announcer 0:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.

Wesley Knight 0:04
The following program is underwritten by Crawford Management Group and Chris Glow, and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and Moore, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. We back. I'm good. I'm good.

Music 0:28
When I was the last time, baby. We

back and we back and we back and we back and we back and we back and we back.

When I was the last.

Leaha Crawford 0:44
good. Welcome to Growth and Grace, where we have real conversations about business, leadership, life, life be lifeing, money, and what it really takes to grow. I am Leah Crawford,

Julian Rosado 0:59
and I'm Julian Rosado,

Leaha Crawford 1:00
and Julian, today we have somebody special in the show with us. He knows a little something about growth, and definitely about good food. And he knows something about grace.

Julian Rosado 1:13
You know, in the full season, about to start, you you missed that. You missed that.

Leaha Crawford 1:18
I missed. Oh oh, I ain't mention football. I skipped over football season. I skipped over football season. It started. Did it start officially?

Julian Rosado 1:26
No, no, no, no. No. They still playing.

Leaha Crawford 1:29
They still playing preseason. They playing. They playing. That's all right because I'm gonna have to schedule together. But guess what? Yeah, please cut them out. Today we have Chef Walker in the studio with us of Stady's Kitchen and Catering. Hey, Chef.

Julian Rosado 1:48
Hey. I can tell

Leaha Crawford 1:49
y'all he got on his Cleveland Browns hat. Yeah, you

Julian Rosado 1:51
see, he got the balance on his hat, man. Dog pounding. He's getting ready for Shador Sanders, man. Yeah,

Leaha Crawford 1:58
yeah. But you know, I told him the Eagles gonna play. See, not even say nothing. Eagles gonna play up. We we gonna go somewhere and watch the game. We will hang out. You want? You know their their

Julian Rosado 2:07
defense is unstoppable. No no no no. Eagles defense. Oh, I mean,

Leaha Crawford 2:12
I'm glad you know. Marsh took a hit.

Walker Smith 2:14
They traded Miles Garrett. Oh no, as long as long as

Leaha Crawford 2:17
y'all know, because I'm like I said, I I'm gonna say it again, y'all, because I got Eagles in the Super Bowl. You know I got it. I'm gonna take it here.

Julian Rosado 2:24
I can't deny that. I'm gonna say it. I'm saying it today. This is September, so in third, 2026. Right. Hey,

Leaha Crawford 2:31
so when it happens, when it happens, when it happens, because we're taping. Place

Julian Rosado 2:35
your bets. Place your. I got the Eagles. I got the Eagles. All right.

Leaha Crawford 2:39
So Chef. Well, first of all, welcome to the show. Thank you. And I want to say that thank you for coming back. I appreciate you. It's our pleasure. And I've had I went to one of your events, and we talk. You know, I guess we'll talk a little bit more about that because I know you guys said you wanted to do a monthly event, yes, open to the public where you're bringing different people together to have good conversations. But first, I want to talk about your your journey since we last met, because I know you got the seasoning, and the seasoning is good.

Walker Smith 3:06
Thank you.

Leaha Crawford 3:06
All right. So, what's going on with the what's going on with the business?

Walker Smith 3:10
It's it's growing gracefully because because of the grace of God. Okay. Pun intended. Okay. We have since we since we saw you last, we we we had just launched the hot version of our seasoning, both the regular, regular and salt-free hot versions. People have been asking for it for at least a good two years, and we we we went back in the lab. My son and I worked on it, and now the hot salt-free has exceeded expectations. It has it has doubled the in volume the sales of our regular seasoning, and I rather hot

Leaha Crawford 3:50
salt free. The

Walker Smith 3:52
hot salt free.

Leaha Crawford 3:52
Hot salt free. The hot

Walker Smith 3:54
salt free. Yes. And

Leaha Crawford 3:55
see, he he he killed me. I don't want nothing hot, and I don't want nothing without salt. I need all the things. Okay, hot salt free.

Walker Smith 4:02
Absolutely. All right.

Leaha Crawford 4:03
What? But what inspired it? Just people asking you.

Walker Smith 4:08
Not just people asking for it. We we wanted to have some versatility for our our product line and our and our marketing, and where people can have a product that they can use on just about anything. As I told you before, my son makes eggs with it, and the beautiful thing is, with other things that they're doing in their diet, a lot of our clients are telling us that using the salt free is helping them helping them lower their blood pressure.

Leaha Crawford 4:35
And that's huge

Walker Smith 4:36
because they can they can use it generously. They can use they can use it on on just about anything because it is truly a seasoning and a rub, so it's not just for meat and poultry and seafood. They can use it on the vegetables, on their on any of their sides, mashed potatoes, whatever, whatever, whatever they whatever their their imagination brings them to. I know

Julian Rosado 4:58
people are not in in the studio. Heal with us, but you got to hear this man's passion. So, but what what are you most proud of about your your business today?

Walker Smith 5:09
That I I can one continue my mother's legacy and heritage. Matter of fact, her birthday would have been tomorrow. Oh, and so we have a and we'll talk about in a minute. Our legacy Labor Day weekend special, but I get to give back the gifts and talents that were given to me and her through blessing the people of Southern Nevada.

Julian Rosado 5:33
Wow!

Leaha Crawford 5:34
So, what do you think? What do you want people to feel when they eat your food?

Walker Smith 5:39
I want them to feel feel the love that went behind every morsel that we produce, every drink that we produce. You've had our Arnold Palmer, and the chicken,

Leaha Crawford 5:53
the macaroni and cheese. I think that was cabbage that night, right? The cabbage. It was cabbage. Y'all

Julian Rosado 6:00
talking about food, it was good. It was good

Walker Smith 6:06
because at the end of the day, and

Leaha Crawford 6:08
cornbread. Can I? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Our our

Walker Smith 6:10
elevator pitch is. We want you walking away talking about the food at any event you go to that we cater as much as the event itself. Because how many times have we been to an event where the atmosphere was good, the conversation was great, and the food was just eh. Not an event that that's produced by Sadie's Kitchen to Cater. What's one dish that that's like the peak? Like okay, when you have this dish with your sauce, I mean that's that's everything. The collard greens, the mac and cheese in our in the spirit ribs.

Julian Rosado 6:42
I can see that. That's the dish. Yeah. So,

Leaha Crawford 6:45
what do people misunderstand about running a food and catering business? Because you've been doing this for some some time now. Yes. So, what I mean, what what do you think people misunderstand about you running this business? The

Walker Smith 6:56
dedication it takes to show up. Because anybody can cook food, but to do it at a at a level of quality and show up. Because I I can't tell you how many times we go we go to do a quote or invoice for a client, and their trepidation is: Are you gonna show? Especially new clients, are you gonna show? Are you gonna

Leaha Crawford 7:22
send somebody?

Walker Smith 7:24
Not, not, not, not, not, not necessarily. We've had we've had clients that they pay for catering, and it's hour late, it's two hours late, or the or the catering didn't show up at

Leaha Crawford 7:33
all. Oh, yes,

Walker Smith 7:35
that part.

Leaha Crawford 7:35
Oh, that whoa,

Walker Smith 7:36
yes, oh, but then also to show up and deliver what you promised, because if if if you don't if you don't take the time to work on your craft, and you say I can I can cook for 250 people, and you got so much store-bought stuff, and you might have cooked a dish here or a dish there.

Leaha Crawford 8:02
So you mean you want to you you went to the store and you packaged it. I'm sorry, you package it pretty.

Walker Smith 8:08
They they don't they don't they they don't need they don't need a true caterer for that. They they could have sent their production assistant or or or their administrative assistant to Costco to do that.

Leaha Crawford 8:20
You're saying, and we actually prepare our for. Yeah, you got

Walker Smith 8:22
you show up and and deliver what you what you say you you're going to do.

Leaha Crawford 8:27
What did you learn about being an entrepreneur that had nothing to do with the business? Just being an entrepreneur, the business side of this, the business side of it, the

Walker Smith 8:38
importance of knowing your cost, knowing know knowing what what it what it really takes to truly run a business. And what

Leaha Crawford 8:51
was the most shocking to you, though, in everything? The

Walker Smith 8:54
resistance of or the hesitation of colleagues to come alongside. I I realized early on that I can't expect me from anybody else, from my staff, from other people I work with, because this is my dream and my passion. Oh yeah. And for what was most disappointing was that to have someone say, "Oh, I got you, and then when when it's time for when it's time for the rubber to meet the road, oh, I got this, I got that. Well, we we're all busy, but if if you if you put if you put the word out there that you know we're colleagues, we're we're supposed to be friends, and you go to you need even if it's just a phone call. I need some advice on how to how to get this done, and you know, you block me or you don't answer the phone call. Then are we are are

Leaha Crawford 9:51
we friends?

Walker Smith 9:52
Are are we friends? Are we truly colleagues? Yeah, it's

Julian Rosado 9:55
like one of my attorneys said: if it's not in writing, it didn't happen. Well, the other thing said, well, the. Listening to Groot and Grace, I'm Leah

Leaha Crawford 10:01
Crawford. This

Julian Rosado 10:02
is Julian Rosal. You would every time I

Leaha Crawford 10:05
tell y'all, he he leads. He always got something for him. So with the with the cost of running a business, did you go to like any classes or anything like that to learn how to run a business, or did y'all just just jump out there and just and just do it. No,

Walker Smith 10:21
no, we went we went to classes, but the the application of what I learned, I didn't. I would have gone further because I was in eager anticipation of getting my name out there. Okay, but then COVID took care of that because we opened our doors 52 days before COVID started, so I had no choice but to slow down. What we were talking about earlier about not getting ahead of God because He has His way of making the path for

Speaker 2 10:57
us, but

Walker Smith 10:57
we have to follow it.

Leaha Crawford 10:59
Got it. If

Walker Smith 11:00
we want to be truly successful,

Leaha Crawford 11:02
and we and we talked about that, we we we talked about there's steps to this, and there's levels to this for a reason.

Walker Smith 11:09
Exactly,

Leaha Crawford 11:09
because you got to make sure you learn the lesson. Now, how do you manage? So, how do you manage your calendar? Because I know that I mean, with catering, is you know you got to plan differently, right? Because you got to plan. Because you guys are you you're doing everything, so you're not only preparing the food, but you're getting the food ready to take to the event. Then you're setting up at the event. So how do you? I mean, how do you set your calendar up?

Walker Smith 11:32
Thank God I have my better half is is more in administration administrator straighter than than I am.

Leaha Crawford 11:39
So she so so she calendars you.

Walker Smith 11:40
Shout shout out to Miss Pam. I hate Miss Pam. But but I my commitment to her was when we when we decided to launch our business full time because we were doing this part time in California while we while we worked. Okay, but chose to come here to launch the business full time that I would not stick my head in the in the in the kitchen in the proverbial sand. Okay, so she keeps she keeps our calendar. She keeps us flowing like a well-oiled machine. Okay. And we we have at least weekly meetings with our staff on what's coming up next. What what do we have? What do we have to prepare? The only time those events aren't put on in those meetings when somebody calls us. Hey, I've had I've had a caterer back out on me. Are you available? And is I got two I got 24 hours or 48 hours to put help help them save their event, and it's it's happened more times than I than I than I did. Did you choose to

Leaha Crawford 12:40
count? But you were able to show up.

Walker Smith 12:41
Oh yes,

Leaha Crawford 12:42
and you're able, and because you're able to show up, that you know. Okay, so maybe now you won't be the last, the second thought. You'll be the first thought because you know that you're going to show up. How

Julian Rosado 12:51
do you determine what an event is actually worth? Like, how do you determine like, well, this is worth our cost? Yeah, yeah.

Walker Smith 12:59
We look at is the one one of availability. Then two would be what it actually takes to produce this event. And if we can do more than one, of course we can do more than one event on it in a day. But if it's not going to work. functionally for for us as as a team, then you know sometimes we it's I've learned, and it was a hard lesson for me to learn. But I and that was one of those rungs in the ladder I was talking about earlier. Okay,

Leaha Crawford 13:34
no, but no, let's let's get on. It's okay to say. So let's talk about the ladder. So let's talk about the ladder because I mean I don't know if they, because we we keep on saying it, but we didn't tell them what it is. So, what are the runs on the ladder? Just talk. Let's talk about

Walker Smith 13:46
it. It, I use I use that metaphor for for any journey, whether life, relationships. It it's important to put put your foot on each rung of the ladder because if you miss one, then that means you miss some valuable lessons. You you there's some information that doesn't get downloaded into your spirit that will prepare you for the next rung. No, you might

Leaha Crawford 14:10
fall.

Walker Smith 14:10
Yes, that too, where the next rung takes you. So if you if you miss a rung, that means you have to go back to the bottom and start all over

Announcer 14:17
again. And

Walker Smith 14:18
life has this way of lessons that are unlearned, we it becomes a cycle, and and sometimes we end up getting on the hamster wheel and repeating the same cycle over and over and over again. But if if we stop long enough to listen, because was was Psalms 4610 say, be still and know that I am God. So if we if we if we're quiet enough and we and we listen, then we we don't miss those rungs. And then whatever needs whatever God needs to download it download into us where where He's one wanted to take us next. We're ready.

Leaha Crawford 15:00
So it's husband and wife team. So this business is with you 24 hours then. 24 because it's it's it's not like you get a break. So how do you take care of you?

Walker Smith 15:14
We just we just got back from a cruise league of celebrating our 38th anniversary. Okay, I hear you. All right, I hear you. Okay, I just want

Leaha Crawford 15:20
to make sure because a lot of times you had a husband and wife teams, and you know we having a meeting in the bedroom, a meeting in the bathroom, we meeting in the kitchen. We we

Walker Smith 15:29
you know what we we had we have some people come alongside of us early in our journey here in Las Vegas that were there were a couple. They were from New York, and they said one of the biggest obstacles you're gonna you're gonna face is separating business from personal because you are a family-owned business, and it's important that

Leaha Crawford 15:49
you do that.

Walker Smith 15:50
You don't miss that rung, and that's one of the wrongs.

Leaha Crawford 15:52
That's one of the wrongs. That's one of the wrongs.

Walker Smith 15:53
We we so y'all

Leaha Crawford 15:54
turn off.

Walker Smith 15:55
Yeah, Pam and I had to had to go back and revisit that that part of that wrong that wrong, because yeah, we yeah we were talking about it everywhere, and and not not that the conversations weren't important, but I got to go back to the work because that's I'm I'm a I'm a church. I understand. Yes,

Leaha Crawford 16:14
it

Walker Smith 16:14
cleanses. There's a time and a place for everything under the sun, and so for us to be successful in all aspects of our lives. We have to learn to turn it off, as hard as it is sometimes. And

Leaha Crawford 16:27
you want to say something like, "I gotta wait till 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. I can't say it till 10 o'clock. I'm gonna write it down because I got something for you at 10.

Walker Smith 16:35
That that is not on this table. Right, not on this table. Yeah, I I know kitchen, so it's not on this table. So, and that's

Leaha Crawford 16:42
what it's funny that you say that because we just I know with my son and I when we eat dinner, all the cell phones there's no cell phones on the table, and it's this is us and we need this is our time to connect

Julian Rosado 16:54
and and

Leaha Crawford 16:55
yeah, but it was it was hard. I we just yeah because when we don't do it, I see the chaos in the house when we do it, and just take that time. It's just us. It works.

Walker Smith 17:06
The download.

Leaha Crawford 17:07
Yeah, but I I don't know if we we never talk about because sometimes you know people may you know if if you sleep you lazy or if you're not moving and always moving and you you know something's wrong. We don't we don't give rest.

Walker Smith 17:20
The what did God do on the seventh day?

Leaha Crawford 17:21
Hey, I know I was yoga, and Savasana was my favorite pose. I was like, "That's my favorite one. When we just lay there, that's my favorite pose. But I want to be in Arab. No, I want to be in Savasana.

Walker Smith 17:33
I used to tell my my when I was at Pepsi, "Why don't you sign up for Sunday? Now, if you mandatory me in, I'll be here. But that was that was my exact answer. What did God do on the seventh day? He's he did everything he did on on on the first six days and the seventh day he rested. There's there's a reason for Sabbath.

Leaha Crawford 17:54
Well, do you do you try to make it a habit to take one day where y'all like one day a week where y'all just that's it's nothing, okay. And y'all just part of the plan.

Walker Smith 18:04
It's part of the plan. Part of the plan.

Leaha Crawford 18:06
I loved it. Was entrepreneurship always in your journey? You think, or no?

Walker Smith 18:14
I wanted to be a fire jet mechanic.

Leaha Crawford 18:18
Oh, okay. All right.

Walker Smith 18:20
Until Air Force found out I had epilepsy and was taking medication as a teenager on a regular basis, yeah, that was it. So they won't

Julian Rosado 18:29
you come if you have epilepsy? Wow,

Leaha Crawford 18:32
because they don't know they

Walker Smith 18:33
don't want the responsibility. And I get it. Now I didn't. I I was I was I was not as gracious about the the that answer the rejection. So

Leaha Crawford 18:44
okay, all right, but but you ain't had no choice because if they said no, they said no, so you had to go back home, or you didn't get to go. Okay,

Walker Smith 18:50
I kept going to Cleveland State. Shout out to the Vikings.

Leaha Crawford 18:54
Okay, all right. So, but then you were able to work now. Okay, your epilepsy. Do you still? I mean, do you still? No. Okay. I

Walker Smith 19:02
haven't had a seizure in 40 years.

Julian Rosado 19:05
Hmm.

Leaha Crawford 19:06
Oh wow.

Walker Smith 19:06
I grew out of it.

Julian Rosado 19:08
Oh, you grew out of it. Yeah.

Walker Smith 19:10
Praise God, because I had grandma seizures. It was serious. I had the four grandma seizures.

Leaha Crawford 19:17
Oh wow.

Walker Smith 19:18
From 14, I think the last one, he was. I was like 22.

Leaha Crawford 19:23
Did they know what they came from? Yeah, it was. It was.

Walker Smith 19:25
It was considered idiopathic epilepsy. They couldn't determine the cause.

Leaha Crawford 19:30
Oh wow! Oh wow! So that that

Julian Rosado 19:32
means it's not hereditary at all. So for me, you know,

Walker Smith 19:35
it could have been, but as far as they could trace, no one in my immediate family, you know, had because my mom got tested, my grandfather got tested, and my aunts they they could never determine the cause.

Leaha Crawford 19:50
Oh wow! Okay, so let's talk about resilience because again, that's resilience. So you know, you have this. You go to work, right, and you work. Pepsi and other companies. You retire from Pepsi, and now you have this business. And COVID starts after you launch your business. So now you shut. You know, you you you haul because you can't do food because nobody's going and everybody home.

Walker Smith 20:16
No, we had no we we could. It was a pivot. What we did was we signed up with the delivery platforms, so instead of trying to do 100 people at a time, you know, we we had to retool some of our our supplies and sign up with the delivery platforms because 75% of something is better than 75% of nothing. They took their cut up front, but the blessing was it leveled the playing field because everybody nobody could do in the catering, so we we decided to do what we could and not not dwell on what we couldn't do.

Julian Rosado 20:45
Yeah, that

Leaha Crawford 20:46
was smart, and it

Walker Smith 20:47
helped get our name out there.

Leaha Crawford 20:48
How long did it take for y'all to pivot to figure it out that oh we can do the delivery stuff?

Walker Smith 20:53
About about 90 days. Okay, yeah, and then the PPP program came up. You know, we applied. We got one of the loans, and that helped with the retooling. Okay, and we we we hit, and and then on top of everything else, they were doing free marketing for for everyone at at that time.

Leaha Crawford 21:10
Okay,

Walker Smith 21:10
because they wanted they because

Leaha Crawford 21:11
everybody had everybody had and people still. I still ain't cooking. Even I'm home all day. What made you choose seasoning? It

Walker Smith 21:19
was because so many people were asked at her events, "What did you put on this? And so, and I'll read it real quick. For years, our family and friends marveled at just how my mother could make everything she cooked so tasty and delicious. It seemed that no matter what she prepared, she could taste. You could taste the you could taste the love in every bite from the first to the last. Then one day, just out of pure luck, or perhaps I was just being nosy, I discovered the mix. My mother had this mix in the in the back of the cabinet. Today, I'm proud to share my mom's well-kept secret seasoning with you. The only thing you need to add is love. Remember, it's not ready until you sprinkle little Sadie's on. I know, I

Leaha Crawford 22:08
love it. So, do you have a website? Okay, give us the website.

Walker Smith 22:12
www.sadyskitchenllc.com.

Leaha Crawford 22:16
So www.sadyskitchenllc.com, and then it tells your story. You can see the seasonings.

Walker Smith 22:25
All our current promotions, we haven't our we produced decided to produce a flyer, and we cooked. We're cooking my mother's favorite meal this weekend because tomorrow would have been her 94th birthday, and so in honor of our legacy founder and matriarch, we're preparing one of our one of her favorite meals to share with you on this Labor Day weekend. And you can go on, you can see the flyer on our website. The delivery times are we'll start on on Friday, go all the way through Monday, and yeah, you can go on our website, or you can we'll be at the Craig Wrench Park on Saturday with Congressman Horsford. We have a table out there on Saturday, Craig Ranch Park from 11 to two. Today

Leaha Crawford 23:10
is Saturday because we're taping the show, so let everybody know we taping the show. But today is Saturday, so today later on because if you're hearing this taping, we are here, and you know we we taped the show earlier, so later on today you will be at Craig Ranch Park. Craig Ranch

Walker Smith 23:24
Park from 11 to two. From 11 to two with Congressman Horstford and the Labor Fest, the the picnic that he's doing for the working folks of Southern Nevada. I

Leaha Crawford 23:34
love it. I love it. So you can come and you can come and taste the food. You don't just have to hear it here. So at Craig Ranch Park later on the day, y'all, you can actually see Chef Walker there with the seasonings. You can taste the food, the good food that we've been talking about. So, let me we we do this lightning round thing. So what we're going to do is we're going to say a word, and once we say the word, you say the first thing that comes to your mind. All right. First thing comes to your mind. You want to start it?

Julian Rosado 23:59
Okay. All right. Ribs or chicken?

Walker Smith 24:03
Ribs.

Leaha Crawford 24:04
Mac and cheese or greens?

Walker Smith 24:07
Mac and cheese.

Julian Rosado 24:09
Peach cobbler or banana pudding?

Leaha Crawford 24:11
Peach cobbler. Sweet or savory? Savory. Gas or charcoal?

Walker Smith 24:16
Charcoal.

Julian Rosado 24:18
Cooking or eating?

Walker Smith 24:20
Cooking.

Leaha Crawford 24:22
Cooking for 10 people or catering for 20 people?

Walker Smith 24:25
Catering for 20.

Julian Rosado 24:26
All right, let me ask one more: Batman or Superman?

Walker Smith 24:31
Batman. There

Julian Rosado 24:32
we go. Okay, so

Leaha Crawford 24:33
who was the better cook, you or your mama?

Walker Smith 24:37
My mother, hands down. Hands down. Hands down. And if she

Leaha Crawford 24:39
could see you today and what you've done. What do you think she would say to you? Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. I know I hit you. I hit you with that one. Right

Walker Smith 24:51
between the eyes, son. I love you. I'm constantly praying for you. And whatever God puts in your heart, do, because those those were her exact last words to me.

Julian Rosado 25:08
Oh wow,

Leaha Crawford 25:09
wow! All right, well, Chef Walker, I think it's a perfect place for us to end the end the conversation. Your story reminds us that sometimes entrepreneurship begins with something very special, very special, and this because you got to have that why, especially when stuff gets hard, that driving force. That's only

Julian Rosado 25:29
ones that become successful.

Leaha Crawford 25:31
Yeah, when they when they when they got that drive.

Julian Rosado 25:33
Yeah.

Leaha Crawford 25:34
So you're listening to Growth and Grace. I'm Leah Crawford.

Julian Rosado 25:38
This is Julian Rosado,

Leaha Crawford 25:40
and I want to tell you, y'all, keep growing and give yourself a little grace along the way until next week. Until next week, and I promise you, I'm gonna look at the football schedule. I promise you, football schedule. I promise. Look, I'm gonna look so we can talk about it. All right, y'all. Until next week, peace and blessings. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai