John Collins grabs a bite in Utah 🍴 | UTAH JAZZ

John Collins grabs a bite in Utah 🍴 | UTAH JAZZ

Jazz fans welcome back to sites and bites on this episode we are celebrating Black History Month by visiting blackowned businesses here in Utah we’re also going to catch up with a few Jazz employees for our first stop we are here at the barber League Barber Shop where

I’m joined by my friend and a fellow cooworker the one and only Riley dims he is the I have to get this correct the emerging technology manager did I do it right you got it right did I give your title Justice you gave it justice all

Right well Riley is here with his Barber JD who’s absolutely amazing and Riley let’s get into this cut let’s do it JD talk about the vibe that you’ve curated here at this barber shop I wanted it to be more along the lines of a traditional barber shop I am a poor

Man’s therapist and uh I know everybody problem nine times out of 10 I try to keep it uh nonbiased and nonjudgmental you know so it’s a safe spot for men to come in here and cry about their women or you know cry about their families whoever it may be you

Know and it’s a safe spot for them Riley you’ve talked about that like that feeling of being safe here why is that so important to find these pockets places here in Utah yeah no I think it’s important and it kind of goes to the core of what we’re doing with the with

The blackbook is you know finding these places and place where you might not see people that look like you everywhere you brought up the black book um and the black book is something that we’ve started here at the Jazz uh for people to be able to find uh black businesses

Here in Utah uh elaborate more on how that came about yeah so this it was a group of black employees at the Utah Jazz um and we came together and we’re trying to figure out what’s a way that we can use our platform to really Elevate the the black voices that are in

Our community and by doing this we’ve been able to highlight almost 40 50 businesses over the past two years and now we’re just taking it to the next level and for those that don’t know the black book spawned from the green book which was created years ago down south

Um and now it’s something we brought here over in Utah talk about the importance of representation and having people like you and having a black man that owns the business here in Utah and how important that is uh it’s very huge um at the end of the day we we got such

Small representation so uh you can’t judge a book by its cover and we need a lot more culture in Utah I’ll give Utah a lot of uh love for opportunity uh no matter what color you are or what Creed you come from uh you Utah does give you

A lot of opportunity and uh that’s what they see they see a man that came from nothing can definitely get something you know at the end of the day we get these these men that are uh black owned business they going to tell other black

Young men how to get it how to do it and how to uh recreate what we doing right now so it’s awesome Riley you’re looking good my guy thank you I appreciate it he always give me right he he always get me right good to go appreciation love bro

App that’s awesome thank you appreciate it appreciate it for this stop we want to give you a sneak peek look at the blackbook bazaar which will be taking place here at the arena and so my friend Nyla who is the creative operations manager for the Utah Jazz Lifestyle brand Counterpoint has

Curated a little pop-up shop with a local blackowned brand called Stella and hos we have the owner of Stella and hos Jenny and Nyla actually introduced me to Stella and hos so we were able to create this little popup shop here of some of the jewelry and there’s quite an

Assortment all right so let’s talk about Stella and hos this is a black woman-owned brand that’s based here in Utah but it’s sold Nationwide um but it’s inclusive we’ve tried to curate jewelry that is literally for everyone we have a warehouse and we do popups

Like once or twice a month like to have food a little bit of drink and get to know like the community too talk about just the importance of representation being a black woman Le brand here in Utah knowing that I was having a daughter I was actually

Terrified you know cuz I wanted her to have a different experience than I did and so it was important for me to step up also not just having other people show her something different I needed to do a brave thing try something new start a business and also it was really

Important to me that most of my models are all black women or at least women of color cuz I wanted her to see someone who looks like her so one thing that we’re doing here at the Jazz is that we’re doing a black Bazaar uh this is kind of like a sneak

Peek at what the black Bazaar will look like because we’re highlighting businesses correct can you elaborate more on what the blackbook bizar looks like what we’re doing this uh season for Black History Month is relaunching our blackbook which is a blackowned business directory for the entire state of Utah

And it’ll be featured on our app and on our website yearround we are also having our first ever blackbook Bazaar which is a Marketplace for blackowned businesses that’s set up specifically for our fans on Game Nights to be able to come and Shop from these different businesses

That they’ll get to see in the Black Book thank you so much for coming and create this pop-up experience for us this was so great thank you you guys are amazing seriously I had so much fun and I can’t wait for the black Bazaar all right thank you so much and thank you

All for supporting let’s go to the next stop we back with a third and a final stop for this episode of sites and bites and I am here joined by CEO and the oh Jerell and Helena and we’re taking y’all to the South all right we are here at

Taste of Louisiana I’m so happy to be here with y’all one of my favorite restaurants yes ma’am so please just tell me how you all were able to bring Louisiana here to Utah well um as a result of coming here um with the military this was our last Duty station

Um my husband was going to retire uh we decided you know our Utah neighbors they need a taste of Louisiana in their life right and so thus Taste of Louisiana was born in 20 2016 we started as a food truck but just a year ago we opened here

In Woodbine food hall because our goal is to bridge some cultural gaps here in the great state of Utah and what better way to do that other than Breaking Bread together you can learn a lot you can learn a lot from each other yes that’s ma’am well we’re now going to share the

Goodness we actually have a special guest that’s going to come in and join us so I’m going to let you get to cooking so we can whip it up and we can get the whole all right so we can lay it out let’s lay it out this is John y met great everyone’s

Back meet you amazing talk to me though what you what you got back I see I see you about to drop some in that in that oil wait you can’t tell them no it has to be a surise okay I’m going just say this I’m going just say this cuz you

Might you know word is on the street so is there anything that you just want that you know you wanted to try maybe that you heard of or you just want us to surprise you whatever you got for me I’mma I’mma Bust It Down okay yeah I’m

I’m I’m a fan of of of it so okay so we’ll sit right here can you cook okay this is busting it’s it’s refreshing so we going to Louisiana for this back to the Bayou we going oh to the Bayou all right and so we have some

Creo Southern type food we are literally the food critics for today but Taste of Louisiana is literally one of my favorite spots cajan crab fries this is an cajan collaboration I’m excited do choose food there you go okay one thing about black people is when food’s good you hear you start to

Dance all right me it’s that silent dance for me the food busting you don’t hear me say anything my mouth I’m stuff in my face you know what I’m saying while we’re out here in Utah a lot of us are transplants we’re like where can we

Go where we can kind of feel that sense of community and so my first year we started off with like just like five or so businesses highlighting them and now we have like over 30 40 businesses in here cuz have you been able to find a lot of black own restaurants and places

Here no so how does it feel not a lot to now know that you kind of found a spot that you can that you like it gives me hope yeah you know what I mean I know here it might be hard to find some southern style food or Southern style

Cooking um but you know you always got to start somewhere and this is a it’s a fireplace to start right here some some Cajun style food everything is made with love and I can taste it so definitely keep me coming back so I’m excited yeah homemade you looking that you know not

Too many people know how to make banana p man Helena I want you to talk about your banana pudding oh okay hat him at banana pudding see what hat him at banana pudding okay what did you think of the Vibes of meeting Jerell and Helena they just gave you like what kind

Of vibe do they give you would you first them Good Vibes they give me the vibe that as I said they putting their soul into the food you know what I mean and that’s the type of food that I really enjoy is you know holding the wall spots

With Mom and Pop whatever you want to call it for me personally as a young black man I feel like it’s always important to support my community I feel like it just creates a strong Community for not only us as black people but um just as a whole good bobs all around all

Right Cheers Cheers that’s some good stuff ain’t no complaints like that per any type of food that like comes to mind that brings special memories um my mom was you know she’s doing her thing man where she used to make these um salmon cakes ooh mhm

And uh I don’t know those are my favorites she also makes like a really busting like um just like regular tuna okay tuna like you know really some some basic stuff but whatever she did in there whatever came out there was love and again shouts out to my dukes the

Food is is a bonus but when you just get to come together and break bread and hear people’s stories and kind of share that’s what it’s all about well Helena and jelle thank you guys so much thank you so much this well thank you for coming out I’m glad I’m glad that we

Could Grace you with some of our southern hospitality and just share in the goodness and the gifts in which God has blessed us with we appreciate the hospitality and the good eat always all right this has been our sites and bites black Business Edition thanks for watching

John us as we celebrate Black History Month and visit some local Black-owned businesses in Utah. John Collins joins us on the tour to grab a bite to eat with Nayo Campbell.

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