About 10 miles northeast of our office is a very interesting neighborhood called Chamblee.
Once a bedroom community of the expanding city of Atlanta, today this community is a hot-bed of internationality that spans the spectrum from Hispanic- to Latino- to Chinese- to Korean- to Vietnamese- to Iranian- to Indian- … Americans that is!
It is a group that we term as the “Commuter Mosaic” of the American Middle Class!
There ‘s an international farmer’s market smack dab next to an international mall with an international food court. Then there’s strip center after strip center or retail and service outlets selling everything from electronics to baby clothes.
Outside of a recently built Wal-Mart, there’s limited brand chains in the area. Most of the business is pure entrepreneurial “mom & pop” complete with nephew, uncle and grandparent too!
By the way…nearly all of these places continue to remain in business.
In this week’s edition of Newsweek, there is a great article that showcases America’s first viral restaurant.
That’s not a typo…it’s a true VIRAL restaurant.
Kogi is the name of it and Roy Choi is the power behind it. Roy cooks up Korean tacos that are sold from two roving trucks whose travel routes are posted in real time on Twitter.
As Choi is quoted in the article…”At every stop, it’ll be, like, hundreds of young people and 12 middle-aged copycats in suits asking me where I buy my cabbage.”
His crowds often exceed 600 people guided by their Twitter App on their iPhones.
In fact, his combination “online and on-the-street” advertising program consists of follower-designed T-shirts, an official blog, YouTube videos and Twitter.
As the Newsweek article quotes Choi as saying…”I can cook for 100 people a night in a conventional restaurant or using Twitter, can hit, like, 5,000 people a second.”
His product formula is simple: market produce and unfamiliar proteins prepared for the authenticity-craving, post-racial palate and sold at recession-ready prices ($2-$7).
Choi is aiming to send trucks to San Diego and San Francisco next.
Many of the immigrants coming to the US start out from pure scratch and spend hours working hard to get their business off the ground.
And because many are in the process of learning English, they don’t catch all the gloom and doom of the news media, banks and investment groups nor the cloned MBA-models of academia.
Many “Commuter Mosaics” see the glass as half full and their dream as still possible. They are innovative and re-engineer their pathways to success no matter what hurdles pop up along the way.
There’s a lot to learn from folks like that…
So, Hey…turn off that CNN and Fox News…go Twitter a few friends and Let’s Journey!
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