Meet Courtney Beavers: Entrepreneur, Chef

We had the good fortune of connecting with Courtney Beavers and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Courtney, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I recently became a father and was struggling financially. I knew I didn’t want to grow in the same paycheck to paycheck cycle so I took the chance on myself and started my first business.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
When I initially started my business, I was in the pop-up restaurant race as 213 Ramen. Marrying traditional Los Angeles flavors with a street food original. This concept is what brought me to meet and helped grow the TinyArtGallery. Striving to not only become leaders of our respective art industries, we also aim to grow other businesses as well. Through this collaboration, I’ve been able to not only launch a successful pop-up/catering business, I begin to enter the fashion and teaching realms as well. This moved me to form The 213 Brand, LLC to better facilitate the diverse industries I’m interested in working with. Going in, I was already mentally anticipating challenges. Kitchen culture preaches Murphy’s Law. Knowing that a problem can and will arise allowed me to focus more on solution finding, and turn “shortfalls” in to lessons and stepping stones to greater things. The main challenge has been maintaining energy for my endeavors. Keeping an eye on my physical and mental health has been very important to me to aid in my success. Community is extremely important to me. I named 213 Ramen (now Crafted by 213), and in turn The 213 Brand after the original Los Angeles area code, as well as the main area code of the Compton/ South Central Area where I’m from. Growing up in the 90’s I watched as my beloved community was ravaged with poverty, because many felt the communities there weren’t safe or important enough to provide proper services and infrastructure to. I want to change that notion. My goal for The 213 Brand is to aid in uplifting the communities that reside in this area while returning the South Los Angeles Area to its known glory. My greatest accomplishments to date include catering for F Gary Gray’s birthday at Jaime Foxx’s house, going with my TAG Family to Miami and doing a pop up at 1800-Lucky for Art Basel, and most recently selling an exclusive ramen bowl package, the G Bowl Package, for $1000 a bowl.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Korean fricken BBQ! Hands down! Definite shout out to Wii Bbq and J BBQ off of Vermont and 11th and 8th respectively. For over 10 years I find excuses to go patron their sister restaurants. Good grades? Korean BBQ. Got fired? Korean BBQ. If you want some good drinks with music, then you have to go to Wolf and Crane Bar in Little Tokyo. Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
First and foremost to my family. This has been one grand investment for their future endeavors and successes. Secondly to my TinyArtGallery Family. When we all met we, separately and collectively, were branching out of our normal careers to build something new. They are the most organically like-minded individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I call them “family” because we have shared and continue to share personal and financial successes together. Together we took over the collective art scene in Los Angeles allowing us to grow as individuals and entrepreneurs.

Website: www.bcnegzapparel.com

Instagram: @thekitchenjedi, @craftedby213, @bcnegzapparel

Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/courtney-beavers-27686842

Twitter: @thekitchenjedi

Facebook: /thekitchenjedi

Yelp: 213 Ramen

Image Credits
JaQuan Walker Renae Wootson