-Yeah.
-Or pull it out. -Nah. I don't pull it out. [ Laughter ]
-Old school. -Soul food is
the type of cuisine that is good for the soul. -We do everything here
as processing. We don't do nothing
quick here. So, that's why if you come
to our food trucks, you might be waiting. We're not just whipping stuff
out the can. We're really doing things the way soul food
is supposed to do. -This truck is so popular
in the winter time. I said, I don't know if they're
going to get any customers. They had a line.
-[ Laughs ] -All the time.
There was a line. When the truck
is not parked here, they knock on our door. "Where is GG's Fish?" I said, "I don't know."
[ Both chuckle ] -I wouldn't change it. There's no other place but New
York doing the food truck. ♪♪ -And what she just order? -She ordered the whiting and
shrimp with mac and cheese. -Right here? All right.
-Yeah. -My name is Mike.
-I'm Marquise. -And we're the owners
of GG's Fish & Chips. -Right now, we're at
our restaurant location located at 234 Hoyt Street
in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn. We have two food trucks. The restaurant is open
Tuesdays through Thursdays. Our food trucks,
7 days a week, depending on the weather and
different things in that nature. Been in operation since 2018. We started out
with one small truck. We grew into the bigger truck. Right now,
we're establishing a restaurant. The type of food we serve
on the truck is fish and chips. That would be whiting and
catfish, comes with coleslaw, fresh-cut fries. We also do candied yams,
mac and cheese, collard greens. -All the essential things
that goes with soul food. It's just not energy. But it gives you that soulful
feeling of eating something that's perfectly good
for your soul. -Our biggest seller,
I would say, is the catfish
when we have it available, because it just sells out. Right here is catfish. Catfish is our biggest
seafood seller. This is fish and chips. My dad actually came up
with the concept. He grew up off fish and chips.
-My family, my wife family, they've been in Brooklyn
over 60, 70 years. They was a pillar
to this community of Gowanus. My wife is the backbone
of all this. She's like the ace in the hole. She doesn't bite her tongue
about anything. -My mother keeps it real. -Yes.
-Yeah, we used to just pick up cable boxes and equipment
and just all type of stuff that, you know...
-My wife asked me, said, "Why would you buy a big truck
and have it sit?" -Yeah.
-And I told her "I have a plan." -He had a plan.
You know, we're here today. I don't believe that what we've created, and her
family from being from here, I don't think we would be
in this position. -I'm like the big boss in here. [ Laughs ] And I really taught
my family how to cook. Reputation in Gowanus,
it was good and it's still good. I love my community. Well, we've been in Brooklyn
all our life because we grew up
cross the street. The business
being named after me was a surprise,
a good surprise. I can win in any community
in Brooklyn, but I wanted to come
where I grew up at, you know what I'm saying? Give my support
and give back to my people. You know, that's why
I wanted to come here. -My aunt had
a fish and chip store. I was a really little kid,
around 5 or 6 years old. And I can just remember there
used to be lines of people. We have generations of
members in the family that cook. It was instilled in my family. I call my mother-in-law,
like Jay-Z of cooking. There was nobody
that could really match that. -With two trucks
and the restaurant, we probably run through 3 to 4
trays of this on the weekend. You know, the weekend
is very busy for us. So, and now you have it, got
the catfish all seasoned up. Layer it out,
put the top on it. So, I'm gonna go ahead and
put this in our refrigerator, and it'll be ready
to fry tomorrow. You always want to take
advantage of the weather anytime you got good weather
in New York. It's a good time
to make some money. We're gonna head
to our primary location, which is going to be on
Court Street by Borough Hall. Court Street was actually
our first location. You got a whole bunch
of courthouses over there, different businesses. It's a good place
for walking traffic. -All right. -Okay, I got
the whiting strip combo. Comes out to $18.49 today,
boss man. Two extra pieces of catfish fry
and five shrimp. -Okay, so we have the whiting,
catfish, shrimp, the mac and cheese,
collard greens, yams, natural-cut fries, chicken
and waffles, and a coleslaw. The thing that sells the most
when we're here is definitely catfish and chips. And second to that
is shrimp and chips. -2020, during the middle
of the pandemic, uh, they set up
a shop here right in front. And the area here, there are a lot of places
to eat over here, but places to get good food
was hard and even hard to find good comfort food,
good soul food. And they combine all that
in one truck. -We got people who been
knowing my family for years. We got city workers,
people that work in hospitals. We get all different types
of people, because everybody really
just loves soul food. And it's hard to find
good soul food in New York City. So...
-One thing about soul food, they gonna let you know
if it's good or not. Ain't no faking, no. They ain't faking that,
incorporating soul food with fish and chips was the best thing to happen
for fish and chips. And to serve fish and grits
in the morning was like a fresh of breath air
to a lot of city workers, started from fish and grits. -Mmm. -Doing homework, when it comes
down to soul food, is watching and learning,
not just about the ingredients. It's really watching
how to cook soul food. But when you can
master soul food, I think that you can master
any kind of cuisine. Soul food was like a dying
industry at one time or another, because you used to have
a lot of soul foods that used to be open
in New York City. You don't see them no more. This is what my mother-in-law... What I learned from my
mother-in-law is the cabbage. I never liked the cabbage
until I ate her cabbage. Rinse it off and strain it
with cold water. Use grease and salt and pepper and let it cook down,
and that's it. Okay, here
we have our collard greens, which has cooked down,
and we have smoked turkey. And the way I test it
to make sure that the collard greens
has its proper taste. I just pull it up, taste it... know what I have to add to it. The way you can tell
when the collard greens is ready is when the meat
comes off the bone. This is our turkey wings
that is marinated. The only downtime
about turkey wings is it takes so long to cook. Okay, you have to baste it
a couple of times. 2 or 3 times, uh,
it takes around 3 to 4 hours. As you can see, they are
basted and seasoned already. Put them in.
Not too much water. But just enough water
to do your base. Turkey wings
is an old-time meat. It's a slow-cook oven. What I'm looking for
is the browning. So, this is the finished product
for the turkey wings. You want it to be
a caramel color. Everybody knows
Turkey Tuesday, that we will have turkey wings
on the truck every Tuesday. [ Indistinct conversations ] Raising in Brooklyn,
it has a million stories to it. My whole entire family
works at the restaurant. My wife, I have my two nephews,
Zion Bush and Rommel Gasby. And I also have
my cousin Rosalind. My kids, uh, Makea Brown,
Michael Junior. -I have friends that came up
and moved here. K.G. and my Italian
brother Luke. I believe it is important
to keep it family business. -Family is non-negotiable. You have to take care
of your family, man. Everybody knows Gasbys. When I met my wife, I seen what it actually
did for this neighborhood. My mother-in-law had a
reputation of cooking anything. -She was well-known,
because she had 15 kids. This area is
a less-fortunate area, so not everybody
would have a home-cooked meal to go to every night. That's where
my grandmother came in. She fed anybody who she felt that needed a meal
and who respected her. -I have my oldest sister, Annie, and I have my
younger sister, Bridget. This is my mother and father,
Louise and Albert Gasby. This is my grandmother,
Anne Warren. This is my mother's cousin,
Mozell Warren. -Basically, we learned our
cooking skills from my mother and this lady,
Mozell, our cousin. -We had friends
that would come, and it was no one
that they wouldn't feed. -You may not see a person
for a whole year, but on Thanksgiving
you're going to see that person.
-You're gonna see that person. -'Cause they gonna
come for that plate. Anybody will knock on that door
for Thanksgiving, no matter who you was,
she would feed you. -My best time with my
mother-in-law is Thanksgiving. It was like an art, the way
she used to handle her cooking. -And that's why
I put this wall up. This is showing my appreciation
to these people. You know, they had
a piece of us, back in the days, you was raised by a village. And these are a part
of our village right here. -They taught us
to put that in our kids. -And to give back. I'm proud of my kids, you know, and I'm proud of what
we create as a family. -Cooking is part of life. It's something that does things
to people, just like music does. -Like my dad said,
it's all a legacy here. I believe we're here today,
because of my grandmother and my other grandmother,
people don't never die. They live through you,
so when me and my dad go, the next generation is just
going to keep going through us. Gowanus and GG's
goes hand-in-hand. My family, me, mom, and dad, We're great hustlers. We can
turn something to something. -You know, like this is --
this is already in our blood. ♪♪ ♪♪
