ORLANDO, Fla. – This week on “Black Men Sundays,” host Corie Murray interviews Monica May and George Ashford, the owners of CB Bistro.
Many Central Floridians are already familiar with May given her place in the local radio scene, a longstanding host and producer of STAR 94.5 FM. She’s also at the helm of Monica May Communications as its principal consultant and founded the Let’s Spill the Tea 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which seeks to help parents and teens break communication barriers.
On the nonprofit, May described how she spoke years ago at the BETA school for teenage pregnant moms and realized that she began to see some of the same girls — 15, 16, not even up to 17 years old — deciding then and there that they needed to hear her story.
“I got there early one day, sat in my car and took out a legal pad and wrote my life story from the time I was 12 up until that day. I announced it and I did it in third person so you didn’t know that I was speaking about myself and I talked about the many pitfalls, meeting those brothers under the tree when I got to college and how derailed I got, my lack of self-esteem, my lack of communication skills, just not being assured of myself, and I talked to them about teenage pregnancy. I talked about breaking the generational curse because the same thing happened to me, but I needed to stop it in its tracks, and I talked to the girls about the importance of that,” May said. “That turned into a conversation that I had with my own daughter when she was 13 and that started this ‘tea’ thing because I felt that if I could read this letter, she’d hear the letter and not lose respect for me, but in fact cry and embrace me and say, ‘Man, I knew that you had gone through a lot, I didn’t know it was like this,.’ (…) The slogan, Corie, is: ‘Moms, your past can save your daughter’s future.’”
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With her husband George — who brings 40 years of experience in the food industry, working at fine-dining establishments and catering for the likes of Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey — CB Bistro operates a jazz club and catering service that’s helping bring communities together and build generational wealth in the process.
“We cater everything from private school lunches to campus retreats. We’re the official caterers for the Catholic Diocese of Orlando, we’re also the official caters for the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida. We cater at Lou Gardens, we’re at Crystal Ballrooms, you name it, we pretty much do it,” Ashford said. “(…) We spent the first two months (of the pandemic) feeding first responders, people in the community, women in homeless shelters for free, and then once we realized that the pandemic was going to continue, we made a decision — my wife in radio and having all these connections with musicians — we made the decision to use our outdoor patio underneath the veranda to actually set it up and use live bands and music, and that’s where the bistro started.”
Hear the full interview and more in Season 6, Episode 2 of “Black Men Sundays.”
Black Men Sundays talks about building generational wealth. Check out every episode in the media player below.
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