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*** Begin transcript ***

Jenn Tanaka

So today I am talking with Loren Gameros, sitting city councilperson for District Two, who is running for mayor. So thanks for being here.

Loren Gameros

My pleasure.

Jenn Tanaka

So I’ll jump right into it. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you’re running for this seat?

Loren Gameros

So my name’s Loren Gameros. I’m a city councilman. And the reason that I’m running, I really feel that local politics are important. They have an impact on the community that can be extremely beneficial. And I’ve been involved in politics for quite a long time. It’s been kind of a heartfelt passion that I didn’t really know that I had. And I just feel like I can bring something positive to the community and I can learn a lot about what’s going on and make sure that, you know, people are as happy as they can be and make sure that, you know, we’re leading with, you know, dignity for the community. 

And when I had the opportunity several years ago, I figured I probably would never get a chance like this ever again, so why not take it? And it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done.

Jenn Tanaka

Running for Council? 

Loren Gameros

Yeah, running for Council was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, next to being a father and a husband.

Jenn Tanaka

So could you tell me a little bit more about how you got your start? And it sounds like you were inspired from your work to run for City Council. What made you want to run for Mayor?

Loren Gameros

Well, it was kind of up in the air. There was a lot of cross talk about who could or who should run, who was the best equipped, and I said I would do it. If there’s someone that anybody thinks would do a better job, I’m open to that, and I would support whoever whoever it was. I’m here to support.

I know this kind of sounds corny, but people kept coming to me and saying, “you need to run. You need to be the person. You have experience. You know, you lead humbly. Everyone knows who they get when they look at you, when you speak. You don’t speak one way and act another. You’re you’re the person.” And to be honest, it was on both sides of the aisle that this came from. Shockingly, I was kinda shocked.

So I had a long talk with my wife once again, and I said, “we have to do this together,” you know, and she agreed. So here we are.

Jenn Tanaka

Great. I’m gonna change gears to talk a little bit about the specific issues that may be in front of the City Council or that you are thinking hard about as you run for Mayor. One thing that I’ve noticed is that this year at the City Council has felt like the year of land use and housing. And there have been some major land use decisions related to the city’s Housing Element, which is a state required document to plan for new homes. And many of these changes have been tied to increasing the number of new homes that can be built in the city. 

Reflecting on these efforts, I wanted to understand better what you thought was the biggest open question that the city council still needs to resolve with respect to housing at more of a philosophical level. Because I know that as a sitting City Council person, you probably can’t opine directly on things that are right in front of you, like the Fairview Developmental Center, that’s coming up, or the Housing Element compliance efforts. But generally, what do you see as the big picture when it comes to housing in the city?

Loren Gameros

Let me start off with this. I’m known for having some little quips and sayings. Right now, the ask citywide – and the perfect example is what’s happening at [the Fairview Developmental Center, or] FDC – the ask is to put ten pounds of potato into a five- pound sack. And it’s not a realistic ask. It’s not gonna benefit the community as a whole in the long run.

It certainly, in my opinion, it’s going to lower the demand for housing, but I don’t know that it’s going to lower the cost for the purchase of housing. And I believe in following the American dream as much as possible. 

What I’ve been told and what I believe is, you know, pride in ownership, that’s the American dream. It doesn’t say pride in renting. And we wanna try and create an opportunity for the residents who live here and who want to live here to be able to have a beautiful place to live and have a wonderful community and be able to own a home. 

You know, I’ve never met a happy sardine. So if we start packing them in like sardines, we’re gonna create this metropolis dystopian landscape. I just don’t think [it] is conducive to what’s existing with the Costa Mesa element and environment. This is a legacy development in this community. 

This is not a planned community. So we’re trying to create a planned community at Fairview [Developmental Center]. Well, if we’re going to do that, then why don’t we do that like other communities do that? I don’t think that we should try and reinvent a wheel on this. 

One of the things that I’ve been hearing a lot about when in regards to the city’s land use initiatives is that the community would like to be involved. And I actually believe that that is something we should look into. And beyond that, we should implement it. How we go about doing it, I think, is kind of getting into the weeds of things, but I most certainly would like to see an advisory committee from people that have more experience and education than I do to help me with my decision making process.

Jenn Tanaka

So do you see that as something of an open question for the next Council to work on with respect to housing policy is how to better integrate public opinion, public input into the process?

Loren Gameros

I do. And I’d like to add to that, I don’t want to see that as an open question for the next two Councils or three Councils. I want us to get this, get this going, get the next Council in, get a movement set up, and then we act on it. And that’s what I want. I don’t want to keep, like I said, reinventing the wheel.

Jenn Tanaka

One thing that you mentioned was pride in ownership. And absolutely one thing that seems to come up in the discussion about housing is the balance of rental housing and for purchase housing. Is that something that’s a priority for you? Is it a priority to address, if you believe that there’s too much rental housing or too little for purchase housing, is making available more for-purchase options, is that a priority of yours? 

Loren Gameros

I don’t want to say it’s the number one priority, but it is a priority. I do believe in it, and I’ve been quoted by the media as saying, show me where it says pride in renting. 

Now, I do believe in creating housing for everyone. Everybody wants a home to live in, and I fully support that, but I want to make sure that we have opportunities for people to invest in the community over a long term. 

And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with renting, but I asked kind of a snarky question on the dais. I forgot who the consultant was, but he was giving us interest rates and all these mumbo jumbo numbers. And I’m a meat-and-potatoes guy, which I know you know that. I asked him what the interest rate was on renting. And he looked at me with a dumb look. He couldn’t give me an answer. And I said, Well, it’s a hundred percent. Because what do you get to leave with after you’re done renting? You lose everything. 

So that’s kind of how I feel. And don’t get me wrong, I definitely want to have housing for everybody, housing for all, but I also want to make sure that we have a proper amount of investment opportunity for those who would like to invest in the community.

Jenn Tanaka

Great. I’m now just going to transition to a different topic, which is another issue that has been front of mind, I think, at the City Council, which is our budget – something that’s a pretty big deal that you guys have to go through every year. And based on what I’ve seen, the city has enjoyed some pretty good economic growth in the last couple of years. But city staff reported earlier this year that, without making any changes to the way the city either spends or raises revenue, that the city would likely have about a $4.9 million budget deficit by 2030. Given that you voted to support a ballot initiative to raise business license fees on some businesses operating in the city, do you think that’ll be enough to put us on a more fiscally sustainable path?

Loren Gameros

No. That will not be enough, but it’s a start. And I believe it’s a start in the right direction, being that it’s been a while and it’s not like we’re trying to decleat anyone in the community who’s trying to start a business, open a business, maintain a business. That’s not what we’re trying to do.

If you look at any city that has a responsive police department, responsive to the community – and oh, I don’t just mean they get there quick. They’re responsive to the needs of the community, they listen, they’re willing to engage. When you have a fire department and a police department that engage like that, it absolutely increases the value of the area in which we reside. Not just buying a home, but doing business, living, being here, it’s a safe place to be and there’s a lot of value in that. So although the police and fire department do have a heavy impact financially on our community, I think the reward far exceeds the cost.

Jenn Tanaka

So you said that you didn’t think that it would necessarily be enough even if we passed the ballot initiative, but that it would help. What other steps would the city need to consider in your view to put it on that more sustainable path?

Loren Gameros

So I’m probably leading into something else that might be a question, but I really think that we need to look at how we address those who are interested in investing in our city through business. I think that’s really, really important. We have to have thriving businesses in our community. That’s one of the other components that makes Costa Mesa a great place to live.

One of the examples that I’ll use is I don’t know if you ever heard of “ramen row”? So along Baker there’s a lot of ramen places and it’s been coined there, and I’ve heard they call it “ramen row”. I didn’t know that till just a few years ago. Come to find out, a lot of people drive from other cities to Costa Mesa for the food experiences that we have here. And we have a lot of them. 

My wife and I are foodies, and one of the things that you want to be able to do is come and enjoy a place to eat. The food’s good, the atmosphere’s good. One of the biggest things I hear from the restaurateurs is the difficult time that they had trying to get the doors open. And I really think that’s going to be one of the roadblocks moving into the next term with the next Council is finding a pathway through the permit process.

Jenn Tanaka

Can you speak more on that? Other than the restaurant – it sounds like you’ve spoken to some folks that have had some struggles with our permitting process. Can you speak maybe more to where you think there’s some improvement that could be had?

Loren Gameros

Absolutely, absolutely. We need to look at investing into the smaller business community as a whole. And we need to really reflect on where we’ve taken our losses in the larger business opportunities. 

I’ll give you an example. Recently we’ve had an investor come into the community. They invested almost $100 million. They bought a handful of buildings and they’re working really, really hard to beautify the area. They’re trying to get tenants in – these are business related tenants, banks, construction companies, etc. – to move in, and the owner of the property is telling me it’s costing him over $200,000 a month in red tape from the city, and getting going around and around, and that he has never had to personally get involved with every aspect of every tenant that moves in until he purchased in Costa Mesa. And that’s not something I want to hear from someone who has a $100 million investment. 

On the same note, I have people that come and say, they wanna drop an ADU in their house, but it’s taking two years to get through the process.

Jenn Tanaka

And just to pause you there, an ADU is a…?

Loren Gameros

Accessory dwelling unit. The state in itself has provided a lot of opportunities to have that. And when the roadblock is where you live, it shouldn’t be that way. So we definitely need to address that.

If staff would be agreeable to what the shortcomings are and making changes.

I think that would have a positive effect on the entire community. That’s what we need to work towards, taking responsibility for the shortcomings.

Jenn Tanaka

Thank you for that answer. Just to move into a different topic now – your opponent, Michael Buley is also a sitting city council person. If you can recall, where have you disagreed with him? He’s been on the dais for the last two years. So where have you disagreed with him on a vote or on an issue? And why do you think you two disagreed?

Loren Gameros

So one of the first things that I will say we disagree on is labor.

We both come from different backgrounds. You know, this is the example I like to use. Mike, if I handed you a shovel, would you know which end to dig with? Okay. Now I know that’s kind of a joke. Everyone knows which end of the shovel you dig with. But the point being: have you ever have you ever dug a hole in your life? Have you ever had to go and wear the boots that the boots wear to make something happen? 

So, and I most certainly am not a trial attorney, right? But I most certainly would never go and say, “Mike, you get paid too much money to be a lawyer.” Mike will come back and say, “Loren, your folks get paid too much money for what they do.” You want to compare apples and oranges, Mike’s got a much bigger basket of apples than any laborer I’ve ever met. He’s got a lot of money, he makes a lot of money.

And he deserves it. But on the same note, I think that the hardworking people deserve to have at least close to a livable wage, like he has, to benefit in the community and reap the reward. So we definitely disagree on how much money and how many benefits people should have to support themselves and their families. That’s our first disagreement right there.

Jenn Tanaka

And do you remember that manifesting itself as a disagreement specifically about an issue that came up on the dais or on a particular vote?

Loren Gameros

Yeah, you want I can give you the most recent one. And it wasn’t perfect. But when we decided to regulate how many automated lanes were in operation per employee [at certain grocery and drug stores], Mike was against that. It really bothered him. He accused me of trying to get involved with business where we didn’t belong.

He was right in one sense that we were getting involved with business, but I wouldn’t say it’s where we didn’t belong. And let me let me use an example. Let me go really far back. There was a company one time that was building a bridge. An important bridge. And this bridge was going to bridge communities, and it still does. When this bridge was being built, a lot of people died. Because of this bridge being built, the way it was built, and how many people died, the government at the time decided to put together an organization called [the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Association, or] OSHA. OSHA now gets involved with business where they think safety is an issue. This bridge is called the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Because of the Golden Gate Bridge, we have OSHA. I’ve never met a business that was happy to see OSHA come onto their premises or their site and start regulating things. Sometimes, in some cases, we have to look at the big picture and say, what’s going to be safe for the people that are working, right? 

In this case, when we had to sit and look at what was going on. We had nothing but owners and managers on one side saying, “the workers are not overworked, you’re getting involved where you shouldn’t.” And then on the other side, we had all the workers saying, “we’re being overworked and overtasked, and we’re also going to be told that we’re going to be legally responsible if something gets stolen.” 

Well, when a worker says that, that’s one thing. But then we also had a manager on the other side threaten our Council with, “yeah, and if stuff gets stolen, they’re going to be responsible too.” That sealed the deal for us to make the decision right then and there. How can you hold a worker accountable for a theft?

When you’re overburdening and overworking them. So could this be improved? There’s always room for improvement. This was a first draft on what we’re doing here. We can look at it, we can revisit it. I’m always open to negotiation on anything. Going back to your original point, Mike and I disagreed on that. We disagree mostly on labor-related issues.

Jenn Tanaka

So another question that will come up because of the unique position of both of you being sitting City Council members, is that, whether you win the mayoral seat or lose, there will be a vacancy on the City Council following this election. So then the city council may decide to either hold a special election or appoint someone to serve the rest of the term. If the City Council decides to appoint someone to serve the rest of the remaining term, what qualities would you be looking for when you’d be evaluating that candidate?

Loren Gameros

Someone who’s definitely confident in their decisions. I want them to be able to think on their own. I want them to be able to challenge whatever it is [that] comes before them, to question it, to be able to listen, to be humble.

There’s a lot of, “I’m right and you’re wrong” going around. And I really don’t like that. There’s a lot of getting into the weeds on certain things that doesn’t have a positive result in the end. So sometimes you just have to loosen your grip, and that would be the biggest thing. Know when to loosen your grip. There’s been times [when] things have happened when I had to tell myself, “Loren, you need to loosen your grip. Let this happen naturally.”

And we’re there to make decisions on policy. We don’t steer the ship. We need to make sure that the ship stays afloat, right? So I want to make sure, generally speaking, that someone is going to be like-minded and not try and not get involved in the day-to-day decisions of what’s happening at the city level, and be there for the policy decisions that have a long term effect on the community.

Jenn Tanaka

So would you be considering anything with respect to demographics or background or profession? For example, there could be people who want to see a certain number of, maybe female candidates that are up there, or a certain number of candidates for particular backgrounds, people with different educational backgrounds, or different ages. You know, is that something that you would think about?

Loren Gameros

Yeah, so let me let me by your example, as far as whether they’re female or male, that absolutely has no bearing on my decision making process. As far as their educational background, I want them to be conscious of their surroundings, of where they’re at, and I want them to realize how weighted their decisions are and the effect on the community as a whole. 

Let me give you an example. We have a Council Member that is very well educated, very well educated, but has occasionally made comments. One of the comments that was made was, well, maybe we need to start looking at layoffs. When you make a comment like that, that’s dumb. I’ve met some pretty dumb smart people and some pretty dumb educated people. 

So good people leave when you make comments like that. I will quote a prior council member who said, “I hire and fire people all the time.” We can’t come in with that mentality. This is not a hire and fire mentality. We need to look at investing. If we’re going to invest in the community, one of the ways that we go about doing that is investing in the staff.

That helps to build this community and maintain this community. So I don’t want to say I don’t care what your education is. What I care about is how you feel about retainment for the community. We want retainment in here. If you want to punish, punish in private. Praise in public.

Jenn Tanaka

Moving on to a different question. There was a UC Irvine poll that was conducted this summer that reported, based on their survey results, that only about four in 10 Orange County residents say that they trust their city government. And I was wondering what you thought might be something that the city council could do to build public trust in how the council operates?

Loren Gameros

So let me let me first go back to the “poll” and I’m making quotes with my fingers. UC Irvine did a poll. Great. Four in ten? I’m gonna disagree. Polls are subjective. Okay. Wwhat time of the year did this happen? Who is the governing body when this happened?

I’ll use a term I heard earlier. What were the demographics, right? There’s so many things. We just took a poll in Costa Mesa before we decided to raise, excuse me, before we decided to give the voters the opportunity to decide if we wanted to raise [the] business permit tax.

We had an overwhelmingly positive response from both sides of the aisle, and I specifically told the person that we contract – the, the consultant.

So they conducted a poll. Their poll showed that over 50% of the community thought that this was a good idea and that we should have the chance to vote on it. What that poll in itself said is that this community trusts the government in Costa Mesa.

And I can back that statement up. Look at the chambers when we have meetings most of the time: they’re empty. Why are they empty? Because people have trust. They have trust in the community, they have trust in the leadership, they have trust in their police department and their fire department. 

What does that mean in the end? Trust in the government. We are, I am the government, right? I’m the elected official. So what I will say is, I don’t think that that poll was an accurate poll as far as Costa Mesa goes. It was not representative.

Jenn Tanaka

And I think that’s totally fair because the poll was conducted over the entirety of Orange County. So it wasn’t specific to Costa Mesa. I wanted to set that up perhaps then to to pivot to what you’ve seen in chambers, which is that a some evidence that there is a fair amount of trust in the government in Costa Mesa, which is great. I would then change the question to, what can we do to what would the Ccity Ccouncil need to do in the next four year th two years –, which would be the length of the mayoral term – to maintain that level of trust.

Loren Gameros

Two things: listen, act. 

We need to listen. We need to act on what the community says. So I’m always open to listen. Even if there’s a language barrier, the first thing I do is I grab someone who can help me understand what’s going on. I have no problem – I have no problem with that. 

And I have listened more than once, to the issues that have happened, issues that were happening unbeknownst to me in the community, and I acted immediately. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep that night without knowing that I was doing something immediately. So listen to what people are saying. If there’s something wrong and you are in the position to address it, fix it, cure it, help it, stop it, solve it, whatever it is, act on it.

That’s why I’m here. I’m here to act. I’m here to listen. Right?

Jenn Tanaka

Another thing I wanted to just talk to you about because you know the mayor, the mayor position has a bit more of a 10,000 foot view maybe than a sitting city council member. What do you view in the next couple of years as a significant challenge facing the city?

Loren Gameros

Most significant challenge? I’m gonna start digging my grave with this. but I’m gonna address it head on. I think the most significant challenge is gonna be AI.

Jenn Tanaka

Say more about that.

Loren Gameros

Flock.

Jenn Tanaka

Flock, okay. What is the challenge with Flock?

Loren Gameros

It’s intrusive, it’s invasive. There’s too much leverage that authoritarians — not like an authoritarian, someone who’s in a position of authority, that probably is a better way to put it –  a police officer is in a position of authority. They have access to Flock exclusively anywhere, anyway, any for whatever reason they want. I have a Flock camera at the corner of my neighborhood where I turn in, that gets to see me every single day. Does it bother me? No. But what bothers me is that it bothers you. Not you personally, but I’m generalizing, right? It bothers the community.

So I think the biggest challenge is gonna be trying to find balance where there’s such a huge imbalance.

Jenn Tanaka

Do you view something like AI as something that could be positively put into city government, integrated into city government, integrated into the police department with certain guardrails, or is it something that we should be more wary of?

Loren Gameros

Every movie I’ve ever seen regarding AI shows the destruction of the earth. [Laughter]

Jenn Tanaka

[Laughter] Right. There is a lot of that going around.

Loren Gameros

I’m gonna be honest with you. I don’t have the answer. WYou’re, that’s like, we’re trying to predict the future with AI. And AI is a very intrusive mechanism. It’s a device that can enrich the few and impoverish the many. And we need to be very cautious and careful while we jump from lily pad to lily pad on the AI pond.

Jenn Tanaka

But it does sound like something that the city might consider integrating into things in the future. Is that something that the Ccity Ccouncil should take a lead on?

Loren Gameros

We already are integrating and we do need to take a lead and we need to make sure that we have control and that we make decisions that are gonna have in the long run a positive change in the community right now. 

Although Flock is very useful, it’s quite obvious that the community response has not been positive.

I don’t have the ability sitting on the dais to know where every single person lives or what their status is in any way, shape, or form. So, one of the arguments that came to me regarding Flock was, “well, the people that came up there [to protest Flock], they don’t even live around here.” Well, we don’t have a wall around Costa Mesa. You still get to drive through here. So these people are affected when they drive through our community. 

Whether you live here or not shouldn’t be, as in regards to AI and Flock, shouldn’t be the reason that we make decisions regarding the future of Flock. That is not a reason to decide about AI or Flock.

Jenn Tanaka

So let’s look forward to the future. Let’s assume that you are elected mayor. Wwhat do you, at the end of your term, what do you want people to say changed in Costa Mesa because you were mayor?

Loren Gameros

Yyou know, that’s a good question. There’s a lot of things I would like to see changed.

I want to stay away from the business as usual and, you know, don’t shake the tree, don’t rattle and whatever that saying is. I want to make sure that we invest in our youth. I think it’s really important. 

The reason I say that is I was one of the youth that grew up in the city. And I have to tell you, when I reflect back, I had a wonderful, wonderful childhood in Costa Mesa. I rode my bike everywhere. I rode my bike to Newport Beach. I rode everywhere. Me and my friends, we were the little bike gang. We rode, you name it, name the community – we are always we rode all over the place. 

I want to make sure that we don’t lose that childhood freedom that kids need to have. They need that release, they need to be able to go to a park and recreate. They need to be able, for a recreational purpose, they need to be able to run in the streets, right? It seems like hopping on your bike and doing stuff isn’t as popular as it used to be when I was young, but they need to be able to hop on their scooter or whatever it is and go out and feel safe and feel free.

And I know that there’s families in this community and there’s children in this community that have a fear that I never had. And although I’m empathetic, I’ve never had that fear. So the biggest change that I want to see for our community is that every single resident in Costa Mesa does not have to live in fear.

Jenn Tanaka

If I may ask, what are they afraid of, you think?

Loren Gameros

Getting deported! We’re literally beating people up, shooting them, killing them, dragging them in front of their – dragging their parents by, you know, their feet down the street and [they’re] thrown into some oddball looking SUV and off they go. 

And then, now what? You know, wWe were lied to. We were told that people who were criminals were gonna be the ones that were targeted and now we’re going after what? We’re going after families? We’re going after people that want to go, wake up and go to work? That is not a community I would ever want to live in and to be honest with you. I get choked up just talking about it.

Jenn Tanaka

Fair enough. So we’ll change gears then to something a little more lighthearted just to end. 

Loren Gameros

Sorry, my eyes are watering now.

Jenn Tanaka

No, it’s all good. I just wanted to end with some rapid fire questions. So these can be short or–

Loren Gameros

Give me a second, I’m choked up here.

Jenn Tanaka

It’s all good. Take your time. So when you’re ready –

Loren Gameros

I’m ready. 

Jenn Tanaka

So just to just to wrap up, I would love to hear, it sounds like you’ve grown up in Costa Mesa. What is a place in Costa Mesa that brings you peace or happiness?

Just to choke you up more. [Laughter].

Loren Gameros

No, no, no, that’s okay. So I really love the art district that we have in the community. Growing up, one of the places that we always went when we were little, as corny as this sounds, we hung out at South Coast Plaza. I have childhood memories of South Coast Plaza, right? We had a lot of bean fields and farmland growing up. We used to go run and play, you know, around in those areas.

When the Siegerstrom site was developed, it opened up a whole new – my wife and I go to shows regularly. We just went and saw Phantom of the Opera, it was great. <y wife loves to go see plays and shows. And when you go it’s kinda like going to a movie theater, you get to escape, you go see a live performance with live people. It’s like a little “stay-cation”. You get away, you lose yourself and your thoughts in the moment. 

Another thing I really enjoyed doing: we went to ARTVenture. I got captivated by everyone’s art that was there. I’m buying a piece that I saw, a pen-and-ink, a pen-and-paper piece that I really, I really loved. So I found the artist and we’re figuring out how to get that on the wall in my house.

Jenn Tanaka

That’s amazing. Next question is: name a business that’s no longer in operation that you miss. There’s probably too many.

Loren Gameros

No, no, no – I got one in particular ’cause we used to go there as kids and I don’t know if – how long have you lived here?

Jenn Tanaka

I’ve only lived here ten years. So this is for everyone though. 

Loren Gameros

Kona Lanes. 

Jenn Tanaka

Okay. I have heard of Kona Lanes.

Loren Gameros

Kona Lanes was awesome. It was great. They had a big giant arcade. You could go bowling. It was a place to hang out. And we need to have, we need to continue to keep those places where kids wanna hang out and have fun. And Kona Lanes was that place.

Jenn Tanaka

And the last question is: [what is the] best kept secret about Costa Mesa that you are willing to share?

Loren Gameros

So I kind of gave some of it away, but this is true. Costa Mesa has some of the finest dining opportunities in Orange County. I’ve eaten a lot of places. My wife and I are foodies. We just went and ate at –, and I’m terrible with remembering things sometimes – it’s a place on the corner of Victoria and it’s just an address. It’s like twenty-nine forty-eight. I forgot the number you can correct me. 

Jenn Tanaka

Yeah, I think it’s 2148 Pizza, right? [Note, with apologies: the restaurant is called “2145 Eats”]

Loren Gameros

Whatever it is. We ate there the other night and it was the best experience I’ve ever had. Memphis has wonderful food. I could go down a very long… Trenta pizza, I guess we’re kind of gravitating towards pizza, but yeah, we have a lot of great places to eat around here.

Jenn Tanaka

That’s awesome. Loren Gameros, thank you so much for sitting down with me.

Lore Gameros

Sorry for almost crying at the end.

Jenn Tanaka

No, no, it’s great. Thank you.