Francois Reihani is the 22-year-old founder of the We Are One Project, and former founder of Bar Stellar, and Pok The Raw Bar, located in Dallas, Texas. Born in Los Angeles, Reihani has spent equal parts of his life growing up in Los Angeles and Mexico.
In January 2017, the young entrepreneur transferred from the University of Southern California, to Southern Methodist University (while an undergraduate student at Southern Methodist University) opened his first restaurant concept, Pōk the Raw Bar, in Dallas’ vibrant West Village. As the co-founder and co-CEO of Pōk, Reihani helped usher in the first poke concept to the city. His natural business and industry acumen helped Pōk achieve incredible success, surpassing all initial (and already high) sales predictions. Just one semester away from graduation, Reihani dropped out of school to pursue his dreams full time.
Following the incredible success of Pōk, Reihani flipped his first bar concept, Bar Stellar, in September 2017. Located in Dallas’ thriving Knox-Henderson neighborhood, the craft cocktail bar married effortless design with stunning presentation and the highest level of service. Taking a business that was on the brink of bankruptcy, it only took Reihani 4 months to turn the business around, and another 10 to complete a sale.
Ever since Reihani was young, he thought like an entrepreneur. He washed cars and mowed lawns for money. When he was in middle school, he bought candy from the store and sold it to his classmates at a profit. In high school, he started his own party promotion company. Reihani has always had a true passion for hospitality and strives to ensure every guest receives the best possible experience, every time. Because of this dedication to quality service and experience, he was the youngest sales professional to be awarded Top Sales Associate for Volkswagen’s West Coast division at the age of 18. However, the entrepreneur says it was during his time on the business development team atSBE that he developed a true passion for hospitality.
Reihani has now experienced the restaurant, and bar industry. He plans on using his passion for hospitality and entrepreneurship to better the community around him. "I am very fortunate to have had so much experience at this age, to really show myself what I desire in life." "You quickly learn that just making money is not the key to happiness, and that plays a huge factor on my next projects" , says Reihani. Future plans ensure a path in Social Entrepreneurship...... stay tuned.
““My success at the end of
the day will not be measured
on how much money I make,
but how many people
I end up helping.” ”
— francois reihani
In 2016, Reihani started the We Are One Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to arming the foster youth who are aging out with tools necessary to get on their feet. Soon after opening Bar Stellar, Reihani realized he had to commit to his non profit full time to make it work. Retiring from hospitality, Reihani set out to change the lives of at risk foster youth who were aging out of the system. Providing mentorship, job placement, housing, and therapy, was not enough to make the non profit successful. The youth could not get or maintain jobs, the root of the problem. With no jobs, they could not afford a home, food, or every day living. The moment of realization for Reihani to combine both his passions, and create a space to hire and mentor the youth himself. La La Land Kind Cafe was created, with big dreams. He hopes that they will be able to not only improve the lives of the youth, but to set an example to all business’ that we can all do more. “It’s sad to see that all business’ care about in today’s age is more money. Plumping up their profit margins, with no sense of humanity. We as a nation are supporting the business’ around us, so we should expect them to support us back.” He hopes to be the leader in making social entrepreneurship main stream. “True success to me would that 10 years from now we expect every single business to give back.” Personally and professionally, he is driven by one underlying goal: to positively affect as many people as he can.
Learn More at Lalalandkindcafe.com and WeAreOneProject.org