In this YouTube episode, NBA star Jimmy Butler visits historic Overtown, Miami, to explore the cultural legacy of the Red Rooster restaurant and to work as a sous‑chef alongside executive chef Tristan Epps. The segment begins with a tour of the Red Rooster space, where owner Derek explains the venue’s roots in Harlem’s juke‑joint scene, its homage to Overtown’s past, and the restaurant’s community‑focused hiring practices. Derek also highlights the influence of the Green Book and the placement of a portrait of artist Mickalene Thomas to honor women. After a brief discussion about social justice and the importance of giving back, Jimmy joins Tristan in the kitchen to prepare two quick, flavorful dishes: a seafood stew with coconut‑beer broth, shrimp, clams, mussels, and garam masala, followed by a fish‑and‑grits plate featuring seasoned fish, bell peppers, fennel, and preserved lemon‑beer glaze. Throughout the cooking, Jimmy and the crew share playful banter, personal anecdotes about Jimmy’s basketball journey, and reflections on community empowerment. The episode blends cultural history, culinary instruction, and personal storytelling, showcasing how food can serve as a bridge between heritage and contemporary community building.
Chapters
You wanna grab those muscles for me right there? You like that?
See what I did?
All right, all right, all right, all right.
Oh!
Tennis player.
Serena, Serena.
Domino expert, don't forget that one. I guess a basketball player here and there, not very often. I'm rolling around the city, my home, Miami, Florida. Today I'm in historic Overtown. I'm linking up with Derek, who is the owner and boss man over at Red Rooster, to learn about their place, their culture, this area. And I'll also be the sous chef to Tristan Epps. And if you don't know who that is, What that is, stay tuned. It gets so much better from here.
What's going on, brothers?
What's going on? How are you? Nice, man.
I'm good, I'm good.
Welcome, man. My name is Derek. I got the opportunity to come here and I want to know about the history, obviously, here in Overtown.
This building was actually owned by the city, but I found out it used to be a pool hall who used to host Muhammad Ali.
Okay.
Aretha Franklin. Louis Armstrong and Aretha used to walk through these, this, you know. Ha ha, right! The story of the Green Book is really a guide, it's a periodical that '50s and '60s helped us to navigate through the country and find our safe havens. Like where we could stop for hotels, get our hair cut, you know. Do shopping as we traveled around the country. And, you know, we wouldn't get the things that happened to us when we were traveling around the country. Understood.
You understand? Understood.
What Derek did is he took the national perspective on the Green Book and focused it on Florida and then focused even tighter in on Miami and Overtown. So you'll see the addresses for the safe havens are on this block.
This is fire.
All right, man, I'm gonna walk you around a little bit. You wanna walk around?
I'm following you.
All right.
Red Rooster used to be a spot in Harlem. It was a little tiny kind of a juke joint. They served fried chicken and, you know, great drinks. The Pastors, Black athletes would hang out at this spot. And, you know, we just started building around the spirit of that brand. And so this is what that is. And a big thing that we do here, man, is, you know, we hire from the community.
I really respect that, man. I really do. Love that idea. This is Mickalene Thomas.
She focuses on empowering women. And so we put her at the center of the dining room because we wanted everyone to sort of walk through and feel like sister's presence is like watching over us and taking, you know, making it all good.
As she should be. As she should be, Queen.
That's what we did. So yeah, man, I'm gonna take you upstairs and show you this other vibe.
I'm liking it. Watch your head, man. I'm telling you.
Watch your head. So this area here, really the idea was to create a space that was an ode to Overtown. You know, sort of like every image here was handpicked to represent people who have been in Overtown, who performed at the Lyric Theater in Overtown, had some sort of connection to the space, or just like images of what Overtown sort of was in its heyday.
I'm loving the vibe.
This here is gonna be a lounge, the after party.
It's a hall.
It'll be that too. It'll be that too.
I like it.
Cool.
Count me in.
Why don't we go have a drink down at the bar, man? Just, you know, continue chopping it up.
I've never said no to a drink.
Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's go.
Cheers.
All right, man. Salud.
Cheers.
Salud.
How important is it to you to give back to this beautiful community here?
It's very important. You know, like, the whole idea of coming to a place where you can build something like this, where you can provide a platform for folks in the neighborhood that otherwise wouldn't have opportunity. You know, coming to Overtown just kind of, it fuels my own personal passion. You grew up in Houston?
I did. Tomball at that.
Yeah.
Small city outside. And it's, you know, everybody has their own story to get to where they are. And I love mine. And I love all the cities that I've been a part of from Chicago to, To Minneapolis, to Philadelphia, obviously here in Miami. In each one of those communities, they've embraced me as a basketball player, obviously, but also as the weird, loving kid, now grown man, human being that I've always been. And I just think what you're doing is so special because you're here.
I appreciate that, man. I mean, the fact that athletes such as yourself, really, who are recognizing where the country is with social injustice and really kind of taking their platforms and responding to it, doing something about it, being engaged in it, not afraid to take a stand.
I truly like the fact that you were talking about hope and you were talking about promise.
I'm excited, man.
Excited.
What I want to do is I want to introduce you to Tristan, who's our executive chef here.
Okay.
And I thought it would be cool if you could kind of get with Tristan and show us what you really are capable of. But since you say that you cook, let's really, let's see what this is about.
Sit back and relax, man.
Tristan, this is Jimmy.
Jimmy, Steve. What's up, my man? What's up, brother? How are you? Nice to meet you. Yeah, let me make my way back into the kitchen.
Yeah, why don't you come back here?
It's small in here and it's hot in here.
Yeah.
But I'm gonna step in for a second.
Good luck.
And then I'm gonna step right back out.
Right back out.
Oh my God.
You know what? I got somewhere else we could cook.
Please.
These are live.
They are.
They really are.
They are, yeah.
That one just moved. Yeah.
All right, man, we're making seafood stew with coconut beer broth with spinach and tomatoes. So we're going to start off with a little bit of olive oil in this pan. Okay, this is actually palm oil. Okay, and the first thing we're going to do is we're going to season up the shrimp, right? So we're going to hit it with a little bit of salt. You want to crush it with some pepper on there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. That's enough salt. Trust me.
There's no way.
Trust me. I'll never tell you how to shoot a jump shot.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
All right, so we're just going to go right in. All right, and then hit it with that pepper again. The oil gives it this nice, really good color, but we're not gonna cook them all the way yet. We'll take them back onto the plate. Garlic and ginger. We're gonna add some chilies and tomato paste, and this will just give the dish a little bit more like a stew-like consistency, right? So we're gonna add some white onion, right? All the flavors. This is garam masala, kind of like a curry paste or a curry powder, and you'll instantly get a bigger— a different smell with this.
That's a good smell.
That's a good smell. All right, now why don't you crack me open a beer. Lower this down a bit.
All right.
Perfect. Now why don't you crack one open for the thing for me, please.
Oh, man, Noah's getting it in. Tell me when to stop.
Tell me when to stop.
The whole thing. Oh, okay.
All right, now look how instantly the pan starts to get clean. Right, now this is the start of our broth and our sauce. Some roasted tomatoes, and then now I want to make it a little richer. I'm actually gonna add coconut milk. We're gonna add in our living friends over there.
All right.
You be the bearer of bad news.
You got so much blue crab. Oh, no, he said never mind. See, now you want him to die.
He made a noise.
Right?
All right, so we're going in with our clams and our mussels. We're gonna add our shrimp. I'm gonna add a little bit more. Of this garam masala. And now I'm going to add something that don't smell too good. It's fish sauce.
Ooh, I can smell that from here.
Yeah. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to cover this with some spinach.
Just like that.
Shake, shake, shake.
Right.
Shake, shake, shake. Shake yo stew. All right, well. Shake yo stew. That actually does smell crazy good.
Let's just dish it out and give it a try. So I think the important part is to get that broth.
Yeah, that broth, that broth different.
Right?
Okay, a clam. I've never had a clam before. For everybody that's watching me eat this, so if I react, nobody laugh.
Okay.
That's legit.
So the next thing we're gonna make is fish and grits. We just gonna make it a little fancier. It's an old Bohemian dish. Good amount of olive oil. These are like little bell peppers. Okay, so we have some onions. Onions.
Okay. Peppers.
Right, 2 bay leaves. What we got there? Some thyme.
Throw it in there. All of it?
All of it.
On top of it?
Right on top of here.
Yeah.
Perfect. All right, garlic and ginger again. All right, all of it in there. And this is fennel. Kinda smells like licorice.
I've never smelled licorice before, so I can't agree nor disagree.
And we'll just mix this up.
Can you just do this?
Yeah.
Yeah, this makes me feel good.
All right, and you know what? You're getting popped on. You can't be a sous chef without an apron, my man. So we make these. Man, I ain't reaching all the way the hell up there, bro.
All right, well, worth a try. Yeah, let me get that.
All right.
Let me get that.
Ah!
Keep you fresh.
Yeah. Yeah.
Tell you what, you can't tell me nothing now.
Just for it, we're gonna add just a touch of butter.
Tumeric.
Tumeric.
All right.
And this is gonna give us some cool color. This is preserved lemon beer.
Okay, I'll take that.
You take that?
Yeah.
And now this is a little bit of vinegar and white wine. Time for the fish. Can you lower it in there for me? Yeah, I got this. So nice and flat, one piece on each side. And so we serve this with grits. I'll let you do this. Why don't you put a little bit of grits in the bowl, and you're gonna place it right on top. I think that's pretty damn good.
Really?
Power vegetables here.
Hella, yeah, that's good. Early one Sunday morning. <LYRICS>Fish and grits was on the table. There was no time to eat. Chef said to me, boy, hurry to Sunday school.</LYRICS> You don't know nothing about that. Just gave you a preview of my next album that's coming out.
