Meet Adrian Sosebee | Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Adrian Sosebee and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Adrian, how does your business help the community?
I started my business because I don’t want to see little gem food spots die out. My goal is to preserve and promote. Culture and community is our priority. We started Eat the Works Louisiana in 2023 with the goal of helping to service the community of small business restaurant owners in Louisiana. I was initially inspired during the pandemic by Barstool Sports’ CEO Dave Portnoy with his quest to help small business restaurant owners in need. I have been a creative all my life and I wanted to use my creative energy to focus on what I really love: going out to eat. And New Orleans especially, has a vibrant and thriving pop-up scene since the pandemic with many bars leasing out kitchens to hold their pop-ups. This was a phenomena! I started to notice a variety of amazing pop-ups every day at my bartender brothers’ bar – Pal’s Lounge. Instagram was the main platform for most of these pop-ups and I started a new IG for my own personal food reviews the name hit me like a lightbulb “HealthyAndFantastic” (or HAF- which was the initial name for my page in 2020). My business today ETWLA services the Louisiana foodie pop-up scene/community by providing pro-bono high quality videography and video editing – content marketing and advertising to try and trigger a viral video to transform their business. Eat The Works Louisiana serves as a blueprint for small business to navigate the new “tiktokified” social media landscape.

This is not my first business or rodeo. Flashback to ATL- I began by hustling merch and t-shirt’s in the EDM scene of Atlanta. After moving to New Orleans I created a brand called Frenchmen Clothing, that was a tribute to Gucci for the Service Industry of bartenders and doormen. Both of my previous brands serviced the community by giving away free products. Overall the community goals were not implicit in the business model and I believe it contributed to the failure. Another thing that happen to to me with those failed brands was that I fell out of love with the community/scenes they were in. The pandemic changed my view about live events and I was burned out of dealing with artist musicians as my archetypal models. My life had changed and I was in a new community – The Foodies.

Eat the Works Louisiana consists of myself and the host Brad Bohannan. We start off by going go to a restaurant or food truck to film the vendor making the food they offer. After an initial intro to the history behind their business and the type of food that they serve ect., we film Brad trying some of their most popular dishes while talking to the owner “ala Anthony Bourdain style” and then edit a 60 sec reel or 15 min long video for YouTube. What sets up apart from other food influencers, is that I invest some of my personal revenue to advertise and promote the videos. For example, we recently filmed an Ethiopian restaurant (one of only 2 Ethiopian restaurants in Louisiana) called Addis Nola. We had a great shoot! The owner and chef had such a great chemistry with the host Brad Bohannan, that I edited a 60 second vertical reel that was one of my favorites. On IG, I initially invested on a $12.00 ad, but after I told the owner of Addis Nola he was so happy that he said he would give me $40.00 to put on a new ad and I matched him so $80.00 later we got 113,000 views. To me this is a success and this is what I want to do with my life. What we did here is provide high quality content with “Keith Lee” viral results and I love it! Giving recommendations for food is an art – and I am the Picasso of this. Just watch our YouTube HealthyAndFantastic and @eattheworkslouisiana on Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok!.
How does my business help the community ? It empowers business owners not only with free high-quality promoted content, but I have also mentored business owners to help improve their social media game. When I first moved to New Orleans from Atlanta (my hometown) I was quickly struck by how behind (for lack of the better word) many New Orleans musicians were. Many were not even on Instagram this was 2014, and I quickly had a business that allowed me to pay my rent, by doing Instagram’s social media management for multiple bands. This business was not sufficient. It was not until I, by chance, added Brad Bohannan on Facebook and he hired my company to run his bar Turtle Bay’s social media. This allowed me to quit my 9-5 and go full on freelance giving me free time to support the pro bono passion project Eat the Works Louisiana. Being a entrepreneur business owner himself, Brad Bohannan is passionate about preserving the Louisiana restaurant culture, and promoting tourism.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art is making non-serious, silly videos for my @healthyandfantastic personal Instagram page. More specifically I have a show that I enjoy making called “Going to the Movies so you don’t have to” where I give movie reviews. I do this with a direct on camera unscripted commentary with brutally honest movie reviews. The challenge is that it took me 40 years to be comfortable in front of the camera. For many years I was behind the camera as a cinematographer and producer and did not know how to act on camera or have any opportunities. Now my last movie review of Maxxxine got 15k views on IG. Years ago, I might not have believed myself capable of this and would have been shy on camera. What I have learned is like NIKE says “JUST DO IT” You’ve got to jump off that diving board and into the water, so to speak, and just immerse yourself in your craft. Also this comes from hard work I have been posting these videos now every week multiple times a week since 2020. Content Creation saved my life, it gives me purpose. My @healthyandfantastic brand is about me overcoming my trials and tribulations with 100% positivity and blind faith. My previous brand was based on the service industry and bartending – this brand is about sobriety and good living. My goal is to appeal to Non/Alcoholic brands and lifestyles and meet people in the “sober content creator” community.

One of my introductions to sober influencers was during the Clubhouse audio craze around 2020. I volunteered to run a audio only ground “Mindset Success” at 9:30am CST every day for anyone who wanted come in and check in taking turns. At first it was a huge success and I got to meet many large scale sober influencers many of whom I still follow today. That is my brand story its my road to sobriety and reaching a higher state of consciousness without the aid of drugs or alcohol. When the world stopped March 14th 2020 – that is when my new life of sobriety began. And that is the story of my brand @healthyandfantastic.

Another one of my projects “Dirty Dogs” the feature documentary (@dirtydogsthemovie (IG +Fb) was a huge creative challenge. When I was first approached by Executive Producer Brad Bohannan I thought he was crazy he wanted me to go undercover and push a lucky dog cart. I even applied for the job with a hidden camera and got the job, but we wound up finding a different person and I just filmed him undercover as a Lucky Dog operator. The premise for our 95 min feature documentary is this, Lucky Dogs has had a monopoly in the French Quarter for 50 years and our movie investigates the “Why?” and creates a positive change through social justice. Our movie was directed by Mark “Tye” Turner who was a 62 year old first time director (he had been a writer and producer for years in Hollywood). Right after we locked in final cut of the movie Mark submitted the film through film freeway to 30 film festivals (including New Orleans Film Festival and Atlanta Film Festival). Not long after he submitted the film to these festivals Mark was found dead in his sleep with a smile on his face (recounted to us by an eye witness). Now it is left to myself the Producer , Cinematographer, and Social Media Manager to pick up the pieces and find a home for this movie on the festival circuit and a subsequent streaming network. I am “in media res” with this creative problem as we speak visit : instagram.com/dirtydogsthemovie to see our progress.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
For my Atlanta readers coming to New Orleans: Friday afternoon – arrive by plane (I prefer Delta).

ATL-MSY at 2pm. I would go to Zimmers Seafood in Gentilly New Orleans, buy 4 lb’s of crawfish, then go to the lakefront and eat crawfish and feed the birds bread (while posting to your Instagram story). You can buy a loaf of po’boy bread next to Zimmers there is a bakery. Then I would walk to happy hour at Blue Crab, and get $5.00 calamari and .60 cent chargrilled oysters and eat for a bit watching the sunset on the lake with the boats.
Then I would take an Uber to Turtle Bay in the French Quarter get the Pizza Fries and then walk around the markets in Decatur St and go to the bar Spotted Cat Music Club on Frenchmen street and watch a jazz show as you have a Mocktale (booze makes you look old) they are the best bartenders in town. Go to sleep.

Wake up on SAT at 8am go to Flour Moon Bagels. After that, do some cemetery tours and walk around garden district then lunch at Turkey and the Wolf get everything on menu (its a small menu) then take a Uber to Bourbon Street. If you have time before dinner, do a walking tour. I recommend Quay Frazier with “Big Easy Walking Tours.” Walk through it quickly and then go have dinner at Restaurant Revolution its expensive but worth it!
After dinner, go to Saturn Bar its where the locals go on St. Claude and have fun its New Orleans. After Saturn Bar get a Glizzy from Glizzies by Poppa on St Louis and Bourbon serving the best gourmet street hot dogs in the French Quarter. Go to sleep in your Hotel (I recommend the OMNI international because of the rooftop pool) Do not support Air BNB, they are not good for locals or the community. Wake up early before your flight and go to Cafe Du Monde get a iced cafe au lait and beignets. If you get hungry or delayed at the airport go see my friend Shane at Tavern on Vets they have amazing burgers and wings and right by the airport with a full bar and darts (In Kenner where MSY is) Come Visit New Orleans we want you and we have the best food Keith Lee said this.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to make my shout out to a streaming network. https://www.criterionchannel.com/browse The Criterion Channel is the most slept on streaming network you got to subscribe to! I first found out about Janus films as a kid from the Ingmar Bergman movies like “Persona” I loved so much. Crazy story, years later I’d be in NYC at the Criterion Christmas party with Bill Becker himself, the owner of Janus films! His son Peter Becker founded Criterion first as laser discs then as DVD’s and now as streaming and blue rays. These movies in the collection are some of the most influential foreign art house and even classic Hollywood. I started working for them at the tender age of 19 – as a Quality Control staff member at their original office on 51st and then remotely in Atlanta for a number of years. Big up to Technical Director Lee Kline. What makes them so great is they spend big money , there own money, to preserve and make the film transfers the best possible version so that this Fellini 8 1/2 will be the best version ever! What’s also cool they have a graphic design department and they redo the art work they really are a total agency.

Website: https://linktr.ee/frenchmen

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthyandfantastic/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/healthyandfantastic/

Twitter: https://x.com/HealthyAndFanta

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eattheworkslouisiana

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsGYPs8Xg3GClS5Yway4WtA

Other: https://SOLIDICMEDIA.COM

Image Credits
All photos by Adrian Sosebee (except ones I’m in (im in American flag jacket that’s me) the ones of me eating pizza in USA jacket were used by permission by photographer WHITNEY TUCKER (Nola)