Meet Quinton Harrell

We were lucky to catch up with Quinton Harrell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Quinton, thank you so much for agreeing to talk about a topic that needs far more open conversation – overcoming bankruptcy. Can you talk to us about your journey and how you overcame bankruptcy?

I overcame bankruptcy by way of curiosity and fascination. I filed bankruptcy in 2008 during the great recession of 2007 – 2009. I was 37 years old. I owned a business that I had grew from street vending with one table to two (2) storefront locations (one in the local mall) over a 14-year span, a 2005 Mercedes 500 S-class, expensive jewelry, and three townhomes with two rented and one purchased in 2004 as my primary residence. From 2004 to mid 2006 life was good as I was miscalculating my net worth as being a millionaire on paper (not properly factoring in all the leveraged debt). From 2006 going into 2007, I felt like I needed to do something different in my business, but I did not know how to expand nor pivot, it felt like something was happening that I didn’t like, but I did not know how to interpret the markets and had no education on how to strengthen my position.

So, when I experienced the ensuing fallout from that major financial storm, the loss was painful. I eventually lost everything except my primary home. However, I was quite fascinated. I did not recognize or experience anything noticeable in all prior recessions and economic downturns in my lifetime (my single Mother was always under some level of economic strain my entire childhood); 2007 was the first I experienced as a semi-responsible, business-owning, property-owning, loan-holding adult. The self-awareness I experienced in the middle of that storm awakened my senses and intrigued me like nothing else had. So, instead of letting the financial pain crush me, my curiosity of it all propelled me to get educated so I can understand what happened to this picture I painted for myself as “finally making it as a Black man in America”. I went back to school and acquired a bachelor’s degree in business administration, which opened my eyes to a greater understanding of business, finance, accounting, and financial management. I came out on the other end believing my bankruptcy experience was ordained for my growth.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Most importantly, I’m founder and chairman of House Harrell, where my wife Yolunda serves as CEO. House Harrell’s (our household) vision is being “A blessed family thriving under providence”. Our mission is to “increase our blessings so that we may be a blessing to others”. I’m glad that I’ve reached a point in my life where our vision and mission guide all the work and volunteering I do now.

I co-founded a small investment group of African American males investing together and I serve as chairman of the Charlottesville Chamber’s Minority Business Alliance while my wife serves on the Chamber’s board of directors. I also serve on the City of Charlottesville’s Economic Development Authority and the board and finance committee of Charlottesville’s Paramount Theater.

I’m a two-time college drop-out from Suffolk, Virginia, who spent his formative years in the D.C. Metropolitan area, and a stint in Brooklyn, New York the first run in college. The second run was studying computer engineering in Laurel, MD., then finding a passion in entrepreneurialism, which led to withdrawing from school and moving to Charlottesville, Virginia to pursue street vending, of all things. However, that led to a 14-year career in retail clothing and a 30+ year in serial entrepreneurship. In that time, I have owned or co-owned an environmentally friendly dry-cleaning service, a food truck & catering service, a construction brokerage firm, and now a small real estate investment firm with my wife. Although I’m excited about our first multi-family acquisition of a vacation rental property this year called Wayah Ridge Escapes (beforehand, we only acquired single-family homes), I’m even more excited about a barbecue sauce business my wife and I acquired this year called Bone Doctors’ Barbecue. We actually purchased it by way of a relationship developed by way of the non-profit side of our household, which my wife leads.

The organization is called New Hill Development Corporation, which is a CDC (community development corporation). New Hill’s driving force is couched in the desire to create wealth-building opportunities in and for Charlottesville’s Black community. The vision: Expanded economic opportunities that redefine wealth for a thriving Black community. The Mission: To grow wealth and home ownership in the Black community through financial coaching, entrepreneurial support, economic development and asset building. With my wife leading the charge as co-founder and CEO, and under the economic development pillar of New Hill’s work, we’re building a 10,000 sq. ft. shared-use kitchen to serve emerging and established food service entrepreneurs who need space to test their idea, expand their capacity, develop & launch packaged products, and gain valuable knowledge through programmatic offerings on how to run a profitable food business. The BEACON kitchen (Black Entrepreneurial and Community Opportunity Network) is like a gym providing a gym membership for entrepreneurs to protect their financial future before diving into debt with long-term leases and expensive buildouts before proof of concept or even proof of commitment.

The extremely difficult and complex coordination, fundraising, and work in creating an initiative that serves not only Black entrepreneurs but any established business that needs additional space to expand their business, is a testament to my wife’s professional and spiritual growth, my experiences and relationships I have had the pleasure to develop over the years after graduating from college as an adult, and a family alignment of our mission and vision that guides our work in our community.

We purchased Bone Doctors’ Barbecue from two outstanding gentlemen who ran the business for 14 years, while still working full time as orthopedic surgeons. They were reaching a point in their family life where they were considering winding down the business and happened to be renting space at the warehouse where my wife is now building the BEACON kitchen. One conversation led to another and now, we are the proud new owners of Bone Doctors’ Barbecue, the BEACON kitchen is scheduled to open February 2025 (with a light opening in Dec. ’24), and our personal experiences invested in growing Bone Doctors’ will be donated to New Hill’s BEACON kitchen to inform any educational efforts for entrepreneurs desiring to develop an idea into a value-added product for commercial distribution.

(For me, that aligns with House Harrell’s mission to increase our blessings so that we may be a blessing to others).

So, we have lots to be excited about. Our consistent prayer is that we always keep God front & center and never get all “Hoyty Toyty” and “big in the britches” thinking that we designed all these wonderful connections and developments ourselves….because that ain’t the case.

Oh! …and we just adopted an extraordinary 19-year son! Expanding House Harrell.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. Love of reading / learning
2. Relationship development
3. Interpreting financial statements

The good news is it’s much easier to gain access to a set of knowledge through technology at no- or low cost. For example, YouTube university can be clutch to having fundamental concepts explained.

If you don’t like reading, leverage audible books. Consuming books specific to your goals will open up a new world and guide your inner wisdom to enhance your path. You’ll start recognizing opportunities that were there in plain sight before; your vision was just blurred. Your ideas will become more brilliant than they were and executable.

It’s important to be curious, vulnerable, unafraid of failure, and genuinely interested in people and their story. New perspectives can change your life.

Interpreting financial statements is critical and largely ignored; it’s super important for us whether we own a business or not. For example, you could look at your paychecks and be satisfied about the numbers coming in based on your salary, which leads to the consumption decisions you make consciously and unconsciously on a regular basis. But hey, if a person has $200k coming in annually or monthly, if they got $201k going out annually or monthly, that’s a broke person!

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

There are a multitude of impactful books I can list here, but I will simply mention one of the staples – “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”.

The impactful nugget was defining each and showing the difference between an asset and a liability. All my youthful life consisted of purchasing liabilities.

Assets put money into your pocket on a regular basis and liabilities take money out of your pocket on a regular basis.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bonedoctorsbbq.com | www.newhilldev.org | www.wayahridgerentals.com
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/quinton-harrell-b674b06

Image Credits

Kori Price Photography
Lisa Martin – C-Biz
Marcia Made This