Brazilian-born Gus Rezende has spent over two decades building a life and a business in Acadiana.
Becoming a U.S. citizen, meeting his wife and raising a family, and growing a hospitality empire, Social Entertainment, the umbrella company behind local favorites like Central Pizza, Tropical Smoothie and more.
Alongside his longtime business partner B.J. Crist, a branch of the company named Social Entertainment Productions, was the force behind popular Lafayette events: Sugar Jam, Downtown Rising, the Acadiana Po-Boy Festival, Acadiana Eats and more.
After 15 years in business, Rezende and his team decided it was time for a change. Social Entertainment Productions is now Serving Good Vibes, an evolution Rezende describes as the company finally standing on its own legs.
The group will hold a grand opening for its office in downtown Lafayette at 425 Jefferson St. at 2-6 p.m. Friday. Other upcoming events include the Sugar Jam at 6 p.m. Saturday at Sugar Mill Pond in Youngsville.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You describe the transition of Social Entertainment to Serving Good Vibes as an evolution rather than a departure. Tell me more about that.
After 15 years, the specific company under Social Entertainment in a way was a catch-all. It was a company that never really put too much thought and investment or time and money to really systemize, organize, hire up and grow. After 15 years, I personally went to my partner and told him that I believe that this company has way more potential than we ever thought. We have a group of people that are very invested and passionate about what we do. We have sponsors and partners that have been with us for over a decade that consistently keep coming back whether they’re trying to help the community or they’re trying to expose their business through sponsorship. It just became obvious that it was time for me, specifically as the owner and operator all these years, to take a step back, allow the managers that have earned a position to grow within the company and remove myself from the everyday operations to focus on the relationships that we have created and the growth of the company.
Growth like this can often come with risk. What’s your take on that?
The lack of evolving, the lack of taking initiative and the lack of evaluating what the company has done in 15 years — that was the risk. Not taking a step forward. Just sitting idle was what was going to be a risky proposition. We are lucky that we have established a business that is very self-sufficient. It’s not a business that requires a lot of financial investment. It’s a business that just requires a lot of structure, focus, organization and execution. The growth and the evolution actually make it less risky in a way.
There was messaging in your announcement about Serving Good Vibes becoming a regional leader. What does that look like in practice?
We’ve had moments within the 15 years that we did go regionally outside the parish, but it was short-lived. Now with the ability to scale, we have the right structure, and we look forward to reconnecting with old clients and old mayors of different municipalities and organizers and promoters. Eventually, yes, we are going to get back to exploring business opportunities when it comes to hospitality, catering, event production and consulting beyond the parish, but Lafayette Parish is the heart of the company.
In a place like Lafayette where our culture is at the root of everything we do, how do you plan on maintaining authenticity and keeping people coming back?
We have a variety of projects. Some projects, they’re projects that we create ourselves, like the Po-Boy Festival, which celebrates the legacy of the po-boy. This year we’re taking two legacy festivals — the Plate Lunch Festival, which was the Plate Lunchapalooza back in the day, and the Acadiana Po-Boy Festival and we’re merging both festivals into the Acadiana Po-Boy and Plate Lunch Festival. Those are creative maneuvers we have from creating hundreds of concepts over the years, testing out the market and surveying the community. We also have clients, developers mayors, people that have a pulse in the community that request for us to produce their events.
You mentioned that you’re re-upping partnerships with mayors and local governments. Does that factor into your growth strategy or is that more of a commitment to the community?
It’s a mixed bag. We never thought that after 15 years we’ll have mayors of different municipalities reaching out to us and asking us to be part of a dream that the city may have or of a project that they used to do and want to bring back. It was never planned, but after 15 years, we realized that we do have partnerships with municipalities and private businesses. We don’t do just the things we want to do, and we don’t create and curate just the things we want. We provide services to others — whether it’s catering, consulting, production solutions, event management and more.
Was there a mistake you made in the early years of your career or in the early years that has shaped how you operate now?
Slowing it down sometimes and taking a step back. When you are endeavoring into entrepreneurship, a lot of times when you’re trying to grow, you have the entrepreneur spirit and you want to grow and build something special, a lot of times it felt like we had to rush or that we had to jump and move quickly. But looking back, there were a lot of times that you take a step back, deep breath and you kind of look at the whole picture and many other decisions could have been made to avoid overloading the company, overloading the staff or making decisions that has value, whether it is a financial value or a community value. The lesson learned has been that we have more time than we think and it’s about taking a step back and not jumping on things so quickly.