A Weed & Wagyu Story: LLJC 🥩🕊️
🏚️ jesse johnson iv (@jessethechef) came up in memphis kitchens where feeding friends was the 1st flex. he later attended tennessee state university studying mass communications, but college didn’t stick, cooking did. jan 17, 2019 was his last check from target & he never looked back. after that he hustled stuffed lobster plates in nashville, posting them online until the internet wanted more.
👨🏾🍳 those viral plates flipped into a real business. by mid 2019 @jessethechef sold out weekly, building a style rooted in butter, heat & personality. when the ceilings got low, he moved to LA in july 2019, starting from scratch w/ little more than ambition.
🍽️ LAsharpened the brand of JesseTheChef. he built a reputation as a private chef specializing in seafood & wagyu, eventually cooking for chief keef, @lildurk, @KeyGLOCK, dolph & more while operating as a japanese wagyu trapper shipping A5 beef across 48 states.
🔥 somewhere between a dab hit & a sear, the idea formed: pair high-grade wagyu w/ exotic cannabis. not infused, paired. by 2020–2021, weed & wagyu emerged as a private tasting concept matching steak & strain in flavor, fat & experience.
🌿 @jessethechef spoke about bringing a black, trap-influenced presence into cannabis. his goal was visibility, showing young black chefs, smokers & entrepreneurs there was space for them where luxury food, terps & culture meet.
🍌🏪 banana pudding became a @jessethechef signature, & archie’s became the hub where people pulled up for it, the drops & the community.
🥩 weed & wagyu grew beyond dinners into a brand, pop-ups, dab rigs, youtube, merch & collabs. the project fused internet humor, wagyu luxury & cannabis culture into a lane uniquely his.
🕯️ on nov 15, 2022, @jessethechef passed away at age 29. tributes quickly spread across social media & cannabis forums from friends, chefs & fans who had followed his rise.
🥩 weed & wagyu continues under “long live jessethechef.” strains he curated, like not another lemon cherry gelato w/ la fav farms & meatwad w/ jellywizard, still move through the team. his story remains a blueprint: a memphis cook who turned, weed & wagyu culture into a lasting identity.
- @nuggnotes🪴