Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristopher Esqueda
Kristopher, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Moved to Nashville in 2017 from San Francisco, CA. Spent my whole life in CA prior to TN. I was born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA before I landed in SF. I moved to SF for school originally and ended up getting into the restaurant and bar business while in my last year at SFSU. I dedicated the next Decade of my life to opening and operating food and beverage establishments. Anything from a 3 michelin star fine dining restaurants to a casual coffee shop by day wine bar by night. I had a taco and tequila bar, I used to throw a weekly deep house party called SOUND at one of my business partners nightclubs in the south of market district. I opened a casual neighborhood bistro on the ground floor of the apartment building I lived in, in the Tenderloin, a sort of rough and tumble neighborhood in SF. The kind of place where you had a 24/7 drug dealer on the corner and you could count the needles on both hands walking through the area on your way to someplace you were headed. That was one of my last business ventures in SF. It was called Huxley and we poured a lot of heart and soul into that place. It also was about the time I was losing my heart and soul for the city I had been in for well over a decade. I was 30 years old and I was burnt out. Burnt out on hospitality and burnt out on San Francisco. I needed a change and so I started searching for a new beginning of sorts. I had family in Austin and loved the city dearly but it felt too comfortable and a little too far along. Nashville felt like the perfect mix of opportunity, affordability, southern hospitality, and the weather was seemingly manageable. I spent about a year settling my affairs in San Francisco selling some businesses, and wrapping a few other up and made the trek in the beginning of 2017. Before I moved out here I took 13 weeks and went to Southeast Asia (Thailand & Vietnam mostly) on a much needed vacation. While I was traveling around I started to kick around the idea of leaving F&B and trying something else. Most of my investors and business partners were all in the real estate space in some capacity and they recommended I do the same. Having a business in the building is cool but you know whats even cooler owning the building. Same thing with renting. Renting a great spot is awesome but you know whats even better? Owning it. I had never owned anything in my life outside of a car, clothes, dog etc. So I started to explore what being in real estate meant and the different ways you could get into the business of real estate. By the time I landed back stateside and grabbed my Uhaul full of my life in San Francisco I had decided I was going to try to get out of F&B and into real estate. I landed in Nashville in April of 2017 and helped a buddy of mine who had just opened the Public House at Urban Cowboy. He had been a best friend of mine for years having met in 2005 when we both had just moved to SF and was a catalyst for how Nashville ended up on my radar. I also helped open FOLK with chef Phil and the Rolf team. During this time I was studying and training to get my RE license and thought the residential RE agent was probably the quickest way to make the jump out of F&B and into real estate and the rest is sort of history I guess. I got licensed in 2019 and thought that I would never look back. That lasted about 5 years until my good buddies Brice Hoffman, Matty Izaguirre & Aaron Izaguirre decided they wanted to open a bar and they wanted me to help. I guess a 5 year break was all I could take away from the hospitality world although shockingly enough there seemingly is tons of cross over between high level hospitality service and real estate because at the end of the day its really just about taking care of people and make sure you are putting their needs and best interests ahead of your own to make sure they get what they want in a way thats as pleasurable and enjoyable as possible. Ive been in real estate for 5 years now and opened in May of this year, Coral Club. An East Nashville cocktail bar that is an “escape” from most of what exists here in town. Ive been incredibly blessed throughout my life with amazing opportunities and great people around me. Ive probably said yes too many times and always am up for a challenge and new opportunity but I have very few complaints. Work really hard, take chances, dont stop and eventually a few things will work out probably nothing like you imagined.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Most days are not a smooth road but entrepreneurship isn’t meant to be. If it was easy more people would do it. Its about failing 90% of the time but waking up everyday regardless and pushing on because when that 10% hits it hits hard and makes all the other times you got punched in the face worth it. Hopefully at some point you can get those number to 50% or better but the saying “all I do is win” while great in rap song is just not real life. The real winners are the ones who get knocked down 100 times and get up 101. There are about 1000 things that can go wrong on a daily basis in my life, too many to list, but the people who are the most successful are the ones who can be presented a problem and then solve it. If you keep doing that everyday you are guaranteed to have a massive life someday. And the problems and the stakes should get bigger and bigger each year. The larger the problem and the more complex, the larger the reward.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
KASA real estate is the name of my organization within our larger brokerage at COMPASS. Its my identity within a sea of real estate practitioners. Its founded on the principles of Knowledge, Abundance, Service & Action. 4 things that are very important not just in real estate but also in life in general. We advise people when they want buy, sell, invest or just learn about real estate in any capacity residential or commercial. I have been fortunate enough to have a pretty decent slice of various types of transactions over the past 5 years and come from a commercial background having signed leases and done full build outs on a handful of projects both in CA and now here in TN. I think I bring a unique perspective and always lead from a sort of high end fine dining level of service attitude.
Coral Club is an East Nashville cocktail bar we opened in May of 2024. We had the pleasure of working with Alexandros Darsinos of Studio Yuda and Aaron Smith of Smith Build Group on creating an absolute oasis in a nondescript strip mall in East. When you walk through our front door you are instantly transported to someplace else. We don’t tell you where we let you decide. We strive to make you feel like you’re on vacation and we make sure you are taken amazing care of and the drinks are great. Awesome year round rooftop patio and programming that changes weekly to keep things exciting. Its been an amazing thing to see it take shape and now be out there in the world.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
House boat family vacations to Lake Powell every year. We would drive through and stay a night in Las Vegas, see some shows and hit a crazy casino buffet. A week on the water, fishing, lighting off fireworks, riding jetskis and exploring. Lake Powell was such a magical place. Life was easy back then!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kasa.realestate & www.thecoral.club
- Instagram: @kris.esqueda @the.coralclub
