Our Team

Little Jumbo is only as good as the people who show up every day. Our team is what makes 241 Broadway feel less like a bar and more like a living room; the kind of place where the bartender knows your name and your drink, and every guest feels like they belong.

Proprietors

Chall Gray

Chall has spent his career in hospitality, and in 2018 he wrote the book on it, literally. His The Cocktail Bar: Notes for an Owner & Operator, published by White Mule Press, was the first ownership guide written for the bar industry, drawing on interviews with operators from some of the country's best cocktail bars. He is a partner at Slings & Arrows, a contributing writer for SevenFifty Daily, and a competitive Toastmaster. At Little Jumbo, he oversees the bar program and brings a philosophy rooted in quality, restraint, and genuine hospitality. Off the clock, he could have gone pro on the golf course, is ruthless behind a chess board or a backgammon cube, can laugh exactly like Eddie Murphy, and drives a classic 1980s Porsche that he will absolutely tell you about.

Lucia Gray

Lucia holds an MFA in Theatre and Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. Her plays include Better Strangers, Off the Rails, and The Family Tree. That a playwright would co-found a bar named after a 19th-century literary figure and then open Character Study, a literary-themed cocktail bar in West Asheville, surprises no one. She is the culture maven of Slings & Arrows, skillfully keeping everyone on point and in good spirits, which, given the personalities involved, qualifies as its own form of art.

Jay Sanders

Most people know Jay as a musician, composer, and artist, but he has led a secret life as an entrepreneur and technologist for years (if for no other reason than to supplement the income from his art habit). In addition to curating the Creative Music Series, Jay manages the financial side of the operation. He also writes code the way some people journal: compulsively, at odd hours, and in service of making the beautiful things run. Our custom cocktail database is named Ophelia, after the girl who cataloged flowers into meaning.

(Not to be confused with the other Jay Sanders, the award-winning mixologist behind Drastic Measures and Wild Child in Kansas City. We hear he's great too.)