Darius Cooks Timeline: From Bali Restaurant Owner to High School Teacher

Darius Williams — known online as Darius Cooks — has been in the news recently after sharing a discouraging account of his first days as a high school teacher. Known primarily as a social media food personality, cookbook author, and chef with a large online following, Darius built his brand around soul food recipes, branded cookware, and a multi-city pop-up dinner tour. But over the past two years, his public story has taken several turns — from ambitious restaurant investor, to embattled business owner, to career-changer pursuing a new path in education. Here’s how it all unfolded, in order.

2024: The Bali Restaurant Pitch

Darius posted his investment pitch for Hip Hop Soul, a soul food restaurant he planned to open in Canggu, Bali, projecting massive returns as a majority investor in the venture:

“Let’s dream a bit. All in costs: $400K. I’m a 90% investor. 90% of all profit belongs to me. Friday, 7.12.24, a popular brunch restaurant in Canggu made $117,545,261 IDR = $7,800 USD. $8K daily. $56,000 weekly. $224,000 monthly. $2,688,000 annually. With a conservative 70% ($1.8M) on expense, that’s $806,400 annual profit. 90% of that is, $725,760. At least. Per year. For 25 years. Just doing the minimum guarantees $725,760 in my pocket each year for 24 years. Imagine if we just doubled that with events, workshops, classes, and community building. $1,451,520 for 24 years = $34,836,480. That’s what this Bali project is worth. Men lie. Women lie. Numbers don’t. If you ever wondered why Bali, here’s your answer. PS: this is just one location. We plan on opening 3 Hip Hop Souls, 3 Bali Best Cooking Schools, and 3 Hip Hop Pit (a southern American bbq joint). Just wait until I pitch my idea for something akin to Top Golf here. Feel Good Hospitality LLC is off to a good start.”

2025: Hip Hop Soul Opens — and Faces Backlash

Darius opened Hip Hop Soul in the Canggu district of Bali, billed as Indonesia’s first authentic American Southern soul food restaurant, bar, and lounge. The concept blended comfort food culture with a hip-hop-inspired aesthetic — offering bold, smoky flavors, strong cocktails, a pool, cabanas, and nightly DJ sets. Signature dishes included lemon pepper honey fried chicken with buttery cornbread, collard greens with smoked chicken, low-country shrimp and grits, mac and cheese with a crust, jerk chicken skewers, and banana pudding. The space also offered cooking and bartending classes, along with a second-floor hookah and cigar lounge.

The venture quickly ran into viral backlash after an influencer critique — describing the mac and cheese as a “square cube” — went viral, alongside reports of local conduct disputes in the community. The restaurant has since shut down, with its listing now showing “Temporarily closed” and videos circulating online of the location boarded up.

Dining With Darius: Customer Complaints

Alongside the restaurant, Darius has continued running “Dining With Darius,” a multi-city pop-up dinner tour known for its exclusivity — location, time, and place are typically revealed only on the day of the event. In 2026, attendee ms dre 122 shared a frustrated account after a scheduled event fell through without warning:

“I really wish I was an influencer because my friends and I spent a lot of money for this event. And what’s crazy is I’ve been looking up on TikTok for the last two weeks details, and it’s not a whole bunch. Dining with Darius is a no. You drop, He drops the location, time, and place because it’s exclusive and it’s a limited dining experience the day of the event. And I’m sitting here in my car the day of the event at seven PM. No information’s been dropped. No location, no time. It’s dinner time, and it’s still nothing dropped. You don’t respect people. You don’t want to keep your word. And I personally understand that stuff happens. I mean, we all switched our days. My one friend works an hour away, changed. I canceled my nighttime clients, all to do this culinary journey. Seven course meal by celebrity chef, and you’ve not sent anything. So even if you were going to cancel, you could have sent something yesterday, this morning. Life happens. I wish I was an influencer, but you know what? TikTok is good about getting this to the right audience. Dining with Darius is a no. I hope he sees this ‘cause I definitely have time. Don’t do that. Don’t waste people’s money. We’re actually supporting you. We wanted to sit with you and dine with you. You said we could bring containers. Here’s my container. Like, really? Really? So no. Anybody else had an experience at a… Yeah, you can comment, could say what you want, and they better refund that money. Disgusting.”

2026: The Pivot to Teaching

Darius announced a career shift toward education. On social media, in response to thetinyqueen asking “Darius Crooks is a teacher?!”, he responded:

“If you’re going to tell my business, tell it correctly! I use my free will to move silently. Pretty soon, it’ll be Darius Williams, M.Ed. Happy Sunday! 🤘🤘🤘”

He followed up with more detail on his credentials and progress toward full certification:

“He’s also 3 courses into his Masters of Education (Curriculum and Instruction) at American College of Education. And he quietly passed his content certification over the summer to be a CERTIFIED teacher. He also finished his certification coursework and all he needs is his field hours – which he will get over the next two weeks when school starts. Oh, and he’s also ServSafe certified and getting his doctorate degree in Education once he finished his Masters degree.”

Separately, in a 2026 Facebook post, he added a lighthearted note about embracing the transition:

“For the record, I’m taking this teacher thing seriously. I have two Stanley’s and I just bought a wagon. Please. Don’t play with me. All cards and telegrams will be acknowledged at a later date. Selah.”

According to his Facebook, he is now teaching Hospitality and Tourism, Intro to Culinary Arts, Culinary Arts 1, and Culinary Arts at Wheatley High School in Texas.

Day Two: A Discouraging Start

Also in 2026, Darius shared a candid, emotional account of his second day teaching seniors, reflecting on the realities of the classroom:

“So I am on my lunch break. It is, I don’t know, eleven thirty or something like that, and I just finished a three-hour class. We have what’s called block, and block is where first and second periods are combined for subjects that need it. And so I literally broke down in the middle of class because I’m teaching seniors. These kids are leaving high school and going to college, hopefully, after they finish. We had two paragraphs to read, one sentence complete to write. I gave them the sentence stems. I basically completed the sentence for them in the model. These are seventeen and eighteen-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words. I gave them the scenario. We annotated together. I gave them the answers before we even had the problem. And they couldn’t do it. I don’t know. I simply don’t know where the problem is. This is only day two, and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write. They can reason. They have the ability to defend their reasoning if it’s talking to their homeboy, but applying that to a written text, two paragraphs, and they couldn’t do it. Our young Black men, our young Brown men, our young Black girls, and our young Brown girls… Oh, God.”

Summary

Over the past two years, Darius Williams has moved from restaurant entrepreneur to educator. His Bali restaurant venture, pitched with big financial projections in 2024, opened as Hip Hop Soul in 2025 before closing. His “Dining With Darius” pop-up dinner series has continued alongside this, with at least one attendee sharing a negative experience regarding event communication. In 2026, Darius shifted toward teaching, working through a Master’s in Education, earning his content certification, and beginning to teach culinary and hospitality courses at a Texas high school — a transition he’s documented publicly, including his reflections on the challenges of his first days in the classroom.