Today we’d like to introduce you to Laquita Martin & Keith Hurst Hurst.
Hi Laquita & Keith, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Hello my name is Laquita Martin and my business partner name is Keith Hurst, and we are the owners of Bayou Blazin Seasoning. While I am a native Houstonian Keith is a native of New Orleans. We met a little over two years ago and throughout getting to know one another learned we both enjoyed cooking. We always made wagers on who could cook the best and just would sit and talk about the future of some day having our own restaurant and catering business. I quickly learned in this process that Keith’s passion was a little bit more than mine and began pushing him just to step on on faith. Well in November of 2020 Keith was bragging on some chicken he fried and said when he came back down to visit in a couple of weeks he was going to make me some, he did and Wowed everyone.
So in December I was contemplating on what to get him for Christmas and was awaken out my sleep at 2:37 in the morning to a voice saying bottle his seasoning, so I did a search on empty seasoning bottles and purchased some through Amazon, funny he text me are you up in the middle of this and all I could do was laugh.. I order bottles went back to sleep wake up to start my day and I hear the name Bayou Blazin and wrote it down, called a friend to ask if she can design the visual I had for the label and , and from there began to text and inbox a couple of friends and ask would they purchase it so I can present it to him as a gift for Christmas as a gift. That first batch produced a little over $300.. After then some of the friends that purchased and referred others began posting and asking for more before Christmas Day, so while he was down for Christmas we began mixing more researching where to buy in bulk for our ingredients and just been blessed by what God has done with us. Keith hand mixes everything himself and we take turns stirring every once and a while. While he is mixing I’m labeling and filling bottles. Our desire is to get our product in stores restaurants and in homes of people whom love flavor and to someday be able to hand it down to our kids as his grandmother did with their family restaurant in New Orleans.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been smooth with getting orders on a regular but because we are just learning and he’s in transition to Houston and not here full time yet it’s been hard. Just because I run out of seasoning so fast because I’m shipping all of the orders out plus trying to deliver locally and then his local sales there have increased so he may run out of bottles and panic so I usually have to talk him down and let him know people will understand. So we balance each other.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I have worked in the investment field for the last ten years are so and Keith has worked as a skycap for the last 34-35 years, but with COVID-19 he hasn’t been working due to the airport not fully operating right now.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
My friends have been extremely supportive with just sharing and posting reviews on Facebook. Our children because they have had to sacrifice time while we focus on getting the business started.
Pricing:
- $9 for 7oz
- $17 for 16oz
Contact Info:
- Email: Bayoublazin21@gmail.com
- Website: Bayoublazincreole.com
- Instagram: The Blazin creole company
- Facebook: The Blazin creole company
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