Today we’d like to introduce you to Grant Hester.
Grant, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We’ve been talking as a family for the last several years regarding starting some type of business. Maybe something our daughters can work with when they graduate from college. One of our cousins suggested a crawfish cooking business and with that we were off and planning to open a full service catering business. Never mind the fact that we’ve never done this for paying clients before, but we made a decision that we were going to make it work. We created a website, purchased equipment and supplies, came up with a basic social media type marketing plan, started to build relationships with the needed suppliers and built a pricing model that will help sustain the business. Our goal was to have a repeatable process with the same quality results that our clients could experience. One major decision to help along this path was to hire a spice company to build a custom blend of spices that will give our food the same flavor every time. Our feedback thus far has been very positive. We’ve had about 25 events this year since mid-February with another 10-15 planned and what started out as a catering company has also morphed into serving at public events. Go Crawdaddy has participated in two food truck Friday events at local subdivisions with about 5 more planned by end of June and the turnout has been excellent. Our expansion discussions lately have been revolving around designing a full service food truck that operates 5-6 days a week. We wouldn’t be where we are today had it not been for the help of the family and friends. Here is a list of people that have helped: Johnette Hester – my wife – helps serve and set up for events; Alexis Hester – my oldest daughter – keeps our expenses up to date with Quickbooks plus, does our quotes for events and helps serve/set up; Ashtyn Hester – my youngest daughter – has helped serve at a few events; Nikki Villareal – my wife’s sister – has helped set up and serve and also got our business cards and signs done; Will Vinson – Alexis’ boyfriend – has helped for several events and Zach Hall – Ashytn’s boyfriend has also helped in a few events. Lastly is myself Grant Hester – I’m the cook, driver and I order the food from suppliers. Also am responsible for business strategy.
Has it been a smooth road?
There are no user manuals that come with opening a small business. I think one of the biggest things is that you don’t know what you don’t know. So, learning on the fly is sometimes necessary. We have an 18′ custom trailer that is very nice, but not a conventional food truck, so getting successfully inspected was a big hurdle.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are a full service crawfish catering company. We offer everything you need for a party. Tables, chairs, tents and of course food and drinks (no alcohol.) We serve seasoned boiled crawfish with corn, potatoes, sausage and mushrooms. We also offer Boiled Shrimp, Gumbo and drinks upon request. The entire Go Crawdaddy team excels in helping to make our clients events a success. Two things set us apart from others, first is our Cajun themed presentation and serving method. We use a table covered by netting with decorative crabs and crawfish. We place a pirogue on top of this table to complete the theme and then serve our food out of it. Secondly, is our seasoning. I’m sure everyone uses the same thing time and time again, but only Go Crawdaddy has our seasoning blend.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Absolutely and growing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.GoCrawdaddycatering.com
- Phone: 832-954-8784
- Email: info@gocrawdaddy.com
- Instagram: gocrawdaddy
- Facebook: Go Crawdaddy Catering
- Twitter: @GoCrawdaddy
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