Today we’d like to introduce you to Damion Loera.
Hi Damion, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started cooking when I was sixteen. My first real job in food was working late nights as a cashier on Washington Ave, taking orders out of a truck window while the bars let out. It was loud, it was fast, and I loved it. I paid attention to everything, not just how the food got made but how the money moved, why some nights were good and some weren’t, what made people come back.
A few years in, the owners of that truck were ready to move on. I bought them out. That was the beginning of True Dog Houston.
The plan was never four concepts. What happened was that clients kept asking for things we didn’t do yet. Someone wanted burgers, so we built Benz Burgers. A corporate client wanted something that wasn’t American food, so Kurbside Eatz came out of that, Asian fusion tacos and quesadillas. Then the morning requests started coming in and we launched Rise and Shine Tacos for breakfast. Each one existed because a customer asked first.
In 2024 I put all of it under one roof as Texas Catering Co., with my mother Vanessa as co-owner. That let us do something most single trucks can’t, which is send two or three different concepts to the same event so guests actually have a choice.
The last couple of years have been the proof. We ran the FIFA World Cup Fan Fest here in Houston this summer, we serve corporate campuses and universities on recurring programs, and we cater everything from a 30 person office lunch to a 1,500 person company event.
I still work the trucks. That part hasn’t changed since I was sixteen.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, it hasn’t been smooth. I don’t think it’s supposed to be.
Staffing has been the hardest part, and it still is. Food trucks run on small crews in tight spaces, and one person not showing up on a Saturday morning isn’t an inconvenience, it’s the whole event. I’ve learned that hiring fast and hoping costs more than hiring slow. Now I pay attention to whether somebody actually wants to be there, because the skills I can teach.
Buying out partners was its own thing. Going from working on somebody else’s truck to owning it meant sitting across from people I respected and having conversations that weren’t comfortable for either of us. I’ve had to do a version of that more than once since. Nobody tells you that a big part of running a business is being willing to have the conversation you’d rather avoid, and then still treating the person well on the other side of it.
Building real relationships took the longest. Anyone can cater one event. Getting a corporate client or a university to put you on their calendar every month means showing up right the first time, then doing it again, then doing it again when it’s raining and the load-in is a mess. That trust gets built in the small moments nobody sees.
And the brand had to earn its way. When we started, people saw a hot dog truck. Now we get called for company openings and 1,500 person events. That didn’t come from marketing. It came from years of not cutting corners on a slow Tuesday when it would have been easy to.
The struggles are what made the business worth anything.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Texas Catering Co. is a Houston based catering company built around four food truck concepts, all under one roof. True Dog Houston is gourmet hot dogs and the one most people know us for. Benz Burgers does burgers. Kurbside Eatz is Asian fusion tacos and quesadillas. Rise and Shine Tacos handles breakfast.
What sets us apart is that we can send more than one of those to the same event. Most caterers give you one menu. We can pull up with two or three trucks so a 300 person company party has burgers on one line, tacos on the other, and nobody is eating something they didn’t want. That variety is hard to get from a single vendor, and it’s the thing clients tell us they can’t find anywhere else.
We specialize in corporate and institutional catering. Company lunches, employee appreciation events, tenant events at office properties, university programs, city and municipal events. We run recurring programs for clients who need us on their calendar every week or every month, not just once. We also do private events, but the backbone of the business is clients who book us again and again.
We do both food truck service and drop off. The truck is the show, made to order off the window with a full topping bar. Drop off is for when a client wants the food to just arrive ready to serve without a truck taking up the parking lot.
What I’m proudest of brand wise is that the name means something operationally now. When Texas Catering Co. is on the calendar, the client knows the truck shows up on time, the food is right, and they aren’t going to be chasing anybody. That reliability is the actual product. The food is what people taste, but the reason they book us again is that we made their event easy.
This summer we ran the FIFA World Cup Fan Fest here in Houston, which was thousands of people a day across multiple locations for weeks. That was a real test and the crew handled it.
The thing I’d want your readers to know is that we’re a family business. My mother Vanessa co-owns it with me. I still work the trucks. When you call us, you’re talking to the people who are actually going to be there.
What’s next?
The direction we’re headed is deeper into recurring work. One off events are fun, but the business that actually holds up is being on somebody’s calendar every week. We already run programs like that for corporate campuses and universities around Houston, and that’s the part I want to keep growing.
Bigger events are the other piece. After FIFA this summer, serving a few thousand people a day for weeks, I know what the crew can handle. So we’re going after company openings, large corporate activations, and multi truck events where we bring two or three concepts to the same crowd. That’s the thing we can do that most caterers can’t, and I don’t think we’ve pushed it as far as it can go yet.
There’s also a version of this where True Dog Houston becomes something other operators can run in other cities. I’m not in a hurry on that one. It only works if the standard travels with it, and getting that right takes longer than getting it started.
The change I’m most focused on internally is people. Every time we’ve grown, the limit has been crew, not demand. So a lot of my attention right now is on building leads who can run a truck without me on it. That’s less exciting to talk about than a new concept, but it’s the thing that decides how big this gets.
Mostly I’m looking forward to the fall. September through October is our busiest stretch and the calendar is already full. That’s a good problem.
Pricing:
- Food truck service starts around $600 on weekdays and $800 on Fridays and weekends, per truck
- Per person truck packages generally run $14 to $26 depending on the concept and how full the build is
- Drop off catering starts at a $350 food minimum plus delivery, and lands closer to $500 once everything is included
- Book two trucks for one event and we take 10 percent off the food, or 15 percent for three. Works best at 150 guests and up
- Large events are quoted per person on final guest count, and volume pricing kicks in well before you get to a thousand people
Contact Info:
- Website: Texascateringco
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/texascateringco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1DaQoEsCRM/?mibextid=wwXIfr
