From rags to riches
stuck at home?learn to cook
(October 27th, 2020)
During 2020, we were all stuck at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Being stuck at home with nothing to do, I decided I wanted to teach myself how to cook. I've always loved people, and food brings people together. As I've gotten older I learned some of the BEST moments in life are with good food and good people!
family/friends
Instagram deliveries
(October 27th, 2020)
I started a page on Instagram called Kishawn's Cultural Café and weekly I would cook dishes from all around the world. And with YouTube as my teacher I would make dishes like clam chowder, butter chicken, chicken adobo, vodka pasta, and much more. My friends and my family were my test subjects for all the dishes I would make and they where all very supportive with their kind words.
the birth of
hog house bbq
(October 17th, 2022)
Ever since I was a kid ribs were my favorite food, and now that I was finally getting kinda good at cooking. I wanted to take on the challenge of learning how to cook all my favorite BBQ items. My dad lent me an old electric smoker barrel that allowed me to start smoking meat, but I could never get the results I saw online in YouTube videos. I knew I needed better equipment. I saved up a few paychecks (by only eating In-N-Out and frozen food) and bought a competition grade smoker. A RecTeq grill RT-1250. With this I finally had a shot at making the quality BBQ I had been envisioning since I started.
I learned from working in door to door sales that it's better to one set of $10,000+ solar panels, than 200 vacuum cleaners. Selling one expensive item is better than selling a bunch of small inexpensive items. BBQ compared to other common food genres was most definitely a high ticket item. Knowing that only gave me even more confidence that I was on the right path, and with that! I transitioned from selling a bunch of cultural food and chicken, to selling the heavy hitters that was Texas BBQ.
practicing until my hands fell off
(November 11th, 2022)
I became obsessed with making my BBQ as good as humanly possible. I swear I would watch EVERY single video on YouTube related to making BBQ. I would learn techniques and how certain thing impacted the end result of the cook. I would practice like a scientist isolating specific variables and keeping a log of all the changes that happen in the final product. Through doing that I learned how to really control my BBQ, if anything was slightly off, I would know exactly what needed to be done to steer it in the right direction.
I was cooking every week the same 4 items. Ribs, brisket, mac & cheese, and baked beans. Over and over and over again. I started posting on my socials and taking orders to deliver locally to make some extra money and cover the cost of my practice.
I was also learning a lot about how to grow a business from selling my product. I learned early on that you need to spend money to make money. One time I had delivered all the food I'd made, but there were still people ordering and sending me DM's... if only I hadn't been cheap at the grocery store I would've had enough to feed everyone and the people who ordered late. I also learned that if you're not actively growing, you're shrinking. Returning customers were the best thing in the world as I could also guarantee making back the cost of the groceries, but if I wasn't find new customers. Eventually my repeat customers would take a break, or be out of town, or something that caused me to not sell as much as I was expecting to.
amazon and a dream,
going public!
(September 13th, 2023)
I wanted to monetize my skills, I wanted to work for myself. Everyone who was enjoying my food from Instagram orders told me I should take it to the next level. "There's no good BBQ around here". And so I asked my dad to borrow his old truck, and bought everything I needed to do my first pop up on amazon. It was a struggle, and barely enough equipment to do it, but with determination, a bunch of legal paperwork, and my friends we did it! Our very first BBQ pop up at the Delta College farmer's market with the help and support from Las Delicias Del Barrio. It was a success!
On my day off from my boring day job I wrote down a list of all the breweries and wineries in a 50 mile radius. I cooked up a batch of ribs and mac & cheese, packaged them up and drove to every name on that list that had space for food vendors. When I arrived I asked for the owner, and said "Hello, my name is Kishawn. I sell BBQ, I brought you a plate, and I'd like to be a food vendor here." then left them my contact and went on to the next location. Almost every place called me back before the end of the day, and with that. I had a clients and locations I could sell my food during the weekend.
no more using dad's old truck
(May 3rd, 2024)
With everything going well It was time for some nice big upgrades. I bought another smoker, a commercial fridge, a professional canopy with all my logos and branding, and last but not least a work van. Now I wouldn't have to harass my dad to use his truck every weekend AND I would have ample space to fit all the equipment I needed without having to play the real life version of Tetris trying to fit everything into my dad's truck.
Team building, and new faces
(June 1st, 2024)
We got some new people joining the team. With more work I needed more hands. Throughout this whole thing I was learning how to be a good manager. It's harder than it looks and harder than I thought, but overtime I know it will get easier.
double events and a second van
(June 14th, 2024)
We were growing faster than I could keep up with. I had so many opportunities to work but only so many days in a week. In other words, I was leaving money on the table and I couldn't sleep because it of it lol.
If my BBQ was needed in two places at once the solution was obvious. I'm buying a 2nd van and training another team.
This added a whole new level of complexity with my scheduling and really tested my abilities as a manager. What started out as a huge task with practice became doable consistently.
(August 6th, 2024)
ripon taphouse & getting offical
I've never been so happy as I was the day the kind Owners of Ripon Taphouse told me they wanted me to start selling my BBQ at their establishment. It was everything I ever wanted, the opportunity of a life time in my eyes. Access to commercial kitchen equipment, a business address, and the ability to run my very own mini restaurant once per week... and AC, lets not forget about AC. Working outside in the summer AND the winter will REALLY make you appreciative of being inside a climate controlled environment.
From now on every Tuesday I would be there from 4pm-8pm. This consistency would hopefully allow me to build up a following that would enable me to work towards a restaurant of my own.
bought a box truck
(March 18th, 2026)
I never thought I'd be able to say this... but I now have a fleet of vehicles. Not just two vans, but three vehicles with different capabilities!
The plan with the box truck is to load it up with equipment for multiple pop-ups. This single box truck can hold enough equipment to do three events. Bringing in the possibility to do not two events simultaneously, but five!
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New challenge: find staff to make that many events possible, manage the army of staff required to make this possible and save up enough money to buy the equipment needed to populate the box truck.
training manuals and scaling
(April 7th, 2026)
It may look boring, but this is my proudest accomplishment so far. With so many new faces joining Hog House, creating an official standard for quality and expectations became important enough to birth our training manuals.
got my name in Costco
(May 19th, 2026)
If you look closely it says "Hog House BBQ" above my head. I regularly source my meat from Costco, and donating towards Children's Miracle Network was a fun way to help those in need.
won bbq competition
(June 20th, 2026)
What makes this even funnier was that I didn't even know there was a competition until Carlos called me and said we won 1st place.
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After purchasing the box truck I was saying "Yes" to every opportunity out there to fill my calendar. One of those events happened to be a competition. I sent my team over there thinking it was a regular event, and we came home with a brand new gas grill.
huge catering for 500 people
(July 2nd, 2026)
The biggest corporate catering order I couldn't believe I landed. Met the warehouse manager at the Oakdale farmers market, and had no clue how awesome of an opportunity would come from it.
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The moment told me about the people they have at their warehouse and walked away, I started doing the math to see if I could do it. The fridge space, the cook time, the completely unorthodox scheduling needed to make this job happen.
It was a fun puzzle to solve, and so rewarding to pull off and hear such nice things from all the employees who enjoyed our BBQ at FritoLay.
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This opened my eyes to the world of corporate catering, I can't wait for the next one!
seeking distribution
(July 16th, 2026)
I created some nice looking bottles of our delicious bbq sauce, and inspired by the great feedback from our recipe I started looking into distribution.
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This is still an ongoing process any any help would be greatly appreciated. Turns out getting the permits to bottle your own sauce is difficult and expensive... and getting a copacker to manufacture my sauce for me, well lets just say 6,000 bottle minimum isn't something I can handle at the moment.
The stores want to see I'm established before they take my product and buying 6,000 bottles of sauce isn't realistic without being established with multiple stores.
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bridging that middle ground is proving quite the challenge...
(coming when I can afford it)
opening a
restaurant
Open a small place focused on to-go orders. I'm going to partner up with all the delivery services like DoorDash, GrubHub, and UberEats and push as much delicious BBQ out the door as possible while still doing pop-ups. All that exposure is great marketing.
I've been told so many times that my product sells itself and I believe that if I can just get more people try my product, then I can really grown this into something big.