Today we’d like to introduce you to Royanda and Art Williams.
Hi Royanda and Art, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
We started out as a catering company in 2012 in Houston, Texas to fundraise money for the daycare we owned at the time. In 2016 we opened up a food truck formerly known as Bak’n Buddies Catering Services in Springboro, Ohio. Whenever we would come home to Texas to visit my mother always wanted me to make her some banana pudding in swap of her Kool-Aid that my father and I would fight over. LOL! One day she told me that I needed to put it on the food truck. We finally did and literally, I have been told 3 different times by 3 different customers that it was better than Paula Deen’s. It brought tears to my eyes. We moved back to Texas when my mother became ill with cancer. She could no longer eat the original banana pudding since it was too rich for her, so I came up with my own recipe for an organic version, and she loved it. This one is named after her. It’s called CC’s Coconut, and it’s 100% organic from the cookies to the cream to the shredded coconut. We also have one named after my mother-in-love called Pam’s Pistachio. May their legacy continue to live in us both. We decided in 2021 that we would sell the food truck and open up a brick and mortar. Our father, who we call “Larry Joe of all Trades,” helped me get the building together pretty much from scratch he built. Our cousin Charolett Celestine drove from Houston twice to help with the painting and the bar stools. It was all hard work, but it was so much fun. We took all the top sellers off of the food truck and brought them in, and here we are today. We are now Yummy Puddin’ & More, LLC. We now have over 50 flavors of pudding with the Banana Yum Yum being the original recipe. The original recipe is the base recipe for all other flavors. The same flavors we offer in banana puddings we also offer in my Grandmother Carrie’s rice pudding. We will be starting our breakfast menu in May which will include a French Toast Grilled Cheese by our youngest son Jeremiah Howard, By the grace of God we are still here, and we give him all the glory.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Royanda: Definitely not a smooth road, but a road that’s has been well worth the journey. It has been hard when the slow days come. I can remember sitting here alone by myself crying because I felt alone and didn’t have the help. I wanted to throw in the towel many times. I remember praying, and I heard God tell me to just keep opening the doors and he will send the people. I promise you every day since then he has sent new faces. Matter of fact, today we had 6 more new customers. Saturday, we had 10 new faces, and the Saturday before that we had 11 new faces. We started with $30. Sometimes, I didn’t know where the money would come from to get the next day’s ingredients. I would get up at 6:30 am to be out Ubering from 8 am to 10 am and then come to the shop from 11 am to 7 pm. I will go home for about an hour or two to rest a bit, complete schoolwork, or just to spend time with the family, and then head back out the door to Uber some more sometimes until 2 am. We’ve had people to work for us and steal from us. They stole money and would eat out inventory or steal it and take it home at the end of the day. So, yes it has been a struggle, but I am determined.
Art: I think the struggle for me has been the slow days. One day we would have maybe one customer, and some days we could have 10 customers. Regardless, I really enjoy being here in the shop. Lately, it has really been picking up, and I believe that it’s going to keep picking up. I just keep the faith and keep moving. God is doing it on his timing. We have been meeting amazing people and progressing. We are proud of each other, and we tell each other this every day. We have been told that our pudding is legendary and that’s enough to keep us going. To see the customers return is enough to keep us going. We are not giving up.
We’ve been impressed with Yummy Puddin’ & More, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Yummy Puddin’ & More, LLC. is a veteran-owned, family-owned small business that will one day be big. We have taken our family’s recipe and created over 50 flavors of banana pudding and rice pudding. We also specialize in smoke turkey legs. We offer 3 different flavors which are regular smoked, Texas Bourbon, and a Louisiana Creole. We serve smoke sausage on a sticks and we even have something that’s even more classic… The Root Beer Floats. We have created our banana pudding-flavored popcorn. We are officially in Farmers Delite (farmers market) located in DeSoto, and we just officially partnered with Jonathan Evola and Keith Browning with Seasoned Street Foods located in Dallas. The pudding itself sets us apart. We have the best!!! We are the brand. We have created our own logo gear with our very own logo. We offer catering services, a Kids in the Kitchen class, photography, party rentals, yard cards. We also own King Art’s Photography, Mango Seed Gourmet Pet Food, Mango Seed Tax, Notary, and Multi-services. We are making a difference in our community with our non-profit organization Brenda’s House of Butterflies Maternity Home, and we will start feeding our community free meals once a month. We are ministry, and this business belongs to God. We just want to be a blessing so that we can bless others.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Royanda: My favorite books is the bible and my own books that I have written and yet to publish. That’s coming soon! I love to play games on my phone that are cooking games like Cooking Madness and Zen. I don’t listen to podcasts or the blogging either. But I love watching cooking shows from Netflix and Food Network. I’m a worshipper so I love to sing. I love the book To Be You in the Highest by Teresa Gibson, and also If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another by Ayesha Louis.
Art: I like all DC & Marvel comic books. I love Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do too. I’m a video game fanatic, and I’m crazy about my Golden State Warriors since I’m originally from the Bay Area. My favorite time is spent with family and going to the movies.
Pricing:
- Small Pudding $5.99
- Medium Pudding $7.99
- Large Pudding $10.99
- X-Large $18.99
- Sample Tray with 4 to 5 flavors $25.99
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yummypuddingandmoreonline.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/yummypuddinandmore
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/yummypuddinandmore
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/yummypuddintx
- Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/yummy-puddin-and-more-lancaster
Image Credits
King Art’s Photography
