Today we’d like to introduce you to Meagan and Shane Sutton.
Meagan and Shane, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’m a chef who was chosen by this profession at the age of 19 back in Honolulu Hawaii, and I owned a french restaurant called Le Guignol. My skills were summoned to Las Vegas with Caesars Entertainment in 2005, and after leading the Paris & Bally’s Resort Casino and The Palms Hotel and Casino culinary teams I relocated to Texas in 2010 and joined AMC theatres to roll out the dine in theatre segment. After spending time as an F&B director with a few resort companies in Texas, I talked with my wife Meagan about doing a food truck. The travel and time away from home with the company during that time made me unhappy. Also, with the birth of our daughter Summer in May 2019, the opportunity for Meagan and I to create a business while spending time together was a no brainer. So Meagan, after ten years of being a doctor of physical therapy also walked away from her profession to pursue the dream. We set an aggressive budget of $20k all in! We found the trailer we wanted in Pecos Texas, and renovated it in our driveway in a few weeks! We gave ourselves a goal of six weeks to get permitting, construction, business concept, menu development, testing, website, logo design…everything! Right on schedule, August 16, 2019 was our first day of business and we have seen steady and consistent growth ever since.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Like the saying goes “if it was easy, everyone would do it”. Critical things have broken or not worked along the way. We decided from the beginning that we wanted to have our food truck in a permanent location for many reasons. We wanted to be a destination and not just work events here and there. We wanted our trailer to be open during regular meal times and we dreamed of the set up we have now, but it wasn’t easy finding a spot to call home because every city has different rules and many don’t allow food trucks to operate with that model. And the ones that do require you to park somewhere different at night and take your tables and chairs with you. Meagan spoke with every city planner in a 10-mile radius of home and cold called every business that had a potential cool spot in their parking lot. I also reached out on Facebook groups and emailed event coordinators in hopes of securing some sort of business. When we decided to go all in, we only had 6 weeks of living expenses saved up and having this hard deadline helped give us a sense of urgency and grit to make it work. It was like our plane was taking off a runway that ended on a cliff drop off and we both knew that if we didn’t make lift off, the dream would probably crash and burn before it could ever start. We are tenacious and knew that we could do it!
Our generator has died in the dark, with us having a huge line at an event and I had to troubleshoot and install a new spark plug. Those are times you just want to sit down and cry but you can’t. Because you did all this work to get here and you need to keep going and cook that awesome food you brought with you. Neither of us knew how to haul a trailer. We weren’t prepared for the blow out we had on the drive home, emergency after hours roadside assistance for that cut into our budget. The equipment we bought was all used so half of it didn’t work as promised. We parked in our driveway at home and did all the construction and build-out ourselves with an infant eating every 4 hours and not sleeping at night. We did it in the heat of the summer. On the way to haul the trailer for our health inspection, I will never forget how we spent 4 hours mounting the clean water tank above the sink and got it just right only to find it ripped out of the wall after we had to bake hard during our drive. We somehow got that thing rigged up in time and we passed our inspection with flying colors with tarrant county. Then, the hoops you have to jump through to do our kind of business in the city is daunting. But we found a spot in Crowley, Texas to open for business August 16. It was going great, but hauling the trailer away every night to a nearby storage facility was a nightmare. On our drive to the trailer each day from Mansfield we passed the spot we are parked now, as well as other spots on the same road. We just cold called the owners of the properties and left voicemails, not expecting to hear back. But finally, Tosha Hester reached out and offered us the chance to park on their property. She let us park there for two months for free just to see if things would work for us there. Plus, we could leave the trailer there all the time! And we could set up tables and chairs and lights and be the destination we were hoping to be. We will never forget this generosity and are so thankful for where we ended up.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We serve craft Hawaiian inspired and Texas infused grindz. It’s a fusion concept and we are proud of our unique menu. We are well known for our firecracker (sweet and spicy) sauce, coconut fried chicken, pulehu brisket, and our paradise pudding. Oh, and our pineapple lemonade is very popular. We are proud of our customer service. We have a motto, every customer every time. We want to have a knockout experience with every guest on their first time with us and we do! We have people call or drive back to order seconds or to simply tell us how amazing their meal was. We think our rich flavors and unique food sets us apart. It’s not something you can get anywhere else. And we make it all from scratch. Even our salad dressing and every sauce. Who would have thought that Craft Hawaiian Grindz would end up in rendon, Texas! We are very proud that it did!
What were you like growing up?
Meagan- very ambitious, encouraging to others, positive and optimistic, hard working. My parents instilled in me a belief that I could do anything I set my mind to. I have always believed that.
Shane- close with family, athletic, friendly, helpful, loyal, hard working and patient, loved cars and working on them.
Pricing:
- plate lunch ranges from $10- $14.50
- kid meals $6.50
Contact Info:
- Address: 5731 Rendon Bloodworth Rd
Fort Worth, Texas - Website: www.shaneboys808grill.com
- Phone: 682-266-1767
- Email: shaneboys808grill@gmail.com
- Instagram: @shaneboys
- Facebook: @shaneboys
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