Today we’d like to introduce you to Rashad Emery.
Hi Rashad, 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.
Started out a young couple who loved cooking! Erica would handle majority of the inside cooking an my role was grilling, boiling, frying the outside cooking.
Erica loves seafood, in the beginning, “2013” I would find myself spending a lot of money on seafood for her, and her crave was becoming expensive to say the least. So, Father’s Day of 2014 Erica purchased me my first boiling pot, which was a gift for me but in reality, for her as well because she just wanted more seafood at any given time.
Now with much practice, trying Néw ingredients until I found a taste that separated me from everyone I knew I had a good thing going but it wasn’t until 2015 our baby shower, Erica & myself did all of the cooking for the family but what stood out the most was the seafood (crabs, crawfish, shrimp, etc.) everyone was in aww of how good the seafood was, they thought it was catered professionally.
Our light bulb went off, we both said let’s try an sell seafood plates from the house to see if we have what it takes, and we did, before you know it, we were selling out every week an the demand was much higher…
2016 we got our LLC, 2019 we have our own business location, now in 2023 we are still relevant, consistent, & looking to expand!
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We definitely hit our roughest path in 2020 after only being open a year to being pretty much closed due to covid 19!! No dine-in, no contact with the outside. What saved us we started taking to-go orders only.
We survived being a small business, so that was a blessing then to turn around a get hit by hurricane ida in 2021 was another blow but we kept pushing a survived another major event.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m still currently employed at Domino sugar refinery; I’m a process technician. Due to covid 19 & hurricane ida it altered my plans to retire early an only focusing on Stampdat but we were still able to let Erica retire from FedEx after 17 years of employment there & she’s full-time into our business. Now that we’re on track the plans is also to retire me early an become full-time into the business.
How do you define success?
To become successful, you have to have a mindset that separates you from the norm, you have to feel comfortable to stand out than to fit in, to have confidence a god-given ability to grind, and never take an L. Lessons nots loses
Contact Info:
- Website: Stampdat.org
- Instagram: Stampdat.seafood
- Other: Tiktok Stampdatsoulfood
