We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amber Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amber below.

Amber, appreciate you joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

Man! There have been many times when I have sat back and wondered what would it be like if I could go to work, clock out, come home and not think about it until the next morning. What would it be like to turn my brain off just for a little while after “clocking out”? Prior to these feelings I was working small jobs just to keep some money flowing in, when deciding to take on full time entrepreneurship I had no idea I was going from working 8 hours a day to sometimes 20 hours a day! For a while I was on a high because I was working for myself but then soon realized its a lot more to this! I found myself being the photographer, videographer, social media manager, the one who does store runs, the one who cooks, the one who delivers, the one who cleans up, the one who has to answer emails and phone calls. It was and is exhausting. Your brain never stops, you are always thinking of ways to better yourself and your company. Every time I get to a point of exhaustion, I come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t want to work this hard for anyone except for myself!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have always had a thing for cooking! I would often watch the food network and try to imitate meals or desserts. Now, the desserts weren’t quite coming out the way I saw on tv or in the pictures lol but it was worth a try. While in culinary school I realized baking was not for me as it was too much science! While cooking I just go with the flow until it feels and taste right! I also come from families who’s love language is food! After church every weekend we would eat and invite people over! It didn’t matter which city we were in, we knew food would always be involved. When my grandmothers and mom would cook I would see the instant gratification it brought people, so I wanted to be able to do the same thing! My mom technically started it all just for fun! She threw my dad golf themed birthday party and from there people just started asking her to do parties and she would just for fun. Once I showed genuine interest in food and hospitality, we decided to make it an official business justttt to see what would happen! Who knew that now we would be booking 15- 20 weddings a year, cooking for artist at concert venues and preparing lunch for the mayor! It took lots of sleepless nights, early mornings, hard conversations to even be where I am today!

While In school, I was not a fan of all the fancy terms, and plating it just seemed so extra for me! I was trying to figure out how I could bring the same feeling and experiences of food but in a more simple way. This is where I birthed my brand Lowkey Gourmet, Making everyday and simple meals special. From this I have served and solved alot of problems, From everyday families needing a few dinners out of the week to make sure extra curricular activities can be attended, all the way to athletes and their meal prep needs or private dining experiences when family comes into town!

As the executive chef for my catering company sweet potato jones, we serve and solve a lot of clients ranging from small intimate gathers, baby showers, weddings and large cooperate events. I believe our customer service and taste ultimately set us apart. It is simply real food for real people!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I just did it! As cliche as that sounds, social media was and is my biggest friend. Although to me social media can be very overwhelming, I had to lock in because I would say 70% of my clients come from Facebook, Instagram and TikTok! Use the tools that are right in front of you. POST, POST, POST, even when you don’t think anyone is watching. When I started my chef and catering pages it was just family and friends and most likely they were at the events I was posting about. Be genuine with what you post and let them into your world just enough to get an idea of who they would possibly doing business with in the future!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Talk about a pivot lol! Covid!! While right before we were gearing up to take on some heavy hitter clients, covid came in and put a stop to EVERYTHING we had. I was already a full time entrepreneur so that means the money flow also stopped! I had to make a HARD pivot for about 10 months and worked for amazon as a delivery driver. Luckily my uncle and aunt owned their own logistics company so when I would get a random call for a private dinner or small event, I was able to still feed into my passion. As catering halted we made a pivot to deliver meals to homes as restaurants were closed, stores were running out of thing, this was the only way to keep us moving! This also pushed me into a position of a full time private chef for NBA coach and his family. I cooked for them Monday-Friday lunch and dinner. This allowed me to get back into a creative mode and get into menu curation as I wanted to make sure there was lots of varieties so wouldn’t get bored!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lowkeygourmet.com
• Instagram: Chef Ambeezy
• Facebook: Chef Ambeezy / Sweet Potato Jones
• Other: TikTok- Chef Ambeezy

Image Credits

Rickland Young ( , Cornellius Reynolds ( Shot by Slim)