We recently connected with Jordan & Beni Muffler and have shared our conversation below.
Jordan & Beni, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?
Our business is larger, but more so, significantly evolved from when we started. We opened our doors as a Specialty Butcher Shop. We offered fresh, never frozen cuts of beef, poultry, pork, seafood and exotic meats. We also offered ready-made meals and side dishes. We started with a dream, in all honesty. Jordan is a self-taught butcher and chef. He loves to get creative in the kitchen and loves the feedback from happy customers. I (Beni) spent years in retail management and learned the ins and outs of running a business.
We dove right in with the experience we had and began building on the dream. We learned from our mistakes. At one point we were packaging ready-made meals like a restaurant would pack an entree to-go. As it turns out, people really want to SEE the food before they purchase it, so we switched up our packaging to include clear lids and containers and saw a huge increase in ready-made meal sales.
About a year into our business, we were very close to closing our doors. We made a plea for patronage on our social media page and watched it go viral in real time… Our community SHOWED UP in a big way. Our shelves were cleaned out the very next day, and the next, and the next. This continued into the next several weeks. We learned not to be afraid to speak to our community and to be transparent about our small business.
We also learned to listen to our customers and really dive in to their needs. Once the ready-made meals started flying out the door, we were asked by several of our local neighborhood communities to come out and cook for them. Many of them told us “Y’all should really serve food in your store.” and our Lunch Menu was born. Not long after that, we were asked to cater several events. What started as a Specialty Butcher Shop is now a Meat Market, Eatery & Catering Service.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Jordan was born Indiana, raised in Texas & Louisiana and has traveled the world during an oil and gas career of 13 years. He is a lifetime outdoorsman and, for a brief time, an exotic hunting expedition guide. This is where he learned the butchering trade. Beni was born and raised in Weatherford, Texas. She has worked in the retail and restaurant industries for nearly 18 years. Hospitality, customer service and business management came naturally to her throughout various positions.
We are Jordan & Beni Muffler, a married couple living in North Central Texas. We decided to go into business for ourselves in early 2021. Yes, right in the midst of a global pandemic, when no one knew which way the world might turn tomorrow. Jordan’s dad had opened a similar store in Louisiana roughly two years prior. His concept and business was doing so well, that we decided to tweak it and make it our own.
Carve & Cask opened its doors in May of 2021. What started as a Specialty Butcher Shop has evolved into a Meat Market, Eatery and & Caterer.
We pride ourselves on high quality meats.No meats in our store have been treated with antibiotics, hormones or GMO feeds. Unlike a traditional butcher, there is no processing done in our store. Every cut of beef in our coolers has been hand cut and individually vacuum sealed. We do this for a couple of reasons. First of all; freshness. We have no open cabinet meat displays here. Secondly, vacuum sealing the beef enhances the wet-aging process; making the meat exceptionally tender and full of flavor.
Our chicken, pork and fish selection is also vacuum sealed, often including one of our many marinades.
We also provide prepared foods such as side dishes, take-and-bake meals, seasoned vegetables, dips and much more.
During the week we serve a lunch menu of BBQ inspired dishes such as a Brisket Grilled Cheese, Pulled Pork Sliders, Hatch Chicken Wrap and many more. In the very near future, we plan to open our doors for a dinner menu.
In true Louisiana fashion, Jordan could not resist the opportunity to boil crawfish during the season. On Thursdays & Fridays we offer Boiled Crawfish – Cajun Style!
Our catering is not narrowed to just BBQ, however. We have supplied Boxed Lunches, Build Your Own Burger Buffets, Taco Bars, Mexican Buffets and even Surf & Turf Dinner Plates. Whatever the need is, we do our best to exceed expectations.
What we are most proud of is the reputation we have built for ourselves as a business. When people talk about Carve & Cask, there’s always a compliment in the conversation. Whether someone had lunch with us, bought steaks from us or had us cater an event for them, we are constantly blessed with positive feedback. We strive to make an impression in every facet of our business.
We’d like for potential clients to know that we’re not your run-of-the-mill grocery store. We’ve got a little something for everyone. We are truly a family owned & operated small business. Currently, we have one other employee, aside from ourselves and we pour our hearts into our work every day. Lastly, we are HUGE supporters of small business. We do our best to support and promote other small businesses in our community. We believe in collaboration over competition.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
When we opened Carve & Cask, we wanted to be known for high quality meats and foods. We set out to promote and sell Prime Angus Beef without fillers, hormones, antibiotics or GMO feeds. Our selection of pork and poultry also contain no hormones or antibiotics and are not fed GMO feeds. Our seafood is wild caught and shipped in to us overnight.
We began promoting our business on social media months before opening the doors and gained a small following at first. Our first day open, our revenue surprised even us! What helped us build our reputation the most was the word of mouth from our customers. As they began shopping with us and eating our food, their eagerness to share their culinary experience could not be stopped. Even now, two years down the road, we have new customers that tell us their neighbor, brother-in-law, or co-worker told them about us.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
About a year after opening the store, we were struggling to make ends meet. When I say we were struggling, I mean we were considering closing the doors for good. We made a very transparent post on our social media that asked our following to come help us to clear our shelves. Overnight, the post went viral. When we woke up the next morning, it had over 30,000 views and hundreds of shares. The response from from our community was profound! The door never stopped swinging throughout the entire next day. We were left with a few items on the shelves that evening and we had generated more revenue than we had in the past several weeks. After locking the doors, Jordan and I looked at each other with an unspoken “What now?” and decided to keep moving forward. We knew if would be hard work and a long haul, but we could make it.
For the next several weeks, the swinging door pattern didn’t stop. We had customers returning to re-purchase, new customers coming in for the first time, people offering their assistance in our growth and a community that truly wanted to see us succeed.
I suppose the message here is: Don’t be afraid to reach out to your community.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.carveandcask.com
- Instagram: @carveandcask
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/carveandcask
- Yelp: https://yelp/com/biz/carve-and-cask-willow-park
Image Credits
E Newton Photography