Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brandon Brooks. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Brandon, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

Well I enrolled in Culinary school right after I graduated high school. I knew I wanted to be a chef and own something of my own some day. Being 19yrs old when I graduated I felt the time wasn’t right. I had to build stamina under my career belt so to speak. I always wanted to own my own restaurant or establishment. So back in 2010 I started doing small catering gigs on the side for friends and family and one particular event a friend told be I should do this full time as a business so came 2019 I launched my own catering business and a couple years after I opened up my food truck “The Windy Rose” Some ask me if I would go back in time and do this sooner, I always tell them no, because the time wasn’t right. I did not know the ins & outs of the industry. So there’s nothing I would have changed.

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?

Well, I was born in Chicago, Illinois and my family and I moved here to Portland Oregon in 1996 and from the age 13 I would watch my mother, cook my dad, lunch and dinner for his work, and I grew find of the art of cooking, especially the recipes from my mother. Then, when I was 16 I was craving some of my mother’s cooking so I called my mother at work and I asked her how did she make her tuna casserole? She gave me all the ingredients, and as I looked in the cabinets everything was there and I made it and surprisingly to my father. He thought my mother made it. He was not only shocked to know that I cooked it but it matched my mother’s style of cooking and from then on my passion for food, came to life.

So being a three sport athlete, I wanted to go to college to play football or wrestle, but culinary arts took over my dream and so I pursued culinary arts and I enrolled in the le cordon bleu culinary Institute of Portland, Oregon, right after high school.

A few years post-graduating culinary school I worked at a few kitchens here and there, and I began doing my own catering him personal chef job.

And so after that, starting my own catering business in my Foodcart business, I basically like to cook from scratch over the years we have seen people get sick from eating too much processed foods, and sadly many restaurants sell and cook processed foods they don’t cook from scratch anymore and so when customers come to my food cart or when they hire me to cater their wedding or party or any dinner event they have in mind I tell them everything I cook is made from scratch and they are getting a great quality taste with fresh ingredients and pure love. That’s what I offer to my customers and clients. I want them to get the best taste of food out there and if I were to ever cook make any dish with processed foods kill me now.

Now, with that being said, we never hit a home run out of the ball park every day so a comparison every Chef has his bad day so I’m not gonna sit here and lie and say every dish I make taste good and it’s the best out there. I know I have burned things I have over cooked undercooked over seasoned under season a dish. I made many mistakes in the kitchen. I feel like that’s why I have grown so passionate and what I do because I made those mistakes, and I grew stronger from that. So with that being said every time a customer approaches my food card. I tell them if it’s not made to their satisfaction, please return it and I will remake it for them because a lot of people think Foodcart is a fast food place. It’s not a food cart is a mini restaurant and any item off my menu, they order can be remade to their satisfaction.

I can say I’ve been proud of many things being in this industry over the years but I can say one of the things I’m proud of is seeing returning customers and also the satisfaction on their face when they take that first bite, & it brings joy to my heart when I see them smile and give that look of satisfaction with a taking that first bite is an incredible feeling.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Hearing a lot of yeses, and turning out to be a lot of no’s. I’ve had in laws from my wife side of the family and friends who would give me encouragement, but it stopped there. They just thought I was talking out of my neck, but when they started to see my passion grow and my resilience and my ambition and my hustle spirit, then they begin to backtrack. Some were entitled envy, and even people I met in the industry, asking for an advice and help and certain things that I needed to know about the business they were all give me false hope bad advices and I felt that they were not rooting for me to make it. They were trying to set me up for failure.

So I begin to have the attitude of “I’ll I just do it myself” so I began reading books, studying other business owners, how they ran their business and other chefs, how they operate the kitchen and so I begin to tell myself that’s how I want to do it. I began doing it myself, not relying on other people, because by doing that led to false hope I had one individual tell me they will give me $4000 to get my food truck started and right when I approached them for the offer they backtracked. I even attended this brew fest, and I saw a chef who was on top chef a TV show on the bravo channel and I was able to chat with him, and I expressed my interest to be a contestant on one of those shows he said “hey email me and I can get you in” and I emailed him three times and have yet to hear back from him so those are examples of hearing a lot of yeses and turning out to be a lot of No’s. So that’s why till this day I have the mindframe of doing it myself. If there’s something I do not know, I figure it out myself, and by doing that I have succeeded in accomplishing my goal.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social Media has a very interesting platform nowadays so when I was starting out I would cook a dish and played it and I will use a hashtag and it’s something that you have to keep doing. You have to be consistent and advertising your Content and before I knew I started out with, five followers, then that five turned out to be 50 more than that 50 more came out to be 100 more and it kept growing and growing all because I kept consistent. Also, following other chefs and other cooks who were on the social media platform doing the same thing I was doing also meeting people and restaurants or parties and pass out my business cards things like that that’s how I started my catering business in that sense because I would cook up a dish every Saturday and I will advertise it and before I knew it, I was getting calls by individuals who want to order a plate for an example. It was one Saturday I made broccoli risotto and stuffed salmon. I started receiving DM‘s in my Instagram and Facebook telling me they wanted 2 plates & another customer would order 4 plates & before I knew it that’s how my catering business started just by being consistent on social media and getting my name out there

Contact Info:

• Website: tribecalledchef.com
• Instagram: chefbrandopdx