We were lucky to catch up with Chasity Gibson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chasity, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

I come from farmers & ranchers in East Texas, where there’s a strong culture around homegrown food. I’ve spent my entire life watching my mom, my grandmas, my aunts build beautiful home gardens that they use year-round to feed our family. My childhood was spent sitting on porches snapping beans & shelling peas, weeding & harvesting the garden, & learning how to use what we grew to make amazingly delicious meals. It was a privilege to grow up in that environment surrounded by so many capable moms. I wanted to pay some sort of tribute with naming my shop to all the moms in my life that taught me the best way to feed your family, your community, is through homegrown & locally sourced ingredients.

Chasity, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Aw man, the journey to “Mom’s.” It’s not as straightforward as you might think. My generation was taught to go off to college, not to stay on the farm/ranch. Success was getting a high paying corporate job, living in the city. So I spent 12+ years building a career in the Tech industry as a Go to Market strategist, helping startups in their Series A/Series B round of funding to grow their revenue in order to go public or be acquired. And while I loved growing companies & the rush that came with strategic work, the environment was horrible. The lack of respect & common decency, the disposability of people, I saw within the Tech culture made my stomach turn. I felt like I was getting further & further away from the values I was raised with.

I started planning my Tech retirement, what would life look like once my career was over. I kept finding myself pulling in plans that included farming, ranching, feeding the community. I envisioned having my own land with an outdoor kitchen, cooking coffee over a campfire, & surprising and delighting my guests with homegrown food experiences. I had a strong desire to build community around locally sourced & sustainable food. One day, I had enough & was venting to my mom that I wasn’t going to make it to retirement, Tech was going to ruin me. And as mothers do, she helped me simplify the situation & gave me hope. “Just open a shop, honey!” She told me to start with a neighborhood shop where I could take little steps to reaching my ultimate goal, little steps that included supporting local farmers & ranchers, and building a community around locally sourced & sustainable food.

So I opened Mom’s a few short months later! There have been SO MANY learnings & lessons in this first year. I’ve met some amazing vendors, creators, & farmers. Some who have become very close friends of mine. With Mom’s, I focused on creating a warm & welcoming environment that didn’t feel like you were in a grocery store. We have couches & chairs, Christmas lights year-round, a puzzle table & games, local surf artwork on the walI; I’ve created a space where the community wants to hang out & visit with their neighbors. I never wanted Mom’s to just be a grocery store.

We started out outsourcing all products, even the baked goods & premade meals, to local island vendors & chefs. Then we transitioned to having an in-house micro-bakery & cooking all our pre-made meals, snacks, & treats in the shop’s kitchen. I learned how wasteful grocery stores are & made changes in my approach to lessen that waste at Mom’s. We stopped carrying produce everyday in the shop because it was very hard to maintain & keep fresh, with so much going to compost. We transitioned to Market Day Wednesdays where we have a mini farmers market for our neighbors to come & buy fresh island produce from our friends at Seeding Galveston & Galveston Greens. We love promoting local creators & hosting special events to help the community get to know them & their products. One our favorites being Melat’s Provisions; an incredibly talented baker of sourdough cinnamon rolls & the best custom stuffed donuts you’ve ever had in your life.

As we combat the inevitable waste that comes with owning a grocery store & ensuring we live by our mission to building community around locally sourced & sustainable ingredients, I’m open to the evolution of Mom’s & what the shop will ultimately be for our East End island community. What does the future look like for Mom’s? Tasty & homegrown.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Hire people you can trust. While every employee I have has a very different style/personality, they all are trustworthy & accountable humans. It’s easy to create a fun environment where people enjoy coming to work, when I can trust my employees are doing what I need them to do & when they can trust that I’ll be a supportive & transparent employer. Plus, all my employees love food; cooking it, eating, talking about it haha. Part of the great environment at Mom’s is that I’m constantly cooking & baking, and my employees get first dibs.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Coming from the Tech world, of course all books from Simon Sinek & Adam Grant. But 2 books that personally shaped how I view & interact with the world are Between the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. While neither are traditional entrepreneurial books, in my opinion they cover a very important part of being a great entrepreneur; how our experiences shape how we approach the world around us & how we can best serve & better our local community. I think both books are a must-read for all people, not just entrepreneurs.

Contact Info:

• Website: momsfarmtotable.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/momsfarmtotable/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094216039385

Image Credits
All photos are by Sam Wiley Photography