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

DeMargeo , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

I want to say the biggest risk I ever took was becoming an entrepreneur and starting a business. I had no clue to what I was doing or the direction I wanted to take but I knew i wanted to try something different. I was 26 years old working at an Italian restaurant cal6l “Nonna’s Cafe in Ada, MI. One day I was cooking on the line and something in me just clicked like I felt like I knew enough to start my own thing and that’s exactly what I did. So that winter of 2017 I put in my 2 weeks notice and the rest was history. I knew I wanted to do food I just but I had no idea that I would end up doing cheesecakes. Fast forward after I let the job I came home and I started brainstorming. I started off doing a little bit of everything from private dinners, meal prepping, catering, desserts etc. . . Anything that had to do with food I was trying to do but I notice a few months in I was doing way too much and buying stuff I really didn’t need. So I took a step back to reevaluate what I was doing because around that time I wasn’t the only one trying to do food. Honest to God I don’t know what thought came over me but all I know I was switching gears and solely focusing on making cheesecakes which at the time I sucked at it. Fast forward 2 years later Huey D’s Goodies LLC was established in 2019. It took me 2 years to find my niche and oddly enough it was cheesecakes. Since I’ve started the business it’s been an amazing & emotional roller coaster ride. Going into my 4th year of the business I really think that it’s really starting to take off. We’re selling out in stores on a weekly basis, news articles, promo videos, being accredited by the Better Business Bureau to finally winning my first business pitch competition. Like everything is starting to come together exactly when it supposed to. I’m excited to see what’s next for us in the months & years to come.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I remember like it was yesterday. It was my last year of high school and I really didn’t have any plans on going to college. It wasn’t until one of my teachers Mrs. Taunt who had a different last name at the time sat me down and asked me “What are your plans after high school?? What do you like to do?? I replied “I don’t know. I find cooking relaxing. So Mrs. Taunt took me to my very first college orientation.

At the time we didn’t have a culinary school here in Kalamazoo back in 2009 so my options were either Grand Rapids or Detroit. Lucky enough my older brother DeMarcus who goes by “Spade” was already living in Grand Rapids because he moved there right after high school in 2007 so making that decision to move to Grand Rapids in 2010 was an easy one. I was so eager to find a job working with food lucky enough Spade lived in an apartment complex off Alpine in Grand Rapids which was consider Comstock Park it was nothing but restaurants up & down the street. My very first job I had got was at Quiznos because my brother knew the manager. That didn’t last long I ended getting fired because I called off work to come back home to visit friends plus I was terrible at making sandwiches. That was the first, only & last time I got fired from a job.

Fast forward I get a job working at Grand Rapids Community College in the cafeteria. That’s where I met my very chefs Dan & Nancy. Dan was my supervisor so I trained under him and Nancy was his boss. I leaned pretty quick working up Dan but Nancy would be the one I actually grew attached to and she looked out for me the entire time I was living in Grand Rapids & attending culinary school. Over the next 7 years I developed my skills working in different restaurants under different chefs. I worked at Red Jet Cafe, Rose’s on reeds lake, Smokey Bones, The Green Well & Nonna’s Cafe. Working at all those restaurants with all those amazing chefs molded me into the person I am today.

Huey D’s Goodies LLC was established in April of 2019 we specialize in providing gourmet cheesecakes to the greater city of Kalamazoo and surrounding cities. In the beginning I didn’t know what to expect all I knew was I had a dream and one way or other I was going to figure it. I believe Edgar sets us apart from everyone is our creativity, our consistency with our products & customers going above abs beyond to fulfill our customers needs.

We take the stress away for customers because they know when they’re purchasing from us they’re getting a good quality product and they don’t have to worry about people second guessing their decision on where they got the cheesecake from because it’s backed by the brand. What am I most proud of? I would have to say getting all this tremendous support from the community because without them there’s no us there’s no Huey D’s Goodies.

For those who don’t know Huey D’s Goodies is named after our first born son Houston which is nickname is Huey. So what I wanted to do was to include everyone’s name into the business. So if you’re every on our website or buying our products in the store you’ll see that some of products are named after my family. My wife’s favorite is the strawberry cheesecake so I named that after her “Rita’s Strawberry Swirl cheesecake”, then you have Moo Moo’s Triple Chocolate & Moo Moo’s Cookies N Cream cheesecake. Moo Moo is our daughter Serena she was given the nickname Moo Moo by her grandma growing up because she chewed like a cow and she loves chocolate so I named those two after her. Then you have Austyn’s mini pecan pie which named after our 3 month old son Austyn. Then Roman last but not least I’m wanted to push out a cookie line named after him called Roman’s cookies which I’m hoping to have out by the early spring time.

Have you ever had to pivot?

It was in 2020 when covid-19 had just hit. I was working at K-college a local college here in Kalamazoo, MI. I remember they sat us down on the last day of cleaning right before summer break and told us they’re shutting everything down for the summer.

Now I’m shocked but at the same time I’m like “we’re going on summer break anyways.” It was until I got the phone call from Human Resources and they said “We’re not calling you back for the fall” that right there was a pivotal moment because it was either get other job or start taking your business seriously.

That June of that summer in 2020 I sold 60 cheesecakes out of our house and that right there was the moment I realized “Ok, we got something here.” and took off from there. I went downtown to speak to the building manager at the First Baptist Church, did my inspection with the health department and a few weeks later I had my kitchen space.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Word of mouth, social media & wholesale. In the beginning no one knew who we were so I had to get out here and hustle. Going to every pop-up shop event trying to create a buzz for the business. Posting on social media definitely helped us out but I think once we started to get our products in different establishments that’s start really did it for us. Because those business already had existing clientele so it made it easier getting our products in front of people who didn’t know about us and once they tried our product they were hooked.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.hueydsgoodies.net
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/hueydsgoodies
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/hueydsgoodies