We recently connected with Dwana Dixon and have shared our conversation below.
Dwana, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
My family and I took a trip to Mobile, Alabama in 2013 to meet some of my paternal family members whom we had never met before. While on the trip, we learned that the majority of the family that resided in Alabama were entrepreneurs and owned various businesses as well as land. Upon returning home from the family trip, I expressed to my parents that I wanted to start my own food business. A couple of years prior to that, my parents owned and operated their own catering business and food truck; however, they had just recently retired from the catering business when I told them what I would like to do. The reason that I decided to name my business, DD’s Taste to Remember, is because my paternal grandfather used to call me ‘DD’. He would call my name and then look at me with his crooked smile, and I loved every bit of it. He passed away in 2005 and I decided to honor him by including the nickname that he gave me in my business name.
Dwana, 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?
My name is Dwana Dixon. I am 46 years old and just recently decided to pursue entrepreneurship fulltime after being laid off from my fulltime job in October 2023. In 2013, I started my own business as a personal chef, but only did it as a hobby at the time, as I was employed fulltime in the clinical research industry. My passion for cooking, I would like to think, came from my father. He attended culinary school as an adult, while my mother worked and 3 kids in school. Upon completion of culinary school, my mother and father started their own catering business. During this time, I watched, listened and learned a lot about the food industry, catering in particular. At times, I would travel home from college to help my parents with large catering events, and it was then that I was able to gain hands-on experience. I never thought I would actually go into the food business myself, but I did eventually. I started DD’s Taste to Remember in July 2013 after a family trip to Mobile, Alabama. It was then that I realized that being an entrepreneur was in the blood that ran through my veins, and I could not run from it. I embraced it and was excited to be doing this for myself. I started off as a personal chef, doing food tastings, and also some catering for family and friends. I would spend hours in the kitchen creating different dishes after hours of completing grad school homework. My main food products are soul food, with my best seller being homemade chicken salad and crab pies. The problems that I solve for my clients are providing them with meals when they have little to no time to cook or simply because they have no desire to cook. What sets me apart from others is that I prefer the traditional soul food way of cooking. I do not follow trends, most times, because I prefer to stick to cooking things the way that I remember my family cooking them when I was growing up. They cooked comfort food. Every occasion was centered around food, whether it was family coming to visit, family reunions, church, or even sad occasions, such as a funeral. Food is our love language. That’s what I would like my potential clients and followers to know about me and my brand. Everything I do is centered around love. I absolutely love to feed people and see or hear their reactions when eating my food. My hope is that everyone that I feed tastes the love and feel comforted in every bite.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
As mentioned previously, this was initially a side hustle after returning from a family trip to Mobile, Alabama. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and so I started DD’s Taste to Remember. For the past 11 years, I owned and operated my business as a side hustle or more like a hobby, only doing it when I felt the urge or when people requested for me to make certain dishes. For the past 2-3 years, I was not really motivated to cook or pursue my hobby as much as I had in the past years. Unfortunately, in October 2023, I was unexpectedly laid off from my fulltime job in the Clinical Research industry. It took me by surprise; however, I knew God had a plan for me. I was not upset at what had happened. I was calm, which was unusual for me. I battle with anxiety on a daily basis, and normally something like that would be devastating for me, but oddly enough, I knew exactly why God let this happen. He knows that I wanted more and that I had hopes and dreams of one day owning my very own take-out place; however, I, just like most people, had become complacent and comfortable in my career. Had I not gotten laid off, I would have never stepped out on faith to pursue MY passion fulltime.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The best source of new clients for me has been word of mouth! I am AMAZED at how many new clients I have fed because other people have mentioned my name and/or my business. I am known for making some of the best chicken salad, and I started selling it at one of the local farmer’s market near where I live. The very first time I went, I sold out within 2 hours. I went back the next month, and I had clients come up to my table as soon as the market opened, and they would buy 3-4 containers at a time! It was all because they had either heard of me from someone else or they had purchased the chicken salad in the previous month and they wanted more!
Also, word of mouth on social media has brought in new clients. My family and friends are always so eager to share my posts or my menus just so that they can get the word out!
Contact Info:
- Facebook: DD’s Taste to Remember
