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

Alright, JASMINE thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I started my business Nola Dat right inside my apartment in 2022 , i moved to houston and wanted to pursue my chef career. I was located on northside of houston and started attending pop up shops and working at different places and connecting with people to see a different scenery of houston. Although i was so nervous of always seeing how the day turns out , i went forward to always designing a menu and people would call me and order. I moved on the Southside at the end of 2022 and started cooking and preparing meals from home still connecting with more customers. My instagram feed was doing extremely well and DoorDash platform reached out to me to be featured on their platform to be a home chef. They markerted my store and had a chef sampler feauture that was $7 to customers but the rate would be a little more for me. I started making reels and going viral for my accent being from new Orleans . Alot of people started recognizing the meal was $7 for a shrimp burger seafood fries seafood egg rolls and henny wings. Customers and doordash dashers would be lined up outside my house down the street it was a blessing to be overwhelmed with orders each day. I really enjoyed serving others but unfortunately i was off the platform in two months due to marketing violations i was unaware of .i still cooked for my customers from home and catered holiday meals . Things were still extremely busy. One day i just decided i would not cook from home anymore until i got a location. Now we are back on the northside at 14641 gladebrook dr as a virtual restaurant we are excited to pursue our dream

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?

I got into business into 2019 starting lipgloss and making lipgloss at home. I started a shop on etsy . Then started selling designer items . My goal was to attract clients based on whats in style. I also hosted several pop up shops to bring vendors together to network and make sales. I moved to houston in 2021 and started a tax preparation company and pursuing my business at Nola Dat. The name came about because its alot of friends and people from Nola area who miss the soulful flavor of cooking. Im here to spread the love

How did you build your audience on social media?

Ive built my audience on social media based on the people who ive been knowing since a childhood and moving to different areas and getting to know people . Working at different jobs connecting with people. If you have a service keep creating content and using key terms and never give up

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started my business back in 2019 and always had a part time job but i still maintained and also had time to do events and maintain my side hustle just as if it was a full time job. I started making lipgloss in my home in 2019 and started a shop from etsy from home. Then i started to sell designer items. Then started to pursue taxes and started cooking . I moved to Houston and went full force of my purpose. With being consistent i finally got a storefront virtual location. I plan to get a food truck next

Contact Info:

• Website: order.store/store/nola-dat-cajun-eats/FGGx1MfyVBWcgqDCaTsrfQ
• Instagram: Instagram.com/noladateats
• Facebook: Facebook.com/noladateats
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/xgkV8HtoKvc?si=ZfESjJliyvEU–iU
• Yelp: https://yelp.to/TrcDC1TYk7

Image Credits
Jamieka Snyder , Sade Mccormick , Leonard Sterling , Shermika Martin