We were lucky to catch up with Jennifer Terrell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jennifer, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. 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.

Risk—this is a word that many people run from mentally when they hear it or think about it. Even so, I do the exact opposite when there is something that I want to pursue. A risk that I took was becoming a business owner. Many people think about opening a business, but they lack the confidence that it takes to pursue this goal. For me, I took my love of cooking and turned it into a restaurant. Time and time again I had my family, friends, and community members express their love of my recipes, and how they loved the taste of my food. With this, I opened my restaurant, J’s Tasty Kitchen. Each time I have a customer, I visually see my goal reached after taking the risk to become a business owner. A large segment of my life was spent being a teacher, but I ventured into the world of business after having spent many years educating many scholars. In addition to taking the risk of being a business owner, I also took the risk of founding a nonprofit organization for at-risk youth known as Today’s Other Choices, Inc. Many people felt that it was a waste of time to reach out to such young people in an effort to steer them on the right track in life. However, having been a teacher for many years, I knew there was a need for at-risk youth to have positive influences in their lives. It is even my goal to take things a step further and open my own school in the coming years. From owning a restaurant, founding a nonprofit organization, and pursing opening a school, taking risks is something that I do in order to see greatness flourish in my life and the lives of others.

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 background and context?

As a well-known teacher who cared about her family, students, and community as a whole, it has always been my goal to positively impact the lives of others. Throughout my years as a teacher, I could see that students needed a positive impact in their lives that spanned beyond the classroom. With this, I decided to reach out further to touch the lives of students and open a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization known as Today’s Other Choices, Inc. This is an organization geared toward productively affecting the lives of at-risk youth in an effort to steer them on the proper path in life. My love of cooking spanned into my love of positively impacting youth to the extent that I would provide free meals for young people who were a part of the organization. The young people would meet on different days based upon their ages. I still remember a young man who was in his older teen years who came to a meeting of the younger students to get a meal due to the fact that he ran away from home. While at the meeting, we were able to convince him to return home and get back in a good place with his family. Aside from being a teacher and nonprofit organization head, my path to becoming a restaurant owner is something that I could see happening for many years. Whether cooking for my family, at my nonprofit organization, community gatherings, or catering events, I have repeatedly had compliments and requests for my cooking to continue. When the requests for my cooking reached such a high point with my catering, I decided to take the risk of opening a restaurant. Despite what others had to say about me stepping into the business world instead of remaining with a set paycheck, I decided to step out on faith. I was told many times that I had two things that would ensure my failure in the business world: being black and being a woman. Even so, becoming a graduate of the well-known HBCU Grambling State University definitely served to help mold and shape me into the woman who I needed to be to take such a risk.
At my restaurant, I serve Southern style cooking, which is the product of recipes that at one time were just what I was using to prepare meals for my family. Each time a customer comes to my restaurant, I see a blessing from God in action. Recently I even had the Emmy-award winning Tamron Hall Show contact me to feature me on the show for achieving my goal of opening my business. I loved how the producers were interested in knowing about my restaurant, and sharing the knowledge of my restaurant with the viewers on their nationally syndicated talk show. I’m most proud of how I took the risk of becoming a businesswoman who allowed faith to combat fear in my situation. If there is one piece of advice that I would give to anyone reading this article it would be to pursue your goals and never let anything or anyone hold you back.

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

Cooking has always been something that I’ve loved to do! Whether cooking a meal for my family or a large group of people, cooking has been a great love of mine! Even so, cooking was simply a side hustle to my main career as a teacher. Nevertheless, my clientele began to expand to extensive heights when it came to having my catering services. With this, I decided to step out on faith and open my own restaurant. I knew that I would always have to wonder what it would be like to be a businesswoman if I did not take the risk of being one myself. People would always tell me how “tasty” my food happened to be, and I earned the nickname “J” when it came to cooking. Putting this together, I named my restaurant J’s Tasty Kitchen.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

Funding a business is certainly no easy task. When I made up my mind to open my own business, I decided to invest in myself. With each paycheck from my career as a teacher, I would set aside funds that would build up over time. After this, I set aside money from my retirement funds and put this together with my previously saved funds. I used this capital to open the doors of J’s Tasty Kitchen.

Contact Info:

• Website:  todaysotherchoices.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Southern-Restaurant/Js-Tasty-Kitchen-1526422704318713/