We were lucky to catch up with Jeremiah Lemons recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jeremiah , appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Choose Joy Food Group started with two friends realizing they have passions that align with one another. November of 2016, myself and Cameron Everson, my friend and business partner put together a brunch for our friends right after Thanksgiving that year. It was a huge hit amongst everyone who came to share their time with us. Like any other event, we planned our menu, the decor, and flow of the “event.”

Afterwards, realizing what we had actually done, and getting booked for a New Years Eve party to follow-up, we formed our business in early 2017. I’m still awed by our name selection of Choose Joy Food Group looking back at how young we were in life and our industry. The foresight to know we needed to create a space for ourselves to engage in our industry how we see fit, and take ownership of. ‘Food Group’ serves as an umbrella that’s allowed us to pivot into any space we want as our company grows. Which has been very important in hospitality/ food & beverage as the world has changed so much over the past 5 years.

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.

Working in hospitality/ food & beverage has honestly been my career path from the start unknowingly. My first job out of college was Retail Sales Representative for The Hershey Company. My office was the grocery store. I served over 30 stores in Metro-Atlanta starting July of 2015 and quickly realized sales was not for me. It never felt right going into stores where socioeconomic status of the community did not align with the strategy Hershey was employing. I knew I could ask the store manager to put as many six pack hershey bars out on the floor as I wanted but they would never sell. On the southside of Atlanta, that’s not what shoppers want, or need when building their baskets for checkout. Naively, I quit without a job lined up.

After rounds of failed interview attempts, I came to realize traditional corporate roles were not for me. The interviewers could see it very clearly. My next role, was to be a packer, and farmers market representative for a local meal kit company. Back then, in 2016 I was not proud to say that’s what I did for a living. Leaving work smelling of onion and now having to work weekends, I started to fall out of alignment with my social network and even feel ‘behind’ in life. But, looking back it was huge blessing that prepared me for everything I did today.

In my spare time I started doing snapchat tutorials for my friends taking raw ingredients and preparing a recipe start to finish. At no point will I claim to be an originator of the form, but I was participating in a shift in social media, and how people learn about and engage with food. That’s how I started to become a chef, as silly as sounds every time I say it. I was also teaching myself and unknowingly preparing to walk into commercial kitchens and hit the ground running.
After staging one Sunday morning in a kitchen I would later serve as sous chef, and with constant nudging from Cameron, I decided to stop being so scared and take another leap into my passion for food. My first official job title was Execution Chef at BOLD Catering + Design.

My experiences at BOLD really opened my eyes to how intricate off-site catering is, how to prepare, and just how lucrative that industry can be. On Saturday at BOLD back in 2017-18 you would see no less than 30-40 white coats all moving in unison, preparing to push out 9-10 events for the DAY. Executing pull lists, par-cooking menu items, and packing a box truck to travel sometimes as far as 20 miles for a wedding was the groundwork I needed to run a catering operation of my own one day. To this day, I pull from early those experiences.

My next two roles, Pasta line cook at Nino’s, and Sous Chef for Atlanta Breakfast Club stretched my culinary abilities in ways I couldn’t fathom at the time. On the line is where chefs are made or broken, and more times that not, BOTH. My experience was not different. I can recall Chef Curtis driving me to tears as I left shift one night because I simply was not quick enough on the line to keep pace during rush at Ninos. At ABC, to say I struggled running inside expo early on is an understatement. Have you ever had to remake 90qts of gumbo, because you didn’t cool it properly? I have. But, to say the least I earned the respect of everyone on the line who was older and more experienced than I am through hard work, accountability, and empathy for them as human beings. I can also say I developed a mean streak and tenacity at ABC, which I’ve had to learn to control these last three years. As a chef/ entrepreneur solely, you have to compartmentalize what you take with you from the line. Fussing and cussing only gets you so far in life.

Present day, and post-pandemic I work as a Purchaser for a spice company by day and operate a meal-prep and catering brand 24/8. I’m just as busy as I was a sous chef, but I have way more autonomy over my energy and time. Working 12-14 hour days every Friday is taxing, but at no point have I felt it isn’t worth it over past three years. Cameron and myself have developed our business from cashapp payments and manual ordering to fully-automated; preparing our offerings in a licensed commercial kitchen. Being able to keep the bills paid and continue to grow has been a huge accomplishment and milestone for our 6th year operating to date.

This year especially, we’ve started to entrench ourselves in the community of Atlanta, GA through by participating in every grassroots event we can, corporate catering, and our meal prep brand that has a homemade feel, with commercial level production. And honestly that was our vision from the start. Choose Joy is as much of an action, as it is a brand. We deliver joy to be our clients homes and offices with our level of care for producing and presenting food we pour ourselves into. And we’re only getting started. To prospective clients, if you’re looking for a team to execute your event with care, accountability, and a homegrown feel, we’re your guys.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Me and Cameron met through a mutual friend, Andre Sutton on a trip to New Orleans, summer 2015. Throughout college, I had heard stories about Cameron or “Cambo” as his childhood friends call him, but we’d never officially met. The car wasn’t tense, but you could tell everyone wasn’t familiar with one another just yet. That quickly changed over a joke about snacks at the expense of our mutual friend and everything went from there honestly. Our journey was never about food, but friendship and simply being kindred spirits. We still laugh about that moment to this day!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

We’re still working on that honestly. Pitching food for sale on social media is not an easy undertaking when you understand the gimmicks and trends will only take your business so far. Personally, my brand is food education. On my instagram you’ll find the first description as Educational Chef, a callback to how I got started and my long-term vision for myself. This year especially I’ve been blessed to get back to that. I even teach 2-5th grade students how to cook real food every M-W at local elementary schools.
But as far as exponential growth we’re still fighting the fight. My advice for anyone is to be authentic, and tell your story as much as possible. The “best” accounts on social media do this almost weekly it seems in some form or fashion. Quality, valuable content may not gain the traction it should initially, but I know every time I scroll the grid of the three profiles I manage I’m proud of our work and how we choose to present it.
In a nutshell, to anyone just starting out, make content that you’ll be proud of in 90 days, be consistent. and interact with those that show you love. When I have more answers I’ll share more, haha.
To follow our journey, or engage with our business follow @maxwell.prep, @choosejoycatering, and @_cheflem on IG!

Contact Info:

• Website: maxwellprep.com
• Instagram: @maxwell.prep @_cheflem @choosejoycatering
• Facebook: Maxwell Prep

Image Credits
cmitchellstudios 3CentMedia