We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jesse Hernandez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jesse, thanks for joining us today. Along with taking care of clients, taking care of our team is one of the most important things we can do as leaders. Looking back on your journey, did you have a boss that was really great? Maybe you can tell us about that boss and what made them a wonderful person to work for?

The most amazing boss I ever had would hands down would be Jim Noblitt. He was my boss when I worked as a technician at his mechanic shop in Katy Texas called Mission Car Care. Jim was very clean cut and organized. It reflected inside the shop. The shop floor was always clean, and the outside as well. He taught me so many things in regards to owning your own business. He taught me how it’s more valuable to hire someone with No knowledge but with a good heart, than to hire someone who knows it all but has a bad heart. I apply everything he taught me now to my life and to my business. He would always treat us with so much respect and gratitude. He was the type to take off his shirt to put it on your back if you needed one. Jim will forever be like a father to me.

One day I was doing an alignment on a car and I had an accident. After doing the alignment on the car, I forgot one of the sensors on the car and drove it out of the shop to do a test drive. While driving on the road I heard a loud noise and looked at the rear view mirror just to see the sensor had come off the wheel and was tumbling on the side of the road. My stomach got into a knot, I felt certain Jim would fire me. Either way I went into his office and told him what happened. He taught me one of the most valuable lessons that day. He said to me “Jesse, I cannot simply buy a new sensor and just let you off the hook like that. You have to put some skin as well. I will pay half and you will pay the other half. All I ask is that you learn from this and not let it happen again. Make sure you remember this every time you do an alignment and walk around the entire car before pulling it out of the shop. ”

I was so happy he didn’t fire me I think I even gave him a hug. Jim and his wife Debbie are now retired and I always tell them that they definitely deserve it! Both of them worked very hard and I know im not the only person who learned from their work ethics and applied it to their own lives!

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 was born and raised in Houston, Texas and my mother is from Morelos, Mexico. Since a kid I’ve always had a passion for food and cars. I made the decision to go plant based back in late 2018. That is pretty much how I got into the restaurant Industry. I began cooking for myself at home because back then there wasn’t as many places like now that offer plant based/vegan options on their menu. I started Veegos in November of 2018 selling food as a pop up. I began with a few delicious recipes my mom helped me with. I wasn’t sure if people would like the food the way I did. And they did! We would sell food mainly on the weekends at breweries and businesses. Eventually the business started doing better and better and we began to look for a store front. One of the things I am most proud of is how I was able to save up enough money, around 80k, to start our restaurant location we are at now on Westheimer Rd. I think what makes me the most happy is when customers come in to the restaurant and tell us about how much they appreciate us being here because they love the food so much, and how they love bringing their non vegan friends and they also enjoy the food. Or when a customer tells me about how our food was the reason they stopped eating meat and dairy. One thing that I want people to know about me is that I am no different from you. I live a normal and active lifestyle. I workout. I enjoy building nice cars with friends. I also enjoy driving them lol. I want people to know that just because you choose to adapt a plant based/vegan lifestyle doesn’t mean your life all of a sudden is now boring. I still get on a boat and cruise down the lake. I still go the gym and workout with my friends. I still go to concerts. I still go bike riding bikes in downtown, I still do all the fun stuff I would do back then I just don’t bother animals anymore. I will be gone someday and Veegos will still be here and I am just happy for the time I am granted to be here and be a part of it. It is definitely an experience.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

Covid definitely was a huge curve ball for all restaurant owners. We never could imagined how something like this would change the entire restaurant ball game. I can remember when covid began to hit harder and harder here in Texas. I was more worried about how I was going to pay the bills than the actual virus itself. There was a time when it was pretty bad and I didn’t know how I would make payroll I ended up obtaining a small loan from a friend, and was able to get payroll and rent taken care of. After that I made sure to not let that happen again and got super tough on the marketing and different ways to get peoples food to them because of covid.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

We have a few ways that we stay in touch with our customers. One of them is Instagram. There we can receive direct messages from them and reply to their messages. Another one would be our emails. That is probably where we get the most interactions with customers. Lastly, another way we get in touch with our customers would be email marketing. That is mainly where we send free food coupons. We also offer a Loyalty Program at Veegos. Basically if you are not part of it, when you pay for your food, the system will ask if you would like to join. Every time you spend $10 you receive 1 point. Each point is worth $1. That’s a really good deal if you ask me!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.veegoshouston.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/veegoshouston
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/veegoshouston
• Youtube: Veegos or @veegos220

Image Credits
@aliefali_ @taha.shoots @houstonslala @localveganmeetup