We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Bentley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.
Jessica, appreciate you joining 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?
After I graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree, I got a job working as the Restaurant Accounting Manager for PIER Restaurants on Pier 39 in San Francisco. Needless to say, I was always surrounded by chefs and different creative dishes. It was the perfect blend of utilizing my degree but also very satisfying working with all things culinary. We ended up moving to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2013. I had always loved to be in the kitchen, and would often cook for family occasions, holidays, friendly gatherings, you name it. So when I moved to the East Coast, I’d often have friends and family texting me asking for a recipe I had previously made so they can try to replicate it. After a little while, I decided to start a simple website where I could send a link instead of writing out the full recipe via text. My thought behind this was “Welcome to a Slice of my kitchen”, and that’s how I came up with Slice of Jess.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I started my company, Slice of Jess, as a hobby that I would do on the weekends after my 9-5 accounting job. A little backstory: I grew up in a very poor household where I lived with my older brother and father. My mom had passed away when I was young, so my father worked all sorts of jobs and long hours to raise us two kids. Often, I would eat dinner alone… some sort of microwave meal that I got for $2 at our local discount grocery store. Whenever I would visit friends or extended family, I was always jealous that they all sat at their table together and talked about their day with a home-cooked meal. I decided at a very young age that when I was “an adult”, I would cook dinner every day for my family. I met my now husband at 18. We dated for 10 years while in college and waiting tables until we got married in 2012. During that time, I started to watch all the food network shows and taught myself how to cook. Rachael Ray was my favorite. I’d come home late from a restaurant shift most nights, and stay up trying to recreate a meal that I pre-recorded when I was at school or work. Sometimes we wouldn’t eat until midnight, but I enjoyed cooking so much. Not every meal turned out the way it was supposed to, but my current boyfriend (now husband) was a trooper, always supporting and praising every dinner I made. We now have two young boys, and I make a point to cook dinner for them every night. We sit together, talk about our day, it’s everything I always wanted.
After having my website for a year or so, I started to get some traction on my google analytics reports. I even had some local publications reaching out to see if they can promote my recipes. I started writing for a local publisher here in Charlotte, then moved on to television cooking segments and even co-hosted an episode of a culinary show on the Travel Channel. I was even listed by Zagat 2017 Foodie Awards as #9 in the US for social media photography!
Then the unimaginable happened in 2020… I was cooking dinner one night and saw I was getting a call from New York City. I picked it up, and the lady on the other side of the line said “Hey, my name is Kelsey and I’m calling from The Racheal Ray Show”. I dropped my spatula and pasta sauce went all over myself and my entire kitchen. We talked for about 40 minutes, and she asked if I would want to come on the show for a special Mother’s Day episode. Of course, I accepted and was extremely excited. I had never been to New York City, let alone the fact that I was going to meet and possibly cook alongside my mentor! Unfortunately, COVID came around that March and the show cancelled all in-person episodes for the remainder of the year or so. Devastated, I knew one day I’d get to meet her… and I did virtually last year for a Q&A! I hope one day I’ll be invited back. But until then, I’m just going to keep on cookin’! In addition to sliceofjess.com, I am a recipe developer, photographer, videographer, and content creator for several food and beverage brands. I gained enough clients in 2017 that I no longer had to work as an accountant and am now creating everything food full-time through my company, Slice of Jess LLC. Never in my wildest dreams would I think that I could do everything that I love, every single day. If you have a dream… it might be a small dot which looks so far away in the distance that you have no idea how you’ll get there, but keep trying every day. Eventually that goal will come a reality if you give it your all. It’ll probably take years… a lot of early mornings before your kids get up and you have to go to your day job, then late nights after the house is sleeping, but keep going forward.
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
I answered this on the previous block. Maybe move that paragraph to here?
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I love inspiring others. I even mentor new bloggers on building their WordPress websites, finding their niche, increasing their social media presence, and basically any questions they have that I can assist with. I’m basically an open book. I do this because I wish I had someone to give me advice or ask questions to when I was first starting my culinary career. I built everything up from scratch, which wasn’t always fun, but it did put me in a position to help others… and that’s the most rewarding thing of being a creative.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sliceofjess.com/about-me/
- Instagram: sliceofjess
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SliceOfJessBlog
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessjbentley/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmj1l9HFS4_Ekr0xQolpdSQ
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sliceofjessblog
Image Credits
Jessica Bentley, Brian Bunn