Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jimere Parker . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jimere , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?
Something I believe most people in the food industry believe is that you have to work everyday to build a successful business and I disagree. We’ve been a pop up restaurant going on 2 years and have been able to build a restaurant following only being open 2 days/month!
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?
My name is Jimere Parker, a 32 year old husband, active father and entrepreneur that’s always had a passion for cooking. Being a first generational college student, education always came first which is why I never pursued my passion. I first leaned my passion for cooking in middle school. As the only child of a single mother, I had to make my own meals during the time my mother was working. During those meal making sessions, I would always do more than the average to spice up my meal. For example, if we had a can of chili and tortilla chips, I would make chili cheese nachos topped with sour cream, jalapeños and salsa. I’ve always been creative when it came to cooking! However, following my college career, I worked in logistics and warehouse management. Following this role, I hoped into sales and stayed on sale for approximately 3 years. During my last role as a Sales Rep at Verizon wireless, I served as a mentor to elementary students. During one of my visits, my mentee was placed in another teachers class due to the teacher shortage here in Oklahoma. As I lead by the principal to get my mentee, he asked if I had an interest in teaching because I’d make a great teacher. I quickly laughed and replied, “No sir, I love the kids but teaching is not on the radar”. He responded that I should look into it and I told him I would. Approximately 3 weeks following that conversation, I was given a Spiritual sign to take the role and I did. From that point on, I knew that if I served this role to the best of my ability, my next endeavors would be blessed. Beginning January 2021, the 2nd semester of the school year, I began the Kings Way journey with $140 worth of Walmart seasonings! For 8 months, I cooked wings just about every weekend, inviting friends and family over to try them. After being mentored by owner of ATL Wings and building the confidence in my product, I was ready to take it to the city of Tulsa. We hosted our fist pop up October 5th 2021 at Mother Road Market, a local food hall voted number 1 by USA Today! Within 6 months, we became the all time sales leaders within the food hall! Since then, we have been a fan favorite at Mother Road Market and have won multiple awards since! We are on a mission to become Americas number one go to spot for wings and great customer service!
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
The biggest advice I can give about managing a team is realizing that they work for you, but more importantly you work for them! Your job is to place your team in positions they can thrive in by providing them with everything they need to perform the job as easily as possible. Therefore, realizing you’re just as much as a worker to them as they are to your business is key and will keep you humble while serving them. Also understanding that you set the tone. Your team is only as happy, as serious and as hardworking as you are! A friend once told me when you run out of gas, people must see you’re pushing your car first before they decide to come help. Same with the team. As long as you start the job, they will help you finish it in the same spirit you started it with!
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Scarcity and FOMO has been our biggest drivers! I say this because as mentioned earlier, we are only open a few times a month which means you can’t have our wings at the drop of a dime. With that being the case, people are more motivated to make it out whenever we do pop up because there may be a few days to weeks before we pop up again. Initially, this was not our game plan but as we continued to operate, we noticed it worked in our favor so we stuck with it! We are firm believers that less is more and that’s how we operate our business!
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.kingswaywings.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kingswingstulsa/?igshid=MWI4MTIyMDE%3D
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kingswingstulsa?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/king-s-way-wings/
- Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/kingswingstulsa?fbclid=PAAaYtN3POnK65w4flXQnxbnldwte3T7Gt5SsFAYiCba-IP4iH8eh9vwPzyaA_aem_AUsiSIfTMuvdbKHt7fxqmie49UfIebSBEKqPEmqIu5ICZaF32UtfR0ziHv_nKU24kYY