Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ljaunet Montgomery. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ljaunet, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Tiara and I, for years, have discussed the idea of owning a restaurant. We came up with the idea of a Midwest/Creole fusion restaurant. Tiara is from Illinois, and I am from Louisiana. Growing up, I watched some of the best cooks I know cook some of my favorite dishes, which aided my passion for cooking. Tiara grew up in the kitchen with her parents, cooking family recipes and visualizing how important family meals are for creating memories and traditions.

She and I both loved cooking and entertaining. We would host many dinner parties and Friendsgiving events so we could cook for family and friends. In 2021, Tiara suggested selling food and marketing it via social media. We developed a business name and became certified food handlers. We created multiple menus and published them on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram for our followers to see.

The following weekends, we went to work and began posting videos of us cooking and the food being made. Instantly, we started receiving orders for food purchases. We began seeing a profit from selling plates and then filed for our LLC. From there, we received our business formation documents, and the business has taken off since then. We are now a full-service catering company.

She and I then began looking at restaurants open for lease, food trucks, and shared kitchen locations. We started comparing pricing and working on building business credit. In the meantime, we have been taking catering gigs and dessert table orders. We spend countless hours filling orders, baking, and cooking. Some events cause us to stay up for 24 and 48 hours to ensure our customers have a positive experience.

We participate in farmer’s markets and popup events in Texas and Chicago to ensure continuous business exposure. We collaborate with other business owners and create content for social media. We have been blessed to have constant support from loyal customers and word-of-mouth referrals.

Ljaunet, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is L’jaunet Montgomery, and I am one of the owners of LulaTee’s Country Kitchen, LLC. My business partner’s name is Tiara Stewart-Montgomery. We have been in business for almost three years. We are located in Houston, Texas. We have had the pleasure of catering events locally in Austin and Chicago. We are a full-service catering company.

We are very collaborative and love to build with our clients. We allow customers to have complete creative control of their menus and how they envision their dessert tables to look, and from there, we take their vision and create the memory. We are incredibly flexible and are a save-the-day type of company. We have a lot of customers who reach out to us because their caterer has canceled on them at the last minute, and we step in to ensure their event takes place.

What sets us apart from other catering companies is our customer service, creativity, and the fact that we go above and beyond to ensure our customers are satisfied. We are most proud of our business because it is a woman-owned business, we exhibit black girl magic, and we are proud of its overall success. We have struggled; we have had days and weeks when we weren’t booked, but we persevered and never gave up. The most crucial lesson learned from entrepreneurship is that businesses become successful; the more you pour into your business, the more successful it becomes.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Tiara and I learned very quickly the importance of pricing our items correctly. So often, business owners go into business to help people and tend to forget about themselves. Business owners should pay attention to the fact that they need to remember they should be compensated for their time and effort, which has to be calculated within the price of their items. Tiara and I are very giving and empathetic people, and more often than not, we want to lower our costs to garner relationships and meet people at their budget price points. Still, we have to remember that businesses survive off profit. However, we sometimes offer discounted packages when we need new social media content if the customer requests something we have never done before.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Tiara and I, approximately six months ago, after going through our business financials, noticed that we make more money catering desserts than food. We saw this trend because customers would want catering but want to cut down on fees. They would elect to pick up their catering orders as a way to decrease pricing. Food catering revenue was marginal compared to the revenue made via dessert table catering. Additionally, creating dessert tables is a lot more fun. So, we decided to cater food for larger-scale events, and occasionally, we will accept smaller orders when time permits.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulateescountrykitchen?igsh=ZWI2YzEzYmMxYg==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lulatees?mibextid=kFxxJD
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@aletmecook4u?_t=8jPzu9ZV6xn&_r=1