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

Marcus , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

The biggest challenge currently is the food chain. One week prices are one thing then literally 2 days later prices could have increased by 3 dollars per pound. Also being able to consistently get the products you need from one distributor is a challenge in itself. A lot goes on behind the scenes trying to secure product to cook and serve my customers.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started this journey in 2018, officially making that step to put my left foot forward and pursue something that I was passionate about which was cooking. I started my catering company then which has progressed in grew into where I’m at now. A lot of long days and late nights, a lot of doubt and questioning is this really what I signed up for. I pride myself on serving good quality food to my customers, weather that is BBQ, Cajun food or down south comfort food. I also wanted to be able to provide it at a descent price to where you didn’t have to break the bank inorder to eat, but ever since the pandemic things have gotten tuff and I’ve had to be creative. But 5 years later Mjays house of smoke is still standing and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

So in 2021 I partnered with TJs catfish and wings to form our very own super team. We wanted to be able to provide a one stop shop including fish, wings, bbq, Cajun food, beer and daiquiris. We realized that we are stronger together then we were individually. We could reach greater heights by combing. We started working together back in 2019 doing little turkey leg events and smoke house Sundays once every couple months. We saw what was going on in Houston with turkey leg hut and thought to ourselves that we could create our own version of that down here in Arlington Texas. The first event was crazy. We sold 150 turkey legs in 2 hours and the rest was history. When you have 2 like minded individuals who have one common goal of growing the business it makes for a beautiful relationship.

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

Consistency consistency consistency, it’s not an overnight success to truly organically grow your social media presence. Yes of course you can have a post go viral and boom your hot, but that’s not a realistic expectation. Putting out good quality and posting Atleast once a day, interacting with my customers has helped me grow. Word of mouth has been a great tool, once you wow one person that person is going to want to tell somebody else about their experience and I strive to make sure that everybody receives that same experience.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: _mjay_1987
• Facebook: Mjays house of Smoke

Image Credits
Chow down Trey