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

Miles, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project that I have worked on to date would be a Tennessee tornado relief drive I did. In March 2020 the world was turned on this year, especially for us in Tennessee. I live in the Donelson/Hermitage area and on top of COVID-19 and the new guidelines in protocols being in place we had a tornado that put a lot of people out of their homes and left a lot of people without electricity and other essentials. I decided to make a large amount of hot food and make individual plates, and take them to my neighbors, and also surrounding neighborhoods with the partnership of metro schools and a college organization, I joined called B.L.A.C.K. Inc., we served at least 40 homes. It was so meaningful to me, even though I am not a Nashville Native, but just seeing how many people were out helping remove debris from neighbors cars while their own houses might’ve been destroyed was just really moving to see, and it really speaks to the strong community that Nashville has.

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

My name is Miles Stokes I’m from Chicago Illinois. I came to Nashville about 10 years ago as a freshman at Tennessee State University. Since then I have graduated and have ultimately started doing what I love which is cooking and creating beautiful dishes that bring people together. I got into the industry from teaching culinary arts in youth detention centers, and decided to take that trait and turn it into something that could be more impactful, and also lucrative. This turned into a wide range of services from personal plates and catering services to date nights and culinary art lessons. I think what sets me apart from most businesses that also create dishes is that I like to get into the background of the food I like to know who invented it and where it came from and the culture of the dish, and I also enjoy giving small history lessons with every meal.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I build my audience on social media honestly just through food I struggled with my initial vision for the page because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be just food or if I wanted to include my face and personality on the page. Ultimately, I opted for just food, and Eventually got into the process of making the food, but I still haven’t shown my face per se. Also, the addition of music being added to the videos and reels is another reason I would say my audience has built. I have a very wide and also peculiar taste in music, so if you’ve been scrolling on my page in a food video, might have a background song of maybe Paramore or NBA YoungBoy, depending on what the dish is.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe what helped build my reputation with my market is trial and error, and also constant communication. I’ve tried various things while trying to build a pond brand with a Y variety of things from cooking, and then delivering the food as soon as it’s done, which ultimately didn’t work out but without the trial and error of that process, I wouldn’t have found a method that ultimately did work for me also asking customers what they think would work best has worked for me in a lot of situations.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @blackbourbonkitchen