We were lucky to catch up with Moe & Vanessa Hosseini recently and have shared our conversation below.

Moe & Vanessa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?

We both worked for advertising companies in San Antonio. We learned a lot about dealing with all types of customers from extremely dissatisfied ones to completely satisfied customers. I learned that when a customer is angry it’s at a specific issues and to never take it personal, I would own the problem and make sure I de-escalated the issue by assuring the customer I would solve the issue and turn the negative experience into a good one so that we would not be judged on that one bad experience. Customers are how you become successful and we really feel that making them feel like family makes them form an appreciation for your business and makes them want to come back. Putting the customer first is important to us, we are customers and we know how amazing customer service and products/ food impacts a relationship with your customers.

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?

I worked for a local company in San Antonio for almost a decade, I took a leap to another company to advance my career but unfortunately I was faced with not being able to pass my series test to become a financial advisor. As you can imagine the feeling of being fired from the company I left to another and being left with no job, no benefits I was tremendously afraid with what I would do with my life and how we would survive with one income, my husbands, Which we could sustain but it would be tight. I’ve always had a passion for cooking for others, growing up my grandmother MaryLou would cook for my grandfather, if you can just imagine a table full of different foods and options for us to choose from, she made food with love and passion. Especially during the holidays we would make tamales from scratch, masa everywhere and tamales for days. I remember the Bunuelos with cinnamon freshly made and tasting that first crispy bite, just warmed my belly. Since then even though I had my career I yearned to one day have a food business of my own. So it was bitter sweet losing that 6 figure job but it pushed me to take a risk that I would have never done. The week I failed my test I rented out a food trailer, with no prior food business experience with only the passion to cook for others which gave me satisfaction in itself. After a few months we did really well and we purchased our new trailer with the help of my husbands brother and my sister in law, they had so much faith in us and believed in us. We now own our food truck free and clear. We’ve done May events and have had several base locations but haven’t found our permanent spot yet. We continue to attended events and get our name and food out there for our customers to enjoy. Our food is better than ever and the relationships we have gained through this venture has been amazing. This journey is in its baby stages and even with the crazy obstacles we’ve overcome and continue to face we still believe in our journey and know one day it’ll pay off. That saying of blood sweat and tears when owning your own business is in fact a true statement. There are days I think about going the easy way and obtains another job for comfort and stability but I don’t believe that’s what god has planned for us at this time, so we continue to fight through the issues and stay as positive as we can, but most importantly the customers and seeing their responses when trying our food and coming back is what keeps us going, and we appreciate them more than they’ll ever know.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We spread our food brand through social media, and attending events that make sense, which could be challenging at times because it’s our 1st year in business and we don’t know but we live to learn and believe we will be stronger when faced with failures and successes.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

During the 1st 6 months of being open we were hit with a frivolous law suit by someone who we would never imagine would try to take us down, a family member who thinks because she has money can bully us and bank roll us out of court, even with that we continue to fight for what is right and believe we will get through this even with that act of evilness she, the person suing us is putting our family through. We have kids in college and want the best for them so even with this lawsuit we continue to Oahu through for them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Atwistedtaste22