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

Thomas, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Our mission is to serve unique and delicious bbq while giving back to the community and feeding those in need as well as those who deserve it like first responders, teachers and more.

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

I had worked in the service industry over the past 20 years and always had a love for food. Being a son of Texas, BBQ was always a part of my life and as I started working in the food industry I started putting my knowledge and art background together. Creating dishes from traditional Texas BBQ. I moved to Bastrop 7 years ago to start my family and raise my daughter in a smaller town like her mother and I grew up in. We instantly fell in love with the community and the city of Bastrop. Over the next few years I worked on my craft, recipes, dishes while raising my daughter. I wanted to take a unique approach to traditional Texas bbq and started working with everything from beef to seafood, fruit, pork, veggies, and basically anything else you can smoke. When the time was right I started offering my food for free to some of my neighbors. Word started to spread and soon I had my first catering gig. Things seemed to be going well so I decided to start looking into starting my business. I didn’t know anything about the business side and had to learn quickly and spend many long nights alone learning it all. Once I got official I started doing catering gigs here and there and eventually decided it was time to open up my dream of the food truck. I have worked with non profits in the last and have always wanted to give back when I can in life so I knew I wanted to be a charitable food truck. I contacted multiple non profits in the area and started working with them in different ways and helping anyway I could. The chestnut Grove food court was going to be opening soon in Downtown Bastrop and it was time to make everything official and get set up in a more permanent style spot. The response from the public has been overwhelmingly positive and I can not express my gratitude for everyone who has come out to support Smoked Love or hired us to cater one of there events. We were blessed to work with so many different non profits this year as well as the police department, firefighters, teachers and addiction recovery centers. Recovery holds a special place in my heart as I am a recovered alcoholic, another reason I set up smoked love was to raise awareness of addiction and help people see that it is possible to recover. I’m truly grateful to just be here today less alone being able to cater for other recovery centers and share my story along the way of addiction and mental health awareness. The past year has been extremely busy to say the least but I couldn’t be happier and more proud to see my city come together around this idea and be involved with us. We have done multiple collaborations including meat-pies/Tx tamales with a master chef pie maker from Cutie Pie Wagon and a smoked dessert with a food network baking champion from bearded baking company. I also get to feed those in need on a weekly basis but I also get to share my story and they will share there’s and that is the most satisfying thing, speaking with people and bringing some love or joy into there life even if only for a day or even a hour. Catering has been a bigger blessing than we could have ever asked for and are looking forward to the future in 2024. We have extended hours and days coming with a larger staff coming in. Our slogan is “For the Love of BBQ and Our Community” and our name comes from Food is Love and we are Smoked Love.

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

So I actually started everything out on Facebook. I created a page with pictures of my food I had taken over the past few years. Each week I made a post in my neighborhood about a Free test kitchen giveaway that I would deliver a free family meal to your house. It started out with about 5 people entering and I was excited to have them! The first giveaway had a great review of the food which seemed to peak more interest the next week. Each week the reviews kept coming back great and the audience continued to grow. Eventually I started having people ask if I cater and that’s when I decided to take the next step. I filed for my llc and started to form and complete my catering business. After going through lots of the business side of stuff I was finally able to start catering and the events were going great. We opened up in the Food Court in February and have been there ever since. We are now open to the public at the food court and have our full catering equipment for private events and for drop off and to go orders for parties as well. Social media was the start of my business for sure and has helped my business grow throughout the past year.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I touched a little on being a recovered alcoholic earlier but would like to expand that here. I have had a dream of opening up a food truck for a very long time but that’s all it was, just a dream. My career was in graphic design and worked in austin for many years both working in the food industry while doing graphic design as well. A cross roads came in my life where doing both was unmanageable and then unfortunately multiple tragic life events occurred all around the same time. My mental health awareness was non existent back then and coping with these issues on top of my depression led to an addiction to alcohol. I struggled and fought for my sobriety for years while finally getting help and pulling myself back up from my bottom. The road to recovery is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and still is to this day. Without going through that experience though I would not be here doing what I’m doing today. This career is not for the faint of heart and goes 18-20 hours a day most of the time, it has pushed me both mentally and physically pulling all nighters at the pit, burning myself, cuts, back issues, carpal tunnel issues, figuring out all the business side of everything, being the communication designer and advertiser, working with my community to help in anyway I can whenever I can. It has been an extreme amount of work but it still does not compare to the struggle of recovery. I am grateful everyday to be tired at night from cooking and serving up food vs the life I once was living and it gives me the resilience to fight every thing that has been thrown my way over the past year. I look forward to more adventures in 2024 as this journey continues everyday.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.smokedlove.com
• Instagram: @smokedlovebbq
• Facebook: SmokedLove
• Other: https://maps.app.goo.gl/N5YhyMN6h4bWorj3A?g_st=ic

Image Credits
Thomas witte