Today we’d like to introduce you to Jasper Moss.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Inspired by my mom, I begin cooking at an early age. My mom and dad were in a horrible car accident and my mother broke her hips she couldn’t prepare dinner. Cooking together was always at the center of our home and my mom wanted to make sure that my father had a hot meal when he came home. So, my mom taught me how to cook and prepare our meals. It was during this time that cooking became a passion for me. As time went on I found myself learning more and trying new things in the kitchen. I would research recipes and study other famous chefs. I also developed a deeper love for grilling and smoking meat.
After a while, I begin filling order requests from people who had tasted my food and begin catering and taking orders for small events. This opened a door for me to do what I love most. Cooking is my passion and is now the reason behind this leap of faith in opening my very own food truck. My wife and I prayed for this and we are so excited that we get to not only do life together but we get to do business together. For a year I researched and planned to purchase my food truck. It was such an exciting time for us!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Smooth road? I’d have to say not at all but I don’t despise the process. Learning and understanding the food truck industry is a challenge in itself. It was scary and risky but we believed that it could be done. With any business, we know that there would be challenges, and to be honest, we had quite a few such as the cost of the truck, where we would sell, and drowning out the naysayers.
I think that the biggest challenge was the cost of the food truck. Considering that this was indeed a large investment I didn’t want to make a move without God and my wife. So, we prayed and we made every move based on that “yes” that God gave us. We were able to have our truck custom-built with a great company, One Fat Frog. The great thing about them is that they built our truck according to the state requirements for the area that we would be servicing. So we knew that we could get started right away because everything would pass inspection. We also used a local company for our wrap-on-the-truck shout-out to Nice Tintz!
The next challenge was determining where we would set up and sell was definitely a challenge. Each city has its own set of rules and guidelines so we had to make sure that wherever we were we were in compliance. This took not only research but also reaching out to other food trucks to get an idea of where we should be. We started out in smaller areas just to get a feel for the flow of things before we made it public. We received a great response and amazing feedback from our customers and this made it easier to begin marketing and drawing in our customers. We begin with Food Truck Fridays in Southaven and we branched out from there. This allowed us to meet a variety of people and even opened up doors for catering, private bookings for parties and even setting up in private communities.
Lastly, when taking a leap of faith, not everyone will be on board. We had to really trust the process and work on the vision no matter what. It’s always good to remember that not everyone can understand your vision so you have to stand firm and keep believing in yourself. Don’t allow anything or anyone to damage your confidence. Just because someone doesn’t see the potential in your idea, doesn’t mean it’s not a good one. So, I had to remind myself that this was a vision given to me by God and that was all I needed. I continued to press in and build myself up no matter what anyone says.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a food truck and catering mobile restaurant located in Olive Branch, MS. Our mission is to provide quality food to our customers all while cultivating long-lasting relationships with our guest that gives them an experience that will keep them coming back for more.
We want to build a family not just provide good food. Our name was inspired by my family name, Moss. My father has always believed in us and taught us the value our family name holds. So, I wanted to make sure that our name would carry on even in my business.
We sell a wide range of food from our famous Vegan Egg rolls to our Moss Be Smoked Ribs. We offer food normally seen on street trucks as well like Philly steak and cheese, cheeseburgers, and even grilled cheese. We provide high-quality food and upstanding customer service to our guests. Established in 2021, we have serviced the Mississippi and Memphis area. Our desire is to connect with our customers and community by providing the best food experience. We want to create an experience for our customers and a sense of community that creates excitement when they see our truck.
Moss Be Smoke also specializes in smoked meats and grilling in addition to baking the most amazing sweets including our one-of-a-kind Strawberry Lemonade Cake. We also offer catering and private dining options to our customers.
We generally post where will be on our social media pages.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
My favorite childhood memory is just being with family. That has always been the foundation of our home growing up. We especially loved Christmas. We would open gifts the night before and exchange gifts till the wee hours of the morning and then we would all help fix Christmas breakfast. This is something that we still do even now. Christmas for us is more about family than anything and I am excited to continue making memories with mine.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mossbesmoke.com
- Instagram: @mossbesmoke
- Facebook: @mossbesmoke
Image Credits
@BodiedbyBre Photography
