About Us

We get asked every day about our restaurant journey and how that’s going.

 

As entrepreneurs we hear the word NO aaaaaaalll the time. If we had a nickel for every time someone told us no, well we would already have that restaurant we’ve been aiming for

Let us give you a little background of what lead us to become entrepreneurs and our journey along the way.

Almost 10 years ago, Fernando and myself (Koko) met, became best friends, fell completely in love, and that was our beginning. We shared so much ambition, so much passion, we were total dreamers. The problem is we came from nothing and we had nothing… except for each other.

 

Without any doubts or reservations we started our family. We got married, had some kids, and kept food on the table. We could barely pay our rent. We were on a $50-$75 weekly budget for groceries. Lots of ramen noodles and bologna sammiches. The tiniest value packages of laundry detergent. Scraping change out of couch for diapers. We even had a car repoed. You get the drift. But we always made it work. We always put our family first. We chose to invest our TIME in our family first and foremost.

 

We were both working very hard in our jobs. We were early to work. We stayed late. We took on extra responsibilities. We put in 150% in everything we did. We made sure that no one else in our current employment was working harder than we were. Our work ethic, tenacity, gumption, and stamina was our gold. We did that for our family. We put our family first.

 

Through out the years we grew ourselves and our homestead significantly. About five years into our marriage we found ourselves working 60+ hours a week to afford this large overhead we had accumulated along the way. We quickly had a hard realization that the TIME we used to invest in our kids and our marriage had been consumed with making more MONEY and working more hours. We both agreed, that no matter what the cost, we had to get back to putting our family first again.

 

In 2020 we finally had the knowledge, the vision, the experience and the drive to really go for our dreams! But Covid struck. Seeing the food industry take such a huge hit, we thought maybe this could be our chance to start something new. We looked at so many locations. We built a top notch business plan. We were willing to jump in to this whole heartedly. But every bank, every broker, every developer all told us one thing. -No!-

 

We took a moment to regroup. After dozens and dozens of “No’s” through out the years, we were done with that word. We thought “what can WE do without anyone else’s approval?”.

 

Long story short, we started a Facebook page, invited all our friends & family to follow it. We bought a $50 prime rib. We made some quesadillas out of it and posted to the page and sold $150 worth of product. We then did that over and over and over again until we found ourselves with enough money to buy our food trailer.

 

2022 we bought our food trailer. No fancy wrap. No extra cooking equipment. Just our licensing and whatever we had on hand. We both quit our full time jobs. At this point we had less than $200 in our bank account. We made up a menu that would work. We bought a cheap banner. We found a parking lot that agreed to have us. We put $40 into a Facebook ad. Then we hoped with all our might we were not completely insane.

 

Our first weekend open we sold out of absolutely everything within a few hours, every single day. That was over $7k in sales in three days. We were totally and completely blown away!

 

From that day forward we continued to pour blood, sweat and tears into this business. We constantly reinvest our profits into marketing, making our trailer more efficient, and product development. We started with next to nothing, time and time again. We wake up every single day and put ourselves to the test with every capability at our disposal. We took $50 worth of food and turned it into a quarter million dollar business. All by ourselves.

 

But no matter how much business is thriving, at the end of the day, we always choose family first. Our kids could care less how much money is in our bank account. But what they do know is the time and love that mom and dad invest in them every single day.

 

So to the point, nope… we are still not rich. We don’t have tens of thousands of dollars in the bank. We continue to look for the future home of The Bayou. But we also continue to hear the word no. A restaurant can cost anywhere from $50,000 to over a million to start. And we still don’t have that kind of dough lying around.

 

It can be very discouraging after all that we’ve put into this business and all the amazing feedback we are receiving from y’all every day! But we still believe in the dream. We know in our hearts that when the time is right, the right location will come along. Or the right person will believe in us and give us a solid shot.

 

Until then we are the little engine that could. And we just keep on trucking. So many of y’all tag us in posts every day. Sharing your experiences, your food pictures, you recommend us for events and catering. Y’all tag us when someone needs tacos, gumbo, fried chicken, Cajun restaurants, French dips….I mean y’all really do SUPPORT us. Y’all really are the reason we are thriving today! And that’s just what we are able to see on Facebook and instagram. It is truly a heart felt blessing to have such community surrounding us and helping spread the love. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you guys. And we are just so beyond thankful for it all!

 

Soon The Bayou will officially be two years old. Event season is upon us. Our hearts are fully invested. We are geared up for busy season. We have built a truly passionate and talented team. And we are just so ready for whatever this path leads us to!

 

Thank you so much for choosing us. Thank you for telling people about us. Thanks for the likes, comments, shares and reviews. Thanks for believing in us. But more than anything- thank you all so much for allowing us and helping us to chase our dreams and support this family of ours that we love so much. 

 

Every day is truly a dream come true. And we can never thank y’all enough.

 

Cheers