J & S Enterprises Foodservice, LLC was formed to do North Carolina charter school lunch programs for the poverty and under privileged communities. We are a husband and wife team who has worked in the food service industry for over 30 years. We decided to step out on faith and start our own company. We began searching for a location. We thought of the leasing out local mega churches facilities, community centers, hub kitchens, restaurants that were not open in the morning time. You name it we tried it. During this process we were meeting with different schools getting our name out there.
I’ll never forget my husband and I took a weekend get away to Hilton Head to destress. We needed a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday work affairs. We barely saw each other because of our conflicting schedules. We were riding around that particular morning looking for somewhere to grab breakfast. My husband’s phone ranged and he looked at it didn’t recognize the number but he answered it and the gentleman on the other end began telling us that he needed our services for his school. He said I got your name and number from the state. I immediately grabbed my tablet and started taking notes. Other schools started calling. We were in awe of God’s blessing. Any new undertaking is scary because of the “unknown”. My husband was excited and his mind was envisioning bigger things than I could imagine.
My heart has always been to give back and to help others, especially kids. I love kids, because they are so innocent and they love back harder than they receive. So as I look at our business I will still be in my purpose providing nutritional meals to kids on a daily basis knowing that their little bellies are full and ready to learn for the day.
We were looking for a building and we kept searching and we just kept running to a brick wall until one day one of the schools administrator called and told us to call this guy about the building that was vacant. We had already inquired about this building maybe a month or so before, so I had my doubts, because when I reached out and explained what we wanted to use the building for it wasn’t received as a yes of course.
We continued to push and we set up an appointment to see the building and we envisioned school lunches would be produced and set up in the bar area. We had no desire to open up the bar to the public. Then we thought that we would open up the dining room to outside patrons. We also saw where we would be able rent out the dining room for events such as bridal showers, baby showers, anniversaries, or any other event that averaged 75 guests.
We began praying about the restaurant. My personal prayer was God I don’t want to be anywhere you don’t want us to be and I don’t want to be anywhere you are not at. If it’s not your will destroy the plan. I know if God is with us all things are possible. But if he is not with us we can’t do anything. I knew and know that I have to trust God on this for everything.