Today we’d like to introduce you to Janet Studer
Hi Janet, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Cheers to 15 years! Wow! What started as my dad’s retirement plan turned into our future. When we first started, we had not a clue what we were doing on the food truck scene. What we did know was how to cook good BBQ. Well, I, Janet, didn’t yet but they taught me! My dad, Dennis Studer, would always cook for graduation parties and gatherings in his younger years for friends and family.
The first few years Snooties traveled around a lot! We started at Bergman’s Orchard, The Pump on Thursday nights, and any festival that we could get into. It wasn’t until a year or so in that we found our not so forever home at Strawberry Hill gas station where we stayed for 11 years!
When Joe and I took Snooties over from my dad in 2010 he had a snow bird location in Tampa waiting for us! When we got back from Daytona Bike Week one of dad’s friends knew someone down the road from a fruit and vegetable stand. So, dad packed the minivan up with a freezer and a small grill and he showed up at that fruit stand to feed the owner ribs! We wintered at that location until 2014-2015 season. We even had a newspaper article come out down there about us and thank goodness because we needed gas money to get home!
Since then, we almost went into a kitchen on 250. Sadly, that didn’t work out but we still absolutely love the venue out there. We now stay on our own property at 7312 Portland Road. This land was entrusted to us by a great customer of ours, Greg Hill, in hopes that we can build our dream restaurant there.
Throughout the years we have met so many great people! A lot have helped us grow in many ways. We can’t even describe all of them, you will know by just looking at everything around. We have made many friendships and sadly have seen too many customers pass on. We cannot be more grateful for every single person we have had the pleasure of crossing paths with.
We also couldn’t have made it this far without all of our rockstar employees! Through the years we have been blessed with amazing people that have only wanted the best for Snooties. The Snooties family continues to grow and we can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Thank you all! We appreciate you more than words can say! We love you!
This is what I wrote for our 15 year anniversary
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Isn’t there always struggles? We used to winter in Tampa Florida for 6 seasons. We would break down on the 1200 mile road trip each way. We had AAA too but we drove a motor home with our 18″ food trailer behind and they never seemed to be able to help. l.uckily we always had someone come to the rescue. When my boyfriend and I took over Snooties in 2010 the only thing we had to start was all the equipment and few funds to keep things rolling. We learned most of the hard lessons along the way. Weather and refridgeration has been my hardest struggle. Weather because it is so unpredictable. Refridgeration because it gets hot in trailers, ours does not have any air conditioning just an open trailer. Equipment is tempermental too. It needs the perfect environment. Like everyone else too we have come into issues with finding help from time to time. We are finally finding our team.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We are a bbq food truck. We speciallize in hickory smoked meats and home made sides. We have won best ribs in a local newspaper contest for the past 5 years along with many other awards in that same contest. We use our own seasoning and sauces also. Our bbq sauces are also bottled for sale on our website, local businesses, and our food truck.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
We were at a location for 11 years and at the end of that 11th year we were told rent would double or we needed to find another place to go. We ended up purchasing land from one of our customers, Greg Hill, that was right around the corner. In our winter off we purchased the land in February. Within the next couple months we had to take down a trailer home, a barn, and many trees. After we cleared the land we put a parking lot for us to park our food truck on for good. We had to change the land from residential to commercial, run city water, and make sure we had everything we needed to open our business. We opened in early May on our new property. We have been working since then to hopefully build a small restaurant/building to house Snooties year round.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Snootiesbbq.com
- Facebook: SnootiesBBQ
