Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Barnes.
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?
My story starts in my mom’s Kitchen. Back in January 2020, I started an Instagram for home-cooking and restaurant reviews. It was supposed to be about recipes, groceries (shopping), gatherings (centered around food). I shared my favorite recipes, local restaurants, and my grocery shopping experiences. Then Covid 19 happened and restaurants were closed. I had been let go from my job, which I had just gotten hired at in that same year. So I began solely home-cooking. I made a youtube page and everything. June came around and I hosted a picnic for my birthday and a close friend of mine mentioned that she needed some menu ideas for her birthday. I gave her some ideas and next thing you know she was asking me to actually cook it for her birthday party of about 15 people. Never have I ever done that in my life. My first two events were friends giving me the opportunity having no prior knowledge of my cooking before just through seeing me posting on my IG page.
From there, it grew into more friends reaching out for events, and then I started doing weekly meal pickups from July through December. I have literally had an event at least three weekends out of each month since last year. A colleague/friend of mine who also started her event planning business in the midst of COVID Pandemic started referring me to her clients for their dinners and picnic parties. During the holidays season, I had 15 families that purchased holiday meals from me for thanksgiving alone. In less than a year, I have moved twice to accommodate the growing demand that is Coco’s Kitchen. A lot of times, people say that strangers will take a chance on you quicker than your friends/family, but it has been the exact opposite experience for me. I can honestly say that my business would not have started nor continued to be as successful as it has, had it not been for the support and genuine recommendations of my friends/family. 90% of my business comes from recommendations!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Self-confidence has definitely been a struggle because I felt like I just jumped into an arena with little to no technical training and there are so many people who do what I do – who have been doing it much longer than I have been. I often didn’t feel worthy of the amount of business I was attracting, so maintaining self confidence has definitely a giant challenge that has since improved from the start. Growth and creativity is an ever-evolving challenge, whether it be with my skill set or in my customer base. It means more discipline and less free time, so creating a balanced Hustle-work-play life is important to me. I don’t like feeling obligated to do anything and I never want my love for cooking to become a burden. I also have two other jobs on top of my business.
During the week I am a data entry for this entertainment payroll company and I babysit on weekends. So balance is definitely a tricky ball to juggle. The hardest opportunity right now is having help for large events and those events that happen during the week. I have great assistance on the weekends, but most weekday events, I accept very few because of availability. All of these obstacles, I truly believe, are just learning lessons to becoming more disciplined and efficient with my time and I will be able to find solutions for each one soon enough.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’d like to say I specialize in breakfast foods, seafood, and small plates. Currently, I offer couples private dinners, catering services for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and meal prep. I absolutely love breakfast cuisine… If I was to gear away from the catering, I would open a bed & breakfast or small boutique breakfast restaurant. Most of my inspiration comes from my family gatherings growing up.
My mom is from South Carolina, so seafood is basically like rice in my household we are eating it all the time. Then going home for the holidays, we always ate breakfast. If we were out all day and didn’t eat again until that evening, someone was always going to make breakfast in the morning. So those naturally became my two favorite things to eat and cook on my own. My mom (family) don’t really measure ingredients when it comes to cooking and I learned from them so I just season until the “ancestors” say stop ya know. The only thing measured is in the desserts and for the most part, I leave the baking up to my mom. Her cream cheese poundcake is amazing. I sold them in high school to pay for my senior dues and now it is a permanent dessert item on my menu for my clients.
What are your plans for the future?
By this time next year, I want to leave my 9-5 and support myself fully through CoCo’s Kitchen. However, my business evolves will be shown in due time, but the main goal is to have CoCo’s Kitchen move from my side business to my Main Source of income.
Pricing:
- 50 per person for Catering Services
- 25o per couple 3 course Private dinner
- $11 per meal for meal prep
Contact Info:
- Email: cocoskitchenco@gmail.com
- Website: www.cocoskitchenco.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocoskitchenco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cookingwcoco
Image Credits:
Seth Harris – photographer Khiray Richards – photographer
