Meet Carl and Jei Johnson of Soul Truckin Good in Lawrenceville

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carl and Jei Johnson.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
We visited Atlanta for a week and just fell in love with it. So my wife, kids, and I decided to move to Georgia in November 2015 from Maryland. I always had a passion for cooking and loved to grill and my wife was a previous retail store owner. Entrepreneurship is something we have a deep love for.

So we received an opportunity to cook for a gentleman’s club in midtown, we did it for a couple months, then we moved to 14th and Northside. From there everything took off for us, it landed us opportunities to cook for Fortune 100 – 500 companies and grow our business organically. We have traveled to D.C., Tennessee, and Jacksonville FL to name a few serving our award winning food. From there you can say the rest is history.

Great, 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?
I wish we could say the ride was smooth and easy, but I’d be telling you a lie. We have had days where we had 1 customer and days/night we made no money. We used to cook on a table top grill to sell our BBQ/Soul food. I remember when we had couldn’t feed ourselves and had only money to purchase food to sell.

Being a husband and wife team, we carried work home with us and not talked because of differences in how the business should go.

We bought a truck and couldn’t afford to fix it. The truck sat for over 6 months and we had to sell it to pay our rent. Needless to say we’ve paid our dues several times over. Lol!

Soul Truckin Good – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are a newly established mobile food business that has grown organically through word of mouth. Smoking meats and seafood using our proprietary blend of spices and sauce mixed with wood packs a full punch of flavor in every bite.

We have won an award for our Proud Mary Ribs and Applewood Smoked Shrimp. We have our own seasonings and BBQ sauce made from scratch.

We are most proud of the progress we’ve made as business owners and husband Ms wife. We’ve beat all odds by growing our business and being newlywed

What set us apart is we take our time smoking our meats and use our special blend of spice/BBQ sauce proprietary to us only… We are also ever evolving by
trying to new dishes and expanding our menu.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
My proudest moment was cooking at a Father’s Day event called “Family Food Fest of Atlanta”. It’s a great event for fathers and families. We enter the competition (Best Entree) because of one of our customers. We actually won the event and received a plaque for it. We was only 7 months old at the time.

Contact Info:

• Address: 980 Walther Blvd
  2718
• Website: Soultruckingood.weebly.com
• Phone: 404-670-6947
• Email: soultruckingoodinc@gmail.com
• Instagram: Soultruckingood
• Facebook: Soultruckingood
• Twitter: Soultruckingood
• Yelp: Soul Truckin Good
• Other: Soul Truckin Good

Image Credit:
Carl Johnson
Emily Schultz