Some of you that read my journals will recognize this term I speak of them frequently now that I’ve acknowledged them for what they are.

Trail markers are my intuition instruments that I use to find the path I’m supposed to be walking on at specific times in my life. Some are obscured or indirect while others are like a giant smack in the face. Almost like walking directly into the tree that’s designated as the marker or sustains an obvious fork in the forest. I’ve been following them my entire life as you have also I just gave them a name that’s fitting for me.

Gut feelings

Attraction to things I’ve never seen or done

Ears ringing (I get these a lot)

Deja vu

Dreams of places you’ve been never been before.

Small ones such as the sun shining on a specific area or thing

A type of bird you see repeatedly in one day

A person you thought of that suddenly appears at your grocery store you frequent

When you aren’t distracted by the hundred million things that can distract you begin to focus on what your intuition intention.

Purpose

Harmony

Peace

Grounding

Vibe

Energy

It dances in front of your eyes all day everyday most of us are too “busy” to see it. I only refer to it this way because I also was too busy trying to figure things out when things were trying to show me how to be figured.

Chadcuterie was a ridiculously big trail marker. I didn’t see it as such at the time I had to recognize the patterns first which took me a few years and clarity.

I didn’t part with my old company with the idea of making charcuterie out of pizza boxes. In fact I hated making charcuterie boards. I had one at Southern for a short time and I opened Habitap with one on the menu. Both were short lived. Any order would cause the line to shut down, they were inconsistent and sold terribly. Also the food cost on them are terrible.

I’ll even push it back a little further. I created the little iconic graphic with the bearded face and sunglasses well before chadcuterie was invented. I had changed my name on IG to Bearded Gang six months before my company and I split. Why? Because I was slowly rebranding myself without even realizing it. The writing was already on the wall I just didn’t have my reading glasses on.

I happened upon a instagram story of a friend who lived in Charlotte at the time who posted a pic of a small charcuterie purchase in a plastic container. In my head I thought “huh, that’s a smart idea”, charcuterie was trending at the time and covid was still being a fickle bitch. Carry out was on my mind in fact I was focused on any food detail that didn’t come with a large dining room due to my frustration with mandates and how they affected my business. I sat with an old friend to discuss food trucks. I was scared, I never had experience with mobile food trucks trailers. I had no commissary and the few that I spoke to about commissaries turned me off to them. Another big obstacle I didn’t mention was capital. I was broke. Beyond broke. Food trucks and trailers start out around $25-$30k and that’s being loose. It also doesn’t involve start up costs for inventory, licensing etc.

When I saw the IG story I researched the company with a bottle of vodka in my hand to see what it was all about. Babe and the Butcher was the name is the establishment this might be the first time I’ve publicly stated their name. Not that I don’t think they deserve credit they most certainly do I think mentally I wanted to separate myself from them as much as I could before I did. I looked over their profile, ideas and also their press where it mentioned that style of business flourished during Covid and it got my attention.

But

I still wasn’t sold. As I mentioned previously I wasn’t a fan of charcuterie or making it. I had limited knowledge of all the different meats and cheeses and at that time I’m fairly certain I was pronouncing charcuterie as “charcutree”. I didn’t really care for it. Charcuterie didn’t resonate with me I found it stuffy and over the top.

Instagram trail markers thought I was being dense so it introduced another version of charcuterie that I could resonate with.

I’m instagram friends with Marcus Lattimore and his wife Miranda. Marcus was a fan of Southern and I was a fan of Marcus. For more than his football career I just thought he was a solid guy. His wife or maybe at the time his fiancé posted a pic of some charcuterie in a pizza box in Portland, Oregon – Cheese and Crack snack shop on her IG story. This will also be the first time I’ve mentioned this company publicly. I resonated with this aesthetic a little more. It looked fun and made charcuterie more approachable for me which was what I must’ve been looking for the whole time.

I took the name charcuterie and made it mine by simply adding the D and removing the R. Then I stuck in the graphic I had made 6 months before right where the U goes and bam I birthed the concept of Chadcuterie.

Trail marker 1 – my intuition screaming at me that it’s time for a rebranding even though I was still with my company with no intention of splitting

But

It put it in my head

Trail marker 2 – instagram story containing the thought of charcuterie as a business. It was my introduction.

Trail marker 2.5 – “ok dude we can’t make it more obvious for you so here’s the vessel you’re looking for to make it come together. Do whatever you’d like with it we got you”

I didn’t recognize these as trail markers at the time. In fact I was up to my neck in vodka and depression so I wrote it off as desperation, grasping to stay relevant. It would take several years of for me to recognize the trail markers that direct my life’s path.

I was curious for a while as to why I didn’t put up much of a fight when I parted with my company. In retrospect my intuition was telling me for six months while I was quietly rebranding myself that it was time to go. My old partner and old friend Jim completed the act. I was angry at him for years. I’ll never be able to tell him face to face that he most likely saved my life. Alchemising bitterness into love is amazing.

Thanks Jim. Your impression took a minute.

“You should get out of this business Chad it’s not good for you and your family”

Indeed

My trail marker for my sobriety btw was a single text that arrived to me while hiking in a spot where there was no internet. Sometimes trail markers will find you where nothing else can. I keep that text where it belongs, right next to my heart.

One more trail marker I’ll mention for this chapter – Birds Fly South.

When I created Chadcuterie it was meant to be temporary. I still had the urge of opening my own bar. A dive bar to be exact. I spent my off time driving around looking for real estate to host my new concept raging in my head. This dive bar would’ve been loud, in your face and chaotic. That’s where I was and that’s where I was heading like a bat out of hell. Alcohol was still my primary vibe. Shawn reached out to me in late January 2021 to ask me to do some food for his brewery. Seeing as I didn’t have much money I obliged. I stayed there until October 2023.

Complete transparency here, I was not a fan of the set up. My kitchen was small, windowless and zero hvac. My hotdog trailer I used all my chadcuterie money on was a flop. It forced me to brand chadcuterie more and push aside the mobile truck business. During the summer months I’d move my kitchen to our laundry room, I had three dorm fridges holding my inventory. I’d drive to the brewery and wait for box appointments. Sometimes for hours. I worked alone. I was used to having a batch of employees at my fingertips.

Delegating.

It hit me hard to go from three giant facilities with endless resources to a 10×10 kitchen with two broken coolers and a 300 ft walk to the parking lot to meet each customer. I won’t harp on this here I’m writing something that talks about struggle and goes into more depth. I’ll say this, spending time in that little kitchen was a 19 month long sentence of harsh humility. That’s not a knock, it became an opportunity. It also separated me long enough from the bar business to extinguish the flame for a dive bar. I had some long, hard and difficult conversations with myself. Charcuterie calls for some ridiculous early morning hours. It changed my sleeping patterns having to go into work at 5am. The more I had to do it the less reasonable working until 3am. Sobriety took care of the rest.

The deli? It conjured itself right after my sobriety. If you told me I’d be running a deli 10 years ago that Chad would’ve chuckled and told you to go f yourself. So I’ll throw in one more trail marker and older one.

November 2019, I was having a hard talk with a troublesome employee. An employee with immense talent who struggled with the bottle much worse than I at the time. He was frustrated with me for being passed yet once again for an open km position. His talent was held back by his addictions and vices. We had a heated talk out on Southern’s patio.

“Matt, where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?”

Matt- “running my own deli”

“That deli will never happen if you don’t put the bottle down” (let’s ignore the hypocrisy of that statement for now)

That was our last conversation. Matt would pass that next night. He lost his life to addiction.

So, as I was driving up the mountains not so long ago I was in little head zone of old memories and that conversation popped up.

“That deli will never happen if you don’t put the bottle down”

I started chuckling and crying at the same time. I was telling Matt that but my consciousness that was telling me the same thing I just hadn’t heard it yet. Took that trail marker 5 years to echo back. I opened the deli 5-10 years after that convo.

I see what you did there.

Find your trail markers yall they are all around you.