5 years ago I announced my charcuterie box business on social media. We had bought a $300 Cabellas slicer, cheap printer, a dorm fridge and a stack of pizza boxes I had bought from restaurant depot. I had a friend create a menu that I may have tweaked about 3 times since. I called upon Boar’s Head to be my purveyor and had them deliver my product to the offices at Habitap once a week.

My launch was a mess

The boxes were a mess

I was a mess.

We offered pick ups at our home. Customers would do three point turns in our driveway in the mud. I’d have to hide the trash bags behind the house our one green can couldn’t hold all the fruit clamshells and cardboard. Our dog would bark every time someone came to get a box. Sometimes complete strangers would just walk into our home on the high volume days. I had up to 8 volunteers helping me out on Christmas Eve. My wife and I would deliver boxes from Piedmont to Greer and get back home at 10pm Christmas Eve. I’d buy $1000 worth of stock and whatever I couldn’t fit in our refrigerators I’d leave in the back of my truck if the temperature dropped below 40°. The entire time all I had in my head was “only one month of this shit and I’ll find a way to open another restaurant.” I was at the lowest of lows. My drinking peaked during this time. I think it was meant to. I always felt like I had it under control most of the time but it wasn’t the case anymore.

December was a hard one. The months that followed would be even harder.

February of 2021 rolled around and my friend Shawn from BFS asked for a collaboration of sorts and I could work out of his little kitchen at the brewery. I made a little bar menu for them and it tanked. I bought a hotdog trailer to go along with their brewery and I was losing about $100 a week with that venture but my box orders were doing ok. Having a legit spot to have box pickups available helped out quite a bit. I quickly outgrew the brewery’s kitchen but I had no where else to go. I’d stand in that little corner of the brewery trying to churn out 20 big daddies with one 8 pan cooler and a reach in. I had one 4 ft prep table. This isn’t a knock on the facility of the brewery I owe a lot to the Johnson’s and will be forever grateful. I was having a hard time dealing with my forced humility. Many tears were shed in that little kitchen. A few dozen fits pitched. I survived on Venmo and cash payments to pay the bills.

It was long hard day at that said brewery when I left the kitchen after a New Year’s Eve beat down as I walked out I said to myself “I’m getting drunk tonight for the last time” because something told me if I didn’t stop at that time I never would. I celebrated that moment a little too hard as per the norm.

But

I’ve kept my word. It’ll be 4 years next month.

The brewery closed and I moved 50 yards back to the meadery. My friends at the meadery were very transparent and let me know they would be most likely closing within the next year. I had about 9 months to figure out my plan. I probably looked at 50 different spots. Most of the time agents wouldn’t return my emails or calls. I bit the bullet and hired on a young agent to put up with my wishy washy ass for a few months. He was extremely patient and that’s what I was looking for. I needed a small spot that was centrally located in Greenville and found a little closed down package store on 219 w Antrim drive. It pinged when I walked in and very reluctantly I signed my lease. I would use my 90% of Venmo account to finance the deli.

I built most of that deli with my bare hands, alone because I needed to. I had one more thing to prove to myself and I did.

Everything in that deli is mine. Paid in cash, built from me or assisted by me. I needed it to be that way for a million reasons.

5 years

It’s difficult to describe what I’ve gone through these last 5 years. I stepped into a life changing portal and came out someone else. A cocooning as I refer to it. I was meant to do this. As I look back I realize that now. Before I wrote this I sat on my sofa and had a good cry. It’s been a minute and it felt good to look back on a tough time, let out a cry and then smile.

Humility

Struggle

Loss of confidence

=

Medicine for the soul.

It’s changed me man I can’t even begin to describe. For that I’m grateful.

For all of you that have supported me I’m grateful and for my wife who lever let me fall I’m grateful. There would be no year 5 without her. Everyone needs a Jess in their life.

Happy anniversary Chadcuterie