Serving fantastic foodstuff to a huge variety of individuals is very little new for Temple resident Paula Jackson.
Paula and her partner Jamie are the homeowners of PJ’s Tabletop Southern Delicacies and Catering Assistance, a new soul foods cafe in downtown Temple.
The pair not too long ago moved back to the spot in July from Ohio as portion of their past work, with Paula possessing developed up in Waco. Paula experienced been a manager at CEFCO and Jamie worked at Wilsonart in Temple.
Paula claimed she has worked in catering earlier for 15 yrs, even owning her possess firm when the pair lived in Ohio.
The conclusion to make that leap from a stable occupation to opening a cafe was an act of religion, Paula mentioned.
“We just not long ago moved to Temple, so catering has generally been in my track record, specifically for the past 15 many years,” Paula claimed. “I often wanted to have my personal restaurant. So I started dabbling back again into the food stuff and claimed, ‘Hey, how about if we do this?’”
The cafe at this time has a rotating menu that adjustments every single working day of the week, presenting a little different products each day.
Plates at the restaurant consist of among a person and 3 meats that include either two or three sides.
Meats have involved fried pork chops, baked chicken, pigs ft, stuffed turkey legs and ribs. Sides at the restaurant include broccoli cheese rice casserole, inexperienced beans, mashed potatoes and potato salad.
Paula mentioned she has designs to finally phase out the rotating menu, changing it with a cafeteria-fashion line exactly where prospects decide out what they want just before paying out.
“That is not everything that I want to do, I do not want the shoppers to have to wait around like they have been waiting around,” Paula stated. “I have a system in motion so that way they will be able to just go via a line, like a steam line, and they can grab their meals and fork out at the conclude and they go.”
Considering the fact that opening, Paula said the business enterprise has experienced its ups and downs, but coming from retail the few is aware there is normally a downtime in company. She mentioned she is accustomed to producing the conclusions on how to slice costs and slash labor to make it through the harder occasions.
At the moment, Paula stated, the enterprise is largely relying on the cafe side as it takes time to make up the clientele for a catering corporation.
“It’s been great, our first month here we did nicely,” Paula reported. “It has been kind of rocky this final thirty day period and I get it, coming out of the getaway and matters of that mother nature. It is just tough appropriate now, but it is all fantastic.”
Jamie explained the couple was psyched for the building coming to downtown, these kinds of as the proposed parking garages and downtown flats, which will bring much more persons into the place.
“I consider most of the cities are commencing to get like that, the place you can wander all-around downtown,” Jamie mentioned.
Both equally Paula and Jamie are already hunting ahead to the summertime which will imply a wide variety of barbecued meats generating their way onto the menu.
“Soul foodstuff is rather significantly what I do, and … I really like to cook dinner,” Paula explained.