ALL ABOUT THE SAUCE
At JJ’s ToGo we use our God-given talents and gifts to serve fresh and unique items to our customers. From the quality ingredients we use, to our packaging that stands out above the rest, and our top-notch customer service; a level of excellence that you cannot find anywhere else is expected, and found at JJ’s. Whether you are enjoying a lunch, dinner, or catered meal from us, you will taste quality and flavor combinations you have never had before – and we guarantee you will be hooked. We use this business opportunity to help others and always be sensitive to the needs of the community. We stand firm in knowing that while we satisfy hunger with earthly bread, He will satisfy with The Bread of Life.
We pride ourselves on the quality and taste of our products. Not to mention the amount of hard work and love that goes into them. We make 95% of our sauces from scratch; we clean, chop, and prepare every ingredient fresh every morning, and go out of our way to please our customers. Most of our customers order weekly and we gain new customers every single day. We hook them with the flavor combinations, taste, and aesthetic of our meals.
How It Started
When I started JJ’s ToGo in November, 2021, I was living in a small apartment in Centralia, WA with a 10 foot galley kitchen. I needed a way to provide for myself and my then 2-year-old daughter, which meant I needed to be able to be home as much as possible. Many things led to JJ’s actually coming to fruition. The ideas were planted by God, sparked by my sister-in-law who wanted me to meal-prep for her, and ignited with my dedication to grow and flourish where I was planted.
I started meal prepping for my sister-in-law and a couple of her friends. They all kept telling me I could sell these meals. One night I woke up and I had the logo image of my business in my head so I sat up and made it on a Word Doc with Clipart at 3am. With a small Instagram account and business cards I went around to local businesses handing out smaller portions of my meals and
would walk the main streets in town putting my business cards on every car.
Somehow through a few shoutouts of my meals on social media, business started getting steady and before I knew it I had 100 followers, then 500, then over 2,000 and now over 3,000.
With that came 10 orders, then 20 and 30 orders, now we do 60+ meals per day with our record being 96 meals out the door in just 1 day!
With this growth I had to start asking for help with preparations and needed to find a bigger place to even put this production on. My mom was the first one I hired and I moved into a bigger townhome, in April, 2022 to make room for all of the growth. Then my dad offered to help me with delivering meals so we could increase numbers. Then my other sister-in-law came in to help and I hired her as well. And just 4 months ago we hired our newest employee because numbers have continued to get bigger on a very consistent basis.
In June, 2022 we expanded to catering. We found a very quick love for it. Our catering events get better with every single event with a current average of 2 events per month. We accept 25+ guests with a maximum of 175. We can not go larger because of a lack of space for cooking in a home kitchen. We are very excited to expand our catering once in our commercial location.
In July, 2022 I had a brilliant idea to approach a local coffee chain in Lewis County with breakfast items. They were beyond excited and accepted our proposal on the spot. We profited around $3,000 a month off of this deal. It was brought to a close 9 months later because of changes in the local health department laws in our county which limited our ability to sell wholesale. This is another opportunity that we are looking forward to being able to grow into when we have a commercial location.
Alongside all of the great things we do at JJ’s we also love donating meals and gift cards to local charity auctions, school sporting packages, and families going through hard times. In 2023 we
also had the honor to donate over 25 meals to local law enforcement for Nation Law Enforcement Appreciation Week. This year we also got to participate in our first of many local parades, which our customers loved! And any time we have extra meals for the day, we take them to the homeless directly on the street. These are just a few of the ways we are giving back to our community and
being able to show love, even just through food.