MMDC sat down with chefs Derrick and LaQuonta Clark, owners of A Square Meal on Wheels/A Square Meal Café and Chef Quan Anderson, owner of Aspiring School Meals Dining Services. The trio has teamed together to be the next food service provider for Southern College of Optometry.
Chef Derrick Clark
Chef Derrick: My name is Chef Derrick Clark. My wife is LaQuonta Clark. We started about 10 years ago with a food truck. I went to culinary school. Chef Quan just happened to be one of the chefs teaching classes at the school. At that time, my desire was to be a private chef for one of the Grizzlies. That was what I was going to do. One day, I was watching TV and “The Great Food Truck Race” just happened to come on TV. At this time, I was stricken with cancer. After I got over cancer and got through school, we decided to get a food truck. We paid $5,000 for it. We built it up and purchased parts from Facebook, eBay, everywhere. At this time, food trucks weren’t popular in Memphis. I was one of the chefs that started the food truck craze. We got our food truck at the right time and right place. We just blew up. We started the food truck serving fish tacos, fried green tomatoes, and lobster rolls. Those were our main dishes. Overnight, we just became really popular. We would go to different business complexes to serve from the food truck. At one of the complexes we went to, they told us they had an empty restaurant space. They said it would be really tough for us, that there was a tough crowd in that area. They had two restaurants come in that didn’t last six months. We told them we were interested in the restaurant space and we took the opportunity. We had already branded ourselves as “A Square Meal on Wheels” and decided to name the restaurant space “A Square Meal Café.” The café is located in the Lenox Park business complex. Every company that came in before us struggled to make it, but we’ve been there seven years and going strong.
Chef LaQuonta Clark
Once we opened, an MLGW employee came to the café and ate. They saw a post shouting us out when we were serving at Cooper Young Festival. We served a lot of customers at Cooper Young Festival. That’s how I ended up gaining exposure and teaching culinary classes at Arkansas State with the credentials that I received from L'école Culinaire. The customer that was working at MLGW let me know that they had a vacant restaurant space in their building and asked if I would be interested in it. The next thing we knew, we had two locations—one in East Memphis and one inside of MLGW. We gained more traction on Facebook and got contacted by someone at Swift Transportation that had an empty restaurant space. They asked if we’d like to come check it out. We did, and we expanded there as well. We starting to grow every 2-3 years. A lot of my culinary school classmates have been working for us ever since with our food truck. We treat our employees like we’d want to be treated. We look out for each other. If they’re down and out one week, we make sure to lift them up.
From that point on, people kept referring us to companies looking to occupy their restaurant space. Next thing I know, someone referred me to Southern College of Optometry (SCO) telling me they had an empty space. In one night, we prepared our RFP and we were determined. I called SCO and secured a meeting, then called my main man Chef Quan to let him know that I had a meeting set. Chef Quan told me that he had a meeting with SCO as well. I told him that we need to team up and tackle SCO. Chef Quan specializes in catering, and I knew that if we came together, our unified team would be that much stronger. We teamed up, and here we are today. My wife has been here with me from the beginning, and we thank God for everything.
Chef Quan Anderson
Chef Quan: Latasha Harris, manager of the BUY Local Program at Memphis Medical District Collaborative sent out an email regarding the opportunity. I received her notice through another friend who passed the opportunity along to me. When Chef Derrick called letting me know that he had a meeting set, I said, “Let’s do this together!” For an opportunity of this magnitude, it works well to team together. Through my background in contract food service for the last ten years, Derrick and I have crossed paths many times. I used to be the Executive Chef/Catering Director in UT Health Science Center, then went to St. George’s, managing the catering at three schools in three different locations. We’re very well-rounded. We’ve got a lot of food service knowledge all together. I’ve done nine years at the Peabody as a Banquet Chef. I have served Presidents of the United States.
We will be serving good quality food. We look forward to this opportunity. We’ve known each other for quite a while. The brand name, “ASM— A Square Meal” came from our original idea to work with some of the charter schools to prepare meals for them. We’ve got a formula built for catering for schools as well as corporate events. We’re always looking to grow and give back to the community. That’s the whole plan.