Posted 10:47 pm Sunday, September 06, 2009
Off-Beat Business: Queso Queen Vickery's Creations Spread Around The Country
By BRIAN PEARSON
Business Editor
Family life during Leigh Vickery's childhood revolved around food, and food remains the dominant thread in her life's tapestry.
Business Editor
Family life during Leigh Vickery's childhood revolved around food, and food remains the dominant thread in her life's tapestry.
Her mind constantly churns with food ideas. She wants to do more baking. She wants to open a restaurant that serves healthy food made from fresh East Texas meat and produce.
Her culinary accomplishments already have grown beyond the boundaries of her kitchen, which, like in her childhood, has become a family focal point.
What started 18 months ago as three queso creations has exploded into booming business with a presence in at least 30 states. Central Market, Whole Foods, Costco, Kroger, Earth Fare and Sam's Club stock her products.
"It has gotten to the point where we don't know where all it's going," Ms. Vickery said last week from her office in her Tyler home. "We distribute all over."
Like a rock band going from playing small clubs to huge arenas, she recently scored big with a contract to provide queso for the new Cowboys Stadium.
It forced the manufacturing operation she uses in Austin to shift gears from jars to buckets, with hundreds of cheesy gallons of her product flowing north.
"I'm curious if Paul McCartney ate the nachos," Ms. Vickery said of the music legend's Cowboys Stadium concert Aug. 19.
DIVE IN: Leigh Vickery’s products can be purchased at Whole Foods, Kroger and Central Market, among others.
FOOD LIFE
Ms. Vickery was born and raised in Columbus, Miss., and spent much of her childhood beside her mother in the kitchen.
At 15 years old, her first job was in a restaurant family friends owned. She cleaned, served food and worked in the kitchen, which was like a preparatory school.
"I can peel and devein shrimp faster than anyone," she said. "I always thought I'd own a restaurant."
Shopping for colleges, Ms. Vickery at first couldn't find the right fit.
Her dentist suggested Baylor University, which captured her interest after one visit.
Instead of studying food, though, she learned English and psychology, earning a degree in 1990.
While taking graduate classes at Rice University, Ms. Vickery did some writing and editing.
She then took a Metroplex job in the creative department of Ross Perot's EDS, working with four other employees on speeches, advertising and marketing.
She married her husband, Ron, who was working in Tyler at the time she was in Dallas, in 1993.
It was only fitting that they met at a restaurant. She was a Baylor sophomore. He was a first-year law student. It was love at first sight for her at the Steak & Ale salad bar.
She still remembers the red and black checkered shirt he wore that day.
However, two years passed before they saw each other again, connecting through a group of friends.
"That was it," Ms. Vickery said.
Ron Vickery came to Tyler by way of taking a job with a federal judge here in 1990. He worked for the judge for two years.
Ron Vickery came to Tyler by way of taking a job with a federal judge here in 1990. He worked for the judge for two years.
During that time, the couple carried on a long-distance relationship. She moved here when they got married. She got a job handling public relations for Brookshire's.
"At that time, cooking was a hobby," Ms. Vickery said.
She eventually left Brookshire's and focused on raising her two boys.
KITCHEN CONCEPTS
Her business was born in the kitchen while playing around with white-cheese queso.
"I made it up," she said. "People liked it. We just played with it."
On a whim, she decided to approach Whole Foods and Central Market to see if they would carry her queso.
She created a label for her queso and wanted to see how it looked on the shelf, so she snuck a jar into a Whole Foods in Plano.
A store supervisor caught her reverse shoplifting as she stuck the jar on the shelf.
After explaining herself, the supervisor gladly gave her company contact information. She soon met company officials in Austin, made a deal and lined up a manufacturer.
Under the Leigh Oliver's brand (Oliver is her middle name), She started with three quesos: mild green chiles, hot with roasted jalapenos and spinach with tomatoes.
"But she probably had 50 in her head," Ron Vickery joked.
Today, Ms. Vickery has four quesos, four pimento cheeses and two dips, with a goat-cheese spread in the works. They can be found at Sweet Gourmet in Tyler.
She also has three pasta sauces coming, and Cosco wants her shrimp and corn Southwestern chowder.
"They didn't ask," she said of the soup. "I just said, 'Hey, can I make you soup?'"
Ms. Vickery has no plans to rest on her culinary laurels.
She wants to get into baking and open a restaurant chain, perhaps with a "farm to table" theme for which products would come fresh from East Texas.
COWBOYS CALLING
She was in the car-pool line one day in May at Hubbard Middle School when her cell phone rang. The caller introduced himself as a representative of Legends Hospitality Management, which handles food service for the Cowboys and New York Yankees stadiums.
The representative said Legends was looking for niche food products for Cowboys Stadium and had stumbled upon her queso.
"Somebody high up in the organization had it at a party," she said.
Ms. Vickery scurried over to the Metroplex the next day to meet with Legends officials. Despite being in business only 18 months, she landed a contract.
"I quickly learned how to do food service," she said.
The queso goes on the stadium's niche nachos as well as steak sandwiches, she said, adding that the old pump-variety yellow cheese can be found there as well.
George Wasai, Cowboys Stadium concessions director, said he first tasted the queso while at his senior vice president's house.
"Everyone loved the product," Wasai said in an e-mail. "We love that it is all natural and a very tasty queso! It is different than anything else we have tried."
Fans have embraced the cheese as well, he said.
"So far we have received lots of positive comments," Wasai said. "The fans are now asking us where they can purchase it outside of our stadium."
"So far we have received lots of positive comments," Wasai said. "The fans are now asking us where they can purchase it outside of our stadium."
Ms. Vickery, 40, credits her husband's legal and accounting background for helping her business grow so rapidly.
"He does so much to keep our business successful," she said. "The brand is my name, my idea, but he is the reason we make good decisions."
But despite her product's widespread popularity, including exposure in a football stadium that can seat 100,000, it all comes back to the kitchen in her Hollytree home.
Her husband and sons, Will, 12, a Hubbard seventh-grader, and Smith, 10, a Rice Elementary fifth-grader, are involved in coming up with new products.
"They're some of my best critics," she said. "It's a family business. The youngest one eats anything."
Ron Vickery, 44, who still works as a lawyer and is head of the Boys and Girls Club here, said his favorite dish his wife makes is the flank-steak taco. Over the years, a vegetable medley was the only thing that failed to gain traction for him.
"On a scale, everything she makes is a 10, but this was a 9ï¾½," he said.
For Ms. Vickery, in regard to food and family, it all goes back to the kitchen of her childhood.
"It is important to me they grow up knowing good food," she said of her boys. "I want them to be exposed to various flavors and cuisines."
Know of an unusual business? Contact Business Editor Brian Pearson at bpearson@tylerpaper.com or 903-596-6280.
