How this 32-year-old’s Houston food truck brings in over $1 million a year

For Dawon Matthews, the pursuit of entrepreneurship has always been “no brain”.

After being accused of a 19 -year -old crime, Matthews could not find a job in the institutional world, so he decided to carve his own way.

“When they see a crime behind a person, they don’t care which identity information you get. You are not accepted in that society,” Matthews says.

Now, the 32 -year -old Matthews currently have five companies, especially successful Houston, Texas Food Truck, Goodies Soul Kitchen.

Born in Philadelphia, Matthews had a “rude start” before moving to the district of Norrristown Metro region.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t have a group of people I didn’t want to look like, or he says.

Matthews succeeded in high school, but he got legal problems at the university.

As a first year student, a party, where he was fired from school and sentenced to 6 months in prison, was accused of aggravated attack after a fight. He was accused of a DUI during probation.

“This just led me to go down from a hole of entering and exiting.”

Although Matthews received a degree of associate degree from Manor College and a business undergraduate degree from La Salle University, he applied for more than 200 unlucky jobs in a two -month period. He started his first company because of the simple truth because I could not find a job with my university degree “.

Today, businesses bring over $ 1 million annually net income per year.

‘I am always looking for the next thing’

In 2017, Matthews launched his first job, a cleaning company called Great Cleaning with his childhood friend Darnell Hinton in Philadelphia.

He chose to enter the cleaning industry because it has low initial costs and does not require background controls for business owners.

“As long as you can buy a little bleach and some hot water and some spray bottles and some rags, you can turn this thing into a job,” Matthews said. Says.

His first job was to clean his brother’s house, but with the help of a high school football coach, Matthews made more profitable commercial cleaning contracts.

At the end of the second year, great cleaning income of approximately $ 12,000 every month, and Matthews hired other cleaning teams to fulfill its contracts.

Matthews and Hinton purchased a van with great cleaning revenue and launched a second job in 2020, R & R.

According to Matthews, they were able to buy a dump truck in a few months and brought over $ 100,000 in the first year.

Matthews also used income from two enterprises to buy the only family properties that it re -financed to buy duplexes and triplexes. He is currently the owner of 16 property in Philadelphia, which he earns about $ 11,000 per month.

In January 2024, Matthews moved to Houston: “I felt my success in Philly, so I wanted to get out of there,” he says.

All business ideas were not hit: Immediately after moving to Houston, Matthews sold several properties to start a nightclub. It didn’t work, he says, and lost over $ 170,000 in the attempt.

After that, he decided to try the restaurant industry.

“I’m always looking for the next thing,” he says, “and then I found food.”

Matthews received a $ 40,000 loan to buy a food truck, and in August 2024, he launched Goodies Soul Kitchen, where he operates with his business partner Jessica Ahwash.

Finding success in the food industry

Apart from working at KFC at the first class university, Matthews did not have any restaurant experience before.

Matthews had many growing pain: “I didn’t even know how to open the trailer when I first started, Mat says Matthews.

And just a month after starting Goodies Soul Food Kitchen, the chief he hired left unexpectedly.

Orum I don’t know anything about food, Mat Matthews says, but until another person hired, “I had to find out how to be a chef”.

It was very important to develop a Goodies business model for Matthews.

He was inspired by the success of chains like Chick-Fil-A and Chipotle: “These people do not do anything different. The food is not different from other foods you will see in something like KFC, Popeyes or something like this. But the service that is different.” Says.

“Looking at it as a businessman, not in a dinner,” he continues. “MONEY SERVICE AND IN THE QUALITY AND SYSTEMS YOU PRODUCE. This is where you achieve your success in the food industry.”

According to him, Houston’s dinner scene was “not so good”, so he decided to market Goodies Soul Kitchen as an evening option for Matthews ClubGoers.

Goodies Soul Kitchen’s offers side dishes such as fried fish, lamb chops, chicken wings and fried chicken, as well as mac and cheese, sweet potato casserole and fried cabbage.

The truck currently works between 19:00 and 3:00 a week, and has four employees who run the Matthews truck and prepare food.

Unlike many other food trucks, Goodies Soul Kitchen is always in the same place in the city center of Houston. On average, they serve approximately 300 customers each week – more in a “good club night”, but less when it rains.

Matthews, this summer, Goodies Soul Kitchen income of approximately $ 20,000 every week and says the truck has been profitable from the beginning.

According to the documents reviewed by CNBC, Goodies in 2024 brought gross revenue of more than $ 1 million, and according to Matthews, they continue to do more with Catering contracts and holiday parties in 2025.

As of September this year, Goodies sold over $ 665,000.

FOOD WILL COME

Following the success of the beauties, Matthews opened another food truck, bird and donuts selling Hoagies, Tacos and chicken wings in March 2025.

“I knew, what the hell? We were really good in this business model. Let’s do another one, or he says.

He plans to sell most of his other companies next year to focus on food business.

“They say you started to find out what you want to do in this age for the rest of your life,” Matthews says. “I think I found my love for entrepreneurship in hospitality.”

In addition to business goals, Matthews is determined to employ rescue addicts and old felons.

“Here you are not tried by an article, or he says. “You are not tried with a record. You are judged by your skills.”

It is not easy to manage all of his initiatives, says Matthews, but his mantra is “very difficult.”

“It’s hard to be poor. It’s hard to be rich. It’s hard to be happy. It’s hard to be sad, isn’t it? So this is just the truth of the ‘hard’ choice.”

Matthews is currently preparing to expand the beauties to a brick and mortar with a sports bar and burger shop.

In the future, he says, “Beauties for the Moon.”

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