On this episode of Discovering Magnolia Texas, we meet up with the owners of Hissy Chick, the hottest finger-licking food truck in Magnolia, Texas! This mom-and-pop operation serves up some southern comfort chicken sandwiches and boudin that’ll have you coming back for more!
Whether you’re looking to grab a quick lunch or have a family dinner, check out their Facebook page to see which location they’ll be at next and rush out to get some seriously good eats!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
BACKGROUND
Erica: All right Rachel and Richard, thank you so much for having me here today, and we’re so excited to learn all about hissy chick, but I want to start with you (Rachel). How about giving us your background? You’ve always been here in Magnolia Texas?
Rachel: We did, and we actually both graduated from Magnolia High School. He graduated from what is now junior high, so actually 98.
Richard: it was actually the last class to graduate on the field in 99 when they started going to a.m.
Erica: And so you were several years behind?
Rachel: There’s a bit of an age gap there, and so I graduated from the new Magnolia High School, not West; back then, I’d call it new, but it’s been there forever. We actually moved. I did my freshman year at this one, and then we moved over my sophomore year to that location.
FOOD INDUSTRY EXPERIENCES
Erica: So let’s talk about you (Rachel) having some food experiences. Yeah, both of you, actually.
Rachel: Yes, both of our backgrounds were in the industry. Mine started when I was just 14 years old. It was my very first job at a local restaurant in Tomball as a hostess, and my senior year, I was at Sonic. Then my family ended up opening a location in their hometown in Alabama, and that’s kind of when we got together. We took off and tried to help out with that. We moved. We came back after that location. We opened a location in Tomball in 2012, and that was an adventure.
THE BEGINNING OF HISSY CHICKS
Erica: Because this was all still with your family, right?
Rachel: Yeah, and so that location closed in 2014, and from that point forward, I knew without a doubt that I wanted a food truck. I wanted to move forward and stay in this industry, but on a much smaller scale, and we were both kind of in agreement with that as being just our dream, and I spent the entire year at home with recipes and trying to figure out exactly what we were going to do for the truck. I ended up doing chicken sandwiches, which is how we got started, and baking sweets.
HISSY CHICKS MENU / PEOPLE’S CHOICE
Erica: What are some of your favorite items? What are items that people just love to order?
Rachel: Our favorite is going to be the Cajun chick, and so you get a quarter link of Boudin and our Snooki sauce, which is like a remoulade New Orleans-style po-boy sauce that goes on top of it. That’s definitely our absolute favorite. Our basic chick and bacon ranches are super neutral and very popular, and a lot of those are kind of where everyone starts if they don’t go with the bulls. Another amazing one is our boot anvil, and that one has really kind of taken off here recently. You get to choose your sauce for it.
Richard: Yeah, so it’s a full Boudin link cheese, a full chicken breast, and then your choice of sauce, and it’s pretty hearty. It’s a hardy bowl.
Erica: I know that we plan on having lunch when we’re done with this, and I’m not going to know what to order. This all sounds so amazing.
Richard: Well, actually, the menu is rather small. I can’t tell you how many people look at the menu and flip it over, and there’s not a lot going on, but everything that we do, we pour our hearts into it, and it’s like, you know, the best that we can make, so I think there’s really only like 10 items on the menu if you ever want to break it down, but it’s just everything’s a little different, and it’s trying to be different from any other food truck.
Rachel: All of our cookies are made from scratch; all the icing I make from scratch; and all of our sauces are made in-house from scratch, so yeah, the sweets are really popular.
Erica: Some of your ingredients are also locally sourced.
Richard: Right, we get the buns from a local bakery in Houston. The only two things we don’t make are the boudin and the buns, so the boudin comes from Zumos in Beaumont and the buns come from a local bakery here in Houston.
FINDING THE HISSY CHICK FOOD TRUCK / SOCIAL ACCOUNTS
Erica: Where can people go to find your truck? I mean, you’re not stationary right now.
Rachel: Not yet!
Richard: We’re going to have a home; we looked into a few that are on the back burner, but right now people just follow us on social media, and she’ll post up every Sunday where we’re going to be for that week, so we have a lot of people that are like, “Oh, I see you’re coming to my side of town.” You know, we’re permanent in Harris County and Montgomery County, but we mainly focus on Montgomery County.
Erica: So how can they find you on social media so they can see what your schedule is every week?
Rachel: Facebook is going to be at Hissy Chick, and Instagram is going to be at Hissy Chick 22
ALL ABOUT HISSY CHICK
Erica: Let’s talk about the name hissy chick.” I mean, I can take some guesses based on having chicken sandwiches and chicken salad and things.
Richard: Things that have been around chickens.
Erica: Right, I own chicken.
Richard: Yeah, so for the most part, they’re very finicky and have a little attitude about them, so you know, kind of like throwing a hissy fit, you know, like they’re very finicky, so I think she kind of came up with this as just having a strong attitude and just being very finicky, I guess.
Rachel: Yeah, each sandwich is so different. I wanted them all elevated and, um, with so much attitude with all the sauce. We serve each one with a fork and a knife, and it’s not always that you’re going to eat them with your hands because they are messy.
Richard: Yeah, we get a lot of questions, like, “Can I get some more napkins?” “Can I get some extra napkins?” “That’s a popular request.”
SUPPORTING LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS
Erica: So you know, aside from growing up here and having a local business, you also support local organizations, right?
Rachel: Yes, we do. That’s something that was just really important to us in the beginning: we wanted to be able to give back in some way, shape, or form, and so we do a lot of spirit nights. I guess you could say that we’ve done Tomball Patriots Little League, where we come out there and we give them a percentage back. We did Klein FFA for one of their events, and we gave it back to them. We do have Magnolia West football boosters coming up, and we’re going to be donating a percentage back to the Tomball football team. For the Tomball High School pre-game, we donated 141 sandwiches to their football team because of our boys.
Compassion United is another organization that we try to support on the fourth Friday of every month. We actually donate, provide guidance, and serve the homeless on the fourth Friday of every month.
FAMILY AFFAIRS
Erica: You have some family, and you have some other folks that work with you that we need to make sure we mention.
Rachel: So Heather, my cousin, has been with us since the pulpa days. I absolutely love her, adore her, and am extremely thankful for all that she does for us. She has literally been in it with us since the beginning.
Richard: She’s just crazy enough to say, “Yeah, she enjoys it.” She also said that she’s worked in multiple other places and this is by far her favorite.
Erica: So you and your sons are involved too.
Rachel: Jordan and Carson started with us at only 14 as well, which was super sentimental to me, so my very first job was at 14. So they’ve been on this adventure with us, and they just turned 15 now, and they’re still in it. They love getting their paycheck, and it’s really awesome to kind of see them learn the value of a dollar, customer service, and just life skills.
Erica: Everything is entrepreneurship, right? There are so many things, but it’s a great experience for them and your family to be able to get along and do it.
Richard: Even our youngest, I mean she’s up there taking her first, she’ll run that square better than the boys sometimes, you know, they always want to, she wants to push him away, “Let me do it, let me do it, you know,” and she does pretty good.
Erica: We’re wrapping up, but one more thing I want to mention is their lemonade. This is hand-pressed, squeezed lemonade, and it is absolutely amazing. You guys have to check out Hissy Chick.
