Meet Liam Hye | Owner/Chef Jersey Cowboy

We had the good fortune of connecting with Liam Hye and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Liam, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Essentially I got tired of working for other people. I have held almost every job in the restaurant industry and have trained under some fantastic chefs like Derek Seigfried and Dale Levitski but when it came down to it, I wasn’t all that happy following orders and pumping out dishes like a machine. Being a line cook for some time, I have seen how some great restaurants are run and I’ve been apart of some failing teams. This, coupled with my experience, has really helped me shape the way I envision my business to be run.

When I was working in restaurants I never really got the opportunity to curate a menu or cook the food that I wanted to cook. This sparked the idea to start my own business, Jersey Cowboy. I moved to Colorado in August of 2020 and let me tell you, it was incredibly difficult to find a job while trying to start my own thing. We were in the belly of the covid-19 beast and I had just missed the “welcome back students” rush that always swarms Fort Collins around that time of year. Nobody was hiring. I had resulted to cold-calling restaurants begging for a job but then it hit me: find a job with somebody that has done/is doing the same thing you are trying to do. This landed me a spot at The Taco Stop working for some amazing people and cooking some spectacular tacos. Why did I pick The Taco Stop? Because Cesar and Berenice, the owners, did exactly what I am trying to do. They started in 2012 with a little food cart slinging tacos and quesadillas to the hungry people of Fort Collins and now, 9 years later, they own a thriving restaurant.

My main reason for moving to Fort Collins was to open a gourmet munchie style food truck in Old Town Fort Collins. The late night crowd had their share of vendors to choose from like gyros or crappy bar food but what lacked was an upscale, yet casual place to eat. My vision of making homemade tater-tot nachos with carnitas and chorizo queso flameado was stopped in its tracks when Cesar told me, “cook what you know.” I’m a white dude from Connecticut trying to open a food truck that had Mexican food on the menu. It was destined to fail. After a week long road block it finally hit me: pork roll, egg, and cheese.

Pork roll is a spiced and cured pork product similar to spam but in a world of its own. I grew up eating this stuff and nearly everybody I have met in my life hasn’t heard about it. The reaction is always the same when I cook them a sandwich, “oh wow!” There’s a reason why our slogan is “your new favorite breakfast sammich.” If you want to learn a little more about pork roll we have a whole page about it on our website: www.superokayfoods.com

Currently the only employees of Jersey Cowboy are myself and my business partner who just so happens to double as my sister. I wanted to partner with somebody who knows the product and who better than the person I would sit across the table from every time we ate a pork roll, egg, and cheese (PREC) as kids. In the future, when we do employ people, they will come first. I have seen my fair share of mistreated employees and have never been in the position to help them. Opening a business will give me that opportunity. I have a lot of ideas on how to make my business a fun place to work where it doesn’t really feel like a job. The way I see it, don’t treat the people who work for you poorly. If they weren’t there, you wouldn’t be either.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My culinary career started back when I was 15 working at a small, local Italian deli in Connecticut. It was the hotspot for all the high school students to both eat and work so getting a job there was a pretty prestigious feat. Luckily, one of my friends was already working there so he put in a good word and I was hired soon after. I believe a few of the reasons why I was hired there was because of my drive, willingness to learn, and likeable personality. All of those still hold true today. I got to where I am now because I paid attention and tried to learn anything and everything I could. Early on in my professional kitchen career I had a chef tell me a story about this thing he called the Carrot Peeling Attitude, or CPA for short. He was a stagiaire at a fine dining restaurant and everyday he came to work was told to peel a 50 pound bag of carrots. After days of peeling and begging the chef to try something new, the chef asked him, “Why should you move on to bigger and better tasks?” He had no answer. He hadn’t gotten the work done any faster, he didn’t learn anything from the carrot peeling, and he just felt as though it was a waste of time. There were plenty of things to learn from a big bag of unpeeled carrots like: what do the carrots go in, what dishes on the menu feature carrots, how many carrots go into each pot of stock, etc. This is the CPA. If there is anything I have learned in kitchens, it’s that there is no task that should go to waste. There is something to learn in every job you do whether that be cleaning the hoods or peeling 50 pounds of carrots every day.

Nothing about working in the food industry is easy. There are tasks in every aspect of the work that require your full attention while certain things must be held to a higher standard than most. I wouldn’t consider myself “classically trained” because I am not. I didn’t go to culinary school or study a certain chef, I worked. There are plenty of self taught chefs, like Chef Levitski, that have created outstanding dishes and have even competed and succeeded on a national and global level. It’s not impossible to make it in this industry if you work hard and listen and I believe this is exactly what I have done over my years of working in restaurants.

I started Jersey Cowboy with the idea in mind to show the people of Colorado, and hopefully the rest of the world, this amazing stuff called pork roll. I have been eating it my whole life and I would like to share its versatility with others. It doesn’t just belong on a breakfast sandwich. I have a bunch of concepts based around pork roll and it’s only a matter of time until the hungry people of Colorado get to try my creations.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If I had a friend come visit Fort Collins, we would be eating, drinking some local beer, and seeing the sights. There are so many places to eat and drink here it’s hard to narrow it down to a few but for a good breakfast spot I would definitely bring them to Choice City Deli. The smoked duck benedict they have on the menu is unbeatable and the location is perfect to show them around Old Town. After walking off the duck benny around Old Town, I would bring them to one of our favorite local breweries, Odell’s. Sure there are plenty of other breweries around town that deserve mentioning and a quick visit for a drink but we like Odell’s the most because of its atmosphere. If there isn’t a food truck out front, we’d drive down South College to The Taco Stop for a late lunch. Obviously I have to bring them to get the best Mexican food Fort Collins has to offer. After a short afternoon siesta, CopperMuse Distillery is the next stop for some happy hour drinks (maybe a flight or two) before catching dinner reservations at The Regional. Depending on when they are in town, there are plenty of festivals that the city of Fort Collins hosts every year like the Tour de Fat, Taste of Fort Collins, Bohemian Nights, or even just turning on the lights for winter in Old Town. This town and the surrounding areas offer so much for every type of person whether they like chilling at a brewery or summiting a mountain.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Cesar Lopez and Berenice Longoria of The Taco Stop in Fort Collins, CO. They have been a huge help to me all along the way. They started with a food cart in 2012 and now own a restaurant. That is a similar path to what I want to take so working for them and having them as my mentors is very valuable since I can go to them with any questions I have. Their work ethic, attitude, and optimism is admirable. They never give up no matter the situation and I think that is a very valuable thing to learn. What they have taught me most is if you are passionate about what you’re doing, it will work out in the end no matter what happens. They have come a long way and have overcome so many obstacles including opening a restaurant in the middle of a global pandemic but they always keep their heads up and work harder. Cesar and Berenice have done so much for me and I hope one day I can return the favor.

Website: superokayfoods.com

Instagram: jerseycowboycart

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jerseycowboycart