Conversations with Mercedes Harris

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mercedes Harris.

Hi Mercedes, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started out playing college basketball in Brooklyn New York at Long Island University. Basketball was my entire life. My brother played, I played, my sister played growing up, and my dad was a college basketball coach.

In my sophomore year of college, I started falling out of love with basketball and began to feel like my calling was elsewhere. Sounds simple, but it wasn’t. How do you tell all the people who have given their time and resources to invest in you that it was for nothing? I struggled with that. I had a bit of a health issue during my sophomore year that ended my season relatively quickly and I took that as my sign that it was time to move on.

I transferred to UNCC where I immediately began working in restaurants to get myself through the rest of school. I was a business major and decided pretty quickly that I wanted to be in hotel management. Hospitality was always my thing. I love people and have always had a heart that just wants as many people to be happy as possible; if I can play a part in that, I will.

I started my first hotel job as a food and beverage manager the day of college graduation, so I didn’t walk. I continued to move through the ranks of the hotel business over the next few years, in which my last position was a catering sales manager at a Hilton hotel. After a while, I slowly began to get the same feeling I did when I was in New York playing basketball. Here I am, doing what I love and what I’ve wanted to do but still feeling as if something is missing. And still not really knowing what, but just feeling unsettled.

Todd (one of the owners of the BBQ Lab) had an opening for a director of catering. I had never heard of the company and didn’t know much, but from my interview; it was the first time in a long time I felt settled. I couldn’t explain it. I definitely found it hard to explain to my parents; that I was leaving my “solid on paper” corporate hotel job to go work for a small company that I knew nothing about. But I took a chance.

The coolest thing about my initial position is that I pretty much got to create it. Jerry (another one of the owners) had been doing the catering himself with a few other staff members and it wasn’t really functioning as its own company, more like a department. He sat down with me one day and laid out his complete vision. He told me where he started, where he was at, and where he wanted to go; and after that conversation, I knew there wasn’t anything or anyone I believed in more.

I developed a templet of what I thought a catering company should look like; from staff attire and booking processes, all the way down to email etiquette. I was given a ton of room to create, add my opinion, rebrand, and make people happy. It was borderline enlightening. I figured it out. Before I was doing things that we’re giving me tools but there wasn’t anything for me to build. I was entertaining people with basketball but I still felt a disconnect from people while entertaining them.

And I was booking catering at hotels, but I was missing the human interaction. At the BBQ Lab, I was a part of every single process, conversation, and detail that made someone’s day, week, or year. Good food is healing to someone who is having a bad day. A beautiful wedding with amazing food is a day someone will never forget for the rest of their life. It wasn’t a job, it was simply what I’ve always wanted to do.

Two, almost three years later I’m CEO at a company I knew nothing about. It’s unreal. So how did I get where I am? I ask myself that a lot. I’m not even sure I know the complete answer. Not without God. Not without my loved ones. Not without bosses who believe in me. And not without people. I don’t want anyone to remember me for my job or even my name if I’m honest. I just want them to have a memory that makes them happy, one that they can pull on their worst day and smile. People deserve that.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Absolutely not haha. When I was working in hotels, I cocktail served at night just to afford rent, transportation, and food (things I think are basic human needs). And while I was blessed at the end of the day to always find a way, there are definitely moments where you’re like, “Okay self. I was just going to college for free and living a dream that some people would love to live and gave allllll that up to be one step above the poverty line?” You question everything. Your decisions, your capabilities, literally everything.

Then you start to see the little waves that you’re making and some of your hard work paying off and then new challenges arise. Like my age. I’m 26; a lot of people don’t know that, and I still to this day don’t share it unless absolutely necessary in business settings. Once I started working in corporate positions with people much older than me, I found I was constantly trying to prove myself.

I wanted people to know my age didn’t reflect If I was or was not capable of doing the job I had been asked to do. Believe it or not, some people get nervous when they find out the first (or close second) largest amount of money they spent on their wedding is in the hands of a 26-year-old.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am the CEO of the RBL Catering Company. I specialize in business management (what my degree is in) and hospitality (what most of my background is in).

I’m most proud of The BBQ Lab location that we bring to Dirtbag Ales Brewery on the weekends. That was probably the first true start from scratch, with no outline, project that I’ve been a part of. The rollout felt shaky (behind the scenes not to the public) and to see where it’s at now versus the rollout is unbelievable. It feels like a warm-up to the North Hills project so it’s been cool to iron out kinks and figure out what works and doesn’t work etc. There are still improvements we want to make but to see something a lot of people put a lot of effort into even function for one day is pretty darn cool.

In truth, nothing sets me apart from anyone. You can do anything. Anyone can do anything. With the right tools, people, and faith; I truly believe that.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I feel like that might be a question for everyone around me. I watched TD Jakes explain that the hardest person to see is yourself. And that the people around you should act as mirrors; otherwise we would never truly see ourselves. That’s always resonated with me.

When I think of myself, I hope I’m all the good stuff but I can 100% confirm that I am the little bits of insecurity, the random doubt, etc. I can tell you that I hope I’m kind, but only the people around me would be able to tell you what I actually am. And the only way they would know that, I think, is based on the way I’ve made them feel.

So maybe the answer is, I’ve made enough people feel something that made them believe I can do what I’m currently doing and do it well. What feeling? I couldn’t tell you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rblcateringcompany.com (coming soon)
• Instagram: mercedesharris_
• Facebook: The Redneck BBQ Lab
• Other: @theredneckbbqlab (Instagram)

Image Credits
Maggie Snider- Director of PR