Check Out Jean Daigle’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jean Daigle.

Jean, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am originally from Quebec, Canada, where I have enjoyed countless poutines growing up. Whether it was for lunch, dinner, a late-night snack, or after a hockey game. After moving to the states, more than thirty years ago, my wife and I continued to share our love of French-Canadian food with our kids and stick to cooking the only meals we knew. One of those is our traditional Canadian Poutine. Living in Raleigh, North Carolina we are surrounded by southern dishes. We do not get to see much of the foods we used to enjoy unless we make it at home. But why stop there? With my love for cooking and French-Canadian cuisine, I knew Poutine would be a hit in the south and it has always been a dream of mine to introduce our culture to those around us!

After all my children were out of the house, either in college or working, I decided this to be the perfect time to buy a food truck! I spent a lot of time researching and looking online, until I came across an old vintage trailer for sale that needed a lot of love. The idea was not to spend a lot of money on the trailer and rebuild it myself because this was such a giant business leap for my wife and me. I also had little to no experience in reconstructing and building a food truck from the ground up. After many late nights, long hours, and numerous YouTube videos it was finally done. It took about two years, working on it mostly during the weekends. My son helped me in building when I needed a second hand, my middle daughter helped design/paint the trailer, and my youngest daughter started building our social media and online presence. My wife who is an entrepreneur herself helped me with all the financial and business aspects and collaborated with my son and I on defining the menu items and coming up with our homemade authentic gravy recipe.

Furthermore, I kept some of the original interior concept, but I redesigned it as an industrial style vintage food truck. Everything we did was our own creation and hand made by ourselves. I passed inspection after 3 visits, and I was ready to operate. I had a soft opening with close friends at our house and another for our neighborhood, who had been watching us work on the trailer for two years eagerly awaiting our Poutine business to start! Our first real event was at the Night Market in Raleigh on June 7, 2023! After that we have been applying to events and contacting breweries to get on their schedules. It was hard at first since we opened in the middle of the year and most places book out months in advanced. We got more luck with fall and winter events, especially during the holidays. Since then, people have loved our poutine from all around, and we were able to get on schedules for 2024!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The journey has had its handful of ups and downs. The most challenging for me was the building and reconstructing since everything had to be basically redone and custom. Other roadblocks I encountered were finding a local commissary, defining kitchen operation, organizing the space of the food truck to make sure all the equipment fit, and more. There are a lot of moving parts that the average person would never think twice about when it comes to building a food truck business. Although there were difficulties that does not mean everything was hard. Our food to start off is very unique, so competition is not one to worry too much about. Our food also made it easier to get into events because we are new and not many people have tried poutine before. People are always down to try new things, especially food. Also growing up eating poutine all the time, we knew exactly how we wanted to create our authentic poutine. My passion for cooking as well helped when it came to presentation and simply wanting to serve something good. I would never want to serve something I would not eat myself.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a software engineer, and I moved my family to Raleigh, North Carolina in 1997 for my work. Coming from not speaking fluent English, my wife and I had to adapt fairly quickly. Although since our children were still young, this gave us the opportunity to teach them French, our native language, and immerse them in the American culture and learn English. Culture is very important for our family and is one of the reasons why having a food truck is so special to us because we get to share our culture. I also have been working in the telecommunication and utility industry for about 35 years. This career has given me the experience to do manual projects and building things around the house, yet another reason why the food truck project was so intriguing to me.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
What makes me the happiest is spending time with my family at home and travelling around the world. I love being surrounded by my family. They have their own individuality and I learn so much from them every day. I also enjoy working in the food truck with my wife. It has been wonderful and makes me so happy. It is like we have traveled back to our youth. We get to step outside the house and visit all the fun places, markets, and events around the area together. We also love seeing how happy people are when we serve them our poutines. This food truck allows us to create and share so many good memories and meet all kinds of people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.truenorthpoutine.com
• Instagram: truenorth_poutine
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063871242769