After working unhappily in corporate America for years, CC Griggs quit without a plan – but knew she wanted to pursue something in food. She soon became a private chef for several families and built up a clientele using the cooking skills her father had taught her. However, she had always been obsessed with food trucks, and she finally took the leap and bought her own food truck: The Crooked Boot. Now, the Creole-Cajun food truck has its own carryout-only restaurant in St. Charles, Missouri.
“It was basically the Great Resignation and the pandemic that made me pivot and make some changes,” Griggs says.
The Crooked Boot started out as a food truck because of its low overhead and risk during the start of the pandemic. Now that a couple of years have passed, Griggs ran into new issues, like staffing for the food truck’s irregular schedule, that spurred the decision to open up a storefront.
Dubbed Frankie Martin’s Garden, the food truck park will also feature a beer pavilion, wine and whiskey bar, live music stage and more.
“Carryout, for me, seemed like the best option,” she says. “The hours are 11am to 8pm, so there are longer hours where people can come to work. It also doesn’t require a huge crew to run a carryout [location].”
Griggs says her cooking is traditional Creole-Cajun cuisine with both Haitian and Jamaican influences. She is a Louisiana native, inspiring nearly all of her recipes.
Many a po’boy line the menu, made with either fried shrimp, catfish or a mix of the two. Louisiana gumbo is another classic, along with the Big Easy Bread Pudding, a cinnamon crunch bread pudding topped with white chocolate ganache. Griggs even makes beignets topped with fresh fruit for special occasions like Valentine’s Day or King Cake beignets topped with green, yellow and purple sprinkles for Mardi Gras.
Dining and Cooking