A food truck in Rexburg has opened for a limited time and offers a taste of the South
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REXBURG — A new food truck is bringing a taste of Louisiana with its crispy bites and bold Cajun flavor.
Po’ Boyz & Co. is located at 285 South 1st West in Rexburg, near the Hart Building on Brigham Young University-Idaho’s campus. It’s a college student-led company run by 18 people.
“We have things like Cajun pasta, fried Oreos, hush puppies, and traditional Cajun Southern food,” said Bryson Rouse, the CEO of Po’ Boyz & Co. “A po’ boy is this Louisiana sandwich, and it has a signature sauce, deep-fried chicken or shrimp. In Louisiana, they say it comes dressed with lettuce and tomato.”
Po’ Boyz & Co. opened earlier this week. They will hold a ribbon-cutting grand opening on Monday, Oct. 19 at 11:15 a.m., with Rexburg Mayor Jerry Merrill in attendance.
“We are super excited for him to try our food,” said Keeleigh Carrell, head of marketing for Po’ Boyz & Co.
The food truck came out of a class called IBC, or Integrated Business Core. According to BYU-Idaho online, it’s a nine-credit course for students pursuing business and marketing degrees.
“Every IBC company gets stationed somewhere, and there used to be a food truck called Off Road Grill, which is what we are operating. It was the BYU-Idaho food truck … it got turned over to IBC,” Rouse explained. “We are the first ever group of students to be working this food truck for the class. It’s pretty exciting for us to go through the operation and the logistics.”
According to BYU-Idaho online, “The program’s primary focus is experiential learning, where students come up with a business idea, develop a business plan, acquire funding, and then launch and operate their company during a single semester.”
“We all have a passion for running and operating our own businesses in the future, and we’ve all come together for this, and so it’s really cool to see how we are going to grow and just the takeaways that we will get from this that will help us in the future as well,” Carrell said.
They are student-led and instructor-guided. The group of students for Po’ Boyz & Co. met each other at the beginning of the semester in September. They’ve only been in the class for about three weeks.
The students brainstormed ideas and hit the ground running. Rouse is from South Carolina, and Carrell is from Georgia. Many in the group have Louisiana heritage.
All 18 are split into four groups, including operations, finance, marketing, and product development.
“We’ve had a lot of trial and error to kind of figure out what works best. We’ve worked with professional chefs as well that work here at the BYU-Idaho campus,” Carrell said about developing the recipes for the food truck.
Rouse and Carrell said they had to present to a loan committee and secure funding, similar to Shark Tank, to build their business. All revenue generated by the food truck goes back to the class, Rouse said.
Po’ Boyz & Co. is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Tuesday from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. It will be operating until the end of the semester on Dec. 9.
“We really are super excited to start this business, and it is short-lived, so we hope people can really grab onto it and enjoy it while it’s here,” Rouse said.
Carrell added that she believes people should experience cultures and diversity outside their own and get a taste of the South.
You can follow Po’ Boyz & Co. on social media here.
