In Houston’s Third Ward, a brunch food truck has eyes set on franchise

Kim Hewitt hops out of the truck. The lime-yellow generator sits, silent, next to the red husk of its predecessor. She tugs the cord. Nothing.

 There’s something about generators. She hasn’t had much luck with them.

“Come on,” she wheedles. “Come on.”

Her phone pings with another order. Kim’s food truck, The Brunch Box, is a staple in Third Ward. It’s a whisper past 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, and the people are hungry.

She yanks the cord a second time, a third. Finally, the generator grumbles back.

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None of this would be a problem, Kim thinks as she steps back into the truck and prepares her first batch of orders, if she had a brick-and-mortar store. A storefront would mean no fussy generators, no toting each day’s supplies back and forth. A storefront would mean a place for people to sit and rest and be together. It would mean jobs for the young people who don’t know where to go, a path for the people who, like her, didn’t learn what bad credit really meant until they were 40 (eight years later, Kim knows). She would rise; she would take her community with her. She would franchise. Denny’s, IHOP, Waffle House — watch out. It’s time for new blood. New brunch.

Hewitt prepares a burger, chicken wings and freshly cut fries Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023.
Hewitt prepares a burger, chicken wings and freshly cut fries Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023.

Two men wander up to the truck, slapping their palms in greeting — What’s up, man? Just chilling — before they place their orders at the window. They wait at the black-painted wood tables and stools Kim set up under a tent. A wood slab with “The Brunch Box” written in script rests between the tent and the truck.

“Founded Dec. 19, 2017.” 

The anniversary of her son’s death, which she knew she had to mark with something that wasn’t just mourning. Once, Kim had three boys. Two died just minutes from The Brunch Box. One was killed in a light-brick apartment off Wentworth Street back in 2012; another was gunned down outside a corner store eight years later. Now she’s down to one.

L: Hewitt cries as she talks about the deaths of her sons and facing her son’s killer in court. She said that she hasn’t grieved her children yet. R: She talks about other friends and community members who have died and are memorialized on the side of Scott Food Store.
L: Hewitt cries as she talks about the deaths of her sons and facing her son’s killer in court. She said that she hasn’t grieved her children yet. R: She talks about other friends and community members who have died and are memorialized on the side of Scott Food Store.

She dips raw chicken in breading. The grill hisses.

The camera roll on Kim’s iPhone, now buzzing with orders, is a scrapbook of the dead. Frozen moments of joy to pour over when the sadness becomes too much. 

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Friends lost to an aneurysm, an undiagnosed illness, an overdose. Gun violence, gun violence, gun violence.

There’s George Floyd, the tallest in a group of young men from the neighborhood. A digitally enhanced childhood photo of her dead sons. P-Red, a girl she used to run with, stolen by domestic violence, is memorialized in Kim’s logo as a red apple in place of the “O” in box. These losses hurt every day. But she’s learned: She’s a business. She needs to show a happy face. People don’t need to know that pieces of her soul have broken off and walked away and won’t ever come back.

The generator cuts out again. She groans and tries the cord. Exhales. No luck.

Kim hands a gas can to one of the men waiting for food. Could he run to the Chevron and fill it? Just two gallons. She knew she needed more gas this morning. She was just running late.

She sits at the wooden table with its chipping black paint and fantasizes about the store she wants. But storefronts cost money and Kim doesn’t have enough. Especially not after paying for her son’s funeral three years ago.

Cars drive down Tierwester Street. People slow, wave. Everyone knows her. What people like about Kim: She treats everyone with the same level of kindness. It’s part of building community. So is not judging anyone for where they happen to be at a particular stage in life. Everyone, Kim knows, has hard times.

Kim grew up a five-minute drive from where she now runs her business. Ever since she was a kid, she wanted to be something. She didn’t know what, she just knew: Something. She went to prison after she spent her younger days hustling (the customer service skills are transferable) and is learning to work with what she calls “small money.” Whenever she goes to another restaurant, she thinks about what’s lacking (spoons, sauce, extra napkins) and incorporates that into her business model. Now that she’s become the something she dreamed of, she wants to grab hold of the neighborhood kids, feed them positivity with their carbs. Show them: They can be something, too.

Her customer comes back with the gas. Kim pours it into the generator — why isn’t it working? There should be gas in it — and pulls the cord. It roars.

More customers walk up, drive up, order, linger. Hey, how are you, busy-busy-busy, staying busy. You just want the burger? No fries? I got you. Her nephew hands her $12 for the chicken and French toast plate that costs $15. (“Make sure you CashApp my $3!” Kim hollers as he crosses the street.) Sylvia Guilliam, a community health worker and one of Kim’s regulars, asks for a fish plate. Kim’s out. That’s OK. Sylvia will change it up. Everything’s good at The Brunch Box.

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“I’ve been overeating,” Kim tells Sylvia through the screen window. “I’m telling myself I’m not used to actually being at the bottom, broke like this, but I know it’s gonna be OK.”

“Mhm.”

“I’m not spending money on myself,” she says. “I’m remodeling. See all this?” She nods to the sitting area in front of her, even as her hands work the grill. “I’m not spending money on myself.”

The generator dies. 

“What the hell?” Kim asks. It’s not the gas, she realizes. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s just the generator.

She wraps Sylvia’s Styrofoam container of food in a black plastic bag and coaxes the generator back to life.

Chrystal Brooks, Kim Hewitt’s sister, eats one of her chicken wings Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023.
Chrystal Brooks, Kim Hewitt’s sister, eats one of her chicken wings Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023.

Kim will spend the week working, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closing only on Monday. Tuesday rolls around again. Aug. 29., the day Michael Jackson would have celebrated his 65^th birthday. The morning is unusually slow; the orders won’t start coming in until after noon. Kim’s sister and niece will stop by. They’re proud of her, of what she’s growing. They love her food. They love her. Kim will spend the afternoon making French toast sandwiches, French toast tacos, grilled fish platters, egg sandwiches, pancakes. She’ll sweat in triple-digit heat. The generator will hum. The air will smell like the promise of cooking oil, like a legacy she can leave for her grandchildren, like the beginnings of generational wealth no one passed on to her.

But it’s still morning, and it’s still slow for a Tuesday. Kim connects her phone to the big black speaker by the tables and blasts “Billie Jean.” On slow days or the hard mornings when she needs to soothe the torn parts of her past that still snag, she gets lost in the flow of ’80s R&B. 

It’s the first time she’s played music since the most recent murders, the ones just down the block and around the corner. For a while after, she felt like she had to watch her back. But when she goes to her red Jeep to unload her supplies, Kim dances.

Hewitt laughs while telling a story before returning to work.
Hewitt laughs while telling a story before returning to work.