Member Spotlight: Blame It All On My Roots

What happens when you stop waiting for the “right time” and take a chance on something you truly love? For Lisa and Kenneth Lohman, it meant leaving behind security, trusting their instincts, and turning a lifelong passion for Texas BBQ into a full-time business.

Blame It All On My Roots BBQ is more than just great food; it’s proof that with courage, hard work, and belief in your craft, a simple idea can grow into something real. From backyard dreams to busy pop-ups, their journey is a reminder that you don’t need everything figured out to start, you just need to start.

In this spotlight, they share the story behind their leap, the challenges they’ve faced, and why betting on yourself might be the best decision you ever make.

What’s been the biggest challenge so far in running the business full-time?

Learning about costing, pricing and making the right amount of food for each event, that’s the hardest thing for us.

Balancing family life is also difficult, but we make extra effort to spend quality days and time with our daughter who’s an absolute star and so patient and easy going we couldn’t do it without her.

 How do you divide responsibilities between the two of you day-to-day?

We kind of fell into roles, I do all the social media and Kenneth obviously is the Pitmaster. We work on the side dishes together; we worked on the menu together too. We’ve always worked well as a team, so it’s come quite naturally to be able to take equal roles in the business.

What kind of feedback has meant the most to you since launching?

Honestly, we’ve had the most amazing feedback. The best things to hear have been:

“Hey, we’re back for more!”

“I need that sauce!”

“That mac is the best I’ve ever had”

“Thanks for bringing something different”

“Thanks for bringing me a taste of home”- a few recent American customers.

All the feedback keeps us going when we’re tired and my back is in pain.

How has serving at breweries and pubs shaped your business?

We knew we needed a menu that brought people our smoked meats and sides but in a way they could enjoy easily whilst enjoying a beer. Serving at those types of places shaped our core menu quite heavily and pushed us into offering it street food style. To be honest the menu has gone down great with everyone.

Your menu being gluten-free is a big plus – what made you decide to go in that direction?

We’d been asked a few times so we looked at it and realised it would only mean a couple of twinges to make it happen.

We adapted the cheese sauce to always be gluten free and we just make a fresh batch of gluten free pasta when required. We changed our tacos to corn and all our meats were already gluten free anyway so it was quite an easy move to make.

We’d been told a few times that no one can ever find a gluten free mac n cheese and people are still shocked when we tell them it is. They then get very excited and everyone so far has enjoyed it.

What are your goals for the business over the next year?

To survive! We said this year would be the decider as to whether we can carry on.

We don’t have any savings – we’re month to month with paying bills and it’s not a highly profitable business.

If we can make it work and just tick over, watch people enjoy eating what we create, keep a roof over our heads and our daughter happy that’ll be enough for us.

Do you see yourselves expanding beyond pop-ups and catering in the future?

I think everyone’s dream is bricks and mortar of some sort. If the opportunity presented itself and we thought it would work well we would likely go for it.

However we love getting out and about and meeting new people, we love when customers stand and chat, tell us about their trips to America, the times they’ve had real BBQ, and their own attempts at grilling and smoking meat. We’d always like to keep a bit of that even if we did go into a restaurant style.

If you could bring one thing from Texas BBQ culture over to the UK, what would it be?

Just more people getting together, building community and enjoying each other’s company over some good smoked meat.

There’s nothing simpler, and nothing better.

If you had to describe your brand in three words, what would they be?

Authentic. Honest. Independently-made (sorry about that last one haha!)

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