We had the good fortune of connecting with George and Rubie Huerta and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi George and Rubie, we’d love to start by asking you about lessons learned. Is there a lesson you can share with us?
Time is your most precious asset. You can putin 50+ hours a week at a meaningful job. Some places have fantastic employers but at the end of it all, I would rather work hard for myself and leave a legacy for my family to continue.

What should our readers know about your business?
We are George and Rubie Huerta – owners of George and Rubie’s Favorites. We have a frozen food line in over 300 HEB stores across the state of Texas. We have a couple of items, but our star product is our Texas Gumbo. Our Texas Gumbo is not like the traditional Louisiana Gumbo. Our starts with a charro-bean base (which makes it gluten-free) unlike a flour-based rue. We have jalapenos instead of Okra for that great Texas Heat and Tejano style rice, not just plain white rice. Our product has EVERYTHING included! Rice, beans, all meats… you simply #HeatItandEatIt!

We started by selling our product on the side by the pot, selling it to family and friends having tailgates, cookouts or just when someone didn’t feel like doing the cooking!! Our Texas Gumbo was created over leftovers at our kitchen table… at first I thought it was by accident, but now looking back it was all part of God’s plan for us. It was anything but easy. HEB started us with 192 stores so we could not make it in our kitchen or a commercial kitchen to meet the demand. We had to source a co-packing facility and there are many legal processes involved in order to protect our recipe the best way possible. Another challenge was locating the many ingredients for our product. The shrimp alone was a challenge because (as we have come ot learn) when presenting your product to a co-packing facility, the inredients must be seasoned and ready-to-cook. They don’t do the “peeling and deveining” for you. So contracting a shrimp vendor that doesn’t just catch it, but also cleans, deshell and devein the shrimp – not easy! But glory be to God we found a company!

One thing that sets us apart is that we INSIST that all ingriedients are sourced right here in the USA. What do we want the world to know about our brand? We take pride and keeping our fellow country men and women employed to the best of our capacity. We are proud of the fact that we live in a great country where everyday folks like us can make our dreams come true, even in this season of our lives. You don’t have to be fresh out of college to start a new adventure.

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Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well – being from Houston, there are several places I would take my friend but i currently reside in Galveston so this will be fun!

Day 1 – I’d start us with breakfast at ShyKatz on Galveston island, awesome menu and the BEST coffee! Then I would take us into Friendswood at have a Spa day at Bergamos Spa reteat. After mani-pedi’s massages and lounging in the pool we’d get dressed and head into a little town called Santa Fe and have a wine tasting at Haak wineries! For dinner I would drive us back into Galveston and we would dine at Katies Seafood House.

Day 2 – I would pick up some pastries from The Sunflower Cafe in Galveston, make us coffee and we would spend the morning walking on the beach and just chat! We’d head back and get ready and now we head to the Kemah Boardwalk for some day fun!! For dinner however, I would take my friend to T-bone Tom’s in Seabrook for a delish dinner and good live music!

Day 3 – After enjoying ourselves so much yesterday morning walking on the beach, we decide we need to work on our color!! BEACH DAY!! We would spend all day laying in the sun, collecting seasells and splashing in the water! And since it is FRIDAY NIGHT we will be heading to the West End Marina for dinner and then some Karaoke!!

Day 4 – Brunch at The Sunflower Cafe and now head into H-Town for some shopping in The Galleria! We’d take a stroll around the water wall and take in the beautiful view! I have a friend right in town and we go to her house and and get gussied up we 3 go into downtown at Vic and Anthony’s steakhouse for dinner and then catch Wicked the Musical in downtown Houston in the TUTS theater.

Day 5 – I take her to my church, Lakewood Church and after all the running around we’d been doing all week, my friend wants to just chill at my place… so we head to H-E-B… she is STOKED at how great a grocery store it is, and we get all kinds of stuff to just BBQ at home! Wine, brisket, jalapeno poppers, good tunes and a beautiful sunset on the water is a great way to end a week long GLORIOUS visit with my BFF!

Website: www.grfav.com

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