Thirty Years to Get Here.
It started at a Burger King drive-through window in Halifax.
I was sixteen. My job was to take orders and hand out food. That's it. But I started doing something different — I memorized the regulars. Their orders. Their cars. When they pulled up I'd call it on the PA before they even stopped.
Same as last Tuesday?
And their faces would change.
That reaction. That moment when someone realizes you actually saw them. Remembered them. Made them feel like the only person in the building.
I've been chasing that feeling for thirty years.
The Bar Years
Bartending came next. It was the perfect laboratory.
Someone sits in front of you for two hours. You learn their drink, their mood, their story. You become a shoulder, a comedian, a confessor. You're not just serving — you're providing pure hospitality.
I made more in tips than anyone I ever worked with. Not because I was the best bartender. Because I understood that the money was never the point. The money was the byproduct. The point was the reaction. Making someone feel like the only person in the room.
That principle scaled. I moved into management, then general management. Took a $400,000 restaurant to $3 million by teaching an entire team the same thing I learned at a drive-through window in Halifax.
The Meatball That Changed Everything
In 2013 my business partner and I built Smak — a healthy fast food restaurant before that was a category. The whole premise was simple: fast food doesn't have to mean bad food. Pre-prep great ingredients, hold them hot, serve them in thirty seconds. Burger King principles. Better food. Same obsession with the guest.
Simons approached us about putting Smak inside their stores. That deal fell apart. But I wasn't done.
I walked out of that meeting and told Peter Simons directly — this didn't work out today but I'll build you something better on your terms.
I flew to Montreal. Competed against a room full of professionals. Cooked twenty dishes for sixteen board members by myself — cooking, serving, clearing, back to cooking. By dish sixteen I was running on adrenaline and instinct.
Dish twenty was chocolate beer meatballs. A recipe my kids had asked me to make. Lamb and pork, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, with a gravy built from chocolate, beer, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger.
Peter Simons took one bite. Put his fork down. Said: if you can make a meatball this good, you're my guy. This process is over.
I told him I wished I'd served it first.
He laughed. Two weeks later I was consulting for Simons.
I spent eight years there. Seven venues across Canada. Thousands of covers a day. High-end kitchens, national menus, labour models, food costs. My PhD in professional cooking.
The Chicken Strips
During that time I also co-founded BRGR BRGR in Abbotsford. Still running today.
The most popular item on the menu for six consecutive years — the thing people drove for, the thing regulars ordered every single visit — was the chicken strips.
My chicken strips. My recipes. Six years of proof that this product worked.
The Night It All Clicked
I was bartending at Butcher and Bullock in Vancouver. My old GM partner from BRGR BRGR came in and sat down.
She said: I miss your chicken strips. They changed them. They're not the same. There's something about a chicken strip that I know is unhealthy but I would eat it every single day.
And I looked at her and I thought — I have the strips. I have the sauces. I've spent thirty years learning exactly what makes people feel something when they eat.
Three months later Saucy Bird existed.
What This Actually Is
This isn't a food startup. It's not a ghost kitchen with a logo.
Every sauce and rub in this lineup was stress-tested in a real professional kitchen before it ever had a label. Built for real customers who didn't know what was in them and couldn't stop eating them.
The sauces and rubs aren't designed for one protein. They're designed for your kitchen — whatever's in it, whatever night it is. Chicken, steak, salmon, halibut, fries, vegetables, popcorn. Dip straight from the bottle or cook with it, season with it, marinate with it, finish with it.
The food changes. The flavour doesn't.
The Ledger
The Sauce Ledger is not a loyalty program.
No points. No tiers. No expiry dates.
Every number is permanent. Every number is earned through purchase. And every number tells a story about when you found this brand.
The Founder 50 are the first 50 public Ledger numbers. After that the next entry point is 500. Numbers 51 through 499 don't exist. That gap is intentional. It's reserved. It's lore.
Right now there are fewer than 50 of these left.
When they're gone this chapter closes. The brand keeps building. These numbers don't come back.
Welcome. You found it early.