THANKS for doing that

A Vision for Food and Community: The Sunny Stacks Story with Olivia Smith

• Heather Winchell • Season 1 • Episode 18

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“When we carry out the dreams we have inside of us, there’s so much refinement and growth that happens. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it.”

“I think really all good times are happening usually around a table of food. Now I get to be someone that helps curate spaces where people can connect and enjoy themselves.”

In this episode of Thanks for Doing That, host Heather Winchell talks with Olivia Smith, the owner of Sunny Stacks Pancakes, a modern breakfast food truck in northern Colorado. Olivia shares her inspiring journey from teaching and ministry to entrepreneurship. With a vision for connection and community, she discusses how Sunny Stacks curates meaningful breakfast experiences using fresh, seasonal ingredients and even collaborations with family members. Olivia opens up about overcoming unexpected challenges, embracing hard work, and finding joy in the diversity of people her food truck brings her into contact with. This uplifting conversation highlights the power of resilience, creativity, and creating moments of light in a busy world.

Book Sunny Stacks for Your Event!
(Staff appreciations, back-to-school nights, celebrations, and more are available for booking on their website.)

Catch more of the story @thanks.for.doing.that.podcast!

Heather Winchell: Hey there. And welcome back to thanks for doing that. A podcast celebrating people and ideas that make this world a better place. Today I am joined by Olivia Smith. Olivia is the owner and friendly face of Sunny Stacks Pancakes which is a modern breakfast food truck based in northern Colorado. And though only started earlier this year, this truck has made quite a debut with routine bookings at movie nights, celebrations, and farmers markets. My family and I are big breakfast for any meal of the day fans. And I had the pleasure of sampling Olivia's pancakes one weekend this summer at the peak of peach season.

Heather Winchell: And actually it was so cute because my pancakes came with a. small peach on the side that I think came from Olivia's family peach tree, which is pretty cool. So Olivia, thank you so much for joining me today and I would love to get us started by asking what made you Take the step into launching a food truck.

Olivia Smith: [00:01:00] Thanks, Heather. Thanks for inviting me on to this and getting to share a bit of my story. It's a multifaceted journey for me. I have historically had background in ministry and teaching. I taught high school for a few years right before this. So it feels a little bit like a hard right turn for my journey, but I've always loved to be outside.

Olivia Smith: Number one. , I have a lot of health issues too that have to do with being inside buildings with molds and things like that. And so I've been limited in different offices and spaces I can be in. And so being outside for me has always been just a freeing thing and allows me to do a lot more. And stay healthy.

Olivia Smith: So that's been a part of it. I've always been curious about entrepreneurship. I'm a very visionary big picture person. And so getting to start something and watch it come to completion has been always interesting and intriguing to me. And, and then I have some facets of it that Hopefully will come out more in the long term, but hopefully incorporating my [00:02:00] love for high school students and, still teaching them, still helping them have exposure to the real world and helping them be ready, for what their purpose to do, feels important.

Olivia Smith: There's multiple things I feel like that came together that pointed me towards a food truck and I think really all good times are happening usually around a table of food.

Olivia Smith: And so I now get to be someone that helps provide those spaces and curate spaces where people can connect and enjoy themselves. 

Heather Winchell: I love that. And actually, I would say that breakfast is especially one of those meals like a well made breakfast is definitely a connective meal that you want to have. 

Heather Winchell: And then what you said kind of brought up a couple of thoughts for me. The first is, I really appreciate that part of this for you was kind of assessing it. Thank you. Maybe real limitations, like the limitation of, where you can work because of unique considerations you have for your own health. But through that [00:03:00] limitation, there was actually an invitation and actually that was really clarifying for you as you sought to strike out into this venture, which is really cool.

Olivia Smith: Yeah. It's been, I think, surprising for a lot of people because I'm not coming with this like wild culinary background and can't wait to like express it through a food truck. But it has been more of a journey of other, like you said, limitations or passions that I have that have lent itself to this.

Olivia Smith: And I, you know, I love food and I love even through my health journey, I've had to limit a lot of things I can eat. And so it's given me a unique empathy for people that have to be selective or, can't enjoy meals with other people because of restrictions. And so it's given me. An interesting, take in building a food truck with not the heart being like, I'm coming from someone that has always wanted to be in the culinary world, but someone that has a passion for food and a passion for accommodating people with their restrictions, but then also [00:04:00] to some of the business entrepreneur side and vision for that space as well.

Heather Winchell: Yeah. Very cool. What did you teach in high school? I 

Olivia Smith: taught Bible. 

Heather Winchell: Cool. Cool. I know you kind of alluded to hoping to incorporate your love for high school students into your business in the future, but are you currently doing anything with high school students right now?

Olivia Smith: I'm not actually. Okay. This has taken, yeah, the fullness of my time, and so kind of a whole new season for me. 

Heather Winchell: Oh I can only imagine, Olivia, and you, you've done such a great job. I feel like, you know, on social, you always have really engaging content, and obviously I had an opportunity to stop in, like I said, at Sunny Stacks and try some of the pancakes, which were phenomenal.

Heather Winchell: And I know you're routinely putting out new Flavors and even new products. So I can imagine that has taken a lot of time. 

Olivia Smith: Yeah. It's been a lot of new growth, I think, in almost every aspect, marketing, finances, building a business and all the different facets that that is. It's all new to [00:05:00] me. So yeah, it's been hard work and, and a really good season of growth for me as well.

Heather Winchell: Yeah. Okay. So, so I am curious, you know, like I feel like. Most things, I don't know, projects around our house, whatever, most things my husband and I talk about, we're like, well, let's look it up on YouTube. Let's figure out how to do it. Did you, like, when you decided to start a food truck, because you weren't necessarily, you know, coming from a culinary background or from a food truck background, something like that, what resources did you have to kind of give you step by step guidance on how to do that?

Heather Winchell: Did you look up things on YouTube or, or did you have a friend that was able to help? Like, tell me about that process. 

Olivia Smith: Yeah, I mean, thankfully we live in a day and age that's full of so many resources, so I felt like I had a lot at my fingertips to learn the food truck world, the business world, and so I, I kind of went at it from a bunch of different facets, Specifically, so I started with books.

Olivia Smith: I got even I think one of the books name was like how to start a food truck 101. 

Heather Winchell: Oh, that's so great. I love that there's a [00:06:00] book called that. 

Olivia Smith: So I had read through that and that gave me great structure for just the basis of a food truck. Employees, menus, finances, licensing. What to expect just gave me a good framework with not a lot of background in it to know what to expect.

Olivia Smith: Then I ventured more into finding people that were living in the food truck world, either had their own food truck or building out food trucks, just were in it day to day. And I think that gave me a really good perspective of what to expect because everyone has a little bit different of experience, whether they're targeting.

Olivia Smith: Morning or nighttime, or if they're only catering or they just pop up, like there's so many different avenues you can go on a food truck, but there really are some common threads that you can pick up, of wisdom that people have figured out kind of some things to do and things not to do. And so that was helpful for me.

Olivia Smith: And then, I have some family, a lot of my dad's side of the family and my dad as well, are very [00:07:00] keen in the business world and entrepreneurs themselves. And so as they don't own food trucks and they're not in that world, they know the business side that helped me think through things and ask the questions that I may have overlooked.

Olivia Smith: And so it kind of was a culmination of a lot of people's. Wisdom, perspective, gifting, and information that I just tried to really gather and do my homework, and then execute it. And I think one thing I would say with that is to not fall into the other side of almost like analysis paralysis, where you feel like you have to gain all the information before you start, because there's so much out there and you almost have to do it to really know the questions to be asking in some of the, in some of the, pieces of the building of it.

Olivia Smith: So I think. It is going to take risk no matter what, and there is going to be unknown no matter what. You kind of just have to take the step at some point to execute it. But I do think doing your research and knowing the big steps up front is [00:08:00] important. 

Heather Winchell: Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. So why breakfast?

Heather Winchell: Were there any other types of food you considered? 

Olivia Smith: No, actually. There, it always started as breakfast and that's what ended up, happening with it. I love breakfast. I'm like you, I could eat breakfast at any point of the day. I also love that it mostly connects me with a morning crowd because I think in the day and age we live in, it's frantic, it's chaotic.

Olivia Smith: We're either trying to get kids out the door or to work on time with the to do list in our head. And sometimes It can not start off on the right tone or trajectory. And that is kind of the mission of sunny stacks. Why we added sunny into the name is we want it to be a place of. of light and connection and warmth that just kind of sets you up for your day in a positive way.

Olivia Smith: And so, we hope that as people stop either on their way to work or before whatever the rest of their day holds, that it can be a place they feel really seen and cared for and [00:09:00] Just joyful going into the rest of what they have for that day. 

Heather Winchell: I love that. And actually, you know, I was able to stop in and grab some of your pancakes in the summer at the beginning, at the start of the, the, a Saturday this summer.

Heather Winchell: And they were the peach, like I said, so amazing with fresh cream. 

Olivia Smith: Mm. 

Heather Winchell: So good. Thank you. 

Heather Winchell: How do you how do you come up with the flavors that you offer?

Olivia Smith: Yeah, this one is a large collaborative effort. I have to give a shout out to my aunt, actually. She lives in San Diego. She was one of my first calls when I started Sunny Stacks because she's a master gardener, a master cook, and baker. And just has like wonderful creativity in this realm. And so at first I just kind of wanted her wisdom on where she finds recipes or ideas on things that I could execute per season, and it has turned into just this, like, fun collaboration throughout.

Olivia Smith: She's been wonderful in terms of giving up her time and gifting, to pour into [00:10:00] this, and so now it's about, like, two months before each season releases each seasonal flavor. We are just going back and forth and back and forth with different recipes and ideas, and finally we'll land on two that we love.

Olivia Smith: And, that usually that's how those seasonal flavors come about. So I would say we have really aligned vision and what we want. We want it to be made from scratch. We want it to use as much produce that's seasonal as we can. So the peaches, like you said, were from either my family's tree or from a farm that we know of here in Colorado.

Olivia Smith: The passion fruit, she would ship me boxes of fresh passion fruit from her yard all the way from San Diego each week to help people learn about what a passion fruit looks like, the pulp that's inside, and just teach about that sauce. And then the apples that are in our bourbon apple pie, we handpicked all those on the western slope in Colorado.

Olivia Smith: So, everything is It's fresh. It's organic when we [00:11:00] can for the hopes that it is good fuel for people's day and not just making you sleepy an hour later. 

Heather Winchell: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I love the, the emphasis on, I mean, obviously, did you say San Diego? Yeah. Obviously San Diego isn't local, but it's, it's family, which is really fun, but I love that you're prioritizing using local vendors and local ingredients.

Heather Winchell: That's really cool. Thanks a lot. Do you have a flavor that has been far and above the favorite? 

Olivia Smith: Ooh, good question. Lemon, curd, and brown butter has been, I think, our fan favorite. We had it as one of our first flavors this last summer, and people still ask about it when it's coming back. So, we might make it a year round flavor, but, I think the perfect, it's the perfect combo of tart and salty.

Olivia Smith: And so, it just has paired really well with pancakes. 

Heather Winchell: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And I know that you guys, so I know that maybe pancakes was kind of one of your first offerings, but you guys are branching [00:12:00] out and you're starting to offer different types of options as well, right? 

Olivia Smith: Yes, we have. We just launched our Sunny Bowls, which are yogurt bowls.

Olivia Smith: They have yogurt, granola, and then they also incorporate our seasonal toppings. So you can get the bourbon apple pie or the pumpkin cream. And they've been wonderful for people that don't want a heavier breakfast, like pancakes. Something lighter, something maybe that seems a little bit healthier. , so they've been, yeah, really well received.

Heather Winchell: Cool. Do you have anything else that you're, you're hoping to launch in the coming year? 

Olivia Smith: That's a good question. I'm thinking through maybe a more savory pancake option instead of the more like fruity or sweet. I think sometimes when we do afternoon events, there are a lot of people that like breakfast all day long, but there are some people that like more of a Afternoon or dinner type meal once we get into those hours of the day and so learning how to bridge the gap between pancakes and maybe more of a dinner option while still incorporating breakfast foods, but just maybe not feeling [00:13:00] so, boxed in or like it's more of a dessert type pancake, but it can feel more like dinner. 

Heather Winchell: Sure. And I will say that when I had my pancakes, um, it did, there was an option to have that with a side of bacon. So you can get some savory with your, with your pancakes if you want.

Olivia Smith: Yes, very true. 

Heather Winchell: So what would you say, Olivia, has been the most surprising element of this venture? And then what unexpected challenges has it brought? 

Olivia Smith: Yeah, it's a good question. I I thought making pancakes on a food truck was going to be a total breeze. Like, it felt like an easy product, easy to pull off, not hard to cook.

Olivia Smith: Most five year olds at home can make their own pancakes. Like, it's not a hard product. But I think cooking in a food truck versus cooking at home is very different and not something that I took into consideration. So probably for the first month, figuring out how to cook pancakes on the [00:14:00] griddle was the hardest part of what we did.

Olivia Smith: And it's so funny looking back because most people would comment like, oh, it's not that hard to make pancakes, which they're right. But when you start adding the elements of wind coming through the windows and blowing out the fires or seasoning the griddle just right so they don't stick, like there's a lot of factors that actually came into making pancakes.

Olivia Smith: yummy and edible and not sticking to the griddle or not, not cooking. So, it, I feel like looking back, it's hilarious because Of how hard it was and it was so unexpected, but now I feel like we're in a good rhythm of we know how to accommodate the drafts that come through the serving windows and, how to take care of the griddle properly so that it performs properly, but definitely unexpected and definitely a challenge.

Heather Winchell: Oh, I can imagine. Yeah, and what about like an unexpected blessing? Has there anything that surprised you in that way? 

Olivia Smith: Yes, I think one people have [00:15:00] said, like, the feedback we've received is this is the best pancake they've ever eaten, so it's fun to hear that when, we do try to accommodate allergens, so it's not just your run of the mill pancake, we actually make gluten free pancakes, so, oftentimes, we do.

Olivia Smith: wonder how people that aren't gluten free will receive it, but it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience and feedback from people. So that's been really fun to see, just to be able to accommodate everyone so they can all enjoy breakfast, but also have a flavor and, a quality that people enjoy.

Heather Winchell: Great. Great. So it is a lot of hard work to bring a creative idea to fruition. We've already kind of like talked about that. What encouragement would you want to give to others that might be sitting on a creative idea that they want to bring forward? 

Olivia Smith: My encouragement would be, don't be afraid of hard work.

Olivia Smith: We live in a culture that has. try to encourage, like, how do I do the least amount of work to make the most [00:16:00] amount of money or be the happiest person? And I think hard work can actually be a really beautiful thing.

Olivia Smith: And I don't mean working yourself into the ground and not having any sort of balance because I do believe in that. But I think To bring about anything that's going to bring growth, something that you're proud of, something that you get, like almost reflect some of you in it, it takes hard work and. I think what happens when we carry out those dreams and actually execute the dreams we have inside of us, there's so much refinement growth that happens inside of us.

Olivia Smith: Like for myself, I had never hitched a truck to a trailer and I've never like done that sort of manual labor in my life. And I remember pulling up to the place that I had built out our trailer for the first time being so wide eyed. Like I'm looking at the 16 foot trailer That's full of cooking equipment.

Olivia Smith: Like, all right, this is my new life and I have to learn how to do this. And my parents, I think kind of saw my facial expressions and wanted to [00:17:00] reassure me of like, Olivia, now that this is your normal, you're going to be doing it a lot. This will become normal to you. It's going to be something that you grow into.

Olivia Smith: And I remember just kind of holding onto that because I felt a lot of nerves, a lot of wondering of like, was this the right thing to do? And I can still vividly remember myself driving. the trailer up to Fort Collins from Denver for the first time. Like, white knuckled on the steering wheel, going through all the Denver traffic, so nervous.

Olivia Smith: I think I took like four breaths the whole time throughout my travels. And just feeling like, oh my goodness, this is such a big step for me to learn and to really embrace. But, like, all the beauty that has come from doing the hard thing. Learning all these different things I would have never known how to do six months ago has brought about such a cool new way of life, new things in me, new passions that I didn't even know I had before, and just moments [00:18:00] of really life giving, I would say really life giving moments that have taught me I can do hard things and I can, I can grow and really incredible ways if I allow myself to do the hard work.

Olivia Smith: And, and that's a rewarding thing to look back on. So yeah, I would encourage you to do the hard work. And, and in order to do that, just break it into small pieces. Like instead of just looking at the mountain that's ahead of you, like find yourself. in a place where you can break it up into bite sized pieces to actually carry it out.

Olivia Smith: Because if it just remains this idea or big mountain in front of you, I feel like that's what hinders us from really being able to take this step. 

Heather Winchell: Yeah, I think that that's really helpful feedback. And it just, I appreciate that you're also acknowledging that just because something is difficult or, or disruptive doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong or.

Heather Winchell: that there's a problem, you're just going to come up on those things. And I think that's another element of our [00:19:00] current cultural moment is that because there's so much content teaching you how to do things and pushing you into a formula for starting your own business, starting your own podcast, increasing your social media following, like all these things that I think that when people really step into those ventures.

Heather Winchell: And come up on opposition, they assume they've done something wrong because somebody's telling them exactly what to do. Right? But the real life doesn't work like that. And I think as you pointed out, the disruptions, the difficulties, those things that kind of make it hard are what internalize growth and develop character and, and really build resiliency, which is really important if you're going to have your own business.

Olivia Smith: Yes. 

Heather Winchell: You know? And 

Olivia Smith: really, if you're just going to walk. In this world, there's so many difficulties you're going to come up against. And I think the more we can exercise those muscles inside of us of [00:20:00] doing the hard things and persevering through challenging times or things that feel like they're pushing back on us, that's what strengthens. Us for really any moment in time or any moments in our life that do feel difficult. And so to me, I think that's part of this venture is pushing back on some of that narrative of just the ease we want to promote in American culture. But being a resilient people that can do hard things and really grow into a more beautiful person because of it.

Heather Winchell: Yeah. Well, Olivia, I like to close out my conversations with some fun questions. So I have a few fun questions for you. Okay. What is the best food truck offering you have ever tasted? And we'll just say SunnyStack's not included, so you don't even have to like go through the dilemma of that, but. 

Olivia Smith: I think I actually hadn't eaten at too many food trucks beforehand, but we used to have Maggie's Tacos right by our work and I used to love their tacos.

Heather Winchell: They have some good tacos. Yes, Maggie's taco truck is a Fort Collins. I [00:21:00] think it's Fort Collins. Maybe it's northern Colorado, but and I don't know if they have a social media, but it is very good. I can agree. So good. What song could you play on repeat this season?

Olivia Smith: That is a difficult question to answer and I'm going to answer playlist because I curated a country slash some Ben Rector, Johnny Swim, a bunch of like fun light music that's a vending playlist. And I love to cook to it too. It's like, it just feels happy. It feels like it lifts up my mood in the day. And I have it on pretty much repeat throughout my days.

Heather Winchell: You know, Ben Rector is one of our, like, family favorites. For one of my sons, his first concert was Ben Rector. And then sadly Olivia, we were going to take the rest of our sons to a Ben Rector concert. Except for the two year old because, you know, and we got to Denver.

Heather Winchell: We did our normal pizza before the concert. And then while we were eating pizza, we realized, the concert night was the day before. No. Yeah. [00:22:00] That's terrible. It was so terrible. In any other concert, it might've been more palatable, but missing Ben Rector. And it was Ben Rector with the symphony. Oh, so it was like, I know.

Heather Winchell: So anyways, suffice it to say, we are big Ben Rector fans. So a hundred percent on that playlist. Okay. What is the seasonal decor item that you can't get enough of? 

Olivia Smith: Mine has been fresh flowers. We're at the farmer's market a ton these days, vending, and we always get little vases of fresh flowers, and so they're not only on the truck, but they come home with me, and they just brighten up my kitchen, and I have genuinely enjoyed them all summer long.

Heather Winchell: That's really fun, and actually, I've asked this question maybe to a few of my prior guests, and I believe most of them have said flowers in one form or another. Really? Yeah, which is really cool. Yeah. What are three things that bring delight in this season? Sunshine, not 

Olivia Smith: packing my trailer in cold, when I can hitch my [00:23:00] trailer to my truck without a backup camera is like my proud moments these days.

Olivia Smith: Yeah I really loved the diversity of people I get to meet. Every event is so different and we interact with just so many different businesses, the community at farmers markets, different places like that, schools. And so I would never have exposure to people like that around our city without this job. , normally I'm just in one team and that's kind of who I stick with in any sort of career. So that has been such a delight to meet so many different people from different walks of life and just get to appreciate other people's stories. 

Heather Winchell: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess I would love to ask and let you speak to where can people find out more like if people wanted to book you for something or just kind of watch the the fun unfold online, where would they go?

Olivia Smith: You can find us on really any social media, Facebook and Instagram at SunnyStacksPancakes. And then we also have a website, SunnyStacksPancakes. com. And that's where you can [00:24:00] also book as well. We do any sort of staff appreciations, back to school nights, things like that. 

Heather Winchell: Okay, cool. Yeah. All right. And then, so my last question for you is, you know, I would love to invite you to give your own shout out.

Heather Winchell: Who would you want to say thanks for doing that to and why? 

Olivia Smith: Oh man, there's a long list, but I'll narrow it to three. Okay. First are my parents. They have been. So supportive in this journey, anywhere from drawing sunny stacks in the trailer on napkins to kind of get the design at the very beginning, all the way to being in each of the events with me serving so selflessly.

Olivia Smith: So I feel super thankful for them and what they've been able to give. Um, the other one is my aunt who's partnered with me in more of the food realm of things. It's been a delight to work with her and she's also someone that's given so selflessly. And her gift is being appreciated all the way here in Northern Colorado.

Olivia Smith: So, thankful for her, um, and just the time that she's invested into Sunny Stacks and helping it be successful. [00:25:00] 

Heather Winchell: I love that. Alright, well, I end every show by presenting you with a haiku that I've written to you. And it's really just a way that I try to capture why I wanted to have you on the show and to show my appreciation for the thing that you're doing.

Heather Winchell: So, I'll read that to you now. 

A friendly food truck. Breakfast is served with a smile. Thanks for doing that.

Heather Winchell: Ah, thank you, Heather. 

Olivia Smith: What a joy to be with you this morning. 

Heather Winchell: Yeah, and thank you to you as well, Olivia. And have a great day.