Good Neighbor Podcast: TN-WNC-SWVA

EP# 355: From Food Truck To Weddings: How Ciao Y’all Elevates Event Dining

• Skip Mauney & Macdaniel Cooper • Episode 355

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What if your wedding meal didn’t just “do the job,” but became the part guests talk about for years? We sit down with Mac Cooper, owner of Ciao Y’all Catering, to unpack how a former Asheville food truck turned into a go‑to events team by elevating flavor, discipline, and hospitality. The secret isn’t flash—it’s a calm, methodical prep cadence that starts on Tuesday and lands flawless plates amid tight timelines, long drives, and no‑signal venues.

Mac opens the kitchen doors on a thoughtful Southern‑Italian approach that pairs comfort with craft: brisket and smoked pork that perfume the room, fried green tomato salads that pop with acid, and pastas engineered to feed big groups without draining the budget. We dig into why event food often disappoints, how to keep it hot and vibrant onsite, and smart ways to design menus that travel well. If you care about cost control without compromising taste, you’ll hear practical ideas you can act on, from format choices to vendor coordination.

Beyond menus and logistics, Mac shares a personal story of grit—navigating a graduate program shutdown and single parenthood—that sharpened his belief in patience, quality, and love as operating principles. That philosophy shapes everything from staffing and server briefs to lead generation through WeddingWire, The Knot, Google, Facebook, and Spothopper. Whether you’re planning a wedding, running a catering team, or just love great food, this conversation offers a playbook for turning “good enough” into memorable.

Enjoy the story? Follow the show, share it with a friend who’s planning a big event, and leave a quick review to help more neighbors discover it.

SPEAKER_00:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Marty.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, everybody, and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. So I am very excited today to have a uh guest in our studio for the first time, and I'm excited to learn all about them and their business, and I'm sure you will be as well, because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Mr. McDaniel Cooper, who is the owner operator of Chow Y'all Catering. McDaniel, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Skip. That's actually my dad's name.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, okay. You go by Mac?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, Skip is my dad's name. Oh, Skip is your dad's name. Well, my name's actually Paul, but my dad, my dad called me Skip his whole life. So same.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Very cool. Well, like I said, we're very excited to learn all about you and your business. So why don't you kick us off by telling us about Chow Y'all catering?

SPEAKER_02:

So we started in Asheville as a food truck about eight years ago and kind of figured everything out food truck-wise and menu-wise right around the end of 2019. So then, of course, the entire world ended for a little while. So when we came back out of the pandemic, we started doing events and it just clicked with me. I liked it more. So for the last three or four years, exclusively been doing uh large catering events, weddings, birth parties. Uh, we do holiday parties for manufacturing plants, all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

You started out with a food truck, but how did you get into the food business in the beginning?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, um, my first job in a kitchen was actually in Johnson City at El Chico. I was 18 uh and I was a line cook, and then I continued to work in kitchens while I went to college, and then uh I opened my first catering company in California. It was called Brothers Pantry, and we were doing Southern food in Northern California, so we had a little bit of a niche. And then when I finished graduate school, I moved back here thinking I was gonna work in an office, and that lasted about three months in an office before we started the food truck.

SPEAKER_01:

I understand. I totally get it, man. Totally get it. Well, what are some in the in the catering business, uh McDonald, what what are some uh McDaniel, what are some miss or mix misconceptions in your industry?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, like the industry right now is kind of frustrating for me. So we like to do things a little differently. I feel like I think everybody has gone to an event and the food is not very good. I think that's almost almost like the rule at weddings. And so um what we try to do really is focus on the food and and getting it there as fresh as possible and making sure that everything still tastes the way it would if you came in and ate it at a restaurant. And we try to do that at a really even price point. Um, I think that it's gotten so expensive that a lot of people just can't afford to like have a caterer at their wedding. And um, you know, I I don't think that's right. Um, the industry's just kind of bloated. Um a lot of people think, yeah, a lot of people think that, you know, it's crazy and fast paced all the time, but catering is actually all about prep and control. So it, you know, it's usually we're the calmest person at an event, which is nice, versus working in a kitchen where everyone's yelling at each other all the time. We just have a good time, which is really nice. It's a it's a very different vibe.

SPEAKER_01:

Definitely, definitely. That's a misconception because I would think the same thing. I think you'd be frantic. But yeah, no.

SPEAKER_02:

No, it's all it's everything's planned out. You know, we start our day on Tuesday, and then we're to finish, you know, Sunday night. So our week. So, you know, we're in there every day making sure that everything is is just right. And then day of, it's just like we're heating food, we're getting all the that's when all the servers come in. That's a little hectic for like a half hour, letting them know what we've been working on all week. And then, you know, it's on the way to the event. And we travel up to two hours, so everything has to be perfect because you leave, you go out to the middle of nowhere, phones don't work. Um, there's no store other than maybe a dollar store within a half hour. And so if everything's not ready to go, then it falls apart.

SPEAKER_01:

So gotcha. Well, I understand that. Now, who are your target customers? You mentioned weddings. Is that primarily what you're targeting?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think we did 80 weddings this year. Um, so um, I like to work with couples of all ages and ethnicities. We do all sorts of different food. Uh, primarily uh what we do the most of is is kind of like our version of Italian food, which is just Italian with a little southern twist. Um, you know, we make brisket and we we smoke pork butts and um fried green tomato salads and stuff like that, but a lot of really traditional traditional Italian stuff and pasta is cost effective when you want to feed a lot of people and it fills people up. So um I would say, you know, anybody really that wants to have an event where the food is really like center, that would be my target audience.

SPEAKER_01:

Very good. And how do you reach them? How do you market yourself?

SPEAKER_02:

So we use we have our website, obviously Google Ads, um Facebook. We're in, you know, the the woman, my my partner Elizabeth, that does the social media, she's constantly in there posting, getting out our name. And then uh WeddingWire, uh, which is a company called Wedding Pro. They run the knot and a couple other things. They they provide a lot of our leads. And then Spothopper, which is um a local, uh, well, not they're not local, but my rep is local. It's it's a company that builds websites and helps with the algorithms and everything, getting your name out and then taking leads and processing them. So um it comes in from forever from everywhere. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, very good. Well, it sounds like you're you got a lot going on uh with your business. When you're not working, what do you like to do for fun?

SPEAKER_02:

So Sugar Mountain opened today, and I will be downhill skiing as soon as I can. We have one wedding left this year before things slow down, and then it'll be holiday parties and stuff. Um, so me and my daughter will be skiing. Um I play music and write and um just constantly learning. Um a lot of a lot of my downtime is cooking, um, but there's always a week where I pretty much just eat takeout before I can like get back into that creative mode and use that downtime to like we're gonna make these recipes even better next year and we're gonna add different stuff and we're gonna continue to grow.

SPEAKER_01:

Very cool. Very cool. You gotta take a break sometime, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, no, I mean, I my December is my time and and I like it. And then you know, we get in January and it's time to go back and figure it out.

SPEAKER_01:

Very good. Well, let's switch gears for just a second. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome and and how it made you stronger in the end, either professionally or personally? Anything come to mind?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Where do I start?

SPEAKER_02:

Um I guess, you know, um when I was when I was living in California going to graduate school, um my uh my daughter was about two and a half, and and her mom left, and it was it was just me and her for a while. And um I did all this work to get into graduate school. And uh about a month before I was supposed to start, the the dean called me in and let me know that they were discontinuing the program. And they would no longer offer a master's in business there for at least one year while they retooled the program. And this is after a lot of work that went into you know taking free recs. And at the time, California had shut down the universities so that you couldn't take classes if you weren't degree seeking. So um it was a blow and it and it and it killed me. And um, and I kind of like sucked it up and I went home and I went back in there the next day and I said, You guys are gonna get me into another gram at another school. And I worked with them and and and I ended up graduating the exact same time I would have if I'd been the original program. And and it just it it really it really showed me that anytime that you feel like a door is closing, it might just be pushing you in the right direction because the program I ended up getting into was more modernized, it was more flexible with my time. I had more time to give to my daughter and to the catering company that we had at the time. And um, and it just kind of fit better. And so now when I find myself, you know, stuck, I just I look for the reasoning behind it. I look for the lesson in anything that happens to me. I feel like maybe everything doesn't happen for a reason, but you can find a reasoning behind everything that happens.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I I couldn't agree more. Well, if um thank you for that. Uh so uh McDaniel, if um if you could think of one thing that you'd like our listeners to remember about Chao Y'all catering, what would it be? The one thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh man, good quality work done well, patiently with love.

SPEAKER_01:

Patiently with love. Awesome. Couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_02:

And it's the barbecue nose.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and I'm from North Carolina, so I've had some good barbecue in my time. Yeah, yeah. Um, so uh for those of us uh listeners, viewers that are uh intrigued, have an event coming up, need a caterer, and are interested in learning more, how can they do that?

SPEAKER_02:

So our website is www.chowyallcatering.com, and that's chow spelled C-I-A-O, like the Italian word for hello. Um, y'all spelled just like we say it, just no apostrophe. Um, also Facebook, Instagram, it's all chow y'all catering. Um, and then you can email me directly at uh Mac at chow y'allcatering.com.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, very good. We'll definitely check that out. And uh McDaniel can't tell you how much I appreciate you uh taking time out of your busy schedule uh to be with us on the show. And we wish you absolutely we wish you and Chow Y'all uh all the best moving forward. Thanks, Kip. Hopefully we can uh have you back sometime.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'd love that.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, sounds good. See you soon. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP Tri Dash Cities.com. That's GNP Tri Dash Cities dot com or call four two three seven one nine five eight seven three.