FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #53 The Burger Bosses of Fredericksburg: Meet James and Catie Wine
From government contractor to burger specialist, James Wine and his wife Catie have created something special in Fredericksburg's food scene. Their passion project, Smashed Life, has grown from a food truck into a soon-to-open brick-and-mortar restaurant while maintaining the quality and community focus that made them local favorites.
What makes a great smash burger? According to the Wines, it's not just technique but heart. Despite neither having formal food industry backgrounds—James works in facilities management while Catie coaches travel soccer—they've built a reputation for exceptional burgers complemented by house-made sauces that have customers begging for bottled versions. Their signature "smash sauce" pairs perfectly with Catie's homemade ranch to create what regulars affectionately call "smanch."
The journey hasn't been smooth. From electrical failures that nearly derailed their first event to the challenges of balancing full-time careers with entrepreneurship, the Wines have persevered through determination and community support. They've given back by sponsoring youth sports, participating in fundraisers for causes like cystic fibrosis and autism, and creating special promotions that benefit local schools.
Now permanently located at Maltese Brewing Company's Bowman Center, Smashed Life is preparing to evolve into Smashed Life Grill by Christmas. The expansion will allow them to grow their menu beyond their famous bacon cheeseburgers and brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies to include wings and other pub favorites that complement their partnership with Maltese.
Want to experience what makes Smashed Life special? Visit them at Maltese Brewing, follow them on social media for promotions like Ten Tuesdays and dollar fry Wednesdays, or check out smashed-life.com to learn more about the couple turning passion into delicious reality in Fredericksburg.
James and Catie Wine
Smashed Life
smashed-life.com
jamescatiellc@gmail.com
+1 540-645-2803
Partlow, VA, United States, Virginia
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. I'm excited to introduce you to my guests. Today we have James and Catie Wine with Smashed Life. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 4:Thanks.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm excited to dive into this and learn more about you and your business. So let's start there. Please share with the listeners a little bit about Smashed Life.
Speaker 3:So Smashed Life is a Smashed Burger food truck. Currently we are permanently parked in the Bowman Center at Maltese Brewing, where we will soon I say soon, but with permits and construction it takes time We'll be opening up our permanent location at actual brick and mortar restaurant, which we intend to call Smashed Life Grill, hopefully by Christmas. That will be a great Christmas present, but yeah, that's kind of who we are.
Speaker 2:Well, that's really exciting. Congratulations. That's a really big step and I know a lot of work. So tell me the backstory. I'd love to hear a little bit about your background and how you got to this big milestone.
Speaker 3:So the crazy thing is is neither one of us are in the food industry from the very beginning. We both still hold down full-time jobs. I do facilities, my wife is a travel soccer coach as well as might as well manage the club with all the things she does, but we both have a passion for food. But we both have a passion for food. We both have a passion for people. Um, and I wanted to get into my own business. I. I've been a government contractor for 29 years and I wanted to find a way to put something that we enjoy into a business that we can move on and and some I I really I can't remember the first thing that grabbed me with the food truck, but I'm pretty good at cooking and I love food obviously.
Speaker 3:And so we found the food truck, my wife actually the truck we found she's the one. I looked at a dozen of them and finally she said just buy this darn truck and get done. So that's, that's where the truck started. That was in November, in November of 2022, when we first purchased the truck.
Speaker 2:Excellent, excellent. So I was doing my due diligence and doing a little bit of research and I saw that you do a lot to give back to the community. Talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:So, we well, actually, I guess, really the start of it we my wife was. She was a soccer coach at Spotsy Vina High School and that got her involved in the booster club where the booster club they would serve food for the games and things like that for them to raise money for the teams. So that got me involved in that. Then I became the president of the booster club.
Speaker 4:And so he was. He was voluntold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, voluntold, I love it.
Speaker 3:We got to. You know, we were slinging burgers for the football games, the soccer games, the baseball games, and I think that's really where my my passion for just serving people, food turned into an idea and that's where kind of where we went. Now we also do, we do we love to do, like we're going to do a coming up soon, a car show that's for cystic fibrosis. We have a car show for autism. We have a car show for toys for tots. We have, we really anything we can do to kind of give back, and we've done plenty of school fundraisers for, like, we just had to miss some of them because we're part permanent now, where we do, you know, back to school night, where we would give 10% back to the schools as a donation and things like that. We've done that in the past.
Speaker 4:We've also given donations out to like my soccer club that I work for. We actually sponsored their academy season, all their shirts, so that the kids it was an offset, the price for those kids so they could play without you know an expense amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. So if someone listening has never visited your food truck before, what would you suggest they order?
Speaker 4:a bacon cheeseburger and fries yeah, I think our bacon cheeseburgers are number one seller. It's um, you know our food isn't fancy but it is good. You know we make a basic product but it is slightly elevated. My husband came up with an amazing sauce. It's called our smash sauce. We've got a lot of people that love to you. We actually serve it as a side as well. So if you get onion rings or fries, we like to dip it. You know, that's kind of one of the things that sets us apart is we do make all of our sauces except for mayonnaise and ketchup. Obviously we're not doing that. But you know, we make Dijon aioli, we make sriracha mayo, we make a ton of our smash, our homemade ranch, all of those things that kind of. Just take that you know basic burger and not make it so basic anymore. The smashed technique is, I think, one of the best burgers you'll have. You know, my first time eating a smash burger was my husband. He went out.
Speaker 1:He went out to the grill and product development and we were sold.
Speaker 4:That was we. We were pretty amazed it was. It was love at first bite, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Nice, you'll have to eventually bottle up your sauce and sell it. We've been asked multiple times.
Speaker 3:It's getting to be that way. With the ranch, my wife came up with the recipe for the ranch, so they're kind of going neck and neck between that smash burger sauce and then the ranch as well.
Speaker 4:Well, we, I like to mix them, I like to do the smash sauce and the ranch and I call it smanch, and it's very, very good. It's delicious, very good, yes.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. So do you find that there are any misconceptions, either about your business or about the industry?
Speaker 3:So one, I think one people don't really have an understanding of how much work goes into this, how much passion goes into this. It would be so much easier to not do this type of business. This is a hard start. We're being successful because we're passionate and we come from a humble background where we work hard for everything we have. Hard work will always pay off. And then also the misconception, I think, is that it's cheap food. You see my grocery bill. There's nothing cheap about it, I mean ground beef is not expensive.
Speaker 4:So yeah it's. I think another misconception is we just show up and you know, we just cook, there's a lot of prep that goes behind the scenes.
Speaker 4:The other misconception is you know the people behind the truck that are here just to give you a burger. We have a great staff, our staff most of us have been. Our family has helped us along the way, but we have some. We have a very good staff. We're really blessed to have them. We have one that's two full time, our son is full time, and then we have another, t, that's two full full-time. Um, our son is full-time. And then we have another, tisha, is also full-time. Um, just hoping to, you know, elevate them, to give them, you know, the uh, what is the word?
Speaker 4:I'm looking for the ability to do it on their own, I mean, and for us to get off the truck a little bit and we're getting to that transition moment now where we're getting off the truck per se challenging when you're a control freak and you don't want to. But misconception that it's easy. It's not. It is definitely. You have to have a love for what you're doing, and we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and so what advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a food truck?
Speaker 3:It's going to be more expensive than you think, it's going to take longer than you think. The process with a permanent in the health department is tough, but it's worth it. Don't be one of the guys or girls that goes in and just does it and gets away with not doing the right thing, and there's never a perfect time to start. I don't care if it's a food truck or anything. When it comes to small business, sometimes you just got to say go for it and just jump right in both feet.
Speaker 4:We've had some hard starts to our first, our first ever event that we booked and we were prepped for. We had a major electrical issue with the truck and fried all of the electrical in our truck. So just to say that was a tough day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was sitting in the truck with my head on the steering wheel, almost in tears thinking is this After two years later, though, two years later here we are.
Speaker 2:So he persevered Correct.
Speaker 4:Yes, I think that is definitely the key is just don't give up, keep going. There are going to be days where you don't make the money. There are going to be days that you do really well.
Speaker 2:Great advice, great advice. So you two both have you know another, another career. You're doing this. You're starting a restaurant. You have children. Clearly you are so busy. So tell me, when you're not working, what are you doing for fun? I need to know.
Speaker 4:That was a funny question, because when I brought it up. I asked we were looking over the questions and he goes Don't even ask, don't even talk to me. We do. I mean it is listen. It is a bit of a sacrifice right now. We do find the time we are off Mondays. We do choose to still work on some of the stuff, like some behind the scenes on Mondays.
Speaker 4:But we are right, we are we are getting to the point where, like I said, we're empowering our employees so that we are getting off the truck a bit more, but a little bit about ourselves. When we can, we love to vacation. We've been on a couple cruises recently. I think we have a Europe or a Hawaii trip, hopefully in the future, like I think those are the things that keep us going. We also have a kid one more, left in high school and she's getting ready to go to college next year. So I think enjoying the time that we have with her while she's still with us is important to us. Although she's a grumpy teenager, we still try to force those moments with her.
Speaker 2:So nice, nice, it's nice to get out of town. I hear from a lot of business owners that that is. The only way to really unplug is to actually leave down and not bring your laptop with you.
Speaker 4:I think, right with you. You are, yes, you're tempted to, just why I'm just sitting here.
Speaker 1:I might as well do the work.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, you really want to disconnect. You got to leave it behind. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:About getting out of town Absolutely. It's amazing when you're in the service industry how many people that well, hey how are you and? You don't even, not that you don't remember them, but you know it's a yeah. Getting out of town is nice. You know a thousand strangers, it's kind of nice.
Speaker 4:Sounds lovely and we and we're getting served not being right.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, I love it.
Speaker 3:I love it, please, yeah so what is something that you wish the listeners knew about?
Speaker 4:smashed life oh boy, there's a ton of things. Um, I don't well. So I think the biggest thing is that I said we're not reinventing the hamburger or the smash burger. We're just doing, we're just. You know it's, it's good food, it's not, it's not a gourmet burger, but it is a good burger. And so I think that people don't know about us is that we really do want to do this to make a good experience for them. We're partnered with Maltese Brewing Company. They, you know, have their own mission and that is to you know they have a whole. All of them are retired or working firemen, so their cause is kind of neat. We're partnering with them, we bring them customers, they bring us customers and it definitely, you know, know, that combo is really really cool and an awesome partnership with them.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, it's just. Uh, we truly have. Like my wife said is we're not just trying to serve you food, we want you to have experience. Every customer that comes to the window, we want to walk away with a smile. If they had a bad day, I want to put a smile on their face. I and I. I don't shut up, I can't stop talking, even if I'm cooking on a grill I'm yelling.
Speaker 2:I'm yelling over my shoulders, nice I love that.
Speaker 3:So if the listeners want to connect with you, they can come visit you by maltese or share with us uh your contact information so we're on facebook, instagram, instagram, tiktok obviously all the big socials and also we have our website, which is smashed hyphen or smashed dash life.
Speaker 2:I'll put the URL in the show notes.
Speaker 3:I just had a brain.
Speaker 4:You know again, you know being business owners. There's little things like that that you feel like that's in your memory but it's not smashed dash, life. com.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 2:Perfect, perfect, yeah yeah, email it to us. Sorry, but it's not smashed-lifecom. There you go, perfect, I know the urls.
Speaker 4:Go daddy, yeah, yeah email address sorry no worries, no worries yeah, and we also do a lot on social media, like tuesdays, we do 10 tuesdays. Come on on tuesday you get 10 off.
Speaker 3:Uh, we try to do specials um we do like dollar fries french on wednesdays you buy a burger, you get a french fry for free, or a dollar we also highlight a burger.
Speaker 4:Like our highlighted burger for the summer was a hawaiian smash and that's been a big hit. We're looking to do a pretzel burger soon and partner with some beer cheese from maltese. So we're excited to do that like we just want to, you know, bring something kind of unique and special. We also do some, some great desserts we have. Our special dessert is our brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies and they are. I can't keep them, I can't make enough of them. So people are and we're going to put some new ones on the menu as well. But we can't wait to get in the restaurant where we can expand our menu. Wings are definitely, because that's one of my favorite foods.
Speaker 3:Give me some hot wings. Hot wings, I'm a burger.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're looking to expand our menu. Definitely do more bar foods. That would complement Maltese.
Speaker 2:Amazing, amazing. Well, thank you both for joining me on the podcast today. When the restaurant opens up, I'd love to invite you back so we can talk all about that, but I appreciate you sharing Smashed Life with us.
Speaker 4:Thank, you so?
Speaker 1:much Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to fxbgneighborspodcast. com.