Six Peas Offers Delicious Catering For Any Event

Kevin Morris explained that one catalyst that prompted him to expand Six Peas Catering is the growing number of venues in Water Valley. The list includes the Simmons House Historic Venue and Inn, The Hendricks Building, Colonel’s Landing, Fountain Square and others.
“There is a need for catering, and the number of venues really helped me push to move forward with it,“ Morris explained.

WATER VALLEY – Chances are during the last few months you have already heard about Six Peas Catering and the almost weekly pop-up menu as owner Kevin Morris serves customers in Water Valley. Although Morris launched the small catering business over three years ago after moving back home from Texas, he made a hefty investment with the purchase of a 30-foot custom food trailer earlier this summer to expand.
Years of planning and over a decade of culinary experience in the catering business fueled the purchase and Morris took delivery of the trailer in May, three months into a global pandemic that gripped the nation, crippled restaurants and shut down social gatherings. He had special ordered the trailer equipped with a high-end commercial kitchen months earlier, before coronavirus was a household word.
“It was one of the scariest moments of my life,” Morris told the Herald. “I had just dropped what people are scared to spend on a house. I put over 60 years of Morris’ blood, sweat and tears on the line,” he explained about securing the loan.
To understand this investment, we have to backtrack to 2007 when Morris moved to Texas to attend the Culinary Arts Program at the Art Institute of Houston. Early in the two-year program, he also started looking for a job in the food industry to provide valuable experience he would need to accompany his culinary training. It was that experience, or lack thereof, that initially plagued him as restaurant after restaurant turned him down.
“Finally I went to a catering company that did my cousin’s wedding,” Morris explained. He even offered to work for free if they would give him an opportunity.
“I did a month for free. The chef saw that I had the drive and took me under his wing,” Morris continued. He started as a pantry guy with basic responsibilities. As time passed he started helping with the plate-ups, which require intense organization for events as crews would do a complete kitchen build out to prepare to serve 200 to 500 people each night in different venues. Ironically those rejections when he looked for jobs in restaurants would ultimately help steer his career into catering.
Years later he would serve as general manager of that same business that first hired him, Abuso Catering, Co., but that was before his decade-long journey that also included stints with other catering companies in a variety of roles ranging from sous-chef, head chef, executive chef and even general manager. The events ranged from serving a couple dozen patrons to 2,000 for an annual thanksgiving meal a large corporation provided for employees. His work experience also includes serving VIPs as he recalled working as the personal chef for Shell’s former CEO.
“Not every day, but I would go to her house when she had friends over or wanted to impress clients,” Morris explained.
That same drive the chef recognized when he gave Morris his first job in the food industry ultimately brought him success in Houston in the years after he graduated from the culinary school. That drive pushed him to work 100-plus hours a week as he learned as much as he could about the business and culinary arts and he was earning a nice, six-digit salary. His wife, Rebecca, was also working in the food industry and typically logged a 60-hour work week. But there was a downside, they had an 18-month old toddler who was going to daycare 12 hours a day.
“I asked her, do you still want to do this?” Morris recalled about a conversation back in 2017 with his wife. “Is having the big jobs worth not seeing our kid?” Morris continued.
“We had it going on, but it was not what we wanted,” Morris added.

From Water Valley To Houston And Back
Morris moved to Houston two years after graduating from Water Valley High School in 2005. He first worked with his father, Donald Morris, in the concrete business until his dermatologist warned him that a career outdoors could come with at a cost.
“He asked me, ‘son do you want to put my kids through college?’” Morris recalled about one of his repeat trips to his dermatologist. It was during that trip that he was warned that if he continued to work outside for 10 and 12 hour days, he would have some serious skin problems that could ultimately lead to cancer.
After talking to friends and family, Morris decided to pursue a long-time passion to become a chef. It was a quick decision, only two weeks had passed since that warning from his dermatologist when he signed up for the Culinary Arts Program at Houston as the registration deadline was looming. But he explained it was an easy decision,  his interest in cooking dated back to when he was 10 or younger. He initially helped his dad in the kitchen as early as eight, and even started preparing meals when his dad would work late. By the time he was 11, he recalled becoming more passionate about food as he would learn and try different dishes.
“It was an early passion, but it really pushed me into a career,” Morris added.
Following that husband-wife conversation about the hectic work schedule, Morris pitched the idea to move back to his hometown where they would have support from a close-knit family and friends.  Within months they packed up and came to Water Valley.
Back home Morris launched Six Peas Catering, doing small catering jobs while he worked in area restaurants and other jobs.  But that old drive was still there, he had been trained by some of the best in the industry to provide top quality cuisine for any occasion. After carefully crunching numbers, he decided that expanding his catering company made sense, business-wise, as his overhead would be a quarter of the cost of operating a traditional store-front restaurant. His motivation for catering also stems from a strong desire to provide a unique dining experience for each event, a custom menu and unique presentation that changes with each occasion.
“If I was at a restaurant, I would probably be working at the same station every night for years, doing the same couple of dishes. I had a little bit of experience doing that and I figured out I didn’t want to do that,” Morris noted.

From an eight-person dinner party prepared at your home to a catering job serving hundreds from his new food truck (above), Kevin Morris with Six Peas Catering can accommodate many different events. Morris reported his trailer includes a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen larger than many commercial kitchens in area restaurants.

Turning COVID Into A Success
Two Fridays ago, Morris and his crew  served over 200 entrées with their Creole-Cajun pop-up menu. The weekly pop-ups were an idea to generate revenue for his new investment. But more importantly for Morris, they introduce customers to the vast array of dishes he can offer.
“Covid has actually helped us grow, helped us accomplish things we thought we could never do. With a lot of restaurants not seating people, especially earlier this summer, we had an opportunity to step up and serve on Friday nights,” Morris explained. “If Covid had not happened, I probably would not have been serving as many Friday nights, we probably would have been doing smaller catering events.”
Since June, the pop-up menu has been diverse and the number of people he serves averages 130 to 150. Steak night, Italian night, wing night, fish and shrimp – his goal is for people to understand the range of dishes he can prepare.
“With the ability to do pop-up dinners, I have the option to show people different stuff that I can do. I have something that I can showcase each week, something different so people don’t think I serve just one main dish,” Morris continues.  “They are starting to understand our menu on Facebook. My main goal is to get into weddings, corporate catering dinner parties, tailgating and special events. Whether in a venue, your home or even in a field, I can pull up and serve a lot of people.”
The hard work is already paying off as the catering jobs are lining up as life slowly returns to normal, or at least the new normal. In October, he has an event booked for 200 people and the number of smaller bookings are steadily coming in.
But even as the catering side of the business continues to grow, Morris still plans to continue to pop-up menus. If you haven’t checked it out, this Friday night he will serve a French style menu that features a Charcuterie Board with different cured meats, Beef Short Rib, Chicken Moutarde, Smoked Pork Cassoulet and Creme Brûlée. He will be set up on Central Street, starting at 4 p.m., next to C.W. White, Inc.