When people see a crowd there’s a natural curiosity: “What’s happening?” The Chef’s Corner in Fort Worth, Texas, drew crowds to the Chevron station on East Berry St. to try Chef Mike Douresseaux’s food, which went viral through TikTok and the old-fashioned way, word of mouth.

It all happened by accident. On his way to a job interview, Douresseaux stopped at a Chevron station to grab something to drink. “I had my chef coat on and people began to ask me about food and what I did. I met Tony, the owner.”

The interview he was headed to that day was for a job that turned out to not be a good fit. But Douresseaux kept the Chevron station in mind. “Tony took me back to the kitchen. It needed a hood, gas grill and gas lines,” Douresseaux said, adding, “I had $45,000 in the bank. I prayed about it, put it in faith and asked God for guidance. I talked to Tony, and he agreed to let me build it out.”

After six months, The Chef’s Corner opened on April 1, 2024.

Douresseaux has been in the food business for more than four decades. “I did a little bit of everything. I worked at the Four Seasons. I worked in hotels for about 10 years. I went back to school and became a dietary manager and did that for 15 years.”

The Chef’s Corner started out serving breakfast, but business was slow. After a month, Douresseaux “flipped the script and started doing lunch and dinner.” He started offering shrimp and catfish po’boys, shrimp and grits and chicken and waffles.

“Boom! The community started coming in. People brought their friends,” he recalled. The response was overwhelming. Word spread fast.

“I was feeding 300 people a day. People from TikTok started coming in. You’ll see videos of the store filled with long lines. I was serving stuff with a Louisiana flair that they couldn’t get anywhere else.”

Read more from “Right Stop, Right Time,” in the June 2025 issue of NACS Magazine.