Meet Jill Thomas
Owner of Wheels Up Sauce LLC
The Wheels Up Sauce Story
My husband and I talked about starting our own business many years, but we had two young kids and it just never seemed to be the right time so it got put on the back burner. We both had other careers and just couldn’t find the time to spend on the business. Unfortunately, my husband passed unexpectedly in 2020 and I decided I needed to be home with my two kids. So I made the decision to go forward with our business and it has been an amazing experience.
We make and distribute a tangy and spicy bbq sauce. This is a ketchup based only sauce with a bold flavor of garlic and onion. Our sauce can be used on everything from wings to seafood, meatloaf to ribs and of course BBQ. I think this sets us apart from a lot of BBQ sauces that use vinegar. Wheels Up BBQ Sauce was first introduced in 2021 when we started going out to local markets on weekends. It was a lot of fun to see people’s reactions to the sauce. I was also working at a restaurant at the time and had been there for many years, so I would bring in samples for my regular
customers and staff to try. The response was overwhelming in a good way. Being now a single mom of two children, (my husband Jason passed away in 2020), working part time and trying to get our business going was quite challenging. Luckily I had already had a great recipe, labels, bottles, and an awesome name. My husband received his private pilot license a few years before he passed and he was so proud of himself. So of course we had to call the sauce Wheels Up. I took my time introducing the sauce around because I found out it took a lot more than weekend markets. It took advertising ( Facebook/Instagram/website) time and of course money. I was wondering how I could make this all come together but with the help of family and friends it did!
The restaurant that I worked at decided that our sauce should be on the menu and that opened up many doors for us. We went to more and more markets and had a great response to the sauce. We got to meet people from shops and other restaurants that loved it so much that they wanted us in there establishments as well.
I left my job in 2023 to handle the business full time which was very scary but I can proudly say that at the end of 2023 we are now in 4 restaurants, 8 stores and 1 bbq catering company. We have big plans for 2024 with the introduction of 2 new variants of our sauce. We are excited about where this family business will take us. Nationwide? Probably not, but we would love to see ourselves grow enough that everyone local knows our name.
My husband left our children a great legacy and that is the main reason for continuing to build our business. I believe in this great sauce and Believe that we will keep growing with the help and support of others.
