Suzanne Parkhill and Stephenie Minor are living proof that you don’t have to be a trained chef to build a stunning charcuterie board. As two sisters who grew up in a big family in Colleyville, they never set out to mass-produce boards and lead classes every month. With the recent success of their Southlake business The Charcuterie Sisters, they have come to learn you can deliver smiles and charcuterie at the same time.
SUZANNE: I’VE BEEN MAKING CHARCUTERIE BOARDS FOR… about 10 years. It started as my go-to appetizer, and it eventually grew to become my meal two or three times a week. The great thing about it is that you don’t have to cook and you can have all of the ingredients you need at your house. If someone pops over unexpectedly, you can whip everything out and have it ready to go at any time. That’s what’s kind of fun, simple and spontaneous about it.
STEPHENIE: I FIRST GOT INVOLVED DURING THE… Christmas season of 2020. At the time, many people were doing virtual office parties and looking for fun ways to interact. My sister-in-law was doing just that for her office and reached out to Suzanne knowing she makes great charcuterie boards.
SUZANNE: WHEN SHE CALLED, I SAID… sure, it can’t be that hard! Halfway through, I called Stephenie and said ‘This is too much work, get over here and help me.’ As we were nearly finished, she says ‘You know, we ought to do this for a business.’ That’s how the whole thing got started.
STEPHENIE: OUR TO-GO BOXES WERE … really successful. We offered three different sizes, and they were all super popular. We also did a lot of individual ‘Jarcuteries,’ where we packed the same contents of a charcuterie board inside of a jar. Because a lot of people were social distancing and didn’t want to touch each other’s food, they could just pick them up and serve themselves. It was a big hit back then, and it remains a big hit to this day. We’ll still send Jarcuteries to med spas, weddings, grand openings, graduation parties and even hospitals.
SUZANNE: NOWADAYS, WE DO MORE… grazing spreads than usual, but our to-go boards remain popular. We also do classes every now and then. The very first class we ever did was actually with the Young Men’s Service League over Zoom. We delivered the supplies, we got on Zoom and we did a competition to see who could do the most creative boards. You could tell they really got into it, had fun and it made them forget about their current situation.
STEPHENIE: YEAH, THAT WAS ONE OF THE MOST… fun and hilarious classes we ever had. That’s what’s really fun about charcuterie boards. You get to be creative and build relationships. You become friends with your customers. You hug them and get excited for them and their party.
SUZANNE: ONE THING THAT’S ALWAYS CHANGING IS… the different cheeses. Cheese is always evolving, whether you’re talking about the aging or the ingredients. One trend we’ve been seeing is natural herb and sage cheeses. We try to change up our menu items all the time because we have a ton of repeat customers and want to keep what we’re doing fresh and up-to-date.
STEPHENIE: SOMETIMES WHEN WE GET REALLY BUSY, WE’LL BRING IN… our mother and mothers-in-law to help. We call them ‘The Charcuterie Grandmas,’ and we’ll sit at our island and start filling big orders like we’re at a quilting station. It really is the sweetest thing just how charcuterie brought all of us together.
SUZANNE: WE TRULY THOUGHT THAT THIS WOULD BE… a fun and brief thing for six months and then we’d move on to something else. If we had known it was going to grow into this huge thing, we probably would have done things a little more professionally.
STEPHENIE: WE REALLY LOVE… what we do. We love a good party, and we love making the party as fun and easygoing for people as possible. And of course, we still love our charcuterie.