Welcome Customs Café Brands to the Shoals Business Incubator

Teresa White was one of the first businesses to operate from the Shoals Culinary Center in the 2000’s when she started a small business in Muscle Shoals. Starting with a coffee bar in a giftshop, she was soon asked to add a coffee shop to the new Florence Library. Needing a space to prepare baked goods, the relationship with the Culinary Center was born.

Soon, the Hoover Public Library invited her to take the same model to their library. Teresa and her son, Craig, started to add some cultural cuisine to their offerings at the library and found great success. In 2018, they were the small business of the year and have been very involved in the Hoover community since their start in 2010. In 2021, they closed the restaurant in Hoover and decided to come back home.

Now they are operating their corporation, Heritage Global Foods, Inc. doing business as Customs Café Brands. Partnering again with the Shoals Culinary Center, they have 14 wholesale products. They are always developing new concepts with the next being take home meals.

The Culinary Center and staff have been welcoming and very helpful. “It was nice to come home where we started” Teresa said of the Center. Fortunately, the transition has been an easy one due partly to the staff of the Shoals Culinary Center.

Teresa hopes that other food-related businesses can see the value in the Culinary Center. “It has such a broad appeal” she stated about the facilities. The opportunity to start a business and have these facilities in our area make this possible for some businesses that would not have the chance otherwise.

Now that they are back home, the focus will be on community and putting out excellent products.