The first time Lamar Jones saw his bottles of gourmet barbecue sauce lined up on the shelves of an H-E-B store he felt like a musician hearing one of his songs on the radio for the first time.

“It was surreal to see it,” Jones recalled of that 2016 memory. “To see something I started making in my kitchen and then developing it to a brand being sold at H-E-B, it was a huge deal, man.”

Today, The Jank Gourmet BBQ Sauce products that are Jones’ creations can be found in 270 H.E.B. stores in the United States and Mexico. The musician-turned-entrepreneur says he grew up in south Florida “around great food and women who could cook.” 

He was a longtime kitchen dabbler of store-bought barbecue sauces. Jones would add ingredients and tinker with flavors and improvise in creating new sauces. His concoctions began gaining admirers among family and friends. Living in Weslaco, Jones said “the wheels began turning” on the notion of taking his BBQ sauces from his kitchen to much bigger platforms. 

“What if?” he recalled asking himself. “What can I do with what I’m making?”

Getting Started

Jones would start in 2009 with a business incubator program at the McAllen Chamber of Commerce. 

It marked the beginning of a seven-year process that would lead from Lamar the kitchen chef to a businessman whose products today are manufactured at a Houston facility. It’s where H-E-B trucks arrive weekly to pick up his varieties of BBQ sauces for eventual delivery to stores across Texas and elsewhere, with a stop at his hometown H-E-B on Texas Boulevard.

“Preparation meets opportunity,” Jones said, citing one of his business mottos.

Jones was born in New Jersey and raised in Little Haiti of Miami.

A turning point in his life came in 2008 when he visited the Rio Grande Valley for the first time. Jones came as a musician to perform at a concert. He visited Weslaco during that trip and met with school district administrators to discuss how music and arts can improve the social skills of students.

Jones didn’t fully realize it at the time but would come to find that he had found a new home. The “laid-back hometown feel” of Weslaco appealed to him. He was hired by the local school district as an instructor to work with special needs children. Jones brought his south Florida influences with him to the Valley, including his love of barbecue sauces.

The yearning to do something entrepreneurial with his BBQ sauces is what took him to the McAllen Chamber’s program for startup businesses. It’s where he began to get the lay of the land of what it takes to make a product successful, from its product quality to marketing to sound business planning.

Jones progressed and excelled to the point that he won a $10,000 seed money grant from the McAllen Chamber, a development he called “life-changing for me.” Another major milestone came a few years later when he entered a yearly H-E-B program to recognize Texas-created startup brands in the food industry. With his trademark energy and passion, Jones took what he calls “The Jank Nation” to H-E-B corporate executives. His BBQ sauces were selected as one the company’s “Primo Picks.”

“It changed the trajectory of what I was doing,” he said. “Now I had the eyes of H-E-B on me.”

He wouldn’t win one of the three top spots in H-E-B competition, but Jank and his south Florida-influenced/RGV-created BBQ sauces had made an impression.

“It wasn’t long after that when I heard from H-E-B,” Jones said. “They wanted to do business.”

Power Brands

Nine years later, Jones and his varieties of Jank BBQ sauces and seasonings are among the top Texas-themed products to be found at the majority of H-E-B’s locations in Texas.

Jones in May gained yet another achievement when the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley announced it was partnering with The Jank to create a Vaqueros Gourmet BBQ Sauce. It is sure to be a popular item when tailgating parties commence with the launch of UTRGV football games in Edinburg in the fall of 2025. 

“Two power brands coming together” is how Jones describes The Jank’s partnership with UTRGV. Throughout his successes, Jones has kept close to his adopted hometown, continuing to teach at Weslaco East High School because “it’s still the most rewarding job I have.”

“Strong side, east side,” he says of his school’s signature line.

Recently, before speaking to students at UTRGV’s Center for Innovation and Commercialization in Weslaco, Jones was asked what he would share as his keys for success.

“Move at our own pace, be dynamic and do good business,” he said.

And with that, the Jank Nation was ready to deliver his message.