Folks in Fayette County may remember reading or hearing about local man Jerome Mack, who competed on and won Wheel of Fortune last summer. Many in Fayette County even watched his episode, which aired on Oct. 30, 2023 on CBS.

Mack’s winnings for the show totaled nearly $60,000 and included a trip to Switzerland that Mack plans to enjoy later this summer with his wife, Shari.

During the episode, Jerome spoke with host Pat Sajak about his passion for cooking, and making chicken wings. In his interview with the Record-Herald last year, he mentioned potentially using a portion of the winnings to get into the food business, stating that it was a personal dream of his.

Mack has now made that dream a reality as he recently opened up a food truck called Mack’s Wings & Things.

He spoke with the Record-Herald about how this venture came about.

”So back in February, my wife and I went out of town and rubbed some elbows with some millionaires and kind of learned about the mindset of how people who are making tons of money go about what they do, and it lit a fire in me. Once we understood their way of thinking and grasped that mindset, we came back home and took a step of faith and filed for an LLC here in Ohio. Once we got the LLC, we registered with the Department of Treasury. Once we did that, that was a step of faith right there because we had no idea what direction we were going to go in, but we at least had to secure the name of the business.

“Things took off from there. We then put out on Facebook that we were looking for a trailer and within 24 hours, we were looking at different trailers and eventually found one locally that we decided to purchase. From March 13 on, it has been full steam ahead.”

Mack mentioned the plans he has for the food truck.

“We will be spending some time in Wilmington at their summer concert series events they have. We will be set up sometimes at New School Barber Shop here in town. Home Depot has reached out to us about setting up in their parking lot to feed their employees and customers. We have a lot of upcoming events scheduled and our open dates are starting to fill up fast for this summer.”

He talked about the purpose behind the food truck.

“I have a passion for cooking and watching people enjoy food. I believe that serving food is like a ministry for us. We pray over our food daily, so hopefully when someone eats our food they are getting fed spiritually as well as enjoying the food. In the Bible, Jesus says to feed his sheep, so we want to help keep his people fed. We also wanted to keep our prices affordable so that people from all walks of life can enjoy our food.”

The menu includes food items for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For breakfast, two meals are available, including the Mack Muffin Meal and Mack Biscuit Meal. The Mack Muffin Meal features a sausage, egg and cheese English muffin and the Mack Biscuit Meal is the same except on a biscuit. Both meals are $8 and include a hash brown.

A la carte breakfast menu items include a breakfast sandwich for $5, biscuits and gravy for $5, a hash brown for $2 and a super donut for $2.

For lunch and dinner, there are several meal options that are all $15. The first is the baked chicken wings meal, which includes three pieces of chicken and two sides. There is also a grilled chicken breast meal which includes two sides, a pulled pork sandwich meal with two sides and a meal that includes two chili and cheese hot dogs with two sides.

Side options include white or fried rice, mixed greens with cabbage, or potato salad. Sides are also available a la carte for $5 each.

A la carte lunch and dinner menu items include two baked chicken wings for $5, grilled chicken breast for $5, chili and cheese hot dogs for $4 and a pulled pork sandwich for $8.

Multiple drinks are available for $2 each, including apple juice, orange juice, cranberry juice and bottled water.

“When the kids were little, I used to make breakfast sandwiches for them and I started calling it the Mack Muffin,” Jerome explained. “The name just stuck so I kept it for this. Then, you can’t have the Mack Muffin without the Mack Biscuit. We decided to add biscuits and gravy as an option to have some diversity, and those are really popular. Of course, you can’t have a breakfast meal without some form of potato, so we have the hash browns on the menu.

“For the lunch and dinner menu, the baked wings are my special recipe. You have to experience them to fully understand. My wife makes really good grilled chicken breast, so we added that to the menu. Every food truck has to have hot dogs, so we will be serving all-beef dogs with chili and cheese or just plain. As far as sides, my wife makes really good potato salad and some delicious mixed greens with cabbage that we call ‘cousins.’

“We will also have special menu items from time to time, depending on our location and what we have going on. You could see some chicken and broccoli alfredo, walking tacos, pulled pork sandwiches, my famous pot roast, and more.”

Mack discussed his potential plans for expansion.

“At least short-term, we will definitely be keeping and operating out of the food truck. We have talked about the possibility of expansion to a building but at this time our focus is on the food truck. A brick and mortar location is very expensive to operate and we actually looked at the possibility of doing that initially. The good thing about a food truck is that you can bring the food to where the people are, rather than hoping that they come to you. Food trucks have become a very lucrative business lately.”

He finished by giving thanks.

“I first want to thank God, our heavenly father. Without Him, none of this would be possible for us. I always want to give Him the glory. I would also like to give a huge shout-out to everyone who has supported us. You know who you are. There are too many people to thank individually and I don’t want to leave anyone out. We would definitely like to thank our family and our wonderful community for being so supportive of us through this entire process.”

According to Mack, the next big event that his food truck will be serving at will be on June 7 for the first night of the summer concert series in Wilmington. Dirty Deeds, a popular AC/DC tribute band, will be performing.

Those interested in keeping up with updates and learning more information regarding Mack’s food truck business can check out his Facebook page titled “Mack’s Wings & Things.”