A Dose of Country Sunshine

Positively Inspirational: A Monthly Spotlight

In this monthly series, local realtor Andrea Schutter Riebeling does a Q & A with local business leaders about what inspires them. This month’s spotlight is on food truck owners Cullen and Danielle Holle.

1.) What is your business?

This past spring antique show was our first venture to Round Top with Country Sunshine at The Halles. We also operate a wood fired pizza oven at Prost Wine Bar called Prost Pizza. We’ve been doing that for almost five years now.

We started operating as a food truck called “Country Sunshine” at Brazos Valley Brewing Company in Brenham and have enlarged our territory to Fayette County.

2.) How did you get started?

Cullen and I met working for Chef Jason Dady in San Antonio. Cullen is born and raised in Brenham so we decided to get back to his roots and start our own projects. We then fell in love with Round Top and the artistic community. The late Lee Ellis was instrumental in getting us started in Round Top. He came to Brenham and had our food and then helped us get set up at Prost Wine Bar for our first antique show in 2018.

3.) How long have you been in business?

After moving to Brenham and trying to secure a restaurant space, we decided in the meantime to open up a food truck to test some ideas in late 2016.

4.) Is this a femalerun business?

Partially, yes! We’re a husband and wife team. Cullen is the Chef and I basically do everything else for the business.

5.) What kind of service do you provide?

We try to create spaces that we would love to visit, eat, relax and invite friends to.

6.) Tell me something unique about your business? How do you get your ideas for your recipes?

When we moved to Brenham in 2016, the food scene was lacking and things to do were very limited. We wanted to create a space with food that we would want to spend time at. Everything we serve is inspired by things that we want to eat and by our travels as well. Many of our food items are things that you can’t find very often in the surrounding counties.

7.) What is your background, culinary arts?

Cullen started cooking when he was 15 for a local catering business, and since then he has been working in restaurants. He is self taught and never went to culinary school.

8.) What do you suggest to others who want to venture out and take a leap of action in the future of their career?

Take your time to map your plans out and don’t rush things!

9.) Do you believe in college, trade school, or any training?

Absolutely. Any education that you can receive pertaining to something you are passionate about is extremely valuable.

10.) How did you decide to give the names to your hamburgers?

The CS burger stands for Country Sunshine and is our signature burger. For the other hamburgers that we do on special, we let the ingredients dictate the name.

11.) What makes you laugh?

Our dogs, our family, our staff, and each other.