32-year-old couldn't get hired due to his criminal record—now his food truck brings in over $1 million a year

For Dawon Matthews, pursuing entrepreneurship has always been a "no brainer."

After he was charged with a felony at age 19, Matthews couldn't find a job in the corporate world, so he decided to carve his own path, he says.

"Once they see a felony behind a person they don't even care about what credentials you got. You're just not accepted in that society," Matthews says.

Now, Matthews, 32, currently owns five companies, most notably his successful Houston, Texas food truck, Goodies Soul Kitchen.

Born in Philadelphia, Matthews had a "rough start" in life, before his family moved to the metro area borough of Norristown, he says.

"Growing up, I didn't have any mentors or anyone I wanted to be like. I just had a bunch of people that I didn't want to be like," he says.

Matthews excelled in high school, but got into legal trouble in college.

As a freshman, he was charged with aggravated assault after a party brawl, for which he was expelled from school and served 6 months in jail. While on probation, he was charged with a DUI.

"That just led to me going down a hole of just going in and out of the system," Matthews recalls.

Though Matthews earned an associate's degree from Manor College and a B.A. in business from La Salle University, he applied to over 200 jobs in a two-month period with no luck. He started his first company "due to the simple fact that I couldn't get a job with my college degree," he says.

Today, his businesses collectively bring in over $1 million in net revenue annually.

'Always looking for the next thing'

In 2017, Matthews launched his first business, a cleaning company called Wonderful Cleaning, in the Philadelphia area with his childhood friend Darnell Hinton.

He chose to enter the cleaning industry because it had low startup costs and didn't require background checks for business owners, he says.

"As long as you can get some bleach and some hot water and some spray bottles and some rags, you can turn this thing into a business," Matthews says.

His first job was cleaning his brother's house, but with help from his high school football coach, Matthews landed more lucrative commercial cleaning contracts.

By the end of year two, Wonderful Cleaning brought in around $12,000 in revenue each month, and Matthews transitioned into being the "middleman," hiring other cleaning crews to fulfill his contracts.

With the revenue from Wonderful Cleaning, Matthews and Hinton bought a pickup truck and started a second business, R&R Junk Removal, in 2020.

A few months in, they were able to purchase a dump truck, and R&R Junk Removal brought in over $100,000 in its first year, according to Matthews.

Matthews also used his income from the two businesses to buy single-family properties, which he refinanced in order to buy duplexes and triplexes. He currently owns 16 properties in the Philadelphia area, from which he makes around $11,000 a month in profit.

In January 2024, Matthews moved to Houston: "I felt like I reached my success in Philly, so I wanted to get out of there," he says.

Not all of his business ideas were hits: right after moving to Houston, Matthews sold a couple of his properties to start a nightclub. It didn't work out, he says, and he ended up losing over $170,000 on the venture.

After that, he decided to try the restaurant industry.

"I'm always looking for the next thing," he says, "and then that's when I came up with food."

Matthews took out a $40,000 loan to buy a food truck and launched Goodies Soul Kitchen in August 2024, which he operates with business partner Jessica Ahwash.

Finding success in the food industry

Other than working at KFC during his freshman year of college, Matthews didn't have any prior restaurant experience when he started Goodies.

There were plenty of growing pains: "I didn't even know how to turn the trailer on when I first started," Matthews says.

And just one month after launching Goodies Soul Food Kitchen, the chef he hired quit unexpectedly.

"I don't know nothing about food," Matthews says, but "I had to figure out how to become a chef" until he could hire another.

For Matthews, developing Goodies' business model was paramount.

He was inspired by the success of chains like Chick-Fil-A and Chipotle: "These people aren't doing anything different. Their food isn't different than any other food you'll see at KFC, Popeyes or anything like that. But what is different is the service," he says.

"Looking at it as a businessman, the money isn't in food," he continues. "The money is in the service and the quality and the systems that you produce. That's where you reach your success in the food industry."

In his view, Houston's late night food scene was "not that good," so Matthews decided to market Goodies Soul Kitchen as an evening option for clubgoers.

Goodies Soul Kitchen's offers fried fish, lamb chops, chicken wings and fried chicken, as well as side dishes like mac-and-cheese, sweet potato casserole and fried cabbage.

The truck currently operates four days a week from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., and Matthews has four employees who run the truck and handle food prep.

Unlike many other food trucks, Goodies Soul Kitchen is always based at the same location in downtown Houston. On average, they serve about 300 customers each week – more on a "good club night," but less when it's raining, he says.

This summer, Goodies Soul Kitchen brought in around $20,000 in revenue each week, Matthews says, and the truck has been profitable since the beginning.

In 2024, Goodies brought in just over $1 million in gross revenue, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It, and according to Matthews, they're on track to make even more in 2025 with catering contracts and holiday parties.

As of September this year, Goodies has made over $665,000 in sales.

Food is the future

Following the success of Goodies, Matthews opened another food truck, Birds and Buns, which sells hoagies, tacos and chicken wings, in March 2025.

"I thought, you know, what the heck? We did really well at this business model. Let's do another one," he says.

He plans to sell most of his other companies in the next year in order to focus on his food businesses.

"They say you start to find what you want to do for the rest of your life around this age," Matthews says. "I think I found my love for entrepreneurship in hospitality."

Aside from his business goals, Matthews is also committed to employing recovering addicts and former felons.

"Here, you're not judged by a paper," he says. "You're not judged by a record. You're judged by your skills."

Managing all of his ventures isn't easy, Matthews says, but his mantra is "choose your hard."

"Being poor is hard. Being rich is hard. Being happy is hard. Being sad is hard, right? So it's the reality of just choosing your 'hard.'"

Matthews is currently preparing to expand Goodies into a brick-and-mortar location with a sports bar and burger shop.

Going forward, it's "Goodies to the moon," he says.

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