Before he started Mr. Souvlaki in St. Louis, Jerry Stamson began with selling a marinade at a farmers market, and it only took six months for that success to turn into selling his gyros.

“We actually make our own gyro meat,” he told Feast magazine. “Instead of the cone, we get ground lamb and then add other herbs. We blend it all down to where it’s like a paste. It tastes exactly like the meat you’d get off the cone, but it’s a lot better for you,” he said.

Customers agree because he’s selling it frozen too, and said that, “I never expected that it would evolve to what it is now. My eight-year-old has been with us every Sunday. He’s literally seen the company develop and is getting shown firsthand the consistency and sticking with everything.”

Both sides of his family are from Greece so he had that influence when creating a special marinade for his family’s holiday lamb one Greek Easter, which eventually became the idea for Mr. Souvlaki, which began when a friend who owns a BBQ saloon persuaded him to sell the marinade.