Check Out Jodi Polson’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jodi Polson.

Hi Jodi, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Jodi-started out as an elementary teacher in 2006 and slowly realized my passion was for pastry. Went to school at Johnson & Wales in Denver and worked at various pastry shops until landing as Executive Pastry Chef for the Beast & Bottle Group in 2015. After almost a decade with that restaurant group, I opened Mama Jo’s brick and mortar with my husband Ben in February of 2025.

Ben-started out as a high school history teacher in 2005 and decided to go back to school for culinary arts at Johnson & Wales. He worked as a corporate chef for 10 years before transitioning during Covid to owning and operating his own food truck, Mama Jo’s Biscuits & BBQ in the spring of 2021. After finding success with Mama Jo’s, he opened a brick and mortar with his wife Jodi in February 2025.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not at all! We started out strong on East Colfax, but since the BRT Construction project rolled into our area, our sales have plummeted drastically. We’re trying to work on bringing in more catering business and third party delivery sources to ramp up sales. We’ve gotten such wonderful reviews and feedback and community support, but we are struggling to make ends meet at the moment. We’re confident we’ll find success when this construction project ends, but it’s truly a struggle right now.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
The style of BBQ we chose to focus on for Mama Jo’s is southern, specifically from North Carolina. We have friends from that region and while attending their wedding years ago, fell in love with the cuisine. We’ve been personally hosting southern pig pickin’ parties for well over a decade, and decided to focus on that style for our food truck and brick and mortar. We used the food truck as a way to test the waters and see what guests enjoyed, and found that this unique style of BBQ was whole heartedly enjoyed by our Denver community. We not only focus on this specific style of BBQ, but also blend in our favorite southern comfort foods like flaky buttermilk biscuits, pimento cheese and collard greens. We take a lot of pride in the fact that everything we serve is scratch made (except for the tater tots!) from the biscuits to the rainbow of BBQ sauces to the desserts and all the sides. This is truly a labor of love and that we share with our Colfax community.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
We’ve benefited from some good timing during our careers. Covid was a nightmare, but it pushed us to begin our food truck, which otherwise would mostly likely never have happened. We completely lucked out during the sale of our Denver home and ended up with some equity that we were able to use to start our truck. Because of the restaurant group Jodi worked for, we were able to generate some wonderful interest among the food writer community that springboarded our beginning of the brick and mortar. We also completely lucked out with the location of our brick and mortar. The old Steve’s Snapping Dogs spot has the perfect vibe for a BBQ joint. And while the construction certainly isn’t helping us right now, we’re hoping that long term it will make our location even better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mamajobiscuits.com
• Instagram: @mamajobiscuits
• Facebook: @mamajobiscuits