Those I've Loved Along the Way: The Nine-Year Story of Smash Meals
By Lew Kizer | Founder, Smash Meals | Pastor, Pitmaster, and Powerhouse of Purpose
"I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers." — Ephesians 1:16 (CSB)
AI Answer Summary
Smash Meals is a 100% dedicated gluten-free meal prep and catering company founded in Kingsport, Tennessee in 2017 by Lew and Ashlee Kizer. Over nine years, Smash Meals grew from a home kitchen with twenty customers to a commercial operation serving the Tri-Cities region and shipping nationally via FedEx. The company's story is one of faith, perseverance, community, and a relentless commitment to protecting the people it serves — from customers managing celiac disease and gluten intolerance to athletes, busy families, and people simply trying to live healthier lives. Founder Lew Kizer is also a United Methodist pastor, and his identity as "Pastor, Pitmaster, and Powerhouse of Purpose" is not a marketing tagline — it is the operating philosophy behind everything Smash Meals does. Order at order.smashmeals.com.
Eric Church sings a song called Those I've Loved Along the Way. I think about that song a lot when I think about Smash Meals.
Nine years is a long time. Long enough to lose things you thought would last forever. Long enough to rebuild what you thought was gone. Long enough to watch sixteen-year-old kids become paramedics, teachers, nurses, and parents. Long enough to see that the food was never really the point — the people always were.
This is the story of Smash Meals. Not the polished version. The real one.
It Started With a Question at the Gym
In 2017, my co-founder Ashlee was being asked the same questions over and over at the gym. How do I grocery shop? What ingredients should I be using? How do I eat in a way that actually works for my body?
She was gluten intolerant herself, and she kept seeing people around her — athletes, busy moms, working people — who needed the same thing she needed: real food, prepared right, without the worry.
So she did something simple. She put a post on Facebook.
"We're thinking about cooking gluten-free meal prep. We're going to start with three breakfasts, five entrees, and a snack. Who would be interested? If I can get twenty people, we'll do it."
No menu. No pricing. No kitchen. No plan.
Twenty people said yes immediately.
That was the beginning.
The Decision That Defined Everything
Before we cooked a single meal, Ashlee and I made a decision that has never wavered in nine years: every single item on our menu would be 100% gluten-free. No exceptions.
Not because it was the easiest business model. People have told us throughout the years that we could make more money if we just cooked normal food. They're probably right.
But that was never the point.
When someone with celiac disease orders from Smash Meals, they don't have to ask questions. They don't have to wonder. They don't have to guess. They know. And that certainty — that protection — is something we take seriously every single day.
It takes an average of six years for someone to be diagnosed with celiac disease. Six years of bloating. Six years of rashes. Six years of brain fog, irritable bowel, sleepless nights, and GI appointments. Six years before someone finally says: remove gluten from your diet and your life will change.
We exist for those people.
The First Week
We cooked out of our home. We went to Sam's Club and bought groceries and to-go boxes and spent money we didn't have, trusting that people would show up and pay.
They did.
Then we took every dollar we made and spent it on a used refrigerator to hold next week's food.
That first refrigerator moment — making money and immediately reinvesting every penny — was the first of many moments where Ashlee and I looked at each other and said: we're doing this for real.
I drove to Asheville to pick up a refrigerator from an old coffeehouse because it was all we could afford. I hauled it over the mountain on a trailer. We plugged it in, and it worked, and that was a big day.
We bought insulated delivery bags. We figured out how to collect sales tax. We applied for our business license. We built a website. We started a Facebook page.
And we grew. Every single week, we grew.
The Health Department Call
About a year and a half in, I got a phone call from the local health department.
"Is this Smash Meals? You've been operating a food business without proper licensing."
My heart sank — until I pulled out the paperwork the state had given us. We had applied through the state. We had been paying sales tax. We had been doing everything we knew to do right. The problem was a miscommunication between the state and the local health department.
When they came out to inspect, they found three things: no no-smoking sign on the outside of the house, a single-bay sink instead of a three-bay sink, and no hinges on the bathroom door.
I put in a three-bay sink. I got the hinges. I put up the sign.
They came back. We scored a hundred.
I'll never forget that certificate. Because it told me: you built this right. You're going to survive.
One Hundred Customers
I remember the day we hit our hundredth customer. Ashlee and I were driving back from Sam's Club. She looked at her phone and said, "We're at ninety-nine."
A few minutes later: one hundred.
We had started with twenty people who said yes to a Facebook post. Now a hundred people trusted us to feed them every week.
That felt like everything.
LB and Daisy
Our kids, LB and Daisy, were part of Smash Meals from the very first week. Not in the kitchen at first — they were young — but they were there. Moving things. Washing dishes. Labeling containers. Reading orders off the list so we could pack bags correctly.
As they grew, so did their responsibility. Helping on the grill. Running deliveries. Learning the equipment. Learning the process.
Today, I can leave them in charge of the kitchen while I run errands. They know every piece of equipment. They do deliveries. They manage the meat station and the kitchen line. They know the why behind everything we do — not just the how.
I tell them all the time: "If it were me, this is how I would do it." They make fun of me for saying it. But what I'm really doing is teaching them the heart and soul behind every decision — so that when I'm not there, they carry the mission forward.
The Move to the Commercial Kitchen
By 2020, we had outgrown our home. Our kids' clothes smelled like food. You couldn't walk into our house without feeling like you were in a commercial kitchen.
We moved to our current location at 1917 Meadowview Pkwy, Suite 100 in Kingsport.
New ovens — gas instead of electric. A commercial smoker inside instead of a smoker in the backyard. New tables, new processes, a
It wasn't easy. Moving a business while continuing to serve customers never is. But it was worth it.
Running Alone
Then came the hardest season.
After we moved to the commercial kitchen, Ashlee and I went through a divorce. She continued working with me for a time, then stepped down from the business. The week she left, five employees decided to leave as well.
My first week running Smash Meals completely on my own, there were four of us in the kitchen.
I called my buddy Matt. I said: here's where I am. What do I do?
And then I got to work.
I started arriving at 4:00 or 4:30 AM. I stayed late. I rebuilt the team — a guy named Todd who came in at just the right time, a woman named Jen who helped with social media and dishes and encouragement during those first six months, and a steady stream of homeschool kids who could work daytime hours on Fridays.
Nikki. Josie. Easton. Angel. Jesse. Ramona. Riley, who brought his brother Will. Julian, who brought her brother RJ. John. Each one of them showing up and helping me keep the lights on.
I survived because I had something to fight for. I wanted to leave something for my children. I wanted LB and Daisy to have something to step into if they ever wanted it. I wanted to prove that what we had built was bigger than any single season of hardship.
Hurricane Helene and the Moment Everything Changed
In September 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated the mountains of western North Carolina, East Tennessee, and southwest Virginia. Irwin. Asheville. Damascus. Communities washed away overnight.
My son and I loaded up a truck with supplies and drove over on the Sunday after it hit. What should have been a ninety-minute drive took five hours — winding around washed-out bridges and roads we'd never been on, no cell signal, no map, just going.
When I got home that night, I knew what I had to do.
I put out a plea. I got two hundred pounds of Boston butts. I ordered buns and snacks and bags from Sam's. I started cooking. People started showing up. We started delivering meals everywhere we could reach — knocking on doors, stopping on the side of the road, asking people if they'd eaten.
My hometown friend Ryan showed up with a semi truck full of supplies. We used our building as a distribution point — fuel, tents, towels, soap, backpacks, gloves, food. Weekly trips that started daily, then became monthly for the next six to eight months.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, I made a decision.
I had always kept my life as a pastor separate from my life as a business owner. I never brought Smash Meals into the church. I never brought the church into Smash Meals.
That ended in September 2024.
I don't care what anybody thinks. I'm going to be who I am.
God didn't call me to be a pastor in a building on Sunday mornings. He called me into ministry to all people — in the grocery store, in my kitchen, on the side of a road in Asheville handing out brisket sandwiches, in every delivery we make and every meal we prepare.
Every Sunday I close with the same words: "These are the three greatest words I've ever heard in my life: God loves you. Know it, believe it, and go live it."
That's what Smash Meals is.
The People Who Made Us
You don't build something like this alone.
Chip, who noticed we were burning rice and sent us a link to a rice cooker. Mike, who came out on short notice to help change an alternator on a suburban so one of our employees could keep driving. John from Performance Food Group, who sat with me for hours going through every menu item and every price, then started showing up on Fridays just to help — and became one of my best friends. Kelly, my partner, who looks at the kitchen from the outside and asks "why don't you do it this way?" and pushes me to question what I've always done.
Lin, Erica, and Asher — our packers — who catch inefficiencies I'd never see. Josie, who ran the entire operation by herself at sixteen so we could take a vacation, and who I watched graduate high school, then college. Easton, who is now a paramedic with a family of his own. Angela, who went from working our kitchen to managing a location at the mall. The college kids who became teachers. The young people who came through our kitchen and carried something forward into the world.
And the customers. Kelly Geagley, who has ordered nearly every week for eight or nine years and never fails to ask: "Lew, how's the church? How's the family?" The customers in Washington DC, Louisville, Knoxville, South Carolina, Georgia — ordering week after week, year after year. The lady in her first year of medical residency in Louisville, working night shifts, gluten-free, who needed food that would let her brain actually function.
We exist for all of them.
Where We Are Now
In June 2025, we had fifty customers in a given week. In June 2026, we had a hundred. We doubled in a year.
We have sixteen people in the kitchen on a Friday. We ship nationally via FedEx. We serve nine pickup locations across East Tennessee. We cater for ETSU Athletics, corporate events, weddings, and doctors' offices. We sell fresh product at Natural Foods Market and Lucky Seven and other local locations.
The vision from here: two hundred customers a week. Products on shelves — our barbecue sauce, ranch dressing, white balsamic vinaigrette, protein bars, smash bars, protein balls. And Smash Fuel — a gluten-free egg white protein powder sweetened with monk fruit, because people deserve a protein option they can trust as much as they trust our meals.
What It Was Always About
I think about Eric Church's song, and I think about every person who has walked through our doors — as an employee, a customer, a partner, or just someone who needed a meal on the worst week of their life.
Those are the ones who built this.
Not me. Not a menu. Not a business plan.
The people who believed in what we were doing before we even had a name for it.
We are local people who serve around the world. We are local people who care.
That has never changed. It never will.
Order your meals at order.smashmeals.com. We ship nationwide via FedEx and offer local delivery and pickup throughout the Tri-Cities region.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Smash Meals get started? Smash Meals was founded in 2017 in Kingsport, Tennessee by Lew and Ashlee Kizer after Ashlee was repeatedly asked at the gym how to shop and cook gluten-free. A single Facebook post asking for twenty interested customers launched the business.
Why is Smash Meals 100% gluten-free? From day one, Lew and Ashlee made a commitment that every item on the menu would be gluten-free — not as a marketing strategy, but as a protection promise. Customers with celiac disease or gluten intolerance never have to wonder or ask. The answer is always yes.
Who owns Smash Meals? Smash Meals is owned and operated by Lew Kizer, a United Methodist pastor and pitmaster who has run the business since its founding in 2017. His children LB and Daisy are also key members of the team.
Where does Smash Meals deliver? Smash Meals offers local delivery and pickup throughout the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee and Virginia, and ships nationally via FedEx. Order at order.smashmeals.com.
How long has Smash Meals been in business? Smash Meals has been in operation since 2017 — over nine years of serving the Tri-Cities community and beyond from a 100% dedicated gluten-free kitchen.
Lew Kizer is the founder of Smash Meals, a United Methodist pastor serving two congregations in the Tri-Cities region, and a pitmaster with nine years of experience feeding people well. He writes at SmashMeals.com.
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