About Rocketbelly

In Fall of 2022, Olivia opened Rocketbelly. It is the culmination of years of hard work, experiments, successes, and failures combined with the owner's love of all things science, space, and of course, cats.

Our motto? Per aspera ad astra--through hardships, to the stars. Olivia never gave up. Even with grim chances of success. She kept pushing herself, her family, and everyone around her to believe in her.

Olivia and her family worked 20-24 hours days for a month and a half and created a space themed restaurant where she now calls home. Take a journey into space and board Olivia's rocket ship is the belly, where delicious food, fun, happiness, and love lies.

Rocketbelly's signature style of chicken combines american flavors with a Japanese technique, giving the tenders and nuggets an airy, light batter. Rocket Chicken is dredged right before cooking using a 3 step process. It is heavily seasoned with Rocketbelly's own spice blend. To serve, pair the juicy pieces of chicken by drizzling or drenching your chicken in the signature Rocket Sauce--a super secret sauce made with super secret ingredients.

Rocketbelly also features Texas' first and only self-serve bubble tea bar where you can sample all the flavors and toppings and customize your cup exactly how you want.

The idea actually came from Olivia watching her parents. Everywhere they went, they would get boba. But one thing stood out, they always got the same flavor. Olivia, confused, asked her parents why they don't try other flavors? Her parents responded that the times they took a chance at something new, they disliked it. Olivia didn't want people to ever get something they disliked, so she came up with a plan to let everyone taste everything before they buy. That way they'll never leave with something they don't like.

Olivia also disliked the inconsistency of boba. Sometimes they were hard, sometimes they were too soft. Most of the time, they were bland. So Rocketbelly's signature tapioca pearls are infused with Wildflower Honey and Brown Sugar. It's kept in a giant warmer to infuse them with flavor and keep them at the perfect chewiness. The warm boba also complements the cold drinks perfectly.

Meet Olivia, the owner of Rocketbelly. She's an extroverted 11 year old with tons of passion and love for humanity. She loves helping out, making people happy, and making everyone feel loved. She puts the same into her business with every piece of her heart.

In her free time, she loves to draw, sing, play the piano, act, learn, read books, swim. She started piano lessons, singing lessons, karate, and bjj at 4, at 5 she started acting lessons, at 7 she learned gymnastics, and at 9 she learned to swim.

Growing up, Olivia watched lots of cooking and craft shows with her mom. Olivia particularly loved a show called Good Eats, hosted by a man named Alton Brown. She loved how he explained the science behind things so that she could learn how it works instead of just learning recipes.
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At 4.5 years old she begged her parents to let her make videos to teach other people how to make easy recipes and crafts like how Mr. Brown teaches others. So she started her very own Youtube channel called DIYwithOllie. She loved every minute of it.

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After a little while, she decided that she loved being behind the camera and asked her parents if she could become a model/actress. They researched, found an open call, and hoped for the best. She marched her little petite self into an audition, recited a monologue, and got signed on the spot. From there she did commercials for Pizza Hut, Haverty's, Michael's, Chili's, and much more. She also acted in a few shorts. With Rocketbelly opening up, she had to pause her acting for awhile since auditions take up lots of time. Once she finds the perfect crew, she'll head back to acting where she hopes to land a big role in a TV show or feature film one day.
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In 2019, during a homeschool lesson about investments and business, Olivia, then 7, asked her parents if she could invest the money she's made through her modeling gigs. She said she had the perfect business idea and knew it would be a success. Her parents, who dedicate themselves to encouraging their children's dream, agreed. They figured it'd be a good hands-on activity to reinforce the lesson. Little did they know, her idea spiraled into something bigger than either of them could imagine.

The business? Baking mixes. She said everywhere we go, the dessert flavors were so boring. She wanted to let other people taste the wonderful flavors she and her parents baked together. But she didn't a want a bakery because only people around her would get to try it. She wanted bigger. Baking desserts and mail ordering them wasn't a good idea to her since it'll be stale by the time it gets there. So she came up with fool proof baking mixes where people could bake fresh desserts at home. Her parents figured they'd sell a few mixes here and there and it'll be fun.

She threw all her savings into it and worked for months preparing. Finally she launched. First month, almost 80 orders. Second month was double the first. Third month was double the second. They moved from her bedroom, to the entire house, to a small warehouse by the 4th month. At 6 months in, she was sending out 1000 mixes a month and running out of space.

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A few months later she moved into a 6,000 warehouse and opened a commercial manufacturing kitchen.

Business was booming, by 2020 she was up to almost 3000 customers a month, she invested all her profits to grow even bigger, purchasing automated machines to package her mixes. She sent out huge trucks each month and was so proud of her success.

At one point, she even auditioned for Shark Tank all by herself!

In 2021, as the pandemic got under control and people started going back to work, Olivia found herself losing customers. Some of her customers stopped purchasing baking mixes because they no longer had the time to bake with their family. So she sat down and brainstormed. She decided to invest the rest of her profits to convert the front of her business, an unused space that was used for office work and storage, into a small cafe until she can save enough to open a bigger cafe. She decided to sell her baked goods as well as implement her self-serve boba idea.

It was a hit! People came from all over to meet Olivia and try her treats and teas. She realized how much fun a customer facing business was and couldn't wait to expand. She held fun events, set up interactive spaces, and enjoyed every minute there.

Unfortunately, this was the start of the end. Three months after opening, in 2022, her landlord sold the building and a new landlord came in. Due to being inexperienced, and a not-so-upstanding new landlord who found a loophole in the lease and demanded her to pay lots of money she didn't have (because she had just invested it into larger machines, and to open the café) or leave her space and the entire business she built from the ground up. Since there was no way she could find another manufacturing kitchen in that short amount of time, and get the new place licensed, she ended up losing everything.

This picture was the last day she was in her shop, after everything she put up was taken down, and her dreams gone.

Olivia was devastated. All her dreams, her customers, her hard worked, her investments were gone. Olivia's mom fell into depression because she felt helpless, unable to fix Olivia's situation. During those months, Olivia and her parents emailed broker after broker. None giving them a chance to even talk. Many were extremely rude at young Olivia just trying to save a piece of her business--the cafe.

Olivia's parents took the little savings they had left to help pay for storage fees of all her items, and spent a little bit on family trips to cheer Olivia up. By April of 2022, the owner of a restaurant in Arlington, offered to sell and finance her restaurant so that she could retire. Olivia was finally happy again, optimism fueled her little body and she started working on the design, concept, and ways she could make the restaurant awesome with what she had left and things she had laying around the house. Business papers were filed, the family penny pinched to purchase ingredients and supplies for the July 2022 opening.

This is the layout she imagined for the space. She wanted lots of different spaces for work and fun:

Unfortunately, the happiness was short-lived. The owner would ask Olivia's family for money, which the family obliged because the woman was helping Olivia.
Her family had to sell their personal belongings and borrow from others to be able to come up with the money to let the woman borrow.

Then 9 days before Olivia would get the keys to the shop, the owner pulled out with no reason why. When the family pressed for Olivia's deposit back and an explanation, they were met with angry, terrible, degrading comments from the owner. After months, the only explanation the family got was that it was a misunderstanding.

Olivia was heartbroken, her family was furious, now they're left with nothing. Olivia still had hope and kept pushing for her parents to try. Her parents still tried, but was met with the same rude landlords and brokers. Finally, they had to break it to Olivia. Storage fees were racking up, bills were behind, and her parents could no longer afford to keep trying. It was putting a strain on the whole family and they told her it was time to give up.

Her cries broke their parents heart and they apologized to her. They told her they'll give one last push together and if it doesn't work they'll have to give up. She agreed. Her parents and her drove around town every day looking for a place, they posted all over the internet in hopes to find another place. Many posts were met with rude trolls and unsupportive comments, but a few helped give Olivia hope.

Towards the end of the search, they finally stumbled upon a place that looked closed. They found the landlords information and with the help of a wonderful family member, they reached out. Some how, the stars aligned that day, and the landlord was willing to listen to Olivia and her story. From there, with the support of her family, friends, old customers, strangers on the internet, she was able to get the space she now calls home.

Before:

After:

With the small budget that Olivia had to start with, she couldn't make the place exactly how she envisions it, but she hopes to add more and more each day. Rocketbelly is still in it's current soft opening stage. She hopes to get more machines, tables, chairs, and a beautiful store sign before she has her grand opening.

It's been a rollercoaster, but Olivia's perseverance broke through the days where it felt hopeless and impossible. Now Olivia is focused on making Rocketbelly bigger and better. Olivia hopes to meet people from all over the world and her goal is to make everyone's day a little brighter. One day she hopes to have Rocketbellys and Rocket Chickens nationwide, maybe even worldwide.

Rocketbelly is still in it's soft opening stages. Currently there is not yet a need for employees, but that may change soon. We are accepting applications for general crew members and prep cooks/fry cooks, possibly bakers as well. Please click this link and fill out the application. We'll get back to you as soon as a position opens up.