Milton Bonds Jr. dreamed of a career in the NFL, but after an ACL injury in high school and a stint playing football in college, he realized that, regarding the question of what he would do with his life, “This wasn’t it,” he says.
He ended up joining the Memphis Police Department, where he’s a lieutenant overseeing the digital forensics unit and the internet crimes against children and human trafficking task force.
But police work still wasn’t completely it, either. “My passion was always owning a restaurant. Something on the side,” Bonds says. “That was the dream, ’cause I grew up with two great cooks in the family. And my wife is a good cook as well.”
Bonds is now the owner of Bonds Kountry Kitchen food truck. He and his wife, Tameka, share the cooking duties. “Milton does all the frying,” says Tameka, who makes the sides and cooks meat. “I’m not dealing with any of the grease.”
“As a policeman, you have to eat food on the go,” Milton says. “So I’ve probably tried every major restaurant where we would go in and out. On my off days from my beats, I would try different foods around the city. I just felt like I could probably do this.”
He “didn’t have the resources” to open a restaurant, so he decided to open a food truck with his sister, Marsha Bonds, in 2024.
“The concept was soul food on a food truck,” Milton says, adding, “Comfort food like fried chicken, grilled pork chops, greens, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese.”
They joined Memphis Kitchen Co-Op, where they could do their prep work for both the truck and catering jobs.
The food truck business was slow going at first. “On the first day, we may have had 15 customers,” Milton says. It also had its drawbacks. “Someone stole our generator off the truck.” And Marsha had medical issues, so Tameka took her place on the food truck about a year ago.
He and Tameka are “childhood sweethearts” who began dating when they were in the 11th grade, Milton says.
“This journey was meant for us because Milton and I both come from a family of true cooks,” Tameka says. “Cooking gives me some breathing space. Joy. When I’m in the kitchen, I’m in my zone.”
Growing up, Tameka and her sisters were required by their working mom to have the house clean and have “some kind of meat going” when she got home. Her mom would then finish the rest of the dinner. “Fast food wasn’t something we did often at all. Cooking was happening all the time at our house.”
Tameka thought cooking was a chore until she moved out of the house at 18. “There were no limits to what I was cooking,” she says. “I was cooking heavy soul food like neckbones, pig’s feet, baked chicken, fried chicken.”
Soul food is her specialty. “I feel like it really does reach the soul,” she says, adding, “Nothing about soul food is fast food.”
Their biggest food truck day is between noon and 5 p.m. Sundays at the Kroger at Houston Levee and Macon in Cordova, Milton says, adding that their smothered pork chops and fried catfish are big hits.
Tameka puts their menus together. A recent Sunday included homemade cornbread dressing, slow-simmered pinto beans, Southern-style spaghetti, sweet potato soufflé with a marshmallow topping, and Tameka’s “Big Bonds” seven-blend macaroni and cheese.
“Every Sunday they come back and tell you how good your food was. It really drives you,” says Milton.
Bonds Kountry Kitchen frozen items are also available at Amplified Meal Prep Marketplace at Memphis Kitchen Co-Op & Marketplace at 7940 Fischer Steel Road in Cordova.
When he’s not at the police station or working with the food truck, Milton attends school one or two nights a week at the University of Memphis, pursuing his Ph.D. in urban affairs and public policy with a concentration in criminal justice. He’d like to eventually teach a collegiate level higher education class in, perhaps, urban affairs or public policy. As he puts it, “I just try to stay active, that’s all.”
