College students get creative when it comes to side hustles for extra income, and lately, the business of selling “plates” is growing in popularity. Students will make home-cooked meals that people miss while in school, especially soul food at HBCUs, and sell them to other students as a ready-made meal, or a plate. Rather than a menu with different options, the cook changes the meal every time they serve, making it more cost effective. For North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University senior Rhyan Smoot, it’s not just about money — it’s a passion.
Smoot started Rhy’s Kitchen in early March 2025, selling popular foods in plates like wings, fried fish, and oxtails, and offering meal planning services and catering for large groups. She also creates social media content, including food reviews and recipes. We sat down with Smoot to find out how she balances college with a business and what makes her so passionate about sharing her love of food.
Spoon University: Is a love of cooking how this started? Or is this a side hustle for you?
Rhyan Smoot: Yes, I’ve always, always loved cooking. The biggest thing in my family, growing up, we weren’t an eat-out family that much. Eat-out was for special occasions or lazy days. So most of the time, either my mom or my dad were cooking and, I don’t know, I just kind of found it fun. A lot of times, especially my mom, she would force me to be in the kitchen with her, but I actually enjoyed it, so I learned a lot of things.
And then when COVID happened, I don’t know why I just picked it up as a hobby. We really didn’t have much to do being stuck in the house, so cooking was a hobby I picked up and from there it kind of just turned into this.
SU: Why is cooking important to you?
RS: Food is such a community maker. Literally, food can join together people that don’t speak the same language, don’t have the same background. Food is one universal language. Literally from my business I made friends who were clients.
SU: You make a lot of recipes. Why do you think it’s important to share food across cultures?
RS: I think it’s important to kind of dibble-dabble in other cultures, even if it’s not necessarily for your palate, just giving it a try. Over this past summer, I made a Nigerian dish that I saw all the time and I was like “Ooo I want to try this.” I have a lot of Nigerian friends. I made it. I personally didn’t like it, but all of my Nigerian friends loved it. They said it was ethnically spot on and everything, and that made me really happy to know like “wow I can remind you of your mom’s cooking, I can remind you of home.”
SU: What have you learned as a student entrepreneur?
RS: It’s definitely harder to be consistent because of everything we have going on — classes, meetings, social life, just everything. Some people like to start a business just to be a side hustle. Some people start a business because it’s what they want to do in the long term. It’s just important to establish what am I doing this for? Then, you can know how to prioritize it in your life.
SU: What have been your favorite dishes and your most challenging dishes that you’ve made?
RS: Favorite would probably be my wing plate: wings, mac, collards, yams, roll. That was my first one, so it’s really special to me. It was my first time putting myself out there, seeing all the support that I had people coming to buy a plate. It’s just a classic soul food plate. You can’t go wrong with that.
Most challenging, I will probably say my oxtail plate because that was my first time making oxtails. So it was like “Girl, it’s your first time making oxtails and you’re about to sell them to people?” They have to come out good, and oxtails are so expensive, you can’t mess up. I sold sweet plantains with that plate. That was also my first time making sweet plantains. So two things I had never made before, and I was really just trusting myself, which I have to do a lot of. But it turned out great.
SU: You are going to continue school doing business administration. You said it was related to Rhy’s Kitchen but also other things. Can you tell me more about that?
RS: I won’t go to grad school immediately. I want to give myself a semester or two, like a year gap in between. Because I want to go to school out of state, I’m going to need to save up a lot of money and apply to as many scholarships as I can. I want to go to school in Chicago — that is the dream. But wherever it ends up being, business administration is what it’s going to be, and part of it is definitely because of Rhy’s Kitchen. How I can be a better manager of my business?
SU: After you graduate, do you see yourself coming back as an alumna and tailgating?
RS: Yes, absolutely yes. Not every year, definitely not every year. Honestly maybe not even every 5 years. Next year, 110% because it’s the centennial, like I have to go back.