This Cajun seafood joint has opened a permanent food truck in downtown Macon
Cooking was a therapeutic escape for Charlie Jonas after he spent five years behind bars.
Jonas, a Starke, Florida, native who said he was convicted on a cocaine charge, said this led him to open Sauced Up, a Cajun seafood truck, which was popular in North Florida. It now sits permanently in downtown Macon.
“I went to prison ... I was just tired of being in and out of trouble,” Jonas said. “I wanted something different, and literally the only other thing I knew how to do was cook a little bit, so I decided to take it serious.”
The food truck initially traveled around North Florida, and a brick-and-mortar restaurant temporarily sat in Starke, until it became too busy and expensive to manage.
He closed the restaurant and moved to Macon for a fresh start at 1087 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., in the Greenwood Bottom Shopping Plaza. The food truck, which opened Friday, sits next to the plaza and is open from 5-8 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. An indoor take-out space is in the works in Suite D, on the right end of the plaza.
The current menu features garlic-forward seafood boils with combinations of snow crab, blue crab, lobster, shrimp, crawfish and mussels.
Sauced Up originally also sold wings, until Jonas noticed an uptick in seafood prices, which he believes was due to instability on international tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
“It was just easier to cut down, because I was mainly known for seafood anyway … ,” Jonas said. “Once I cut down on all that other stuff, it made my overhead way cheaper and easier.”
He buys most ingredients from Restaurant Depot and Cheney Brothers, a Florida distribution company. Most of his seafood is imported from Canada, and the blue crab is sourced locally.
“It depends on if it’s salt or fresh water crab, and depends where the crabbers are crabbing out at that time,” the 37-year-old told The Telegraph.
The business launched from the front door of his mom’s house. She taught him how to cook as a kid. Cajun dishes were his favorite.
“I don’t consider myself like a chef or expert,” Jonas, a father of three teenagers, said. “I prayed about it, and that’s the direction I went.”
He sold dishes to neighbors before a bittersweet moment inspired him to launch the professional business.
“Someone actually reported me for running an unlicensed food service,” he said. “It forced me to just go into the business and get legit.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
