In November 2025, Hockey\u2019s Smokehouse of Waverly extended its food services from not only serving food from its food truck, but also adding a storefront and a catering business, partnered with Z\u2019s Pizza & Diner.<\/p>\n
After conversations about the possibility of this partnership at the end of October, the owners of Hockey\u2019s Smokehouse, Brian and Allison Hockey, along with their supportive daughter Chloe, and Z\u2019s Pizza & Diner owners, Joy and Chris Carney, made things official.<\/p>\n
They opened up the storefront on Nov. 6, located at 104 Second St. NW in Waverly, to sell Hockey Smokehouse\u2019s non-meat products and to use for their partnered catering business, Smoke and Dough LLC. They also sell truffles and chocolates made by Sweet Things LC, a business based out of La Porte City, Iowa, at the storefront.<\/p>\n
Brian Hockey spoke to Waverly Newspapers about working together with the Carneys.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir passion and our passions line up. Our ideologies and our theories all line up,\u201d Hockey explained. \u201cAbout a month ago, they brought us in, and we didn\u2019t really have any idea. We kind of talked about it and just joked about it, but it never really turned into anything serious. […] Next thing you know, here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Z\u2019s originally acquired the storefront space but were \u201cnot able to utilize it for what they had planned to,\u201d Hockey said, so with their new partnership, Hockey’s Smokehouse moved in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was definitely not in the plans for our business,\u201d he said. \u201cWe really had no vision of opening up a storefront. But luckily, through some friends and through the opening of our new business, Smoke and Dough, we have moved into the office space, along with Z\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hockey’s Smokehouse prepares all of their own food, smoking meat, making seasonings and smoking cheeses in the Hockeys’ home. Then, the Hockeys bring the non-meat products to the storefront to sell. When they operate the food truck, they cook everything beforehand for fast service.<\/p>\n
Hockey said that it\u2019s really nice to have a spot to sell everything, instead of selling the items from their house.<\/p>\n
With the Hockey\u2019s Smokehouse expansion, the business offers more variety to its menu than previously, while still staying true to their business principles: simple, clean and fast.<\/p>\n
In total, Hockey\u2019s Smokehouse offers 13 seasonings, six varieties of smoked cheeses (mozzarella, mild cheddar, sharp cheddar, Gouda, Swiss and Colby), a variety of barbecue sauces, their own jelly and a smoker used for cocktails.<\/p>\n
The Hockey\u2019s Smokehouse general food menu, seasonings and more can be found on its website: hockeys-smokehouse-llc.square.site, where requests for catering can also be made. More information and updates about Hockey’s Smokehouse and Smoke and Dough LLC are on their Facebook pages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that with Z\u2019s being locally owned and the support they have and then us being locally owned and the overwhelming support we have, the two businesses together, it\u2019s going to be a really nice marriage,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty excited for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hockey started the business three years ago, wanting to make a little extra money to get a turbo for his sports car, he said.<\/p>\n
After brainstorming with a friend, he decided to open up a seasoning business. He bought a variety of individual ingredients and hand blended them.<\/p>\n
The first time he started selling his seasoning was at a local farmer\u2019s market, with little jars costing $5. He came out of the farmer\u2019s market selling $200.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went home and I was like, \u2018You got to be kidding me, what just happened?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI expected to make like 30 or 40 bucks, and we just kept going. We kept going every week, and we kept building.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the business started its climb, Hockey eventually sold his sports car that inspired the business and bought a truck and trailer for the smokehouse.<\/p>\n
Hockey added, \u201cFun money turned into serious money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years ago, the local business served food at Oktoberfest, selling 1,000 brats. They came back last year, additionally offering mac and cheese and pretzels with the brats, and almost doubled their sales.<\/p>\n
Hockey\u2019s Smokehouse has worked with many local businesses and at events in the area, including serving lunch to local schools, rotating every Thursday, and serving food at the Beach House every Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
When talking about the support that they get from the community and local businesses, he said that \u201cit has been absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot thank the community for all the support,\u201d Hockey expressed. \u201cWe\u2019ve had support from Tyson Beach, Farmers State Bank, Waverly Tire, Dale Howard, Waverly Preschool, Miller True Value, just local businesses. It\u2019s local-supporting-local, which is absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In November 2025, Hockey\u2019s Smokehouse of Waverly extended its food services from not only serving food from its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[47598,6218,43403,43405,43404,43402,5,47597,43407],"class_list":["post-532378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-cheddar-cheese","tag-cooking","tag-cuisine","tag-food-and-drink-preparation","tag-food-watchlist-articles","tag-foods","tag-hockey","tag-smoking-cooking","tag-western-cuisine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116322349719045114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}