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“If ain’t nobody else told y’all today, always remember the Mulletteer loves ya.”

This is just one of the identifying catchphrases R.J. “The Mulletteer” Williams has coined. 

If you don’t hear him, you’ll surely see him in his oversized sunglasses, leather pants, dagger earring, and — of course — his long, luscious mullet. 

At 51 years old and a self-proclaimed “professional vagabond,” Williams has travelled many different life paths.

As a teenager, he was an Eagle Scout, was a volunteer firefighter driver and for the Bennett’s Creek volunteer rescue squad. In high school, he was Nansemond River’s first mascot because of his connection with Eagle Scouts. In his early 20s, Williams served as a deputy sheriff for a year in Southampton County. 

Throughout his life, Williams said he always wanted to be a restaurateur and had a lifelong love and appreciation for cooking, which is why he decided to go to the Culinary Institute of America in 2005. 

After that, he bounced around restaurants for a while, but the money just wasn’t there, he said. He cooked at White Tail Resort — a family nudist resort — for three months.

“I was the only person with clothes on in the entire property,” he said. “You learn to unfocus your eyes.”

He was also a grave digger for a year while his wife at the time was pregnant with their daughter. Williams said he estimates he buried around 150 people during that time.

Williams had also been a truck driver temporarily because it was good money. Around 2018 he bought his own mack truck and started doing local container shipping. He also pulled the UniverSoul Circus that performs in Norfolk. 

He also currently serves on the board of the Suffolk Crime Line, and is a large advocate against sex trafficking.

Williams’ friend and retail business partner, Karen Wadhams, described him as a “complete sweetheart” and a “go-getter type of guy.”

“In the midst of all this, my mind has always been building that bar/restaurant,” he said. “Even when I was driving trucks, you’d be on the road talking to some driver eight hours a day, you know, just to keep yourselves awake, and I’m talking about food.”

It wasn’t until after COVID-19 that Williams was able to get into the food-selling business. He bought his own food trailer and started casually setting up in trucker lots doing quick service food. 

A few years later, when Williams had established himself more in the culinary business, he was routinely catering parties with hundreds of people and working 70 hour weeks. He knew that wasn’t a sustainable way to live, so he started focusing his efforts on the retail side of the industry — specifically on sauces.

Awesome Sauce is a candy apple bacon habanero hot sauce, and is the first of many ideas that have made it into a physical bottle.

Williams recently got the United States Department of Agriculture’s approval, so the next step is to start selling it in stores. 

The flavor profile of the sauce is inspired by a menu item he made at a restaurant he worked at 30 years ago, Williams said.

Andrew Botdorf, owner of Suffolk’s Heritage Auto, Rod, and Custom, described Williams hot sauce as “very homemade tasting” and “like someone’s grandmother made it in their kitchen.”

Botdorf is currently working on restoring a pickup for Williams to use as an advertising vehicle.

With at least nine other hot sauce ideas in the pipeline, Williams is excited to see how his first sauce sells before jumping into other projects. 

He currently grows 19 varieties of hot peppers he uses in his cooking including Carolina reapers, scotch bonnets, Trinidad Moruga scorpion peppers, and others.

Once Williams started advertising the sauce, his Mulletteer character naturally grew into a bigger persona.

He said he had a mullet a few times when he was younger, but nothing he was ever very serious about. Now, The Mulletteer has morphed into its own brand that sells itself.

“It’s kind of like being Colonel Sanders before KFC was popular,” he said.

The Mulletteer started as a Facebook page before it grew into a business.

His mullet is all natural, usually with only a bit of hairspray, he said. He also usually trims it himself, but he has an emergency hairdresser on standby. It’s been the same length for about five years.

“He’s a groovy dude,” Botdorf said. “His attitude matched his swagger.”

Botdorf first met Williams at a car show before he became a customer and thought, “that guy’s got a really awesome mullet.”

Having also dabbled in a bit of stand-up comedy, Williams is also able to play into the loud, quick, witty part of The Mulletteer as well.

He’s tried to make a name for himself by simply showing up places and offering people samples of his sauce, he said. He’ll often go to the Virginia Beach ocean front with a sauce holster and walk along the boardwalk with samples. Williams also takes pride in his classic cars and trucks, so he’s often invited out to car shows.

Botdorf said Williams “is very involved in the presentation of his product through iconic American vehicles. 

“Everywhere he goes somebody knows his name or who he is,” Wadhams said. “It’s kind of funny, you know, he’s, he’s got his own little following, and he’s, he’s the cool guy.”

Williams joked that he can’t even go to the grocery store without being dressed as The Mulletteer because people will ask him if he’s sick. 

The whole Mulletteer character is an influence of 70s and 80s pop culture along with people Williams has encountered throughout his life. 

His “always remember the Mulletteer loves ya” catchphrase came from his first Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. His other equally iconic phrase, “how y’all are,” came from a man who made moonshine in a swamp in North Carolina.

“This is like one of those quintessential movie stories,” Williams said about the encounter that inspired the phrase. “You pull up in the car and these two teenage kids were there. This dude comes out. He’s wearing a pair of bib overalls, one strap on, barefoot … big old beard, burley, dude [said] ‘How y’all are?’”

Ever since then that phrase has stuck with him, he said.

Williams added he usually wears a pair of boot spurs that were given to him by a Benetton model as a form of payment for giving her rides home.

“The memories stay in my pocket,” he said. 

After living a million lives in one lifetime, Williams has learned a lot about himself and other people. After years of being in and out of the restaurant business, he’s finally found his niche — a leather pants wearing, hot sauce making Mulletteer.

“I’m 51 years old, I ain’t gonna live forever,” he said. “I’m gonna enjoy it.”