Florida Foodie: Recent Episodes
WKMG and Graham Media Group
Food is part of our traditions and cultures, and it impacts our health, our economy and all of our communities. So, Florida Foodie is giving you some food for thought, taking a closer look at how what we eat and how we eat it impacts us here in Florida and what it means for everyone, everywhere.
Jamilyn Bailey and Lordfer “Lo” Lalicon, the owners of Kaya, know that Filipino food is not normally associated with “fine dining,” they are looking to change that perception. “I think everybody and not just our parents, even our friends are doubtful, like ‘You’re opening a Filipino restaurant? Casual fine-dining Filipino restaurant? Are you crazy? You can make Filipino food fine dining.’” Lalicon said. “And one of the misconceptions too is that Filipino food is ugly and no, it doesn’t have to be.” The duo like to describe Kaya as offering “casual fine dining.” They want people to feel comfortable in the space but offer food with close attention to quality and detail. “We do karaoke on Wednesdays. We have these festivals and farmers’ markets,” Bailey said. The pair opened Kaya at the start of 2023 but in that short amount of time, they have managed to get some prestigious accolades including recognition from the Michelin Restaurant Guide. “I sometimes sit back and just like realize how great that is for the community and for a restaurant,” Lalicon said. “And it’s cool to see that they’re paying attention to a small restaurant like us who’s doing a very unique thing and Filipino food.” The name Kaya means “capable,” which has become a mantra for the “small restaurant.” “It’s like saying, since we were one of the few Filipino restaurants in Central Florida, we’re saying that Filipino food is good enough. It’s flavorful enough. We can live our dreams and do what we want to do,” Lalicon said. In addition to the food, the pair want Kaya to be a space to build and support their community. “We actually just had a ‘know your farmers market’ yesterday. We invited our farm partners to come and talk to the community about how they can also source their vegetables more locally and support the local ecosystem,” Bailey said. “It takes a lot for a meal to come together on your table and we want folks that be a little bit more connected to that process of eating.” The support of the community has been big motivator for the pair. “It’s really amazing. I’m so proud. Like, I get emotional sometimes just looking around,” Bailey said. “You really can’t put a finger on what our guests are. I mean, every kind of ethnicity, background — it is just really amazing to see that and to share that.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Bailey and Lalicon talk about how they first met in college and how they built their partnership after reconnecting years later. They also talk about how the restaurant has evolved since it opened and how they hope to expand the business moving forward. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando, 2100 Lee Road, has been giving food to those in need for 45 years. However, the organization has never given out as much food as it has in 2022. “The amount of food going out of our establishment is record-breaking for us,” JFS president Phil Flynn said. “May broke all our records. Then June broke May’s record and I’ve just closed the books on July and July broke June’s records. So we have a tremendous amount of food going out.” Flynn said the food insecurity in Central Florida was greatly exacerbated by the pandemic. “Prepandemic — go back to 2019 — we were averaging 22 clients a day,” Flynn said. “We then, during the pandemic, rose to 124 (clients) per day.” Flynn said JFS’ food pantry is now seeing about 100 people a day — which the organization believes is the new normal. The majority of people being served by JFS are people who are working, but struggling to make ends meet. “I see the working poor,” Flynn said. “My facility, we do serve — if you’re homeless, and you show up, we feed you. We give you the food to go. But, the vast majority of clients — over 95% of people coming in — they’re working, right? So they’re working two, three jobs, but they can’t get to the end of the month.” Flynn said that it takes a lot to meet the growing demand JFS is experiencing. “We rely on a combination of tremendous amount of donor support. We are a nonprofit agency. We’re raising money all the time and through government programs and government grants,” he said. However, Flynn added that the funds have not quite kept up with the demand for help. “They have enough for us to just do today’s job and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow,” he said. JFS bases its mission on the Jewish principle of “tikkun olam,” which translates to “repairing the world.” “You show up at my front door, you’re hungry, I feed you,” Flynn said. “You need help, I help you. Our job is to save the world.” Flynn added that there are no qualifications to receive assistance from JFS “You’re hungry, we feed you. It’s plain and simple. Yes, because we do take government grants, we do ask some questions. Do you live in Seminole County? Do you live in Orange County,” he said. “We take that information so we can report back to the government because they are interested in tracking.” Flynn described his work as humbling but added that he would not be upset if his job became obsolete. “If food insecurity went away, then you wouldn’t need the food pantries,” he said. “Just take it away. We’ll do something else.” In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Flynn talks about the other services offered by JFS to people in need. He also shares information on a new program aimed at helping survivors of the Holocaust. Those interested in donating to JFS can click here. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Norman Van Aken is not a native Floridian but his name is synonymous with the state’s cuisine. Van Aken lives in South Florida but has his restaurant, Norman’s, in Central Florida. Van Aken grew up in Northern Illinois. He knew from an early age that he loved cooking but did not realize that it could be a career. “I had no understanding (or) inkling that being a chef was a road for a person like me. No one spoke about that growing up in Illinois,” he said. “People in that area might have been school teachers if they were smart, but most of us (were) brick layers and cops and my mom was a waitress.” Van Aken spent the early part of his working life trying out a string of blue color jobs including factory jobs, hot tar roofing and he even worked with a carnival. “I worked the Ferris wheel and they asked me if I wouldn’t mind climbing up on the wheel to move one of the little chairs out of the way so a truck could pull through. I was like, ‘No sweat.’ I was a gymnast in high school and monkeyed up there to do that,” Van Aken said. “Unfortunately, the Ferris wheel wasn’t properly grounded for electricity and I became totally stuck under that wheel until I kicked myself off and one of the carny workers saved my life by catching me from hitting the asphalt.” Eventually, he found himself working as a short-order cook at a diner, but he still did not realize that cooking could be a career. Van Aken said he did not come to that realization until he made the move to Key West in 1973. He had grown up going to Florida on vacation with his family, but decided to make a move to the Sunshine State after visiting a friend who was already living in the Keys. It was there at the Pier House Hotel that Van Aken realized what he could accomplish in a kitchen. “My aspirations were more about being a writer than anything I didn’t know about being a chef,” he said. “But, I could see somehow this thing colliding with both the ability to be artistic and cook.” Van Aken said his time in diners helped him to learn speed with his cooking, but in that kitchen, he was surrounded by classically trained chefs who began imparting their knowledge to him. “And I was like hooked —like falling-in-love hooked. I was like, ‘OK, I gotta start buying books. I gotta get some knives.’” As Van Aken continued down this path of building a culinary cuisine. He found himself as part of the movement that would be come known as New World Cusine which involved marrying classic American recipes and ingredients with Europe techniques. At the time, much of the movement was budding out of places like California and New Orleans. “Here I was in Key West seeing all this stuff primarily through magazines because it was before television was covering it, and thinking, ‘Well, they’re doing it there. Do I need to move there so I can do it there,’” Van Aken said. “Then hit me, I should not do that. I should bring it here — do something representational of what Florida is all about.” With this inspiration, Van Aken moved to Miami, taking his talents to a bigger stage. He came out with his first cookbook. Van Aken has carried this movement forward to the present day with his eponymous Orlando restaurant, Norman’s, which recently reopened at 7924 Via Dellagio Way. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Van Aken shares more of his story of coming to Florida and learning his craft in Key West. He also shares how he came to coin the term “Fusion Cooking” and how he once got into a fistfight refereed by actor Mickey Rourke. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Alex Diaz is constantly pushing to make his restaurant, Alex’s Fresh Kitchen, a success. “It’s my baby. It’s my dream, you know, and I do anything for it. I’ve sacrificed for this place,” Diaz said. Diaz opened his restaurant in 2019 at 1015 State Road 436 in Suite 109 of a strip mall in Casselberry. The pandemic hit not long after, creating new challenges for the budding business. In 2021, Diaz described the ups and downs of coming out of the pandemic — like supply chain issues and inflation — as being like a roller coaster. Now, he said those issues have only gotten worse. “I would say it’s torture,” Diaz said. “One minute, you have a good week — and you have good labor costs, good food costs going across the board — and then you do your next order and everything’s up, like $20-$30 or more. It’s like, ‘When did this happen?‘” Despite the challenges, the chef and his team manage to put out an impressive menu of, largely, scratch-made food from a tight kitchen. Diaz chalks it up to the work culture he maintains at the restaurant. “We respect each other. We call each other chefs throughout the whole kitchen,” Diaz said. “think it starts with that and I appreciate my guys, I always tell them all the time, ‘I appreciate everything you do.’ I think throughout my career, I think that’s something that’s missing in a lot of places. People are not appreciated enough.” Diaz and his team have seen some significant successes, including an invitation to South Beach Wine & Food Festival. “We had no clue what we were doing when we came down there, ut it was, it was a really good experience,” Diaz said. He and his team got the chance to hand out 3,000 of the restaurant’s award-winning Mamba burgers. Diaz is also set to be featured in an upcoming TV cooking competition, though he couldn’t say much about it. “We got something coming out in October. I’m sworn to secrecy. So I can’t say what show it is, but it’s definitely going to be an interesting show,” he said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Diaz talks about working with his mother and now his wife. He shares his plans to move Alex’s Fresh Kitchen into a bigger space. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A sense of fun is very important to Robert and Teresa Ly and that value is a big part of their business, Sus Hi Eatstation. The importance of fun and food helped the two hit it off, in both their romantic and business partnership. “Our core values also aligned. We love to have fun. We love eating,” Robert Ly said. “The concept (for Sus Hi Eatstation) came up about a year or so after us dating. We wanted to start a business together and we’re just thinking like, ‘What is it that we want to start,’ and we’re like, ‘We want to start something that we want,’ and during that time, there was no create your own sushi.” The young couple opened their first location in 2011 near the campus of the University of Central Florida, where Teresa Ly was still attending school. The restaurant, or dojo as the Lys like to call it, is ninja-themed. “We just love having fun. That’s the thing. That’s our whole culture is built upon that fun core value of ours. So we thought, ‘What’s more fun than ninjas? We have to do that,’” Teresa Ly said. All of the employees at Sus Hi Eatstation are referred to as ninjas. “So when you come into our organization, the first thing you do is you come up with a ninja name,” Robert Ly said. “So that’s kind of your entry into the brand. So every single employee — we don’t call them employees, we call them ninjas — has their own identity that they come in. That’s the first thing to choose, they discover their own ninja name.” The Lys also get in on this fun. Teresa Ly is Grand Master Miso Eel and Robert Ly is Grand Master Fun Ly. Of course, in the early days of Sus Hi, it wasn’t all fun. “I remember the first three, four years of our first restaurant, we were working over 100 hours a week,” Robert Ly said. “As (we’re) building a new business, a new concept, we have to put on multiple hats — and we’re still wearing multiple hats — but we literally had like 20-30 hats when we first built it and no sleep,” Robert Ly said. Despite those early hardships, the pair persevered. Now, they have nine locations and will soon be opening a 10th. The pair also have a small army of over 200 ninjas in their employ. On top of running their business, the pair have also been busy raising three children — two daughters, 6 and 5, and a baby boy. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Robert and Teresa Ly talk more about juggling family while also running their business. They also share how they managed to get through the COVID-19 pandemic and what it was like when their wedding went viral online, racking up millions of views on YouTube. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chef Art Smith is known across the country and around the world for his cooking, but he started out his life in the little-known, rural town of Jasper, Florida. “Seventh generation — and I’m the only family member on my father’s side that actually left the state and I’m the only chef among all the police officers and people within the prison system, etc,” he said. Though he is the only chef, Smith is not the only member of his family to learn their way around a kitchen. “They could really cook and they all believed in the power of food,” he said. “You feed them, they come. You keep feeding them, they stay. You feed them a lot, you get what you want.” Smith went to school at Florida State University, though he admits he was not the best student and was flunking classes. However, he did take advantage of other opportunities at the school. “I discovered something called an internship and so it was like a free pass out of school,” he said. Smith wound up interning at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. “Then Disney came a calling and that was a harder sell. It took me, I remember at least three or four auditions before I got it,” he said. Smith said the competition among his fellow interns at Disney was stiff. “I went there and there were all these culinary students. They all thought they were a little fabulous. And so the chef of the former Empress Lilly threw this baking contest,” he said. Smith said he was not a trained baker and learned by reading on his own. “I entered it, and I beat them,” he said. “So I was like, ‘I don’t have to have a culinary education to beat other chefs.’ So I go back to school, still not doing great and the dean says, ‘You know Art, you’re a very nice guy. You’re a good cook, but you’re a terrible student.’ He said, You know, the governor needs some help. So I want you to go over there and help him out.’” It was in the governor’s mansion that Smith’s career really started to flourish. He began to prepare meals, not just the governor, Bob Graham, and his wife, Adele Graham, but also for their guests — such as Mikhail Baryshnikov. “It was not the highest paying job in my life, but what it did do — once you work for a head of state, you have something called security clearance,” Smith said. This would pay dividends for the chef later in life, after he had made his way to Chicago. “A very special guest came to Chicago and they could not find a chef to cook for her,” Smith said. “Because Scotland Yard would not approve any of the chef’s because they didn’t have the security clearance.” This ultimately gave Smith the opportunity to cook for Princess Diana. “If I hadn’t worked for the Grahams — if I hadn’t worked at the Florida governor’s mansion — I wouldn’t have the security clearance and I wouldn’t have been able to cook for her,” he said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Smith shares more of how he came up in the culinary world and eventually found himself as the personal chef to Oprah Winfrey. He also talks about his restaurant at Disney Springs and some of his signature dishes. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Joel Dawson, owner of Brothers-N-Arms BBQ, has cooked meals in some of the most extreme situations a person can imagine. “I was in Afghanistan — was on the border of Pakistan,” Dawson said. “We’re in the chow hall and... an RPG went off, shook the whole building. It was so intense that it blew all the windows.” Dawson served as a cook with the Marine Corps for 15 years prior to his retirement. He joined up in 2001 and during his time in the service, Dawson deployed four times. “The Marine Corps showed us how to produce mass quantities of food at a quality rate,” Dawson said. “And since then I did in the 15 years of the Marine Corps I managed the dining facilities. I was able to go to Afghanistan a couple of times and I did food service feeding for the warfighters — the guys go on the front lines and had the intestinal fortitude to kick in doors, take names and when they come back successfully, they can come back to a great meal.” Just before his retirement, Dawson began learning the barbecue business from his father. “My dad had a barbecue stand, he was working for my cousin. So I was talking to him about that, ‘I want to do that, too.’ I was telling my friends that I wanted to do a food truck and he taught me exactly how to manage a food truck, how to cook it, how to season and how to make it happen.” Dawson started Brothers-N-Arms in 2017. Immediately, he was able to put his military experience to use in his business. “I took the whole architecture designed for the Marine Corps from ordering — because I was with ordering. If a person tells me I have 200 people in my wedding, I know how much to order,” he said. “When they tell us this is how many we need to feed — we go out to the field, you do not ever want to be short.” Dawson has managed to build his business up over the past six years and is now partnered with another business. “Our base hub is in Sanford, Florida at Rockin’ Rhonda’s Neighborhood Bar,” he said. “You can catch us there every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We’ll be there unless we have a special engagement that we’ll be at but right now we opened up our backyard kitchen. So that way if the truck food truck moves, we’ll still have the barbecue on site.” Dawson has done it all while raising five children, ranging in age from 22 to his youngest at just 1 year old. Dawson said his 4-year-old has become really enamored with his dad’s work. “He’s really taken into what I do. He’s mad now because he’s not at work. He has a uniform, he has camouflage pants. He doesn’t he doesn’t play around,” Dawson said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Dawson talks more about his military service and the difference between serving Marines and serving civilians. He also talks about his charity work, helping service men and women who are dealing with PTSD. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eric Godfrey has a long and varied resume that starts in the world of stand-up comedy and leads to his gourmet bacon business, Bacon King USA. “In college, I did stand-up comedy,” Godfrey said. “I’m living in Charlotte, North Carolina and so I started stand-up comedy. I was in college and working weekends all throughout the southeast. Get back in time for class on Monday. Go to the Bahamas for spring break, work the comedy club down there — lots of fun, living the dream.” Just after he graduated college, around 1991, Godfrey got a unique opportunity. “At the time Carrot Top had hit the scene and he did what they call a NACA conference — National Association of Collegiate Activities,” Godfrey said. “He did a NACA conference, and he got 86 schools that wanted him to perform during a one-semester period of time, which was a record.” Godfrey said Carrot Top’s manager reached out to him and asked if he wanted to go on the road with the prop comedian. “His manager at the time — I was working for his comedy clubs — said, ‘Hey, listen, why don’t you have Eric go out with you on the road? He can help you drive the truck and he can help you carry the trunks into the venue, help you set them up. He can go up in front of you and do 15-20 minutes.” The pair ended up spending years together on the road, with Godfrey eventually becoming Carrot Top’s tour manager. However, he eventually decided to settle down in St. Cloud, where he moved into education. Godfrey is now the dean of students at St. Cloud High School. Despite his successful second act in education, Godfrey decided to venture into entrepreneurship after inspiration struck him without warning. “I came up with the idea back in November,” he said. “Just recently, it was one of the things that I was just about to fall asleep — for some reason. I just sort of started myself up and I said ‘bacon.’” Godfrey had been experimenting with pork because a friend of his gave him a recipe for pork belly burnt ends. “I went online and I do research on how to make bacon because I already had the pork belly. I already made enough of the pork belly burnt ends, I want to try something different,” he said. “So I found a recipe for bacon and I made my first batch of bacon and it turned out great. Good enough that I’m like, ‘Oh wow,’ and I gave it up to all the guys at school and everything else. I’m like, ‘This is really cool.’ Then I realized based on the ingredients, there are so many there are unlimited kinds of bacon.” Godfrey started making his own bacon, selling it online and through farmer’s markets around Central Florida. The ease of the process gave him a second idea for his business. “My wife signed up for one of those paint things where the ladies get together and they drink wine and they paint,” he said. “Then I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, they can do that. Why can’t guys get together and drink beer and make bacon?’ So I have what I call the Bacon King experience.” Godfrey runs the experience out of his friend’s barbecue restaurant, Jimmy Bear’s BBQ. The pair also co-own a comedy club, Porky’s Comedy Club, that also operates out of the restaurant. “I go through the whole history of how curing began and everything and then we give them an actual five-pound slab of pork belly and we do the measurements and create the cure and then I let them just go in and make whatever they want,” Godfrey said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Godfrey shares more about his bespoke bacon. He also shares his plans to franchise the Bacon King Experience and his dream of a Tiger King-inspired photo shoot. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ashley D’Acunto and her husband Israel Erazo have not slowed down since they first opened Phat Ash Bakes three years ago in the middle of the pandemic. In March 2022, the pair moved into their brick-and-mortar bakery, 912 N. Mills Ave., and since then, have partnered with Foxtail Coffee Co. “We are in one location right now,” D’Acunto said. “It’s the foxtail coffee that’s on East Colonial Drive and they have — it’s called the Cookie Phactory by Phat Ash Bakes. So it’s not under our exact name, but you’ll see the cookies right when you walk in.” The couple has also partnered with several other restaurants and coffee shops around Central Florida, including Goodfellas in DeBary, Propagate Social House in Apopka and Grilled Cheezus, which the pair share a building with. It is quite an impressive footprint for the couple considering they started selling their cookies out of their home kitchen on Instagram. “I was working at Lululemon at the time, and they closed the store because of COVID,” D’Acunto said. “And then I realized that I could really focus on (baking). And (Erazo) helped me build it into a business. But we started out of our apartment, and then expanded into a rental commercial kitchen, or Commissary Kitchen, that we were sharing with other businesses, and then we outgrew that and (Erazo) found a building downtown that we were able to buy and move our whole operation in there.” The space in Orlando’s trendy Mills 50 neighborhood has also allowed the pair to bring people into their shop to experience their brand of cookie baking firsthand. The couple call the experience “Bake Nights.” “You come in, we give you dough, and we tell you how we make cookies,” D’Acunto said. “But, it’s your cookie journey. So you could do whatever you want. No rules.” The student bakers are given a range of 15 to 20 mix-ins for their dough, along with different fillings and toppings they can use to mix and match to make their own custom cookies. Customers can also bring their own ingredients as well, which has led to some inspiration for the couple. “The last one was this S’mOreo Crunch. People were putting just marshmallows and Oreos together a lot and it looked awesome when it came out of the oven because it was like, melty and gooey and just delicious. So we kind of added onto that flavor and we made our own version of that,” D’Acunto said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, D’Acunto and Erazo talk more about the 250 flavors of cookies to offer. The pair also talk about their charitable work and some of the custom cookie options they offer. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jeff and Daniel Perera opened their bagel business out of their home kitchen in 2020 and less than three years later they are hoping to have eight brick-and-mortar locations open within the next six months. The rapid expansion is being made possible by the couple’s new business partner, Justin Wetherill. Wetherill is the owner of 1337 Capital and the co-founder of the uBreakiFix chain of mobile device repair shops. The couple first came into contact with Wetherill as they were opening their second location in College Park. “(Min Cho) started coming into the shop and — friendly guy — bought bagels, come in the next day, bought some more bagels,” Jeff Perera said. “(He) was continuously chatting me up and one day he, he just stopped me. He said, ‘Hey, Are you the owner?’ And I said ‘I am.’ He’s like, ‘I’m Min.’ I said, ‘I’m Jeff. Nice to meet you.’ And he’s like, ‘We love your bagels at the office.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, great. I’m so glad you enjoy them.’” Cho continued visiting the College Park shop, eventually revealing that he had been talking up the Pareras’ business to his boss, Wetherill. “Like a week later, he comes back,” Jeff Perera said. “He’s like, ‘I’ve been talking with my boss and the team at the office, they like love your bagels so much. We’d love to do something.’ I’m like, ‘Great! Why don’t you just send me some information? It’d be great to catch up.’ He emails me, I don’t respond. Text me, I don’t respond. This is in like August, September goes by, October goes by.” Cho remain persistent and eventually was able to convince the Perera to have a meeting with Wetherill. “Justin shared his story with us about how he built his business and where it started,” Jeff Perera said. “It’s strange to say — Danielle’s like, ‘It was a kinship.’” “Building something from scratch — there’s not a lot of people that truly understand what that feels like,” Danielle Perera added. “I think there was like this understanding and I think that for us, that was really nice and just made the conversation more organic and just natural.” Wetherill said, prior to meeting the Pereras, he had actually been considering investing in a bagel franchise. “There’s the stalwart brands that we all know and are aware of and there’s not very many emerging brands in the space. So, we struggled finding a brand that we were comfortable partnering with — that had a vision different than what was already happening in the bagel space,” Wetherill said. “I enjoyed meeting Jeff and Danielle and appreciated hearing their vision for the business, but I think what really made the difference was, I think our second or third meeting, they’re like, ‘Why don’t you just come bake with us, come see the experience, work in the kitchen.’” What finally sealed the deal for Wetherill was experiencing a hot bagel fresh from the oven for the first time. “To me, that was really life changing,” he said. “And I think (that hot bagel) really sums up the opportunity we all have going forward — introducing the world to that experience. Because I have never had a hot bagel. I don’t eat cold ones anymore.” Wetherill and the Pereras plan to make Jeff’s Bagel Run more of an experience overall. They plan to have an open kitchen concept with their new locations to “bring people into the experience and educate them on how bagels are made.” Wetherill said they have already signed multiple leases, with plans to sign more. “We have pretty aggressive plans,” he said. On the latest episode of the Florida Foodie, the trio of business partners talk more about their plans for expansion. They share stories from a recent pilgrimage to New York City to sample bagels and how they hope to bring in new technology to improve the bagel business. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Swine & Sons looks very different today than it did when it first opened in 2015. “We opened up in April of 2015 and the thought was to be this provisions place and have this meat counter, and then do some sandwiches,” said chef Alexia “Lexi” Gawlak, the owner of Swine & Sons. “And we were thinking of this Bodega style — like grab and go — and that was the first day we were open and (by) about the third day, we were open, we had to completely change the concept because people were like, ‘What do you mean I can’t order a sandwich and have it be custom’ and people just didn’t share our vision.” Gawlak originally opened Swine & Sons under the ownership of James and Julie Petrakis, who also own the Ravenous Pig. Gawlak had worked with them as the sous chef of Ravenous Pig when it first opened in 2007 but stepped back from the restaurant when she had her daughter. When Swine & Sons was opening, James Petrakis pulled her back on board to help helm what was supposed to be a provisions shop. “We overhauled the entire concept on about day three,” she said. “But that space that we were in — which is now the dentist’s office — in the parking lot of Ravenous, it was a retail space and it just was it was not built for restaurant use. The plumbing told us that story every day up until the end.” Gawlak purchased the Swine & Sons brand from the Petrakis’ in 2019 and moved the restaurant into The Local Butcher and Market, just down the street from the original location — 669 N. Orange Ave. This ended up being a shrewd move as the pandemic swept across the country in 2020. “That was a great move for the pandemic,” Gawlak said. “The butcher was so busy during the pandemic. They were breaking sales records, doing fantastic, and so that was great because we had a stream of people coming in and even when we had to close the dining room down, we had a healthy takeout business. I really think that that’s why we made it through the pandemic, truly.” With the move, Swine & Sons also completely changed into a counter-service restaurant, specializing in Southern-inspired sandwiches and sides. The shift ultimately ended up earning Swine & Sons recognition from Michelin in the form of a Bib Gourmand award, which recognizes high-quality food at affordable prices. However, receiving the award did not go exactly as one might expect. “(An email) came to my inbox and it kind of started off, like, ‘Hey, you know, we’re bringing Michelin to Central Florida. We’re gonna have this party. You should come to the party.’ And I was like, ‘Why?’” Gawlak mulled whether to go to the event, but ultimately forgot about it. “And then all the people start texting me, everyone’s texting me — ‘Oh, my God, congratulations. This is incredible,’” she said. “I’m like, ‘What did we do? Yeah. So we won a Bib Gourmand. I was at home on the couch with my kids in my pajamas.” After that huge, if slightly anti-climactic, accomplishment under her belt, Gawlak moved her business one more time, but not very far. “October of last year, we had the opportunity to partner with Foxtail (Coffee) and move it up yet again. So I just I always joke like we’re just gonna move a couple of blocks towards downtown Orlando every couple of years. We just keep going a couple more blocks,” she said. The new location, which Gawlak believes will be the business’ forever home, sits at 1282 N. Orange Ave. “I think that this new partnership with Foxtail — it’s been really, really good,” she said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Gawlak shares more of her career in fine dining before taking over Swine & Sons. She also talks about going to culinary school with her husband and the reason he had to fire her from a job. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bruno Zacchini is best known in Orlando as the owner of Pizza Bruno, but he did not always have a love for pizza. “Pizza was always like an afterthought for me, especially in the restaurant world,” Zacchini said. “I didn’t like doing it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t have any joy of doing it or whatever.” That started to change for Zacchini when he was working as a chef consultant for Third Wave Cafe in New Smyrna Beach. “The owners are like, ‘Hey, we want to do crepes in the morning and woodfired pizza at night,’” he said. “I was like, ‘OK, you’re gonna make some good pizza. And that’s the focus,’ because originally, that’s all they wanted to do. But as you know, New Smyrna grew and the place got well known and better known, they want to expand the menu — and we did over time — but the pizza, I really enjoyed it.” At the time, Zacchini was living in College Park, and the daily commute became a major chore. So, in 2015, Zacchini started doing pop-ups around Orlando. He almost set up a space in the Mills 50 area, but it ultimately fell through. It wasn’t until February 2016 that a space would ultimately become available in the Curry Ford West neighborhood. “I had a very little amount of money — like a scary small amount, which I look back I was like, ‘What was I thinking?’” Zacchini said. “(I) financed everything to the hilt and took some crazy interest rates to get some things done, but I opened and I had no intentions other than making pizza how I wanted to.” Pizza Bruno has since become an institution in the Curry Ford West neighborhood. Zacchini recently expanded his business, opening a second location in Orlando’s College Park. The new location serves a slightly different kind of pizza, more akin to a New Jersey-style pie. Zacchini also has his sights set on opening a new restaurant just a few doors down from his second location. “We’re doing a donut shop right now,” he said. “I happen to be there and we’re building out the College Park store which is now open but graffiti junction actually got rid of I guess this extra seating space but it used to be a restaurant.” Zacchini reached out to the landlords and they liked his idea. Zacchini is now working to open Dizzy Donuts. The idea is to sell hot cake donuts, just like the kind he finds when he visits New Jersey, which is where his wife is from and where Zacchini spent many of his summers growing up. “They have a couple places (in New Jersey) that do these hotcake donuts,” he said. “So originally, one of the first places (my wife) brought me to was Frog Hollow which is not on the boardwalk. It’s like in this in the backwoods. You wouldn’t even know it’s there. It’s like this little hobbit house but they do hotcake doughnuts. They’re delicious.” In addition to doughnuts, Zacchini wants to offer chicken karaage sandwiches. Karaage is a style of Japanese fried chicken that is typically served as a bar snack. “I’m not trying to compete with the chicken battle that’s happening in Orlando at all,” he said. “It was a way to extend the hours, and then potentially offer something for lunch.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Zacchini talks about when he hopes to have his doughnut shop open to the public. He also shares his personal pizza preferences and how he got started working in kitchens as a teenager. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dreyton McDonald runs his own business, but he’s not quite his own boss just yet. The 12-year-old runs the food truck Ice Ice Dreyton, which he uses to sell snow cones around Ocala. “My dad just, he asked me one day, would I like to do a mini-donut business or a snow cone business,” Dreyton McDonald said. “And I said snow cone.” His dad, Dominic McDonald, helps him run the business and make sure his Dreyton doesn’t spend all his money in one place. “My day job was working at the Marion County Children’s Alliance, and that was mentoring teenage boys,” Dominic McDonald said. “One of the things that we realized (is) that some of these teenage boys got in trouble because they had nothing to do. So they will go break into cars, or they will do something because they just had idle time. So I didn’t want my son to go down that path.” Dominic McDonald said he originally thought of a doughnut truck because the Marion County school district has a Doughnuts with Dads event, which brings fathers into the schools. “So I thought the doughnut idea would be a great thing to try to keep that going,” he said. “I also realized that we live in Florida, in this heat, and that everybody would love snow cones — whether it was mother, dad, son, daughter — so the snow cones worked out better.” The pair take the trailer around to birthday parties, sporting events and other occasions around Marion County. “I like the football games the most,” Dreyton said. “And I like the birthday party so I can get some of the treats.” Dreyton said he offers between 25 and 30 flavors for his customers. While his son is making all the money, Dominic McDonald said Ice Ice Dreyton is rewarding for him as well. “The pay for me is seeing him do something and I can sit back and know that I created it — put him in a position to win,” the father said. “That’s something that my father didn’t do. But he’s trying, you know, and one thing that my father did teach me and my stepfather taught me is to keep trying.” On the last episode of Florida Foodie, the father and son duo talk about getting Dreyton’s friends involved in the food truck. They also talk about how it has inspired other parents to help their children start a business and how they plan to grow Ice Ice Dreyton in the future. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sean “Sonny” Nguyen spent a lot of his childhood inside his family’s restaurants. “I was brought to the restaurants with my parents, just out of like, you know, they needed to continue watching me,” he said. “So I was always in the back room. My aunts and uncles also owned restaurants, primarily Chinese buffets, and there would always be a back room where all the kids and cousins would be hanging out.” Nguyen — who owns Domu, along with several other restaurants — said he always had a love of cooking, but his parents actively discouraged him from working in restaurants. “Honestly, they hated it,” he said. “They were like, ‘You got to be a doctor, you got to be a pharmacist, you got to be a lawyer, you got to have a high paying salary. I understood where they were coming from. My parents came over in the ‘70s, on a boat, by chance and floated to the Philippines and were saved and brought over to America. So they were during that wartime. Communists took over (Vietnam). It was really tough for them and so I think they just wanted a better life and I understand that part.” Nguyen would work for the Bento Group from 2007 to 2016 when he first opened Domu at Orlando’s East End Market. “I was opening the restaurants for (Bento) around the state and so I understood the project management side, the construction side, food costs, and all that — running the business side as well. So that’s super important, not just to know how to cook, but also how to run a business,” he said. Nguyen describes Domu as a “neighborhood ramen shop.” “You’re going to walk in and you’re going to hear hip-hop music on. It’s non-traditional,” he said. He added that Domu has a lot of rules set for itself, such as no reservations and no take-out. It’s because we want to be able to manage the room, but we’re looking at it as a standpoint of being able to take care of the customers and not overwhelming ourselves and making sure the team can keep up,” he said. Domu has proven successful. The restaurant has expanded to three locations and was recently recognized by Michelin with a Bib Gourmand award, which honors high-quality food at reasonable prices. Beyond Domu’s success, Nguyen has also opened two new concepts in Orlando’s Mills 50 neighborhood — Tori Tori, a cocktail bar serving Japanese-style bar snacks, and Edoboy, a standing sushi bar. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Nguyen talks about balancing multiple restaurants with his family life. He also shares what it was like keeping his businesses alive during the pandemic and how it felt to be recognized by Michelin. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When Mike Daquino moved to Florida from New York, he did not plan on running a restaurant. “No, not at all,” Daquino said. He had previously worked with Brother Jimmy’s BBQ for 15 years in New York City, where the chain started in 1989. Daquino was a New York native and had lived there most of his life, but his family was looking for a change of pace in 2019. “So my family and I moved down (to Florida) to work for what was a franchise company that was opening a few quick service locations (of Brother Jimmy’s BBQ) and one full service at point Orlando,” he said. “Then when the world shut down (due to the pandemic), that company ran out of funding, which was OK. Brother Jimmy’s got me to Florida and got us out of New York, which was what we wanted to do.” Daquino then shifted gears, moving into real estate. “I got into the real estate market right away. I still currently work for Douglas Elliman real estate,” he said. ”That was awesome. It was something new, something challenging. I used all my skills from running a restaurant. Business, at the end of the day, is people — talking to people, it’s dealing with people, it’s filling a void that someone needs help with. It’s just being a good person — to be able to help people get from point A to point B.” Daquino was enjoying his new role but said he felt pulled back toward the restaurant industry. “A restaurant is just so much more intentional serving,” he said. “You serve someone a plate of food, and they instantly eat it and are gratified and love it. It’s just such a nice feeling.” Daquino happened to find himself at a traffic light near ICON Park. At the time, Jimmy Goldman, the owner of Brother Jimmy’s, was in the process of opening a new location at the tourist attraction. The chain saw a big contraction during the pandemic and was forced to shut down all of its New York locations, leaving only one Brother Jimmy’s in Maryland. Daquino said Goldman, who he had known from his previous work with the company, had decided to pull out of his plans for an ICON Park location. “So I said ‘You know what, I’ve become pretty good friends with Chris (Jaskiewicz), who’s the president of icon Park, let’s just go have a conversation with Chris and see if maybe there’s something that we can work out and we can see if we can still get the store open,” Daquino said. Daquino and Jaskiewicz talked through what had gone wrong with the deal between ICON Park and Goldman and what it would take to get the restaurant back on track. “So he said, ‘Alright, write me a proposal, put me together some logistics and show me you can do the funding and show me you can get it done. If you can do that, we’ll do it,’” Daquino said. He managed to bring it all together, even traveling back to New York to gather up all of the furniture and decor from the now-shuttered restaurants there, shipping it all back to Orlando. After three months of work, the new Brother Jimmy’s location opened on Aug. 12. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Daquino talks about how he first became involved with Brother Jimmy’s and how he met his wife while working in one of the restaurants. He also talks about some of the menu highlights and what guests can expect when they stop in for a meal. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jae Lee and Jason Rom spend their days as software engineers, but in their downtime, they have two passions: jiu-jitsu and making and selling hot sauces and chili oils. The pair run Tapped Sauces out of their homes in Satellite Beach. The name comes from jiu-jitsu, where the goal is to get your opponent to submit or tap out. “We wanted people to get tapped out,” Lee said. Not on the spice, but on the flavor.” The jiu-jitsu team also comes into the naming of the individual sauces. “So we got bow and arrow, which is a kind of choke, d’arce is a kind of choke, kimura is an arm lock, armbar is another arm lock, too,” Rom said. The pair met at Accent Technologies, the software company where they work in Melbourne. “One day, (Rom) wanted to go to the gym, and he was gonna go with someone else and his buddy at the time canceled,” Lee said. “So I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll take you,’ because I loved working out and he ended up going with me. Then we started hanging out a lot and we hung out a couple of times before, but like when you go to the gym with someone, you really get to know them.” The pair started hanging out more often, having cookouts after sessions at the gym. Lee had already been making hot sauces for some time on his own, and started sharing them with Rom. “We made this dish called mapo tofu which is a Chinese Sichuan dish — it’s like tofu with some protein and it requires Sichuan pepper oil,” Lee said. “So I was like, ‘Jason, can you like pick that up from the Asian grocery store?’ Because you can’t really find that at Publix? So he’s like, ‘No, I’m gonna make it.’ “COVID got me to cook,” Rom said. “I was wanting to try different things and one of the things that I wanted to try was chili oil.” The experiment was a success, but the duo decided to refine the product. After sharing it with friends and seeing their reactions, the pair decided to take their project and turn it into a business. “It’s nothing like (our friends have) tried before,” Rom said. “So that convinced me to actually join a business with (Lee.)” Currently, Rom and Lee have two hot sauces and two chili oils in their line-up, all of which can be found in their online shop. “This was something that we could do and design and have fun with it,” Lee said. “For me, I just fell in love with the process of like, starting my own business,” Rom said. The pair are hoping to grow Tapped further. “We’re trying to figure out different paths in order to grow this thing because we want this to be like a household Asian item,” Lee said. “We want to turn this more into like a lifestyle or like a food brand, almost, expanding to different kinds of products — like energy drinks or healthy snacks, things like that.” Rom said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Rom and Lee talk about what goes into making their chili oils and sauces. They also talk more about their love of jiu-jitsu and what their families think about their sauces. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Carling Ponder, the owner of Rollin’ Dough and The Knot, always has her hands full. “It’s a nonstop job, but honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better thing,” Ponder said. With her husband, Ponder runs three food trucks, along with monthly pop-ups at the University of Central Florida and she is getting ready to open a brick-and-mortar shop in New Smyrna Beach, all while wrangling two children. “We started Rollin’ Dough and it’s just been nonstop ever since,” Ponder said. “It’s almost been four years.” The pair actually met while working in food service. “(My husband has) been in the restaurant business, basically, his whole life. His family in Puerto Rico runs a whole bunch of pizza places,” Ponder said. “And then when we met, we worked at a restaurant and we kind of both decided, ‘You know, we could probably do this better on our own.’” Rollin’ Dough serves up wood-fired pizza along with oversized garlic knots, which are also used to make sliders. The pair opted for food truck because of the lower cost. “It also gave us an opportunity to find out where we did better. We got to do so many different events, meet so many different people,” she said. The couple originally planned to run their truck as a side hustle part-time, but their early success snowballed. “I think it maybe only took us like one or two months to realize, ‘Hey, like, we could really do this.’ And so it didn’t take us long to just be like, ‘Alright, let’s go,’” Ponder said. Ponder eventually opened The Knot as a second food truck, selling garlic knots and knot sliders exclusively. The success of that truck led her to open another one, also called The Knot. Now, Ponder is looking to open her first brick-and-mortar location. “It’s definitely exciting and especially now because we’re kind of moving forward,” she said. “We’ve been working at this almost a year.” Ponder said the restaurant will be off of Canal Street in New Smyrna Beach and will feature a pet-friendly outdoor patio. She said they hope to have the restaurant open by the end of the year. On top of everything, Ponder is now running a monthly pop-up event at UCF. “It’s for a whole week. We’re inside the Student Union. It really came out of nowhere,” she said. “So just another thing to add to our plate, but it’s great.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Ponder talks about growing her business. She also shares how she and her husband are able to juggle family life with their demanding schedule. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Florida Foodie has been running since May 2019, sharing thoughtful conversations about the food we eat and how it affects our lives. Over the course of 78 episodes, hosts Candace Campos and Lisa Bell have spoken with some of the state’s premier chefs, small business owners, activists and CEOs who work daily to feed Floridians. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, hosts Candace and Lisa take a look back at some of their favorite interviews from the past year. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chef Lewis Lin did not plan on being a restauranteur. “I moved here in 2006,” Lin said. “I was coming for my master’s degree.” Lin came to Florida from Taiwan, pursuing a master’s in finance. Unfortunately, he graduated in 2008, just as the recession hit the U.S. “I gotta find a job and I love food. I love food — always have. Old foods connect me to family and friends,” he said. So, Lin started working in restaurants. Eventually, he purchased his first restaurant, Jade Sushi & New Asian in College Park. Jade remains a fairly traditional sushi restaurant, but Lin was looking to bring something more unique to Orlando’s dining scene. “Back then, all the restaurants in Orlando, especially Japanese restaurants, they only did sushi rolls, nothing else but sushi rolls,” Lin said. “I was thinking there is something better I can serve to friends or customers — bring some different culture, food to the city.” This led Lin to open Susuru, a Japanese-style izakaya restaurant decked in Showa-era pieces of pop culture. “It’s more close to where I can always go when I go to Japan (or) when I go to Taiwan,” he said. Susuru sells Japanese-style street food such as yakitori, which is skewered chicken grilled over coals, and ramen. The name actually comes from the sound people make while slurping noodles. The Showa era refers to a period in Japanese culture following WWII that saw the creation of Japan’s popular culture that persists to this day, such as Godzilla, Ultraman and Power Rangers. “I grew up in Taiwan. We’ve been influenced by Japan so much — the culture, the pop culture, the anime, those things — when I grew up, it was everything,” Lin said. “Showa was so different compared to the history of Japan.” Lin is keeping a similar aesthetic as he opens his third restaurant, Juju, which is now in its soft opening. “Soft opening will be August,” said Lin, the chef and owner of Juju. “After soft opening, when we are fully staffed, we will probably announce the grand opening.” Juju is opening up at 700 Maguire Blvd., a building that used to house a Pizza Hut, right across the street from the Fashion Square Mall. The construction saw the former Pizza Hut transformed to have the appearance of a Shōwa period-style Japanese house. “We separate the whole restaurant into three different areas,” Lin said. “First, we have a really more high-end Kappo bar, a chef’s table — six seats, reservation only, serving 10 courses with a premium sake pairing option.” The other sections are a traditional izakaya setting, which will serve drinks and snacks for a more casual dining experience, and another section focused on serving a late-night crowd. Lin said he wanted to make Juju distinct from his other two restaurants. “The reason for doing that in the Milk District is because I want to bring different concepts and share different kinds of food themes with (the people there),” Lin said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Lin talks about the food he wants to share with customers. He also talks about the struggles of trying to open a new restaurant amid labor shortages and supply chain issues.
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Dave Manuchia may not be a household name, but he has played a big role in the restaurant industry for the past 40 years. Among his many accomplishments, Manuchia was one of the founders of the Olive Garden franchise. “(I) got a degree in business, got an MBA and ended up working for General Mills — General Mills restaurants back then — here in Orlando, when I moved to Orlando in 1981,” Manuchia said. “So we were doing accounting, and all of a sudden, this guy came through my department and sat there for two days. (He) left. Two months later, he called. He goes, ‘Hey, remember me?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘We’re starting this new Italian chain. I’m the first employee. I have one other employee, and I’d like to bring you on the team.’ And he said, ‘You know, if it doesn’t work, we’re probably all going to get fired, and I can’t give you a raise,’ and I say, ‘Oh, man, let’s go. Let’s try it.’” What followed was a flurry of 120 work weeks for the small team working to create a new restaurant chain. “We each had our own booth to sleep in and our wives didn’t see us,” he said. “They’d have to show up at 11 o’clock at night to say ‘hi.’” Manuchia said everyone involved played multiple roles in making the chain a success. “I was the CFO, administrative guy, policy guy, taste tester, dishwasher, you know, whatever it took back then,” he said. “I was the Ringo Starr of the group. I was in the back, just keeping the beat and made sure all the paychecks went out, and bills got paid and all that kind of stuff.” Manuchia ended up staying with the company, which would eventually become Darden Restaurants, for 11 years before striking out on his own. In 1992, he started Restaurant Partners, Inc. The company operates and manages restaurants around the country. It also provides consultation and support services for chefs and other restauranteurs. “One of the things that I learned at Darden is you have to have an infrastructure to support a restaurant business,” Manichia said. “You can’t just be a chef and have a great spaghetti recipe. That’s fine, but what about paying the bills? What about the rent, what about all those things — taxes and all? So we set about to set up what we call a ‘chassis.’ Our chassis has marketing operations, policies and procedures, purchasing, accounting, HR — that chassis is now available to all our clients and all our managed properties, as well as our own properties.” The businessman said his company’s structure supports several one-off businesses, but it has also helped restaurants expand their footprints and grow into chains. “We can’t guarantee success, but what we can guarantee is the foundation that you can worry about doing what you do best and let us take care of everything else,” Manuchia said. “And that’s worked out really well for a lot of folks.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Manuchia talks about the changes in the restaurant industry over his career. He also talks about how his restaurants are weathering ongoing inflation and supply chain issues. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you work in a kitchen and the tickets are piling up, a mistake can cause a panic. For Count and Jessica Foreman, it was the start of a 23-year-long relationship. The couple met while working at a Don Pablo restaurant. She was working in the front of the house, waiting tables, while he was a cook in the back of the house. “Her tickets were falling behind,” Count Foreman said. “Something happened and didn’t bring a quesadilla,” Jessica Foreman said. “I was like ‘Give me a quesadilla,’ and I kid you not he had a quesadilla right there. I don’t know he probably gave me somebody else’s quesadilla. So, we fell in love with a quesadilla.” From there, the couple’s relationship blossomed, not just romantically, but also into a business. “I started a cleaning service a long time ago and Chef used to help me,” Jessica Foreman said. " But I also did it as a concierge. So a concierge is basically — I used to run errands, do everything and then that’s when I introduced chef and I say, ‘Well, my husband cooks’ and I say ‘We can do personal chef (catering).’” The couple started catering for holidays and special occasions. They also started street vending “We would actually pop up a tent — all we had was our six-foot table and a grill,” Count Foreman said. “That was that’s how we started with the vending. So that’s also how we got our product to the streets.” Eventually, the couple was able to open a catering kitchen. “Actually, it was a two-car garage,” Jessica Foreman said. “I kid you not.” Despite that, the couple had high hopes and determination. “Everybody that are multimillionaires started from a garage. That’s a sign,” Jessica Foreman said. The catering kitchen legitimized their business, but the Foremans wanted to give themselves some more exposure. They started entering cooking competitions around Florida. “When you participate in those type of local events, it gives you a good connection to your community,” Count Foreman said. Eventually, they were able to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Saute Kingz, in Daytona Beach — 200 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Now, they are getting ready to expand their business with a food truck “We’re gonna be out here hoping that Orlando opens up (Its) doors — we’re looking into Tampa, Jacksonville,” Jessica Foreman said. “We’re really ready to travel and bring our food out.” “To be able to travel around — and that’s one of the reasons why we caterers, you’re always in a different place, and you’re experiencing different people and it’s the same thing with a food truck,” Count Foreman said. “We’re going to be able to meet some different people all over Florida and that’s gonna be fun.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, the Foremans share some of the struggles they went through while trying to build their business. They also talk about their early days in the restaurant industry and their recent run on the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
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A little more than a decade after opening a small ice cream cart in Portland, Oregon, Kim and Tyler Malek have built a small frozen treat empire that stretches from coast to coast. Kim and Tyler Malek are cousins and co-founders of Salt & Straw. “We had this dream of creating space for people to get together,” Tyler Malek said. “They get to meet their friends and neighbors, learn about the food around them, and we curate it that way — providing an experience for people.” The pair felt that ice cream in particular was the perfect vehicle to bring people from all walks of life together. “We realized really quickly that an ice cream shop is this really cool community gathering place where you can come as you are, regardless of how you look, what your political viewpoints are, what your food preferences are — there’s always something to (make you) feel welcomed at an ice cream shop,” Tyler Malek said. Beyond just bringing people together, The Maleks also hope to get those people talking and considering the world around them. “A really great example is like two years ago. We worked with nonprofits up and down the west coast to talk about food waste,” Tyler Malek said. “And we had flavors that were made with foods that were about to get thrown away — like 3-day-old bread or grains from a brewery that were gonna get tossed. All these things, we were able to play with — fun, interesting ingredients that cause people to kind of stop and ask, “How did you do that? Why did you do that?’ And it provokes this conversation in a really safe space around (a) really, really interesting and delicious flavor.” Salt & Straw recently opened its Central Florida location at Disney Springs. Tyler Malek said it is essential to find the Florida flavors to incorporate into Salt & Straw’s ice cream. “We have to find those fun stories also in Florida, and we have to infuse those into our flavors,” he said. “So finding farmers that are doing guava. We’re always working with local coffee roasters — like really kind of figuring out how do we take our foundation, our philosophy of using flavor and making flavor and actually allow that region to inform us and guide us.” Salt & Straw has worked with Disney in the past, at the company’s park in California. Tyler Malek said he excited to join Disney Springs, as it has become a foodie destination. “Disney Springs is — it’s wild,” Tyler Malek said. “(Disney has) made this, like, concerted effort to lean into becoming a food experience. And you can even see how many new restaurants are opening in Disney Springs. It’s really bonkers.” In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Tyler Malek talks about developing Salt & Straw’s unique and funky flavors, including a new fried chicken ice cream. He also talks about how his company came to partner with Disney and an ice cream subscription service. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Florida: Where some of the best stories in the country are born. Based in Orlando, journalist Katrina Scales voices a selection of the day's top headlines, along with a nugget of Florida knowledge you may have never heard before. Ready by 7:00 a.m. every weekday morning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
FusionFest is a nonprofit in Orlando aimed at celebrating the diverse cultures and heritage that can be found around Florida. “Our whole mission is for people to learn about different cultures — like to showcase and share their backgrounds, but also learn from different cultures,” Thali Sugisawa, the executive director of FusionFest said. As part of that mission, the organization has developed Diversitastic Dining. “Each month we celebrate a culture,” Sugisawa said. “We kind of try to align with whatever celebration is going on at the moment. So for Hispanic Heritage month will try to do a Latin/Hispanic restaurant. For Asian and Pacific Islander month we would try to do an Asian restaurant.” The monthly events offer more than just food. “What we do is we go to a restaurant and we talk to the owner/ managers/chef, and we say, ‘Hey, we would like to bring a lot of people here that had never tried your food,’” Sugisawa said. “‘In addition to that, we will bring some entertainment, some artists and we’re going to have some storytelling, could you put together a full course menu, starting with appetizers, and then different entree options, and a dessert and a sample of a drink. And, and then we’ll just organize everything and bring those people here.’” The events can get fairly specific, focusing on just one region of a country. “In January, we did India, and but we did Punjabi area — which is totally different from other areas, the northern part of India,” Sugisawa said. FusionFest then had the chef explain the difference in the cuisine and other guest speakers and entertainment were brought in to illustrate the culture of the region. All of the upcoming Diversitastic Dining events can be found here. In addition to Diversitastic Dining, the organization runs a yearly festival in downtown Orlando which celebrates the cultures of Central Florida. “We’re just so excited to have this festival,” Sugisawa said. “So then we will have about 15 food vendors and we curate all of them. So you will not see three vendors selling tacos or empanadas. We will have the best empanada and the best taco and the best sushi and the best of all regions.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Sugisawa talks about her favorite region she has sampled during a Diversitastic Dining event. She also talks about how she never expected to be working in the nonprofit sector. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
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A wife’s wish for a good bagel quickly spiraled into a new business and career for a couple who had spent much of their working life in retail. Jeff and Danielle Perera are the owners of Jeff’s Bagel Run. In 2019, Jeff Parera found himself out of work. His wife, Danielle Parera, had been a stay-at-home mom for a few years at this point and had been planning to rejoin the workforce, allowing Jeff Parera to take over the stay-at-home parenting duties. “We were both home — we had that overlap and neither of us were working,” Jeff Parera said. “And we were driving to Winter Park, 45 minutes to get bagels. And (I said) ‘This is silly — Like, there’s no bagel shop on our side of town.’ So she said ‘Why don’t you make me one?’” Danielle Parera said she wanted her husband to have something to do so that he wouldn’t get depressed after being laid off. “I wanted to make sure that he just maintained a good sense of worth,” she said. “I also, truthfully, did not think it would last. I thought it would be something that he would try, he’d be like ‘Whatever, didn’t work out,’ and go play golf.” But, Jeff Parera found a passion in trying to perfect his bagel baking skills. “I just started making different batches with slightly altered ingredients and Danielle would come home and say, ‘This is horrible. This is better. This needs more salt,’ and I would take (her) feedback, and I would make slight adjustments,” he said. “And I mean, you should have seen the counters. It was like just glass and plastic and metal bowls full of different doughs with all the ingredients written on the paper on top.” Eventually, Jeff Perera hit on the right recipe. “I handed it to her like pretty fresh from the oven and she bit into it and her eyes rolled back in her head,” he said. Within a few months of perfecting his bagel recipe, Jeff Perera was looking into selling his boiled and baked rings online. The bagel sales saw some early success, but once the pandemic hit, the pair started looking at the business in a different way. “It was March of 2020 and it was actually our anniversary,” Jeff Perera said. “We went out to dinner and she was working at Ross Dress for Less and they had a big meeting planned — like this huge conference in Vegas where thousands of people, tens of thousands of people were going to come from all over the country to come to this meeting. And she gets text messages. They just start coming in her phone doesn’t stop going off while we’re at dinner. That conference had been canceled. Like something big is happening don’t know anything — but yeah, obviously the beginning of March was starting to get scary. Danielle immediately goes, ‘We need to stock up on bagel supplies.’” The couple started selling more bagels through their social media page and were quickly overwhelmed by the amount of business they were receiving. “We’d get, you know, 200 to 300 messages all at the same time (asking for bagels),” Jeff Perera said. Eventually, the couple settled on moving forward with the business, opening their first brick-and-mortar shop in Ocoee. Now, only about a year later, the couple are planning to open their second location in Orlando. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, the Pereras talk about how they got the opportunity to set up shop in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood. They also share how some of their diehard customers braved flash flooding for their bagels. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The pandemic continues to cause issues across multiple industries, but agriculture has faced several unique challenges — from crops rotting on the vine during shutdowns to having to find new ways to sell their produce. Dr. Christa Court, director of the Economic Impact Analysis Program at the University of Florida, is an expert in regional economics and works in the school’s Food and Resource Economics Department. Court has been studying the impacts of the pandemic on the state’s growers and farmers. “One of the things that we did early on — we have some a rapid assessment process that we go through for hurricanes and we retooled that survey that we use to be specific to the pandemic early on in the shutdown stages,” Court said. “So we released that in March to mid-May of 2020. It happened to be peak harvest season for a lot of producers — especially in that Southwest Florida area that were producing fruits and vegetables — and we estimated at the time — again, just in that one period of March to mid-May of 2020 — $895 million of losses for producers.” Court explained that the full impact since the start of the pandemic is still being calculated. “We don’t have a specific value beyond doing that first estimate,” she said. “You have several other projects underway though that looked at what happened throughout 2021.” Court pointed out that different parts of the country had different rules for reopening, impacting how farmers sold their produce. She also said that consumers changed their buying and eating habits. “We consumed food differently during the shutdown and that might have affected what we go back to permanently,” Court said. “Do we go back to behaving exactly like we did before the pandemic or are we still eating at home more often than we did before? And that’s going to affect the overall impact of the pandemic.” Court called the pandemic a “demand-side disaster” for the state’s growers, meaning there was plenty of supply but the demand dried or changed. She pointed out that changes in the way restaurants function are also causing issues for the agricultural industry. “I think you have to consider, again, some of the infrastructure changes that took place when we had the same experience,” Court said. “We go to a restaurant and it seems like it’s packed, but maybe they’re not seating all of the tables that they would have said before, right? If they’re spacing things out a little bit more, where they’re making adjustments for having fewer servers on staff, or to try to accommodate a carryout order line. It’s a lot more detailed, to look into how much food the kitchen is putting out the window versus what we’re seeing being served at the tables there. But it does seem to be — a not going to see a permanent shift — but we haven’t seen it go all the way back to eating as much away from home as we were pre-pandemic.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Court details more of her research into the pandemic’s impacts on Florida’s agriculture. She also shares thoughts on how the state might prepare for another disaster like the pandemic and other issues, like the war in Ukraine, that are hurting growers in Florida. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Traditional cuisine is very important to Jess and Elizabeth Calvo, the owners of Thai Farm Kitchen. The couple is offering a menu of traditional Thai cuisine which they said is hard to come by, even in Thailand. “Elizabeth, my wife, she the chef and she inherited (these) very old traditional (recipes) from her ancestors — her great grandmother, from her grandmother and from her mother as well, " Jess Calvo said. “So this kind of cuisine is it’s a very authentic Thai dish(es) and most of them (no) longer exist in any ordinary cuisines in Thailand anymore. It’s a very special one.” The pair opened their first restaurant while they were still living in Thailand. “In the beginning, both of us were corporate employees and we were in the executive level,” Jess Calvo said. “But then after doing it for a while, we find that we ask ourselves, ‘What is going to be our life five years from now? Ten years from now?’ And then we say to ourselves, ‘We want to early retire by doing something that we are passionate about.’” Jess Calvo said his wife was always cooking and he had an interest in agriculture. The two combined their passions to start their first restaurant. “The reason our restaurant is named Thai Farm Kitchen is because, originally, we planted almost every single ingredient and we serve it fresh to the table,” Jess Calvo said. The Calvos said they no longer plant every vegetable they serve but do still grow some important items. The rest comes from local farmers, according to Jess Calvo. The couple then brought their business to New York City, where they quickly received recognition from the media there, including the New York Times. They still maintain their original location in Brooklyn but have now opened their second U.S. location in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood. The Calvos said the pandemic showed them it was important to diversify their locations. “We wanted to start another business and we said, ‘You know what? We need to spread the risk. We cannot put all eggs in one basket,’” Jess Calvo said. “So we said, ‘We better start another business somewhere else which is out of New York.’ If something happened (in) New York, we have another one.” The couple admitted that the weather in Florida was part of the attraction as the harsh winters in New York were far from what the Calvos were used to. “First time in my life I saw snow was four years ago,” Jess Calvo said. Though they are maintaining their business in New York, the couple is now living in Florida full time and plan to move into Orlando in the near future. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, the pair talk about what makes their dishes so special. They also talk about Elizabeth Calvo’s international recognition as a chef and some of the special items guests can expect at their Orlando restaurant. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A past girlfriend first introduced Shaun Noonan to the idea of switching to a vegan diet, but it’s a lifestyle that has come to define his work. “That (relationship) was young in my teens, so I had never really formed that classic negative opinion of vegetarianism,” Noonan recalled. “I grew up playing ice hockey, and martial arts and things like that — and I was also eating vegetables. So I never really got that classic masculine thing that vegetables equal weakness or anything like that.” Noonan now owns and operates Dharma Southern Kitchen, a vegan restaurant chain aimed at turning Southern-inspired food into completely plant-based meals. “One-hundred percent plant-based and Southern cuisine was the most ridiculous thing that I could tackle,” Noonan said. “Plant-based foods at the time — everyone was trying to sell you these like, carrot sticks and hummus dip and convincing you that these collard wraps were food, and I’m like, ‘Man, come on. No one has to eat that garbage.’” Noonan wanted to bring people vegan food that hit all the high notes of cuisine — sweet, savory, salty, spicy and umami. He points out that many dishes commonly associated with Southern food are already vegan at their core. “A lot of its accidentally vegan in the first place, like mashed potatoes are mashed potatoes until you pour cheese and milk into it,” Noonan said. “You know, that’s just something that the dairy industry forced us to do. Fifty years ago, we all were told that if we didn’t consume dairy, somehow our bones were going to liquefy or we weren’t going to grow up properly or some nonsense like that.” Noonan said he also naturally gravitated toward Southern cuisine for it “hardiness.” The chef lived around the world and the country through his work in the culinary world and even before that as a self-described “Army brat,” including stints in Central Florida. “I was raised mostly in an Italian household and so and I love Italian cuisine. I just thought that Southern cuisine was gaining such a reputation of being meat-focused that I wanted to be a disruptor brand,” he said. Ultimately, Noonan said he does not expect to turn the masses into vegans. He also said he doesn’t want to shame people for eating and enjoying meat. His real goal is to make vegan food a part of the conversation. “I just want it to be part of that dialogue, where it’s like, ‘Man, I haven’t had good vegan food in like two weeks, let’s go get vegan,’” he said. As he looks to expand that dialogue, Noonan recently secured funding to expand Dharma’s footprint across Florida. Noonan hopes to have three new locations open up by the end of 2022. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Noonan talks about his expansion plans and his goal of franchising Dharma. He also shares his love of Bulgarian cuisine and why he is encouraged by fast-food chains adding plant-based options to their menu. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Virtually all of the tea consumed by Americans comes from somewhere else, but Brian White wants to change that. White, who is from New Smyrna Beach, is the CEO of Yaupon Bros. American Tea Company. The business focus on selling “tea” made from the leaves of the yaupon holly plant. White said he got started about 12 years ago. At the time, he said there was no commercial supply of yaupon available. “So we really had to build a supply chain from the ground up which took a really long time and a lot of you know blood, sweat, tears and other people’s money,” White said. Of course, it wasn’t just Brian White’s blood sweat and tears. His brother, Kyle, also became involved in the business. White said his brother remains an active part of the day-to-day operations, dealing with much of the sales of the business. The brothers are also helped by the third founder of the business, Mark Steel, who started out as a mentor to the younger White brother. In addition to building Yaupon Bros., White has been working with farmers across the state to promote yaupon as an alternative crop to citrus, as the industry has been struggling with citrus greening. The business has seen quite an expansion since it started. Yaupon Bros. is now available in every Whole Foods supermarket in the state of Florida. The company also just recently opened a new production facility and cafe in Edgewater. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, White shares some of his future plans for Yaupon Bros. He also takes a deep dive into the cultural significance of the yaupon to the indigenous people of Florida and the U.S. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Twenty-five years spent working in kitchens does not typically lead to a career inside the tech sector, but Ben Ellsworth managed to do it — founding a company aimed at helping restaurants deal with unexpected staffing shortages. Ellsworth is the founder and CEO of GigPro, which was recently launched in the Orlando area. GigPro allows people in the service industry to fill in on open shifts at businesses — allowing those places to cover themselves if someone calls out sick or has to leave work unexpectedly. Ellsworth, who is from Charleston, South Carolina, said he got the idea while looking for someone to fill an open shift at a restaurant where he was working. “A dishwasher didn’t show up for a shift,” he said. “I looked at my line staff, and I said, ‘Who knows a guy?’ We all got 40 people on our phones that can cover the shift, but finding the person available is impossible. That’s when I got an AirBnb notification that someone had booked a room at my house for the night and I was like, ‘I wish he had booked to wash these dishes.’ And that was kind of a little lightbulb moment.” Ellsworth feels as though GigPro can be a boon to the struggling service industry, which he believes was “hit the hardest by the pandemic.” Much of the service industry has been dealing with staffing shortages, though Ellsworth admits, this problem has been a long time coming. “This has been going on for over a decade, you know, in Charleston — in any market that’s got a big dining scene and a high cost of living that’s experienced like a lot of economic gentrification,” Ellsworth said. “I mean, people are — where’re all the restaurants? They’re in the city center. People are getting pushed out of there — further and further — and if you can’t afford to live in the area, it’s tough to get to the area. So that was a decade of staffing just getting worse and worse and worse. And then COVID was like this Band-Aid that just got ripped off.” Ellsworth said GigPro is designed to offer service workers more flexibility. He said the platform also provides a $15 per hour minimum for workers. Ellsworth added that his company often sees GigPro workers end up with full-time employment coming out of a shift they’ve worked through the app. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Ellsworth talks more about the founding of GigPro and how the service works. He also shares why he focuses on independent restaurants and expanding the service into a dozen markets. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Ashley D’Acunto, the co-owner of Phat Ash Bakes, says she has always enjoyed baking for fun — feeding her husband, Israel Erazo and her co-workers — but when the pandemic hit she suddenly found herself with more time on her hands. “I was working at Lululemon in Winter Park and the store closed for COVID. And it gave me time to, you know, actually make a website and focus,” D’Acunto said “And then it just really took off you everyone was on their phone. Everyone was quarantined, spending time on social media and Instagram, scrolling and so it really just worked out for us in that sense.” D’Acunto actually credits her coworkers at Lululemon for pushing her toward starting the business with her husband. One worker in particular really gave her the nudge she needed. “Maddie is my friend from Lululemon who set up my first bake sale, she made me my first Phat Ash shirt, she named business. I mean this girl is incredible just because she’s a good person,” D’Acunto said. “She was like, ‘I know you like to bake. You should really just make a company called Phat Ash Bakes.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re right. I’m not even gonna change it. It’s perfect.’” That bake sale was D’Acunto’s first foray into cookie sales, but when the pandemic shut down much of the country, Phat Ash shifted to Instagram. “People would slide into our DMS, place an order with us and we would meet them in the Target parking lot next to our house,” D’Acunto said. “And then we were like, ‘OK, this kind of looks a little shady. And maybe we should have a real location, instead of meeting in this parking lot and handing a brown bag over to these strangers.’ And so then we had a pickup location, we made it more official.” Her social media success continued to swell. Now, with more than 17,000 Instagram followers, Phat Ash has moved into Orlando’s Trendy Mills 50 District. The business shares the space at 912 N. Mills with Grilled Cheezus. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, D’Acunto talks about how her business has grown and where the inspiration for her cookies comes from. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Nathan and Jenn Clark have spent nearly 10 years churning out marshmallows from their business, Wondermade, in Sanford. However, they feel as though they are providing more than just sweet treats to the community. “What everybody fundamentally needs isn’t just a marshmallow, they really need to be loved and they need a place to love other people,” Nathan Clark said. The name for the business comes from a poem in the Bible, according to Nathan Clark. “King David writes that we are wonderfully made and it really caught my attention,” he said. The couple is really about spreading the love with their sugary confections. In fact, love is how Wondermade grew into the business that it is. “I would love to sit here and say, ‘Let me tell you my brilliant business plan,’ but really, Jen and I just fell in love with making the marshmallows and it just kept getting bigger and bigger," Nathan Clark said. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Nathan Clark talks about how a gift for his wife ended up being the foundation of Wondermade. He also talks about what it’s like working with his wife and six children in the family business and also explains why he only wears blue shirts and red pants. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Chauniqua Major-Louis, who goes by Major, never really liked the name of her popcorn business, Major's Project Pop. “For the longest time, I wanted to change the name of the brand because I thought what is a Project Pop, like what is any of that mean? I just created it one day just (because) I needed to come up with a name, so I invented that,” Major said. It wasn’t until later it occurred to her that Major's Project Pop could mean a lot more than popcorn. “In 2020, I was so tired, and I was just getting home from popping around 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning and I had to get up and go do something,” Major said. “And this idea came to mind when I was thinking about POP.” She realized in that haze of exhaustion that POP could be an acronym, bringing deeper meaning to her brand. “It means people over profits, but it also means purpose over profits,” Major said. “And what that looks like is we advocate for people before sales and money.” Major said part of the way she realizes those ideals in the business is by using the highest quality ingredients for her vegan, organic, non-GMO popcorn. The quality of the snacks Major produces has always been her top priority. She wanted to make a product she would feel comfortable feeding to her own family, specifically her nieces and nephews. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Major discusses how a Christmas gift prompted her to start Major's Project Pop and how she was able to grow the business by winning a limbo contest. She also talks about her favorite flavors and how Major's Project Pop helps to support Central Florida nonprofits. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Chef, restaurateur and author Richard Blais’ culinary journey started when he was just a teenager. “My first job was at McDonald’s when I was 14,” he said. “I was the poissonier there — which means fish cook in French — which is a very important position at a fast-food hamburger restaurant that arguably has one seafood item.” Blais said his family wasn’t big on fancy meals when he was a kid. Despite these humble beginnings, Blais ended up at a prestigious culinary school, the Culinary Institute of America. After school and several years in the culinary industry, Blais eventually entered the world of televised cooking competitions, ultimately gaining fame as the first winner of Top Chef All-Stars. Since then, Blais has made the rounds with a variety of celebrity chefs. Blais is now part of a trifecta of hosts — along with Rasay and Nyesha Arrington — on Next Level Chef, a reality cooking competition on Fox. On top of his hosting duties, Blais is working on a new cookbook and also runs several restaurants, including the newly opened Four Flamingos at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Blais shares his favorite dishes from his new Orlando restaurant. He also talks about some of his early experiences working in fast food and his first experience seeing an alligator in the wild while visiting family in Florida. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Dr. Amber Orman likes to practice what she calls “true healthcare.” She is a radiation oncologist and also a practitioner of lifestyle medicine “which is using food and movement, the way that you feel stress the way that you sleep, your relationships and your use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs, to really change your life in a positive way,” according to Orman. Orman takes that practice into the HEAL Program at AdventHealth. HEAL stands for Healthy Eating Active Lifestyle. Orman started the program with Dr. Nathalie McKenzie, a gynecologic oncologist. The HEAL program shows cancer patients ways they can change their lifestyles to improve their overall health and help them recover from their diagnosis. Part of the core of the HEAL program is encouraging patients to consume a diet that is at least majority plant-based. Part of the reason for encouraging a plant dominant diet is because plants provide something that animal products cannot, fiber. “Fiber is only in plants,” she said. “So when we’re eating fiber, that is what our gut microbiome needs to be happy.” Orman explained that your gut microbiome is “a population of bacteria in your gut, that is absolutely central to many processes in your body.” “So when this population of organisms in your gut is happy because they’ve been eating a lot of fiber, the global level of inflammation in your body is lower, and your immune system is functioning in a better way,” the doctor said. “When our immune system is functioning in a better way, it can pick off little cancer cells that are floating around in our body from time to time — because that is the case, we always have a cancer cell or two roaming around that our body is designed to take those out so that it doesn’t land in breast tissue or the pancreas and grow to become a tumor that we find and diagnose and treat.” In addition to fiber, plants also provide phytonutrients. “Phytonutrients, again, are substances only in plants,” Orman said. “One subset of a phytonutrient is an antioxidant. And they’re anti-inflammatory — they’re just very good for our body. They run around kind of repairing damage and preventing damage.” In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Orman shares more about HEAL and the improvements she has seen in her patients as a result of the program. She also shares more about the benefits of a plant-dominant diet for overall health and what changes people can make to begin improving their nutrition. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Sandra Shorter, owner of The Naked Cupcake, started her baking career in a quest to find the “perfect cake.” At the time, Shorter was working in education and she used her fellow teachers as “guinea pigs.” After refining her cupcake chops in school, in 2016 Shorter took the plunge and bought a food truck off of Craigslist. At the time, the truck was covered in graffiti, but a little love and work turned into the start of The Naked Cupcake. She also gave the truck a name — “Trixie.” “My gosh, it was such a blur. I remember thinking like, ‘I’m actually going to do this,’” Shorter said. “And we started with Trixie as a way to test the concept and to also gain a following. If it worked, then, you know, the goal was the store.” Trixie did work and, in fact, she’s still working. Trixie can be found popping up at events around Central Florida. However, Shorter is now also running her own brick-and-mortar store in Orlando’s Lake Nona neighborhood. Running a bakery would be enough of a challenge for anyone, but when you throw in Trixie and her children to the mix you can see that Shorter has a very full plate. However, Shorter is quick to point out she not doing it all alone. “Honestly, it’s just like God’s grace is pouring through me and helping me to finish it all and do it all,” she said. “I have an amazing team. I have a really, really amazing team.” Shorter plans to keep growing the business as well. She said she is looking into buying a second truck in the next year or so. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Shorter talks about all things cupcakes and frostings. She also shares stories about the early days with Trixie and how her business managed to flourish during the pandemic. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Hinge is not normally where one goes to start a business relationship, but that’s how Ryan McKenzie and Stevie Andujar got their start. The pair did not stay together as a couple, but they have remained friends and business partners. They run Table Ghost Kitchen together. It is a venture that was born “out of boredom,” according to McKenzie. “We literally were in Ryan’s kitchen one day, and we just, like looked up a recipe and we’re like, ‘let’s make some chocolate chip cookies,’” Andujar said. The pair posted about their cookies on social media, which led to people asking to buy a batch. From there it was a matter of trying to get the cookies to the hungry public. This was the start of Table. The name is supposed to be reminiscent of Apple’s branding — a simple, single-word brand that people could relate to their product. Table started in September 2020. Cookies remain the signature product of the brand, but the pair have also started venturing into savory items for their pop-ups around Central Florida. The food is front and center, but Andujar has a background in media and brings those skills to the company’s social media platforms, especially its TikTok. The pair have several videos showing off their products, such as their mac and cheese, waffles and seasonal offerings like their THOT chocolate. Table Ghost Kitchen ships their cookies across the country and you can find them popping up at farmers’ markets and other events around Central Florida. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, McKenzie and Andujar talk more about the difficulties and successes of running their own business. They also rhapsodize about their waffles and share how people cannot seem to get the name of their business correct. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Starting his own restaurant has been something of an uphill battle for Alex Diaz. Diaz is the chef and owner at Alex’s Fresh Kitchen in Casselberry. He said the location of his restaurant has been part of the challenge. Alex’s Fresh Kitchen sits at 1015 State Road 436 in Suite 109 of a strip mall. The restaurant is also sandwiched between several chains, including a Wawa and a Tijuana Flats, so it took Diaz a while to establish his business. The challenge was made even more difficult by the pandemic.Even after pandemic restrictions eased, Diaz faced new challenges from the politically charged climate. Despite the challenges, Diaz loves the work of running his own restaurant. His love for his work is so profound, Diaz actually got some menu items tattooed on his arms, including the Mamba burger, the chicken and waffles and the lemon pie. On the latest episode of the Florida Foodie podcast, Diaz shares how he went from corporate kitchens with Darden to opening his own restaurant. He also talks about what it was like growing up with a father who worked as a chef and how it is to run a restaurant with his mother to work with him at Alex’s Fresh Kitchen. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
April Williams and her husband Dustin — the owners of À La Cart — are Central Florida natives, but their professional backgrounds are not in food and hospitality. The couple was working as teachers while living in Bend, Oregon. “Every time we would go out to eat, we almost always go to a food cart pod,” April Williams said. “My husband, I have very different eating styles and we can always both get exactly what we want (at a food cart pod) without fighting, our son can kind of run around in the open air. Usually, we can find a drink and (it’s) just a very casual place to just come together and enjoy ourselves.” The couple made the decision to open their own food cart pod back in their hometown of Orlando, the first in the city. À La Cart opened up for business three years ago. The space features several food carts and even helped to launch several brick-and-mortar restaurants. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, April Williams talks all about the process of selling their home on the West Coast to take a chance on starting À La Cart. She also talks about working in the Milk District and how the food cart pod weathered the pandemic. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Vinay Rama — the CEO of Mandala Holdings, which owns Lime Fresh Mexican Grill — has been working in the service industry his whole life. After years of working in his family’s motel, and even living in it for a time, Rama’s parents sent him to live in India. It was there that he ended up with his first paid job, again working in housekeeping at a hotel. For Rama, the best part of this new work experience was working with people who did not share his life experiences. It helped him learn how to explain the expectations of customers to people he was working with, a skill that would serve him well when training future employees. After leaving India, Rama came back to the U.S. to further his education and eventually open Mandala Holdings, a hospitality investment platform that operates hotels and motels around Florida. His business acumen then led to a friend approaching him about buying into Lime Fresh Mexican Grill. He was happy with the opportunity and decided to bite.
Shereece Mitchell transformed her life and her health and now, she wants to do the same for others. In 2015, Mitchell was working in IT in South Florida when she began her journey, losing 100 pounds in the process. However, it wasn’t until 2018 that she started making the most changes in her life — becoming a bodybuilder and a Christian in the process. The next year, she moved to Orlando, selling her house and quitting her job in the process. Beyond that, she decided to start a nonprofit, Butterfly Lifestyle. The nonprofit is focused on promoting health and wellness, encouraging people to change their lifestyles rather than just their diets. All this was happening in 2019. When 2020 hit a new challenge arose — the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemic laid bare how big of a problem food insecurity is in Central Florida and across the country. Mitchell realized, she could not encourage people to live a healthier lifestyle if their basic necessities are not being met. Mitchell started working with a church in Pine Hills to start a weekly food bank. She sources the food from area businesses, such as Wawa, Outback Steakhouse and Publix. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Mitchell shares more of her own health story as well as her plans for the future of Butterfly Lifestyle. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
The pandemic hit Enas Gebaly and her family hard. Her husband lost his job and it prevented Gebaly from traveling to see her family, who still lives in Egypt. For her, cooking became a way to feel connected with her family and her home country. Food also became a way for Gebaly to help her family in Florida, her husband and her children. After her husband lost his job, Gebaly was told about Second Harvest’s Culinary Training Program. Gebaly was shocked to find out that she only needed to fill out some paperwork and she was all set to join the program “and the magic happened.” She said that Second Harvest taught her everything she needed to know “to be professional.” With her newfound confidence and business acumen, Gebaly started Nosa’s Bakery. The business takes orders from its Facebook page and Gebaly uses Second Harvest’s kitchen to prepare the baked goods. Gebaly said she likes to mix cultures with her baking in hopes of helping to bring people together around a shared meal. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Gebaly talks more about her experience with Second Harvest’s Culinary Training Program. She also talks about her family in Egypt and what her plans for the future are.
Dino Ferri is the type of guy who doesn’t sweat when the heat is on. “It’s a rush. It literally is a rush,” Ferri said. The “it” in question here is capsaicin — the stuff in peppers that make them spicy. Ferri loves the stuff and downs it like a champ. He shares his love with the world through his own hot sauce company: Hotter Than El. In addition to loving spicy foods, Ferri is also diabetic. The dietary restrictions that come along with that condition pushed him to start making his own, sugar-free sauces. Ferri started selling his sauce until he lost his job in 2015. When Hotter Than El turned up on the internet talk show “Hot Ones” that things really took off for Ferri, with people ordering from around the world. He also gets a real kick out of seeing celebrities wince from the burn of his sauces. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Ferri talks more about starting his business and his love for spicy foods. He also shares samples of some of his sauces with Lisa Bell and Candace Campos, who do not share his tolerance for heat. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Kaleb Harrell says his early days of opening Hawkers Asian Street Fare with his four friends was “best time I never want to have again.” Harell did not start out his professional career planning to open a restaurant. He was working in marketing after graduating from the University of Central Florida. In 2010, his friend Allen Lo, who is now the Brand Chef for Hawkers, called him up and asked if he wanted to open a restaurant. At first, Harrell declined. Lo was able to apply a little peer pressure to Harrell when he got their mutual friends Kin Ho and Wayne Yung on board with opening the restaurant. Together, the four friends then went about opening the first Hawkers location. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Harrell shares some of the misadventures from the early days of Hawkers. He also talks about the work culture at Hawkers and his approach to the hospitality industry. Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s books, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
A long-time food obsession became a business for Andrew Scala during the pandemic and now he’s getting ready to take that business to the next level. Scala is the owner of JAM Hot Chicken. The idea for JAM came from a trip to Los Angles. Scala’s brother brought him to Howlin' Rays, where he tried hot chicken for the first time. Like many people in the service industry, Scala found himself out of work when the pandemic hit. He had done one pop-up with JAM in 2019 and decided to try to make a go of the business while he was out of work. About a year later, later Scala signed a lease for a location in Winter Park’s Hannibal Square. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Scala talks more about building his business and getting ready to open up to customers. He also shares what goes into making a hot chicken sandwich and the spice levels people can expect to try.
Ricky Ly’s day job as a civil engineer has pretty much nothing to do with food, so he had to go online to express his passion for cuisine. Ly is the founder of TastyChomps.com, a foodie blog covering all the happenings in Orlando’s restaurant and dining scene. His love of food has a lot to do with his upbringing. He said he has a large immigrant family. In the latest episode Florida Foodie, Ly talks about some of his favorite dishes around Orlando. He also talks about the food trends that are growing in the area and how the pandemic affected the service industry.
In the latest Florida Foodie, Frank Bailey talks about partnering with churches in the Orlando area to help build micro farms as part of his “Grow It Foward Program.” He also talks about how he is helping to teach his students business literacy as well as agriculture and landscaping skills.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, Francois and Alexis Hicks, the case manager for families, parks and recreation with Parramore Kidz Zone, talk more about what the kids learn while taking part in Black Bee Honey and how the program has grown since it began. out what the kids learn while taking part in Black Bee Honey and how the program has grown since it began. They also talk about the partnerships Black Bee Honey has formed with Orlando-area restaurants and businesses.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we talk to Thomas Ward, Owner of Pig Floyd's Urban Barbakoa...a unique BBQ restaurant in Central Florida.
On this week's Florida Foodie, Ginger and Joe Leigh of Zymarium Meadery share their love of Fermented Honey.
Erica Asti, a Culinary Educator with Edible Education Experience, shares what Edible Educational Experience has to offer on the latest episode of Florida Foodie.
On the latest Florida Foodie, Cathy and Robby Clay want you to get to know Central Florida’s farmers. The pair run the Farmacy, an online market that sells meat, produce and more — all of it coming from Central Florida’s farmers and growers.
Chef Henry Moso talks with the Florida Foodie podcast team about his success and the growth of his business, Kabooki Sushi. He also shares what makes the ribs at Kabooki Sushi so good and his favorite dish.
Suzannah Otis talks with Florida Foodie about her favorite vegan bites inside Disney’s parks and some of her recommendations around Orlando. She also shares her thoughts on the biggest innovations in plant-based food and why women are driving the push to eat less meat.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, Chef Mike Collantes talks about what he is hoping to accomplish inside Orlando’s food scene. He also talks about Filipino American culture and food and how he hopes to bring it to more mainstream attention.
Desiree Noisette spoke with Florida Foodie about building her business and the challenges she has faced as a woman of color in the wine industry. She also reluctantly chooses her favorite wine from Mermosa’s line.
Essential workers, which includes food-service employees, have continued to work every day throughout the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, Cristian Cardona said he started to see his coworker and his family start to struggle. From there, Cardona got in contact with Fight for $15 Florida. Cardona talks about the struggles his family has faced through the pandemic and why a $15 minimum wage may still not be good enough for workers. Please follow our hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s books, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Scarfing down five 10 once burgers along with seven sides in less than an hour may sound like a good time or torture depending on your perspective, but for Randy Santel and Katina DeJarnett, it’s their job. The couple call themselves “professional eaters.” They make a living from touring around the country and filming themselves devouring massive food challenges at restaurants along the way, then posting the results online. “It was something that I was watching and so I figured that there might be a pretty big market for that,” DeJarnett said. She was right. On YouTube alone, Santel, who also goes by “Atlas,” has 1.27 million subscribers. DeJarnett has about 234,000 on her “Katina Eats Kilos” channel. Prior to their internet fame, both Santel and DeJarnett were bodybuilders. “I got started in 2019 after doing a bodybuilding show in Spokane, Washington. Up until that show, I was on a hardcore diet obviously to get really lean for stage and I was hungry all the time. So, I was myself watching online, all these people eating food and stuff,” DeJarnett said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, I think I can eat that much. I’m so hungry all the time, I could put away that amount of food no problem.’” DeJarnett tackled her first food challenge after that show. “I just decided to grab like a cheap camcorder and take it with me to a food challenge which I had found on Randy’s website coincidentally, foodchallenges.com, ” she said. “Did my first food challenge. It was easy. It was no problem at all. I wanted dessert afterward. And so, I just kept grabbing my camera and going on to bigger and bigger food challenges and I’ve been hooked ever since.” It was a similar story for Santel. “I actually won a national body transformation contest in 2010,” Santel said. “With my buddy that helped me with everything, we celebrated the end of that diet and transformation by doing an 11 pound 28-inch pizza challenge in St. Louis, Missouri where we’re both from and we ended up winning. We got the $50 pizza for free and we got check for $500 cash.” Santel has been tackling food challenges since then and is coming up on his 11th year of chowing down professionally. The couple met through competitive eating when Santel messaged DeJarnett to join him for a challenge in Alaska. “We just back to back to back did a bunch of food challenges and we were in the car for hours together in between those challenges,” DeJarnett said. “It was like an interesting first meeting experience.” On Florida Foodie, the couple shares their strategies for tackling a massive mound of food, the toughest food challenges to take on and what they have planned for the future. They also share some of their favorite Florida eats from around the state.
The Florida Foodie Team Talks To Karen Zielke. Karen and her husband, Mike, are the founders of Chuluota Free Vegetable Distribution. a grassroots effort to help their community. Twice a month, the couple creates up a pop-up farmers market in front of VFW Post 10139 in Chuluota.
The owners of Black Rooster Taqueria have plenty of reason to celebrate. The restaurant owners, John and Juliana Calloway, are getting ready to mark five years in business in the heart of Orlando’s trendy Mills 50 district. At the same time, the couple is working on opening up a second location in another up-and-coming part of the city, the Hourglass District. It’s a plan the pair have been working on for years but thought they would have to put it on hold as the pandemic hit. “We looked and looked and then we just couldn’t find the right thing and then 2020 hit and we were like ‘okay, maybe let’s pause,’” Juliana Calloway said. “And then all of a sudden this space became available and now our biggest thing was outdoor seating.” The Calloways say the new location on the corner of Curry Ford Road and South Crystal Lake Drive will offer the outdoor seating that’s become such a hot commodity since the pandemic began. The new restaurant is also double the space of their Mills 50 spot and which will allow them to expand their catering business and their menu. The couple says the new location is likely to open sometime over the summer, but they also say their expansion plans do not end there. “I think we just want to try to continue to grow our company,” John Calloway said. “Keep being a part of the community and involved with Orlando and, down the road, open up another location or two.” You can hear their entire conversation with Candace Campos on the latest Florida Foodie where the Calloways share how they’ve managed to navigate the pandemic and thrive. They also explain the origin of the black rooster they named their business after. Be sure to follow our host, News 6 anchor Candace Campos, on Twitter and Facebook.
Food Insecurities are a real issue for many communities right now. The need has stretched many food pantries to their limits. The Florida Foodie team talks to Stephanie Bowman, Founder and CEO of One Heart For Women and Children about what it's like to feed anyone in need right now during the Pandemic.
Kwame Boakye knows that hard work pays off. He is from Akron, OH and was raised primarily by his grandmother, as his mother worked multiple jobs to support them. Boakye says, took that work ethic to school and received several degrees, included an MBA. He applied that knowledge to some previous businesses, but, a little more than a year ago, he decided to start Chicken Fire. The food cart served up what he called “soulful hot chicken.” Despite being born and raised in the Midwest, Boakye says his grandmother was from the South and brought that heritage into her cooking. It’s a tradition he carries on with Chicken Fire. The food cart started in October of 2019. Things were going well, but about five months in we all started feeling the effects of the pandemic. Stay-at-home orders forced many businesses to close, but much of the food service industry was allowed to stay open. Boakye says, his business stayed open the entire time and he was able to retain his employees, even though things looked grim at times. Despite those challenges, Boakye used Chicken Fire as a way to give back the community by providing free meals to kids who were out of school. Through all of that, Chicken Fire ultimately flourished. So much so, that the business has grown, the trailer where it got started is retired and Chicken Fire is now moving into it’s first brick-and-mortar location in Orlando’s Coytown neighborhood. Boakye tells us all about his business and the ups and downs that brought him to this big moment. He also shares his thoughts on how much spice is too much and the must have meal for anyone checking out Chicken Fire for the first time. Be sure to follow our host, Candace Campos, on Twitter and Facebook.
Doug Miller is a man who appreciates what he has. He now owns three restaurants after he was able to retire early from his previous career in sales. His most recent location in just recently opened. However, his life started out far differently. Miller’s parents died when he was young, and he ended up in an abusive home. From there, he bounced from foster home to foster home. He spent 12 years in foster care. During that time, he says food was often scarce. In his years since leaving foster care, cooking became a hobby and feeding others was a way for Miller to show others how much he cares. It’s a practice he carries over into his chain of restaurants, FK Your Diet. The “FK” stands for foster kid. Millers says, he wants to make sure every customer leaves with some extra food, offering generous portions that guarantee leftovers. But, his efforts to give back extend beyond his meals. He also makes efforts to hire other people who have gone through the foster care system, along with others who might need a second chance. Miller shares his experiences in the foster care system and how he was able to hustle, starting several businesses along the way. He also shares some of the problems he ran into with the name early on, before eventually winning people over.
Chef Nick Aikens has spent much of his life in the kitchen with his family. He got his start working for his aunt in 1952. Since then, he’s served meals to Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presely, but, above all, Aikens says he is “cooking for the people.” He now runs his own restaurant with his wife and his daughter. Over the last 20 years, Nikki’sPlace has become a staple of Orlando’s Parramore neighborhood. Aikens started the restaurant in 1999, naming it after his daughter Shannea “Nikki” Akins, who will eventually take over the business. The restaurant’s standing in the community is a fact that is not lost Aikens. He and his daughter know the business would not be around without their customers, especially through the hard times brought on by the pandemic. They say people regularly stop by for a meal, saying they are coming in just to make sure their business can stay open. Nick and Shannea join us to talk about what makes their soul different from what people might expect and how they are giving back to the customers who help keep them going.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced thousands of Floridians out of their jobs, many of whom worked in the food service industry. Chef Francisco Cortes had just started a new job in March at B Resort and Spa. Seven days later, he was laid off. What followed was a months long job search that ended up being fruitless. Then, he got a call saying a player inside the NBA bubble needed someone for meal preparations. As it turns out, Oklahoma City Shooting Guard Hamidou Diallo, needed someone to prepare meals for him. That was the start of Cortes' rebound. Cortes has had experience feeding professional athletes, he spent years working as a cook for the Atlanta Braves, and he was able to secure the job of preparing meals for Diallo. Since then, he has started Simple as 123 Meal Prep and Catering. Cortes shared with us the work he’s had to put into starting his own business in the middle of the pandemic, what his plans are for the future and also, some of the favorite dishes of the athletes he’s worked with.
Neal Crosier has been dealing with a lot of change in the last couple of years. He and his wife moved to Central Florida from Chicago for the weather, unsurprisingly. Then, in 2017, the couple opened their business, Popcorn Junkie, in the heart of Orlando’s Parramore neighborhood, an historically black and underserved community. Since opening up their store, Parramore has gone through a lot of changes of its own. More affordable housing has moved into the area, along with restaurants and businesses. At the same time, Crosier and his wife have been working to preserve the history of the area, while continuing to build it up. Then, the Covid-19 Pandemic hit and, like so many other businesses, Crosier was forced to pivot and adapt his business model to stay open. Amid that, the nation has seen a sweeping push for racial justice and equality, bringing a new attention to Black-owned businesses and encouraging an effort to support them. Neal Crosier shares his story with the hosts of Florida Foodie, explaining how Popcorn Junkie came to life and what’s changed for him during the pademic. He also talks about how he is supporting other people who want to start their own businesses. Please, follow our hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos, on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out Lisa’s children’s books, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Bars and craft breweries have been closed across the state of Florida since June 26th, after contact tracing linked several outbreaks of the Coronavirus to bars, according the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Craft breweries are calling that move unfair. Business owners say, their breweries are distinct from bars in that most are not open late and do not cater to the same type of close contact socializing. Because of that the Florida Brewers Guild has issued an open letter to Governor Ron DeSantis and the head of the DBPR, Halsey Beshears. The letter paints a grim picture of the state of Florida’s craft breweries. It states that a majority of the state’s 320 craft breweries are working on a “to-go” only model of business, which typically only represents 10% of sales for the those businesses. It also states that at least 100 craft breweries are on the verge of closure. To learn more about these problems and what the Florida Brewers Guild would like to see done about it, we sat down for a conversation with Glenn Closson, the CEO of Ivanhoe Park Brewing and the Treasurer of the Florida Brewers Guild. He tells us about the frustrations many breweries are facing and how they are willing to compromise and work with the state to keep people safe while staying in business. Since we recorded this on conversation, the head of the DBPR announced that he would be meeting with bars and breweries across the state, starting on Friday, July 31st, to discuss ideas on how those businesses can safely reopen. Be sure to follow our host, Candace Campos, on Twitter and Facebook.
he coronavirus pandemic is leaving a devastating financial impact on Central Florida. It has forced millions of furloughs and lay offs across the state, forcing people onto unemployment, unable to make ends meet. That is forcing more people to rely on food banks to feed themselves and their families. Second Harvest Food Bank is working to help bridge the gap for those people. The food bank is seeing roughly double the amount the families it would normally help. Even with the state beginning to reopen, the demand remains high. The Florida Foodie team spoke with Dave Krepcho, the president and CEO of Second Harvest, to talk about the need for food assistance here in Central Florida. He also talked about how the food bank is preparing for hurricane season amid this pandemic and how people can get involved in helping those in need.
An antique book became the inspiration for a growing bakery business. Gideon’s Bakehouse takes its title from a name found written in an old cookbook. Since then, it has become synonymous with cookies that tip the scales at nearly a half pound a piece. The Gothic-themed bakery currently sits in less than 300 square feet at Orlando’s East End Market. However, before the end of the year, that is going to change. Gideon’s is getting ready for a major growth spurt that will see it make the jump into Disney Springs, which will make it more accessible to the international audience that shops and dines there. The bakery’s owner, Steve Lewis, joins Florida Foodie to talk about this growth for his business. He shares how he’s been able to weather the pandemic and his excitement over being able to hire people when so many businesses are furloughing their workers. Lewis also talks about some of the changes and new experiences Gideon’s fans can expect when they stop by his new flagship store at Disney Springs later this year.
The Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause issues across the food industry. Restaurants, resorts and bars all had to close their doors for weeks. That had a trickle down affect, ultimately hurting food supplies, especially agriculture. These problems also affected a Central Florida company that bills itself as the agriculture of the future. Kalera(https://www.kalera.com/) grows all of its produce indoors, hydroponically and a completely clean environment. Unlike other farms, it did not have to plow under its crops or leave them to rot on the vine, but their leafy greens still needed to be harvested. However, nearly all of its customers vanished when the pandemic forced the shutdown in March. Kalera's CEO, Daniel Malechuk, tells us the company was able to pivot and find a new buyer for its product. Malechuk shares with us some of the lessons the company has learned from this pandemic and its hopes for the future as we continue to reopen our economy. Be sure to follow our host, Candace Campos, on Twitter (https://twitter.com/CandaceNews6) and Facebook(https://www.facebook.com/candacecamposnews6)
The coronavirus forced restaurants all across Central Florida to close their dining rooms and switch to a delivery and pick-up only model. For many, this cost them a lot of their normal business, forcing some to furlough workers and others closed altogether. Even Dimov runs Too Much Sauce with his family in Orlando’s Mills 50 District. He struggled to secure a loan through the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Those funds ended up coming through, but he still faces issues making ends meet for business. Dimov also got some personal protective equipment through Orange County, but admits, it could be difficult to secure more when that runs out. He speaks with us about the some of the challenges his business has faced throughout this emergency and how he manages to stay positive despite those issues.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, the team discusses "clean label food" with Dale Volkert of Lake Meadow Naturals. They talk about getting connected to with your food and more.
The Florida Foodie team spoke with the founder of Eco Strategies Group, Andrea Ruiz-Hays. She discusses reducing Food Waste impact.
This week on Florida Foodie, the team talks to Jim Marshall, owner of Kitchen AF, about Ghost Kitchens.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we discuss the growth urban farming with Soraya Fernandez-Hazoury of Nearby Naturals.
The Florida Foodie team talks to "Edible Orlando" Publisher, Kendra Lott, about her foodie magazine and her book "Unique Eats and Eateries of Orlando"
On this week's Florida Foodie, the team talks to Charlie Pioli about his new business, O-Town Compost, that helps with Food Waste through a unique approach to composting.
On this episode of Florida Foodie we talk to Dave Green of "Feeding Children Everywhere". We discuss escaping poverty and how it has lead Dave Green to a life of serving others.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, the team discusses how John Collazo turned his food truck sandwich concept, Bad As's Sandwich, into a brick and morter spot in the heart of Orlando, Florida.
The Florida Foodie Podcast Team Talks To Ben Hoyer From Downtown Credo About Coffee With A Purpose.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, the team discusses Lao Street Food with Chef Kevin of "Sticky Rice", located in Orlando, Florida
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we discuss social media "food influencing" with Instagram Influencer, Orlando Foodie Girl.
The Florida Foodie Team Talks To Dave Krepcho and Kelly Quintero From Second Harvest Food Bank
The Florida Foodie Team Talks To Chef Israel Santiago and Chef Kenneth Neal From Second Harvest Food Bank.
The Florida Foodie Team Talks To Central Florida Chef And Business Owner, Jen Ross, about Dajen Eats and it's vegan flare with a Jamaican twist. What makes Dajen Eats different
The Florida Foodie Team Talks To Orlando Restaurant Owner Trina Gregory-Propst About Seven Bites And Sette. What makes both restaurants unique and what's next for each restaurant in the future.
The Florida Foodie team interviews the owners of Loggerhead Distillery. What are they doing within the community to focus on local sourced products?
The Florida Foodie team interviews Chad Truxall, Executive Director Of The Marine Discovery About A Single Use Plastics Ban.
The Florida Foodie team interviews Summer Breakspot about their efforts at helping children deal with food insecurities.
The Florida Foodie team interviews two special University of Central Florida students about their efforts at helping other students who may not have access to everyday meals. What is the Knights Helping Knights Food Pantry all about and how is it helping students focus on their studies instead of food insecurities.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we talk to Glen Providence from Ebony Nutrition and Robin Dunnings From Simply Healthcare Plans. How are they teaming up to help put better food options in nutritionally underserved neighborhoods?
On this episode of Florida Foodie, Dylan Eitharong talks about his Thai Street Kitchen or "Pop Up" concept. What is his inspiration for Bangrak Thai Street Kitchen and what makes his "Thai Street Food" so authentic?
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we discuss the life of Shantell Williams. What inspired her to open her Central Florida Soul Food restaurant and what makes her approach so different.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we talk to John Rivers, Founder of "4 Rivers Smokehouse". Where did it all begin for "4 Rivers" and what's next for their restaurants?
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we talk about what "Food Deserts" are and how we can help eliminate them in some of the underserved communities in Central Florida.
On this episode of Florida Foodie, we talk to Jiles Malone about the Spacecoast Music Festival. Where did the festival begin and what makes this event so important to the space coast?