Florida Foodie

Yao’s Modern Kitchen is all about family. The restaurant is run by three siblings, George, Edward and Diane Yiu, along with their friends and past Florida Foodie guests Chris Chen and Phil Nguyen. The siblings grew up in Central Florida and wanted to combine their traditional family recipes with the flavors of the Sunshine State. “All of our family recipes — like our dumplings, our fried rice — and then also an integration of, like Central Florida’s big Spanish influence. So this, these dishes are in a marriage of both of them,” said George Yiu, who also serves as chef for the restaurant. Yao’s had been operating as a pop-up for a few years, but it recently opened a brick-and-mortar shop in Oviedo, 15 Alafaya Woods Blvd. “Like any business, there are its own obstacles; however, Oviedo has been so welcoming,” Edward Yiu said. “We’ve been received with open arms, and they can feel the authenticity that we bring.” The siblings said they saw Oviedo as an opportunity for their business. “Oviedo is a thriving community, one that we felt lacked a lot of staple, family-owned restaurants. There are a lot of corporate restaurants out there, but with that, you know, becomes kind of the monotony of it. So we’re bringing something more refreshing that’s awesome,” Edward Yiu said. While George Yiu runs the kitchen, Edward Yiu serves as general manager and Diane Yiu is “everywhere, all at the same time,” according to the brothers. The trio have also pulled their significant others in to help with the restaurant. Even their mom helps out in the kitchen, making dumplings and folding wontons. “This really is a family operation. You know, it’s a lot of work, but we love what we do,” George Yiu said. The siblings grew up around restaurants, with their grandparents running businesses in New York and their mother opening kitchens after her move to Central Florida. Of course, they also have a lot of help from their college friends, Chen and Nguyen. “We were just hanging out Christian, Phil and I... we were mentioning on a concept (my siblings and I) were thinking of,” Edward Yiu said. “Couple years flew by, and then it really got serious. They became more interested that we really wanted to hone in and chase our dreams.” The siblings said Chen and Nguyen’s experience with Viet-Nomz has been invaluable to them. “It was pivotal, for sure. I think without them, we couldn’t be this far in, I would say,” George Yiu said. The restaurant is currently in its soft opening. The grand opening is set for Sept. 10. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, George and Edward Yiu share more of their family’s history in the restaurant industry. They also share some of their favorite dishes with Candace Campos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Glen Providence wears many hats as the leader of a nonprofit, the publisher of a small newspaper and the owner of his own ice cream company. In his day job, Providence is the head of Hebni Nutrition — an organization that offers help to underserved communities, giving them access to and education about nutritious meals. In his entrepreneurial endeavors, Providence is spreading joy with Smile Ice Cream Company. “It was a passion project,” he said. “I wanted to do something food related and ice cream popped into my head.” Providence had made some ice cream as a kid and he wanted to recapture some of that nostalgia. “There was a magic moment when you’re with your kids, you’re with your family, you’re out and you say, ‘You know what, let’s go get some ice cream,’” he said. “And in that moment, when you get there, it’s a feel-good moment.” Providence “went to ice cream school’ to hone his craft, but the equipment he needed to produce ice cream on a commercial level was a little out of his price range. “God is good. About a month later — when you graduate from the course you get enrolled into an ice cream Facebook group, and someone was selling one of these machines — again, brand new $15,000 — he was selling for $6,000,” he said. Providence then took a road trip to South Carolina to pick up the machine. “I left at two o’clock in the morning — didn’t tell a soul because people (would say) ‘You’re crazy,’” he said. “Drove up, picked up that machine, was back in Orlando at 6 p.m. that evening and that was the beginning of the ice cream journey.” Providence then spent 2019 perfecting his flavors. Through the pandemic, he would provide catering orders with Smile, offering single-serving containers for events. “I was doing great. I really was not looking for a location. I wasn’t actively looking but I knew when the right opportunity presented itself I would know,” he said. “I was doing all these ice cream catering and people always ask me, ‘Where can I buy this?’ I didn’t have an answer.” Eventually, the opportunity presented itself. A friend working in real estate had an opening at a shopping center near the intersection of Fairbanks Avenue and Edgewater Drive in Orlando. “I went back and it was like, ‘This is it. I can make you go at it,’” he said. Smile Ice Cream Company opened its brick-and-mortar location on May 3. “Everything is made right in-house. It’s not being trucked in from a factory, you know, and it’s great. I love the connection to the community,” he said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Providence shares some of his favorite flavors with Candace Campos and Lisa Bell. He also talks more about his work with Hebni and his paper, The Midtown Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marie Mercado had no plans of becoming a “professional ice cream lady.” She had her sights set on the stage. “I wanted to be an opera singer,” Mercado said. “I did perform. I did shows in New York. I moved to Japan, I did a couple of performances there. I was there for a year and then I was going to move to Germany, but then I’m like, ‘OK, let me pay down some student loans. Let me figure out my life, get everything settled, get everything squared away before I move.’” That decision brought the South Florida native to Orlando. Mercado said she met her partner in the City Beautiful, who introduced her to the idea of running her own business. “When you’re a musician you work 90% of your time alone, right, actually. So I like the idea of building my own community,” she said. Mercado looked to her childhood when she decided to start her own business. Growing up in South Florida, she said her neighbors would give her family a glut of mangos every year. “My dad one day was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we turn this into ice cream so we can enjoy this for a couple more months instead of trying to eat this all in one day,’” she said. Mercado said she was always dabbling in the kitchen as a child, so her parents thought making ice cream would be a perfect fit for her. “I started my career as an ice cream lady at 7 years old,” she said. This ultimately led her to open the Greenery Creamery in downtown Orlando in 2018. “I consider myself a professional ice cream lady and I have a very important job,” she said. “I have to provide ice cream options for people in the community.” Mercado takes the job seriously. She tries to make sure that everyone can have something in her ice cream shops — offering vegan and allergen-friendly options. “People don’t realize consciously that ice cream is a way to create core memories. So people don’t think ‘Oh, it’s baby’s first steak.’ They think, ‘Baby’s first ice cream,’” she said. Greenery Creamery offers a wide variety of flavors, some familiar and some that are a little more outside the box of traditional ice cream. In 2023, Mercado took her passion for ice cream in a different direction. She opened Sampaguita in Orlando’s Mills 50 District. “I say Greenery Creamery is a journey of self-expression and Sampaguita to is an exploration of self-identity,” Mercado said. Sampaguita is focused on offering Filipino-American-inspired flavors, a nod to Mercado’s Filipino-American heritage. Sampaguita is the Filipino name for the Jasmine flower, which is also the national flower of the Philippines. “Jasmine flower means love and purity, guidance and truth and so it just has so many layers to it. So I said, ‘Yes, this is the name that fits everything,’” Mercado said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Mercado shares more of her journey from opera to ice cream. She also talks about some of her experiments with ice cream flavors and shares some frozen treats with Candace Campos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Webber and Steve Nichols did not originally plan on becoming moonshiners. The pair saw it as an opportunity when Florida decided to relax some of its craft distilling laws. “Florida changed their craft distilling laws in 2020 and relaxed them a little bit more in 2022 to match those of Tennessee,” Webber said. “Today, there’s a very popular 13 Moonshine craft distilleries in a five-mile stretch in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. In 2002, there were none. (Tennessee) changed (its) craft distilling laws to allow craft distilling in a public place like Orlando Vineland Premium Outlet Mall, just like Florida did, and we wanted to be on the front end of telling the story.” The pair decided to call the business Caribbean Moonshine as a nod to history. “Moonshining was actually born in the Caribbean and was way popular for centuries before it was ever done up in the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky,” Webber said. Of course, the pair had a lot to learn before they could set up shop. They managed to find an expert from Tennessee to teach them the trade. “Steve had a friend that introduced us to a shiner up in Tennessee called Shine Girl. Her name is Danielle Parton. She’s actually Dolly Parton’s niece,” Webber said. That was their foot in the door. The pair wanted to take the process back to its roots, using cane sugar in the fermenting process. “We use Florida cane sugar, and we distill that to 185 proof,” Webber said. “Then we go to a distillery that has access to the Zephyrhills Springs in New Port Richey, and we blend our 185 proof with Zephyrhills Spring water, which is smooth and ultra-purified, we’ll add more Florida cane sugar in the flavoring to flavor it.” The flavors are nods to the Caribbean and Florida, including banana, coconut, marmalade and peanut butter and chocolate, which is their No. 1 seller. Caribbean Moonshine opened its doors in the Orlando Vineland Premium Outlet Mall, right in the heart of Orange County’s tourist district. This has allowed them to have people from all over the world taste their product. “A lady come in and she says I’m from Barbados, and I want to try the rum,” Nichols said. “So she tried our flavor. She said, ‘This is amazing.’ She called her husband over. Well, her husband’s a rap artist named Etcetera and he come over after a long day at Disney with the kids and he was tired. He didn’t want to move but he did and when he come over here, he was blown away. So much so that he invited Mike and me out to the Grammys for the release of his album, Sagittarius.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Webber and Nichols share more of their story about opening their distillery. They also talk about tours of the distillery and mixology classes offered there, along with some of the products they still have in the works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Edward Colón has been working in his parent’s business, Melao Bakery, since they first opened it in 2008, shortly after moving to Kissimmee from Puerto Rico. “The first years, we slept inside the store,” Colón said. “We had those foldable beds. We folded the beds, we put them in storage and we opened up.” Colón was in his teens at the time and his younger brother had just been born, adding to the challenge of churning out authentic Puerto Rican cuisine daily. “I did a lot of (making) bread while I was trying to finish school and college,” he said. “So I was making bread and I would go to college and then come back and forth. So it was not easy.” The family started renting a small building on a quiet road in Kissimmee. “We struggled,” Colón said. “There was no Spanish places around at that point — not like now, obviously. We knew we had a great product at that point, So, we took the risk.” The gamble ended up paying off for the family. They now own the building they first opened in and have a second just outside of Orlando. The family also employs more than 150 people. Despite the success they have seen, the family still puts many hours on the business. “I work basically seven days a week,” Colón said. We work around the clock. It’s an everyday thing. I got employees that come in at three in the morning. And I have employees that get out at (midnight).” That dedication has turned Melao Bakery into a destination spot within the Kissimmee community. “Most people come straight from the airport,” Colón said. “People get there and get to eat every type of food that you find in Puerto Rico.” Colón said the goal was always to give people a feel and taste of the island territory, but making it accessible to everyone. “We don’t just have Puerto Rican clients, obviously, we have all kinds of clients — specifically in the Kissimmee store,” he said. The bakery is located just outside of Heritage Park. Many people stop by after various activities at the park or the Silver Spurs arena. The family is now looking to expand their business and get their products into more places. “We’re working on mass production,” Colón said. “We’re growing our kitchen area, and our bakery area — everything’s, gonna be double of what it was.” He added that the family wants to make sure they can maintain the same quality as they increase the quantity of their product. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Colón shares more of his family’s story and the challenges they faced. He also gave Lisa Bell a sample of some of the delicious food available at Melao Bakery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Hackett has spent most of his professional career working in resorts across the country and around the world, but he said Caribe Royal Orlando is his “home.” “I’m staying there. I mean, I love the property. I love the culture that we have there,” he said. Hackett has been at the boutique resort for about four years now. Before that, he had done stints at resorts such as the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Trump National Doral in Miami and even spent a few years working at a resort in Dubai, among other locations. In all, Hackett said he has been an executive chef at various resorts for about 25 years. Of course, his culinary career started well before that. “I started the business when I was 12 — at a ripe young age just by pure accident,” he said. His brother was supposed to go into a restaurant for a job interview, but couldn’t make it due to a broken ankle. So his mom offered up his services instead. “I went and washed bar glasses on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at the age of 12. You know, shagging ice and booze and things like that,” Hackett said. Despite his early exposure, Hackett said he really wanted to be an architect when he was younger. “Then I realized, ‘Wow, food as so many different mediums besides pen and paper. Why not go be a chef?” he said. His first exposure to working at a resort was at Walt Disney World. “Disney was — it was a great opportunity for me especially to open MGM Studios,” Hackett said. “When I got there in ‘88, Disney was strong in their culinary program.” The “great opportunity” led Hackett down a path that eventually led to Caribe Royal. As the executive chef of Caribe Royal, Hackett is in charge of eight different dining options at the resort, including a brand-new, two-story sports bar, Stadium Club. Hackett said he tries to make sure each dining option is unique. “We don’t like menu bleed. So granted a burger we have to have in a couple different areas,” he said. “But it’s all about what’s on the burger.” Hackett said he prefers to buy his ingredients from Central Florida farmers and producers whenever possible. “I think great food comes with a great start — a great product to work with — then we do minimal to it,” he said. “I think a lot of chefs have lost their way where they’re trying to do so much to food. I think that food needs to speak for itself, you know, salt and pepper, basic preparation to kind of bring you back to how we all grew up.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Hackett shares some of the challenges of managing all of the venues at the resort. He also shares more of his travels in the industry, as well as a bounty of food for Candace Campos and Lisa Bell to sample. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tina Aldrich is a Florida native who chose to live in Montverde and open her business there because she knew it would keep its small-town charm. “When our daughter went to college, we went ahead and moved to our cabin in North Carolina,” she said. “Then when we moved back, I’m like, ‘I want to move back to a place where the footprint will not change,’ and this little burb is not going to change. It’s going to change all around us and has — I mean Hancock (Road) was not even a road when we moved up to North Carolina, you know? So that’s what made us decide to come back here to Montverde.” Before moving back from North Carolina, Aldrich had the opportunity to work in a fudge and candy shop, learning the ins and outs of the business. She admits it was not a great passion of hers, but when she moved back to Montverde she noticed something was missing in the community. “I’m like, ‘The only thing we don’t have is sweets. We don’t have sweets. So let’s do ice cream and candy — that’d be fun,’” she said. This revelation led her to open Orange Blossom Candies & Cream. Though she was a novice to the candy business, Aldrich had run other businesses in the past including a long-time florist shop in Winter Garden. “I am just an entrepreneur, and obviously my personality is kind of very outgoing and so I just I don’t like to give up,” she said. As it turned out, she would need that stick-to-it-iveness as she wound up having to open her business right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Anybody who’s ever started a business knows that you don’t, you don’t start the business two weeks before you open. It’s like months before,” Aldrich said. “So once you’re already doing that, and then the pandemic hits, you’re like, ‘Huh, you know, what? Worst (thing) that happens is that window is going to become a new window where I can serve out of the window and all of this that won’t last forever and at some point, we will open’ but we never did have to do that. We were able to put our lines and everybody wore masks, and we got through it.” Now, roughly four years later, her business is a thriving community staple. The shop is near Montverde Academy and has become a lunch hot spot for the student there. “So the kids coming in her always like ‘Miss Tina, Miss Tina,’ (and) everybody gives me hugs,” Aldrich said. On the latest Florida Foodie, Aldrich shares what it was like for her growing up in Florida and growing her family in Montverde. She also shares some of her confections with Candace Campos and Lisa Bell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Willie’s Bar-B-Que has only been a part of Montverde for six years, but it has become a fixture in the small community. Willie Fulmore and his daughter, Tomeka Fulmore-Smith, have spent their lives working with food. Willie Fulmore opened his barbecue restaurant nearly 30 years ago, first setting up shop in Winter Garden. “When I was stationed in Leesburg and there was a gentleman on Pine Street (with a business) by the name of Jim’s Barbecue Place and every weekend, everybody at the facility would go there and I would go there,” Willie Fulmore said. “So I said, ‘You know, that would be a neat little business,’ because he was open two days a week. I said, ‘Can’t get any better than that. A guy can work two days a week and he can make a living.’” At that time, he and his daughter worked as food safety inspectors for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Willie Fulmore worked with factories dealing in processed foods while his daughter worked with commodities and fresh produce. He opened his restaurant, having people help him run it. “I would get promoted on the job and then I would lease it out to a group of people and then they wouldn’t do so well and I’d have to come back and get it boosted up again,” he said. That pattern persisted until he and Tomeka Fulmore-Smith both retired allowing them to run the business together. The pair sold their property in Winter Garden to Matthew’s Hope and moved the business to Montverde about six years ago. “I love Montverde. I call Montverde ‘Mayberry,’” Willie Fulmore said. “It’s a quiet, cool little place. I like Montverde. It fits me.” “They’ve been very welcoming. The community is absolutely amazing,” Tomeka Fulmore-Smith added. “It’s such a beautiful, beautiful community.” Willie Fulmore brings a lot of expertise to his craft. He grew up in South Carolina, where his family regularly barbecued. He also made friend’s with the owner of Jim’s Barbecue Place. “I went and I worked free the whole summer for the guy, you know, as a friend,” he said. “So he kind of showed me a lot of tips and I what I learned from my dad and the other guys — I put it all together.” Those tips have paid off. The father-daughter duo said they have had people coming from miles for their food. There have been quite a few people who love taking road trips, and they would literally travel just to try barbecue,” Tomeka Fulmore-Smith said. “We’ve had people come up (from South Florida). They drove up for the day — ‘Yeah, we’re from Miami. We heard about you, we read your reviews.’” Willie Fulmore believes the restaurant only being open two days a week adds to the hype. “People always want what they can’t get enough of,” he said. Though he likes to brag about only working two days a week, Willie Fulmore is a busy guy. He is also a minister and works with the homeless. “I preach at the men’s homeless shelter. I’ve been doing that for the last 12, 15 years and I’m really involved with that,” he said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, the pair share their entire menu with Candace Campos and Lisa Bell. Willie Fulmore also shares what sets his barbecue apart and why it takes some special skill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Delaño Lambertclare has dedicated nearly two decades to helping seniors across Seminole County get nutritious meals for free. “I worked at the Swan and Dolphin for two and a half years and I wanted to shift and change (away from) corporate life,” Lambertclare said. After leaving the Disney resort, the chef came to Meals of Wheels of Seminole County. “I saw this kitchen and the possibilities and I started here under just Meals on Wheels and then started the catering division about a year and a half, two years after I took over here,” he said. That was the start of Top Hat Catering. The catering service covers everything from weddings to corporate events, with the money feeding back into Meals on Wheels. “Basically, when I do my price on a catering event, I want to bring at least 40% back return. So that goes back to Meals on Wheels,” Lambertclare said. Lambertclare also offers cooking classes at the Meals on Wheels kitchen and private classes in people’s homes. “Sometimes we’ll have wine — you can sit back and I’ll have everybody dig their hands in and get dirty and have a good time,” he said. The money generated from the catering and cooking classes helps Lambertclare and his staff churn out 2,000 to 3,000 meals daily. The program is primarily for seniors but it also serves schools and daycares. “Kids are very picky, but you have to put some things on (on the menu) — put chicken nuggets you put hamburgers on there — but then also balance it with like things you cook from scratch,” he said. “You give them chicken fried rice, but like you do in a healthy way with brown rice and things like that. So you kind of trick them.” Lambertclare said he changes his menu monthly as different seasonal ingredients become available. He added that he enjoys getting feedback from his clients. “I don’t want them throwing the food away. I want them to actually eat,” he said. “So I’m always testing them out — see if they’ll eat more kale or eat quinoa and things like that.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Lambertclare talks through all of the services Top Hat Catering offers. He also shows Lisa Bell how to make two of his signature appetizers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wilson Santos has been thinking about opening a French fry-centric restaurant for years. “This concept is like decades in the making,” Santos said. “To be honest, I went to Amsterdam, the first trip was in 1994. I was doing a study abroad program in England and on the weekends, I would try to take a trip around Europe. And I just took a trip with some friends that I met in England, went to Amsterdam and I saw these fries.” The fry shops became a common snack for Santos during his visits. “I just thought, ‘Why don’t we have this in the U.S.?’” Santos said. He got his first chance to try the concept when his first restaurant concept, Vinyl Arts Bar was undergoing a rebranding during COVID. Vinyl Cafe served as Santos interpretation of an Amsterdam coffee bar, but instead of marijuana, he offered hemp. He also offered fries. “So I put about six different sauces on the menu, I did the cone fries, and then you have the hemp,” Santis said. “Now people are smoking hemp They’re eating the fries and they get the whole Amsterdam experience.” Santos sold the space about six months later. That was in 2020. In March, he was finally able to open The Fry Shoppe at 489 N. Semoran Blvd. “We’re a few blocks up from Full Sail University — just light up from University Boulevard to Aloma (Avenue) so we’re right on the corner of Semoran Boulevard and Aloma (Avenue) — really high-traffic intersection for us,” Santos said. The business owner truly believes in the concept and is taking a big gamble on himself to get The Fry Shoppe up and running. “I was looking for investors for a long time, I had presentations and meetings and nobody wanted to invest. Nobody believed in it. You know, people said I was asking too much,” Santos said. “I’m glad I didn’t get any investors at the end of the day. It would have been a mistake. So things happen for a reason. I ended up — I couldn’t get funding for it and I didn’t have the money. I just — I’m a risk taker, I sold my house.” Santos is now renting a place near his restaurant. He believes the concept is ripe for a franchise. “I’m not gonna stop until we have multiple locations. I’m persistent,” Santos said. He believes The Fry Shoppe could find itself in mall food courts, food halls, or at airports. However, he needs to get this original location firing on all cylinders first. I know that in the next month, we’ll be at 100%. We have to add delivery — so we have to add DoorDash UberEATS are the two big ones. We haven’t even marketed heavily to the student population right down the street at Full Sail They have over 20,000 students. This is affordable food for students,” said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Santos talked more about his trips to Amsterdam that inspired his restaurant. He also gives Candace Campos a rundown on his most popular sauces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The pandemic was a trying time for people across the food service industry, but Jay and Johnny Nartowicz and their partner Colton O’Dwyer ended up opening the right business at the exact right time. They opened Ghost Kitchen Orlando in February 2020, just weeks before COVID-era restrictions started taking effect. “It was very strange timing because it was almost like we were building this business just for COVID because all the restaurants were shutting down,” Johnny Nartowicz said. We were planning the idea back in October of 2019. So, yeah, four or five months later COVID hit — all the restaurants shut down and we were planning this delivery pickup-only restaurant for five months.” Ghost Kitchen Orlando went on to be a success during the pandemic, especially with its heat-and-eat meals, but as the world began to reopen their lunch and catering business became the focus. Because of that, the team decided to expand into a brick-and-mortar location. The first Bricks & Bowls location opened in the Mall at Millenia in 2022. “The way people are eating is changing and there’s a lot of really bad processed food out there,” Jay Nartowicz said. “And so we want it to be wholesome, nutritious — we don’t want to come across as super healthy. We have a really good balance. We have a lot of superfoods and then we have a lot of indulgent foods and wholesome foods.” The restaurant offers sandwiches served on focaccia bread along with a variety of bowls featuring proteins, grains and vegetables. The Millenia location has served as a testing ground for the concept and now it is going to expand. “We had to go from pickup and delivery only to now having a full storefront with staff interacting with customers,” Johnny Nartowicz said. “It’s completely different. So it’s definitely been a learning curve but we feel it’s been (a) proof of concept over the past two years and we’ve really kind of nailed it and are excited to open this new store in Winter Park.” For Johnny Nartowicz and O’Dwyer, opening a store in Winter Park is something of a homecoming, as the pair met while attending Rollins College. “Winter Park is cool for us because where we’re opening is like 100 feet from where we graduated,” O’Dwyer said. “We’re going to have a couple exclusive offerings. We’re going to have focaccia pizza, which is baked actually using our focaccia bread, and we’re gonna have beer and wine, as well as some seltzers and things like that.” The new restaurant is set to open at 331 S. Park Ave. by the end of April, no official opening date has been set. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, the trio talked about their plans to expand their businesses further. They also share their favorite sandwiches with Lisa Bell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christina Hollerbach is carrying on her parents’ life-long dream. “My parents always wanted to run their own restaurant and obviously my dad, being from Germany, wanted it to be a German restaurant,” she said. That dream became a reality in 2001, when her parents bought Willow Tree Cafe. The restaurant was tiny then but has since ballooned with the success of the business. “They actually bought the restaurant with 60 seats and six employees for $60,000,” Hollerbach said. “And of course, since then, we now have about 160 employees and see almost 10,000 guests a week between all of our businesses.” Hollerbach’s German Restaurant has since taken over a large portion of the building it sits in. The family has also expanded to have a market, selling baked goods and imported meats, and an outfitter full of authentic German costumes and outfits. In the more than 20 years since the restaurant first opened, Hollerbach has taken the reins of the business as its CEO. Hollerbach said the businesses are selling more than just food. They are selling a feeling of warmth and friendliness expressed best by the German word gemütlichkeit. “That’s what we’re trying to achieve all the time for these guests,” she said. “It’s why people like to celebrate special occasions here because you get that energy and like yes, the food is a huge part of it because it adds to that experience, but it is just one part of it.” Part of that effort to provide a cozy experience is by offering something for everyone, including its main restaurant which mimics a German beer hall with live music, a lodge for more of a bar atmosphere and the upstairs restaurant, Uber Keller, which offers a more laid back experience and serves German tapas. Hollerback feels as though the restaurant has helped to drive some change in Sanford — helping to take it from a sleepy suburb to a destination. “I would definitely consider us as a catalyst of making people believe that Sanford had a nightlife and a future because, you know, (the restaurant) was lunch only and we used to open for dinner on just Fridays and Saturdays and we would have like 10 covers. Now, there’s a line out the door,” she said. Hollerbach is very active in the community as well. She is an advocate for the city and works closely with the Sanford Main Street organization to push for improvements in the city. “I can still pause and appreciate and be grateful for what is happening right now while still simultaneously going ‘Alright, well, we got to fix this,” she said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Hollerbach shares more of her family’s history and how it is woven into the fabric of the restaurant. She also shares some of the food that can be found there with Lisa Bell and Candace Campos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Jill Holland found her path later in life when she went into culinary school at age 36. “It took a lot of soul searching to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up and now I just need to grow up,” Holland said. Holland worked in retail, real estate and was even a swim instructor for several years, but she found a love for cooking when she went to a birthday party. “I went to a friend’s birthday party who was doing like an in-home cooking class and it just really intrigued me,” she said. “A couple of weeks later, her sister had a birthday party with the same person and I, of course, went back and I’m like, ‘I think I could do this. Yeah, I think I could do this but I’m gonna need a lot more information.’ So I went back to college and graduated from Valencia in 2011.” From there, Holland worked in several kitchens, but she found her true calling when she became an instructor with Second Harvest’s Culinary Training Program. “Second Harvest actually started a catering company,” Holland said. “I came on to Second Harvest as a part-time instructor and six months later, I took over the position as head chef (of catering).” The company, now called Plate Above Catering, offers full-service catering for large and small events with all of the proceeds going back to funding the culinary training program. Second Harvest said it costs about $7,000 to put a student through its intensive training program. The proceeds from Plate Above help to keep the classes completely free for those students. “(It) is an amazing program — building up adults who have some sort of hardship in their background,” Holland said. “It could be as — and I use this term very loosely — it could be as simple as being underemployed all the way to the extreme of homelessness — we’ve had students who are living in shelters, living out of their cars, living on a friend’s couch — and everything in between those two scenarios.” Plate Above offers pick-up and reheat menus for families during holidays, but it can also cover events of nearly any size. “We’ve catered wedding receptions, we have a rehearsal dinner and a couple of weeks that we’re doing. We’ve done retirement parties, birthday parties, we’ve done some Bar and Bat Mitzvahs,” Holland said. She added that the company is willing to work with customers to offer up nearly any kind of menu they like. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Holland shared more of long and varied resume. She also sampled some delicious candied bacon, cookies and a frittata for Lisa Bell and Candace Campos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olivier Saintemarie was raised in Paris but he has spent a portion of his career bringing the flavors of the City of Light to Central Florida. Saintemarie has spent time working Chefs de France in Epcot but is now in the process of opening his own business in Orlando’s newly expanding Packing District — La Maison Du Macaron. “I’m really happy to bring all these exciting products here,” Saintmarie said. As the name implies, the bakery specializes in macarons — which are a small cookie made by combining meringue and almond flour to create shells that are then sandwiched around a filling. “It’s one of the favorite things I make,” he said. “I mean, it’s very popular. All the times I go to a party it’s like, ‘Hey, where are the macarons?’” The chef and his team plan to deliver a variety of macarons for people to enjoy, including coffee, coconut lime, caramel with sea salt and back currant, among others. “In each box, we’re gonna have a description of all the flavors so it’s depending on your on your taste,” Saintemarie said. “I’m pretty sure you can find something you’re gonna like.” The bakery is not open to the public as it is focused on volume, but customers can order boxes of macarons online. “We’re gonna have different collections — we’re gonna have a classic collection with the caramel, the spice, the coffees the vanilla. We’re gonna have a fruit collection,” the chef said. “We’re gonna have 100% chocolate. So we’re going to have a fudge we’re gonna have a regular chocolate, chocolate passion (fruit), chocolate orange.” Saintemarie’s operation is still being built out and he is planning to expand into making chocolate candies. For now, the chef is focused on his macaron operation. “I want people to really taste the macarons like we have them in France,” Saintemarie said. “It’s something I grew up with, macarons. I learned to make macarons a long time ago.” The chef is ready to introduce his taste of Paris to a lot of people. He said his operation can produce 10,000 to 12,000 macarons every day. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Saintemarie shows off his operation and goes deep on how macarons are made. He gives Candace Campos and Lisa Bell a lesson on how to fill the cookies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pine & Oak Tavern sits inside the newly renovated Rio Pinar Golf course, but despite its new look, the walls are covered in history. “Arnold Palmer’s trophy is on the wall behind us and Lee Trevino is a champion here and Hal Irwin and a lot of the great old golfers. The history is just priceless. That’s one of the reasons why the property is purchased. You can buy a golf club, but you can’t buy the history,” said Greg Allowe, the president of Delaney Hospitality, which owns Pine & Oak. Allowe partnered with the new owners of Rio Pinar to bring Pine & Oak to life. The golf club had been mothballed for several years before it was purchased, so it was in need of an update by the time Allowe came to it. “So we had to start from the beginning and the vision was not to be a stodgy old country club,” Allowe said. “We wanted to modernize it — make it more relevant with keeping some of the traditions in place. So if you look in the main part of the restaurant, you’ll see the artwork is not typical for for a golf club. We wanted to build a restaurant that was a restaurant that just happened to be located at a golf club, not a golf club restaurant.” Allowe was not a stranger to restaurant ownership. He also owns Delaney’s Tavern, inside the Delany Hotel, in downtown Orlando. The businessman brought in Anthony Albino, his corporate chef who had helped to develop the menu at Delaney’s Tavern. “Some of the flavors of (Delaney’s Tavern) are here but we wanted also make this property a little bit more unique so, the menu is tailored a bit more for this market,” Allowe said. Albino came to the culinary world following a career change. Previously, he worked as a mortgage broker until 2008. “That’s when I put myself through college,” Albino said. “I went to attend Le Cordon Bleu.” Albino said he got his passion for cooking from his family, especially his grandmother. “I grew up with a single mom. So every year she sent me down to Puerto Rico to live with my grandma,” the chef said. “And my grandma cooked every day, no matter who was coming by, or who was who was in the house. She cooked every day and people just stopped buy to eat — so I just got a passion and love for cooking from her.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Allowe shares more of the history behind Rio Pinar and Pine & Oak, while Albino shows off some of the 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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barnie’s Coffee has gone through a lot of changes over its 43 years in business. The name comes from one of the founders of the business, Phil Barnie Jones. “He was an inventor himself,” said Shannon Wolfgang, director of marketing for Barnie’s. “And he was like, ‘You know what, no one’s doing flavored coffee.’” According to Wolfgang, Barnie’s became one of the first companies to offer flavored coffees. “You can have all the flavor within the coffee and you don’t have to worry about adding the sugar adding the creamers or adding the whipped cream and all that goofy stuff because that’s not really what we’re about,” she said. The company saw nationwide expansion at one point, predating Starbucks, opening several locations inside malls across the country. “Then our investors and our business managers decided to change plans and then at that point, we closed down our mall locations and we decided to keep our flagship location (in Winter Park),” Wolfgang said. “Then we kind of just did our online store for barniescoffee.com.” In addition to its online sales, the brand is also available is several supermarket chains, including Publix and Winn Dixie, among others. Barnie’s is also now focused on partnering with Central Florida businesses. “We’ve already had our Publix of flavored ice cream(s),” Wolfgang said. “Then there’s Ten10 Brewery who’s doing a beer with us. We have Se7en Bites, who’s done a brownie with us and also a cookie with us with the flavoring. So we have a lot of local collaborations.” The company is also working with colleges in the area, such as the University of Central Florida. “So we closed down all of the mall cafes and now we’re opening businesses or collaborating with businesses through schools and the reason we did that was so that we could also do a give-back donation to the school,” Wolfgang said. “We created three different blends with (UCF) — flavored coffee, like our Pegasus blend — and if you purchase that coffee, not only at the UCF cafe that they have, but purchase it online from Barnie’s Coffee, $1 of that bag actually goes back to their food insecurity program.” The company also works with Stetson University, Rollins College and the Orlando Science Center with similar give-back programs. Despite the brand’s reach, Barnie’s is a relatively small operation. Its roasting facility only has 13 employees “doing everything by hand,” according to Wolfgang. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Candace Campos and Lisa Bell learn all about the coffee roasting process. They also get a peek at how Barnie’s flavors its coffees. 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

Jake Wheeler is no stranger to the restaurant industry or Tex-Mex cuisine. Both have always been a part of his and his family’s livelihoods. “Back in 1995, (my dad) launched Tijuana Flats. In 2015, he sold it. So now we’re here and it’s my turn to take the reins and do something new,” Jake Wheeler said. The family also owns Tibby’s New Orleans Kitchen and Jake Wheeler had been working there as a manager, handling events and marketing. Jake Wheeler and his father, Brian Wheeler, opened Big Taco in Casselberry in early November. Jake Wheeler said his dad had been getting restless since retiring. “The way this went is my dad, he retired about four or five years ago,” Jake Wheeler said. “He got bored in retirement — like one day, I walked outside and he had our dog on the jetski in the backyard. So he gets bored. He always wants something new and he thought, ‘You know if I’m going to be spending my money and resources to do something, how about I help out my kids?’ So he said, ‘I was good at Tex-Mex and I think we could do it again.’ So then he came up with Big Taco and the whole idea of this was to provide an outlet for me and my brother to take the reins, run, do our thing and hopefully create another Tex-Mex empire.” Jake Wheeler said Big Taco had been a nickname for his dad since the elder Wheeler opened up Tijuana Flats. “He’s been called Big Taco since 1995,” Jake Wheeler said. “His friends gave it to him. They would hang out, ‘Hey, Big Taco, what’s up?’” Taking command of Big Taco has proved something of a challenge for Jake Wheeler. He had restaurant experience with running Tibby’s, but Big Taco is a completely different setup. “I had no clue of how to run a fast-casual restaurant,” Jake Wheeler said. “Luckily had the training of the full service, which is a much bigger operation. I wouldn’t say it’s easier or more difficult than this, but once I came here to the fast-casual setting, it was kind of refreshing.” The decision to open in Casselberry was a strategic one. Jake Wheeler said the idea was to save money on rent while building up a reputation. “We thought Casselberry is a great place — you have a family environment, a good town, and we’re not breaking the bank and we could really build a good community here. Our neighboring restaurants — Bagel King and Anthony’s — they’ve been here for 20-plus years. They’re all very respected. So we decided we go next to them so we can build that same reputation that they have.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Jake Wheeler talks about what makes Big Taco unique from Tijuana Flats. He also talks about the artwork on display inside the restaurant and shows off some of the most popular menu items. 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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aly Lalani has poured everything into making his restaurant, Build My Burgers, a success. Lalani and his wife started looking into purchasing a franchise of an established business in 2018, but they could not find any options in their budget. “The ones that were reasonably priced, they did not have a presence in Orlando,” Lalani said. “We’re big foodies, and we love eating burgers. So we were always looking for something where you get a good quality burger, but the price is ridiculous or the quality is not there. So we decided to we’re gonna have let people build their burgers the way they like.” That was the idea that became Build My Burgers. The pair started the lease on their restaurant — 3402 Technological Ave. Suite 136 — in 2019 and the restaurant was originally supposed to open in April 2020. “And then we know what happened in March — and actually, it happened March 19 which is my birthday — so literally, I found out that the country’s shutting down on my birthday,” Lalani said. Despite that, Lalani continued to work on the restaurant and was finally able to open in January 2021. “It took almost a year and then I was maxing out all my credit cards,” Lalani said. “In November, we had a baby and, and then I took two more months off and I said, ‘I’ll start the new year fresh,’ and thankfully, as soon as we were opening, the country was opening, and they had made the dining like 50% (capacity). So people were excited. People were excited to get out of their house.” The restaurateur said the reaction to Build My Burgers has been positive, so much so that the business has been able to rely on word of mouth to draw in customers. “We don’t really spend money on advertising or any of that. We just believe in our product. We believe in our food. And we believe in our customers,” he said. Build My Burgers is situated close to the campus of the University of Central Florida and Lalani offers a lot of deals for the students there. “I always tell people, as long as the community is supporting me, I’ll keep supporting them,” he said. Now, after two years of hard work, Lalani is getting ready to franchise Build My Burgers and he is actively looking for people nationwide to buy into the business. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Lalani talks all about what makes his burgers stand out from the rest. He also talks about working with his family and building the business all while raising two children. 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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It took Joe and Ginger Leigh more than two years to realize their dream of opening Orlando’s first meadery — a winery focused on making honey wines. The effort has seen the pair put in long hours. “It’s incredible. We’ve been doing 120-hour weeks for the past year,” Joe Leigh said. “It’s just the two of us. We have wonderful bartenders. But we do everything else.” The pair opened their taproom at 1121 N. Mills Ave. in August after a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2021. After that, they had to find a location and then jump through all kinds of red tape. “Alcohol production is highly regulated with the government. It’s both state and federal. So every formula needs to be approved, every label needs to match the formula — so every word is regulated,” Joe Leigh said. Beyond the regulatory hurdles, Ginger Leigh, who is also an artist under the name Synthestruct, designed the entire taproom while also working with the city for various grants. “We complement each other really well,” Ginger Leigh said. “Alongside with doing the creative, the fun parts, there’s also applying for the permits and things. It couldn’t possibly have gone faster because we were working on that — we would wake up in the morning, and then pretty much until we went to sleep at night.” All of the hard work has paid off for the couple, as their taproom has been a big draw in Orlando’s trendy Mills 50 neighborhood. “People notice as they’re driving down Mills Avenue, big black building, and a lot of people the logo catches their eye,” Ginger Leigh said. “They don’t know what it is, so it intrigues them. So, yes, we’ve had so many people say that they were driving by and they had to do a quick U-turn to see you know what exactly is this big black building.” The pair said they get a of people who have never tried mead before entering their taproom. “They don’t realize that it can taste very different depending on the honey that we use,” Ginger Leigh said. “And there’s different styles — it can be fruited, it can be spiced — and so even if they’ve had it before, a lot of people that come in, they’re still trying it like it’s the first time they’ve had it because they’re trying something new.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Joe and Ginger Leigh walk us through the mead-making process. They also share insights on the different kinds of honey they use and all the different styles of mead 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 books, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kee Gainey spent 25 years as a stay-at-home mom before starting her culinary career. “I decided it was time for me to get back out there and I was like, ‘Well, what can you do? No one is going to hire you after this long You don’t have any experience,’” Gainey said. “And I was like, ‘Well, what can I do? You can cook? So I said, Well, I do need credentials, where can I go?’” This self-appraisal led her to Second Harvest’s Culinary Training Program. “I was highly blessed to be able to get into that program,” Gainey said. “They have these fabulous chefs. They teach you everything from A to Z. In my case, I already had experience. So it was a little bit easier for me than for some people, but it really was a great learning experience.” Gainey, a native Floridian, said she grew up learning to cook from her grandmother and mother. She took those lessons with her to Second Harvest. Through the culinary training program, Gainey was able to find work at Nourish Coffee Bar + Kitchen, which features a scratch-made menu focused on nutritious foods. “It’s been four years, this past October, and I love it there. It is a really great place to work. There are great people there,” she said. Gainey also started her own cottage business out of her home, Kitchen Arrabon. “In the Greek, (Arrabon) means downpayment,” Gainey said. “I am a Christian. I read my scriptures every day and one morning in the devotionals this word ‘Arrabon’ (appeared) and I was like, ‘I like the way that sounds!’ And it was there, explained that it means downpayment. So I chose Arrabon because I considered at that moment, this would be the downpayment on my new life.” Gainey said the business has been a confidence booster for her. “One of my secret issues is a low confidence level and when people enjoy my food, I do feel really good because that means that I did good because I didn’t really grow up with a lot of encouragement from the family that I had,” she said. “But I get it from other people and I’m growing in that area and I feel so blessed to be able to share my experience with others.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Gainey shows off some of the delectable treats she offers through her business. She also tells the story behind her first cake and how she made her way onto the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A family’s shared love of anime has grown in three restaurants serving up ramen, pho and other pan-Asian delicacies. Soupa Saiyan first opened its doors in 2016 at 5689 Vineland Road, near Universal Studios in Orlando. “It all started with my (brother-in-law),” Jimmy Chhun, the manager at Soupa Saiyan, said.”He loves food. He’s always wanting to create it. One day (he was) trying to figure out ‘What’s a good way to have like a soup-themed restaurant.’ So when they were just watching anime, he sees Goku eating soup noodles (and said) ‘You know what, that’s what I’m gonna call it.’” Soupa Saiyan is themed on the wildly popular Dragon Ball anime. The name Soupa Saiyan is a reference to the show in which several of the main characters come from an alien race called Saiyans who can power up and become Super Saiyans. The restaurants stand out, as they are heavily decorated with Dragon Ball-themed toys, statues and art. However, they didn’t start out that way. “Everybody coming in here loving it. Even when we started, we started off with very small figures and artwork and then everybody started donating art,” Chhun said. The menu came from a blending of cultures. Chhun said his brother-in-law’s family is Lao while his wife, Chhun’s sister, is Vietnamese. “So we put that together — combined it,” he said. Chhun said the Dragon Ball theming helps to bring people in, but added that it is the food that keeps people coming back. “It’s just what’s in our broth,” he said. “Our soup cooks for about 12 to 15 hours — savor the flavor. Everybody loves it and you can build it the way you want it here.” Despite the growth of Soupa Saiyan, success did not come overnight. “(My brother-in-law) was just doubting (himself),” Chhun said. “I’m like, ‘No, you give it a shot.’ Then after like a couple of months later he’s like, ‘We just started blooming.’” Chhun was living in Utah when Soupa Saiyan first opened. He was invited to come to Florida to help out with the business about five years ago. Since then, two additional locations opened — Soupa Saiyan 2 in Jacksonville and Soupa Saiyan 3 near the University of Central Florida, which is the location Chhun manages. “The college kids there love it. The artwork and everything,” Chhun said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Chhun shares more about how Soupa Saiyan has grown over the years. He also shows off some of the most popular menu items. 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 trip to Denver led Andy Sheeter down a path that has him getting ready to move his business into a 40,000-square-foot brewery. I went on a ski trip with some friends. We were out in Breckenridge and then we were in Boulder, Colorado, and we went to a brewery,” Sheeter said. “And there were three of us and we thought ‘This is really cool. We should try this,’ and so on the flight home from Denver, by the time we landed, we had a brewery concept.” Crooked Can Brewing Company officially opened for business in March 2015. Sheeter said he knew he wanted to open in Winter Garden. “We just felt that Winter Garden was where it was at,” he said. Sheeter and his then-partners, he has since bought them out of the business, purchased an empty apartment complex that had gone into disrepair and become a nuisance property. They had the place leveled and began building what would become the Plant Street Market — a brewery and food hall. “Once we started building the brewery, I knew instantaneously it was going to be a hit because we would go there on a Saturday or Sunday and would go to the worksite and it was literally like a parade of bikes, golf carts, cars, everybody going by and everybody staring at us trying to figure out when we were going to be done,” Sheeter said. Sure enough, he said the brewery saw instant success. “What I’m surprised in is that we continue to grow year after year,” he said. “Because every year, I look at the amount of business we do, the amount of customers that come through here and I say to myself, ‘I don’t know how we can handle more than this,’ then every year we do.” However, even though Crooked Can has handled the growing business up to this point, it is time for the business to grow. The brewery is starting construction on a new flagship brewery in Minneola. “It’s going to go into what’s called the Hills in Mineola, which there’s a new turnpike exit on Hancock Road,” he said. “There’s going to be a roughly 132-acre development there that’s going to have mixed-use section. It’s going to have a hospital. It’s going to have a hotel. It’s going to have a lot of retail, grocery and, last I heard, roughly 1,000 apartments that are going to be on top of the retail.” Sheeter said he hopes to have the new brewery open by 2025. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Sheeter talks about why he is so focused on keeping his brewery in Central Florida. He also talks more about the new brewery and his possible plans for 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

Rob Bair is no stranger to the restaurant industry having already built two successful Central Florida chains, Gringos Locos and Tin & Taco. Now he’s building a third chain, but this time he is stepping away from the Tex-Mex cuisine that brought him so much success and moving toward a flavor of his childhood — Detroit-style pizza. “I’m originally from the Detroit area,” Bair said. “I left when I was 15 years old but I grew up on — we didn’t call it Detroit style pizza — you either get a square pizza or a round pizza and we always loved the square pizza.” In 2022, Bair opened SoDough Square, which serves a version of the “square pizza” he grew up with. However, he did not set out to open up a pizza place. “During COVID, I really dug into this style of pizza,” Bair said. “I’ve been making it for a long time, but I’ve never really gone down the rabbit hole, so to say. So I started making it for my family and every time I would do something different whether it’s the flour, whether it’s the fermentation.” Bair said his kitchen turned into a lab for pizza dough. After multiple tests, it was Bair’s wife who finally told him when the pizza was perfected. “I brought it out to my wife and she took a bite and she said, ‘Whatever you just did, stop right there. That’s it. That’s it,’” he said. Around this time, a Hungry Howie’s pizza place next door to the SoDo location of Tin & Taco closed up shop making the space available. “I took over the Hungry Howie’s spot and it was nice because it was all built out and all I had to do is swap out the equipment,” Bair said. Since then, Bair has opened a second location of SoDough Square in Winter Park, taking over the space from a former Tin & Taco location. He also has plans in the works to open a third location in Lake Mary. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Bair goes into great detail about what makes a Detroit-style pizza unique from other regional variations. He also shares memories of eating pizza at Red Wings’ hockey games and how he might expand the menu with another Detroit favorite. 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

Daniel Mercedes Jr. started the business that would become The Dancing Empanda by selling food out of the trunk of his car. “I was looking for a little side hustle to do and I just remember grandma making the empanadas,” Mercedes said. “So that’s what I decided to do. So we talked about it and she gave me the recipes and I started making empanadas and going to barber shops and mechanic shops out of the car and just to see how we grew and they loved it.” At the time, Mercedes was working at a transitional home through the Department of Corrections. He was selling his empanadas on the weekends. “Then once I got to the place where I was making the same as my check, that’s when I decided to give my two weeks’ notice and I ran with that,” he said. “I was very surprised to see that if you put into work, you know, and the product is good, you can make money off of it.” That was eight years ago. Since then, Mercedes has expanded his business into two food trucks — which he’s been running for four years. His wife has also become a part of the business. “The hardest part is what my wife does, which is making the empanadas and also getting us job contracts,” Mercedes said. “I’m driving the food truck — it’s the easiest part — working it is easy because we only have empanadas.” Now, four years into running his food trucks, Mercedes is getting ready to retire. “Now we’re actually selling the business with the recipe, the empanada machine, everything that comes with the business — the name, the brand,” he said. Mercedes has parlayed his success with The Dancing Empanada into purchasing property in North Carolina, which he has outfitted with some tiny homes he plans to use as vacation rentals. “(The Dancing Empanada is) a great business to have is just our journeys over with it,” he said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Mercedes shares more about how he built his business. He also talks about working with his wife and children, as well as his plans for 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

Vinnie Nguyen and his wife, Phi Phi Lam, started their food truck, Pho Wheels, so that they could have more time to spend with their children. “The hours and restaurants are just really long,” Nguyen said. “You go in — opening, you’ve done everything — by the time you go home, it’s almost midnight as well. I miss a lot of time with my children. I was a stay-at-home dad at the beginning when they were born for like five and a half years and when going back to the workforce, it just felt like I was missing a part of myself.” Nguyen has spent much of his life around restaurants. His family has been in the restaurant business and he has worked in a number of kitchens around Orlando, such as Umi Japanese Fusion in Winter Park and Hana Sushi in Altamonte Springs. “I just love how food makes people feel and any kind of a field that you’re in it’s really hard to try to please a lot of people,” he said. “But if you get the correct ingredients, the correct food, it makes people happy and that’s our kind of occupation.” However, after spending time as a stay-at-home dad, Nguyen decided it was best to be his own boss. “If we don’t make enough money, we’ll just spend less money. So that’s that’s our scenario,” Nguyen said. “We’re not as successful as some restaurants are but we do get to spend the most amount of time with our kids. We try to work during the time when they’re at school so that when they come home, they don’t even know that we left for work.” Even though Pho Wheels gives the couple the freedom to spend plenty of time with their children, it does still keep them busy. “We’ve been all the way to Winter Garden. We’ve been to Tampa, we serve a lot over in Titusville, in the Space Coast area, but most of the time we are headquartered in Winter Park and we serve a lot of the outer Orlando area — downtown a lot,” Nguyen said. Getting ready for each event also has the couple working long hours. “The prep time is a lot. We do wake up early, and we do stay up late, but those are the schedules that we picked so that we can have the time with our child. It is a lot different from a brick-and-mortar where you have enough water, enough electricity — so it does take a lot of adjustment,” Nguyen said. The couple serves a variety of Asian street food including Vietnamese dishes like pho, Korean fried chicken and even some sushi. So we just love that we’re able to accommodate a lot of the Asian culture and a lot of different food for all our events,” Nguyen said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Nguyen and his wife talk about what it is like to work together in their food truck. They also show off some of their favorite 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

A.J. Haines — the chef and owner of The Hen & Hog in Winter Park — has been relatively open about his health struggles. “The first time it hit — as far as the diverticulitis attack — it was a Tuesday morning,” Haines said. “(I was) like, ‘I don’t feel good. This is really hurting me today.’ I woke up at like 11:30 at night drenched in sweat — took the thermometer, I had 104 degree temperature. I’m like, ‘I’m in bad shape.’ So drove myself to the hospital and four and a half hours, five hours later was emergency surgery.” This happened in January. The restaurant had just opened a few months prior in October. Haines said this first stint in the hospital forced him to shut down his restaurant for two and a half weeks. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. So the whole restaurant just was closed,” he said. When he was finally able to return to work, Haines posted online about the experience. The post ended up getting a lot of attention from the community. “When I did my little post it was more of like, ‘Hey, we’re back open’ and I didn’t expect it to go as viral as it did,” Haines said. “I’m just telling everybody we’re back. Come help out, come support local.” The chef has had to deal with a few more stints in the hospital and is still experiencing “a lot of pain.” Despite that, Haines remains active in his business, though not as much as he would like. “They (doctors) told me three months of nothing over 25 pounds. So (my) staff has been great as far as carrying me — you know, grabbing stuff, doing deliveries, coming with me to go shopping and pick stuff up,” Haines said. “It’s been tough and I always feel like I’m not the go-getter anymore. I can’t be. I have to watch myself and say ‘No, no, I can’t. Can you come grab this please?’ Because I don’t want any more surgery. I never want to go back.” In addition to his health problems, Haines has also had to contend with rising food costs and parking issues around his restaurant on West Fairbanks Avenue. “We have our own parking lot across the street, but it’s always full,” he said. “There’s a couple of other businesses in the area that fill it up and cars sit there for two or three hours and very hard to rotate in and out.” Fortunately, Haines has cultivated some strong relationships with his neighboring businesses that have helped him with his parking woes. “Fannie Hillman (& Associates) is great and has been wonderful to us. So we get their parking lot which is about 45 spots. That’s great,” he said. Other nearby shops and restaurants are also willing to let Haines’ customers use their spots after hours or on the weekend. Despite the hurdles put in his path, Haines is pushing ahead with The Hen & Hog and he hopes that customers will keep his restaurant in their regular rotation. “You got to stay afloat,” he said. “This is our first year. I’m not planning on making any money and never was.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Haines talks about growing up in Wisconsin, his family’s restaurant and coming to Orlando. He also shares his plans to write a cookbook and talks about the career he had before starting his culinary journey. 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 chefs at Universal Orlando are looking to raise the bar when it comes to the food guests can expect to find at a theme park. “We really want to reinvent the thought of what theme park food is,” Ron Cope, executive chef of Universal Studios Florida, said. “We’ve really tried to elevate everything we do here — from our simple little desserts, a sandwich, a soup, whatever it is. That’s our real goal is to get out of that old school this is just carnival theme park food. This is really a dining experience that you’re gonna have.” Cope said a lot of thought was put into the menu at Universal’s new Minion Café, bringing both creativity and whimsy to the menu. “We thought about what would an adult like, but what would a kid say,” he said. “You know, it’s something for everybody and we think we really nailed it.” The menu features dishes like Otto’s noodle bowl, which features a tonkatsu broth, braised pork, a shrimp dumpling and roasted corn. It also showcases sugary, sweet drinks featuring whipped cream and Pop Rocks. It’s a wide range of flavors for both adults and children. The level of thought and creativity in the menu is also reflected in the amount of time it took to develop everything. “We probably did it for about a year, year and a half,” Cope said. “We wanted to really capture what would be fun for everybody. So with the Illuminations partners, they really pushed us to get playful things in and we’re really happy with the way it came out.” The chefs at Universal work closely with the creators of the intellectual properties they are representing with their food. This is also true for the park’s annual Halloween event, Halloween Horror Nights. “With Halloween Horror Nights, we get to have the most fun,” Christoper Colon, executive sous chef of research and development at Universal, said. “You don’t get to see a cordyceps corndog or a meat stew somewhere on your day-to-day restaurant tour. So it’s definitely the most fun that we have.” Colon worked to bring dishes inspired by the hit video game “The Last of Us” to life for the 2023 event. “We have an amazing research and development team,” Colon said. “We love to do this. We all played the game. We all did our research by playing some games and then we get to bring it to life with Chef Ron Cope. His team comes out here and executes at us for us every single day.” Colon said it took his team about six months to develop the menu items that guests will be able to enjoy during HHN. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, the chefs share more of the development process for the highly themed items being served up at the park. They also show off several of the dishes and how they are prepared. 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

Austin Blake started his business, Stackd Brownies, while playing around in the kitchen with his family. “COVID hit and that’s when everything kind of shut down,” Blake said. “Everything was not what was expected. So during that time, my parents were not doing much. I wasn’t doing much during that time and during that time we were in the kitchen. We were playing and food was always in our background. We love food. Going through social media and seeing how viral other baked goods places were all over the country — we’re like, ‘Man, it’d be cool to get in that world.’” As the family was looking for the best way to break into the bakery business, they discovered that brownies were under-represented online. “We took it a little bit further and made round crispy edge delicious brownies — because that’s what is everyone’s favorite — it was either ‘Hey, I want the crispy edge’ or ‘I want the fudgy inside.’ So we created a combo of both to create everyone’s happy middle,” Blake said. Stackd specializes in brownies, but their menu doesn’t stop there. “We make more than just brownies; brownie stuffed cannolis, brownie ice cream, brownie croissants — brownie, everything. So we’re a full bakery of brownies, which makes it more exciting than just one brownie,” Blake said. Once they settled on a concept, Blake and his family dove in headfirst and opened a brick-and-mortar location. “Our first location in Lake Mary was kind of in like a building type place — if someone looks up, they’ll see we were in an office building,” Blake said. “We were there purposely to prove the concept, to see if we had legs in the market to bring brownies into a retail setting.” It took a lot of hard work just to get people through the door of the first location. “It was in an office building. When we told people — because on social media we started posting and people like ‘Where’s this place?’ It’s not like it’s an easy ‘Hey, it’s right next to Publix.’ We’re an office building. So we were outside. We were at the farmers market to start to tell people who we are and where we are — like we’re actually a real company,” Blake said. The work paid off and the family business has now expanded to four locations around Central Florida. Two of the locations have since been sold as franchises. “We have great owners that were able to see the opportunity and want to be a part of it,” Blake said. “Things are going very well. We’re actually turning our two other stores into franchises. We’re going to sell those off as well. So then we can basically go full steam ahead into franchising and create a foundation to grow all over this state.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Blake talks more about his plans to franchise Stackd Brownies. He also talks about the myriad of flavors available to customers and balancing his work while caring for a newborn. 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

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

Brent Tucker, the owner of First Responder’s Coffee Company, dedicated much of his adult life to serving his country. “When 9/11 hit, I joined the military,” Tucker said. “I had no intention to join the military, but 9/11 hit, I was in the military on 9/27/01 — as fast as they’d let me in,” he said. This led to more than 20 years in the military, which included stints in the Green Berets and Delta Force. “When I retired from the military, I had to figure out what it is I wanted to do when I grew up,” Tucker said. The veteran started putting his combat experience to good use, helping to train SWAT Teams and police departments. “It was a lot to see — coming from my world where I had all the resources that I want. Everybody, generally speaking, supported my service and you get put in this situation where you see (first responders), that their communities rely on them, need them and they don’t have nearly enough resources that they need,” Tucker said. The veteran had always planned to start his own business, but he also saw it as an opportunity to support the first responders he saw struggling to do their jobs. “So I had the idea, ‘Hey, let’s create something that puts the force of this business behind and for first responders’ and that’s the birth of First Responders Coffee Company,” he said. Tucker landed on coffee because he wanted a business that not only benefited first responders but also produced something they would use. “There really wasn’t a coffee company aimed just at first responders, he said. The company is a for-profit business, but some of the proceeds raised from coffee sales go back to support firefighters, law enforcement and paramedics. “We’re super proud of what we’ve done to date,” Tucker said. “We opened in November of last year and we’ve already donated over $20,000 to first-responder causes.” The company’s most recent donation was to an EMT who was injured on the job. “She was caring for this victim, who was a criminal — wakes up stabs her three times in the back of the ambulance and now she’s in a fight for her life. So we sent her a bunch of coffee a bunch of T-shirts sent her a check said, ‘Hey, this is this is for you,” Tucker said. In addition to donating some money from coffee sales, Tucker is also working directly with members of the first responder community. “We’ve taken law enforcement guys out shooting just to have a relaxing day and talk about mental health,” he said. Tucker also recently opened up the experience to firefighters as well. “We just had a really good time out there and then at the end of the day, we finished it with a talk about mental health,” he said. And, again, with everything that I’ve been through — what I did wrong, you know what I did, right — letting them get to hear again from someone who’s been there.” In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Tucker talks more about how his coffee is helping first responders. He also shares how Central Florida first responders are represented in the packaging of his coffee and how his business is expanding into selling cigars. 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

Quinisha “Q” Bredwood took a big risk opening her restaurant, Q’s Crackin Crab & Seafood Kitchen, in Cocoa Beach right at the height of the pandemic. “We found a building at the end of January (2020) and then we were negotiating our lease from January to February,” Bredwoood said. “And we were watching our friend who was in China as a teacher and talking about this pandemic. I was like, ‘That’s not gonna happen.’” Of course, it did happen. The pandemic forced the whole world to shut down and, in Bredwood’s case, kept her from opening at all. “I was like, ‘What did we just do?’” Bredwood said. “Anthony (Bredwood’s husband) was like, ‘You know what? We got the money already spent. We negotiated four months of free rent. So let’s just watch out and look at everything, but we don’t have to open right away.’” Eventually, Q’s Crackin’ Crab was able to open on Fourth of July weekend 2020. The restaurant has a prime location, nestled between Cocoa Beach Pier and Port Canaveral. The menu also offers more than just run-of-the-mill seafood. “I call it soulful seafood because it’s like I throw in our soul food, but it’s like our still Florida-style seafood with the garlic butter and the Cajun seasoning and stuff like that,” Bredwood said. She said the community has embraced her and her business. “It feels weird living in the dream that you had once you know and now you’re in it. So it’s great,” Bredwood said. It’s a community Bredwood grew up in, having lived all over Brevard County. “I moved a lot growing up,” she said. “So I went to three different high schools. So I have relationships at Cocoa High, Rockledge High and I graduated from Satellite (Beach) High. I know everyone.” Having grown up in the community, Bredwood now looks to support it, especially the young people she hires as employees. “A lot of times, they don’t have the experience and they don’t know how to deal with adversity or tough situations,” she said. “So we’re teaching them a lot. My husband played football, and so he has that structure. So we have a lot of football players that work with us. We’re coaching them a lot of time.” Beyond supporting her young employees, Bredwood is also raising seven girls of her own as well. Her children range in age from nearly 1 year old to 19. “I stay at home during the week with two of them. Then my 14-year-old is in high school. My 19-year-old is in college. She’s a manager at the restaurant. She works on the weekends. I stay at home during the week with the baby and my 4-year-old because we’re trying to find a new school for her,” she said. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Bredwood talks more about balancing her family with her business. She also shares how her business has changed since it opened and the awards she’s received. 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 Ian Russell and his wife, Juliana Peña, could not agree on whether to open a donut shop or a barbecue restaurant. So, like in any good relationship, they compromised and decided to try both, creating Smoke & Donuts. “We had no idea that the response was going to be what it was,’ Russell said. “It was a donut and barbecue concept and when we google donut and barbecue back then — you punched into Google and nothing came up. It didn’t Google. There was nothing when you punch donuts and barbecue, barbecue and doughnuts into Google. And so that’s either — well it could be terrifying because you have a really bad idea or it’s a good idea right and nobody else’s was doing it.” The pair first took their idea on the road as a pop-up “in the back alley of a Winter Springs brewery.” "We sold out fast — that’s what happened,” Russells said. “That’s kind of why we — that’s how it continued forward. That’s how the inertia of the concept of the two ideas going together moved forward because at our first event, we sold out and really fast.” The pair’s success continued and they kept moving forward, despite juggling full-time jobs on top of their pop-ups. “It’s tiring, but the response from the Orlando community was so encouraging, so exciting, so invigorating, that it kept pushing us forward,” Russell said. Even with continued success over the last six year — recently opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Orlando’s trendy Milk District — Peña still works in a regular job. “My wife still has her day job. You know, we’re not to a point yet where we’re, able to just roll without any kind of standard income,” Russell said. Despite that, Russell said his goal is to make his customers happy. “We want people to eat barbecue and doughnuts and when they visit us have fun for a little bit and have a good time. And that’s it. That’s the goal. A little bit of joy in the middle of your day,” he said. While the concept is barbecue and donuts, Russell said their goal is not to force people to indulge in both together, unless they want to — in which case, there is are barbecue and donut sandwiches on the menu. “Often at a restaurant, the donuts will be ready first. And so 50% of the time at least, we start with dessert at our restaurant,” he said. Russell himself is a classically trained chef, getting his education at the Culinary Institute of America. When the business was starting out, he was also making all of the donuts but eventually decided to hire someone more qualified in that department. “I kind of BS my way through it a little bit,” he said. Then at one point, this classically trained pastry chef reached out to me and sent me an email that said, ‘Hey, I’m interested in working with you on the donut side,’ and I kind of didn’t pay attention to her in the beginning. She sent me another email and this one had pictures in it. She even put pictures of a donut that she made that had flames on it. So I hired her.” On the latest Florida Foodie, Russell shares more about his early years with the business and his culinary journey before striking out on his own. He also talks about all of the specialty donuts he has available and his favorite barbecue item on the 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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Executive pastry chef Josh Cain credits his great aunt with fostering his sweet tooth. “For me, chocolate and sweets is something that I didn’t realize until I got older, that I did this a lot with my great aunt,” Cain said. “My grandmother was cooking, but my great aunt was the one who always made all of the desserts and I was right there, helping her out.” Cain later graduated from Johnson and Wales culinary school in North Carolina to pursue his career as a pastry chef, eventually making his way to Caribe Royale in Orlando. While Cain makes a variety of sweet treats, he has a deep passion for chocolate. He has become known for creating elaborate displays out chocolate, such as a 32-foot-long model train and an 11-foot-tall replica of a Saturn V rocket. “I actually make molds as well,” Cain said. “So if I want to make something out of chocolate, and I maybe I want it to have certain details, I’ll create my own molds. So I use silicone, I use different thermoforming techniques to make different plastic molds and stuff like that to create what I want to out of chocolate.” For the model train, Cain said he used 1,600 pounds of chocolate. The chef said the most stressful part of making these massive confections is moving them. “The biggest thing with that is it really, that’s when everybody comes around and gets in your way,” he said. Cain added that he works to make sure his large-scale displays will last, some as long as eight years. “I build these things really substantial so that they can last the test of time,” he said. While his enormous creations are a quite the sight, Cain is bringing something even more unique to Caribe Royale; a proprietary chocolate formal that will only be found at the resort. “In October, I was I had the chance to go to France and the company I was with, they approached me. They said ‘Hey,would you be interested in formulating your own Chocolate?,’” Cain said. “I pitched it to my boss. And he’s like, ‘That sounds amazing. Like who’s doing that around here?’” The chef described the trip as a fully immersive experience. “It’s really cool. So we start the process, we work on the flavor profiles, we take those and then we kind of start a formula,” Cain said. The formula then went through several revisions before he landed on a product he was happy with. “The one that I actually landed on was it had beans from Venezuela and Madagascar. It has a really nice flavor profile and what I was trying to do is tie in what happens in Central Florida, what grows in Central Florida, and some of those notes,” he said. “So they have a lot of fruity notes, red berry kind of notes — kind of like Plant City strawberries — citrus notes, the honey that goes along with that. So I wanted to kind of tie that into my chocolate so it really brings it all home for what we have in Central Florida.” In addition to this special chocolate formula, Caribe Royale is also expanding its chocolate-making facilities. “I’m working on expanding that to make it where we can do actual classes and bring guests and they can pay to take these classes and come see what we do and create these things,” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Cain explains more about the different kinds of chocolate and how he uses them in his work. He also shares some of his favorites from Caribe Royale. 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

Wess St. Victor started making barbecue the same way many people do, right in his backyard. “What happened was my backyard — love my wife, she just kept buying me different types of smokers, different types of grills,” St. Victor said. “So it got to the point that my backyard started looking like ‘Sanford and Son.’” At the time, he was working as an exterminator, but St. Victor was also bringing his barbecue to friends and family. “A couple of guys at work told me, they’re like, ‘Why are you killing bugs? You need to be doing barbecue,’” he said. “That’s when this whole thing got started — like testing out different things at work. For the Fourth of July, like not like 95% of my church was in my backyard.” St. Victor eventually took his barbecue on the road, creating St. Vic’s Smoke Shack. “We started out — my son and I started out — at just a couple of pit barrels at a gas station,” he said. “Then from that point on we progressed through getting a food truck and we’ve been running the food truck for a little bit over seven years.” Through his food truck, St. Victor built a loyal following of customers. “A lot of folks was like our flavors are very different from what you were accustomed to with barbecue because we introduced a lot of like our Caribbean heritage in our barbecue,” he said. In October, St. Victor decided to make the jump from a food truck to a brick-and-mortar location. St. Vic’s Smoke Shack now sits at 1858 North Orange Blossom Trail, near the intersection with Princeton. The area is seeing a lot of development as Orlando’s Packing District grows up around the area. John Rivers, the owner of 4 Rivers, is also opening his 4 Roots farm nearby. While the area is expected to grow rapidly, St. Victor has said the transition to a permanent location has come with some “hiccups.” “We moved into a new area( where) nobody really knows us. You know, it’s not what it used to be over there (along Orange Blossom Trail) but we are building up,” he said. St. Victor credits his success so far to building relationships with his customers. “I have developed a relationship with most of my customers,” he said. “We know each other’s names, they ask me about the kids about the wife. I know about them and their children and so on and so forth. So it’s — essential you’re building a family.” St. Victor knows a lot about family, as he and his wife are parents to eight children. He credits his wife with keeping their household running. “I am extremely lucky. I married a wonderful woman. So not only does she balance 95% of all that stuff (the household), she also homeschools all of them as well, too,” he said. “She runs the whole house and will take pressure off of me for me to go to work — because I also have another job and they run this business.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, St. Victor talks about working with his children at the business. He also talks about what makes his barbecue stand out from the rest. 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

Food Network star Guy Fieri made a stop at his Winter Park restaurant Chicken Guy! on Wednesday, announcing a big expansion of the businesses footprint. The mayor of Flavortown had several pieces of business to attend to while making his visit. “I live in Northern California, I also have a house in West Palm Beach — So, I’m going to be spending a lot more time in Florida,” Fieri said. “This (Winter Park location) is the beginning of the growth. We wanted to make sure that we had this thing dialed in and really know all the ins and outs of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it to make sure that what we’re going to give people on a national level was going to be outstanding. But we have 80 franchises that are already ready to go. It’s going to go loud and fast.” Florida Foodie co-host Candace Campos was there and got the chance to talk with Fieri and his business partner Robert Earl about the franchise and its future growth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Katherine Franco has experienced food insecurity in her own life. She spent the first ten years of her life in the Dominican Republic, where she said members of the community always watched out for each other and ensured no one went hungry. “And then coming here (to the U.S.), my mom didn’t have much,” Franco said. “(It was) just my mom, her two kids — we were having issues with housing. My mom had to work overnight, all the time. It was just like, we would get what she could give us.” That experience of going without pushed her toward helping others in need. “I want to be able to build a space where people who are struggling from food insecurity can have access to these healthy foods because there are so many things that take into effect when you’re not properly being fed,” she said. “Like mental health issues — being overweight comes with a bunch of other issues. So I just want to be part of the movement that brings that resource to people that really need it.” That desire to help others led Franco to start the Neighborhood Fridge. The fridge sits behind the Laundromart, 5065 Edgewater Drive, and is accessible 24/7. “The goal was to target underserved communities,” Franco said. “And then I thought of like, ‘Who do I know that owns a business?’ And I thought if my friend Sean (Nelson). I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, a laundromat would be great.’” Nelson and his family own the laundromat and agreed to host the Neighborhood Fridge. “We need to try and give back as much as we can and not just think about ourselves,” Nelson said in February when the fridge first opened. “The goal was to target underserved communities,” Franco said. “And then I thought of like, ‘Who do I know that owns a business?’ And I thought if my friend Sean (Nelson). I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, a laundromat would be great.’” Nelson and his family own the laundromat and agreed to host the Neighborhood Fridge. “We need to try and give back as much as we can and not just think about ourselves,” Nelson said in February when the fridge first opened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As egg costs soar across the country, Mussette Gonzalez is keeping her prices right where they are. “I haven’t changed my prices since I started,” Gonzalez said. “I didn’t get into selling eggs to make a huge profit.” Gonzalez is the owner of Lé Koopé, a small egg farm in Clermont that she runs with her mother. “We started with four chickens. My mother used to work for the Department of Corrections here and they had purchased some chicks for Easter for the families. Then the chickens could not stay on DLCs properties. So we brought them over,” she said. From there, Gonzalez went about educating herself on caring for the birds. “I read a book from Lisa Steele,” she said. “Her grandmother showed her how to raise chickens naturally, so that’s kind of my Bible.” From those four birds, Gonzalez’s operation grew. “I decided that we should start a company with what we had and what we had was land,” she said. “So why not just do chickens? Everybody eats eggs and I thought it would be something that would be sustainable.” She prides herself on offering a multitude of colors with her eggs — from white to brown to blue and speckled. “I want to get every color I can possibly get in the carton,” she said. “I don’t want to give two of the same color. I want to make sure everybody has a little bit of everything.” Gonzalez and her mother now have about 500 eggs-producing chickens with 200 more that are not yet laying. “It’s a lot of hard labor,” she said. “Especially feeding, which may be the hardest part.” In addition to chickens, Lé Koopé also has ducks and quail. Gonzalez’s mother built the coops for all of the birds. The pair now sell their eggs at farmers’ markets around Central Florida, with the help of the Farmacy. “I started at Winter Gardens farmers with the Farmacy, which is my vendor. I started with them and I’ve been with them for at least five years now,” she said. She also sells through John Rivers 4 Roots non-profit, as well as some direct sales to restaurants. Gonzlez said she also has a long-term goal of getting a food truck to sell eggs to underserved communities but she has not yet been able to make that happen. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Gonzalez shares more about what it takes to care for her flock of birds. She also shares how she protects her birds from avian flu and the difference in flavor between duck, chicken and quail eggs. 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 is bringing you an update on Dino Ferri, the owner of Hotter Than El hot sauces. Ferri now runs an international food market specializing in spicy foods called "Spice is Nice" in Sanford, Florida. Candace Campos and Lisa Bell check in with Ferri and learn all about this next chapter in his career. After the update, you can hear our original interview with Ferri. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Caldecutt is primarily an academic, working as a professor at Polk State University, but he also grew up working with his father doing pool repairs in New York. “I think a lot of the things that are good about me — there are some good things — I think most of that stuff stems from the experiences that I had out working with (my dad) learning responsibility, dealing with people, learning how to do things, learning skills,” Caldecutt said. Because of those experiences, Caldecutt wanted his own children to have the same opportunity. During the pandemic, Caldecutt got into baking, like many people did. This led him to an idea. “So I thought what I did for a living doesn’t lend itself to that. So we invented something that would work for that,” he said. “So I kind of took this new baking obsession and tried to transform it into something that I could use to help out with my kids, let them get up in the morning, learn some responsibility, have some fun, you know, and do something really fascinating.” From that idea, Bagel Boy was born. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Caldecutt shares how he was able to keep costs down when buying equipment for his home business. He also shares where the name came from and all the different bagel varieties 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

Sevarestt Allen, the chef and owner of Kitchen Savior, started learning how to cook at the age of 8. “My grandmother is I say who kind of you know taught me the ropes,” Allen said. “(I would) kind of go in the kitchen with her and she’s like, ‘Sevarrest, watch the pots. Don’t let my food burn.’” That was his introduction to cooking, but he did not always plan to pursue it as a career. “So what happened was we were I was getting ready to get laid off from a job,” Allen said. “They did us a favor and told us, ‘Hey guys at this particular point we’re gonna lay you guys off.’ So, I was newly engaged and right around the time I was getting laid off was probably about a month or so before I was supposed to get married. So my wife, she goes, ‘You should look into going to culinary school.’ I’m like, ‘Well, why would I do that?’” Despite his skepticism, Allen ended up attending Le Cordon Bleu in Orlando. Shortly after starting his education there, Allen also started working at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort. “I got my job there and that’s where my legitimate culinary journey started because working there, you get to work with different chefs are from all over the world,” he said. While working there, Allen helped the chefs develop a soul food menu. However, he said the moment he knew he had made it was when he was put in charge of a catering event for 1,100 guests. “I remember the executive chef was like, ‘Hey, so that barbecue rub you make — we’re gonna keep that on hand,” Allen said. “That was when I was like, ‘Cool. I can do this.’” Allen’s culinary career opened him up to a wide range of exciting opportunities, including cooking for musicians like Sir Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, Allen had made the acquaintance of Eric John, the owner of Untouchables Catering. Through John, Allen had worked preparing food for the Republican National Convention in 2012. John reached out to Sevarrest again when the Stones were playing a show in Orlando. “He legitimately calls and he was like, ‘Hey, I got the Rolling Stones,” Allen said. The band ended up being so impressed with the food that they invited him to come along on a leg of the tour. “I’ll tell you, my wife was pregnant at the time — like (she might give birth) at any moment. So, I was like ‘Hey, listen. Do you mind? I might be gone for a week,” Allen said. She said yes and Allen hit the road with the Rolling Stones. Eventually, the chef decided to strike out on his own. He started his own personal chef, meal prep and catering business, Kitchen Savior. In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Allen discusses how he came up with the name for his business and how it plays into his personal faith. He also talks about his work with the Parramore Kidz Zone and the one person he would like to cook for most. 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

Jordan Eichenblatt will tell you that he is not the owner of Cholo Dogs. He credits the business to Franco Furtero. “We (Eichenblatt and his business partner Chris Delahoz) went on a trip to Mexico for one of our clients, and we came across this hotdog cart,” Eichenblatt said. “And he had the hot dogs, we’re talking to him and he said he’s moving to Orlando. We’re like, ‘We’re from Orlando.’ His name is Franco. We became friends and he said, ‘Why don’t you guys operate this for me?’” And so, Cholo Dogs made its way to Orlando, while its enigmatic owner remains something of a mystery. Eichenblatt’s story is less of a mystery, as a Central Florida native. “I grew up in Orlando — born and raised. (I) left in 2009, went to college, went and kind of started my career and then somehow I’m back here on my dad’s couch in like 2012 and I’ve been here since,” he said. Eichenblatt has definitely made the most of his homecoming. In addition to Cholo Dogs, he also co-owns a T-shirt company and an ad agency. “(I like) anything creative and fun that puts a smile on people’s faces. We have an awesome team — our ad agency is called HIFIVE — we have an awesome team there and everyone’s essentially a part of everything that we do. We bought a company called Orlando Shirts that was (started) by two sisters,” he said. “Life’s too short to not have a fun job.” The fun with Cholo Dogs got started in 2019, according to Eichenblatt. However, the business hit a pretty significant hurdle early on. “Boom, COVID hit. And so it was just like, kind of figuring out what to do after that. I mean, we were only open — it seemed like forever — but September 2019 to February 2020,” he said. The Cholo Dog team ended up starting their own outdoor food truck event called Parking Lot Party to help bring customers out again. “You could probably fit about 15 cars in the parking lot where we had it and we had about eight food trucks and every single one sold out in the pouring rain and then we did it the next month and pouring rain again, sold out,” Eichenblatt said. The event proved to be a success and helped the business weather the worst of the pandemic. Since then, Cholo Dogs has been able to get itself into some prominent locations, in the Amway Center and, coming soon, a location in Exploria Stadium. On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Eichenblatt talks about “slinging weens” all around Orlando. He also shares how some of the hot dogs got their names and the April Fools pranks Cholo Dogs have pulled. 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

Chris Chen, Phil Nguyen and Mike Cho all met in college as members of the same fraternity. “After graduating, we hung out a lot. We went to eat at different places. And you know, our brotherhood went further than UCF,” Chen said. After college, Chen and Nguyen began working in corporate jobs, but they weren’t happy with it. “Chris, and I just started talking — (I) wanted to do a restaurant, he wanted to do coffee — and it just kind of progressed from there,” Nguyen said. “And when we added Mike, that’s when the fast-casual concept started. And we kind of grew it into what Viet-Nomz is now. But originally, we were going to do just, a regular sit-down coffee shop and fast-casual Vietnamese wasn’t really a thing back in 2016.” After coming up with the idea, the three business partners quickly made the leap to turn their dream into a reality. “It was pretty scary,” Chen said. “We left our jobs kind of without any concrete future. You know, time was kind of ticking. So we were just trying to look for any place that was empty and a lot of places wouldn’t really take us seriously, because we were like 24, 26 years old.” The three all grew up around restaurants that their families owned. This prompted their parents to show some concern when the trio wanted to get into the industry themselves. “They told me ‘Don’t open a restaurant,’” Chen said. “I watched them struggle and work really hard every day. So I was born into that life and I knew how hard it was. But after college, I worked in other places and ultimately, I was kind of like, ‘You know what I think... I think I want to do it.’” The group of entrepreneurs managed to find a small location in Winter Park. Two years later, Viet-Nomz expanded into their second location in the Waterford Lakes area, which was a big upgrade for the trio. “Our first location is only 1,000 square feet. So we were really limited. So our ideas that we had, we actually made a workout Waterford which is like 50% bigger,” Cho said. The three have now expanded to three locations across Central Florida — Winter Park, Waterford Lakes and Lake Mary. They believe that one of the keys to their success is the accessibility of their menu. “I think one of the great things about Viet-Nomz is that someone who’s never had Vietnamese cuisine, we’re a great restaurant to start with,” Chen said. “We pretty much highlight all the popular Vietnamese fares.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Chen, Nguyen and Cho share how they worked to develop their menu using their families home kitchens to cook. They also talk about how they dealt with the pandemic and share some of their favorite menu items. 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

NOTE: This is a re-release of the most popular Florida Foodie episode from 2022. Florida Foodie will return with new episodes on Jan. 24 Dr. Amber Orman likes to practice what she calls “true healthcare.” “We are treating, preventing and reversing chronic disease with the way that you’re living rather than relying wholly on pills and procedures and tests and things like this,” Orman said. 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. “This has been something that has been percolating for me for quite a few years and before I joined Advent, I was actually going to launch a similar program at Moffitt Cancer Center where I came from,” Orman said. “My life took a turn and I married somebody who happened to live in Orlando and then I found AdventHealth.” 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. “When you look at all of the data together, a plant-based diet, a plant predominant diet — that doesn’t have to be 100% vegan, or whatever term you want to use — but simply a diet that is mostly plants the healthiest way to eat. I can say that with complete confidence,” Orman said. On 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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eliot Hillis has thought a lot about noodles. “(Noodles are) a vehicle for so many options,” the chef said. “In much the same way that a pizza can have like an infinite number of combinations of toppings, you can have a noodle that’s expressed upon a myriad of ingredients and, depending on the time of year, this could be a cold noodle, it could be a hot noodle, this could be spicy or creamy or any combination of all of those things.” Hillis recently started a new, noodle-focused venture with his long-time collaborator Seth Parker. The pair now operate pop-up restaurants under the name Red Panda Noodle. “It just excites us to be able to have this blank canvas that is also so deep and richly bounded by history,” Hillis said. Red Panda may be new to Orlando’s dining scene, but Hillis and Parker are not. The pair have worked together for years at several restaurants around town. Most recently, the pair worked together at the now-closed Orlando Meats. “We actually wanted to open another restaurant, but we ended up with Orlando Meats,” Hillis said. “(We) did five years of that and now we decided to leave and we took pretty much everybody with us. So the whole of Orlando Meats staff is still employed by us.” Even while working at Orlando Meats, Hillis said he and Parker were already workshopping the idea for Red Panda. “Seth and I were workshopping this about five years ago,” Hillis said. “We were looking for a name that expressed a certain amount of playfulness with kind of hinting at authenticity without explicitly saying it.” The chef describes Red Panda as being approachable and affordable while still being high quality. “We want to be serious in our craft,” he said. Hillis said he and Parker have different perspectives when it comes to their approach to food. “I have no formal education and Seth did go to culinary school, but I didn’t, I started in the dish pit and just did my thing,” Hillis said. “I studied, like, literally just bought several thousands of dollars worth of books and I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m just gonna read these, I’m gonna watch as much as I can. I’m gonna learn from everybody.’ I would change restaurants every two years or so, to make sure I learned from different people. So I had a wide and diverse view on things.” That drive to learn led Hillis to some pretty unique cooking situations, including running a kitchen along the Grand Canyon. “I had this little cabin (near the kitchen) and I had to like check the windows before I left in the morning — because I left at like dawn to go to the kitchen — I had to check that there were no deer outside because they will kill you,” he said. Now that was a really fun experience.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Hillis nerds out about noodles. He also talks about his approach to creating new dishes and how he and his partner are expanding their 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

Billy Trudsoe spent 20 years as a chef in New York before making his way to Central Florida. “The winters are long in the Adirondacks, so my wife and I said why not give Florida a shot?” Trudsoe said. The chef came down south to work as an executive chef for a restaurant in Brevard County, but the gig did not end up working out in the long run. “So I went all in on Hell’s Kitchen,” Trudsoe said. Trudsoe had attempted to get on the hit reality show previously but did not make the cut on his first attempt. “It’s a pretty grueling process — seven to eight months — and I got the phone call just before Christmas of last year, saying, ‘Hey, you made it. You need to be in LA in two weeks.’ Dreams do come true,” he said. Trudsoe did not ultimately end up winning in the cooking competition, but he is hoping to use his elevated profile from the show to launch his own restaurant. “My ultimate goal is to get BTrue’s Mad Flava, the first restaurant up and going,” he said. The name comes from Trudsoe’s days as a college athlete. “When I was playing college basketball many moons ago, my basketball coach gave me a nickname, BTrue, so it’s stuck ever since,” he said. “And then mad flavor — when I was a young chef on Lake George, I’d always — when I’m putting the food up in the window — I’d be like ‘Mad flavor.’ You know, that was just my slogan, my slang, and it’s stuck with me ever since.” In the meantime, while he looks for investors, Trudsoe is working as a private chef. “I’m willing to, you know, do whatever it takes to be successful,” he said. “I’m the type of chef that likes the formal sit down and everything like that. I like to be able to talk to my patrons and get their feedback.” On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Trudsoe shares more about what it was like to compete on Hell’s Kitchen and meet Gordan Ramsay, who is a personal idol of the chef. He also shares how he got his start as a cook and his favorite style of cooking. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's Florida Foodie, Ginger and Joe Leigh of Zymarium Meadery share their love of Fermented Honey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erica Asti, a Culinary Educator with Edible Education Experience, shares what Edible Educational Experience has to offer on the latest episode of Florida Foodie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices