Florida Foodie

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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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