Florida Foodie

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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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