July 11, 2021 brought an eruption of protests on the streets of Cuba. Mike Beltrán and Nick Jiménez got together to record some reaction and reflection on those events. Note that this podcast is being released more than 24 hours after it was recorded and the situation in Cuba is changing rapidly. We also talk about changes in Ariete's tasting menus and the beginning of live Pan Con Podcast recording events, which will create an opportunity for you to join us as we record podcasts (and eat and drink and smoke cigars).

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

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Nidal Barake is the founder of Gluttonomy, a marketing firm specializing in digital strategy for the dining world. As he notes in this episode of Pan Con Podcast, “Big agencies, they don’t know anything about food. They have no clue about what happens at a restaurants, what’s behind the production process, or what drives the consumer.” Nidal, by contrast, is passionate about dining and has leveraged that passion to build a successful firm that the people behind the food he loves can trust. Nidal joined Mike Beltrán at Ariete to talk about his career in food marketing, how Miami has grown as a food city over the last decade or so, and what it would mean for the city to get a Michelin Guide.

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https://www.instagram.com/gluttonomy/

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chef Pablo Zitzmann was one of our very first guests on Pan Con Podcast in 2019. Nearly two years later, he’s also our first repeat guest (not counting the short interviews we did at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic). This time, he’s here to talk about the success he’s found on the other side of lockdown with Zitz Sum, a new Asian inspired concept he opened in Coral Gables shortly before we recorded this interview. Pablo and Mike talk about the joy and the agony of launching a new venture, building a company culture from the ground up, balancing work and family, and whether Miami is ready for a Michelin Guide.

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A May 8 Washington Post story by Laura Reiley bearing the headline “As his restaurants’ customers return, a Miami chef is missing a critical ingredient: Workers,” examines the widespread difficulty restaurants and other hospitality businesses are having in staffing their businesses to meet the demand of an economy that is recovering — even if slowly — from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions imposed by government. The piece uses Ariete Hospitality (of which our host Mike Beltran is chef-partner) as a case-in-point. In this episode, Mike responds not to the article and Laura Reiley’s reporting, but to the comments left on the piece at the Washington Post’s website (of which, at the time we recorded, there were nearly 3,000). Most of the comments we saw were negative and highly critical of Mike’s approach to his businesses and employees. So we took it as an opportunity to respond to some of the criticisms and explain a bit about how the restaurant business — or at least Ariete Hospitality’s little corner of it — functions.

Read the Washington Post piece referenced in this episode:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/08/restaurant-jobs-shortage-workers-miami/

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nedal Ahmad was one of the co-founders of Pincho, the Miami-born fast casual chain we discussed at length on Pan Con Podcast with previous guest (and Nedal’s cousin) Otto Othman. Nedal has since moved on to other ventures, including a healthy meal delivery service and a digital food hall — a term that describes something eerily similar to the ghost kitchen model that’s been a hot button issue on this podcast before (for instance, in Mike Beltran’s conversation with publicist Larry Carrino). Nedal joined us for cigars, wine, conversation about the restaurant industry and some analysis of the Marvel and DC cinematic universes. Also, the famed Coconut Grove street sweeping zamboni made an astonishing number of passes in front of Ariete and threw our shit show of a podcast into a new realm of chaos.

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether painting for live audiences at nightclubs, showing his work at galleries or creating hand-drawn covers for the zines he bought from Miami record stores, Kiki Valdés has been making art consistently since he was a kid. His work has been inspired by religion, cartoons, secret societies, and the color characters he encountered while painting at those clubs. Along with his brother, he also created Abuela Mami, a Cuban care package company that’s expanded with its own premium coffee brand with the same name. Kiki joined Mike Beltrán to talk about art, creativity, finding your voice in your work, and the business sides of painting, coffee and subscription services.

Visit Abuela Mami and Abuela Mami Coffee:

https://www.abuelamami.com/

https://www.abuelamamicoffee.com/

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https://www.instagram.com/kikivaldes/

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ike Shehadeh is the founder and face of Ike’s Love & Sandwiches, the San Francisco-based sandwich chain with about 80 locations, known for its extensive menu, unusual flavor combinations and quirky sandwich names. Miami is home to the first Ike’s location on the east coast — a franchise store in Aventura — and Ike says the company has aggressive expansion plans that include another 40 or so locations in Florida. Ike joined Mike Beltran at Ariete for a wide ranging discussion about his fast casual concept, the first sandwich he ever sold, his athletic career, his first job walking on stilts in a circus, and hotdate4hire.com, the Internet business that was even more interesting to hear about than you would imagine from the name.

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

María Cabré is the general manager at Miami’s J. Wakefield Brewing. In this conversation with Michael Beltrán, she talks about her experience as a pastry chef, how those skills have served her in a career in brewing, and what it’s been like for her to find success in the beer business as a woman. Also in this conversation: what the COVID pivot looked like for J. Wakefield, Mike’s impression of chef José Mendín, and Mike’s and María’s takes on the Irish goodbye.

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

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Pincho — perhaps better known in South Florida by its original name, Pincho Factory — is a distinctly Miami fast casual restaurant brand that’s grown to 10 locations serving kebobs and burgers. Co-founder and CEO Otto Othman joined us on this episode to talk about his own path from marketing to restaurants, how his Palestinian and Brazilian heritage came together with time growing up in Hialeah to inform Pincho’s take on Miamian casual dining (from the Tostón burger, which replaces the bun with fried plantains, to the Fritanga Burger that takes its inspiration from Nicaraguan cuisine). Otto and Mike also discuss the challenges of the restaurant business, how Otto and his company powered through some uncertain times to take Pincho from a struggling concept to an expanding enterprise with a goal of opening 100 locations, and some of the business and hospitality philosophy that fuels Pincho.

Visit Pincho:

https://www.pincho.com/

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer are the chefs behind Boia De, a Miami restaurant that Mike has recommended on Pan Con Podcast numerous times. The two made their long-overdue appearance on the podcast to talk about their respective culinary careers, toast to their being named 2021 Star Chefs Rising Stars, and discuss the wave of New York City restaurateurs that has hit Miami at the tail end of the COVID pandemic. Also, Alex explains why he’s getting his first haircut in a year, Luci recommends Chicken Kitchen’s curry mustard sauce, and Mike cuts the podcast short to deal with our most ridiculous interruption to date (spoiler: some drunk guy wanted to join the conversation).

Visit Boia De:

https://www.boiaderestaurant.com/

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/DADEmag

Follow Pan Con Podcast everywhere:

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Production and editing: Nicolás Antonio Jiménez

Theme music: Carlos "Carluba" Rodríguez (instangram.com/carluba)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.