Shereece Mitchell-Sanchez has been working tirelessly since 2021 to help feed people living and working in the Pine Hills community. Mitchell-Sanchez runs a weekly food pantry through her nonprofit, Butterfly Lifestyle. Since she started the weekly giveaway, Mitchell-Sanchez has seen the demand for her help grow. “So on a weekly basis, we could do in our like, 300 and up families... we county by families,” she said. “In August, we almost hit 5000 individuals.” Mitchell-Sanchez currently runs...

Cows ‘N Cabs has raised more than $2 million for Central Florida charities since it got its start in 2011. The event was co-founded by David Larue, Executive Vice President at ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, and John Rivers, the owner of 4 Rivers restaurant group. “My wife and I were talking about how to use, like my ABC platform, because we have so many great contacts and the liquor business, and we’ve raised so much money for other things — but how to create something on our own? So we figured...

Mike Collantes started his culinary career inside Orlando’s Fashion Square Mall, but he now counts himself among the exclusive ranks of Michelin-starred chefs. Collantes earned his Michelin Star in 2022 for his omakase restaurant Soseki in Winter Park. “After the Michelin Star, we’re seeing international clientele and guests, as well as our local guests, but really put us on the map for what we’ve been doing here in Winter Park,” he said. The same year he won his Michelin Star, Collantes...

Amid the pandemic and Orlando’s ongoing growth and development, Jason Lambert has been striving to keep his businesses running while also being a force for good in the community. “So 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic and trying to survive through the pandemic, I thought were the roughest years we’d ever have to face,” Lambert said. “And then we got into 2023 and we were finally stable, and kind of had gotten caught back up from that two years of craziness and then in October of 2023 is when...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 &...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...