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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...