“I have three brothers and one of them started El Tapatio in Atlanta. It was a small store – much smaller than this – and he was busy,” Peña said. “At the time, I was living in Chicago and it is so cold there. He asked me to come work with him and open a larger store. That was in 2004. Today the four of us own and manage three of these stores – two in Atlanta and this one.”

He showed me some of his favorite things in the store – “tapatio” is slang for someone from Guadalajara – while we talked about life in Mexico. My mother spent the first 19 years of her life in Durango, Mexico, and Luis asked me if I ever visited Durango and what did I remember.

“My grandfather was a famous cowboy and he ran a big ranch in Durango,” I said. “Visiting the ranch was summer vacation for us when we were kids. I loved all the different fruits and vegetables. But the peppers: Grandaddy’s cowboys could eat the spiciest of peppers and not bat an eye. For me it was a trial by fire.”

El Tapatio, like most Hispanic groceries, has very little frozen food. Whenever a new customer is in the store and asks what they should buy, Luis always points them to the fresh tortillas and the bakery. I mentioned to Luis that my wife and I lived in Central America for a year and all of the towns we visited had one or two tortilla factories.

“Tortillas are important to us and ours are made of 100% corn,” he said. “Our meat, I believe, is the best. Here you can buy fresh tortillas, limes, onions, cotija and we make our own chorizo so your tacos can be amazing.”

While Luis took a quick phone call, I ordered a fresh orange juice from their taqueria. The young lady loaded a dozen oranges into the automatic juicer and two minutes later I had 20 ounces of fresh orange juice that cost only $4.

Although most of his team speaks Spanish as a first language, do not let that deter you from shopping at El Tapatio. If you love foods from Mexico or Central America, stores like El Tapatio are the place to get them. Where else can you get fresh tortillas, freshly ground chorizo, proper crema and enjoy handmade tacos before doing your shopping?

Luis divides his time between Atlanta and Greenville, and naturally he prefers Greenville.

“I love this town, it’s quite beautiful and it doesn’t have the traffic of Atlanta. And I love seeing returning customers or helping someone that is here for their first time find what they want.”

El Tapatio, at 2712 Anderson Road, is open daily.

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I can, however, also understand the significance of a new year and using that to set achievable goals, short- and long-term. For this column going into the New Year, I plan on visiting more food trucks, diners and small, ethnic-food establishments. My hospitality-consulting business goals for the new year are almost set and I may be a part of a significant project that should open by the end of 2025. Plus my latest side hustle – more on that later – is nearing fruition.

My friends running brick-and-mortar establishments, or their own hospitality projects, have their own ideas on New Year’s resolutions and several have shared them with me.

Read John Malik’s past columns

Adam Ashcraft is a hospitality recruiter in Spartanburg and his goals are fairly straight forward: Travel more – 2025 includes a visit to Greece – and worry less.

Stephen Baity is a much-sought-after private chef and, for those of you who patronize the Travelers Rest Farmer’s Market, he’s the Pop’s Secret Seasoning guy. His plan is a bit more esoteric: get back to the basics, strengthen his foundation and serve the community.

Carlos Baez, chef of Mr. Crisp, told me: “I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. If I want to change something, I start now. I don’t believe in waiting until tomorrow or next year. My goal remains the same every day, what did I do wrong yesterday, what am I going to do now to change?”

Matthew Tellier, the bar manager at Scoundrel, plans to streamline the bar and focus on creating memorable cocktails and service their customers will love.

Diego Campos of Camp believes that “as a chef, it is pretty easy to worry about everyone else and put yourself last. I want to take better care of my health, mentally, spiritually and physically. Also pushing the team to be better faster and stronger. It’s a broad goal, but we will be fine tuning consistency, menu development and attention to detail as a team.”

Chef Taylor Montgomery, formerly of Urban Wren, plans to focus more time on the farm he and wife, Fran, own in western North Carolina. They’re presently planning a commercial kitchen at Montgomery Sky Farm and that will enable them to host culinary events with guest chefs. Taylor and Fran also plan to focus on reviving some historic fruits and vegetables because, like many of us in hospitality, they fear the monotony of modern commercial agriculture.

What about you? Is there a cuisine missing in our town that you’d like, or perhaps a young chef doing pop-ups that you want to see find a permanent location? Drop me a note and perhaps we can make it happen. Happy new year.

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“I hadn’t worked in a professional kitchen before, but I figured I’d start at the top,” he said. “I interviewed with Steven Greene at Devereaux’s and with you at 33 Liberty. But it was chef Lindsey at the Lazy Goat who gave me a shot, and I loved working there.”

I had to laugh, then apologize, at the awkwardness of learning Tobin had interviewed with me and I didn’t hire him.

“It’s OK because Lindsey gave me a shot and I ran with it,” he said. “Later, I spent some time at Devereaux’s and then at American Grocery. While working at the grocery I had the opportunity to volunteer at the soup kitchen, and I really thought I’d walk in there and everyone would want me to show them how to be better with a knife or make something wonderful. Nope. The kitchen was staffed by volunteers, most of them old enough to be my grandmother, and they were turning kitchen scraps into soups and salads. They certainly didn’t need some kid like me to show them anything.”

Tobin grew up in a young family and he gravitated to helping his mom in the kitchen so he understands the value of stretching a meal. That skill has come in handy at the Project Host Soup Kitchen, where today he is the CEO.

“I was their chef for a long time and when Sally Green left, the job eventually fell on my shoulders,” he said. “When I was chef, I had callouses all over my hands. That happens when you’re constantly working with knives. The biggest difference as CEO, thanks to all the time sitting at my desk, is those callouses have now migrated to my butt.”

The soup kitchen receives a lot of interest around the holidays, but Tobin’s challenge is year-round.

“Our lunch guests at the kitchen, well they may have spent the night on the sidewalk, and we need to remember that. Our guests are incredibly appreciative, though, and our dining room is always full of smiles,” he said. “Today we have our food truck and that allows us to reach communities that cannot get to our Academy Street location. And our Cooking for Kids program, thanks to the CC Pearce Culinary School (another Project Host program), we feed 400 to 500 kids a day. Kids that have a healthy, hot meal do better in school, and conquering food insecurity, that’s our mission. We will always have a need for the soup kitchen and I’d love to do more outreach next year, get our resources out where they’re needed the most.”

The Project Host Soup Kitchen, at 525 S. Academy St. serves lunch, no questions asked, Sundays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to noon.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a restaurant coach and hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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“There’s nostalgia in our burritos. I grew up in southern California, Oceanside specifically, and our burritos were different,” he said. “We didn’t have rice and black beans in ours. It was French fries. Those SoCal burritos have such a hold on the culture. They’re so well known and it’s one of those things that natives of SoCal can get nostalgic over.”

Richie’s Dad is Samoan, his mom is Mexican and both cultures have a strong love of food of their respective hometowns and countries. Indeed, many of us can step back in time with a single bite of that special something that is unique to our own hometown. When Richie set his roots down in Greenville as a trainer at Iron Tribe gym, those SoCal burritos were something he dearly missed.

“Growing up, I spent time bussing tables at this little Mexican diner. Eventually I landed in Alabama playing football for a D-2 school and that started my journey as a personal trainer,” he said. “I found part-time employment at this cool studio and café in Muscle Shoals (Alabama), and this kitchen was staffed by guys that were very serious about their career and their food, and our dining room had this energy to it and we had people visit from all over the world. That was a memorable experience that reminded me how important food could be.”

After a hiatus to St. Louis for another degree, Richie returned to Greenville and started throwing private dinners in his backyard. SoCal burritos were the star.

“The guys at Iron Tribe asked me if I would do a private event, and that went well enough that I started thinking about doing popups. I needed the right tortillas and found beautiful Sonoran-style tortillas from Tortilla Familia. They’re the best flour tortilla one can buy, they’re thin, delicate almost, but also able to stand up to our burrito. I started making burritos and just bringing them to different restaurants,” he said.

“I was already buying chorizo from Revival and Jeremy invited me to do a popup there. (For) our third one, word had gotten out through social media and we had a line out the door before we even opened. And I had forgotten the potato tots at home so Lindsey, my wife, ran to her car and probably ran through a few red lights to get the potatoes back in time because what’s a SoCal burrito without the fried potatoes?”

Richie’s popups offer incredible burritos with a mini festival atmosphere for one’s Saturday morning breakfast.

 “The best part of what I do is when a customer says our burrito reminds them of their San Diego childhood. That makes it all worthwhile.”

Daylight Burrito serves two days a week at the Rupert Huse Veteran Center and hosts popups across town. 

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a restaurant coach and hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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With its high ceilings, backlit wine displays and tall windows looking out toward Interstate 385, my first impression left me with a shoulder shrug. Then the aromas of the open kitchen found me, as did warm focaccia studded with garlic cloves and served with a savory gremolata, and all was forgiven.

Tavola — Italian for table — has been open for two months at BridgeWay Station and I’m not the guy to rush to the new place and proclaim it anything but new. Tavola is a Table 301 venue, and I know chef Beau Owens fairly well. Both he and Table 301 are highly organized, competent and disciplined.

Tavola’s menu sounds like a greatest-hits album of familiar Italian food: hand-pulled mozzarella, meatballs with pomodoro sauce, arancini, chicken Parmesan, pasta fra diavolo, and panzanella salad. At Tavola, those well-known dishes are given the respect they deserve and are prepared with exceptional ingredients by caring, skilled hands. Surely Owens has spent time in Italy.

“I haven’t been to Italy yet,” he said. “However, I do understand what it takes to create a memorable dish.”

That much is certain. Owens has been executive chef of The Lazy Goat since 2019, and he spent his first day as part of the Table 301 team with me. At the time I was Table 301’s special events chef at The Loft and that evening’s menu required corn soup. Owens asked if there was a specific recipe for that soup and there was not.

“Mind if I improvise?” he asked.

“No sir,” I said. “Go for it.”

His soup was heavenly — luxuriously smooth and redolent of corn and heavy cream — yet there was only corn and a touch of butter, not a single ounce of cream.

At Tavola, his confidence shows up in small cubes of lamb — skewered, grilled and served over a lush rosemary aioli — and in a chivalade sausage that’s made there. Chivalade is ground pork fortified with Parmesan, garlic, basil and parsley and stuffed into a lamb casing, which gives it a softer bite. Our chivalade was served with a glass of nebbiolo and a few bites of that garlic focaccia and at that point, did it matter who had or had not cooked in Italy?

“This was the first restaurant I was a part of from conception to opening, and that experience was priceless,” Owens said. “We spent a lot of time doing tastings with the 301 executive team. We make our pastas daily, likewise our sauces, the focaccia, and we even make a limoncello that we offer up at the end of dinner.”

At Tavola, the staff clicks, the food is exceptional and the overall experience is Italian enough to make you momentarily forget you’re in Mauldin, a stone’s throw from 385.

Tavola is located at 620 Bridgeway Blvd. and is open Tuesdays through Sundays for dinner.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a restaurant coach and hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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I posed that question to Jim Canavos, a Greenville restaurateur and son of Greek immigrants. We were enjoying cheeseburgers and fries inside my favorite Greek diner, Kendall’s Grill.

“It depended on where you ended up,” Canavos explained. “After World War II, many Greeks who lived in the small villages left because of the terrible poverty. The first one that landed on their feet in the U.S. got a job, many times at a restaurant, because that job came with free meals. Then they sent money back to the family so successive family members could follow and they ended up working in the same restaurant. In Greenville we ended up at these burger diners. Boston? It was all pizza. It just depended on the city you landed in.”

For many years this was the Bikas Drive-In. Today it is owned by twin brothers Kendall and Rob Tillotson, and the story goes all the way back to when the brothers were 13 walking home from school.

“We wanted to make some money, and Mr. Bikas was outside the restaurant, and we asked him for a job,” Rob Tillotson said. “This was our favorite restaurant, and he said, ‘sure thing boys, you can paint the building.’ We did that and he fed us, and he paid us. We kept coming to work here in the summer and when we graduated from high school, Kendall made an offer to Mr. Bikas to buy the restaurant.”

At those words, Canavos gave up a huge smile.

“Rob, I love that story and all the little things that you get right,” he said. “Even when I order burgers to go for the family, the way your staff wraps the burgers and neatly creases the wax paper. It shows an extra level of care and commitment.”

I told Rob that his staff is always hospitable. They say hello, they smile, they ask the right questions, and they bus your table. They butter and grill the buns, they shape their own patties from fresh beef, and their small milkshake is less than $5. Kendall’s is always clean and tidy and at lunchtime it is quite busy. It’s not often that I eat lunch in that part of town, but if I want a quick bite with great service for less than $20 then it’s hard to beat Kendall’s.

Canavos agreed.

“This burger reminds me of the ones I had at my uncle’s restaurant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, when I was just a little kid,” he said. “The right burger can be a time machine and can bring back those memories of our youth. And this is the right burger.”

I took another bite of my chili cheeseburger, saw my own youthful memories, and agreed.

Kendall’s Grill, at 1810 W. Blue Ridge Drive, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner Mondays through Saturdays.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a restaurant coach and hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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His restaurants, starting in Washington, D.C., served some of the most intriguing food on the planet. Andres has 31 restaurants across the globe. We’ve been fortunate enough to have dined at three of his restaurants and our meal at Minibar probably sits at the top of our list.

But after a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, which sent some of its citizens to the brink of starvation, Andres founded World Central Kitchen with the goal of providing basic sustenance in disaster-stricken areas. No politics, no religion — just food and water.

While volunteering with Operation Barbecue Relief in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after Hurricane Laura, our group ended up sharing the same Walmart parking lot with World Central Kitchen. After our day was done, I wandered over to the WCK area and saw what its staff was preparing and chatted with some of the team. What WCK does differently than every other relief team is prepare a meal that is relevant to the affected region. In Lake Charles, the team was serving shrimp court bouillon over rice, while the team at Operation Barbecue was serving the same thing we made two years later in Hammond, Louisiana, and two years earlier in Port St. Joe, Florida.

Going that extra mile was important to me. Judging by the smiles on the faces of hungry, exhausted Louisianans who were offered a familiar dish prepared by skilled hands, that extra mile spoke volumes to them.

While working with WCK in Przemysl, Poland, at the start of the war in Ukraine, we prepared a dish familiar to Ukrainians. It was a stew made with beef, bulgur wheat, and a blend of spices and herbs that were a bit foreign to me but familiar to Ukrainians. Once again, World Central Kitchen put a smile on the faces of people that were in dire straits.

Last week I spent some time in Asheville, North Carolina, serving food with World Central Kitchen for our shell-shocked neighbors to the north. Many of them wore those similar expressions of disbelief — emotions I’ve seen in the faces of hurricane survivors. It’s a mixture of gratitude, angst and uncertainty over their next steps. Those steps cannot be accomplished without sustenance and a hot meal is necessary for all to determine and act on those next steps.

By the time you read this, we’ll all have a better understanding of what it’s going to take to restore Asheville and the surrounding lovely mountain towns to anything resembling normal. I’d say the damage is breathtaking, but that word doesn’t accurately convey the challenges ahead. In the meantime, many of us will be volunteering our time and skill to keep those weary souls fed and encouraged.

If you’re curious about what World Central Kitchen served in Asheville, it was barbecue pork with lima beans, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans. How appropriate.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a restaurant coach and hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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However, when I want to make a quick sandwich, or when a Southern chef needs to make 10 gallons of salad dressing or 400 sandwiches, perhaps making mayonnaise isn’t the best option. Now it’s time to turn to Duke’s mayonnaise, which fortunately can be bought in everything from 5-gallon buckets to single-serve packets. When every ingredient counts and mayonnaise is in the lineup, chefs like me wouldn’t consider using anything other than Duke’s.

Don’t believe me? I’ve seen dozens of posts on Instagram of Southern cooks and chefs making anything from crab salad to saffron rouille. If they’re not using Duke’s, the comment section sounds like it’s been curated by Jerry Springer’s audience.

“Our recipe hasn’t changed since 1954; we just make a lot more of it,” said Daniel Moore, the plant manager — the argument could be made that he is their executive chef — of the Sauer Brands plant in Mauldin, where his team churns out about 850,000 pounds of Duke’s mayonnaise per day.

“Eugenia (Duke) started making sandwiches in her kitchen for soldiers stationed at Camp Sevier during the first World War and the guys loved the sandwiches and especially the mayonnaise,” Moore said. “Soon she was making her mayonnaise and selling it as fast as she could make it.”

Today, Moore’s team starts its day with salted eggs and soybean oil delivered by railroad cars. So, the Duke’s Mayonnaise secret recipe starts something like this: Take 60,000 pounds of salted whole eggs, 700,000 pounds of oil …

Moore was quick to point out what isn’t in Duke’s: sugar.

“Sugar? That’s for tea or coffee, not mayonnaise,” he said.

I believe Duke’s is the only mayonnaise that doesn’t contain a sweetener, and the manufacturing process that Moore oversees has a unique way of creating that unmistakable texture. The Mauldin plant makes other condiments, and anyone who has wandered down the condiment aisle of their favorite grocery has probably seen the variety of dressings and sauces with the Duke’s label, but mayonnaise is still the brand’s bread and butter.

Sure, it’s a plant with pipes, gauges, conveyor belts and a railroad line, but it’s still our town’s gift to Southern cuisine. When I told my chef pals I had secured a tour of the Duke’s mayonnaise plant, every one of them asked to come along.

Sorry guys, but Mrs. Malik has already called dibs. And is she ever excited!

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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That was the reply of pastry chef Sierra Axtell of The Anchorage after I asked her about the attraction and popularity of apples. In front of me was one of her fall desserts at one of Greenville’s most significant restaurants. Of course this was no simple apple dessert. This one was poached, stuffed with a handmade ricotta and white chocolate filling reminiscent of a cannoli, and garnished with an apple jelly that reminded me of a Jolly Rancher. I would expect nothing less from The Anchorage’s new pastry chef.

The apple’s ancestral home is Kazakhstan. Its capitol, Alma Ata, literally means “full of apples.” This time of the year, our town’s best apples are grown in and around Hendersonville, North Carolina. The mountain air is dry and crisp, which helps keep the pests at bay.

Apples are one of the fruits we can count on year-round. Their portability has turned them into memory makers for kids — and pastry chefs like Axtell.

“My goal is to create a sense of wonderment through desserts, an optical illusion meant to evoke a memory. And any dessert with apples is going to have a sense of familiarity,” she said. “As a child, I lived in Japan, and we always had apples. If we went on a walk to the park or on a hike, I’d always have an apple or two with me, as did my friends. Today I love working with them because any apple dessert will stir different memories in all of us.”

Axtell always has a chocolate-forward dessert, a fruit dessert and something outside of the box. On the night I dined there, we were served an out-of-the-box second dessert of sweet potato dacquoise (a cake made with egg whites and crushed nuts) enrobed in a sweet potato custard, garnished with pecan and caramel croustillant and a pecan caramel. As wonderful as the apple dessert may have been, this one exceeded it. Why? Sweet potatoes, with their gorgeous orange flesh, modest sugar content and exceptional flavor are full of possibilities.

This particular dessert hit all the right notes, and I found it more exciting and more memorable than her Campfire Chocolate Pave, an homage to a campfire s’mores. Why? At restaurants in The Anchorage’s demographic, a diner should expect to find a stunning chocolate dessert. What we do not expect is an extraordinary dessert made from humble sweet potatoes or pedestrian apples. That, however, is the attraction of The Anchorage and pastry chef Sierra Axtell.

The Anchorage, at 586 Perry Ave., serves dinner Tuesday through Saturday.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a culinary adviser and broker with National Restaurant Properties. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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He didn’t always do so much baking. His Sunflower Breakfast, Lunch & Bakery had been open for a few years and it was during that unmentionable time of COVID-19 that he decided he would learn to bake. When business came back, that skill would help him survive and thrive.

“When I was in high school, I worked at a Chick-fil-A and enjoyed the hustle and camaraderie,” Hodges said. “While studying business at the University of Georgia, I worked in the student cafeteria, and I flipped a lot of omelets. After graduating I spent some time with Table 301 and learned that humility and constant learning is a big part of this business. I believe my best strength is organization. A restaurant has multiple moving parts, and the total skill set needed to run one successfully is not something most people possess. One should partner with or hire someone with the missing ingredient. Marketing, that’s my biggest weakness, so that’s where I had to find help.”

Stop into Sunflower on a Saturday morning and help yourself to a warm cinnamon roll, a thick slice of their coffee cake, or their bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwich. After a few bites you’re probably going to wish you lived closer or had a Sunflower in your neighborhood.

I know I do.

I love baking those breakfast quick breads, but they should be done the night before to avoid a morning clash with sifting, measuring, whisking and folding. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that Sunflower’s neighbors have adopted the bakery as their own.

“Many of our customers live in a 2-mile radius from the bakery and they’re quite proud to refer to us as ‘their neighborhood spot’ and that’s something every restaurant should strive for — to become a vital part of their neighborhood,” Hodges said.

I’m partial to their SEC (sausage, egg and cheddar) sandwich served on a brioche and sesame seed bun. Recently Sunflower partnered with Revival Butchery and that sandwich now comes with their own sausage patty.

While chatting, we shared stories of learning to understand the allure of a great breakfast.

“Simplicity was my mindset when we opened Sunflower,” he said. “We wanted to serve great food, just not expensive food. Our baked goods are produced with a high level of skill yet they’re also things we’re familiar with. Because who doesn’t love a great coffee cake or cinnamon roll?”

And that’s something I fully agree with.

Sunflower Breakfast, Lunch & Bakery at 728 Wade Hampton Blvd., serves breakfast and lunch Monday through Saturday.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a restaurant coach and hospitality consultant. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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“Sit down and I’ll show you how much I know.”

“When I accepted the department head position, I had a lot of preconceived notions on the position, and in this job I counsel a lot of kids that are struggling with the basic necessities of life. Over the years we’ve had a lot of students that lacked housing, transportation or the money to purchase their school necessities.”

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“It was almost impossible to find great, fresh seafood in this town and I love great seafood,” Janson said. “I spent years in Charleston as a restoration specialist and was a frequent visitor to seafood markets like Crosby’s or Simmons. And I was certain this could work here because surely there’s a lot of folks like me that want great seafood.”

Today Janson and wife Cecilia run Broadwater Shrimp, a mobile seafood market that can usually be found at the Travelers Rest farmers market. Based on anecdotal evidence, Broadwater Shrimp may be the most popular vendor at this market, as every time I’ve been, there’s a line. I don’t mind waiting in line for his seafood because it is that good and he always makes sure I have what I came for.

Broadwater Shrimp is also quite popular among our town’s aspirational chefs. Menus from our finest restaurants such as Scoundrel, Ristorante Bergamo, Mr. Crisp, The Anchorage and more feature his stellar seafood. Along the way, Janson has learned valuable lessons for thriving in the retail arena.

“A lot of our orders are online, so Friday evening we’re preparing those orders. I’ve come to recognize how my customers want their fish, their favorite cuts, how they like it trimmed and packaged. I believe what’s important to the experience of shopping with us is recognizing and taking care of our customers. Plus, I always make time to listen,” he said. “I know Saturday mornings at the market can be crazy, but if a customer wants to tell me how they cooked their most recent purchase, I’m going to listen because the other folks in line, they might also want to chat a bit and it’s those little things that are important to thriving in retail.”

Naturally, I’m a fan of East Coast seafood, especially after cooking in the Holy City for six years. One of my favorites is wreckfish, a member of the grouper family. Its firm flesh and buttery mouth feel lend itself to a bit of acid and fresh herbs.

“A fresh fish such as wreck, I like to keep it simple,” he said. “Sear in a little butter and finish with sea salt, a knob of fresh butter, lemon and some chopped parsley or basil. That’s all that’s needed to make a fresh piece of fish something wonderful.”

I’m a fan of fresh shrimp with the heads on because one can make a lovely shrimp stock from the heads, then turn that stock into a shrimp bisque or an exquisite batch of shrimp and grits. However, those heads with their high fat content can spoil quickly. So when Mrs. Malik and I head to the Travelers Rest market, I quietly whisper to no one in particular, “Maybe Jason has some shrimp heads.”

If so, all is right in the world.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a culinary adviser and broker with National Restaurant Properties. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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Have a seat inside O-Ku and take in the soft seating, the artwork, the uniforms, the incredible attention to detail. The staff looks you in the eye, knows the menu well and offers knowledgeable suggestions. It is one of those restaurants that’s full of intangibles, the kind that practically guarantee a desire to return.

“Don’t. This is an incredibly hard way to make money and requires a high level of skill and competency,” Palmer said. “There are so many moving parts to a successful restaurant and if the staff’s paychecks don’t clear, no one wins. The restaurant business can be a license to lose a lot of money if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s something done best when people have been successful chefs or general managers that have earned their scars along the way and know how to manage those pennies.”

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A few months ago, I met some firefighters in the grocery store.

When my 6:30 dinner was finished at 9 p.m., the guys had another 10 hours left on their shift and they called dibs on the leftovers. We shook hands. Their gratitude was overwhelming, and they invited me back — promising they’d do the cooking next time.

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Today Julian Loue rarely cycles but he has found another hill to climb. If you know him, you know his dad is French and lives in Normandy, where he makes cheese and brandy, and cooks constantly. His dad taught him that a meal isn’t complete unless you’re able to wipe your plate with a good piece of bread, and Loue has walked through Paris many times to seek out a great baguette.

Surely Loue, a baker of extraordinary breads and pastries who runs Rise Bakery in the Village of West Greenville, has been baking since he could pull himself up by his father’s apron strings?

“I’m an automotive guy from way back. I spent a few years as a service advisor at Century BMW, then a few years as an insurance adjustor with Allstate. I have intimate knowledge of what makes cars work and I’ve rebuilt everything from motorcycles to vintage VWs,” Loue said. “That mechanical knowledge has served me well with the bakery’s commercial equipment. I took a sourdough-baking class for kicks and that started me on that baking path and soon I was baking sourdough at home.”

From there he turned his garage into a small bakery and soon caught the eye of the Travelers Rest Farmer’s Market.

“I went to Travelers Rest’s first Christmas market with 60 sourdough loaves and in the blink of an eye we had sold out. It was then I realized I could do this full time.”

For thousands of years, humans baked bread using a sourdough starter. It was kneaded by hand and the bacteria on one’s hands contributed to the natural fermentation of the dough. For much of the 20th century, large corporations tried to convince us bread should be soft, full of yeast, bleached white and last for a month, and that led to so many health problems. I’ve driven past a commercial yeast factory and it resembled an oil refinery.

Most of what the Rise Bakery team produces is sourdough, a method of capturing wild yeast in a flour-and-water batter, then fermenting the dough with that starter. The fermentation process is purposely slow and that allows those pesky protein strands to be snapped in half or thirds, which creates a gut-friendlier loaf of bread.

When I visit Rise Bakery, I like to start with a cup of the Bridge City coffee and one of the bakery’s sublime fruit pastries or a chocolate croissant. I can enjoy that while watching the morning sun break over the rooftops of West Greenville. After that I’ll bring home a sourdough loaf or a baguette and cook something that is wonderful enough to stand up to a perfect loaf of bread.

Rise Bakery, at 1264 Pendleton St., is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.

“City Juice” is a colloquial term for a glass of tap water served at a diner. John Malik is a culinary adviser and broker with National Restaurant Properties. He can be reached at chefjohnmalik@gmail.com.

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