Meet Sandra Lockard | Chef

My concept started out as a way to offer food at events for people who wanted to eat healthy options, besides the typical fare offered at events/concerts etc. I didn’t realize what a difficult niche I chose for myself. Most people say they want to eat healthy, but when they are given the choice, they will go for the less healthy option. LOL. But we found the crowd that appreciated our food. And those were the ones who always told us we needed to open our own restaurant instead of selling food out of a tent.

So we did. In a nutshell. A few bumps along the road, from going to people’s homes to cook as a private chef, to making a private meal for a bachelorette party. We started to get asked to cater bigger parties. At the time we were renting space in a commercial kitchen and it was getting difficult to constantly have to haul our equipment back and forth.

We decided to look into leasing a commercial space for a restaurant. We found this location and here we are, coming up on 2 years of owning our restaurant.

We are very proud of our accomplishment. Every 5-star review we receive tells us that our customers love what we have to offer. People often ask us what “type of food” do we make. So since “healthy fresh food” is not really a type, our cuisine is Mediterranean Inspired. I was born in Egypt, a country on the Mediterranean, and have traveled extensively to Europe, all regions in the Mediterranean. The dishes I create have my own twist on recipes from many parts of the Mediterranean, from Europe to the Middle East.

The most challenging part is that our social life is now more limited: we work long hours, hard physically draining labor. On our day off we enjoy getting out for a meal or a hike.

Because we chose a niche that’s not as popular as others might be, we are slowly gaining the popularity among customers who appreciate our style of cooking and love Mediterranean food. We are also funding the restaurant from our own resources so as a small business, we do our best to enhance the look and feel of our little place. We have begun to redecorate and offer the restaurant the vibe that goes along with the feel that we want it to portray. We want to tell people when they come in that they are coming into their friend’s living room, it’s cozy, it’s inviting, we have great food, and you will feel like you’re visiting a place in the Mediterranean every time you come in.