This started at home.

Dez began cooking because food consistently brought people together. When he thought about family and friends spending time together, he thought about food. As he got older, he realized food meant much more than simply eating.

Johnnie Mae kept the pancakes coming.

Johnnie Mae is the woman who raised Dez. Her pancake breakfasts were legendary. His friends would come over, and Johnnie Mae would keep making pancakes. They could say, “No thank you,” and somehow another pancake still appeared.

His friends joked that maybe Johnnie Mae couldn’t hear them. She could. She had already made the pancake. They were eating it.

Years later, Dez noticed people didn’t mostly talk about the specific food Johnnie Mae cooked. They talked about how they felt in her home. That feeling became SoulFed.