I love food.  I love feeding people and I love most of all, the reaction from people when they love what I have prepared for them.

I grew up in a restaurant family and can remember vividly the nights I slept on the old style flatbed freezer in the back of my parents restaurant on Warren in Detroit because I was too young to stay home alone.  I can't think of anything I liked more than seeing lines out the door while customers waited loudly for their open pit barbecue ribs and french fried shrimp dinners cooked to order with batter that my mother made from scratch daily.  When I could stay awake, I was able to enjoy the banter from the legendary 20 Grand nightclub crowd looking for late night food after the Temptations, Spinners or other Motown groups finished their shows.  It was pure heaven to a little girl not yet old enough to be granted admission, but old enough to know that something special was happening each weekend.  Vicki's BBQ, named after my mother, was the beginning of my love affair with food and more importantly, the art of feeding people.

 

Well, fast forward to adulthood where I ventured into the restaurant business and opened JA-DA  A BBQ Grille in downtown Detroit, the year the first of three casinos came to Detroit , one each year for three consecutive years.  With each new casino there was a 20% drop in business and ultimately, the business came to an end. Closing the doors in 2000 didn't dampen my love affair with the food business, though.  After getting both daughters through college and trying other professions I found myself gravitating back to my first love, food.