Having founded multiple companies over the years, I’ve experienced firsthand what it takes to bring a business idea to life. The entrepreneurial challenge gets amplified when businesses operate in highly competitive industries like Food & Beverage. New York has long been recognized as being a food lover’s paradise, but for founders, it is no easy task. In New York City alone, there are approximately 8,000 restaurants in a 13.4 miles long by 2.3 miles wide radius. Talk about competition.
As we go through the holiday season and celebrate with loved ones while enjoying great food, it’s important to honor the foot soldiers pushing innovation and working hard to keep our bellies full.
The brave founders below are but a handful of those accomplishing incredible milestones in the Food industry.
Janine Booth, 27 – Root & Bone
Partners, lifelong chefs and Top Chef alums Janine Booth and Jeff McInnis have revived Southern rural American cooking & culture with their East Village staple, Root & Bone.
With Root & Bone, Booth consciously sources local ingredients from foragers, fishermen, farms and purveyors whose passions are built on the high quality seasonal products they produce — putting a garden-to-table and fresh soul nurturing spin on the competitive world of Fried Chicken and Southern recipes.
Leanne Brown, 29 – Good and Cheap
Eating healthy is expensive, especially in New York City. This has been a popular topic of late, but Leanne Brown has taken it a step further with her cookbook, Good and Cheap, targeted mainly toward lower income people, specifically those on a $4/day food stamp budget.
Featured as a New York Times bestseller, Good and Cheap is available for free online, and since its release, has been downloaded over 900,000 times. Brown’s Kickstarter campaign to release a print version of the book was also successful and is distributed nationally at more than 900 locations.
Nate Cotanch, 25 – Zia Green Chile Company
Green Chile is extremely deep rooted in the history, economy, culture and cuisine of everything that New Mexico is, but rarely recognized (or heard of) outside of the southwest region. Cotanch, whose roots are from a family of 17 children north of Santa Fe, is the first to bridge this gap.
Cotanch started Zia Green Chile Company in 2014 as one of the vendors at Smorgasburg. Since then, he and his partners, Ivan Thevaranjan and Cody White, have built a cost-effective, reliable system to introduce the seasonal, region-specific crop from farms in southern New Mexico to restaurants and consumers in New York City year round. In doing this, they have grown a loyal following of New Mexican transplants and New Yorkers who get to experience an entirely new flavor palette, and will continue to grow from there.
Tyler McKusick, 27 – Heatonist
Spice lovers are always searching for the next new hot sauce, and sommeliers Tyler McKusick and co-founder Noah Chaimberg have what they need. Heatonist, their online platform and Williamsburg storefront, equipped as a personalized tasting room on Wythe Avenue, boasts hundreds of small batch hot sauces from all over the world.
Heatonist was able to draw up support in early 2015 with a successful Kickstarter campaign, and plans to be more than just a store – a community hub and “place where people can gather around spiciness.”
Emily Acosta, 29 – Eataly
Winner of the 2014 Cheesemonger Invitational, you will have a hard time finding a genuinely more knowledgeable person about all things cheese than Emily Acosta of New York City’s Eataly. She is the first woman (and New Yorker) to have won the competition and hails from a diverse background in music and business. 
You can hear Acosta regularly on Heritage Radio Network’s series “Cutting The Curd” (which she also produces), and can expect her to continue to be at the forefront of New York City’s cheese world for years to come.
Tony Lanuza, 28 and Chris Poeschle, 26 – Brooklyn Baking Barons
Leaving their previous theater careers behind, Chris Poeschl and Tony Lanuza created a business doing just one thing perfectly, the Honey Whiskey Cake. The two are a regular fixture at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn and in less than two years have built quite a loyal following, both of local and celebrity clients (Mario Batali used it as his Thanksgiving dessert).
The duo represent a unique approach to dessert. Part of what makes the Honey Whiskey Cake so special is the feeling of nostalgia, which is, in many ways, the secret ingredient. As partners in life and in business, Chris and Tony embody the American Dream in New York City. They’ve managed to carve out their own niche and with their recent feature in People Magazine’s holiday gift guide, they’re making their mark across the country by embracing artisanal traditions.
Victoria James, 24 – Piora
Sommelier Victoria James is debatably the youngest, most knowledgeable wine expert in the world. She was a certified sommelier at the age of 21 when she was working at Charlie Palmer’s flagship showcase of progressive American cuisine, Aureole.
After a stint as the sommelier at one of New York City’s top rated Italian restaurants, Marea, where she was featured as one of Zagat’s 30 under 30, James resides today as Chef Sommelier at Piora and shares her knowledge on her wine blog “Get Your Grape On” while in process of obtaining her Master Sommelier certification.
Andrew Black, 25 – Black & Bolyard
Butter is a simple, delicious ingredient that one would think would never need to evolve from its original beloved form. Andrew Black, (whose background includes a 3 year stint at Eleven Madison Park), along with partner Eric Bolyard, have done the unthinkable with their creation, Black & Bolyard’s Brown Butter, a toasted and caramelized butter substance done in a specific cooking process.Black & Bolyard’s Brown Butter was uncovered at an underground supper series that the duo launched in Brooklyn and has since been driving people crazy. With this creation, their goal is “to bridge the gap between professional and home kitchens”.