Kokomo’s Cafe is the perfect lounge space for avid readers looking for their next page-turner while sipping away on a beverage of their choosing or eating lunch. The dreamy cafe offers a variety of drinks like tea, coffee, wine, and beer, and a carefully curated food menu with clean-sourced ingredients. The place was dreamt up by the owner herself, Chloe Shreeve, who has a passion for creating a space for people to unwind, be loved, and feel welcomed like a warm hug. Named af

If you’re looking for a restaurant that feels like you’re visiting a dear friend of yours who made you a home-cooked meal, Maria Petit Food Boutique is the perfect spot. With antique wooden furniture painted in neutral and green colors, framed wall baskets with childhood trinkets and plants along the windowsills, it feels both welcoming and comforting from the moment you step in. “You get here, and you don’t feel like you’re eating at a restaurant. You feel at home, as if you

Whether you’ve heard of the three-year champion of the “Best of Florida Food Trucks” or not, you will now. Taco Riendo is a family-owned and operated Mexican cuisine food truck based in Lake Wales, FL, serving their food “Fresh, Hot and Authentic” since 2019. Taco Riendo originally began as an expression of love for sharing homemade tamales with individuals on the weekends out of a Thunderbird. It’s now grown into a family business serving an array of communities in Polk Coun

From the genius mastermind behind LoveBird Almost Famous Chicken, Jeremy Brumley strikes gold again. Grievous Angel offers “deceptively good burgers + dogs.” They offer five different burgers, pictured is the Peppercorn Saint with white cheddar, sautéed mushrooms, black peppercorn sauce, and arugula. All burgers are doublepatty smash burgers on locally-made potato buns, and they are SO wickedly good. The “dogs” are Snap-O-Razzo maple-smoked beef hot dogs in natural casings, n

Meet Me in Mulberry When you think of Mulberry, it’s unlikely that the first thing to cross your mind would be “popular food destination.” You might think of phosphate mining, railroads and that it seems far away. The truth is, Mulberry is much easier to get to than you might realize. In fact, the town’s location at the crossroads of State Road 60 and FL-37 make it an ideal meet-up point, around an easy half hour’s drive from Winter Haven, downtown Lakeland, Lake Wales, and B

This real life choose-your-own-adventure story opens with a sweet bag of nuts. No scary twists or sad plots, just a story where something small can make the difference. In the first chapter, you randomly attend a festival near your son’s home in your son’s new state. You find a treat for you and your spouse to try. You find nuts. Roasted nuts. Roasted, flavored nuts of a variety. Roasted, flavored nuts that would fit nicely as an addition to your concessions menu at your fami

“Mooo-ve over grocery stores, a new concept for convenient, local ingredients has arrived, fresh from the farm!” What do you get when you mix a love of local, farm fresh produce with a need for convenience? The Harvest Collective, that’s what! I caught up with Mikaela Booth, the owner and operator of Evelyn & Co. (a sustainable refillery based out of Lakeland) to learn more about her new business: The Harvest Collective. The concept was originally pondered as a solution to Mi

Hold on to your hats, Polk County! There’s a new destination in Central Florida and it’s right in your backyard. If you’ve driven down Highway 27 between Haines City and Dundee recently, you may already be waiting with delightful anticipation to find out what’s been brewing on big Lake Hamilton. The answer: beer, coffee, and family fun for all ages. Port 27 is set to open in early spring and is sure to become a hotspot for locals and visitors alike. Nestled on the shore of La

Farhad and Gianna Rahmani, who met working as real estate agents, always knew they wanted to work with family. Farhad loved food and even remembers eating a tray packed full of McDonald’s items upon his arrival in America. He knew that he got joy out of cooking, so what better than to cook for others alongside his family? Farhad felt that he benefited greatly from learning to cook from his mother. “That helped me a lot,” he said, “I was able to feed myself.” He traveled a lon

Lakeland couple Jeremy and Leah Brumley are bringing their rockstar chicken concept to Winter Haven this summer. Maybe you’ve wondered what that hot pink sign on 17 would be or what the cow atop the building beckoning you to eat more chicken meant. The former filling station at 199 6th Street NW will be a 2,200-square-foot chicken joint serving up Southern scratch cuisine. LoveBird Almost Famous Chicken is expected to open their Winter Haven location in early August. The Brum

Maritime, an oyster bar and coastal cuisine concept, just dropped anchor in downtown Winter Haven. Partners Jason Ellis, Conn O’Leary, and Corey Ripley are the masterminds behind Lakeland’s Cob and Pen, Good Thyme, and Rec Room. The three partnered with Miguel Barcelo to start Winter Haven’s newest pearl. “I think we’d always talked about a raw bar concept,” O’Leary said. When they were approached by Six/Ten, the investors behind the new open-air food hall, Bowen Yard, things

Here’s the scoop on Winter Haven’s newest ice cream shop: Ripples Handcrafted Ice Cream is the brainchild of Honeycomb Bread Bakers owner Benjamin Vickers and partner Ethos Coffee Roasters owner Lisbeth Pacheco. The elevated ice cream shop will feature a coffee bar with Ethos Coffee and 13 flavors of ice cream to choose from. Having had formal culinary training at CIA in New York as a pastry chef, much of Vickers’ early career was in resorts and fine dining restaurants compos

“My first memory of food was when I made rice with my grandmother back in the Dominican Republic. I was five years old,” Morena Mazorra said, smiling. “I made it in this little, tiny pot.” Grounded by her Dominican roots, Mazorra unofficially started baking in 2009. She and her husband had both lost their jobs. “We were newlyweds with a newborn baby,” she said. Mazorra majored in culinary arts in New York, so cooking for others was a no-brainer. She started selling food and d

Recreating an Evening of Bygone Delight … The Garden Club of Winter Haven was considering fundraising options. The Friends of the Museum of Winter Haven History were looking for a partner. Ideas were tossed around and the discussion soon focused on recreating an evening to reminisce about a restaurant that had closed sixteen years ago. The restaurant was Christy’s Sundown and stories of its owner, Nick Christy, were plentiful. For many, the memories were vivid. The idea was e

I sit at a table beneath an oak tree at the Winter Haven Farmers Market. The music, breeze, and company are nice. I take a bite of Chef Ken’s candied yams, and suddenly, I’m back to swaying my legs on a little wooden bench – comfort food piping hot in mismatched dishes spread across my Nanny’s table. There’s barely enough room to navigate her tiny galley kitchen. Despite this, she manages to whip up generous helpings of tenderness in a modest space lined with red apple wallpa

There’s a bright yellow school bus on the side of the road on the way to Lake Alfred that’ll teach you a thing or two about good vegan food. Eimi El serves 100 percent plant-based comfort food with soy-free and gluten-free options from her converted school bus food truck. El, from North Carolina, moved to Florida in 2000 and has lived in Davenport since 2018. “I wanted to be vegan 20 years ago when nobody was vegan,” she remembered. The only meat replacement she could find at

OHIO STYLE PIZZA CONNECTION220 E Lake Ave, Auburndale(863) 967-9230FB: Pizza Connectioneatpizzaconnection.com J. BURNS’ PIZZAEdgewood Drive:2306 East Edgewood Drive, Lakeland(863) 450-2986 Maryoma Plaza:5615 South Florida Ave #101, Lakeland. (863) 377-9997 Winter Haven:5535 Cypress Gardens Blvd, Winter Haven(863) 256-0200FB: J Burns Pizzajburnspizza.com NEAPOLITAN STYLE CALOGERO’S PIZZERIA148A W Haines Blvd, Lake Alfred(863) 268-8352FB: Calogero’s...

Arabellas has been a Winter Haven fine dining fixture for a decade, and Ave Bar is the perfect place for a craft cocktail downtown. But where do passionate pizza fans get their pie? Bistro, of course. Bistro Pizza, the sister restaurant to Arabellas and Ave Bar, is a repeat Best of Haven winner in the pizza category. The Neapolitan-style pizza makes for the perfect slice. “I love making pizza. It was my first job out of high school,” said Bistro co-owner Nikolas Chan. He star