Barbecue With Purpose: Stan Hays and Champion Pitmaster Tillman Lee Nelson III

Be radical. Be passionate. Be extra. Those aren't just words to Tanya Vaughn-Goggans. They're part of a leadership philosophy shaped by more than two decades in corporate America, unexpected career changes, and finding her place in the hospitality industry. In this episode of the Walk-In Talk Podcast, host Carl Fiadini welcomes Tanya, Vice President of Marketing at RAK Porcelain USA, alongside Chef Felicia Lacalle of Quiote Tequileria. After spending more than twenty years at American Greetings, Tanya found herself rebuilding her career when the greeting card industry began changing. That unexpected transition eventually led her into foodservice, where she discovered a passion for creating memorable experiences through hospitality. The conversation explores career reinvention, workplace culture, mentorship, and the challenges women face when confidence and assertiveness are mistaken for aggression. Tanya and Felicia also discuss faith, family, and the importance of leading with compassion while remaining true to yourself. And with Felicia preparing an incredible collection of dishes in the Walk-In Talk studio, the conversation comes full circle as the two women explore how food, dinnerware, and presentation can evoke memories and create meaningful connections. It's a conversation about finding your voice, building something meaningful, and understanding that leadership isn't about being the boss. It's about the impact you leave on others. From the industry. For the industry. The Companies Helping Shape Hospitality Metro Foodservice Solutions - Commercial-grade storage, transport, and workflow systems that help professional kitchens operate efficiently. RAK Porcelain USA - Professional tableware built for performance, durability, and presentation at the highest level. TriMark USA - North America's largest foodservice design, equipment, and supplies provider, helping operators build smarter, more efficient kitchens. Testo North America - Precision measurement and food safety solutions designed for professional hospitality operations. Citrus America - Commercial juicing solutions delivering consistency, speed, and quality to foodservice operators. Cahaba Club – Growing exceptional herbs, edible flowers, and specialty produce that bring fresh flavor and vibrant presentation to our studio kitchen. Shogun Farms - produces premium Florida wild boar through ethical sourcing, humane raising, and a natural feeding program that delivers exceptional flavor from farm to table. Walk-In Talk Media proudly supports organizations making a measurable impact on hospitality professionals and communities across North America and beyond. Operation BBQ Relief - Disaster response through hot meals served by culinary volunteers across the country. Sustainable Supperclub - Community driven dining experiences focused on sustainability, food access, and social impact. The Burnt Chef Project North America – Supporting mental health awareness and wellbeing throughout the hospitality industry.

Powered by Testo North America Selling food safety isn't just about equipment. It's about building relationships, earning trust, and helping foodservice operators protect their customers, businesses, and reputations. In Episode 7 of Inside Food Safety, Walk-In Talk Podcast host Carl Fiadini welcomes Aaron Sharpe and Eric Moore of Testo North America for a conversation about the sales side of food safety. Drawing on 25 years in foodservice distribution and sales, Carl explores what it takes to earn a chef's attention, overcome resistance to change, and demonstrate the value of food safety technology. Aaron shares his approach to building customer relationships, identifying operational challenges, and turning sales conversations into opportunities for education. Eric brings the food safety perspective, emphasizing technical knowledge, brand protection, and clearly defined responsibilities within every operation. From the first cold call to building long-term partnerships, this episode explores why selling food safety is ultimately about much more than making a sale. Inside Food Safety is presented in partnership with Testo North America. From the industry. For the industry.

Chef Jacob Rios was supposed to become a mechanical engineer. Growing up in Puerto Rico, he was a straight-A student with a passion for mathematics, engineering, and the Air Force. His future seemed certain. Then his parents sold their home, their cars, and walked away from their careers to give their children better opportunities in Florida. For Jacob, the transition changed everything. He struggled with English, failed the standardized tests he needed to pursue college, and watched his confidence disappear. The student who once excelled at everything suddenly felt like a failure. For the first time, Jacob began questioning his own intelligence. And he carried something even heavier: the belief that he'd let his parents down. A television commercial for culinary school eventually gave him a new direction. His mother supported the decision. His father wasn't convinced. But Jacob found something in professional kitchens that he'd been missing: purpose, confidence, and people willing to believe in him. Working his way through some of Central Florida's busiest restaurants, including Fulton's Crab House and Wolfgang Puck, Jacob learned the business under chefs who recognized his determination. Later, working alongside Chef Vanoy Rogers, he discovered another side of cooking through creativity, experimentation, and a deeper understanding of ingredients. Then COVID changed everything. After losing his job, Jacob moved his family to Charleston, South Carolina, where staffing shortages and the realities of rebuilding restaurant operations forced him to reconsider what leadership really meant. Instead of simply disciplining struggling employees, he began developing them. Dishwashers became cooks. Cooks became supervisors. And three principles became the foundation of his approach: honesty, integrity, and respect. Today, Jacob is the Corporate Executive Chef for Next Level Brands, helping lead culinary operations across Tampa Bay restaurants including Union New American, Boulon Brasserie, and Forbici. But his greatest passion isn't simply creating dishes or opening restaurants. It's developing the next generation of chefs. Through a structured mentorship program, Jacob is helping employees build the skills, confidence, and leadership abilities needed to advance their careers. And in one of the episode's most personal moments, Jacob shares how winning a competition on Food Network's Chopped finally brought the words he'd waited years to hear from his father. "You're not a mechanical engineer. You're an engineer of the kitchen." The conversation comes full circle as Jacob reflects on fatherhood, the sacrifices his parents made, and his determination to support his own children's dreams, whatever they may be. In the Walk-In Talk Media studio, Jacob also prepares two dishes that reflect his culinary journey: Puerto Rican shrimp mofongo inspired by his childhood and Shogun Farms wild boar with chocolate mole, huarache, and ayocote beans inspired by his recent travels to Mexico City. This is a conversation about immigration, family sacrifice, overcoming self-doubt, restaurant leadership, mentorship, and finding purpose in an unexpected career. From the industry. For the industry. EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 1. Family Sacrifice Can Become Both Motivation and Pressure Jacob's parents left their careers and sold nearly everything to create better opportunities for their children. When his original career plans fell apart, Jacob struggled with the feeling that he'd failed them. 2. A Language Barrier Can Change How You See Yourself Once a confident, high-achieving student in Puerto Rico, Jacob found himself questioning his intelligence after struggling with English and standardized testing in Florida. 3. Finding Your Purpose Doesn't Always Follow the Original Plan Mechanical engineering was Jacob's dream. A culinary school commercial introduced him to an entirely different future, one that eventually gave him back the confidenc

At 14 years old, Chef Diego Garcia left his family in Mexico and returned to New York alone. He barely spoke English. He wasn't going to school. He worked wherever he could, and for a period of time, he had nowhere to live. Diego slept in the New York City subway, cleaned himself up in restaurant bathrooms and helped people carry groceries while trying to save enough money to rent a room. His parents back in Mexico had no idea. But Diego's story didn't begin there. Growing up in Puebla, he worked alongside his family in street markets, unloaded trucks filled with produce and learned to slaughter goats and prepare barbacoa with his father and grandfather. Food wasn't a career yet. It was simply part of life. New York changed that. Restaurants became Diego's education. He learned English by reading newspapers on the train and learned his craft inside kitchens. French technique, Italian cooking, sustainable seafood and years of working alongside chefs from different cultures eventually gave him a language of his own. The road wasn't clean. As a teenager in Florida, Diego found himself selling drugs, stealing cars and dangerously close to a future he knew he didn't want. He left, returned to New York and made a decision that would alter the direction of his life: he was going all in on cooking. Today, Diego is approaching 200 events through his own private-chef business while working toward his ultimate goal of opening a restaurant built around seafood, Mexican heritage and the many cultures and techniques that shaped him along the way. But this conversation goes much deeper than food. Diego talks about homelessness, poverty, pride, family violence, bad decisions, abusive kitchen culture, leadership, fatherhood, healing from childhood trauma and finally learning to be proud of himself. For years, he was trying to make his parents proud. Only recently did he realize there was someone else he needed to make proud too. Himself. KEY TAKEAWAYS Survival came before ambition. At 14, Diego returned to the United States alone because he believed staying in Mexico offered him little opportunity for education or a future. When homelessness followed, he focused on getting through one day at a time. Food was part of his life long before it became a profession. Growing up in Puebla meant markets, produce, livestock and barbacoa. By 11 or 12, he was already helping his father and grandfather process goats and cook them using techniques passed through his family. Restaurants became his classroom. Without culinary school and with limited English, Diego learned inside kitchens while teaching himself English through newspapers, books, music and everyday conversation. His path could have gone very differently. As a teenager in South Florida, Diego became involved with drugs, stolen cars and other illegal activity. Recognizing where that road could lead, he left Florida, cut ties with that life and returned to New York. Cooking became the alternative. Returning to professional kitchens gave Diego a direction. What began as survival became a deliberate pursuit of culinary knowledge and eventually a career. He learned leadership from good kitchens and bad ones. Diego experienced yelling, humiliation, racism and physical mistreatment in kitchens. Rather than repeating it when he became a leader, he decided to pay closer attention to what the people working for him might be going through. His cooking reflects more than one home. Mexico remains central to Diego's identity, but New York is part of him too. French, Italian, Nordic, Asian and seafood-driven influences have become tools he uses to express his Mexican heritage rather than replace it. His restaurant vision is rooted in honesty. Diego ultimately wants a seafood-driven marisquería built around fresh ingredients, Mexican roots and genuine hospitality. His goal isn't to tell guests how impressed they should be. He wants them to leave genuinely satisfied. Success has b

Chef Clayton Parrett has spent more than two decades in kitchens, but he still considers himself a student. Growing up in rural South Louisiana, Clayton's earliest education came from the land. Hunting, fishing, livestock, agriculture and eventually working around a slaughterhouse taught him where food came from long before he understood that cooking would become his life. That path eventually took him offshore, cooking on drilling operations in the Gulf for weeks at a time. The isolation and relentless routine taught him patience, discipline and responsibility, lessons that would follow him through restaurants, universities, convention centers and hotels before ultimately bringing him to the historic Fenway Hotel in Dunedin, Florida. But Clayton says one of the biggest turning points in his career came when he learned something entirely different: How to fail. Accepting failure gave him permission to experiment, take chances and become more curious about food. It also helped shape a philosophy he still carries today. Clayton doesn't particularly believe in mastery. There are too many cultures, ingredients, techniques and traditions he hasn't experienced yet. "I prefer to say I'm a student for life." That curiosity is now helping drive the culinary direction at Fenway, where Clayton and his team are exploring global beef, ingredient provenance and the kind of luxury dining experience capable of competing on a much larger stage. One of their long-term ambitions is earning consideration among the world's leading steakhouses. And Clayton brought that same curiosity into the Walk-In Talk studio. Using wild boar tenderloin from studio partner Shogun Farms, Clayton created a dish rooted deeply in memories of Louisiana, incorporating field peas, persimmon, satsuma, sumac and produce from Cahaba Club. It's a plate built around the landscape and flavors that helped shape him as a chef. He followed it with an entirely different exploration: an antelope croquette with smoked Gouda and three vibrant sauces, combining classical French technique with an ingredient many diners rarely encounter. And then came the beef. Japanese A5 Wagyu rated BMS 12, representing the level of sourcing, education and product knowledge Clayton and his team are working to bring to Fenway. What's Hot Tampa Bay Leah Wilson of Creative Loafing Tampa Bay also returns to the studio for her recurring What's Hot Tampa Bay segment, and this time the conversation is all about Best of the Bay. Leah breaks down how the long-running Tampa Bay competition works, from public nominations and voting to the annual Best of the Bay celebration, and why the recognition means so much to the restaurants, chefs, businesses and personalities selected by the community. There's an added connection this year: Chef Clayton Parrett and Fenway are participating in the Best of the Bay celebration, putting Clayton directly into one of the biggest hospitality and culture events on Creative Loafing Tampa Bay's calendar. It makes for an episode that moves naturally between where a chef comes from, what keeps him learning, the food he is building today and the Tampa Bay community he is now helping shape. Chef Clayton Parrett Fenway Hotel | Dunedin, Florida Featuring Leah Wilson Creative Loafing Tampa Bay | What's Hot Tampa Bay Featuring ingredients from Walk-In Talk Media studio partners Shogun Farms and Cahaba Club. A Walk-In Talk Media production. From the industry. For the industry.