Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Angel Gould. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Angel, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

After graduating, I was living in Downtown Phoenix and watching prices climb across the board. Having moved from England seven years earlier, I had always felt that Arizona was just a few years behind when it came to fashion and food. But even after all that time, there still weren’t any affordable fast food options that were actually healthy — and I realized they probably weren’t coming unless I created one myself. I knew if I was struggling to find fresh, nutritious food on a budget, there had to be others in the same position.
I didnt have enough money to start a full scale restaurant but I did have my college tuition that I had saved as I recieved a scholarship. I was watching my mum cook her staple Persian rice and saw that it only needed steaming. That was our first menu item and through many long conversations with family members and friends, I landed on dumplings as a protein source.
The business model itself was exciting and led itself to growth. Small space, limited capital and healthy food. But what got me really excited was the branding aspect of it. I started to research chain fast food brands and noticed how antiquated their marketing was. They always stuck to primary colors, boring socials and marketing that was obviously led by an older crew trying to promote to millenials and Gen-Z. I saw my age and background in fashion trend forecasting as an asset for creating a brand that reflected my youth and downtown phoenix’s creativity.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We provide steamed food for $13 a box. It is affordable, fast and local. But what really sets us apart is our vibes and branding. Our creative strategy is authentic yet aspirational, but the affordability of the product allows it to be accessible to the average consumer.
I am most proud of individual brand concept and identity. It is so distinct and in an era of brands copy and pasting other peoples branding because of pinterest and other social apps, I love that I have tapped into the local creative scene and made something undeniably Lovebite coded.
When supporting our brand you are supporting something much bigger: a woemn owned, gen-z business yes, but a direct overhaul of the normal corporate strategies that have ran industries for so long. I quit my ob at 24 with very little food experience, and did the branding myself. I am sure if i had gone to a marketing agency a lot of the hard work would have been released from me, but it also would have felt like a generic brand and would have got lost in the mix of a million other corporate start ups.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Our third ever post on instagram when we had just 400 followers started a lot of hate online. Through my unwillingness to put myself fully out there and explain the brand i was trying to create, I let others create that narrative themselves. Someone commented about us being “gentrifiers” and when I clicked on her page she was vacationing in Aspen. My social media friend who had experience with such comments decided to delete the comment on my behalf and the internet just was in uproar. I only had 400 followers but I had people posting my face, saying to boycott the restaurant and calling me racist because we were serving asian inspired cuisine.
A lot of that was just misinformation and I was heart broken since it was so important to me to respect all communities comments and advice and do better. I had sunk all my savings into a business that wasnt even open yet, I had quit my job, I lost a lot of friends who had supported me privately but didnt want to publically and I felt very isolated.
Instead of cowering I responded with a 10 page explanation and apology. Yes, I shouldnt have deleted the comment, i should have been transparent and I should have had a lengthy explanation about the business i wanted to create and the community to receive.
I explained we were actively trying to create affordable food options in the downtown area for the communities that were being pushed out because of excessive prices of everything, including food. I also explained that i am middle eastern, not asian and that comes with some responsibilities when I am starting my concept with traditionally asian cuisine, gyoza. I spoke to lots of AAPI advocacy groups, charities and communities and realised that miscommunication can spiral online.
I opened the restaurant expected no-one to show up and we had lines around the block for the next two months.

A week in a got sued by a multi-million dollar company and somehow it felt less intimidating because of the resilience I had built from coming through the other end of a “cancelling”.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built the audience really organically. I began posting that aligned with the brand identity I envisioned and didnt expect to grow overnight. We still are at 8200 followers give or take, but I am confident that will grow over time.
Our customer base is cult like in their ride or die positions with us, and everybody who sees the brand falls in love. That is more important to me right now than numbers.
Again, it feels authentic.
The lawsuit helped us gain a larger audience because instead of settling a sum with the brand to pay for all the merch, boxes and signs with our original name, I decided to go public. Again this is a direct reflection of the brands identity of being anti-big corp + not doing things the normal or expected ways.
I think that authenticity resonated with the community and they were able to see my 400 sq ft, women owned business was getting bullied by a big corporation and I was risking a lot by talking about that publicly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://eatlovebitedumplings.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovebitedumplings/
• Other: tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lovebitedumpling

Image Credits

Omar Soto – Photographer
Ellie India Rose – Photographer
Ryan Neal Cordwell – Photographer
Bryanna Lund – Photographer
Ashley Baker – Photographer

Talent – Le Kif Soccer Team
Model – Ashley Baker
Model – Tatum Graham
Model – Olivia Roberts