We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristiann Vargas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kristiann thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
We are a dining experience company. Our mission is to take the local and make it luxurious and the common into exceptional. It’s about taking a part of my heritage and creating it in a new way to be able to share it with my kids and my community.
And it’s more than just about the food. You eat with your eyes first. We as a society have gotten into the mindset of “a quick bite.” Tabelscapes are a HUGE part of dining. The food is just another element. It’s about connecting with yourself, your guests, the environment and those who ultimately grow it.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
After over a decade in hardscape construction – I experienced a change in my family life and then COVID hit. I found myself like so many other people during that time especially young mothers (I having 2 small ones of my own) realizing that our whole world had been tipped over. So during that time of pause, I got to ask myself some important questions. Like who am I? What type of mother do I want to be? What am I actually passionate about?
Those answers didn’t take long to figure out. It resulted in the creation of Distinctive Ideas. Growing up as an immigrant in this country with no family to celebrate holidays or Sunday meals with, my family built a village around them of friends and neighbors to fill that gap. That brought unbelievable expose to different cuisines like Southern soul food, Italian American, Irish America, Indian, Filipino, Southeast Asian flavors, Polish, Puerto Rican and Jamaican. All of a sudden these flavors became just as loved to us as our own Portuguese ones.
As a self taught chef there were huge hurdles to over come, like starting a new hospitality related company in the midst of the COVID era. We started with secret ticketed micro dining events where guests would purchase tickets and get the dining address 24 hours before the event. They would then proceed to join the reservation list at the secret location, dining completely outside under a canopy of twinkle lights on a beautifully laid tablescape. Each secret Dinner Club was themed ranging from traditional Portuguese fare to hand pulled Italian pastas and Mexican inspired pig roasts. At the end of the first year we had built up an extensive inventory, a clientele, and had earned the nickname of the Bougie Chef by our little circle.
The years following saw a shift from just lavish tablescapes to more intricate culinary menu items, as the imposter syndrome started to very slowly take a back seat a little more with each dining experience. The rage of the parties we were able to create ranged from small dining experiences in our clients homes to large happy hour networking events to creative lunch and learns to backyard dining experiences for whole family gatherings. Then when the timing was perfect, an opportunity to partner with a 4-H farm presented itself. The opportunity to bring bougie to the farm and meld it with farm-to-table experiences was more than I could have ever hoped for.
The ability to have a home base in order to teach unique cooking classes, create fantastic fresh menus and orchestrate simply stunning farm to table dinners is just beyond words. But most importantly to be able to share this experience with my children, my supportive boyfriend and our family is amazing. To be able to create a company that my mother has joined to help me create fresh and fabulous food means the world to me. To turn the local into luxurious and the common into the exceptional is a dream come true. And we’re just getting started!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I had to pivot during COVID from the landscape construction world into a career that would allow me to heal and grow as a woman, newly single mother and a creative. I needed a path that would allow me to be Mommy first with no hesitation. So I returned to what I knew best from my upbringing and heritage…the dining table.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I self funded Distinctive Ideas from savings I had saved up and by moonlighting for other hospitality groups in the area. It was hard work to juggle being Mommy first as a single mom (I have the MOST AMAZING VILLAGE to help me), an entrepreneur and an hourly worker who floated from Front of House to Kitchen for these very supportive and understanding companies. Slowly with each completed Distinctive Ideas dining experience we were able to save for another piece of equipment, uniforms and supplies.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.distinctive-ideas.com
- Instagram: distinctive ideas
- Facebook: distinctiveideasct
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kristiann-vargas-a353a33b