We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful NEKIA HATTLEY. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with NEKIA below.
Alright, NEKIA thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
If you would’ve told me ten years ago that I’d be a vegan, I would’ve laughed and asked if you were feeling okay. I’m a foodie through and through. I’ve flown across states just to eat, and I’ve personally been cooking since I could drag a chair to the stove. Food has always been my love language—it smells like joy, it tastes like family, and it brings us together like nothing else can.
So no, I didn’t set out to be vegan. My journey started by accident and became a divine assignment.
When my father passed away from complications related to diabetes, I was devastated. He was the first person to teach me how to bake. My dad didn’t show a lot of emotion but one of the places we bonded was in the kitchen. That loss planted the seed for what would become My Daddy’s Recipes, a company named by my younger sister in his honor but powered by something bigger. It’s not just about food; it’s a movement to show people—especially people of color—that plant-based eating can be both nutritious and delicious. That we can heal our bodies without losing our culture.
During his illness, I started digging into our family’s health history diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, all the “hereditary” things we were told we just had to live with. But the deeper I looked, the more I realized: it wasn’t the diseases that were inherited, it was the habits. And I had the power to break that cycle.
Even then, I wasn’t ready to claim the vegan label. I thought it was too restrictive. I still wanted my soul food, my comfort food, my flavor. But life had another plan.
Since my teenage years, I’d battled what doctors believed was endometriosis. I was on my cycle more than I was off of it, painful, long periods that would keep me home from school and wreck my energy. Doctors wanted to do exploratory surgery, but I thought, “I don’t even take Tylenol, how am I supposed to let someone cut me open?” So I tried something else, I cut out meat and dairy. And y’all… the results were miraculous.
My cycle went from two weeks to just two or three days. The pain was gone. I didn’t even know when it was coming. I felt like a superhero. I had healed something doctors told me I’d just have to “manage.” That was my awakening.
That experience lit a fire in me. I dove headfirst into learning, becoming a certified vegan nutritionist, studying raw food in Panama with Dr. Aris Latham, and sitting in classes taught by Dr. Yahki Awaken in St. Louis. I never want to stop learning, because my mission is rooted in truth, empowerment, and love. I live in and serve food deserts where preventable diseases are literally stealing our joy, our energy, our lives and I know I have tools that can help.
So yes, I’m a chef. Yes, I run a business. But more than that, I’m a witness to the power of food as medicine. My Daddy’s Recipes is my way of helping my community become its own superhero, healing our bodies, our minds, our spirits, and each other.
This business isn’t just my passion. It’s my purpose and season every inch of it with Love.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m Vegan Chef Nekia, founder of My Daddy’s Recipes—a plant-based food and wellness company designed to show people of color that plant based can be nutritious and delicious all at the same time that we don’t have to lose our culture and order . In South Central LA is where I was born, raised, and I currently live in Inglewood. Neighborhoods and communities like I grew up in and currently live in are the community that I am called to serve.
I didn’t grow up vegan, and I didn’t start this journey trying to build a brand. I’m a foodie by nature—bold flavors, big Sunday dinners, comfort food, all of it. I started cooking as soon as I could pull a chair to the stove, and I’ve never stopped. But what shifted everything for me was pain—both personal and physical.
My father passed away from diabetes, and I was told by doctors that I likely had endometriosis. I was constantly in pain, on my cycle more than I was off it, and the only solution offered was surgery. I knew I needed to do something different, so I removed meat and dairy from my diet—and the transformation was miraculous. I healed my symptoms naturally, and I knew in that moment: food could do more than comfort—it could heal.
That awakening led me to study nutrition, train under plant-based masters like Dr. Aris Latham and Cheri Rae, and become certified in vegan and raw food. I started My Daddy’s Recipes—named in honor of my father, not because I was a daddy’s girl like most people assume once they hear the name, but because food was where we found connection. The name also honors the mission: to interrupt the cycle of preventable disease and generational health disparities in Black and Brown communities. It is also a movement to show people of color that we are all essential ingredients in God‘s recipe for a better world. I am my daddy‘s recipe. You are My Daddys Recipes. We are all My Daddys Recipes.
That being said We’re not just a food company. We’re a movement.
We offer prepackaged plant-based meals and desserts, signature spice blends (like our crowd-favorite Testimony, a spicy nutty parmesan), personal chef services, corporate catering, educational cooking classes, and community wellness retreats. Everything we touch is seasoned with love and layered in flavor. Over 30% of our customers aren’t vegan—that’s how good it tastes.
What sets us apart is that we don’t just serve food—we serve legacy. We remind our people that we don’t have to lose our culture to gain our health. We create spaces—on the plate and in the room—where people feel seen, nourished, and empowered to make changes that matter.
I’m most proud of the way we’ve built trust in the community. Whether it’s a grandmother learning to make vegan greens for the first time, or a corporate team bonding over jackfruit tacos in one of our cooking classes, or a little girl trying her first dairy-free cheesecake at a market—we’re shifting the narrative.
What I want people to know is this: you are not powerless. You can heal. You can feel good. You can feed your body, your spirit, and your family with food that celebrates who you are and supports who you’re becoming.
My Daddy’s Recipes is here to walk with you on that journey. One bite, one story, one soul plate at a time.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Whew. I’ve had to unlearn that “bigger” always means better—and that “broad” always means success.
There was a time in my business when some potential investors came to the table. They were interested in what I was doing but not in who I was doing it for. They told me I needed to “widen my audience,” that my focus on people of color was “too specific,” and that “everyone needs to eat better.” And while yes, that’s technically true—everybody should eat better—not everybody is being targeted for slow death by a broken food system.
Not everyone lives in neighborhoods where liquor stores outnumber grocery stores 10 to 1. Not everyone is dealing with generational diet-related diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart failure at the same rates we are. Not everyone is living in a food desert designed by redlining and systemic neglect. But my people are.
So no—I wasn’t going to water down my message or sell out my mission just to make someone else feel comfortable. They also wanted substantial ownership in my company, and I had to really sit with that. I chose not to give away pieces of what I’ve built or change who it was built for. I didn’t just protect my business—I protected my community.
The second part of this lesson was unlearning the lie that “Black people don’t want to eat healthy.” I heard that from so many voices—some well-meaning, some not. But I knew better. And I saw proof when I vended at the first-ever vegan festival in South LA, organized by Olympia Auset from SÜPRMARKT.
That day in Leimert Park changed everything. The vibe was beautiful. The community showed up with love, open hearts, and open wallets. They were excited, grateful, curious—and hungry for exactly what I had to offer. I sold out, took an Uber back to my kitchen to grab more food, came back, and sold out again. Folks were literally buying the samples off my table. To this day, I haven’t had another vending day that matched that energy—or that income.
That experience reminded me: we want better, we deserve better, and we will show up for better when it’s made for us, by us, with love.
So I had to unlearn everything this system tried to teach me about my worth and about my people—and I’m so glad I did.
Have you ever had to pivot?
COVID was the pivot of all pivots.
I had just started My Daddy’s Recipes in 2019, and when I say “we,” I mean me, myself, and I. My imaginary staff was working full-time—wearing all the hats, cooking all the meals, doing all the deliveries, answering all the emails, and probably crying in the walk-in (which was just my fridge, by the way).
Truthfully, I had no restaurant experience. I had done a little catering with some restaurant owner friends, but outside of that? I was learning as I went. And I spent that first year soaking up everything—menus, markets, permits, prep. Then boom—COVID hit.
Just when I started to find my rhythm, the whole world shut down. Most of my markets closed overnight, and the ones that stayed open were limited to produce-only farmers markets. No cooked food, no gatherings, no tastings—no nothing. Everything I had just learned about running a food business had to be unlearned real quick. I had to pivot from “startup mode” into “survivor mode.”
But I wasn’t about to give up on the dream—or the community.
I teamed up with another plant-based chef and friend, Chef Supreme, and we got creative. I started offering meals out of my home kitchen, created a delivery system, and found any and every safe, legal way to keep feeding folks. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t perfect. But it was purposeful.
No, we didn’t thrive financially during that time—but we survived. And that survival planted the seeds for everything we’re growing now. We stayed connected to our people, we kept the mission alive, and we found new ways to nourish the community even in chaos.
I’m proud to say that My Daddy’s Recipes is still here. Still cooking. Still healing. Still growing. And every pivot has made us stronger.
Contact Info:
- Website: Https://www.mydaddysrecipes.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vegan_chef_nekia?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nekia-hattley-43906121b?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@veganizeit7510?si=4jnocJhgUCJhzlLl
- Yelp: https://yelp.to/zmQ1FuSb3z
Image Credits
sheldonbotler.com
Carter Nelson
Millard Walton @freemynds
Drake Anthony photosbydrizzy.com