We recently connected with Simileoluwa Adebajo and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Simileoluwa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents always made me believe that I can do anything that I put my mind to, even from a very young age. They encouraged my creative pursuits but also encouraged me to have another plan in case the first one didn’t work out. They knew I loved to dance so they would allow me to go to parties and stay out late as long as I had a family member or friend to go with me and watch out for me.

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 have been writing poems, prose and engaged in Fine Arts since as early as I could remember. My first aspiration in life was to be a fashion designer. I sketched out dresses and pant suits and outfits and filled them in with vibrant, beautiful colors, telling my family about how the creme de la crop of the world would be wearing my designs some day. In secondary school, I took Fine Arts for all six years of my education because I needed a creative outlet that would allow me to explore my artistic talents. I learned how to sketch, render, shade, paint, letter, tie & dye, papier mache and sculpt my visions into reality. As adulthood came into view, I found myself straying away from these creative dreams and into the world of numbers. After a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Economics, I returned to an artistic endeavor in the Culinary Arts when I started my business Eko Kitchen in 2018 , and reigniting that spark led me to get back into writing, painting and all of my other favorite artistic activities.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2020, the pandemic hit and I had to shutter my restaurant location which had only been open for a year at the time due to the stay at home order. I was devastated at this turn of events but quickly realized that I was going to have to be innovative and think quickly in order to keep the business alive. I decided to pivot to catering since I felt that people would need meals at home now that they could not go out to eat, and my intuition led me in the right direction. A few days later, I connected with a number of non profits in San Francisco who were looking for caterers for disaster response to feed the homeless, the elderly and people with Covid 19! That pivot stopped my business from going under.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is being able to bring my creative visions to life through my businesses. Nowadays if I have an interesting creative idea, I bring it to life in the form of a new dish, a poem, a painting or an outfit that I want to wear. Through my work I have showed that it’s important to express ourselves authentically through creative work. This expression encourages and emboldens other people to do the same

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ekokitchensf.online
• Instagram: @hautemodelchef
• Twitter: @simileolu