“My name’s Maurice Catlett. I’m a corporate chef with SoDel Concepts. You know, growing up my passion’s always been cooking. Started off at the bottom, dish-, you know, dish-washer slash prep, jumped into that and loved it, you know, and grew rapidly, pretty fast with this company.
When I started we had, what, one, two, three, I think we had five restaurants at the time. You know, now we’re at 12 restaurants. It’s amazing. Food is everything, you know? We didn’t have a lot growing up. Food always brought us together.
I have a background of soul food and Asian food. My father was African American, my mother was Korean. Thanksgiving would be turkey, we’d have ribs, collard greens, and then we’d have kimchi. But those were the times, like, I would always remember, like, the best times of, you know, growing up, and family barbecues. And my mother’s a great cook.
I learned a lot just from watching her, and that’s where I got a lot of my passion from. I love the beach area. That’s why I’m here. I’m raising my children here. I love being by the water. I love the people here, the community. I moved down here one summer and never left.”