Today we’d like to introduce you to Randall Braud, Daniel Gerona, Jed Pajela and Carlo Wayan.
Randall, Daniel, Jed and Carlo, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We are all from Filipino backgrounds and saw a great need for modern Filipino food in the Dallas proper area. After a month long trip to the Philippines earlier this year, I connected with Dan and Jed. We brought on their friend Carlo, who’s a pastry chef, and we had our first pop up May 3rd at the Belmont Hotel in West Dallas. It was a sold-out event with a 2.5 hour wait. Little did we know that this would be the precedent for all of our future events. We have gone on to sell out every event we have been apart of. The biggest draw to what we bring is that we are doing something with the Filipino cuisine that you may only see on the East and West coast or not at all.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
For the most part, it has been a smooth road. The biggest struggle for us was actually the schedule of being able to do these events. For us, this is a secondary or even a third side project outside of our normal full-time jobs and or school, so finding time with everyone’s schedule to R&D our menus or just food in general was a bit strenuous.
Please tell us about Not Your Lola’s.
We are a modern Filipino pop-up concept. I’m one of the founders and the Executive Chef. Dan runs our social media, the scheduling of events, and setting up meetings with potential venues and other avenues of getting our concept out there. Jed runs the R&D aspect as well as mixologist. And Carlo is our pastry chef. I’m proud of the things we have accomplished as just a pop-up concept, the way we have already had a great impact on the food scene in Dallas, and the path that we are blazing. We have a great dynamic with the other three referring to me as dad a lot mostly because I’m older than they are.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Lola is Tagalog for grandmother so when we came up with the title “Not Your Lola’s” we wanted to let people know with our name that while we making traditional Filipino food it is not what your Lola would make while you were growing up as a kid. Staying to true to that mantra as well as presenting the Filipino cuisine to masses in such a way that we can’t be ignored. I personally didn’t grow up with the Filipino experience because my parents were divorced when I was very young.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 8179076469 or 9726328891
- Email: notyourlolas@gmail.com
- Instagram: @notyourlolas
- Facebook: Facebook.com/notyourlolas
Image Credit:
Michael Ursua and Daniel Gerona
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