What do food, sports, and determination have in common? For Chef Dan Jacobs (DanDan, EsterEv, James Beard-recognized Top Chef alum) and Chicago pizza and media entrepreneur Billy Zureikat (Tripping Billy), they’re the foundation of friendship, creativity, and their new podcast Over the Line.

In this episode of The Perfect Bite podcast, host Sarah Perkins dives into Dan and Billy’s incredible stories:

• Dan’s journey from Door County line cook to co-owner of Milwaukee’s acclaimed restaurants DanDan and EsterEv
• Billy’s path from ESPN Radio producer to pizza entrepreneur and ambassador raising $75,000+ for the Muscular Dystrophy Association
• How both navigate life and entrepreneurship while living with chronic illnesses (Kennedy’s Disease and Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy)
• Why they launched Over the Line, blending food and sports conversations
• Their thoughts on media, community, resilience, and what it really means to pivot in life and business

This conversation is about more than food — it’s about finding purpose, reinventing yourself, and building community.

You can follow Dan Jacobs on social media @chefdanjacobs and learn more at www.chefdanjacobs.com.

You can follow Billy Zureikat on social media @therealbillyz and learn more at www.trippingbillyz.com.

Listen and subscribe to Over The Line on any of your favorite podcast platforms. You can follow the podcast on social media @otlwithdanandbilly.

If you’d like to learn more and support the causes discussed today, visit www.mda.org (Muscular Dystrophy Association) and www.kennedysdisease.org (Kennedy’s Disease).

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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What if restaurants could understand every guest and their personal preferences across reservations, private dining, e-commerce, and events — all in one place? That’s the vision behind Panso, the 360 degree hospitality CRM platform founded by Britney Ziegler.

On this episode of The Perfect Bite podcast, I sit down with Britney to talk about her journey from working alongside celebrity chefs and food icons like David Burke, Carla Hall, and Molly Baz, to launching a startup that’s reshaping how restaurants build customer loyalty and future-proof their business.

Britney shares:

• How her early experiences in restaurants inspired her path into food and hospitality tech
• Lessons learned from working with celebrity chefs and food entrepreneurs
• Why she built Panso, a hospitality CRM that gives restaurants a true 360° view of their guests
• The challenges (and wins) of being a woman founder in the restaurant tech space
• How restaurants can boost customer retention, loyalty, and growth through smarter data and personalized experiences

Whether you’re a restaurant operator, food tech entrepreneur, or hospitality professional, you’ll walk away with insights on customer experience, innovation, and building a mission-driven business.

✨ Listen now to learn how Panso is helping restaurants thrive in 2025 and beyond.

You can learn more about Panso at www.hellopanso.com.

You can follow Panso at @hellopanso on Instagram.

You can follow Britney Ziegler on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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What does it really take to get a cookbook published today? I sat down with Sally Ekus, lead of and senior literary agent at The Ekus Group (now a division of JVNLA), to explore the intersection of food, publishing, and entrepreneurship.

Sally has spent over 16 years representing cookbook authors, chefs, food writers, and culinary thought leaders, helping them bring their unique stories and recipes to print. She shares how publishing has evolved from the days of Julia Child and Emeril Lagasse to the era of TikTok food creators, Substack writers, and BookTok trends.

• How cookbook publishing really works today—pitching, proposals, and what agents look for
• Why an author’s platform and audience matter as much as their expertise
• The role of Instagram, TikTok, newsletters, and Substack in discovering new food writers
• The shift from big book tours to digital discoverability
• Advice for chefs, restaurateurs, and food entrepreneurs who want to publish their first cookbook
• Why repurposing content (from newsletters to older podcast episodes) is key for longevity
• The importance of mentorship, patience, and persistence in publishing and entrepreneurship

Sally leads The Ekus Group, a boutique literary agency specializing in cookbooks and culinary talent. With a background in sociology, she brings a unique perspective to agenting—blending negotiation skills with deep care for authors’ stories. She also writes the popular Substack “Not So Secret Agent,” where she offers transparent insights into the publishing world.

• Follow Sally on Instagram: @sallyekus
• The Ekus Group / JVNLA: @ekusgroup, @jvnla
• Subscribe to Sally’s Substack: Not So Secret Agent

Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen!

Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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It’s no secret: The best entrepreneurs tackle problems they inherently understand. In Matt Jennings’s case, that’s how he built MAJC.ai, to tackle one of the hospitality industry’s biggest problems: how to recruit, retain, and develop strong teams in restaurants and beyond.

Matt is a serial entrepreneur through and through: From being a five-time James Beard Foundation–nominated chef, to running his own restaurants and Full Heart Hospitality group, to now tech founder and podcast host. We explore how his decades in food and restaurants inspired him to create a platform designed to transform the future of hospitality. Matt really does have the magic in him!

To join the MAJC community (for free!) and learn more, head to www.majc.ai.

You can follow MAJC on social media @majc.ai and Matt on Instagram @matthewjennings.

Listen to MAJC’s podcasts Restaurant Ready or Serving Success anywhere you listen to podcasts, or watch the episodes on YouTube!

Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

Make sure to subscribe, rate and review The Perfect Bite anywhere you listen to podcasts.

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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“Honest cuisine”: That’s probably my favorite phrase now for seasonal or farm-to-table cooking. Thanks to Chef Chaz Lindsay, you can have the most honest, delicious Italian-Mississippi cuisine at Pulito Osteria. Chef Chaz brings his Michelin star background, including time spent at Eleven Madison Park, paired with a stint abroad as a chef at a farm restaurant in Tuscania, Italy to Pulito Osteria, from the freshest Mississippi tomato salad you can imagine to a seasonal mafalde with summer squash puree. Chaz and his team consistently work with the same local vendors, from Two Dog Farm for his produce, to local fisheries in Alabama, for the freshest, most seasonal ingredients in Mississippi.

I had a great time chatting with Chaz and learning what makes Mississippi hospitality and cooking so special—it is known as the “Hospitality State,” after all! Chaz is proof that you can go back home—and bring back everything you’ve learned. With all this pasta talk, you may find me on the next flight to Jackson.

You can visit Pulito Osteria and Rowan’s (Chaz’s dive bar) in Jackson, Mississippi in the Bellhaven Town Center.

To learn more about Pulito Osteria, visit www.pulitojackson.com.

You can follow Pulito Osteria on Instagram @pulito_osteria; Chaz Lindsay at @chazzyl; and Rowan’s at @rowansjeffersonst.

Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

Make sure to subscribe, rate and review The Perfect Bite anywhere you listen to podcasts.

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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You’ve had cold brew coffee, but have you heard of cold brew chai? Sinwise Farms founder Joshua Chemparathy has created the first canned cold brew chai and gorgeous canned coffee, all with ingredients from his family’s farm in Kerala, South India.

It’s hard to believe Josh and I have known each other for about 15 years now, thanks to being in the same co-ed business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, at Santa Clara University. He’s always been so cool, calm, and collected, and now he has the coolest chai around! We chat through how AKPsi shaped us as we entered the real world for our careers, Josh’s family history on the farm, and how he’s reshaping a tradition to share it with a broader Western audience. In a lot of ways, Josh has gone back to his roots—honoring Indian flavors and shaping how they’re served on a more scalable level with his engineer’s brain.

I’m incredibly proud to know Josh and how far he’s come. He views entrepreneurship and scale in a very healthy way, all about giving love and care to others, rather than the constant hustle culture we were served in the Bay Area.

Sinwise Farms is in the process of rebranding to Kathas—an evolution of the name and how far the product has come.

You can find Sinwise Farms products in Whole Foods stores across Northern California, Berkeley Bowl, Gus’s Market in San Francisco, and other specialty grocers across the Bay Area.

You also can purchase Sinwise Farms and learn more about the brand’s story at www.sinwisefarms.com.

You can follow Sinwise Farms on Instagram @sinwisefarms.

Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

Make sure to subscribe, rate and review The Perfect Bite anywhere you listen to podcasts.

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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When you hear farm to table, food is probably what first comes to mind. But what if we applied this to our cocktails too? Thanks to the Simple Goodness Sisters, we can!

Belinda Kelly and Venice Cunningham are the sisters and founders behind Simple Goodness Sisters, bringing the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor at the world’s first cocktail farm in the Pacific Northwest to customers nationwide. From their new cocktail book, Drink Your Garden, to their unique, multi-use syrups and Cocktail Farm Club (like a CSA box for cocktails!), you can sip nature’s bounty year-round.

Venice and Belinda are two of the most tenacious business owners out there. When it comes to combining alcohol with CPG products and your own farm, you have to be able to roll with the punches—and Mother Nature doesn’t give you any warning! They are experts at pivoting and understanding multiple revenue streams help keep things flexible.

To purchase Simple Goodness Sisters syrups, join the Cocktail Farm Club, or order your own copy of Drink Your Garden, visit www.simplegoodnesssisters.com. You can also purchase Drink Your Garden at any major book retailers.

You can visit the Simple Goodness Soda Shop in Wilkeson, Washington.

You can follow the Simple Goodness Sisters on Instagram @simplegoodnesssisters.

Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

Make sure to subscribe, rate and review The Perfect Bite anywhere you listen to podcasts.

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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What do you get when you combine Michelin-starred culinary training with a hint of whimsy? Duck Sel, the private dining concept from Chef Donald Young. It's hard not to smile when you have a bite from Duck Sel, paired with dry ice and equally magical storytelling.

Don has always been creative and someone who pushes against the grain, a fan of heavy metal and studded belts. But it took going back to the kitchen time and time again to really enjoy food and expand his palate under the mentorship of famed Chef Roland Liccioni. Donald fell in love with French cuisine, even completing his culinary school internship in France, but knew he wanted to take classical technique and turn it on its head. Donald ended up becoming one of the youngest chefs to earn a Michelin star at Temporis, and he finally decided to strike out on his own with Duck Sel. The universe kept calling him back to his private dining concept—and it’s calling to you to book your experience ASAP!

To learn more about Duck Sel and to book tickets to the private dining experience in Chicago, you can visit www.ducksel.com. You also can book your spot at Duck Sel on Tock.

You can follow Duck Sel on Instagram @duck_sel and Donald at @donaldduckconfit.

Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!

Make sure to subscribe, rate and review The Perfect Bite anywhere you listen to podcasts.

You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and visit our site www.theperfectbitepod.com.

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