Who are you and what do you do?
I am Marie Mercado and I'm one of the co-owners of the Greenery Creamery, which I co-own with my boyfriend. I am a professional ice cream lady and ice cream taste tester.
How did you get into making ice cream?
It's kind of a long story because my background is not in food.
I actually come from an opera background. I studied in New York and I was an opera singer and actually grew up making ice cream. I'm from South Florida. And the story is that I would make ice cream every summer with my family, from the mangos that we would get from our family, friends, and neighbors.
Instead of eating so many mangoes, we would turn it into ice cream, which we could eat all year round. So it was a summer tradition that I would make Ice cream in this little handheld countertop turner. And when I graduated from school and I was starting my career in performance. The dream was that eventually I would end up in Germany with my best friend. She's there now and she's living her full opera life.
But I wanted to pay off my loans. So I started working a corporate job before moving out. I was a project manager for Google Street View and I just really loved business. I liked how I could be creative and in a way I could control my destiny.
In performance you can work really hard, but if you don't fit the bill, you just don't get the role. But with business you can work really hard and you can see tangible, physical results. And I just really love that, like being analytical and being fun and finding different ways of solving problems.
I didn't come from a background of business. I don't know anything about finance or accounting. So this whole world is really hard for me. But thinking about my passions and things that I had, like a skillset, that's where ice cream came in.
I'm like, ‘Oh, this is something that's from my childhood and past, like a family tradition.’ And I just really loved the idea. Plus ice cream is really happy. So it just made sense for me.
When did you start The Greenery Creamery?
I started in March of 2018.
It's fairly new. I was experimenting in summer of 2017. That's when we started l doing things with family and friends and I quit the corporate job to start working in food to get more experience. I was working at Viet-Nomz.
And then I worked at Starbucks corporate while building The Greenery Creamery brand, and then we opened up at Church Street and it just made sense to call it The Greenery Creamery at 420 E Church St.
How did you end up working with Hungry Pants? And can you tell me about your partnership with them and what you all do together?
Oh my gosh. So, one day, I get this email. A very excited email! I think it was from Joey. And it's just like, “Hello! My name is Joey! We love your ice cream and we're opening up this concept. We're still working on it, but let's make ice cream happen!”
And then I was like, “Oh my gosh! My name is Marie! I would love to!!” I was just like thrilled from the very beginning.
What type of ice cream are you making now for Hungry Pants?
Whatever they ask. It's kind of like they’ll say something and then I'll be like, ‘Oh yeah, we have something similar. Let's try to work with this.’ I think a lot of the ice cream flavors, when we first started, it was just classics that they loved. And then from there it's kind of been like, let's play with menu items that we already have and turn it into ice cream!
That's how the lavender ice cream happened because of the lavender oat soda and then they serve Panther Coffee, and that's how the chocolate chip ice cream happened.
Do you have a favorite meal here at Hungry Pants? And can you describe whatever that meal is?
Everything! They invited me to the family and friends thing before opening and I tried every single thing. I've had everything on this menu. There's nothing I don't like.
I am so impressed by the sauces and I am not vegan. I'm flexitarian. So it is really cool to be able to bring people here who want to venture into plantdom, but just don't know how.
My absolute go-to though is the Buddha Bowl. And if I ordered on toast it's with extra squash and then I would get extra sauce! (Laughs) And I love it because it's so colorful and so pretty to look at. It makes me feel good. I feel healthy eating it. All these colors. It's the full rainbow, like I'm detoxing.
Is there anything that you're working on right now for Hungry pants?
The most recent thing was the Panther coffee. And then we redeveloped, we did lavender 2.0.
Follow along w/ Marie and all of TGC on their IG at @thegreenerycreamery
Who are you and what do you do?
B: I'm Bob, my name is Bob Grant. I'm the owner of Elevate Yoga center, which is quite literally right across the street from here.
N: I’m Nikki. I'm a teacher at Elevate. I started as a student in 2015, right when the studio opened and then I was blessed with a teaching opportunity at the end of 2015.
So what type of yoga do you all teach?
N: I personally teach Yin Yoga primarily and I teach some Aerial Yoga, but my style is on the Zen side. Very yin, very calm, mellow, because my intention when I'm teaching is to bring people to a place of peace.
B: Well, we're a pretty diverse studio. We're actually just in the midst of doing a rebranding at our studio as well. So we're focusing on all the elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space. When we first opened our logo was actually earth and air because we're an aerial yoga studio, which isn't as common in Orlando. Or in the yoga community.
What is aerial yoga? Can you explain that?
B: Yeah. It's like an arial hammock that hangs down and we really kind of use it as a prop for a yoga class. Like how someone would use a block or a bolster or a blanket in a yoga class, we use the aerial silk hammock as a prop. And it's just really fun. People can really get into their childhood self and bring up the inner child when they're practicing yoga.
We do both earth yoga, (like mat yoga) and aerial yoga. Yoga encompasses all of the elements and the elements are surrounded by us. They are within us. So we really started capturing this whole idea of “Let's just bring in all the elements, not just earth and air.” That's the direction we're going.
N: And we're very big into unconditional acceptance; come as you are. We want space for whatever condition anybody arrives in on any given day.
How long have you guys been eating at Hungry Pants?
N: Since they opened. And then when we do our yoga training weekends, we get very lucky because we're here all weekend, which means we get to have a brunch here.
What is your favorite dish here at hungry pants?
N: I love them all, but I'm pretty partial to the Tiki salad. Right now it is on the top of my list.
I usually also get the veggie burger a top a bed of greens and avocado and extra Chipotle. That's my Nikki order.
And then some days I'm just a nosh girl. I'll get a selection of different noshes.
Noshes are the sides. Do you have a favorite side?
N: The citrus beets are my fave. Followed very closely by the Brussel sprouts. The beets taste like earth and I love things that taste like earth and dirt and nature. It’s just very wholesome. Whatever I eat here i leave just saying that it has filled my belly and my soul.
B: I like all kinds of dishes. My favorite dish was actually the turmeric noodles. It's no longer on the menu. I'm one of those odd kind of people that like stuff that I guess other people just didn't like, but the sauce is still sold here!
I pretty much like any of the noodle dishes. I like the nosh. I like being able to mix and match things, you know? I love the weekend brunch menu. I like vegan and vegetarian, I kind of go back and forth and also like gluten free. That's one of the best things about Hungry Pants for me. I can usually satisfy myself with any of those…
Who are you and what do you do?
I am Kaila Peterson and I am an entrepreneur. I own my own business doing hair, and I also do apothecary and herbalism.
What is your favorite of those?
I definitely love the natural side of my entrepreneurship, the herbalism field. I really do love hair. It's natural as well. I do natural hair. They intertwine kind of, so I don't really know which one{is my favorite].
Can you tell me more about what you specialize in with hair?
I do locking of the hair in all forms through all races. We are just pro letting your hair be free. Anything lock wise, I can tell you about it.
You have a partner here with you as well. Who are you?
I'm Tracy Simpson and I'm a music producer, amongst many things, and a model. But most importantly, I'm a fiance to this beautiful girl right here. We met in high school; Boone High School. Not too far from here. She was my first everything, man.
How long have you guys been together now?
T: 10 Years!
What is your guys' favorite meal at Hungry Pants?
T: Wow. Waffles.
K: It’s the chia egg for me, it's just so fluffy yet crispy on the outside. Its so good and their maple syrup is perfectly sweet yet Mapley! I'm sorry, but um, yeah, I can definitely do the waffles.
I love the burger. The burger is the best veggie burger I've ever had. I honestly left a review about it because I can taste the lavender in the burger. I could just go on and on about that burger.
T: Those waffles are the most fluffy, but crispy waffles I’ve ever had, man. And those Brussels sprouts. The Brussel sprouts. Oh my gosh. I love when the Brussels sprouts are cooked and they have the top layers kind of crisping off. Every time I get it from you guys it’s doing that. Its A-1!
K: Everything! You guys are easily one of my favorite restaurants in Orlando. Almost anything you try can become a favorite because it's so good.
Do you have a favorite memory here?
T: I think the first time I remember, she didn’t tell me where we were going.
K: Yeah. That's exactly what it was. The first time we came, neither one of us had been here. I was surprising him with a date. So I was just taken back by how good the food was. I was like, this could have went left. You know, usually whenever we go out, especially being vegan, there's a couple of things that are good, but most of the time it's like, okay.
So the fact that their vegan options were bomb, I was like; ‘this is the place’. And everything was so fresh. And then the personalities of the people that work here are so authentic. They don't hold back [when] we interact.
It's definitely like home here. You know, I can feel the family orientation and it's very welcoming from [even] our first time. So I think that for me, other than the food, what really sold it was; I love the people here.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Sherry Glamor, and I just retired from a 40 year long career as a dance instructor. And I am currently an artist and an author.
What kind of art are you making now?
I do mosaic art.
Can you explain mosaic art?
You take all kinds of pieces of things and you assemble them in a new way to make it something different than [what] it started out to be.
And you said you're a writer?
I am currently writing a memoir. I've just finished it actually. It's in the formatting stage now.
Tell me a little bit about your memoir.
[It’s] my first 24 years of life and how I managed to survive them. It is a memoir of survival.
When is it coming out?
June!
How did you find out about hungry pants?
Recently I went through a breast cancer diagnosis and while I was healing from surgery, one of my very good friends brought me dinner one night and it was Hungry Pants.
They had just opened. They'd been open two days.
Do you remember what the meal was?
It was the Coconut Curry bowl with chicken. It was delicious. It was the best thing I'd had in months.
Can you tell me what it tasted like? What do you remember?
It had black rice and coconut curry sauce and beautiful chicken! And it tasted like heaven at the time. Seriously. It was delightful. I had just had the surgery, so I hadn't had any of the treatments yet. I was hungry. It was delicious.
Is diet still a big thing for you since your cancer?
I don't eat anything thats not natural. I eat vegetables and protein and I don’t eat bread or processed foods. So this was delightful when I found [Hungry Pants] because it was like, ‘Oh, I can eat here.’ And I don't have to say, ‘Can you please not put this or that on there?’
And when I have the salmon wrap, they're very good about taking off the tortilla and [instead] they wrap it in Collard Greens.
Do you have a favorite meal from here currently?
I love the Mezzi Plate. It has everything I can eat. Usually I don't eat pita, but if I save up for a little while, I can eat it when I come here and it just makes me happy.
It's a little bit of sweet and a little bit of tart and a little bit of spice. It's a complete satiation.
So who are you, and what do you do?
My name is Dorsa. I work at Whippoorwill Beer House and I'm a roller skater in Orlando.
You have a company called “WOW Rolling”, right?
I run a rollerskating hub in Orlando called Wow rolling. It stands for ‘Wonder on Wheels. And I host meetups. I try and offer lessons and I skate wherever I possibly can.
One of the services that you offer is building roller skates. Can you tell us about that?
I love making custom skates. I love taking a pair of shoes and transforming them into something functional beyond your wildest dreams. I take sneakers, make them sturdy, add wheels, and get you rolling! You can make skates out of literally any pair of shoes.
How did you find out about Hungry Pants?
So many wonderful friends of mine got hired here when Hungry Pants first opened.
So I obviously had to come and show my support and after my first visit, I realized I'm obsessed. And so now I get it for my work dinners. I come by anytime to grab some of my favorite foods. [It’s] always one of my spots.
Do you have a favorite experience here that you can recall?
Well, Nat who works here always gives me the cutest little drawings on my food. So even when I order from Uber eats, I still get a cute drawing somehow. It’s so nice how she tends to find my orders and leave me little love notes. That always makes me really happy.
Is there anything within the space that sticks out to you that you love about the Hungry Pants location?
Well, besides everything, Sean's[from Secret Society Goods] mural is so beautiful, but even the little details, like the bright blue flowerpots at the front. That always catches my eyes when I come in and the little terrazzo details, the pink floor; everything is so well thought out and works so well together.
And it just makes me really happy. Happy to be [here].
What's your favorite meal?
The coconut curry bowl. It is so delicious. It always makes me feel perfectly full. Not groggy, but just like, ‘Wow, I am so satisfied’ and its got the squash and little cherry tomatoes that pop in your mouth and they're delicious. And the forbidden rice! So good. I actually tried to recreate this at home and failed miserably and I think I ordered it that night cause I was like ‘Oh, I'm missing something.’ But yeah, it's so delicious. It always makes me feel like I'm grubbing on something really good for me.
What do you have coming up that you can tell people about as far as events for skating? Is there anything on the calendar?
Nothing's set in stone just yet, but there is a cool skate event happening in the Summer.
I don't know how many details I can actually share, but it's going to be coming up soon. Other than that, the best way to keep up with me is on Instagram. I try to post about weekly meetups and I try to host something monthly.
Who are you and what do you do?
I'm Sean Walsh and I'm a freelance graphic designer.
You own a business called Secret Society Goods. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, so I'll keep it short. Awhile back, I was working in a corporate job and I needed to do something to make myself happy.
So I started designing little products for myself; little pins and patches and bandanas and stuff like that, and decided to call it Secret Society Goods. Cause I've always kinda liked the occult and the symbolism that's associated with it. But I also think it's interesting when people invest a lot of emotion into symbols.
So I thought it would be fun to kind of play with that and subvert it through using my own sense of humor and my art. And that's kind of how it happened. And it has stuck around a shockingly long time.
How long has it been?
I started in 2015 and to my knowledge, right now it is 2021.
You have a very special relationship with Hungry Pants. Can you tell us about your contribution to the restaurant and what you've done here?
So, Hungry Pants is actually my second project I've ever worked on with Joey and Alex (the owners of HP). They were my first ever freelance clients after graduating from UCF. I did some work for their ‘Yum Yum Cupcake’ truck brand, which was already established, but they entrusted me to create some new stuff for them.
But then the cupcake truck, sadly departed as we knew it. And Joey and Alex moved away [and then] came back. They came to me with an idea, that idea became hungry pants. And so I got to basically help create the branding that helped launch the restaurant. So logo, color, palette, illustrations, stuff like that. The mural that's in the dining room. Lots of fun stuff.
Where did you get the influence for most of the creative direction for what you were drawing?
Honestly, a lot of it came from Joey. I feel like the bones of Hungry Pants, you can kind of see in ‘Yum Yum’ as well.
Although Hungry Pants I think is updated for a sort of modern, almost west coast vibe with the way the dining room is styled. And so it's really just a distillation of certain things we like about mid-century aesthetics, but updating them for today and combining that with a menu that literally anybody can eat off of.
What is your favorite part of the restaurant that you designed?
Oh gosh, well, it's crazy when I look back at. I remember bits and pieces of it. But then when I go back and I look at it together, like even when I'm driving down Orange to come to the restaurant and I see the sign, I'm like, ‘Oh yeah, I designed that logo.’ And I have to re remember it.
I have to say, I think that the mural was my favorite thing to actively work on just because I was onsite and it was pre-opening. I feel like I'm a very social worker [and] the energy of the people around me can really boost my excitement level and creative flow. It felt like I was like part of a team when normally I'm working independently. And that was probably my favorite. And it was also the culmination of a lot of what we had worked on before with the illustrations of the food and the color palette and how we can apply that physically into a space.
Do you have a favorite food here at Hungry Pants?
I think the CLT is definitely my go-to. The Curry Lime Tempeh. It's tangy, it's got some curry flavor, which I feel like doesn't really pop up enough outside of Indian food as a seasoning or a flavor. The lime has a tanginess to it. It's like a refreshing sandwich, or as close to one, as you can get. And I've actually tried with my husband to replicate it at home using the dressing they sell here. We have to cheat a little, but, yeah, it's definitely my favorite.
What do you have coming up next with your design work at Secret Society Goods? Anything cool that you want to share with people?
Yeah. Aside from some freelance projects here and there, I recently acquired a Riso printer.
And so now I can offer printing services, not only to my clients, but also to other local artists in Orlando and beyond. So that's definitely a learning journey for me but it feels good to have a new thing in my life that I get to learn about and fail at a little bit, [but] hopefully not too much.
And then get better at it and offer that to people and see where it takes me.
So what can you print exactly?
It prints anything from newsprint up to 80 or a hundred pound card stock. So really your imagination is the limit. And there's multiple colors that we can choose from. They're all very vibrant and vivid, and it's basically a much more cost-effective alternative to screen printing. I can do business cards, postcards, zines, menus, and labels. The applications are pretty endless.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name's Donnie McCammon and I work in international trade and relations and on the side I’m an amateur triathlete. So my real passion is exercise and working out and helping other people. And I travel all over the world in my free time when there's not a pandemic and love to do races and events.
What is a triathlete?
So triathlete is a crazy person that instead of just doing one sport, we do three. We do swimming, biking, and running, and you have to kind of master all three of those in order to be competitive. We have competitions throughout the world. I'll be going to the world championships later in the year in Utah. Last year, it was in France. And I’ve had a lot of really good opportunities to go to some fun places.
And how far do you go in each triathlon?
So for an Ironman, you go 2.4 miles in the swim, 112 miles on the bike, and 26.2 miles on the run.
And how many of these have you done?
I’ve done two of the fulls and eight of the half distance. So there's also a 70.3 distance, which is a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run.
What's your favorite and least favorite part of these races?
I always say it's amazing that we pay money to put ourselves in this much pain.
It's cool. And it's exciting, but it's the end point I really love too. I like the outcome that it produces. And there was a phase of my life where I was pretty unhealthy, eating wise. I was an athlete in high school and college. And then I just totally let myself go. I gained about 45 pounds. So doing the sport has allowed me to get back into shape and to kind of change my whole life.
How did you find out about Hungry Pants and start becoming a regular here?
I found out about it from my sister, Ashley, who's a regular. This was before I decided to try out the whole vegan lifestyle. She told me about this place and that there were these two awesome owners and she was really feeling the vibe and the food. And so she brought me along and I think I was pretty much hooked.
What is favorite food at hungry pants?
So my all-time favorite thing is the waffle. I could eat that once a day, for the rest of my life. I really like it. And I also like the cauliflower tots and I don't think I've really ever had a bad meal. I loved the desserts. We even were able to do an order at Thanksgiving where we got a whole bunch of pies and different prepared foods. And that was awesome because it also created a lot less stress for my parents.
Is there an overlap between the health conscious food that Hungry Pants serves and your lifestyle of being an athlete?
Yeah. So since I started getting back into fitness, I started to to eat a healthier way. I struggled when I was eating meat and everything. I would always just feel a little blah. And so when I started to come here, I was actually still eating meat and I think it was my sister that kind of showed myself and my partner Mark that you could get a lot of vegetarian options. And people started to tell me all about different allergies they had and I always just let it go in one ear and out the other. But then when I started to see all the options and try the different food here, then I started to kind of read more and watched a couple movies. And there’s a whole bunch of athletes and football players that had been able to eat a plant-based diet and just excel, like more than they ever have before.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Laura Abila. I work in the service industry. I have been in the industry for over 10 years and I love serving people.
What bars do you work at?
I work at Digress Wine and also The Guesthouse.
What would you say that you specialize in as a bartender?
Getting people drunk! (Laughs hysterically)
Do you have a favorite type of liquor or wine that you like to get people drunk off of?
Liquor? Tequila is my favorite. I believe it's very much an upper for people rather than a downer. For wines, it really just depends on what season it is, because if it's more of a hotter season, then I would go for more white wines. And if it's a colder season, I would go for red wines.
So on the topic of beverages, Hungry Pants has some lovely ones. Whats your favorite beverage here?
Well, my favorite is the Bloody Mary. I think it's a great idea to have Saki as the base spirit in there. The Bloody Mary mix is vegan. One of the reasons why I come in here is because it's the only place where I can actually have a Bloody Mary and not be freaked out about the ingredients that are put in it.
Are Bloody Mary’s normally not Vegan?
No, because of the Worcester sauce that goes inside of the Bloody Mary. If it's handmade, then people can leave out the sauce. But I think it's an ingredient that is usually in pre-made Bloody Mary’s.
Can you describe to me the experience of drinking a Bloody Mary?
So drinking the Bloody Mary, it's going to be savory [with] the tomato juice, and [with] the Saki being in there, [it has] almost has a kind of sweet taste to it. So I want to say it's a little sweet, savory and, very refreshing. It's not overwhelmingly spicy and it is like a perfect balance. So I always get it every time I come in.
Can you tell me about your food journey? How did you become vegan and how long have you been doing that?
I first started as a vegetarian when I was 15. My best friend and I had seen some documentaries about how the animals were being treated and we decided to give up meat at that time and it kind of just stuck with me.
And then [in my early 20’s] I was on and off again. [I was] trying to figure out the best way to be healthy; like the perfect balance of vitamins I need to be taking, how I need to be eating, and figuring out my diet. Now I'm 31 [and] have got a pretty good rhythm.
How did you start eating at Hungry Pants?
My fiance noticed it first and was like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to check out this spot on Orange that opened up that has a lot of vegetarian/ vegan options.’ He's not vegan, but he always eats what I eat and what I cook. He's very supportive of me.
What is your favorite meal at Hungry Pants?
I have two favorite dishes. I really love the kale salad. I love the dressing. It’s very fresh, clean, and it's light, but yet filling at the same time. But if I'm really hungry, I'll get the noodle dish. It's like a cold, brown rice noodle with Sesame seed dressing or Sesame oil that they put on it. And a little bit of salt with the Shittaki mushroom crisps, and then some light green onions. It’s so good.