Dishing Up the Goods – Healthy Food Delivery

April 12, 2023May 1, 2023 Isabella Cascio

How an at-home cooking startup has grown into an online Gables food business

What are you going to make for dinner tonight? Well, the produce in your fridge is looking a bit limp, so you could order in. But is it really worth the delivery fees and the wait? You could go out, but then you have to get off the couch. So, frozen food it is! If only you could have a fresh, home-cooked meal without the effort.

Meet local entrepreneur Carolina Salazar, who wants to solve this daily dilemma with Dishigood, her new healthy food delivery service. Dishigood offers fresh homemade meals sold by the pound and delivered immediately after preparation. Each pound is enough for four servings, perfect for families or multiple meals.

Founder Carolina Salazar demonstrates how to plate three Dishigood meal options to create the perfect healthy plate.

The idea first came to Salazar when she moved to Coral Gables from Nicaragua four years ago. “When I moved here, I went out to eat and to the grocery store and I never felt like [the food] was actually fresh or healthy,” says the chef.

So, she started cooking. She took her culinary school background and experience opening a restaurant in Nicaragua with her mother and made it her goal to bring fresh, homemade meals to the people of Coral Gables.

WATCH: In the Kitchen — A Behind the Scenes Look at Dishigood

First, she sold via Instagram, posting menus, receiving orders from friends and family, and delivering the following day. Though the business was growing, it was still too small to support her, so she worked at local restaurants, including at Mamey with Chef Niven Patel and in the Grove at Tigertail + Mary under Chef Michael Schwartz. All the while, she continued cooking and delivering food from her home kitchen.

It wasn’t until COVID sunk in that Dishigood started to take off. With many restaurants closed, the demand for food delivery expanded rapidly, perfect for online businesses like Salazar’s.

In February 2022, the Dishigood website launched. It functioned similarly to its Instagram platform, but now the volume of orders was skyrocketing. By November of that year, Dishigood had become Salazar’s full-time job.

“People that I didn’t know [started] placing orders through the website. So that’s how it started growing — and it’s been growing by word of mouth since.”

Carolina Salazar Dishigood Founder

Two months ago, Salazar added a mobile app. It has already increased sales over 300 percent, according to Salazar, and she expects the growth to continue.

Dishigood is a healthy food delivery service offering fresh homemade meals sold by the pound and delivered immediately after preparation. Each pound is enough for four servings, perfect for families or multiple meals.

To keep up with demand, the chef now rents a kitchen space in the Gables. Her cooking and delivering days are Monday and Wednesday, and she works long hours to make sure the food is as fresh as it can be.

“I make my list of everything I have to cook,” Salazar explains, “and then I head over to BJ’s [and] Trader Joe’s, come back home, cook everything, and head out to deliver.”

The whole process takes more than nine hours to complete, but to Salazar, it’s worth it. Her next goal is to have an in-person store in the Gables, expanding on the pop-up tent she set up at this year’s farmer’s market in front of City Hall.

Currently, Dishigood delivers from Pinecrest to Edgewater with orders received online through their website or app. Checkout @dishigood on Instagram!