I’ve been writing about Disney — and specifically FOOD at Disney — for 15 years now!

A classic!

It’s been quite awhile since I started holding up my treats in front of Cinderella Castle and sharing them with the world (and believe me, I got SO MANY weird looks when I started). Over the years, I’ve spent THOUSANDS of dollars trying every restaurant and every new menu item in Disney World — and now we have a whole team reporting 365 days a year (yes, we’re even working on the holidays), and millions of followers! I’m taking a minute today to look back, and I need to tell you that it all started with a not-so-great (at least it SEEMED not so great at the time) day…

What do you do when there’s a nearly 3-month gap between the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival and the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival? You throw yourself a big old DFB Mega Fest! We’ve got loads of giveaways, behind the scenes content, and untold crazy stories from AJ Wolfe and the DFB team. Come celebrate DFB Mega Fest with us!

When I started DFB, I was working as a grantmaker in a small foundation. And, well, I  got “downsized”. I sat in my car and sobbed (I’d never been fired before…turns out there are lots of reasons that people get let go, and it’s not always because they’re necessarily bad at their jobs). But when I called my husband to tell him the news, he was ecstatic (???!). DFB had been gaining ground, and as an entrepreneur at heart, he was excited to see what could happen if I focused more of my time on it.

Mickey 50th Anniversary Popcorn Bucket

DFB began because it was a website I wanted to read, myself. At the time, in 2009, I was deeply embedded in Disney message boards and info sites. But there was nothing that focused on food. There was nothing that was visually represented — with big pictures and a focus on showing people what they would get when they ordered certain items in the restaurants.

Bread Service at Sanaa

Even Disney didn’t publish pictures of their food back then! And they also didn’t have menus on their website. It’s hard to imagine that today, but it was HARD to find information about what to expect when you made reservations for Disney’s restaurants!

So, knowing that I always planned my trips around where I was going to eat — that I spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on food in Disney World and I wanted it to be GOOD — I figured there were others out there like me…even if it’s not something people really talked about. (There was almost a stigma attached to talking about liking the restaurants in the parks and resorts back then. It was weird.)

Martini Flight at Hollywood Brown Derby

I started to plan three and four night trips just focused on going to as many restaurants as possible. Sometimes I would visit five or six restaurants in one day, plus snacks, so that I could share pictures and show people as much as possible. I wanted everyone to be able to make good decisions for them and their families when they were booking those restaurants (at the time 180 days in advance!!!). I’m a completionist, so my goal was to get to every single restaurant — to help people by showing as many dishes as possible.

Butterfinger Cupcakes from (the now closed) Starring Rolls Cafe

So my giant DSLR and I would trudge into restaurant after restaurant, begging for a table with good lighting at each one, and ordering as much as my budget and stomach would allow. I got VERY weird looks — remember, nobody talked about food in Disney World and DEFINITELY nobody was taking PICTURES of their food there.

Breakfast Totchos in Animal Kingdom

As luck would have it, social media started to take off, and smartphones became the norm. So while DFB was getting popular — it very slowly stopped being weird that I was talking about food and taking pictures of everything I ate. When Instagram began, visual content became the future of the internet. Suddenly our HUGE pictures on the blog were setting the standard, and our food photography was inadvertantly training legions of future influencers.

Wookiee Cookie

When I first held up a food item to take a picture (a slushy at the Little Woody’s Snack Stand — which is where Neighborhood Bakery is now in Hollywood Studios), I’d never seen it be done before.

Frozen Mint Julep Lemonade from Casey’s Corner

When the EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival rolled around, I knew I had to cover it in full — buying and trying EVERYTHING on every single menu. It was critically important to me to make sure I didn’t leave anything to chance. I didn’t want any of my readers or followers to be in the dark about the items that were available.

Pickle Milkshake at the 2023 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival

And even though I was not culinarily trained, I could at least show people pictures of what they would get and let them know what I thought of it — since I was a huge Disney and food fan just like my readers were. While this was exhausting to do on my own — so much so that I’m pretty sure I started hallucinating by the end of the day — I knew there were plenty of people out there who would count on it. So after the first day of the festival, I headed over to Jellyrolls to listen to live music (because I would have fallen asleep if I went back to my hotel room), edit photos, and get everything up on the site.

2021 Food and Wine Boston Cream Pie Donut

This became my MO for festivals for years — and for restaurant openings, events, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.

Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party

Eventually, the blog was doing well enough that I could hire helpers. At first, I hired one writer and one in-park reporter to supplement what I was already doing. This was HUGE, and we suddenly were able to do a lot more. Plus, I was able to sleep sometimes. As the years went on, we brought on more team members, launched our YouTube channel and other platforms, gained millions and millions of followers, and the rest is history.

Kakigori in EPCOT

I have — OF COURSE — made mistakes and learned SO MANY lessons along the way. But there are two things I’ve learned that continue to be the central values of DFB — and the keys to our success. If you’re starting anything, these two items are my absolute best advice!

First, always (we don’t like to use too may absolutes like “always” or “never” in our writing, but here I really do mean ALWAYS) add value. Always add value. If you’re not solving a problem for someone, or making their life better, then re-think what you’re doing. Whatever we’re writing at DFB — be it a script for YouTube, an Instagram caption, or a blog post — the writer is expected to go back through the content after they’ve finished and look for additional places to add an extra tip, or extra background, or a link to something else that’s informative to help our audience.

Pineapple Glazed Pork Belly at Nomad Lounge

And finally, don’t skimp on quality. Great content will always find its way to the top of the pile. Phoning it in is NOT an option when you’re building a brand amidst fierce competition. So be ready for a long, hard slog…and know that it will be worth it!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for following us here at Disney Food Blog. I — and my team — would absolutely not be doing this without you! Whether you follow us here on the blog, on YouTube, on social media, or on new platforms we haven’t even dreamed up yet (so MUCH about content creation has changed in the past 15 years and continues to!), we LOVE to hear from you, we appreciate you, and we’ll keep working hard (and losing sleep when we have to!) to help you and your family plan the BEST Disney World vacations by adding value and creating great content every single day.

The post I Was Fired From My Job 15 Years Ago and Started a Blog. Here’s What Happened Next. first appeared on the disney food blog.