From Grilled Cheese to Guy Fieri: A chat with MacKenzie Smith

Cheese makes the world go ‘round here in the Dairy State. But it was also the foundation on which MacKenzie Smith, author at Grilled Cheese Social and chef for the Black Dolphin Inn in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, built her storied career in food.


On this week’s podcast, we sat down with Smith to learn more about her journey from food blogger to Food Network chef. During our chat, she talks about the early years of Grilled Cheese Social, a blog she started while in graduate school, the Reddit thread that brought her notoriety and the mad sequence of events that led to her work as a chef. Along the way, she shares a variety of wild and wonderful tales from her experiences food styling for Jimmy Fallonand Giselle Bündchen to earning props as a two time winner on The Food Network’s “Guy’s Grocery Games.