Most restaurant owners had nothing to do during the worst of the pandemic last year except wait it out.
Not JJ Paredes, owner of JJ’s Fusion Grille. He decided to close down two of his three stores and concentrate on the original one on Orland’s southeast side at 2950 Curry Ford Road.
“Fusion,” in the original name, Paredes said, meant a fusion of Mexican and Middle Eastern. But Paredes is Venezuelan and he wanted to broaden his menu to include more Latin dishes and less straight-up Mexican fare.
Paredes said he sought to bring together two worlds, Latin cuisine and Middle Eastern cuisine, so that his guests could experience countless delicious flavor combinations.
Enter his mother, Olivia Lozada, to serve pure genius in the kitchen.
“Where JJ has a passion for good eats, Olivia has a passion for healthy cooking,” the restaurant’s website says. “And, with her passion came the fresh top-quality ingredients that make JJ’s Fresh taste just like a home-cooked meal.”
A new name. New dishes. And now, a new look. Paredes said he took out the old dark reds and dark oranges in the dining room — “they were warm but not bright, he said” — and replaced them with white and grays and light greens. Added some plants. Ahh, fresh.
The vibe is now “very chill and a lot more hip,” Paredes said. He wanted it to reflect a Miami vibe, a city he loves and plans to live in — part-time anyway.
And, voila, sales are up 20 percent, he said. Among the favorite dishes at JJ’s Fresh from Scratch kitchen are bowls — choose a bowl, choose a protein and choose toppings — and arepas, which are kind of like Venezuelan pitas only the shell is a corn “pancake,” made of ground maize.
