Ella Gonzales
Ella Gonzales focuses on helping readers decide where to eat and how to stretch their dining budget, blending restaurant coverage with highly practical service guides. She is a service journalism reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, working on a team that answers reader questions and produces popular explainers and local guides.
Fort Worth On a Budget
Her signature work is the recurring Fort Worth On a Budget column, where she tests how far a set dollar amount can go at local restaurants and cafes. The column is explicitly framed around “budget reconnaissance,” with Gonzales writing once a month about the deals she finds and how readers can replicate them.
Pieces in this series show her on the ground with a specific spending limit, such as hunting for Christmas tamales at H‑E‑B for under $20 or mapping out what to order at Ascension Coffee on a budget of $25 or less.
The column spans a range of venues, from barbecue spots to long‑standing cafes, but the constant is value for money and clear, actionable detail. In one installment, she visits Woody Creek Bar‑B‑Q and documents everything she is able to eat within a $25 cap, turning the outing into a step‑by‑step guide for readers. Another entry highlights a longtime cafe with prices comparable to fast food but with fresh food, underscoring her interest in places that feel like an upgrade without costing more. Across these stories, Gonzales foregrounds specific prices, portion sizes, and ordering strategies, positioning the column as a practical tool for everyday diners rather than a luxury food review.
Restaurant roundups and reader-driven guides
Beyond the monthly budget column, Gonzales writes broader restaurant roundups that track openings, standout dishes, and changing options in the local dining scene. In a January 2026 piece on restaurants, she organizes the month’s “best bites” and notable openings, extending her service focus from single venues to the wider list of places readers might want to try.
Her coverage also includes targeted guides built around specific cuisines, such as a story on where to get great Mexican food in the city according to locals, which leans on community recommendations rather than just her own taste.
She uses that same community‑oriented approach in coverage of Italian food, where she shares recommendations for the best Italian restaurants based on what locals say and what she finds on the ground. These guides are framed as direct answers to common reader questions - where to go, what to expect, and how to get good value - reflecting the mandate of her service journalism role. Headlines and social posts around her work consistently emphasize “where to get” specific foods, the “best bites” in a given period, and recognizable decision points like openings and new menus, signaling that her beat is less about criticism and more about helping readers choose.
Food events and accessible dining experiences
Gonzales also reports from food events and spotlights individual restaurants in formats designed to be quick and accessible. At the Fort Worth Food and Wine Festival, she sampled 22 different bites and distilled them into a list of her top five, turning a sprawling event into a manageable set of recommendations. In digital video, she takes viewers inside a Szechuan Chinese restaurant to show how to get a cheap lunch or dinner for under $20, walking through the menu and the ordering choices that keep the bill down.
These pieces extend her budget‑minded service work into the realm of food culture and events, but they retain the same practical tone: concrete prices, specific dishes, and clear suggestions on what to try. By pairing festival coverage with everyday restaurant visits, she presents the local food scene as something readers can participate in regularly, not just on special occasions. Her emphasis on diverse cuisines - from Szechuan to tamales to barbecue - shows a willingness to cover both familiar comfort food and less mainstream options, so long as they are accessible in price and easy to navigate.
Service journalism beyond dining
While food is a major focus, Gonzales’ role sits firmly within service journalism, and she applies the same reader‑first mindset beyond restaurant coverage. Her profile notes that she is part of a local service team that answers reader questions and writes explainers, indicating that her work is designed to respond directly to what audiences want to know.
On social platforms, she invites people to send in “feel good deeds” happening in the community so she can highlight them, blending practical information with uplifting local stories.
Her portfolio and external reporting bios describe a broader range of topics, including education, business, and food reviews, suggesting that she brings the same explanatory, accessible style to non‑food beats when needed.
Even when she moves outside restaurants, the pattern remains: specific questions, concrete examples, and stories grounded in what ordinary people are doing and experiencing. Taken together, her Star-Telegram work and collaborations with other journalism organizations show a reporter whose distinguishing trait is consistent, detail‑rich service coverage that starts from reader needs and works outward.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.