Jennie Geisler
Jennie Geisler uses food coverage as a way to connect everyday eating with oversight, culture and change in the local dining scene. Her work at the Erie Times-News combines upbeat guides to restaurants, markets and festivals with regular, detailed reporting on restaurant inspections and consumer food safety issues, giving readers both inspiration and accountability around where they eat. As a long‑tenured staff and features writer, she focuses largely on food but also touches entertainment, arts, community events and consumer topics when they intersect with what people are eating and drinking. She extends this focus through a weekly food newsletter, Erielicious, which reinforces her role as a consistent point of reference on dining and food news for the outlet.
Restaurant inspections and food safety
A defining strand of Geisler’s coverage is her recurring reports on restaurant and food‑retail inspections, which track violations and corrective actions across a wide range of establishments. In pieces detailing inspection results over specific periods, she lays out critical and noncritical violations, naming facilities from fast‑food chains and grocery stores to hotels and community organizations, along with the dates and nature of each issue.
These stories explain problems such as inadequate hot water at sinks, expired food safety certifications, milk past its sell‑by date, and improperly sanitized dishware in plain, technical language drawn directly from health department findings. The format is straightforward and list‑driven, emphasizing accuracy and completeness over narrative, and making it easy to see patterns in food safety performance across the area.
Her inspection coverage appears regularly, signaling an ongoing commitment to consumer protection and transparency in the local food system.
Dining coverage and local food businesses
Alongside inspections, Geisler invests heavily in the day‑to‑day story of local restaurants, cafes and food producers. She profiles new and distinctive concepts such as Kansai Noodle, a restaurant framed around Japanese anime and culture, detailing operating hours and the cultural influences that shape its menu. She reports on closures and pivots, including a bubble tea shop whose physical location has closed while fans can still access its products in other ways, focusing on what changes mean for loyal customers. Her coverage of an established brewery’s 15‑year milestone highlights operational improvements, a new chef and menu updates, showing how long‑running businesses evolve rather than simply celebrating an anniversary. In her interview with the president of Smith’s, she uses a local hot dog brand to explore why certain products become enduring favorites, bringing a business leader’s perspective into a story about everyday food.
Geisler also produces service‑oriented roundups designed to help readers plan meals out. A guide to weekend brunch options lists specific restaurants, times and menu highlights, positioning mid‑day meals as “weekly feasts” and emphasizing variety in style and atmosphere.
Coverage of new food stands, such as Waldameer Park’s Galloping Tacos, introduces novel offerings in familiar venues and situates them within broader changes to on‑site dining. Across these pieces she keeps the prose pragmatic and concrete, focusing on what is available, when, and how it fits into the wider dining landscape.
Her background in page design and copy editing is reflected in the structured, list‑heavy presentation of details, which favors clarity and quick use over embellishment.
Food festivals, events and trucks
Geisler regularly covers food‑driven events, documenting how festivals and gatherings turn dining into shared experiences.
Her reporting on the Wild Rib Cook‑Off and Music Festival outlines the number of rib vendors, their touring circuit credentials and the mix of sweet, smoky and spicy offerings, while noting the schedule of awards and live music that frame the event. In a piece on CelebrateErie, she highlights the presence of 14 food trucks and restaurants, underlining the breadth of options available to festival‑goers and the central role of mobile vendors in the event’s identity. Her German Heritage Festival coverage focuses on specific foods to try - warm potato salad, sweet and savory strudels, bratwurst - linking menu items to cultural heritage and encouraging exploration through eating.
These event stories balance menus, logistics and atmosphere, but consistently keep food at the center of the narrative.
Ethnic markets and food culture
Another distinctive thread in Geisler’s work is her attention to ethnic markets and the food cultures of new Americans. In a photo‑driven feature on ethnic market tours, she documents a circuit of stores that specialize in Russian, Ukrainian, Middle Eastern and Muslim foods, showing shelves of candies, spices and halal products, and introducing readers to newer supermarkets alongside long‑standing shops.
The gallery format places her byline on images as well as text, underscoring her role in visual storytelling around food and ingredients.
She explains details such as the meaning of halal meat and how common products like marshmallows are adapted to meet religious dietary requirements, using small, specific examples to illustrate broader practices. This cultural coverage complements her profiles of restaurants influenced by international media and traditions, such as the anime‑inspired Kansai Noodle, showing how global culture enters the local food scene through both retail and dining.
Across inspections, guides, profiles, festivals and market tours, Geisler’s food reporting is tightly focused on what is available, how it is regulated and what cultural stories sit behind it. Her recurring Erielicious newsletter reinforces that focus, creating a regular rhythm of food‑first coverage for the Erie Times-News and positioning her as a central interpreter of the region’s evolving dining and food culture.
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.