Kevin Tierney
Kevin Tierney reports on local dining and food businesses as part of a wider hyperlocal news mission at More Than The Curve, where he is also the founder and publisher.
He is the founder and president of Burb Media and created More Than The Curve in 2009, later building it into a local news operation that covers communities including Conshohocken, Lafayette Hill, Plymouth Meeting, and West Conshohocken. He serves as president, publisher, and editor of the masthead, giving him a direct hand in both the business and editorial direction of its coverage. His food reporting sits at the intersection of restaurant news and community life, emphasizing openings, reopenings, and dining events that bring residents into local establishments rather than traditional critic-style reviews.
Restaurant reopenings and local food recovery
A recurring thread in Tierney’s food coverage is the way restaurants recover from disruption and rejoin the local dining scene. His story on Trattoria Totaro, for example, focuses on the restaurant’s reopening after a late March fire that damaged the Italian BYOB’s kitchen and forced a temporary closure. The coverage highlights clear, practical details: that the restaurant had been closed due to the fire and that it was once again welcoming guests, giving readers a direct update on when a familiar neighborhood spot was back in business.
By centering the reopening rather than only the incident, he frames the restaurant as a long-standing part of the community working its way back after a setback. This approach positions his food reporting as a kind of recovery bulletin for local diners and operators, documenting how individual businesses navigate closures, repairs, and the return to normal service.
Dining events and promotional coverage
Tierney extends his food focus beyond news stories into organizing and promoting dining experiences that feature local restaurants.
Through Burb Media and More Than The Curve, he organizes Conshohocken Restaurant Week and the Conshohocken Beer Festival, both of which showcase area eateries and beverage producers to residents. His role in these events is hands-on, tying his editorial coverage to programming that drives foot traffic and attention to small, independent venues.
He also introduces and promotes EatDrinkMontco.com as a dedicated news channel for local dining, signaling a structured effort to treat food as its own coverage area within his broader media portfolio. Across these initiatives, Tierney uses both reporting and event organization to elevate restaurants, bars, and breweries, giving his food beat a practical and promotional dimension that goes beyond listing openings or publishing occasional reviews.
Hyperlocal business and community stories connected to food
Tierney’s food reporting fits into a larger pattern of hyperlocal business and community coverage at More Than The Curve. He covers openings of everyday destinations such as the Royal Farms convenience store on Ridge Pike in Plymouth Township, documenting new retail and food options as they arrive in the area.
His work also includes stories on institutions such as Suburban Community Hospital and its COVID-19 vaccine efforts, showing an interest in how health and public services intersect with daily life for local readers.
Because he oversees a masthead that focuses on a defined set of communities, his food stories rarely stand alone; they are part of a continuous stream of local updates on businesses, services, and events that shape where and how residents eat, shop, and gather. The combination of publisher responsibilities, event organization, and restaurant-centric reporting gives his coverage a distinctive role: he is both a source of news about local food and a participant in the ecosystem that helps those businesses connect with their customers.
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.