Minnie Stephenson
Minnie Stephenson focuses on the point where everyday dining meets local business, using reader input, openings and closings, and health inspections to map the restaurant landscape in and around Tacoma for The News Tribune. Her coverage centers on helping people decide where to eat, what’s new, and how local establishments are performing, from red-point food scores to long-running storefronts. She regularly anchors The News Tribune’s TNT Diner franchise, turning simple questions like “best mac and cheese” or “favorite waffles” into structured guides built from reader responses. Alongside this service-first work, she tracks the momentum of small businesses with roundups on new cafes, pubs, and specialty markets, and reports on closures that matter to regular customers. Her earlier experience in radio and investigative journalism, including work on the Associated Press investigation “Lethal Restraint,” a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2025, underpins a disciplined, fact-forward style in her current beat.
Reader polls and ‘best of’ restaurant guides
Much of Stephenson’s food coverage is built around reader polls and follow-up guides that identify standout dishes and destinations in the Tacoma area. She has run voting rounds for specific items like pad thai, breakfast sandwiches, fried potatoes, cinnamon rolls, milkshakes, waffles, and burritos, inviting readers to nominate and rank their preferred spots. Headlines such as “Who makes the best pad thai in the Tacoma area?
Cast your vote,” “Whether it’s fries, jojos or tots, vote for the best fried potatoes in Tacoma,” and “What’s your favorite breakfast sandwich in Tacoma? Cast your vote” show how she frames these pieces as direct questions to the community.
She then returns with results stories, for example “We asked, you answered: Here are the top cinnamon rolls in Pierce County,” “Find the best mac and cheese in Tacoma at these 4 spots chosen by readers,” and “A guide to the best waffles in and around Tacoma, according to readers,” translating ballots into short lists and mini-profiles of the winning venues. Similar work appears in her guide to reader-favorite ice cream shops, where she distills submissions into a curated set of destinations while keeping the focus on what regular customers value.
Across these pieces, the distinguishing feature is the loop between audience participation and clear, accessible roundups that give readers a practical answer to the question of where to go next.
Openings, closings and small business coverage
Stephenson also tracks the movement of local food and retail businesses, covering new openings, expansions, and closures as a steady part of her beat.
She writes about new restaurants and cafes, such as a regional chain serving affordable sushi and Japanese fare coming to UW Tacoma, a new cafe offering coffee, breakfast, and ice cream in East Pierce County, and a local coffee stand opening a second café and drive-thru in the same area. Her work includes roundups like “New pub in Proctor, sushi at UW Tacoma, plus other Pierce Co. food and biz news,” as well as pieces on specialty outlets such as the Northwest Metaphysical Market debuting in downtown Tacoma. The confirmed dumpling spot at Tacoma Mall and a new Gig Harbor ice cream shop fit into this pattern of stories that flag fresh entries to the local food scene and explain what they offer.
She also reports on closures and long-term survival, including coverage of a Tacoma ice cream shop known for creative milkshakes and treats that has shut down, and a feature on the longest-lasting store in downtown Tacoma that explores why the business has endured. These stories give small businesses visibility at key moments - launch, expansion, and closure - while supplying readers with timely information about changes in their everyday options.
Food safety and inspection reports
Another recurring thread in Stephenson’s coverage is the translation of county food inspection data into plain-language reports that highlight restaurants receiving notable numbers of “red points” on their health scores. She has written multiple pieces structured around this format, including “Hot pot eatery gets 60 red points. Here are Pierce Co. food scores for Sept. 14,” “Tacoma BBQ joint gets 55 red points. Here are Pierce Co. food scores for Aug. 31,” and stories on Thai restaurants, sushi restaurants, ice cream chains, and cafes that have received 75 red points.
Each article groups several establishments into a single report, giving the primary headline slot to the restaurant with the most significant score while still listing others in the same cycle. By consistently pairing specific red-point figures with the business names and dates of inspection, she turns technical data into usable service journalism, allowing diners to understand recent issues without needing to parse raw records themselves.
This focus on health scores sits alongside her “best of” guides, offering both positive recommendations and cautionary information within the same beat.
Food-linked events and local experiences
Stephenson uses the food lens to cover events and experiences that pull people into shared spaces, from seasonal festivals to international sports gatherings.
Her guide on Oktoberfest celebrations in Pierce County combines references to polka, brats, and beer with practical information about where and how people can participate. In another piece, “Everything you need to know about the World Cup ‘fan zone’ in Tacoma,” she explains the features of a soccer viewing hub, including amenities and logistics, in a format that mirrors her restaurant and business service stories. These articles extend her beat beyond standalone restaurants to the broader social context in which food and drink are consumed, connecting dining choices to cultural and community events.
Taken together with her ongoing restaurant and business coverage, they show a reporter who treats food not only as a product but as part of how people gather, celebrate, and experience their city.
Across her work at The News Tribune, Stephenson maintains a consistent emphasis on clarity, actionable detail, and reader participation, whether she is tallying votes for the best mac and cheese or outlining the implications of a high red-point inspection score. Her background in radio and investigative reporting, including her time at WBZ NewsRadio and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism and her role in the Pulitzer-finalist investigation “Lethal Restraint,” gives her current service journalism a structured and disciplined feel, even as the subjects stay close to everyday dining and local business life.
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.