Meet Lisa Scalia of Melting Pot Food Tours

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Scalia.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lisa. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Melting Pot Food Tours was a mid-life career change for me. I had spent 20 years off and on working as a residential real estate appraiser and also as a relocation consultant. That experience garnered me a wealth of knowledge about neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles county. I woke up one morning and realized I would be working for at least the next 20 years, and then asked myself if I could keep doing the same thing I had been doing for the first 20 years of my work life. The resounding answer was ‘NO’!

It was at that point of realization that I began considering my two greatest passions in life – food and travel – and started formulating those passions into a business model. Local tours, walking tours focused on food, is what I came up with, and in late 2007 / early 2008, there were probably only a dozen such companies around the world that had a presence. So I thought to myself, why not Los Angeles?

Even though the rest of the country didn’t recognize, LA as a world-class food city at that time, I knew differently. Throughout my career as a real estate appraiser and relocation consultant, I was always in a different part of town, and I was always looking for a good quick bite to eat during my day. That’s when I really started to hone in on the extraordinary ‘mom and pop’, independently owned and operated cafes and restaurants that are found in every neighborhood in LA, primarily those serving ethnic dishes from their home country. It was this abundance of ‘local’ ‘authentic’ ‘hole in the wall’ eateries that I wanted to showcase to locals and visitors alike on tours.

I next recruited my sister, Diane Scalia, who is a chef, food writer, cookbook author, etc. to join me, as she had more professional “food” knowledge than I did. Together we started developing tours and launched our first tour in July 2008 at the Original Farmers Market, where artisan foods have been the norm continually since 1934. Next, we developed a tour in Old Pasadena at the request of the Pasadena Convention and Visitors Board. In 2012 we launched our first ethnic-focused tour in East LA/Boyle Heights to introduce people to an ethnically rich area of LA where many people never venture (truly ‘off the beaten path’).

In recent years we added a VIP experience at La Espanola Foods in Harbor City (first importer of Spanish goods in southern California).

We have partnered with Chef Jet Tila (Iron Chef alum, current judge on Cutthroat Kitchen) to lead a tour in Thai Town (east Hollywood), where Chef Jet grew up and is still the ‘unofficial’ mayor! And just this month we hosted our inaugural ethnic food tour in Little India aka Artesia, CA hosted by local chef and cookbook author, Farhana Sahibzada.

I still have countless tour ideas rattling around in my head, and I trust at least some of them will come to fruition in the years to come.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has mostly been a smooth road. We have shown steady growth over the years (most years), and we are proud to be a small business which has survived and thrived despite having begun just as the southern California economy tanked (in summer 2008). The biggest struggle has been to stand out as the small fish in a big pond with all the other tours and activities available in the Los Angeles area. Not having a huge marketing and advertising budget has put us at a disadvantage when compared to other tours and attractions in our market. Our tours also came online just as every facet of the tourism industry was being digitized, not having a specific background in technology and being a ‘digital immigrant’ as opposed to a ‘digital native’ has definitely posed some challenges along the way.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Melting Pot Food Tours story. Tell us more about the business.
Melting Pot Food Tours is committed to the highest level of quality and to exceptional customer service. We are as meticulously accurate in the information we share with our tour guests as we possibly can be. We treat our customers with respect, fairness and compassion. We return emails and phone calls promptly, we follow through, and we stand on our word. To us, there is no other way to conduct business, yet we are repeatedly commended for those qualities which presumably sets us apart from the others. Definitely something for which I am proud. We also believe in building strong relationships with our clients and partners which contributes to our ongoing success.

We are very proud of the abundance of repeat business we enjoy, the huge amount of referral business that comes our way, and our 5-star ratings on such sites as TripAdvisor and Yelp, which we have maintained for 9+ years. And we are especially proud to share the food and the stories of our food tour partners, and to promote their businesses, in an effort to maintain and preserve the culture and diversity of our local neighborhoods.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I would have to say that good luck for me began when I was born into a loving family with incredible parents and a lot of siblings. I believe the value system I was exposed to from childhood onward has served me well throughout my education, my relationships, my career and my life as a small business person. I am very close with my siblings who all participate in my mother’s care as she ages. We have learned this scenario, while it exists in other families, is highly unusual. I can only attribute this to strong enduring relationships built upon respect and shared values.

As for business, I am lucky to be blessed with people skills, an understanding of numbers and accounting, strong organizational skills and more. Being a small business person, you wear lots of hats – operations, accounting, human resources, sales and marketing, etc. To keep all the balls in the air continually I believe a little luck is thrown my way every now and again!

Pricing:

• Tour prices: Farmers Market Food & History Tour: Adults $59; Children 5-12 $45
• Old Pasadena Food Tour and East LA Latin Flavors Tour: Adults $75; Children 5-12 $50
• Chef Jet Tila’s Ultimate Flavors of Thai Town Tour – February 4, 2018 – $175 per person
• La Espanola VIP Tour with Paella Lunch: $50 per person

Contact Info:

• Website: www.meltingpottours.com
• Phone: 424-247-9666
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @meltingpotfoodtours
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/MeltingPotFoodTours
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/melting-pot-food-tours-los-angeles-5

Image Credit:
Melting Pot Food Tours
Zack Missioreck

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