Creative Cooking, Business Transformations, and Heartfelt Leadership with Serge and Mary Krikorian

Chef Serge Krikorian and his wife, Mary Krikorian, are the founders of Vibrant Occassions Catering, where they’ve served thousands of events and weddings. Serge Krikorian was born in Lebanon and moved to the United States with his family as an adult entering college. He and his wife Mary now hail from Benton, Arkansas. Krikorian is an alumnus of Henderson State University where he studied business earning his Bachelor’s Degree and met his wife, Mary. He earned his MBA from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. They founded Sergio’s Pizza before moving into catering, and also own Our Mobile Kitchen food truck. His southern hospitality paired with his penchant for developing unique international fusion-style recipes, especially sauces, has garnered his reputation as foodies' fan favorite in his community and now on the Youtube space for his cooking show, Cooking with the Kriks. They also host a cooking segment on Little Rock’s THV 11’s The Vine television show for the past several years making them local and beloved celebrity chefs.  In this episode, we discuss Serge and Mary’s journey from being one of the most successful independent pizza restaurants in the country to losing everything and finding catering, the tough lessons learned and how they had to reprioritize their family to get to their next stage, why they invest so heavily in their employees, the unique experiences they bring to their catering, how emotions play a role in catering, how Serge and Mary balance each other out being both work partners and husband and wife, how important mentors are, and more.    Follow Vibrant Occassions on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vibrantoccasionscatering/  Check out Vibrant Occassion’s website: https://vibrantoccasionscatering.com  Subscribe to Version 1's substack: version1podcast.substack.com/  Follow Version 1 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/version1podcast/ Support the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/waverlycolville