Consumer Stories

Editor’s Note: Wes Hennings never met a meal he walked away from and is an opinionated eater! Each Monday he shares the results of a business lunch he’s had with a colleague as a way to advise our business community on the good, bad and the tasty across the CSRA. He doesn’t let ABD or the restaurant know where he is going and his opinions are his own. He grades the restaurants he visits on a 1-5 scale with “5” being outstanding. We call this our “Real Business Lunch Review”.

Anna and Pedro Figueredo, owners of Paella South, serve up their Spanish symbol of great family food. Pedro, an M.D. in orthopedics, followed his wife to South Carolina, where with her degrees in English, Spanish and a Masters in Curriculum Design, she teaches English to Spanish-speaking children and Spanish to English-speaking kids at Newberry High School. She is teaching English to her husband so he can work in medicine, but their dream now is to open a family restaurant, with their three daughters, somewhere in the Aiken-Newberry-Columbia area. In the

Like many Augusta residents, Tammie Harvell lives in a food desert, so she must drive several miles to the nearest grocery store. Harvell lives in McBean – a tiny rural community in Hephzibah. “It’s nine miles to Food Lion and thirteen to Waynesboro,” she states. Harvell explains she wishes there were closer grocery store options, but she doesn’t prefer shopping at Walmart. While large grocery store chains, such as BI-LO have gone out of business, Dollar General fills in the gaps in food deserts. Hephzibah alone has a few Dollar