Life & Work with Delia Jo Ramsey

Today we’d like to introduce you to Delia Jo Ramsey.

Hi Delia, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I am the self-proclaimed “queen of queso” and a lifelong “restaurant cheerleader”. More than just another content creator/food account on Instagram, I’m also a seasoned food/travel writer and editor, and local personality with 15 years focused on all things restaurants in Dallas and Nashville, and in my travels elsewhere. I also consult for restaurants, and provide Nashville itineraries and speeches/tours for corporations and fun groups visiting Nashville.

Born and raised in rural north Alabama, my passion for restaurants started at a young age when my parents said I would name all of the chain restaurant signs while riding down University Drive in Huntsville. My Mama learned I knew how to read when my kindergarten teacher said I read the daily lunch menu (I refused to eat cafeteria food or much of anything really), and I was even named “Most Likely To Review Restaurants” in high school because I gave the group all sorts of stipulations when choosing our “end of year banquet. So you can see my passion for restaurants is in my blood, my Mama and Daddy loved planning days and travels around meals, just like I do today.

The funniest part of it all (according to my Mama, who I miss daily), was that I was an EXTREMELY picky child. I wouldn’t eat sandwiches and brought pepperoni, cheese, and crackers to school every day and survived on Vic’s pizza and Subway pizza subs in my small-town Alabama liberal arts college. That all turned around when I went on a date with a restaurant owner to a fancy restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, and I was trying to not look like an idiot on that date. There was a spread of lamb, octopus, (gasp!) rare steak, raw oysters, and more – and when I tried all of it for the first time that night, my life was changed.

Post-college, I started a career in broadcast journalism and quickly realized the cutthroat scene and depressing news just wasn’t for me. I spent some time working in Lower Broadway bars in Nashville before going through a rough patch and took a chance and moved from Nashville to Dallas.

There I quickly fell in love with Texas and the Dallas dining scene. I was in sort of a career crisis at 25, and a life coach asked what I love to do. I told her “People always ask me where to eat since I dine out daily, and my blog, Dining With Delia Jo, was born in 2009. I joke that I’m the Grandma of content creators, as I started doing this long before the days of Instagram accounts hitting up restaurants for free food and viral TikTok “food reviewers”. When I first started, I reached out to some local neighborhood magazines and for the first year, I wrote articles about local restaurants for free before starting to make a living writing about food.

Since then, I’ve built this really fun food brand and following served as the 4-year editor of Eater Nashville, and written for dozens of local and national publications about the food I find and love, plus other highlights of my travels. I was named one of the Top 100 Foodie Instagrammers in the US by Zagat in 2017, receiving one of the first ever prestigious Zagat Foodie Award plaques to back it up. Dining With Delia Jo was also listed by City Lifestyle, 6amCity, and several other publications as a top Nashville food influencer to follow.

My love for dining out has led me to consult with Netflix and Somebody Feed Phil (and dine with him for the episode!) on where to eat in Nashville and to appear on a handful of other national shows as an expert on the Nashville dining scene. I dine out daily, not only because I hate cooking, but also because of her love for the experience and the friendships made around the table, especially in recent years heavy with personal loss, and solitude from the pandemic and tragedies in Nashville, too. On days when I felt like I’d lost everything, I knew I had my cat Jasper, my car, and restaurants to find joy again.

Most recently, I departed my FT gigs to go solo as a freelancer (again) to hone in on Dining With Delia Jo full-time. I am so excited for my next chapter, which includes speaking gigs, itineraries, social media partnerships, and an expanded byline list for her writing locally and beyond. I also just got a book deal so I’m pumped to have the time to expand my repertoire even more.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
After 15 years of this, there have been several “derailments” and adjustments of sails both professionally and personally.

Social media brands like Instagram and TikTok became prevalent, and I had to reinvent myself more times than I can count. It’s hard to stay relevant in a sea of food accounts posting photos of food and opinions. I went from lists and personal blogs to creating videos/reels and putting my face out there to roll with the times.

Personally, over the last 5 years, I moved to Nashville and had to rebuild my brand here, then shortly after moving my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. It was a punch in the gut because I moved here to be closer to my parents in South Tennessee and North Alabama. My ex-husband packed up, moved out took one of our cats, and went back to Texas, so divorce lawyers were my daily life I was also sitting with my Mom for 5 weeks in the hospital before she died. I say that I lost 3 key family members in 82 days, but kept working because it was one thing I could control in an ocean of grief and loss.

Then, Nashville endured a devastating tornado right before the global pandemic closures hit, and there was a Christmas Day bomb that awoke me that year while we were all “sheltered in place for Christmas”. There was so much news coverage regarding restaurants at that time and I did my best to pick up my pieces from personal devastation and shine a light on Nashville restaurants, doing whatever I could to help. Lucky for me, the Nashville restaurant scene is so inclusive and supportive, and they dropped food at my door many times when I couldn’t fathom the thought of eating.

I went through a series of toxic relationships with emotionally unhealthy and addictive men and began trying to patch my wounds with alcohol. It all sort of came to a head when I fell off a moving golf cart in Florida a year and a half ago, fracturing my skull in 3 places and sustaining a brain bleed. During my week-long hospitalization, I realized that the injury had also caused me to lose my sense of smell AND taste. It was a true rock bottom when the girl who built a life around eating food couldn’t taste anything. That lack of complete taste went on for 8 weeks. It caused me to quit my job and make some moves.

My smell was gone for over a year. I’m beyond grateful they both came back, miraculously. Earlier this year my bonus dad who raised me with my mom also passed away, unexpectedly, so I’ve now lost two parents who raised me, at age 40. Overcoming using alcohol as a crutch and these devastating losses nearly killed me, literally. But today I feel better than I have in a long time, and I feel so grateful for the current humans who are my chosen family when mine feels it has fallen apart.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
More than just another content creator/food account on Instagram, I’m also a seasoned food/travel writer and editor, and local personality with 15 years focused on all things restaurants in Dallas and Nashville, and in my travels elsewhere. I also consult for restaurants, and provide Nashville itineraries and speeches/tours for corporations and fun groups visiting Nashville.

Several people have called me a “restaurant cheerleader” over the years and I love that because I’m by no means a restaurant critic nor do I want to be. I love to share the great things about these small businesses. I don’t take myself too seriously and love to have fun dining at Taco Bell and chain restaurants just as much as I love a tasting menu experience at the world’s best restaurants.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I am one of the rare ones who loves old and new Nashville. I love the history and the ability to find amazing live music any day or time of the week and the bustling restaurant scene that keeps me on my toes daily.

Dislikes: parking rates and weekend crowds + insane drinking culture.

Contact Info:

• Website: diningwithdeliajo.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/diningwithdeliajo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DiningWithDeliaJo/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delia-jo-ramsey-70a6a87/
• Twitter: twitter.com/diningwithdelia
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKVIJ-dLI5eJPxs6d0o6ndA
• Other: https://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=001pnHkrJgcGDiSGTgucurbmbgHSRR3N_21K6dX4PIkAnNZuGnGM0UusokWOZxgt1IhBrqivKgy3InqqPqzSzJFeYzRPcLHv6Pw

Image Credits
@diningwithdeliajo and James Williams Photography
Main photo – Mayter Scott