There’s a version of Savannah, Georgia that most visitors see: the Spanish moss, the cobblestones, the grand antebellum squares. And then there’s the version Jesse Blanco knows; the Savannah behind the kitchen door. For 15 years, Jesse has been guiding locals and visitors alike through his blog, Eat It & Like It, where he writes about the food scenes of Savannah, Hilton Head Island and The South.
“I was a television news anchor for 23 years, so journalism is in my blood — storytelling and getting facts straight. And so I decided one day about 15 years ago that I was going to spend some time on the weekends talking about the best burgers in town, or the best fried chicken in town, instead of people’s property taxes and all of the bad things that you see on television these days. There was an appetite. There was a demand. And so next thing you know, here we are 15 years later, where I’ve established myself as the primary authority on food in this region.”
“Savannah began to evolve”
“I’d say it was the summer of 2014 when everything started really. I’d been doing this for a few years already, but you started hearing about bigger name chefs and this guy’s moving in from New York and this guy’s coming from here and this guy’s coming from there. We had Paula Deen, who did a lot of wonderful things to put Savannah, Georgia on the food map. But that was very limited in her cuisine, Southern cuisine. And while there was certainly an appetite for that, Savannah began to evolve, I believe, in the summer of 2014 to where it’s still evolving now.”
When asked about the challenges of his work, Jesse pauses to think, before answering: “Being able to eat all the food! Savannah’s food scene has grown so quickly and so aggressively that it’s very hard to get to every single new place and try it, or even if you go to that place, to eat all the food in every restaurant. It’s hard to keep up with it.”
“It’s a little more than food”
What drives a man to eat his way through an entire region for 15 years? For Jesse, the food was always a door into something bigger. His journalism background gave him a framework, the belief that every meal, every restaurant, every chef has a story worth telling. But over time, his curiosity expanded well beyond the plate. “I’m one of those people where, if I’m behind by 9 a.m., I feel like my day is shot. I love to get after the day. I love meeting new people. I love chatting. I love hearing different stories. I love talking shop, if you will, whether it be about food or life or talking to someone about their goals for the marathon that they want to run or some big thing that they’re trying to achieve.”
“And you learn something new every day, I believe. And the day you stop learning is the day you stop growing. And so that quest for information — I’m a voracious reader of business and entrepreneurs and the whole growing your business world — has become a passion for me in addition to food. I don’t spend all day talking about french fries. I spend a lot of time talking about the nuts and bolts that make people who they are. And so that’s a big motivator for me. It’s a little more than food.”
“Savannah just gives me endless amounts of content”
Part food critic, part local guide, part insider: when Trafalgar guests arrive in Savannah on the Charms of the Southeast USA tour, Jesse is the person who knows exactly where to send them. And more importantly, how.
“People aren’t coming from around the world to come to Savannah to visit me. They’re coming here because it’s beautiful. They’re coming here because the food is great. They’re coming here because of Southern hospitality. And so to be able to present those things that the people of this city already create makes my life a whole lot easier.”
“Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a group come through and they were asking me, hey, we’re thinking about going to this place. And I said, you know what? That is a great find. That’s not one of those that gets advertised, but go early. You might still have to wait — enjoy yourself with a glass of wine and a couple of appetizers, and you’ll be fine. Don’t think you have to do the big $300 dinner to enjoy the experience. Go, hit it quickly and move on. Sharing little nuggets of information like that — of the so many that exist in this town — gives me great joy. Savannah just gives me endless amounts of content to share with people. That’s just a wonderful problem to have.”
“Only a couple of square miles”
Georgia, Jesse is keen to point out, contains multitudes. “There’s so much diversity in the state of Georgia. At the northern end of the state is mountains, where people book cottages for getaways, river streams and kayak rides and all of that kind of lifestyle. But then down here in Savannah, there’s the beaches and what we call the low country: the natural beauty and the trees with the Spanish moss, and all of the drippy Southern things that Savannah has made a name for itself.”
Savannah itself sits at the northeastern tip of the Georgia coast, just across the state line from South Carolina. Its 22 landmark squares, draped in live oak and Spanish moss, make it one of the most walkable and photogenic cities in the American South. River Street, running along the old cotton warehouses of the Savannah River, is where the city’s past and present collide most vividly: craft breweries and oyster bars now occupy the same cobblestoned stretch where cotton bales were once loaded onto ships bound for Europe.
“There are people from all over the world here in Savannah. It’s not just people from Savannah, although there are plenty of those. There are celebrities that have second or third homes here in downtown Savannah. I’ve met British people who have a home here. I’ve met people from Germany who have a home here. And when you’re in a place like downtown Savannah, Georgia, which is only a couple of square miles, you end up sitting in a pub next to your neighbor who’s visiting for the summer from Germany.”
“The piano player for the Rolling Stones, he lives here! He’s about seven blocks from me. And so there’s that type of international diversity here that I don’t think a lot of people realise.”
“Right smack dab in the middle of living happily ever after”
Jesse’s ambitions extend well beyond Georgia. Florida, his home state, is firmly in his sights, and his mission there is a characteristically contrarian one: not Miami, not Disney, but everywhere else. The overlooked towns, the family restaurants, the cuisines that don’t make the brochures.
“Professionally, I want to enjoy what I do every day until I don’t do it anymore, which fortunately, knock on wood, is the case to this point. I’d like to expand. My home state is Florida. I’d like to do a lot of what I do there. I would like to establish my brand in the state of Florida and have it be as respected and consumed as it is here in this region. That’s a mighty lofty goal. I may never get there, but as I like to tell my friends, the chase is the juice.”
“Being a Florida native, I understand that there’s so much diversity, not only in people, but in cuisines all over the state. In the smaller towns, the places that aren’t on the beach here and there and everywhere. Miami is my hometown and I love the food there. But there’s so much more to Florida. That’s my chase: give the little guy a crack at it rather than the shiny objects that everyone thinks Florida is.”
Back in Savannah, meanwhile, life looks a lot like the dream he didn’t know he was building toward. “Personally, we’ve got it made. My wife and I live in downtown Savannah in a beautiful historic home. We can walk to all of the things that so many people from around the world get on airplanes to visit. We are right in the middle of the historic district. We’ve all been to these old historic cities, where you walk around and say, “wow, how great would it be to actually live here?” Well, we live in one of those places that people come from all over the world and say exactly that. So personally, I like to tell people when I get asked this…I’m right smack dab in the middle of living happily ever after.”
“The chase is the juice”
“I did run the New York City Marathon a few years ago, and I think it was the goal of chasing that monumental, biggest marathon in the world goal and meeting some people at the right time that helped me shift my mindset into growth. It didn’t matter my age. It didn’t matter that I was deep into a career. Growth and a thirst for knowledge and learning is an always and forever thing. And I’ve embraced that so, so incredibly hard the last few years.”
“Change is life’s gift. Life comes at you quickly sometimes and it doesn’t always stay the same. And sometimes it’s uncomfortable, that change. But I believe it’s those challenges that help us grow. Never stop growing.”
