Welcome to The Blueprint
Welcome to GATEKEEPING: New Orleans
Knock knock! While y’all over there playing in chaos, I’m rebranding. On brand? Absolutely. You have to admit it. I put my all into this post, like a Jay z album drop...
I don’t know, I just woke up one day and stopped reacting. Am I Brooklyn or Just New Orleans? Currently listening to Hello Brooklyn. anywhoo..Started architecting instead of performing.. that’s dead like Nino.. Suddenly it all made sense, every room I’ve moved through in the city was preparing me for something bigger than any platform could contain. God was saying stop playing so small ..it’s time to show people why you made those big bucks.. It’s Strategy Planning & Implementation. The implementation has been fuzzy with my perimenopause but working on that…yall pray for me..
This is ..Not a lifestyle blog….Not an influencer newsletter…..Not trend commentary or hot takes….This is gatekeeping as infrastructure.
I curate restaurants, experiences, brands, and cultural moments worth your attention, and I tell you exactly why they matter before everyone else figures it out. What do I know? I am just a Nawlins girl!
If you’re here, you already know: reach is rented. Authority is built. And I’m building something designed to last, not to just get a quick like.
The Tea vs. The Drama
Here’s how this works:
Free subscribers get the drama:
The commentary. The cultural analysis. The hot takes on what’s happening in food, hospitality, and lifestyle spaces. You’ll know what I think and why certain things matter.
Paid subscribers get the tea:
The real intel. Full reviews using my proprietary frameworks. Early access to discoveries before they blow up. The actual recommendations. The insider knowledge. The frameworks you can use yourself.
Free gets you the conversation.
Paid gets you the coordinates.
Who This Is For
You if:
You’re tired of recommendation algorithms and want actual curation
You value systematic judgment over paid actor reviews
You want to know where to go before the reservation becomes impossible
You’re a creator or aspiring foodie who wants to elevate your own reviews….HELLO - BUILDING A BRAND here..
You’re building community partnerships and need professional frameworks
You understand that quality compounds and hype doesn’t
You’re probably between 30 and 50. Probably professional. Definitely discerning….And you’re definitely tired of platforms that optimize for performance while you’re trying to optimize for taste.
What You’ll Get
For Everyone (Free):
The Drama
Cultural commentary on food, hospitality, and lifestyle. Soft Openings, Hot & New etc.. What’s happening, what it means, and why you should care. Think pieces that frame the conversation.
The Discourse
Hot takes on industry trends, restaurant culture, and what’s worth discussing in the spaces that matter.
For Paid Subscribers:
The Tea
Full access to reviews, recommendations, and early intel. The restaurants before the waitlist. The brands before the hype. The experiences worth your time and money.
Structured Review Frameworks
My proprietary evaluation templates that turn subjective taste into repeatable criteria. Use them for your own reviews, content creation, or professional partnerships.
Creator & Foodie Tools
Templates designed for aspiring food content creators who want to move beyond “this was good” and build actual authority in their reviews.
Why Here, Why Now
Instagram became a popularity contest, and I’m forty-seven. That’s not my game.
Honestly? I’m standing there like, “Why are y’all staring at me?” Lol.
I didn’t build taste and judgment over decades to compete with food bloggers doing the same flatlay from every angle. The platform optimizes for one thing. I optimize for another. AI is changing the rules. Ya heard me? Instagram rewards performance. AI recognizes patterns and structure. Onward and upward..Talk to me now! On Instagram, a viral food post dies in 48 hours. In an AI-trained world, a well-structured review archive becomes permanent institutional knowledge.
If you’re still building for the old paradigm while the world shifts to the new one, you’re optimizing for something that’s already over. Substack isn’t a platform shift. It’s a room change. I learned to navigate rooms, not platforms. And I’m making the same move professionally. Authority is built in rooms where people choose to show up, not in feeds where they scroll past.
Pattern Recognition Is the Advantage
Here’s what people who know me will tell you: I’m always first.
First to the restaurant before it becomes impossible to book
First to the brand before it goes mainstream
First to the experience before it becomes the discourse
This isn’t luck or trend-chasing. It’s pattern recognition.
And apparently, I’m doing something right, because the thirty-year-olds keep asking where I get my information. Listen, I’m flattered. Truly. Some of yall are Lynn Obsessed. That’s another day, another blog.. But girls, I’m forty-seven… I mean I am not 67 but I understand 6 7..At some point we need to talk about the fact that you’re borderline obsessed with getting intel from someone who remembers when Instagram didn’t exist. With age taste matures. Pattern recognition sharpens. You learn which patterns repeat, which trends matter, and which noise to ignore.
I won’t tell you what’s popular.
I tell you what’s next.
And more importantly, what’s worth your time before everyone else figures it out.
Gatekeeping Is The New Bar
The internet doesn’t have an information problem. It has a discernment problem..Everything is highly recommended. Nothing is filtered.In my work, gatekeeping isn’t about exclusion.
It’s about:
Curation that protects your time
Standards that elevate the conversation
Signal over noise
Editorial discipline
Gatekeeping isn’t a personality. It’s a design choice.
When taste is systematized, it becomes a filter, a moat, and a form of leverage.
That’s what this newsletter is.
That’s what the frameworks build.
That’s what the gatekeeping protects.
For Creators & Aspiring Foodies
If you’re building your own platform, content, or community partnerships, you need more than opinions.
You need frameworks.
Here’s the truth: most food content is noise.
Pretty plates. Generic captions. “This was amazing!” with no context.
That’s not authority. That’s just documentation.
If you want to build real influence in food and hospitality spaces, you need to move from reactions to reviews. From opinions to infrastructure.
That’s what The Blueprint gives you.
Paid subscribers get access to:
Review Templates - The actual structure I use to evaluate restaurants, experiences, and brands
Evaluation Criteria - Repeatable standards that turn subjective taste into professional assessment
Partnership Frameworks - How to position yourself for marketing collaborations and community events
Creator Tools - Resources to elevate your content from casual recommendations to authority-building reviews
This is for you if:
You’re tired of posting content that gets likes but builds no lasting authority
You want restaurants and brands to take you seriously as a partner
You’re ready to develop your own taste architecture instead of following trends
You understand that real foodies have systems, not just preferences
I’m not here to gatekeep for the sake of it.
I’m here to show you how to build the gate yourself.
While y’all over there playing, I’m teaching the blueprint.
This is infrastructure you can use to build your own authority in food, hospitality, and lifestyle spaces.
Free gets you the drama.
Paid gets you the tea.
Bottom line is the Blueprint is the place to be with my Gatekeeping.. you never know how fun this could be for us. Let’s get out of that adult playground called Instagram and get to more thought leadership on Substack..I am working on a Blue Print for Restaurant Reviews..coming soon!