Age: 45
Hometown: Tampa, Florida
How you identify: “Try-sexual”
What’s your sign: Libra
“I’m very passionate about my work,” Darlene Herrick says. “I love cooking. I love being a chef. I love creating.”
As the district executive chef for Hamburger Mary’s, that passion is clear. When she joined the Mary’s family, she required two things. “I said, ‘we’re gonna make things fresh, we’re gonna do things the right way,” she recalls. “Ticket times might be a little longer, but the food’s gonna be good. I set a standard.”
Her love for the kitchen began long before that, however, as a child in her grandmother’s Cuban-Spanish restaurant on Ybor’s 7th Avenue. “She had this little stool,” she says, “and I’d stand up on that stool and cook with her. Ever since then I was like, ‘this is what I wanna do. I love this.’”
In 2012, Darlene won Florida’s “Best Cuban Sandwich,” and won a national title for the same in 2015. She also owned Ybor’s Flirt Nightclub for eight years. “I work hard,” she says, “but I have fun. I like to have a good time.”
As someone who’s dated both men and women, she laughingly refers to herself as “try-sexual.” And while she may not choose a label on the LGBTQ spectrum, she does know what she wants in a partner.
“I like people that have a good relationship with their family,” she says, noting the close relationship she shares with her own. “I admire people that have their own friends and [share] the same goals that I do: they work hard and they’re passionate.”
