Photo by CandaceWest.com
Audio By Carbonatix
Big things are happening for Mojo Donuts & Fried Chicken in West Miami-Dade.
Today Mojo will appear on celebrity restaurateur Guy Fieri’s Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It’s the first doughnut shop to appear in the series’ 28 seasons, which show Fieri taking road trips across America in search of the nation’s most underrated but incredibly delicious local spots. To celebrate, the shop will host a viewing party with free samples of warm, freshly baked glazed doughnuts and scoops of Sweet Melody Ice Cream.
“There’s not a lot of Miami represented on the show in general,” Mojo co-owner Jimmy Piedrahita says. “So we we’re already incredibly humbled. But when a producer told us we were the only doughnut shop ever to make it on, we couldn’t believe it. It’s such an honor.”
Piedrahita received a call from producers in November 2017. By the first week of December, he was asked to post a sign on Mojo’s door that read, “Closed for a private event.”
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“We had to close down for three days for filming,” he says. “When Fieri came into the shop, he brought Richard Hales [of Bird & Bone and Sakaya Kitchen] with him. It was crazy.”
Fieri and Hales, who guest-hosts Mojo’s episode, sampled the shop’s chicken brûlée sandwich served between two caramelized doughnut buns. They loved it, according to Piedrahita.
Mojo is also in the midst of doubling the size of its store by taking over a vacant, 1,600-square-foot space next door. The expansion will make room for Sweet Melody, giving the ice-cream concept a permanent area within the doughnut shop. That means the duo’s ice-cream-and-doughnut pairings will become an indefinite mainstay.
“We’ve also signed on two more locations,” Piedrahita says. “I can’t say where they will exactly be, but one will be further north and the other will be further south than Westchester. It’s such perfect timing because we’ve heard that making it on this show completely transforms a business. We’re really excited to see where it may lead.”
Mojo Donuts & Fried Chicken Viewing Party. 8:15 p.m. Friday, March 2, at 8870 Bird Rd., Miami; 305-223-6656; mojodonuts.com. Admission is free via eventbrite.com.
