On a rainswept drive home from her new restaurant job, Uniyah Gollett begged her boss to pull over.
From the passenger seat, she had been watching homeless people sitting by the roadside, unsheltered from the storm, and it had brought her to tears. Gollett who was raised in Broward Countys foster-care system most of her life felt like she was looking in a mirror.
The 23-year-old talked her supervisor, Jake Miller, into an impromptu shopping spree. They pulled into a Dollar General and stuffed deodorant, sunscreen, feminine hygiene products and toiletries into 20 plastic bags. At stoplights, Gollett and Miller handed out care packages to every homeless person they saw.
I was one of them, Gollett says. I know what its like to be a woman on the street with your cycle on. Theyre still people. They deserve a chance like everyone else.
Perhaps it was her new server position at the Sunrise eatery, FK Your Diet, but Gollett felt light-years away from her recent past.
The rainbow-colored diner opened in August on Commercial Boulevard with an ambitious premise: pairing heartwarming good deeds with ridiculously over-the-top breakfast foods.
The FK in the name is not an expletive. It stands for foster kids.
Roughly 30% of FK Your Diets employees are former foster kids. A few are former convicted felons and recovering drug addicts.
Owner Jake Miller hugs a client during breakfast service on Sunday, Sept. 19, 2022, at the new FK Your Diet in Sunrise. (Joe Cavaretta/Joe Cavaretta)
The restaurant which provides second chances showed up exactly when Gollett needed one. She had just aged out of the foster-care system on July 22, her 23rd birthday, when her temp agency job expired. A social worker told her that FK Your Diet was hiring.
I didnt know where to go, I didnt have anyone to call, and God brought me to Mr. Jake, she says.
Mr. Jake is Miller, the 24-year-old owner of Sunrises FK Your Diet and himself the son of a former foster kid.
During the job interview, Miller says, he heard Gollett describe a lifetime of foster-care hardship. She said shed worked at Chipotle, McDonalds, The Cheesecake Factory at Sawgrass Mills. Shed even graduated from culinary school.
He hired her on the spot.
When Gollett admitted she didnt have transportation, Miller offered to drive her to and from work. But Miller says he was astounded when Gollett proposed care packages for the homeless last weekend.
I was like, This is a great idea. Why didnt I think of that? Miller says. Shes worked here, what, three weeks? Shes already phenomenal.
Now Miller is training Gollett to one day replace him.
Shes got a great attitude, he says. My dream, I told her, is to help teach her how to run a restaurant, become a general manager, and then own this place.
FK Your Diet Sunrise owner Jake Miller, left, cooks a 5-pound breakfast burrito as Uniyah Gollett, right, watches from the sidelines. (Joe Cavaretta/Joe Cavaretta)
Born in Pompano Beach, Gollett says she lived with biological parents who kept her out of school and abused her in ways she prefers to forget. By age 7, she says, the states foster-care system intervened.
Her guardian ad litem at the time, Beverly Russell, taught me how to read and write, and instilled in me that education is power, and made me into the woman I am today, Gollett says.
Over the next 11 hardscrabble years, Gollett bounced around 15 shelters, foster and group homes, sometimes out of state, including in New York and North Carolina.
It was like a box of chocolates, she recalls. A lot of the homes I was in, I was neglected and abused. But I can honestly say the bad always outweighed the good.
In Broward, about 2.5 out of every 1,000 children enter the states child welfare system monthly, while that number is 1.73 out of every 1,000 children in Palm Beach County, according to a Florida Department of Children and Families report published in October 2021. That number is higher statewide: 2.92 out of every 1,000 children.
In Florida, foster children age out of the program at 18. After that, they become eligible for after care programs until their 23rd birthday, provided they meet certain criteria, such as finishing high school or being employed at least 80 hours per month.
Uniyah Gollett wipes down prep tables during the busy breakfast rush on Sunday, Sept. 19, at the new FK Your Diet in Sunrise. (Joe Cavaretta/Joe Cavaretta)
For Gollett, the stability of home life constantly eluded her. By the time she turned 11, she lived exclusively in group homes with 15 or more children, most of them even younger. Foster parents who worked all day left them unsupervised, sometimes without meals. By necessity, she taught herself to cook. Gollett boiled rice and scrambled eggs at least three times a week for younger kids in the group home. She baked biscuits from scratch by reading back-of-the-box instructions. She grew to love honey so much she drizzled it over everything, especially fried chicken.
Gollett even acquired a new nickname around the neighborhood Pooh because, like Winnie the cartoon bear, her love of honey was insatiable, outmatched only by her joy of cooking.
When she turned 18, Gollett aged out of foster care, but she discovered an organization, Fort Lauderdales FLITE Center, that helped her learn self-sufficiency, like filling out job applications, and found her transitional housing. She enrolled in the culinary program at Coconut Creeks Atlantic Technical College and graduated in May.
A criminal background check for Gollett reveals some significant charges, including two felonies and a 2019 stint in a Broward County jail. Gollett does not dispute this, adding that she was young and had no guidance, and that her new employer does not judge her past mistakes.
Being incarcerated was a wake-up call for me and a blessing, because I know now what not to do, Gollett says. But I havent been in any trouble the past few years. FK cares about the now, not my past, and Im grateful for the opportunity.
People make mistakes, Miller says. I mean, were dealing with the foster-kid system here. What guidance did they ever have not to do the right thing? To me, it makes Poohs story that much cooler. It shows that shes really turned her life around.
Once she landed the server job three weeks ago, Miller insisted Gollett have breakfast on the house. She declined out of modesty but they were serious, like, Take the meal, take the meal, " Gollett says, with a laugh. I had some very amazing shrimp and grits with biscuits and lots of honey on my very first day, and it was really good.
People like Mr. Jake are supposed to live forever, she adds. This job is more than a job. This place makes sure that you always have a huge quantity of food.
Picture hamburgers sandwiched between deep-fried doughnut buns, 5-pound belly buster breakfast burritos as fat as footballs, maple bacon-flavored milkshakes and Southern-fried chicken eggs benedict.
FK Your Diet Sunrises indulgent menu is the brainchild of Millers father, Doug, who was raised in Ohios foster-care system.
Doug Miller and his wife, Amy Eldridge, opened the diners flagship location in Fort Myers in 2018, later adding outposts in Orlando and Cape Coral. He says he created FK Your Diet to help foster kids overcome the fears that had defined his childhood. One solution: a comfort-food menu overstuffed with cheat meals.
FK Your Diet's 5-pound "belly buster" breakfast burrito, roughly the size of a rolled-up gym towel, is loaded with fried potatoes, eggs, bacon and veggies. (Joe Cavaretta/Joe Cavaretta)
You never know where your next meal is coming from, says Doug Miller, who lives in Fort Myers. So we give you so much food that you dont know what to do with it. Were pushing all this food so maybe, if youre in foster care, youll worry less.
He remembers the bitter spitefulness he felt toward foster parents who abused and neglected me as he bounced around more than a dozen foster and group homes. His guardians would put padlocks on the refrigerators, he says. One foster mom served him nothing but cake for three consecutive months. Other times, public-school lunch was the only meal he ate in a day.
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I didnt feel empathy toward my foster families then, but I do now, he says. Its not easy being one of those parents. The burnout rate is high. I learned to cook all these recipes from kind foster moms. Our cooking is not fancy, nor is it exotic. Its how you would cook at home if you knew how to cook.
The restaurants locations partner with area foster charities to host Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas gift giveaways in the dining room.
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Although its only been open a month, FK Your Diet Sunrise has already begun working with Broward nonprofit organizations that support foster kids, such as 4KIDS, The Hands and Feet, Jewish Adoption and Family Care Options and Flite Center, Jake Miller says. FK Your Diets menu also includes so-called Meal Deals that benefit local foster kids, ranging from $12.50 for single meals to $500 for multiple pairs of Nike sneakers.
Tracie Catalano of Mary Ann's Closet and her foster kids enjoy breakfast at FK Your Diet. (Joe Cavaretta/Joe Cavaretta)
During her shifts at FK Your Diet, Gollett is fast and intuitive.
Bacon smells ready! she calls to a line cook on her way to bus tables in the dining room. She loves the slogan that is written on a rainbow mural in the dining room, which reads: Be the rainbow in someone elses cloud.
I love seeing that, Gollett says. You dont know what a human being has endured when they come to the restaurant. Their cloud can be stormy, but whats important is you make them feel happy.
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Last week, she says one of her former caseworkers surprised her with a visit to the restaurant.
She told me she was proud of me, said God has a plan for me, and shes proud of the woman Ive become, Gollett says. I may be a foster kid, but that doesnt mean Im going to fail. Theres room to prosper and elevate.
FK Your Diet is at 9210 Commercial Blvd., Sunrise. Visit FKYourDiet.com or call 954-832-7102.
Excerpt from:
FK Your Diet: The new Sunrise restaurant with the provocative name has a heart of gold and a mission - South Florida Sun Sentinel
