Daquan and Nicole Woodberry: LoCo

To say Daquan and Nicole Woodberry have a lot of irons in the
fire would be an understatement. The chef and entrepreneur power
couple hopes to transform the way Richmond orders food with both
the LoCo food delivery app and virtual restaurants.


"A virtual restaurant is essentially a restaurant within a
restaurant. It thrives and operates solely off of delivery
platforms," Dequan, who goes by Chef DQ, explained. "So if you go
on any of the delivery apps such as [his app] LoCo, Uber Eats,
GrubHub and DoorDash. And you're like, hey, I want fried chicken
sandwiches, and you're scrolling down and you'll see [his new
brand] Absurd Bird pop up. Well, you'll be able to order. And
that food will be made at [his restaurant] RVA Cafe and it'll be
delivered to you and you may or may not know is coming from RVA
Cafe. So the big thing here is a lot of bigger chains and a lot
of bigger corporations are getting into this. Maybe people have
heard of Hootie's Burger Bar, that's a virtual restaurant from
Hooters. But you walk into Hooters and they're going to look at
you like you're crazy If you come ask them for a Hootie's burger.
They're like, we don't know what that is, the servers are
sometimes unaware. So this is how the world is changing. And it
was happening way before COVID. But you know, being honest, COVID
accelerated that process pretty much five times over."


Daquan, who served in the Marines, said he learned his work ethic
from his father Maurice and was inspired to follow his dreams by
his wife Nicole.


"When I say she saved my entire life she did. I was in a really
dark space. I had just come out of the Marine Corps. I was
actually injured. So I'm more than thankful, that God spared life
on that end and I'm still able to function because I have friends
that can't," Daquan said. "She really refreshed my life. She
really came and poured life back into me and kind of encouraged
me to go and find what I love to do. So that's actually what led
me to be a chef. She said do what you love. And, you know, she
supported me the whole entire way."


Several years and businesses later, Daquan admits it's more than
support.


"Now she's the real boss of the whole business," he said. "I just
sit here and look pretty. She does everything else."


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