20 Feb Eat’s Natalie Young Earns a $2 Million Spotlight —
By Pj Perez
Natalie Young has long been one of Downtown’s biggest and best success stories. Her breakfast and lunch cafe, Eat, continues to draw new fans from all across the Valley—some of them visiting our resurgent city core for the first time, drawn by word-of-mouth reports of how damned good Young’s food is.
But as proud of Young as we’ve been, it’s nothing compared to how we should feel now that she’s gone nationwide. Young is one of four featured personalities appearing in a quartet of $2 million dollar American Express commercials that will air during the Academy Awards this Sunday, February 22. The stars of the other three spots are Mindy Project star Mindy Kaling, GoPro founder Nick Woodman and oh yeah, Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. This is a big, big, big deal for Chef Natalie.
I don’t want to tell you too much about the commercial, even though I could: I was present at Eat during filming, pretending to eat breakfast. (You can see me, fleetingly, about 23 seconds into the spot.) I can tell you, though, that watching the spot being filmed was nothing like seeing it completed. I felt a deep, unabashed pride upon seeing this spot for the first time. One of our own is being mentioned in the same breath as Aretha Franklin. In that way, it’s not just an achievement for Natalie Young, but for Downtown itself. Three years ago, who could have imagined that one of ourÊneighborhood friendsÊwould be filmed for an ad that would appear during the Academy Awards? And only a few weeks before the neighborhoodÊwas filmed, again, for an Imagine Dragons Grammy appearance?
DTLV congratulates Natalie Young and the entire crew at Eat . Thanks for cooking us up a moment in the national spotlight, Chef.
Eat’s Natalie Young Earns a $2 Million Spotlight
Article originally appeared here.