Melina Davies: An Unlikely Ingredient To Success | The Kids Table Podcast Ep. 31

This week at The Kids Table, Gunnar, Jen, and the crew sit down with restaurateur and Olive & Thyme founder Melina Davies for a conversation that goes way deeper than food. What starts with stories about childhood Weight Watchers meetings, crash diets, and fitness culture quickly turns into a bigger discussion about discipline, identity, pressure, perfectionism, and the systems we build to survive.

Melina opens up about growing up in an immigrant family, feeling like an outsider in her own home, and how cooking became her way of trying to bring people together. She shares the unlikely path from the film industry to opening Olive & Thyme, the terrifying reality of risking everything to start a restaurant with zero formal experience, and the philosophy that turned it into one of LA’s most beloved spots. Along the way, the group dives into hospitality, leadership, burnout, standards, service, and why the best businesses are built around making people feel seen.

The episode also delivers classic Kids Table energy with old fitness modeling stories, chaotic gym banter, restaurant horror stories, and some brutally honest conversations about motivation, mental health, and learning how to stop chasing perfection. Equal parts hilarious, thoughtful, and unexpectedly emotional, this one is really about what happens when people decide to build something with intention and refuse to cut corners.

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Melina Davies:

Insta - (https://www.instagram.com/melinadavies11/)

Website - (https://oliveandthyme.com/pages/melina-davies?srsltid=AfmBOopmQGmbHH8n3OoGlu6HM_ZlBYIBmjPtuEKcn5GZgxOiot0ppHo9)

About Melina:

Olive & Thyme started in 2011 as a small restaurant born out of Melina Davies love for food and togetherness. It was a small open kitchen in Toluca Lake and a giant leap of faith for Melina. You could say the odds were against her: Melina, a movie producer, had no experience in the restaurant world—and this was LA, the land of thousands of eateries, wine bars and bistros. But what Melina had was a cadence in the kitchen. After a fourteen-hour day on set, she’d relish getting home to cook a meal for her family and friends. After a little soul searching and huge encouragement from her husband, Christian, Melina opened her first restaurant.

In