A Tampa meal-prep brand that started in a cramped apartment kitchen is opening a second, full-service restaurant on South Dale Mabry Highway. Alimento, founded by Jackson Hernandez and his mother Dayami, plans to debut the new location at 808 S Dale Mabry Hwy on December 1, serving lunch and dinner alongside the meal-prep program that built its following.
From a Jeep Dealership Kitchen to a Full Restaurant
Alimento is described as a fast-casual Latin fusion restaurant and meal-prep concept, and its current home sits inside a Jeep dealership at 2966 N Dale Mabry Highway, according to Business Debut. The new South Tampa space will operate as a full restaurant with a fast-casual format and an active meal-prep program running in the background, the outlet reports, with customers able to build customized meal-prep orders on site in addition to ordering lunch and dinner off the menu.
Hernandez told the outlet that current plans call for Alimento to open every day, with hours likely running from around 10 or 11 a.m. to about 9 or 9:30 p.m. Sunday hours are expected to close earlier than the rest of the week, per the same account. Those hours, like the December 1 opening date itself, are still described as plans rather than finalized details.
A Menu Built Around Dayami Hernandez's Recipes
Alimento's food reflects both Hispanic and American influences in Tampa, Hernandez said, with a menu that includes black rice and beans, yuca, and chickpeas prepared with methods that avoid heavy grease and pork. The dishes are adapted from recipes belonging to his mother, Dayami, with an emphasis on portion control, avocado used instead of seed oils, and reduced salt, the report notes.
The business has moved through several stages to get here. Alimento began about two years ago in the apartment Hernandez shared with his mother, where the pair cooked and sold meal preps before growing order volume pushed them to leave their jobs and focus on the business full time. Hernandez said they cooked so much in that apartment that they broke the air conditioning unit and ended up sleeping through 95-degree heat, a detail he shared with Business Debut.
Plan Review Filing Pointed to the Next Move
From the apartment, Alimento moved into a ghost kitchen before landing, about a year ago, in the Jeep dealership space on North Dale Mabry, which offered the brand's first in-person service built around a build-your-own bowl line. Hernandez said that location received very good feedback and took off. Separately, Whatnow reported that Alimento LLC had submitted plan-review documents for a new location at 808 S Dale Mabry Highway, an early signal of the expansion that Business Debut later confirmed with Hernandez directly. Whatnow also notes that the current Jeep dealership operation offers meal prep, family platters, catering, and carryout.
Hernandez learned to cook under his mother's instruction, and he's described the entire venture as a business he built for her, crediting Dayami Hernandez as essential to the company's existence. Online, the brand's meal-prep bowls have drawn mixed but active feedback: a listing for Alimento Tampa on DoorDash shows more than 200 ratings, with one reviewer praising a Lunch Bowl featuring mango chicken, green beans, brown rice, and creamy cilantro on the side, while another complained that a portion size ran too small.
