Great Maple co-owner Amanda Ho grew up splitting her time between Laguna and Newport Beach.
“My mom was a teacher in the Laguna Beach School District for about 25 years and my dad lived in Newport Beach,” she recalled. She attended boarding school in Claremont and graduated from Bryn Mawr. But Ho is quick to share her childhood memories of Orange County.
It was her father’s dream, not hers, to have a restaurant at Fashion Island.
“When we were with him, that’s definitely where we’d play near the koi pond and hangout,” she recalled.
In 2009, her dad opened Rustica, a fine dining Italian restaurant, “but the world had changed.”
The recession was underway and the public wasn’t interested in dining out that way. While on vacation, her father shared his woes with a stranger.
“He was actually sitting in a jacuzzi at the time,” said Ho with a laugh.
ALSO SEE: Meet the culinary couple behind Great Maple at the Disneyland resort
Coincidentally, the person he befriended was Johnny Rivera, owner of Hash House a Go Go. Rivera was hired as a consultant. After 72 hours, Rustica was gone and Great Maple at Fashion Island was born.
It was only the beginning.
In 2013, Rivera helped expand the concept into a 1960s dinette space in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego. Michelin guide critics said that the “maple bacon doughnuts are a sweet-tooth satisfiers” and “poached eggs and béarnaise that will cure what ails you.”
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Great Maple’s take on brunch food gained a following. Other locations emerged spanning from Pasadena to San Diego. The restaurant stumbled a bit as the owners tried to sculpt its identity. But eventually, Great Maple became known as a modern American eatery.
Yet Ho admits that Great Maple is still evolving.
“Sometimes as a 13-year-old brand you have to get rid of old standbys to make room for new favorites. But that’s really hard. There are people who are so loyal to us. I can’t take the portobello fries away – or the doughnuts. They’ll riot!,” she said with a dramatic flair. “They’ll throw me in the fryer.”