Jessica and Davin Waite on CREATE

Jessica is a restaurateur, non-profit leader and local food advocate with a MBA from Pepperdine University and a punk rock ethos. As an entrepreneur and eco-warrior, she has long been a local food advocate with an urgency instilled within her from a young age to make a lasting impact on the planet and her community. Jessica's goal is to build businesses that are regenerative, in that they give more than they take.
After her undergraduate studies in science and nutrition, Jessica analyzed the trajectory of the healthcare industry and recognized the need to challenge conventional approaches to illness. She found her path in serving as a think tank and advocate, using food education and access as a creative, preventative solution to build a healthier future. In 2012, Jessica paired up with husband Davin Waite, a well-known chef who has long been recognized in local circles and beyond for his innovative and boundary-pushing dishes. The two co-founded highly-lauded restaurants Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub, The Whet Noodle, The Plot, and most recently partnered on Shootz Fish + Beer. All restaurants focus on sourcing locally and minimizing waste through total utilization.
In 2017, while attending the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) conference in San Diego, Jessica wrote the first business plan for a restaurant with a zero-waste ethos and an entirely plant-based menu. Two and a half years later, the first location of The Plot opened in South Oceanside, focusing on the whole vegetable and the total utilization of fresh, boundary-pushing ingredients — some of which are grown directly behind the restaurant. Waite, a vegetarian by age seven and vegan for 20 of her 43 years, considers The Plot to be the most culture-shifting restaurant she has conceived to date. The Plot is a continued extension of Jessica's sustainability projects which she has pursued with Davin for over thirteen years. Soon after doors opened and even in the midst of a global pandemic, The Plot was awarded Best New Restaurant in 2020 by San Diego Magazine and named one of the Best New Restaurants in the US by The Vegetarian Times in 2021. Jessica was also a nominee for San Diego Business Journal's "Business Women of the Year" award that same year.
In 2022, Jessica returned to the CRRA conference—this time as a keynote speaker, delivering an address titled "There's No Such Thing as Waste," a powerful full-circle moment that underscored her evolution from attendee with a vision to a leader in the zero-waste movement.
To further this mission, Jessica co-founded and serves as Treasurer of The Plot Garden Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting healthy and resilient communities through urban food production, education, and innovation. The organization builds spaces designed to educate, grow, and expand upon the mission of The Plot restaurant while connecting the community directly with their source of food.

In addition to her restaurant ventures, Jessica is the President of Berry Good Food Foundation, a local non-profit that advances healthy, integrated food systems by educating, connecting, and supporting food producers and consumers in San Diego County and Baja California. Jessica has studied Circular Economy and Sustainable Business Practices at Cambridge Judge Business School, and aims to build businesses that will benefit all stakeholders; partners, customers and the environment.

A local legend in the sustainable food community, Chef Davin Waite is a classically trained sushi chef who thrives on pushing boundaries with creative uses for ingredients that deliver exciting flavors while minimizing food waste and celebrating local proteins and produce. Davin co-owns and oversees culinary operations at Oceanside restaurants Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub — beloved for its innovative omakase and dry-aging program — plant-based The Plot, local seafood concept Shoots Fish x Beer, and most recently Brine Box, a sustainable seafood joint situated at the end of the iconic Oceanside Pier where Davin oversees culinary operations.

With each new project, Davin creates a dining ethos in his own image; scrappy, irreverent and constantly pushing boundaries. He aims to stay in a state of consistent innovation and creation in order to inspire and is often teaching sustainable cooking techniques to elementary students, culinary students and city officials. Davin has collaborated on grants with Scripps Institute of Oceanography and NOAA Fisheries in an effort to popularize sustainable cooking techniques, turning bycatch and less utilized cuts into marketable dishes. He was recently bestowed the 2022 Sustainability Advocate Award by the California Travel Association, the only chef to receive the honor.

Davin’s menus reflect his mission and core values as he continues to evolve as a chef and as an advocate.