It was August 2024 when the CNN Underscored article came out.
CNN Underscored had built a reputation for finding products people were genuinely excited about. Seeing Ootopia included felt surreal.
By that point, I had already started introducing Ootopia through pop-up olive oil tastings.
One of my first was at The Concession Golf Club, where my mentor and I often met. Before a Pahlmeyer wine dinner, I was invited to introduce our olive oils to the members.
I was nervous.
Many of them knew me from my years running one of the best steakhouses in town.
This wasn’t the Tim they had come to know.
I wasn’t leading a dining room.
I wasn’t running through a restaurant solving problems.
I wasn’t cooking beside the chefs.
It was just me, standing behind a table, talking about Greek olive oil.
Greek olive oil is personal.
Every tasting reminds me of the stories people share. Someone almost always has a cousin, an uncle, or a family friend who brings olive oil home from Greece in an old Fabuloso style bottle or a two-liter soda bottle. They tell those stories with pride because someone they know made it.
I understand that completely.
But I also learned that great olive oil deserves great care.
Fresh extra virgin olive oil is delicate. If it isn’t filtered, it can deteriorate more quickly. Put it in a clear container where sunlight and UV rays can reach it, and you’re working against everything that made it special in the first place.
What I was presenting that night was a different philosophy.
Every decision—from the grove to the bottle—was made to preserve the olive oil at its very best. Estate-grown olives. Early harvest. Immediate milling. Filtration. Dark UV-protective bottles. Every step mattered.
We poured Ootopia into tasting glasses and paired it with fresh bread. We talked about estate-grown olive oil, why we never blend oils from different farms, and what happens when every step of production is focused on quality instead of quantity.
Something happened that night I wasn’t expecting.
After the wine dinner ended, people stayed.
The wine representatives packed up and headed home, but conversations around the olive oil kept going.
Members asked questions.
They shared stories.
They wanted to taste the different varieties again.
That evening gave me confidence.
It reminded me that people don’t just want to buy great food.
They want to understand it.
Looking back, I still had so much to learn.
The CNN article was only beginning to circulate. More awards would come. We would eventually represent Greece at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. There were milestones ahead that I couldn’t have imagined that evening.
But The Concession was one of the first moments I realized Ootopia wasn’t just something Clint and I believed in.
Other people believed in it too.
A few weeks later, my wife Julie looked up from her phone and asked,
“How did we get on this list?”
She was reading CNN Underscored’s guide to some of the best olive oils.
I remember taking the phone from her and just staring at it.
There was Ootopia.
Sitting alongside brands I had spent months learning about.
The article wasn’t exciting simply because our name appeared on a list.
It mattered because CNN interviewed respected olive oil experts, including Emily Lycopolus, to help recommend exceptional olive oils.
Nobody asked for a favor.
Nobody bought their way onto that list.
Coming after our international awards, it felt like another step forward.
Looking back now, I don’t think the CNN article changed anything.
It changed what everyone else saw.
Clint and I already believed in Ootopia from the day those first samples arrived from Greece.
The article simply became one of the first moments where our family, our friends, and the people around us began to understand why I had walked away from nearly thirty years in the restaurant business.
When Julie asked,
“How did we get on this list?”
the answer wasn’t one moment.
It wasn’t one award.
It wasn’t one article.
It was thousands of small decisions made by people in Greece who refused to compromise on quality.
Our job has simply been to introduce their work to more people.
Photo Credit: Molly Flores and OotopiaUSA
