Chef Suzie Stephens

Suzie Stephens has been a chef for over 30 years, with a broad range of experience as a chef, restaurant consultant, caterer, and restaurateur. In the early part of her career, Suzie was an owner of the Palace Restaurant and a consultant to other local restaurant owners. In 1980, she launched the Nibbles brand, which would later become a well-known catering, food emporium, and product development company over the following 25 years. Suzie first opened Nibbles Catering in 1980, which grew to become Northwest Arkansas' largest upscale catering establishment, serving thousands of catering jobs in the five state area. Building on this success, Suzie opened the Nibbles Food Emporium in 1999, a gourmet retail store, wine bar, cooking classes and kitchenware with over 6,000 gourmet food items. The retail assortment developed by Suzie builds on extensive knowledge of the New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco gourmet products markets. In 2003, Suzie added Cafe Nibbles, a product development company, to the Nibbles brand. Through Cafe Nibbles, she developed more than 15 products including frozen hors d’oeuvres distributed nationwide at Sam’s Club.

Chef Suzie Stephens contributes her culinary knowledge to the community as an honored member of the Research Chefs Association (2005-Present), the President of the Ozark Regional Chefs Association (1996-2000), and a Chef/Teacher for the University of Arkansas' Center of Excellence for Poultry Science.

Suzie received her teaching certificate from University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and later received a stocks/sauces qualification from the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris and a C.E.C. (certified chef) designation from the American Culinary Federation.

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