The team behind the successful recipe website Fit Foodie Finds — all best friends — was never one to follow a predictable path.
“We’ve always kind of liked to do things our own way, do things a little bit differently,” said founder Lee Funke. “So when we were exploring what our next business move was, we kept coming back to we love meeting people that we share our food with on the internet. We love feeding people in our lives. So that’s always been in the back of our minds: restaurant, food truck — what would that look like?”
Turns out it looks like a 40-foot mobile kitchen parked outside Forgotten Star Brewing in Fridley.
It also turns out that Funke and her colleagues, editor-in-chief Emily Richter and recipe developer Linley Hanson, are family friends with Forgotten co-owner Andy Risvold.
“He’s also a visionary, and we talked to him about how we can partner and interweave our businesses together and make something really great,” Funke said. “And then we just did.”
Hodgepodge quietly opened a few weeks ago, a 50-50 partnership between the website and the brewery, and will have its grand opening this weekend.
Their goal is threefold, Richter said: “We wanted to have options for everyone, so a balanced but still indulgent menu; the ability to feed your entire family, because this is such a family-friendly space; and something different and fun, which is honestly how we landed on the name Hodgepodge.”

College beginnings
The three women behind Fit Foodie Finds graduated from the University of Minnesota, where Funke started the website College Foodie Finds in 2010.