Local Fennel Barley Salad
“Food should make you dance,” says Chef Jordan Heyd. That moment of joy is at the heart of every meal at Lekker Eats Market + Kitchen, her Myrtle Beach restaurant built around fresh ingredients, intentional cooking and a connection to the community.
“When you take your first bite of food, and you’re excited—that happy dance—that’s how I know I love the food,” she says.
Before opening Lekker Eats, Heyd spent years working aboard private yachts. It was a career that took her around the world before an unexpected diagnosis changed her path.
“I was working on a charter yacht in Italy when I was hospitalized and had to leave my boat mid-charter. I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes,” says Heyd.
The diagnosis forced Heyd to look at food differently. For the first time, understanding every ingredient wasn't just a matter of curiosity—it was essential to managing her health.
“I’m completely insulin-dependent, so I had to relearn how to live. I have to be very conscientious about what goes into my body,” she says. “It’s not just about a pretty plate. It’s actually knowing what’s on my plate and where it came from.”
That realization changed the course of Heyd’s career, leading her to attend culinary school to better understand the food she was putting into her own body. With many of her closest friends from South Africa, Heyd chose to continue her culinary education in Cape Town, where another piece of her story began to take shape.
“Lekker is the native way in South Africa to say ‘all is good.’ In Afrikaans, lekker eats translates to yummy foods. And that’s what we’re going for—a lekker experience,” she says.
Creating Community Through Food
When Heyd returned to Myrtle Beach, the lessons she learned around the world came home with her. But Lekker Eats didn’t begin in a commercial kitchen—it started in her sister’s garage with pickup orders for family and friends.
“Those same people who bought the first salads are still the ones who walk through our doors every single day. They've been with me through pick-ups, through deliveries and then little Lekker and now big Lekker,” says Heyd.
As demand grew, so did the business. The pickup operation eventually became a brick-and-mortar market that Heyd affectionately calls "Little Lekker," serving salads, sweet treats, prepared dinners and a small coffee program.
Every menu at Lekker Eats reflects the same mindful approach Heyd takes to her own health, with an emphasis on fresh, seasonal ingredients.
“Not only does it bring more flavor, but there's more nutrition when you are eating something meant to be grown in that season,” Heyd explains.
Heyd believes that eating well shouldn't feel like a compromise. She wants guests to leave surprised—not that the food was healthy, but that it was simply delicious.
“I think there's a stigma around healthy food. You're eating lettuce, you're just eating raw carrots, and that's not what it is. Food is fun. It's all a matter of how you cook it and what you're putting it with. There's so much creativity that can go along with everything. Just because it's good for you doesn't mean it's boring,” she says.
The community that supported Lekker from the beginning also shaped the ingredients that made their way onto the menu. One of those relationships began with a simple introduction—and a cooler of microgreens.
Growing a Connection to Local Farms
For Heyd, knowing where food comes from is an essential part of creating meaningful meals. That belief extends beyond the kitchen and into the relationships she builds with the farmers who help bring those ingredients to life, like Oscar and Michele Chavez of Microledon Farm.
“Oscar and I met five years ago, and he just walked into my little market restaurant with a cooler and was like, hey, want to sell some microgreens? And I was like, what?” says Heyd. “We tried them, and we were like, yeah, let's do it. And ever since then, he's been walking in the restaurant with the cooler with microgreens, and it just seems like, the orders keep getting bigger and bigger.”
Oscar and Michelle’s journey to farming began with a desire to create a healthier lifestyle for their growing family.
“We started the organic journey because we couldn't get pregnant,” explains Michelle. “Once we changed our diets for a year, then we got pregnant. Then he started the garden.”
“Then it was daddy nesting,” laughs Oscar. “Everything had to be fresh. It had to come from right there, local. It had to be as organic as possible. So, we started a little urban farm behind the house we were renting, and from there we just knew that this was something that not only we wanted for our own family, but we also wanted this for our community as well.”
Microledon Farm has grown far beyond the small backyard garden where it began. Today, Oscar and Michelle operate a market garden just outside Myrtle Beach, using sustainable and regenerative practices to produce vegetables, greens and herbs for local restaurants and families. In addition to their outdoor growing spaces, Microledon has expanded into controlled-environment agriculture, using a vertical farm to grow crops indoors and maximize production in a smaller footprint.
"We want to make sure that we're able to deliver the most abundant, nutrient-rich product that we can to the community so that they can enrich their family with good stuff inside,” says Oscar.
Beyond providing fresh food, Oscar and Michelle hope to inspire the next generation to understand where food comes from and how technology can play a role in agriculture.
“It’s all about really helping others. Farmers, kids. But we figured we’d start with the kids, and that’s why we started the farm to begin with. So, everything was about giving them a chance to discover what life really is and how plants grow, and just the whole ecosystem.”
As Microledon grew, so did its relationships with local chefs who were eager to work with ingredients at their peak.
"When you see it on the plate, you see what the chefs have done and created with your hard work. It's so cool. It's that merger of creativity with the labor of love."
That relationship has grown well beyond the first cooler of microgreens. Today, Microledon supplies Lekker Eats with a variety of produce, and both the farm and the restaurant have evolved alongside one another.
"We don't just use them for microgreens now. We use them for lettuce. We use them for our kale. And it's been fun because I get to watch their kids grow up. I get to see their farm expand, and vice versa. They've grown with me as I've grown."
The same community that helped build Lekker from the beginning continues to surround Heyd today—from the farmers who grow her ingredients to the team that brings her vision to life.
It’s Lekker to be Lekker
What started as a small market built around fresh food has grown into something much bigger: a community of people who share a passion for thoughtful cooking, meaningful connections and making healthy food enjoyable.
“I think that, with being recognized as a Chef Ambassador, it’s very hard for me to stand alone in that because I have so much support in my kitchen. It’s not just me doing everything. There is just a team that relentlessly works and works hard, and they have so many good ideas. They go along with my crazy ideas, and we just balance each other out so well.”
That same spirit of collaboration shapes how Heyd sees the future of food—one where healthy eating is not defined by restrictions, but by creativity, connection and access to ingredients grown with care.
Local Fennel Barley Salad
with Dijon Vinaigrette
“This salad is rooted in the very beginning of my Lekker Eats journey. It's simple, full of flavor and something anyone can make at home.” – Chef Jordan Heyd
Ingredients
3 cups barley
2.5 green apples
1 red onion
2 cups slivered almonds
2 cups golden raisins
1 head of fennel
Salt and pepper
romaine lettuce
1 tbsp olive oil
Method
Soak golden raisins in warm water and set aside.
Dice the green apples and red onions into small cubes. Thinly slice the entire head of fennel.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan over high heat. Once heated, add fennel, salt and pepper.
Turn heat down to medium-low and cook the fennel until soft. If necessary, turn the heat down more to keep the fennel from burning.
Once cooked and the fennel is soft & sweet, remove from heat and set aside to cool.
Add the barley, green apples, red onions, almonds, raisins and fennel to a bowl and toss until combined.
In a serving bowl, add a large handful of romaine lettuce and scoop 1 cup of the fennel and barley mixture on top.
Serve with a maple Dijon vinaigrette.
Dijon Vinaigrette
2 ⅔ cups olive oil
1 ¼ cups white wine vinegar
¾ cup Dijon mustard
¾ cup maple syrup
1 tsp salt
dash of water for consistency
Add vinegar, Dijon, maple and salt to a blender. Turn on high and slowly incorporate the olive oil to emulsify the dressing.
Once emulsified, check consistency. For a thinner dressing, add a dash of water.
