Her favorite childhood Christmas gift was a cash register, said Chef Dayo “Dah-yo” Edwards of Dayosense Catering. Born with an entrepreneurial spirit, Dayo planted the seeds as early as four years old when she started the risky business venture of selling bookmarkers and fake first aid kits to her family and neighbors.

“I was always that child who would figure out ways to create and sell things,” Chef Dayo laughed.

The DayoSense company’s origins are personal. Pursuing architecture as her career path into adulthood, Dayo spent her free time collaborating with her mom, making meals and dinners-to-go for family and close friends, which was met with rave reviews. This feedback encouraged Dayo to create Dayosense catering in 2005, where she and her mom continue providing dinners but started catering small parties, dinners, and anniversaries.

As catering requests grew to be larger and more complicated, Dayo chose to attend culinary night school at The Art Institute of Seattle (2006-2008) while still being a full-time architect, giving her the confidence needed to grow from catering private events and celebrations to larger-scale events within educational facilities, Corporate Offices, non-profit organizations, and even museums.

“That opened my eyes to all things food,” said Dayo. “Culinary school showed I can tap into that side of me that is creative, business, and service-minded.”

It seemed like everything was going according to plan to balance a career and fun hobby. Then, the 2008 housing market crash happened, and everything became uncertain. Dayo’s career as an architect was thrown into limbo as housing/building projects came to a full stop, causing job insecurity.

Knowing about Dayo’s catering ventures, Dayo’s employer presented her with a difficult choice: She could either stay on creating construction documents for a project that may or may not manifest, or she could take a generous severance package and pivot fully into Dayosense catering with her employer’s blessing.

Chef Dayo took the severance package.

“It was a tough time,” Dayo admitted. “This whole thing is still a faith-walk.”

As she invested fully into her pivot, Dayo took on various externships geared towards her continued education. Working in various eateries such as Andalucas restaurant in the Mayflower Park Hotel, managing South Lake Union’s Mokas Cafe, managing the kitchen at Fremont Seattle’s PCC Market, and applying the lessons she learned to her own business. This education would lead Dayo to expand her culinary vision, making her mom her Sous Chef and anchoring down the company specialty of creating comfort foods from around the world with the determination of giving those same flavors to those with dietary restrictions.

In 2016 as Dayo prepared for her wedding date, she wanted to create a foodie gift for their 400+ reception guests. This gave birth to the seasoning called “Black Love,” a blend that highlights the flavors of her northwest upbringing and her husband’s Miami roots. The evolution to e-commerce was made easier due to the help from Tabor 100 via The Liberty Project, a program designed in partnership with the City of Seattle, University of Washington and Seattle University, to support and grow representation of black/brown Seattle-based business owners. Assigned a Tabor 100 professional consultant, Design Labs, Dayo said this support has helped her both locate and understand the steps needed to advertise and sell her product line on Amazon.

Running Dayosense full service catering business serving events now up to 1,000 guests and fulfilling Black Love orders, it became evident that DayoSense had outgrown many of the various commissary kitchens she rented. Dayo eventually realized that, because of her architecture background, she didn’t just know how to work in a kitchen…

She could create her own.

In 2022, with the design eye of her retired Architect dad and Architect friend Suzanne of Suzanne Zahr Art and Architecture, Dayo converted the backyard of her personal residence into a 1,200 sq ft. Dayosense commercial kitchen. Owning their own space to prepare events and distribute products, Dayo is within the final steps of reaching major benchmarks with catering, ecommerce, and even wholesale.

Being a member of Tabor 100 “It’s more than networking, it’s a community of dream building,” said Dayo. “It allows space and energy to work on your business, and not just in your business.”

From selling plates, to operating in commissary kitchens, to owning their own kitchen, Dayo has gone from being a company of one and a volunteer mom to having 6 permanent employees and 15+ on-call waitstaff. As for the bigger picture, Dayo said her ultimate goal is to create jobs in her community, support micro businesses, and educate small business owners on how to navigate the fog of red tape that comes with it.

“It’s priceless being in a room of like-minded people where aspirational dreams don’t scare them,” Dayo said. “I’m grateful for those who have been purposeful about doing this.”

To learn more about The Liberty Project, please visit tabor100.org/liberty-project/

To learn more about Dayosense Catering, please visit dayosense.com