Mike Cioffi is the creator and visionary behind the Phoenicia Diner. After a thirty-year career building scenery for television and Broadway shows, he became interested in the restaurant world and in 2012 he and his family took a leap of faith when the Diner opened its doors.

Co-author Sara B. Franklin is a writer and a professor of food culture and history at NYU's Gallatin School for Individualized Study and the NYU Prison Education Program. She lives with her family in the Hudson Valley.

Chef Chris Bradley spent two decades cooking in some of the most renowned restaurants in New York and Washington, D.C., before moving to Upstate New York. He now lives with his family in the Hudson Valley.