ORAL HISTORY

Ouita Michel

The Midway Bakery & Cafe

Ouita Michel is a Lexington native. She developed her passion for good food during her college days at the University of Kentucky, cooking with friends and catering get-togethers at debate tournaments. She moved to New York for a few years, during which she worked at a small macrobiotic restaurant and then attended the Culinary Institute of America.

In 1993, she moved back to Lexington to open up a restaurant. Michel and her husband Chris, founded the hospitality group Holly Hill and Company, which boasts eight restaurants. Given the depth and breadth of her restaurant group, Michel is a public figure in the Lexington community. She hosts a yearly Thanksgiving meal for her family where she showcases generations of recipes she has learned from her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Even the sugar cookies she bakes and sells at The Midway Bakery are her great-grandmother’s recipe. Michel sees them as a way to stay connected with her ancestors. Michel is not only teaching the next generation these handed-down recipes. While she is busy with the day to day operations of multiple restaurants, she considers role the food industry plays in climate change action. Michel implements farm to table ethic in her restaurants and bakery by using locally grown ingredients. She is also part of larger conversations in Kentucky and beyond about how restaurants and bakeries can curb food waste.