“Joseph Hayes,” he said, holding out his hand.
At this media gathering, we were neighbors at a long, narrow harvest table. His longtime partner, Jennifer Greenhill Taylor, sat directly across from him.
Hayes wasn’t a big man, but he had a big heart, a big heart, and amazingly wild gray hair. And of course his name was in front of him.
“The Joseph Hayes? ! “I asked.
He laughed and set off to the races.
The conversation started in the field of cooking, but quickly moved from food to writing about food to writing about art in general.
And by the end of the night, Joseph Hayes (the name I entered his contact information for, and the name that still marks precious text threads from the past) became an unexpected mentor.
On July 16, 2025, the world suddenly lost him. He was 71 years old.
He died at his home in Richmond, Virginia, where he and Greenhill Taylor had recently moved.
My colleague, Matthew J. Palm, I wrote a nice obi text In honor of his passing, Hayes featured a parade of artists whose visions and voices he encouraged and developed.
He has similar stories in the city’s food scene, many of which will take place this weekend at the Celebration of Life, a gathering of Hayes’ Orlando family (neighbors, friends, foodies, creatives of all stripes). Timucua Arts Foundation.
Kind and encouraging, Joseph Reed Hayes was a “beacon of creative energy” | Thanks
It was one of his artistic strongholds here in the city, where Hayes’ affinity for jazz, poetry and even food came together (back then, guests including Hayes would bring food for pre-show potlucks), and where many of his original plays were performed.
Hayes, whose father was a short-order cook, poured his creativity onto the plate long before he hit the page or stage. aIn fact, his desire to become a chef led him to attend a highly acclaimed American culinary school in Hyde Park, New York, an hour’s drive from his hometown of the Bronx, but he remained there for only one semester.
“[At the CIA]he realized he didn’t want to work that hard,” Greenhill-Taylor told the Orlando Sentinel. “He didn’t want to kill himself in the kitchen and decided to find another way to engage with food.”
She says her childhood in diner culture influenced Hayes’ perception of comfort and simplicity.
“He used to go there and spend time because he could read all the comics for free and he could watch his father cook.”
His immigrant-rich neighborhood helped push his taste buds toward diversity.
That taste reached its peak in 1996 when Hayes landed in Orlando in search of a new life and love.
He and Greenhill Taylor, then the Orlando Sentinel’s copy editor, had met a year earlier on an AOL writers’ forum, but despite their connection, Hayes found himself on the paper’s freelance roster without assistance.
Matthew J. Palm / Orlando Sentinel
Joseph Reed Hayes directs performer Lauren Carder Fox during a rehearsal for “Destination Moon” at Timucua Arts in Orlando. A ceremony commemorating his life will be held there on February 8 at 1 p.m. (Orlando Sentinel File)
“I gave him the editor’s name, but he could have gotten it from the paper,” she says.
“He had always wanted to write. He was starting a new career and coming here was a complete break in his path. For his pride and his soul, he needed to make it work without having someone else open the door.”
The full-length novel combination was eventually replaced by food, as Hayes pitched the idea to the magazine and ensured it would draw in readers.
Editors all over town noticed. First Orlando Weekly, then Orlando Magazine. There he served as dining critic for 11 years..
Around this time, he and Heather McPherson, the Sentinel’s longtime food editor and critic, began running into each other at media events, leading to their friendship.I ate my husband, artist Spencer Pettit.came to the treasure.
“We had a lot in common,” she said of Hayes and Greenhill-Taylor, recalling the last time she had them over for dinner.
“Spencer loved to write and was actually thinking about writing a play at the time…and Joe just encouraged him to go ahead with the idea.”
McPherson enjoyed the work of many of his contemporaries, but admired Hayes’ ability to pivot gracefully from one passion to another.
“He was a very articulate writer and a very thoughtful writer. He loved not only food, but theater and music. He was interested in so many things and grabbed everything with both hands…There was no half-heartedness with Joe. He just jumped in.”
Joseph Creech of Hunger Street Tacos was a fan as well.
“He was witty, and his work was well-thought out and funny,” said Creech, who met Hayes after inviting him out for a meal on Hunger Street, “but what made him really special as a writer was that he was very particular about emphasizing the things that surprised him. If he didn’t like something, he wouldn’t write about it. But if he did, he was your best advocate.”
Macpherson’s view is similar. “He had a humor that was disarming, but never harmful.”
Food writer Brooke Fehr met Hayes and Greenhill Taylor in 2017.
“I was immediately attracted to them because of their warmth and generosity,” Fehr said. A few years later, Fehr ended up giving Hayes jobs at magazines such as Orlando, where she served as Orlando’s food and tourist attractions editor from 2021 to 2022.
Beyond his “breadth of culinary knowledge,” Fehr was drawn to Hayes’ willingness to buck trends.
“I’ll never forget the conversation he had at a media event where he expressed his disdain for truffles. It pissed me off, because this is something we should all love. And he had no qualms about going against the flow. I loved it.”
As editor, Fehr said Hayes was a consummate professional.
“I was able to tell him exactly what I needed, and that’s exactly what I got,” she says. “…And even though he had more experience than me and had worked in food for years, he still showed up in a way that made me feel valued as an editor.”
Just as the young Hayes thought he would find his footing in the kitchen, even as his career as a writer began in Orlando, his early forays onto the page had fiction in mind.
It was a serendipitous session at the Atlantic Arts Center, where the resident artist (Douglas Coupland of “Generation X” fame) gave Hayes his two cents at the end of the program, noting Hayes’ talent for dialogue.
That was the story Hayes told me the night we met.
“You should write a play!” Mr. Coupland told him, and something clicked.
Hayes went from an aspiring writer to an accomplished playwright in less than a year.
It was a story to encourage me as I started drawing.
Almost no one knew, but somehow I shared it with Hayes from the beginning.
His interest was obvious. By the end of the night he was my couple.
“You should do a show!” he said to me.
I had to make a few other life changes first, but a few years later, that day came at Austin’s Coffee.
Hayes and Greenhill Taylor were among the first through the door to help.
His words to many, “Be bold!” — graced our text thread on his first day at Sentinel. They still remain scrawled on my fridge.
“Sometimes the people you need, the people who encourage you, are hidden in plain sight,” McPherson said, recalling that night at her home in Mount Dora.
McPherson said that in his later years he focused on acting, but Hayes never left the stage.
“That was part of who he was. And now when you look at all the famous chefs, whether it’s James Beard or Michelin, Joe’s words have a lot to do with that. He’s made Central Florida tables a better place to sit.”
Hayes’ final production in Orlando, If I Had My Way, ran from June 16 to 20, 2022 at the Digital Adventure Theater at the Orlando Science Center.
The Palm of the Orlando Sentinel described the film as “a fascinating work that interweaves contemporary issues of class, race, status, and human relationships with Florida’s unique historical background.”
The fact that it happens in the kitchen is no coincidence.
food brings healingThis message is conveyed in one scene. food is love elsewhere.
“I think that’s exactly how he felt when he cooked for someone,” Greenhill-Taylor says.
“He was dealing in love.”
Want to lend a hand? Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram @amydroo or the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more fun, join our Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
If you go
A Celebration of Life for Joseph Reed Hayes will be held at the Timucua Arts Foundation, 2000 S. Summerlin Ave., Orlando, on Feb. 8 at 1 p.m. Anyone who knew him is encouraged to come and share food, drinks, music and memories. The event will be live streamed youtube.com/timucua.
