Partner Profile: Marilyn Johnson of South Jersey Food Scene

South Jersey Local has partnered with a quartet of well-known local digital content creators to help bring our vision of telling South Jersey’s stories to fruition. While our focus is primarily on crafting a print newspaper, we acknowledge the power of online platforms when they’re done right, and we believe we’ve picked four of the best around to join our team. In the coming days we’ll introduce you to each of them individually, with profile stories on each to let you get to know them better.

First up is Marilyn Johnson. Johnson has become a massively influential food writer and Facebook group moderator. Her South Jersey Food Scene brand includes a website, Facebook page and wildly popular Facebook group, which counts more than 180,000 members. We’re thrilled to be able to tell a bit of her story here and look forward to sharing her work with you in our print editions.

So without further ado, here’s Marilyn!

Marilyn Johnson – South Jersey Food Scene

From the beginning, Marilyn Johnson’s journey in the world of food writing has been largely about two things – immersing herself in a subject she’s passionate about and helping the small businesses that turn that subject into a vibrant scene.

But it was during Covid, when lockdowns and quarantines sent the restaurant industry into a tailspin that the second part of her mission became her central driving force.

“During the pandemic, I saw that restaurants were struggling,” Johnson said. “I thought this is a platform that I can grow to help those small businesses. To me, that’s the most important thing.”

Johnson’s platform is South Jersey Food Scene, a brand she’s been growing for the past six years. Though not originally from here, South Jersey is now her home and something she’s become passionate about.

She’s originally from Pennsylvania coal country, having grown up near Pottsville in Schuylkill County, Pa., about two-and-a-half hours outside of Philadelphia. Out of high school, Johnson went to Penn State at their Reading campus and spent about 10 years in the Berks County, Pa. area before moving to Philly for a few years.

Getting involved in the food industry and writing and marketing wasn’t her original plan.

“It was kind of a twisty road that I followed,” Johnson said.

In college she studied social work and psychology. She joked that having that kind of training in her background definitely helps when it comes to managing a giant social media group, but she didn’t stay in the social work field very long. Instead she moved into business-related office-type jobs.

But also along the way she found herself working in and being drawn to the food service industry.

“One of the jobs I worked at was a small café in Reading that was a coffee shop and served food,” she said.

“I was a barista, but I also did food serving and some food preparation. That’s kind of where my love of food and food service began. I loved working for this café so much. I just loved the owners, I loved everything about it. I learned so much about food and the food business.”

Food had already been a big part of her life, but her experience at that café in Reading brought it into focus.

But Johnson soon found her professional career took her in multiple new directions, including a stint in Philadelphia working as a nightclub DJ. Eventually she found herself in New Jersey, in Monmouth County, where she began working in digital marketing.

It was around this time that what she’s now best known for began to take shape.

For the Love of Food

“I had already picked up writing and blogging,” she said. “This was around the time when blogs were just getting started. I knew I always wanted to write about something. I wanted to write about things that interested me, and I didn’t want it just to be personal essays. I wanted to get out there, investigate stories and learn about people, places and things.”

It was there in Monmouth County when everything started to click. She knew she wanted to write and express herself, had a viable means to do it with the growing popularity of blogging platforms, and had a subject in mind that was both meaningful to her and universally popular.

“I was just always naturally drawn to food, restaurants and dining,” she said. “I thought that’s something I can focus on – food writing, writing about what’s going on in the local food scene.”

In 2008, Johnson was just getting started as a food blogger when she moved back to Philadelphia and continued her new-found endeavor. She started the food blog site “Philly Grub,” a site she still maintains to this day, and set out to tell the stories of the people and businesses involved in the restaurant scene in Philadelphia.

After a few years back in Philadelphia and running that site, she once again moved to New Jersey, this time in Camden County in South Jersey. For a while she just added the Jersey-based content she created to the Philly Grub site, not wanting to disrupt her growing brand and feeling it fit in neatly enough as part of the same regional coverage.

But soon she noticed the balance started to shift. While she continued to write about the Philadelphia restaurant scene, she realized she was writing much more frequently about food around South Jersey, if only due to proximity.

“I live here now,” she said of her adopted home of South Jersey. “This is where my life is.”

While her shift in focus grew organically, at the same time she realized a change could be beneficial.

Birth of a Brand

“I really noticed this gap,” Johnson said. “The coverage of the food scene in South Jersey was declining. I saw that as an opportunity to jump in and I started a whole new brand. That’s when South Jersey Food Scene was born.”

That shift came about six years ago, and the growth since then has been phenomenal, with the Facebook group leading the way. The South Jersey Food Scene group now has more than 180,000 members and it’s growing all the time.

Johnson said she had zero expectations when it began, and said she started it simply as a means to crowdsource ideas on where to go and what to cover next for her blog. She said that over the first few years the increase in membership was slow, but the past two years has seen exponential growth.

“It just took off,” she said. “I can’t pinpoint exactly what the story was or what the trend was, but over time, there have been certain trending topics that have gone completely viral.”

With each viral story either started or furthered by the group’s members, the size and reach of the group continued to grow.

Going Viral

One example Johnson noted was her group’s role in the local expression of the larger Dubai chocolate bar craze that had gone viral on TikTok. The TikTok-famous Middle Eastern confection is typically made with a pistachio paste and phyllo dough encased in milk chocolate and its popularity spread quickly on social media worldwide.

Locally, people seeking the candy in South Jersey turned to Johnson’s Food Scene for answers, asking the group if there were any shops in the area where it could be found.

“Some enterprising small mom and pop shops said ‘well, here’s an opportunity, people are looking for this, let me start making this product,’” Johnson said. “They figured out how to make it and before you knew it, several different places were starting to make it, and it just continued to go viral.”

Johnson recalled another recent locally viral trend that originated completely in the group – the maritozzi mania of 2024. If you missed the frenzy, maritozzi are an Italian pastry consisting of a sweet bun filled with cream, and after a couple of makers of the treat caught on in the Food Scene, it seemed the desserts were suddenly popping up everywhere.

“Dan’s Waffles started offering it, and he was already famous for his triple coconut cream pie, and when he started offering these maritozzi, it was like wildfire,” she said.

Sometimes the trends that get sparked by the group’s discussions take everyone by surprise and then get picked up by other groups and media outlets.

“Virtua Hospital Sushi!” Johnson said. “Let’s not forget about that one! That originated in the South Jersey Food Scene group. It took off and all the newspapers and television stations covered it and they all credited the group.”

The story Johnson is referring to came from an anonymous post in her Facebook group, extolling the value and unexpected quality of the Sushi found in the cafeteria at Virtua Hospital in Voorhees. The post went viral in the group, with many agreeing with the original comment, and the surprising story was soon found all over.

Food Scene Future

The growth of the group has Johnson thinking big thoughts about her brand. She plans on hosting South Jersey Food Scene exclusive food-related events in the near future and she’s just recently launched the South Jersey Food Scene Frequent Diner Program.

The program is essentially a loyalty incentive card, purchased from Johnson for $20.25, which entitles members to discounts and offers from participating restaurants and other food-related businesses. Some perks might include free items with a certain dollar amount spent or a percentage off the bill when the card is presented.

As of this writing, Johnson said the program has more than 80 establishments participating and she expects it to grow substantially. The discounts and perks provided by membership in the program are good for the whole year.

Keeping it Positive

Despite all of the group’s success, Johnson said that it can sometimes prove to be a daunting undertaking. With the help of a few trusted moderators, Johnson keeps a vigilant eye out for those seeking to abuse the platform.

She has strict rules she maintains for the group, all about keeping it a place for positivity and civility. She doesn’t allow anyone to “yuck other people’s yums” or bash businesses on her site.

“I don’t want that negativity to seep in,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to do better. We’re trying to be good people here and do good work. That’s what it’s all about.”

Johnson said she encourages members to comment in the group with recommendations for the places they’ve enjoyed, not with potentially negative reviews. She said she sometimes gets pushback from people who don’t like those rules and feel they keep them from expressing their opinions.

“To me the purpose of the group is to help small businesses, and at the same time, we’re helping each other,” she said. “People are always looking for recommendations.”

There are plenty of other groups on Facebook and sites on the internet where people can find and express negative opinions, Johnson said. She just doesn’t want her site to be one of them.

What It’s All About

When asked if she could point to any individual stories over the years that stuck out in her memory as especially heartwarming or moving, Johnson was hesitant to answer, fearing naysayers may use it to paint her as self-serving.

“There are so many examples of where really good things have come as a result of the group,” Johnson said. “A lot of small businesses said that their lives have literally changed. They went from doing no business to life-changing sales.”

Sometimes though, the positive impact that can come from the group extends beyond those directly in the restaurant industry. Sometimes the community Johnson has created comes together for a bigger cause.

“A person reached out and said ‘my husband has cancer. I know this is not your typical post in the group, but we are forming a fundraiser and we need to get donations for baskets for a silent auction,’” Johnson said.

Johnson said that as moderator of the group she normally doesn’t approve that kind of activity, due to the amount of time and effort needed to vet the veracity of the situation and her commitment to protecting her members from all-too-rampant scams. But the severity of the situation and the sincerity of the request for help caused Johnson to get involved. She was able to investigate and determine that the cause was indeed real and worthy.

The South Jersey man was due to undergo a surgery that would save his life, but would also lead to major life-altering changes for him and his loved ones. The family was holding a fundraiser at a bar in Hammonton to help defray some of the costs involved with adapting to his new situation.

“Let me tell you, it was a landslide of donations that poured in,” she said. “Hundreds of businesses donated to this fundraiser. They were overwhelmed by the response.”

Johnson said it’s stories like that one and the successes of businesses promoted in the group that keep her doing what she does.

“There are just so many examples of peoples’ lives being changed,” she said. “Many people and businesses have really benefited from the group, and at the end of the day that makes me feel so good.”