By Sara Hinds
Libby Power-Leybman ’96 first landed in Cincinnati by way of a children’s theater. Her height was ideal for the 13-foot puppet on stilts.
“Hopefully my talent [and] ability did play into it,” Libby joked about her first gig after graduate school.
The Doane theater major had just earned her Master of Fine Arts from Western Illinois University. Her initial stint in Cincinnati lasted just a year, but she’d return to the city almost a decade later, and this time her talent and ability would play a role in being featured alongside her husband and their restaurant on the popular Food Network television show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” hosted by Guy Fieri (Season 53, Episode 6).
Libby’s day job is a dental product trainer. Her day, night and any free hour job is unofficially “boss lady” at The Pickled Pig. She co-owns the restaurant with her husband, Gary Leybman, who is head chef.
The couple has collaborated on the restaurant since it was just an idea between the two of them. Gary is a classically trained chef who immigrated to the United States from Belarus with his family when he was 10 years old. His entire family is made up of skilled cooks, Libby said, but his love for cooking stems from his grandmothers.
Libby’s liberal arts education afforded her the critical thinking, creativity and confidence required to lead a restaurant. When she first came to Doane from Geneva, Nebraska, Libby dabbled in learning a little bit of everything. She eventually declared a theatre major, which has seen her through career changes from children’s theatre, to sales, to the restaurant industry.
“I think a liberal arts education is so important,” Libby said. “It has given me the ability to adapt my thinking and my actions depending on what job I'm doing today or what I'm trying to achieve in the future.”
She felt backed by her degree and has relied on the “broad range of experience” she gained at Doane.
“Doane offered me so much more than just a degree in my specific field that has applied in my everyday life and has really gotten me where I am now,” Libby said.
The restaurant industry, much like theater and show business, is notorious for its cutthroat nature and shortlived success, so the couple was deliberate in every decision they made, from the name, to the menu, to the mission statement. They took three years to develop their business plan before pitching it to the bank. They wanted The Pickled Pig to be a nostalgic experience, not just a restaurant.
“We really want to make sure that we have a cohesive and unified presence for our customers when they walk in,” Libby said. “We wanted to feel like it’s home.”
Many menu items feature fermented ingredients, an ode to their early days of selling sauerkraut at farmers’ markets, and to Gary’s heritage. Fermentation is a long process that requires precise planning, but whose product packs a flavorful punch.
Different cultures have unique styles of fermentation. Gary has developed his own ferments based on his Belarusian roots.
On the “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” episode that featured The Pickled Pig, Gary walked Guy through making a smoked turkey sandwich and a pork burger with kimchi.
In the episode Libby laughed about the first time she came home to Gary making kimchi. The smell was overwhelming.
Now? She’s grown to love kimchi’s smell and taste. She even gets so passionate about describing how The Pickled Pig uses the fermentation process she forgets what question she was answering.
Aside from kimchi advocate, Libby serves in a “back of house” role, paying bills and organizing the administrative work. A necessary yin to the yang of a creative chef — and critical for The Pickled Pig’s future.
The couple knew from the start that they couldn’t rely on brick and mortar foot traffic for long-term success. To create a new revenue stream they want to sell their smoked meats to grocery stores and other businesses and restaurants. They’re in the process of FDA certification. Goal number two is to create a second company to sell their sauces and products in grocery stores. In this scenario, they’d outsource all cooking and packing.
Both goals were in the works before “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” reached out, but the publicity from the episode couldn’t be better timed.
“He [Guy] gives businesses like us that are true mom-and-pop, scratch-made, places that are kind of doing it the old-school way, without investors and all of that kind of thing the recognition and national platform that we could never afford,” Libby said.
The Pickled Pig hosted a watch party for the episode, which aired on Friday, August 22, and partnered with a local brewery to provide drinks alongside their food buffet.
Customers, friends, family and staff watched as Gary led Guy through his process for two popular dishes. The watch party — as much as the episode — was a genuine display of the couple’s culinary skills and their ability to craft an experience that fosters a loyal community.
And Libby’s talent and ability definitely play into that.
Libby’s The Pickled Pig recommendations:
- Dill sauerkraut
- “I eat that straight out of the fridge, out of the jar, I’m obsessed with it”
- Deli combo with potato salad and carrots
- “You get sweet and spice and creamy and the textures all built together.”
- Secret item menu: pork burger with sauerkraut and Russian dressing
- “That is my go to. If I don't know what I want, I'm gonna get that every day.”
