Meet Rebecca Leigh West-Remmey and Greg Remmey, the dynamic duo behind the viral sensation Devour Power, captivating over 1.8 million Instagram followers and 2.9 million TikTok fans with their mouth-watering content. These foodies and storytellers are also the founders of Devour Media, a food-driven content studio dedicated to boosting engagement and driving revenue growth for restaurants and brands.
Their journey began in 2012 when they first started dating, and since then, they’ve become the go-to couple for creating irresistible, viral food content.
The couple has journeyed to Chicago with the sole purpose of sampling as many deep-dish pizza slices as possible. One spontaneous Tuesday, they found themselves without plans and decided to catch a train from NYC to Philadelphia to taste what Americans claim to be the best cheesesteak.
In their quest for popular favorites, they’ve discovered numerous ordinary dishes uniquely transformed into extraordinary, one-of-a-kind creations that they knew everyone needed to see. Their goal is to spread positivity throughout their social media community. They achieve this by spending time in the kitchen with cooks eager to share their love language, food, with their followers. The couple aims to highlight the charm of mom-and-pop shops and family-run restaurants in their community, all while having fun in the process.
New York Lifestyles caught up with Rebecca and Greg for an interesting conversation about their journey in the world of food and social media influence, exploring their inspirations, challenges, and the secrets behind their viral success.
What has your journey been like since starting the company 12 years ago?
Rebecca: 2012 is when we literally put our first post on Instagram. Greg: We got together and, like any new couple does, they go out to restaurants. I always wanted to have some sort of blog, and I just decided to start posting the food. At the beginning, it was a blog called Meals and Reels. So, it was food and movie reviews. But after putting up a few posts, we quickly realized that no one cared about the movie reviews whatsoever and just wanted to see the food. So, we scraped it, changed it to Devour Power, and it’s just been all about food ever since. It’s really a passion of ours.
When did you realize that you had something big happening that was beyond just a hobby?
R: About nine years ago, we had a restaurant where we posted a couple of photos of cool food. They reached out to us and asked if we would consider running their Instagram. At that point, I was in real estate condo/co-op sales, and Greg was a neurophysiologist in brain and spinal surgeries in the city. We sat down and decided if we don’t try now, we might regret it. Once it was successful with the first restaurant, they referred us to another restaurant, and it snowballed very organically.
How do you keep that authenticity going in your content and how do you remain true to your mission as a brand?
G: I think being able to keep our authenticity has been easy because we know what food we like to be around, and we go into it if it will be a fun mutual partnership.” R: You must be authentic because people go to these restaurants. That is the whole point of this entire thing—to shine a light on smaller restaurants that have fantastic food.
How do you keep evolving and innovating as social media is rapidly changing?
G: Whenever there’s a new app that comes out that people are really excited about, you see the users going up. I mean, I’m going in on it, especially if it’s video based. Our whole thing is being consistent and constantly putting out content that we really like. Don’t overcomplicate it.
When you pivoted from a hobby to a business, what were the obstacles like? What was your experience?
R: About nine years ago, we decided to start Devour Media because we wanted to be authentic and have fun on Devour Power, but we also wanted to make it a business to satisfy the clients’ needs. I don’t know if we had major obstacles, but I’d say my biggest was learning not to look at social media comments. People hide behind their screens and can say very mean things. I haven’t looked at comments in years. G: I just block and bless.
You’ve taken a firm position of creating content that only highlights the positive features that a restaurant has to offer. What made you go this route, and why this perspective?
R: I would say because we both grew up in hospitality, more so Greg; his family owned a restaurant. We spent so many years behind the scenes. Every day you see something different—the chef is sick or he’s not there. You can’t blow up someone’s entire life over one plate of food that didn’t come out the way it should have. If they weren’t a decent restaurant, they wouldn’t survive here in New York City.
We just like to spread positivity. When we go to a restaurant, we order the entire menu. Also, we’re two different people—there’s one thing I love, which you may not. There’s nothing wrong with highlighting something and not talking about the one dish that you didn’t like.
R: Just because I don’t like something at a restaurant doesn’t mean you’re not going to like it.
What’s the future like for Devour Power and Devour Media?
G: I’m going to restart a separate Instagram that we had during quarantine called Devour Kitchen. It will be me and our employee Alex creating over-the-top devour-ish foods and comfort meals and putting up the recipes.
R: We have our cookbook, Devour NYC, where actual restaurant owners contributed their recipes, broken down into single-serve portions. I would love to work on another book again with Greg’s recipes.
or more information on Greg and Rebecca Remmey,
visit You Tube at youtube.com/c/DevourPowerTV;
Instagram at instagram.com/devourpower/?hl=en