Carl Ruiz (1975-2019) *44

was an American restaurant owner and celebrity chef, best known as a judge on various cooking competition shows on Food Network in the United States. Ruiz worked as a sous chef at Dish, a restaurant in Clifton, New Jersey, before being hired as executive chef at Sabor in North Bergen circa 2002. He worked as a consultant before he was 30, hired by the new owner of Stephen's Cafe of North Bergen as a consulting chef for a relaunch of the operation in July 2002.

Ruiz made a move to New York City as the first decade of the 21st century came to a close, taking a position as an executive chef of Son Cubano, a short-lived Cuban restaurant located on West 27th Street in Manhattan. The 80-seat restaurant featured live Cuban music and a night club atmosphere, with a black checkerboard floor and upholstered Louis XVI chairs.

By 2011 Ruiz had moved on to a new executive chef position at Brick Oven in Morristown, New Jersey.

Together with his wife, Marie Riccio, on October 10, 2011, Ruiz opened an Italian deli and cafe, Marie's Italian Specialties, in the Hickory Square Mall in Chatham Township, New Jersey. This cafe was memorably referred to by one food reviewer as "the type of deli you might have visited as a child when visiting your grandmother's house — if your grandmother lived in Hoboken or Jersey City in the 1950s."

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