Meet Kristina Diordyuk

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristina Diordyuk a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kristina, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

Let’s start from the beginning. I was born in Ukraine back in 1992. My parents had already purchased their one way tickets to America in search of a “better” more- more expandable life if you will. My mother found out she was pregnant with me just months after already purchasing the tickets. So, one day my mom, dad, older sister, and myself set out to come to America. It had come just after the USSR collapsed. Better times were coming i’m sure, but they were ready to start fresh. To this day I don’t know if I would ever move my young family to a different country, much less a different continent.
Once in America, my parents did what any other immigrant family did, they began paperwork with goals of obtaining our citizenship. My mother worked cleaning homes and my father started off helping other Ukrainian immigrants working on their cars in an auto body shop. Fast forward ten years, my mother was now working a state job as a pharmacy technician and my father owned his own car shop as a mechanic. I didn’t know it at the time, but we were very poor. My father was trying to hold together a business but seemed to have more of the creative mind. My mother was making ends meet and never allowed us to know that we didn’t have extra money for those shoes, or that day trip to the beach. They got, “lucky” from a situation that landed them some extra money and were able to purchase a house in North Fresno. Now, North fresno in the early 2000’s was considered luxury. We lived just have a mile from all of the new builds and it was one of the safest areas in town. This was also of course when homes were 1/4th of the price that they are now. Things were going well.
In 2007 my mother was admitted into the nursing program. This was a pivotal moment for us. I don’t even remember my mom taking classes to get into the program let alone know that she was interested in being a nurse. She continued to work full time, keep our clothes ironed and house cleaned WHILE attending nursing school full time. About a year later in 2008 is when things kind of spiraled. My father could no longer manage his business during the recession and decided to shut down. Cars became more of a hobby and my mom continued to hold us all together. Did I mention my brother who was adopted from Russia a few years prior? On top of all things, they never let us down.
Two short years went by and my mom finished nursing school. I remember that graduation day vividly. We were all so so proud. After that things started to become, easier? Dad didn’t seem stressed anymore, my older sister got a job and my mom was hired on as an RN for the state. our income practically tripled over night. We began going on cruises and vacations, shopping was becoming a fun weekend activity with my mom and sister. Fast forward to my college days. Now, I want to point out that I am a brilliant mix of both my parents…let me explain. While my father is the most genius and creative person I know, my mother is the most practical and logical. I struggled figuring out what I wanted to do after college. In fact, I didn’t even apply to college until three days before it started. I truly did not know where my life was leading. I was admitted into Fresno Pacific University and started in Fall 2010. I declared my major film. Yes, Filmography. Back in Highschool I attended a school called Center for Advanced Research and Technology and took multimedia. I learned how to film, produce, edit, and create short fun videos. It wasn’t long into my first, very expensive, semester of private school where I decided that hanging out with friends was more important. Needless to say that transcript is very embarrassing. I ended up transferring to a community college and began taking more general education classes. It wasn’t until I took my first Biology class where a light bulb had gone off. I enjoyed science! I revamped my studies and began working towards my nursing prerequisites. Seeing my moms pay checks were also very motivating. I finally finished in 2014. I had to take some time off in between to take care of ill family members. So, the applications to nursing school began. In the meantime I began working various jobs. Fast forward to 2018, I had been applying to many colleges by somehow every year not being selected, I’m pretty sure it was because of that dang failed semester at Fresno Pacific. I was going through a divorce and thought enough was enough. I wanted to better myself. I applied to a private nursing school to obtain my LVN nursing license. I got in! I began school in 2019 and finished at the beginning of covid, perfect timing, don’t you think? My first nursing job was at a group home specializing in disabled young adults. This is truly when I felt like for the first time I was making a difference. My parents were so proud of me. It was the first step of finally getting to be like my mom. I still had to get my associates but in the mean time I was finally registered, with the state, doing something I liked.
Then December 2020 happened. The first week was fine, the second, positive for covid- 19. In all honesty, the smell loss wasn’t all too bad in my profession when you have to change six peoples briefs all day long, lol. Later that month, once I had recovered, my brother accompanied by me, my mother, and my dog, were heading up to the mountains for a day in the snow. However, we never made it. As we were heading up the mountain, a truck was sliding down. Hitting us hard enough to force our Jeep into a ditch and snapping an axel. Luckily, no one was too injured but I did sustain injury to my neck. When I got back to work I unfortunately was not able to perform my duties as well as I was able to. I began to search for a new job. I found one pretty fast and was able to start just three months later. That’s when things REALLY got interesting. Around the 90 day mark post-covid, things started to smell. BAD. I woke up one morning and began to think my brand new Chanel perfume was rotten. It wasn’t until later that evening that my boyfriend told me that it didn’t smell any different that I thought, oh no, am I getting covid again? The following day thing progressed. Everything, I mean everything began to smell putrid. My boyfriend, my dog, my bedding, my soap, my food, my COFFEE. I thought that I was for sure pregnant. The issue was, I was careful and had no other symptoms? I would try to eat but would instantly be repulsed by everything. Later than week my brother, mother, and I flew to Denver to visit my sister. Three days of just sitting in my nephews room when my brother-in-law would be cooking dry heaving out of the window. We were all so confused with what was happened. Everyone of course thought I was over reacting, but I truly was repulsed by everything. It became clear that something was very wrong. That night I began to do research. I looked at blogs, covid article, tiktoks, I could not find anything other than pregnancy which was not the case. Until the next day when I stumbled across a Facebook group, “Covid Parosmia.” Parosmia. Finally, some answers.
Parosmia by definition from google , “is a condition where your sense of smell is distorted, causing familiar odors to be perceived as unpleasant or different from their natural scent, often described as “burned”, “rotting”, or “chemical”. This was exactly what I had. In the group people began to discuss what food they were able to tolerate. Some were able to eat broth soups, some were able to eat vegetables, but one thing we ALL had in common were; chicken, coffee, garlic, and onions. Those four we can smell from a mile away and stayed far far away from. But why you might ask? Literally, no one knew. There had been some testing done but most doctors were not taking it seriously. It really was one of the darkest times in my life. It was very lonely, not being able to enjoy food or even deodorant. I can go on and on about this disease, but I will move on to how I turned it into one of my most amazing accomplishments to date.
One day my boyfriend was asking what I wanted for breakfast. it had been months since I had eaten any real food. For some reason with parosmia you could only tolerate sweet things. For me it was lemon based pastries. Anything lemon was fantastic and anything with sugar was tolerable. I looked through the menu and saw, “stuffed French toast.” I thought to myself, well, I never really liked it before but I also never really liked lemons so I guess let’s give it a try. It. Was. Delicious! I was instantly hooked. The next day I looked up the recipe for French toast, yes, I have never in my life made French toast. It was not a customary Ukrainian food so I never grew up with it. So this is where my French toast journey begins.
Every, single, day. French toast. I remember looking at this cream that this company had put into their toast and thought, “I can make this better.” I use to make wedding cakes so I had the most amazing bourbon vanilla cream cheese recipe. Later that week I had made a beautiful display of toast for my friend and I. I snapped one picture and posted it on Instagram. I don’t recall how many people asked where I bought the toast but I do remember thinking, hmm, do I have something here? My mind was always thinking of new business ideas. I was and I still am never afraid to try anything. To me failure isn’t failure, it just experience. Life is too short to not try something.
About a month went by, it was nearing the end of summer and I had been stuck at a job that I absolutely adored, with a manager that was so repulsive I would come into work everyday and cringe when I would see him. One day I was sitting there and decided to call up my brother and ask him if he wanted to start a French toast company with me. My brother, 22 at the time, instantly said yes. He is an entrepreneur just like me. So, with in the following week we thought of names and a business plan and that is when The Modern Toast, LCC was born. July 2021. In the following weeks we began to talk about market ideas and pitch different potential clients. We landed our first client very quickly. One of my brothers friends was getting married and his fiancé was having a bridal shower, we thought, “PERFECT.” I immediately ordered all of my supplies, tables, trays, serving utensils, syrup dispensers, everything. I thought of the perfect person to come help me. So one day in in late July we loaded up my car and headed out for our first event. It was a hit! We took lots of photos and even secured some future events. Once we had some content we went to instagram. We started following our friends and one friend in particular caught wind of our new adventure. This dear family friend happened to know a very popular news anchor and tiktok star. So, a few weeks later we were invited to be on a few local news stations. At this point in the business my brother had decided to pursue his dream of becoming a broker and had left the business to me. I could not give up, I wanted to take this thing all the way.
The news was a fantastic experience! While live on air, my watch began to beam with notifications! The instagram gained many followers that morning and things began to take off from there. I hired a few more girls to help me and we began to do various events during the weekend. Baby showers, bridal showers, birthday parties, open houses for real estate. It wasn’t about 2023 when my smell and taste FINALLY returned. I am still not sure what happened to this day. No one is. I ended up getting married and having a precious baby girl (who LOVES French toast). My parents and husband are a huge support system for me growing the business. My dad and husband are actively looking for a food truck for me so we can begin to expand. I would not have been able to get anywhere without the support and love from my family. I just recently was admitted to complete my Registered Nursing license and started school in May 2025. I currently have reduced my modern toast availability but am very excited to finish school and obtain my registered nursing license. I have an amazing employee who has been with me since 2022 and will be monitoring and running all of my future parties. With a nursing job I will be able to fund all of future plans for modern toast! All of this wouldn’t be possible if is didn’t have an amazing role model where I get my work ethic from! I will continue to push further and shoot higher with everything that I do.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I truly love it when we have just finished a party or event and someone comes up to me and compliments us on our service and how good the toast was. I have always been a people pleaser so it is so awesome to be able to share my delicious toast with people. The biggest compliment I ever received was a an older gentleman came up to me after his granddaughters birthday and told me, “my grandma and mom use to make me French toast as a kid and I have to say, this is the best French toast I have ever had.” It made me feel so special.
I am super excited to own a food truck one day and really be able to expand and travel more to events. Who knows, maybe eventually I will own a small breakfast spot. For now I just love my private events. I really love to get to know my clients and see empty plates!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. Never give up. there will be events where you lose money. There will be times when you show up and are just so tired that you don’t even want to stand. I had booked an event when I was still pregnant not knowing I was going to have a c section just three weeks prior. I still showed up and it was a great time!

2. Just do it. Seriously. Just try it out, that thing you have been wanting to try. If it’s a business, art class, dog walking service. Anything, don’t be afraid to try it!

3. Have support. I don’t think I would be here this far if I didn’t have people supporting my dream.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I would love to eventually bring my special cream into everyone’s home. I make this special bourbon vanilla cream cheese frosting. I have people send me messages that they are craving it haha. I would love to patent it and sell it at large chain stores.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @the.modern.toast