At 12 years and 9 months old I became the youngest person ever to become an Eagle Boyscout. This is where my journey begins.
I have spent 30 years searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. My travels have taken me to 11 states, various companies, from dishwasher to Corporate Executive Chef, from waiter to General Manager, to owning 5 restaurants and a catering company. Alas, until recently I had come to the conclusion those little leprechauns are just to fast.
Not to say that I haven’t had an incredible journey and success along the way. I have built three successful businesses by focusing on excellence combined with exceptional customer relationships.
As for the leprechauns, with maturity I have realized the gold has been in all those wonderful, and sometimes challenging, experiences along the way.
The next step on the journey was what I believed to be the best restaurant school in the country, if not the world. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I graduated with a BS in Hotel Restaurant Management. Yet in my last year of school, I realized if I ever wanted to own restaurants, I needed to know what was going on in the kitchen or I would be robbed blind.
As I have always believed in learning from the best, I headed to the Culinary Institute Of America after I graduated from UNLV. My externship was with Pano’s and Pauls in Buckhead GA, with the Buckhead Restaurant Group. This was possibly the premier restaurant in the south at the time.
Upon graduating the CIA I opened my first restaurant: South of the Border, in Marietta, GA. Here, I received my first major lesson: no matter how good the food is, if the service is not good, you are doomed to fail. This lesson has become the basis of my core values: that my job is to take care of the guests, not cook or serve for my own tastes.
I headed back to the Buckhead Restaurant Group where I helped open the Buckhead Diner. Over the years, I either designed and opened or was part of the opening team for 15 plus restaurants. I quickly became the Pastry Chef at the Buckhead Diner, with my banana creme pie being the center fold in Food and Wine Magazine one issue. I learned a major lesson in turning challenges into solutions as we had only two small walk-in refrigerators for a $5,000,000 a year store.
The next stop on the tour took me to Rancho Cucamonga, CA. I was Corporate Executive Chef for Cask & Cleaver, at the time they had 13 Steak Houses and 3 Mexican Restaurants. The lessons I learned going from restaurant to restaurant could fill a book. Actually that sounds like a good idea. It was about this time that I wrote a cookbook called “Recipe for Romance” to go with my pilot cooking show for TV. The show was picked up, but I was unable to find the sponsors to get it on the air. Be prepared to laugh.
A side trip to Atlanta for my brothers wedding introduced me to Dave & Busters. I was hired to help with menu development and to open stores. We had $100,000 nights in food sales while I was in the Philadelphia Store. I eventually ended up being brought to the Atlanta Location as Kitchen Manager to cater for the Olympics. I had a crew of 60 people in the kitchen.
A very early Mid Life crisis led me to John Harvard’s Brew House, a completely scratch kitchen. We even filled our sausage casings in house. I left John Harvard’s to open my second restaurant – Pegasus Cafe. It was in a high rise in Mid Town Atlanta. I took the restaurant from $600 a week to $3000 a week in a year by offering very good food and exceptional service for a office building cafeteria type restaurant. A semi private space in the back of the restaurant was perfect for doing monthly cooking classes.
I now felt ready to join the big leagues. I was going to open my own chain of restaurants, and I had the perfect concept. Spaghetti Junction – a build your own pasta restaurant. A half of a million dollars later, I again learned enough lessons to fill a book. Yet with every failure there is always silver lining. The pride of my life, my incredible daughter, was born during that time.
What can you do when you lose everything? Get up and do it again. Next up was the Village Porch Cafe in Cartersville, GA, a breakfast and lunch cafe in a small community. Many a day I cooked with my daughter in a baby carrier on my back. We loved the community and did extensive charity work with Advocates for Bartow’s Children.
The next stop on the tour was the greatest accomplishment of my life: Gourmet On The Go Catering. We found the perfect house and built a commercial kitchen in the house, allowing me to work in the Hospitality Industry and still watch my daughter grow up. This phase of my professional life was all about organization, timing, planing, and working in multiple locations at once. Managing 13 caterings one Thanksgiving out of a kitchen the size of a 2 and half car garage was an exciting challenge. 2000+ caterings later with my daughter about to head to college, it was time for a change.
Ok, so maybe opening a “Hidden Cafe” to the public wasn’t such a good idea. At least the few people who did find it enjoyed some unique options.
As the journey was about to take another turn, I decided it was time to give back and work for a non-profit focused on Marriage Retreats. More specifically, I worked in a separate location from the main kitchen for Marriage intensives for couples about to be divorced. It was extremely hands on, as most couples arrived in a very poor place with extensive dietary needs.
My schedule was lunch and dinner Sunday through Thursday, and I loved the interaction with the guests as they often found their way into the kitchen to chat. The staff was like a family – all with the same goal: take care of the guests. The menu changed often, utilizing locally sourced items, always with the goal to Wow the guests. It was neat to see how many times people’s dietary needs went away when they were eating nutritious, well-presented meals.
After 5 years, I decided it was time for a well-deserved sabbatical. I headed to a bluff home in the North GA mountains. It is now time for the next step in my Journey.
