About us.

Entrepreneur spirit at 23 owned 2 bars – 100 seat & another 500-seat featuring live entertainment. Made mistakes and never made them again.

I realized my diverse background gave me a much broader perspective of the industry that most never acquire.  I never wanted to stop learning and was always the person asking WHY? not once to questions but numerous times until I had a full understanding of ‘Why” or “How”.

And wanting to know the history/ the story behind a recipe, food, its origin and how it came to be and the different techniques they could be prepared along with how other ingredients that interact, or don’t.

I jumped into Kitchen management and cut my teeth with TGI FRIDAYS when they had the award-winning dictionary menu in the late ’70s.  All items made from scratch, dressings, sauces hot & cold, desserts, everything cooked to order and even breaded to order. At that time they were the highest volume restaurant in the Dayton area doing over 75,000 a week in sales in 1979.

From Hotel Banquet Chef to catering Chef for a Cordon bleu chef doing $40,000 events to locally-owned high volume comfort hand-cut steak/seafood restaurants – Obrien’s tavern selling up to 300 steaks & chops in one night to name a few.

Managed Casa Lupita corporate training unit kitchen and highest volume restaurant in their 23-unit chain. Training managers to go out in their units. Working with Corporate R&D department testing items & equipment before they rolled it out nationwide. All the time managing a wide variety of employees from numerous cultural backgrounds. Sent to troubleshooting/ turn around operational ailing units in Columbus, Ohio Rhode Island & Centerville.

4 separate Corporate training programs P&L projections & reconciliations, Food Cost, Labor cost & productivity.

General manager, dining room manager, & bar manager for Corporate Chain El Torito/ La Fiesta restaurants/ Tequila Willies where I excelled in P&L projections, labor, food cost, reconciliations, loss management & increasing sales thru service, cleanliness, and positive motivation of staff.  BUT, the kitchen was my home and this experience/ training gave me a stronger foundation to be a better Chef.

Chef Jimmy Gibson concept “Joeseph Anthony’s” and numerous other independent operators all upscale & scratch cooking in chef position.

Numerous upscale caterings, fine dining, farm to table, independent & chain experience all scratch, all chef positions.

Executive Chef @ Hope Hotel & conference center W.P.A.F.B.  after the Gulf war – Restaurant & parties up to 1200.

Farm to table experience – purchasing from various counties, farmers, artisans, growers, Berkshire Pork, Black Angus beef, Honey, molasses, Grew our own herbs in raised gardens on-premise (with the help of master gardeners in the area) Local breweries, distilleries, etc.

4 different Country clubs all having a different demographic and different taste and preparing a huge variety of dishes to please them all. And all the time being able to get along with all the diversity and quirks of that environment.

COOKING CLASS INSTRUCTOR

• Cox’s Arboretum. Centerville, Ohio – The diversity of fresh herbs & the many ways to use them.
• Cooks ware Store– Springboro, Ohio – A night in Portugal & the Azores- multi-course dinner with wines for each course

DURING COVID – worked with Local S.B.D.C. to help restaurants get back on their feet for 8months.

– Did ZOOM meetings on “RETHINKING YOUR RESTAURANT”

MEMBER OF

• CHEFS COLLABORATIVE – changing menus to local sustainable food changes people’s lives by giving them more nutritious food & keeping the revenue closer to their community and you know where your food came from, who raised it, how it was raised, etc- transparency!
• SOUTHERN FOOD ALLIANCE – an institute center for the study of southern culture & documentation, study & exploration of the foodways of the American South.
• COM – Dedicated to ensuring a safe, friendly nurturing work environment to all no matter what race, color, background. Like-minded people learning to cook delicious food.

CONTINUED EDUCATION

• Fermentation class – Sous Vide class    – Wine tasting and paring
• Attended the ROOTS Chef’s Conference @ the Culinary Vegetable Institute 2-day conference next to Chef’s Garden in Milan Ohio. 2017
• Worked at BORGNE Restaurant next to the stadium in New Orleans – Award-winning John Besh restaurant
• Recipe collection of 40 years along with over 400 cookbooks vintage to present.
• Yearly Restaurant expo attended along with numerous trade shows keeping up on technology and food trends across the world.