Player Coach to Director

The past 18 months have been the most challenging assignment I’d ever encountered and I’m happy to report it’s got a happy ending.

I knew I’d be heading South at some point in my career as retirement phase 1 commences. I choose SC over FL for numerous reasons which I’ll get into later.

After 2 decades in the DC Metro I was ready to get away from the rat race. I worked hard there and was part of many historical events. Cooking at The White House, Cooking for Kings and Queens and 4 US Presidents. Julia Childs 90th Birthday was 9 course for 150 attendees. It was filmed by PBS and I’m still hoping to see the segment one day.

I’ve always been hands on and worked long hours. Hotels in DC I could start at 5am and finish up at 10pm even though I had up to 650 employees. I worked 3 days non stop a number of times. One was 9-11, the other was Gaylord National Opening and the third was a NYE event for 1,000 people that paid $1,000 per person for a 8 themed Gala that was James Bond Inspired. We had 8 different cuisines That went with each film and where it was filmed. The food and beverage Director asked me if I needed anything and I told him I needed one thing. Please have a table set up in front of the dish area for handling the excessive glassware. I noticed it never went up, so I rolled an eight footer out, pulled the legs and flipped the thing over by myself. To say the least everybody just stared at me. I was a little pumped up at that point. LOL

Back to South Carolina. I guess I really didn’t do my due diligence on this one. I just went straight from the heart. Savannah Lakes Village’s story is a good one. The club was built to Provide jobs for the locals. It’s absolutely gorgeous, but in the middle of nowhere, the first thing I ever said to my COO… We need to approach this like a resort.

I dove right writing new menus for the new concepts that were closed due to Covid. The more I dug in the more I found the basic foundations were missing like staff. Yea that was a big one. Once the new menus were released the word got out quick. After the dishes were enjoyed the word got out after the PnL was seen the word got out. To simply put it we took off. We did 28,000 more covers in 2023 over 2022. That was $500k over the best year in the history of SLV. The bottom line was also equally impacted,

As I write this I am finishing up the best day I had at the Club. I came here to provide the locals opportunities to learn and take pride in Hospitality. Today I had 10 leadership students at a local school for a tour and lunch. It was fun, heart felt and what makes me tick.