A Conversation with Chef James D. Everett II, a Chef, CEO ... Cabinetmaker

A Conversation with Chef James D. Everett II

 a Chef, CEO, Entrepreneur and Cabinet Maker

In 1984, David began to feel more and more at home in a professional kitchen. Moving to Orlando, he took on a series of challenges for Walt Disney World, highlighted by his tenure at The Contemporary Resort Hotel and the opening of EPCOT Center. After leaving Disney, David took the position of Special Events Chef for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.  David next joined the Fisher Hotel Group and opened Chardonnay, the signature restaurant in The Park Terrace Hotel in Washington, D.C. David's instinct and passion for cooking led Phyllis Richmond, food critic of The Washington Post, to write that David's food was "impressive. There is attention to careful cooking and quality.. Outstanding both on the tongue and on the palate". He first took on the opening of La Rive in New Jersey followed by the refurbishing of The Georgetown Inn in Washington, D.C. In 1990 David had the opportunity to become Executive Chef at The Dining Room at Ford's Colony in Williamsburg Virginia. In 1992, during his more than thirteen year tenure David presided over the addition of two new casual restaurants, a café.

Since then David has opened the Blue Talon Bistro, the Trellis Bar and Grill, the Dog Street Pub, Blackbird Bakery the Hair of the Dog Bottle Shop, and the Colonial Capitol Bed & Breakfast – where he generally can be found each morning creating breakfast for the guests. Source: Excerpted from Blue Talon website.

The following is an addition by author.

Chef is recognized for his woodworking talents, but says he will not do Windsor Chairs. 

Seated at table, butcher block table top. Manager Geri seats me; she’ll get Chef.

Thinner, full beard, serious, quiet introspective.

We talk about the passion for life, food, drink and cabinet-making.

Dave Everett, Chef

Constantine: (I had been alerted to Chef’s woodworking talent earlier from some staff after I inquired where they got this or that cabinet piece.) Woodworking, how did that come about? Is that a release from your role as entrepreneur?

Chef: Frustrated cabinet maker. We built all three bars and many cabinets in the restaurants and bakery. The building of the Blue Talon kind of kicked it off.  There were particular desires I had regarding the carpentry or cabinets that being the inspiration … it led off from the Blue Talon. There were some pieces I wanted built and felt I wanted to create them myself. It’s evolved from one restaurant to the next. Ultimately, of late, my cabinet building has included longtime friend and Chef de Cuisine Scott Hoyland’s first floor home where he resides with Louise. A totally remodeled European kitchen … did I mention the onion bin under the European fridge? The banquette for the kitchen? Woodworking yes, but I draw the line at  building a “Windsor Chair”.

Constantine: Cooking at home, what is your favorite, or fall back for a dinner?      

Chef: I don’t get fancy at home; it can be a simple dish of pasta or a grilled chicken breast I put on the grill.

Constantine: I once inquired of Marcel Desaulniers, Chef and original owner of the Trellis Restaurant, if he knew his Myers Briggs Personality Type (MBTI). He just smiled and pulled out a card from his wallet --- ISFJ, or something like that. I was surprised at the Introvert, but after some thought realized it was likely a characteristic of artists & chefs. Thoughts?

Chef:  An INFJ. One of the rarest types, like 1% of the population.  I am very comfortable with my type and how it allows me to enhance my success. To some extent, we’ve explored MBTI with some of the staff. We have not explored it as much as it seems I’d like, now with 3 restaurants, a bakery and the Bottle Shop, and lately the Bed and Breakfast.

I am intuitive by nature & it’s been an asset to my business sense. I see a picture in my mind of what I want the dish to look like, or how the cabinetry will appear on the floor filled with wine bottles. I can visualize both a functional piece for storage and a marketing tool for the wine located for viewing by the  patrons as they walk by.

Constantine: BTW, Marcel was genuinely complimentary of you – as was Connie Desaulniers, when I joked about a “non-compete clause”  and your agreement to the MAD enterprise. [Marcel Desaulniers is the original owner of Trellis Restaurant and after a short retirement, he and his wife, Connie opened – with Chef Everett’ s agreement – the Mad About Chocolate patisserie and bistro].

Chef:  Bringing people to town, that is good for all of us. I want to support other restaurateurs who also have the passion for food. It’s expensive to open a restaurant, and to support the guy in the back who is sweating his heart out for patrons, it only makes sense. It builds business for all of us in this industry.

Constantine: What is your management philosophy?

Chef:  It’s not complicated. Hire good people. Let them do their job.

I work to let them understand what I want and then let them excel at what they can do. I am not here to micromanage.  I want to make them valuable to the operations. Exploiting someone’s expertise enables a better operation. Over time, I believe I have become more comfortable in giving people more latitude.

I like what we do,  very … very lucky. All of our backgrounds, Adam, Scott have led us to a higher level of service. The rules (for success in the restaurant business) don’t change because it’s a bistro and not a formal dining room. At the Fords Colony, we created fine dining. We managed to expand on the fine dining experience and further expanded service to include such as a “café”.

 Constantine:  Blue Talon fire. Do you recall some of your reactions from when you were notified; then thru the process of re-opening.

Chef:  December 6, my youngest daughter’s birthday. My first call was to my insurance agent. Followed by my building contractor.

 It helped that we’d been open 4 years and had a track record with the contractor and his crew; as well, Tom Tingle, architect. We were able to reopen in 3 months, beating the 6 months that was projected.

Constantine: At the time I heard that you had gone to some effort to  outplace many if not all of your staff. [ I recall hearing compliments of Chef that he took care of his staff.]

Chef:  Yes, we were lucky. Marcel Desaulniers picked up some at the Trellis Restaurant, the contractor put others to work. Colonial Williamsburg and other businesses in town helped us out.

One unintended consequence of the Blue Talon fire was  that my wife and I  were able to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Washington DC. An extraordinary fete for an anyone  in the hospitality industry … New Year ’s Eve, big event.

Constantine: I saw you recently at the Beer Festival – which it appears was a DOG Street, Blue Talon Bistro  and Trellis event. How do you take time for yourself, given the three restaurants, bakery, bottle shop and B&B, to recover?

Chef:  Sometimes a vacation, but more often it’s in conjunction with some other work-related event. Outer Banks, Cape Charles are some of the places I may get to with my family.  (I remarked that I thought he’d be in France frequently.)  Last time, 7 years. Earlier I had the good fortune to be at Cakebread Cellars in Napa during the harvest time. Some weeks.

Constantine: Chef, entrepreneur, business man, chief executive officer… how would you characterize yourself

Chef: I am lucky guy that has great people to work with. I see myself as a visionary ….Regarding our expansion, similar to the Fords’ Colony Dining Room, well… beyond the fine dining we took it to full  scale of food operations.

After the Blue Talon, I initially wanted to have the bank building, next door to the Trellis Restaurant. We were steered to Marcel’s  Trellis Restaurant, so  we moved on that location. Later the bank building (DOG Street Pub) we incorporated into the group.

The bottle shop came about as a result of the location becoming vacant. With DOG Street Pub adjacent, I jumped at the space and we created the Hair of the Dog Bottle Shop. When I saw the rental sign up for what is now the Bottle Shop, I could visualize it in my mind. Same as a dish, I can see it in my mind. I “live” it my head.

A distillery could be a lot of fun… I am a lucky guy. I have a great staff.

Consulting, I have done a little and like it. Definitely I see a change in myself from when I was younger.

Rolling all the attributes together … permits me to see a design. Like with the fabrication of restaurant equipment coming out of Texas. Or in building the kitchen wall, it’s an accent for the sheet rock!  Blue prints are more to meet the city requirement; I know what we want to do and build it.  I want the electrical outlets … 36” up from the floor not 12”. Water! When we did the Blue Talon I wanted no wall space in the kitchen; its racks from the ceiling. That’s how we work.

Plans.  I found some the other day for what I wanted to do. Now, however, I just go and build it. Like,  what Scott and I did in his kitchen for his and Louise’s home. We built a 700 lb. banquet, L shaped to go in the kitchen. We killed ourselves getting the two pieces of the banquette into the house. I won’t do that again. Scott and Louise wanted a European style kitchen, small refrigerator. I designed an onion bin, placing it underneath to support the frig.

Constantine: As he warmed up I could tell from the passion in his voice and in the description of what he and Scott did, it’s a real love for him.

Chef:  Functional, fun to build a wireless onion bin!

Constantine: I asked about the concept of all staff being able to perform multiple functions in the Trellis …..Anecdote of hostess removing finished plate …at cocktails one night my plate had been moved to the side and the hostess just picked it up as she passed by.

Constantine: You host a really fantastic party each summer. Some people have asked why not charge? Or can we make a donation to a charity? It seems to me this is purely your way of saying thank you to your audience. Your take?
(This issue was a much talked about conversation at our table this past June).

 Chef: Picnic event started out as a birthday party for one of my daughters. It started at home in the backyard, grew from neighbors to friends. By the time it got to be about 250 persons gathered around for  burgers, chicken, lobsters crawling the yard, playing games, a band – well, we just decided it was time to move to a larger venue. So it’s evolved to a big event at the Williamsburg Winery site. And now it’s a combination of thank you to staff … celebration. We like doing the party, the “cochon de lait”!     

Constantine: The Trellis has a "bomber drink". What's the backstory? [Chef’s dad was an Air Force pilot.]

Chef:  That was a creation of John’s.

What is your cocktail or liquor?

Chef:  Makers Mark. I have been a bourbon drinker for 35-40 years. Chose bourbon as I recall my mother would order a bourbon drink. In my world, it’s relaxing for Scott and me to get together and talk about food. I enjoy wine. I have done the fall harvest, 2-week term at Cakebread Cellars in Napa 25 years ago. Again,  mixing work and pleasure.

Side comment – seeing a scotch drinker before having dinner. I visualize the  flavor loss in his meal.

Constantine: What makes you laugh?

Chef:  The laughter of children, Slapstick. It’s hard not to smile when you see their strange behavior. When someone is happy, I am happy.

The interview took place in 2015 for submission to the magazine Lucky Peach, a novel foodie mag. 

Constantine BeLer is a writer and blogger. His earlier career in food service began in the kitchen at the Monoosnock Country Club dining room and “19^th Hole” in North Leominster, Massachusetts. He currently blogs at “Liquor, Canapes and … Something else?” Constantine resides in Williamsburg, Virginia, when not investigating bars in Europe.

Credits:
Art Work by Esther BeLer - www.estherbeler.com
Photo - courtesy of Blue Talon Bistro, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

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