Building Business w/ the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
The Building Business podcast provides compelling stories of the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce's journey, its steadfast commitment to the local community, and its forward-thinking approach to addressing the needs of businesses in an ever-changing landscape. It stands as an invitation to listeners to become part of a movement that values growth, connection, and the collective progress of the Mount Pleasant, South Carolina community.
Be prepared to be inspired, informed, and motivated, as we provide a rich tapestry of stories that celebrate the dynamic interplay of business and personal growth right here, in our own backyard.
Building Business w/ the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
How Veteran Robert Patterson Turned Service Values Into A Thriving Catering Company
What does it take to turn a $7,000 trailer and a first client into a catering company trusted by universities, wedding venues, and 40,000‑person music festivals? We sit down with Robert Patterson, CEO of Top Shelf Catering, to trace the journey from Marine Corps grit to five‑star service standards, and how those values fuel growth without sacrificing flavor or accountability.
Robert shares the pivotal lessons he learned at a luxury resort and during a tough Olive Garden turnaround, then shows how those systems became Top Shelf’s backbone: answer fast, arrive early, cook close to service, and treat every guest like a regular. You’ll meet Chef Kim, the Johnson & Wales–trained engine who starts at 2:30 a.m., nails lowcountry staples like shrimp and grits, and still pulls off fork-tender beef tenderloin at scale with a rich brandy peppercorn sauce. We dive into practical playbooks on pricing, budget-first menu design, plated pre-selection, and how to avoid the prep traps that crush timelines—yes, skewers, we’re looking at you.
The conversation also tackles what most caterers gloss over: post‑pandemic costs, bar insurance, and risk. Robert lays out a clear approach to additional insured certificates, one‑day event coverage, and why honest line items for disposables protect both margins and clients. Then we open the festival binder: how Top Shelf rescued a super VIP program, earned backstage hospitality for national artists, and now runs multi-day, multi‑menu operations across states using local vendors, mobile kitchens, and ruthless timing. Along the way, you’ll hear the war stories—seating charts gone wild, fragile glassware and tight aisles—and the simple seasoning mantra that keeps food broadly loved in a world of dietary needs.
If you’re building a hospitality brand, planning corporate events, or just want the behind‑the‑scenes truth on great catering, this conversation is packed with strategies you can use tomorrow. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a planner, chef, or small business owner who needs a real-world operating manual for service that scales.
Presenting Sponsor: Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
Studio Sponsor: Charleston Media Solutions
Expo Podcast Sponsor: @PollenSocial
Production Sponsor: RMBO.co
Design Sponsor: DK Design
Interested in Sponsorship? Click here.
Committee:
Kathleen Herrmann | Host | MPCC Immediate Past President | Mount Pleasant Towne Centre
Mike Compton | Co-host | Marketing Chair | RMBO.co
Rebecca Imholz | Co-host | MPCC Executive Director
Amanda Bunting Comen | Co-host | Social ABCs
Ben Nesvold | Co-host | In-coming President | Edward Jones
No, no, no. It used to be. We're not rolling. This is not going on, right? Yeah. Okay. Just no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00:This is the Chuck FM right now.
SPEAKER_01:I love my presidency more than life itself. It was the best year of my life.
SPEAKER_00:And it's over.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Now we got now we clap. Now we clap. All right. Everybody ready?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:All right, cool. Well, hello, and welcome to the Building a Business podcast powered by the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. We are here recording in the Charleston Media Solutions Studios. They are huge supporters of the Chamber. Thank you all so much. And also thank you to our podcast sponsor, DK Design. My name is Kathy Herman, and I am a past president of the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. Past president. A past president. And I'm also the chair of the Rise Women in Business Committee for the Chamber. And my real job, I'm the marketing director at Mount Pleasant Town Center. Just finished an incredible Christmas season. Thank you all so very much for shopping at Town Center. Nice. I really appreciate it. I am joined again today by my favorite, favorite, favorite co-host, uh Mike Compton. Mike Compton is the co-owner. I got it right this time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Good parts and props. Of Roombo Advertising. He is the former chair of the uh Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce Marketing.
SPEAKER_00:Sad to say former chair. Yeah. It's okay. You're right. You're former president. I could be former, too. Past. A past. Can I be a former or no?
SPEAKER_01:It could be a former. And uh, but Mike is also the current president of the Charleston American Marketing Association uh chapter.
SPEAKER_00:So thank you for coming again, our sister podcast, the Charleston Marketing Podcast, you know. Uh host of that. So check out those episodes. We are uh very lucky today. I know, I'm so excited. You know why?
SPEAKER_01:Because because not not only do I love food and beverages, like it's a part of everyday life, um, but we are really excited about our guest today. Um gotta eat. You gotta eat. And especially when you go to a party in Charleston, you gotta eat. Uh let me tell you a little bit about him. Our guest today is the CEO and founder of Top Shelf Catering. If you've been to a party in Charleston, you've had their food. Uh multifaceted, veteran-owned, thank you for your service, catering company that's based here in Charleston. Um, but I I just found this out, and I can't wait to talk about you. Serve customers throughout the United States. We sure do. Cannot wait to hear about that. Um, Top Shelf is proud to be the preferred food and beverage vendor for the Citadel, the Citadel Beach House, Charleston Southern University, Medical University of South Carolina, Carolina Country Music Festival, and more. Dang.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the Month was a chamber too, our lunches. Right?
SPEAKER_01:The most important one of the city. It's the chamber. We can't be, you know, M U S C, you know, or anything like that. Um, they take pride in their widely diverse menu options and ability to personalize their services to suit every taste. So, our guest, you have years of experience as both a chef and a business manager, and as a result, it really gives you the opportunity to provide unique hospitality, service, and quality to all of your clients. I am so excited. Please welcome Robert Patterson. Thank you. Glad to be here that night. Yeah. I know I'm good at that, right? I know you are.
SPEAKER_03:Very good. Very good. I love it. I love it. Kathy's in a good mood, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's like we're, you know, giving out an Academy Award or something.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. I love it. Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00:So let's get the let's I wait a second here. Yeah. I I get let's get the elephant out of the room.
SPEAKER_01:I do. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:What? You don't know this. I don't oh. You don't know this. But we've all who live here in Charleston have seen Mr. Patterson on TV before.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no.
SPEAKER_00:We've seen him. We've seen his face. We've seen his his uh his muscles, actually. No, no, no. Yeah, he's a fit gentleman. What what was the commercial that I saw you on again?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was the uh the QC kinetics. That of all things to be famous for in Charleston, for some weird reason, um, that is what I'm most recognizable for. Um with the truck? For having for having a messed up shoulder and having um stem cell um work done to it, uh, and I agreed to do a commercial and the rest is history. I guess I need to watch more TV because I love it's TV. I tell people all the time when I'm at events, I'd love to be recognized as the event guy, but I see people staring at me from across the room and I'm like, uh-oh. And then they come up to me and it'll be some sweet old lady, and she'll say, Is your shoulder better? And I'll say, Yes, ma'am, it is better, and they thank me for my service, and it is uh it is quite interesting. And since the funniest thing about that is since that they have franchised, so they have like 300 locations all over the state. I was in, I was doing an event on the Jersey Shore last summer, and I was at Atlantic City sitting at a bar eating dinner. No, and the couple says, You're that guy from that commercial. They were like, Are you from Boston? I said, No, ma'am, I'm from Charleston. They just play that, and then they start, oh, does it work? And then I'm having this whole commercial about it. So my boys at QC Kinetics have um unfortunately made me infamous all over the United States. Oh, that is hysterical. Not for food and not for events, but for my stem cell work.
SPEAKER_01:So you were in the commercial because you were a patient or because you're a good actor?
SPEAKER_03:No, because I was I was a uh a patient. I was I was a patient early on when they were getting started. Before they even had an office in Charleston, they were doing some satellites, and I got to know the owners and kind of help them with some business ideas in Charleston, and then we just hit it off, and then they came back and asked me to be in the commercial. Will you be in the commercial? I mean, it was true, it helped. So I mean, you know, why not? Well, why not? I just wish then I start seeing Emmett Smith and all these famous actors in their commercial, and I'm like, I bet they don't have as many referrals as I do. I wish I had the same deal as them. I have a sneaking suspicion they're getting paid a little bit more than that. But just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00:Just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's so funny.
SPEAKER_00:I need to get that out of the room. So stop snaring at the YouTube here, folks. This is the QC genetic guy. Where are you recognizing from? That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:Um awesome. Listen, all right. Let's talk about top shelf. Yeah, so let's talk about top shelf and um kind of give us a little bit of background of your background.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you said you you where you're from? Are you from here? I'm actually from South Georgia, Southeast Georgia. So I grew up in the St. Simon's Island, Brunswick, the Golden Lake. Well, we can talk about that for sure. I can give you the 411. But that's where I that's where I grew up, and then um straight out of high school went into the Marines and um did a tour in the Marines, and uh when I got out, went back to uh St. Simon's and Sea Island and um got my first job at a five-star resort down there called the Cloister, and that's where the the hospitality side began. So what did you do when you first started? Well, when I first started, I worked in a department called the Conference Services Department. So we handled all the the large groups. So anything from companies that were doing seminars down there to weddings to any of that, and I started off as like basically an errand boy, an assistant. Um, I was 21 years old, uh working in an office with all women. I just got out of the Marines.
SPEAKER_01:So that's not a really bad place to be now, is it?
SPEAKER_03:No, it was funny, but they were it was funny because when I applied for the job, then people may not know this or remember this, but there was a time where they had age requirements. So you had to be 25 to fill this job. And I said, look, I just spent four years of my life all over the un all over the world defending my country. I think I'm I think I'm ready for this job, and they gave it to me. Um, but I you're talking about jumping out of the pan into the fire when it came to service and hospitality. I didn't know anything about it from that level. I mean, I didn't know what the different size forks meant. I didn't know any of that stuff. And so they started um, you know, went through some pretty rigorous training. And I mean, they would tell me, Rob, go do this, and that's what I did. And the ladies love that because, you know, you know how offices can be. There's a lot of office politics, but they laughed. They were like, we have a marine on our staff. We just tell him to go move those tables over there, and it just gets done. Nobody asks any questions. Pick them up with one hand, right? And move them to where they have. Is that what happened to the shoulder? It could have been. No, the shoulder injury actually went all the way back into the marine. So so um, but yeah, it was uh so that's where I got started.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing. Yeah, yep. And obviously, it started something in you, it stirred something in you to, you know, stay in the restaurant or or hospitality industry. What did you do after that? Yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_03:It did. So I was there for five years, and um, as crazy as it may seem, um as we were as I was developing and learning more in the resort industry, um, they reinvented a gun club there. Okay, so it was uh it was just like you know, you see clay target shooting and all those kind of things, and I had a background in that, and I um they asked me to come and help get that off the ground and help start running and doing shooting lessons and things there. And so I pivoted completely, but I was still in the service business because no matter whether you're at the the gun club, the golf course, the tennis court at a five-star resort, the standard is there.
SPEAKER_01:That's correct, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And so um you were doing more entertainment than you were doing education when it comes to the shooting experience, and you would have people from all walks of life, and I just learned um really quickly um that wow, this service thing is where it's at for me. And I just kept making contacts and making contacts, and job offers were flying, everything from pharmaceutical companies to this and that, because you know uh it just became natural to me to interact with people and provide that level of service. So um, so that led to different um options and opportunities, but I spent about um probably the better part of the next five or six years in the shooting world, doing everything from teaching, competing, consulting, writing, doing a lot of different things like that. And it wasn't until um I got a little burnout of doing that and the money wasn't very good, um, until I started getting back into food and beverage.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. What year was that?
SPEAKER_03:Good lord, that had to been so um nine it was probably about 2005. Okay. It was about 2005 when that part of my that chapter of my life was starting to fizzle out. And when you do something that you love, then you do it as a career for a long time. You kind of lose you lose the excitement of doing it. So I grew up hunting and shooting and doing all that, but being on the other side of the counter was not as much fun as actually getting to do it. To do it, sure. So I started looking at other opportunities, and that's when the food and beverage door started.
SPEAKER_00:That's how I feel about golf. I I went I just got too good at golf. No, I really didn't, I really didn't. Isn't it terrible to be so good at golf?
SPEAKER_01:But I'm trying to so did the hospitality industry in Charleston get you up here because you were in Georgia, or did something else bring it to you?
SPEAKER_03:Actually, I was in Georgia. The shooting business brought me uh and I did a stint in North Carolina for a little bit, and then that also brought me down to the Myrtle area. Okay, and so I I kind of hung up, uh uh put the gun in the in the case for the final time um in the Myrtle area and and you know, was essentially starting over. And so I was looking around and I was like, okay, now what do I do? So in the meantime, I said, you know, I'm gonna just go get a serving job. I'm gonna go get a job as a server. Yeah. And uh walked into an olive garden in North Myrtle Beach. Yes. Yep, walked into an olive garden in North Myrtle Beach, sat down there as a 30.
SPEAKER_01:You probably didn't get the job.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, as a 30-year-old, I got a 25-year-old guy um um interviewing me, and he says, you know, this is high volume in the summertime. I don't know if you can handle it. And I said, Look, I said, if I can take care of people half as good as I want to be taking care of myself, I said, I think I'll be okay. So they took a chance on me, hired me as a server, and within about a month I was a trainer and they were trying to get me into the management and all that stuff. So that that's where the the official love of food and beverage really came.
SPEAKER_01:Of all the places to go, and I'm not saying anything bad about Olive Garden, yeah, but of all, I mean, we're known, I mean Yeah, and that was in, but that was in Myrtle. And but still they've got a little bit.
SPEAKER_03:But it was all about then. I just needed somewhere that would accept me for not having a lot of experience, and somewhere that I knew that the money was gonna be good, and and I and I got into that, and and it it was all of that. And I also learned that was my first really experience with the food and beverage industry, and I really fell in love with the people, the diversity of walking in every day, and there could be somebody, you know, from Ohio or somebody's from even uh in another country and all walks of life, and everybody just kind of came into this one melting pot, and I just was around people to be quite frank, that I really wasn't around a lot. And I just, man, this is great. And plus, you never know who's gonna be sitting at your table. Of course. So you you you're olive gardener. You're and then they they're you you're like you're you're on center stage and you have their you have their undivided attention for the next hour, and so they're at liberty to whatever you want, yeah, whatever you want them to experience from you. So it's really fun.
SPEAKER_00:The world would be a little bit of a better place if everybody had served tables one time in their life. I wonder.
SPEAKER_01:I was I worked in a restaurant for 10 years. Ten years. I learned everything I needed to know about life from working in a restaurant. Correct. That's a long time in one place for a restaurant. Yeah, my next one neighbors owned the restaurant, so I started when I started when I was 12. Don't tell anybody. Yeah. Yeah, well, you can do that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. But you're exactly right because you learn, you know, number one, you learn how to be polite and patient and interact, but also like the efficiency, like having to move on another scale, move fast. Um I I I'm like you uh from the foundation I built in the Marines, and then the working at a five-star resort from the hospitality side of things, and then the restaurant, that kind of completed everything that I needed to in order to start, you know, working on a successful career path.
SPEAKER_00:Because one of the most important things is discipline. Yeah. When it comes to the hospitality business, because we know there's a lot of fun to be had. So I'm sure your military helped you be disciplined and not get into some of that.
SPEAKER_03:It did. There there were there were so many fun stories because being Oh, I've got that. I've got that question before we leave. Yeah, there, there, there, yeah, but that was fun uh kind of maneuvering through that part of it, what you were saying.
SPEAKER_00:I did not have that military, so I did not have any discipline. I barked and it's fine. I got that.
SPEAKER_01:But I want to know how you started a catering company in Charleston.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, well, first, like so you went from Myrtle, sorry, Kathy. You went from Myrtle to Olive Garden to top line, top shelf.
SPEAKER_03:No, so I went, I I was offered a management opportunity in Charleston at the North Myrtle or the North Charleston um Olive Garden there. Oh, yeah, so you got promoted. I got promoted, but let me tell you. Myrtle of the North Charleston. Let me tell you, um, in the course and the in the landscape of my career, you talking about a learning experience, you're talking about leaving as a server, okay, in a trainer in a in a in a restaurant that was operating at a very high level with great management, great staff, clean, efficient, to going into you remember the movie Lean on Me with I that's I was going into I was going into East Side High because it was a disaster when I got there. And so all of a sudden, this is my first restaurant management job, and this is what I was handed. I remember after two weeks filling out applications, thinking, I'm leaving here, and I called my old GM and he said, Look, just make sure you give a notice so you leave on good terms, so you're still in you're still in good standing with the the the uh company with Darden, but he said, you know, I'm surprised at you. And I said, What do you mean? He said, Because I would have thought you would have changed it. That's what I the first thing in my mind was. And when he told me that, I remember driving home and I remember turning down a restaurant job manager offer somewhere else, and I stayed. And it was the best thing that I ever did. Because you I mean, I you don't seem like a quitter to me. That's for sure. No, it was tough though. I mean, being being a young manager, and I say young and experience, it was it was brutal. It was tough, but I learned so much. Did you turn it around? We did, we turned it around. We went from being um the second to the last restaurant in our division out of 90 to one of the top three. And we did that, we did that in about a year. And it was uh it was me, and I have to give credit to some other managers that they hired, and we just all decided to roll up our sleeves and get in there, and uh and we we turned it around and and it was great, it was awesome. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So enter top shelf. Yep. So you you put your two weeks in, obviously, at all. And and then and what year did you decide to start top shelf?
SPEAKER_03:So in in 2008, okay, in 2008, I and through about 2014, I was really in that mode of okay, I like the restaurant business. Um, I I'd had a lot of success. There were job opportunity offers, but everybody wanted you to move to relocate. You got to relocate if you want to keep climbing the corporate ladder. And so um, so then I started thinking to myself, you know, I've got this experience. I really would like to work for myself. During all this tenure of me doing these other things, I was always hustling on the side. I was always detailing cars or I was, you know, picking up little side jobs, refereeing games and doing these things because um having grown up with not a whole lot, I always wanted to be able to tip the scale and have some financial freedom. And I was always willing to do whatever I needed to do to do that. Um, but I just long term, you know, I knew that if if I if I kept climbing the corporate ladder, I could probably get to a point that I was very comfortable living. But I knew that if you if I started my own business, there was no ceiling. I was the ceiling. Right. And so um, so I started thinking about it and putting some feelers out. And, you know, there was so much to do in getting started. But I was talking to a couple of different clients that I had had in the past from a catering perspective, and finally, um, I I got up the nerve. I it was like uh it was like divine intervention. There was uh somebody had told me about a woman that was um getting out of the catering business. She had been um she had, you know, was starting a family and and was doing that, and she had a trailer with like a bunch of chafing dishes, a bunch of stuff in it, and she said, um, she said, you know, I want to sell all this. And I remember it was like$7,000. And all I could think of was, how am I gonna get$7,000? Like that. That was a lot of money for me then, you know, still kind of maneuvering through and not having a lot of extra income. But I figured out a way to do it, went and bought all the equipment in the trailer. She had a couple of stuff in a storage unit, and um I went after my first uh my first catering gig and I got it. And on the strength of that first catering gig, I was able to get uniforms and to get the basic equipment that I needed to get started. And then the rest it it was just history. It was just building it. It's that one first client, right?
SPEAKER_01:That's that important first client.
SPEAKER_03:That one thing. And you know, it was um my very first client. I still have them as clients.
SPEAKER_00:Stop. I would hope so. Yep. Do you still have the chafing dishes from that trailer? I still have the trailer. You still have.
SPEAKER_03:You know, it was funny because the trailers beat up and it's seen better days, but I almost got rid of it. And um one of the girls that's been with me f since the start, she was like, Rob, we can't get rid of that. No. That's where this all started. She was saying I'm sentimental. I couldn't. She was like, she was like, even if we never use it, that always has to, we always have to keep that. And I said, you know what? You're right. So I still have it. So it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01:And where'd the name Tap Shelf come from? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, I um when I was thinking about names, I I I my desire to start the catering company was I wanted to create a a top dollar experience without the top dollar price. I felt like at that time in Charleston, there was the um what I would say kind of, you know, entry-level caterers, and then there was the very big dogs, the very expensive, and I felt like there was a need for someone in between, someone that could deliver on that high-level experience without breaking the bank. And so um I said, you know, a company like that, it's just top shelf, you know? And and so, you know, so so that's what it was, and I and I and I started kind of this little mantra of top shelf, not top dollar. And um, and so that's where it all came from. And then the rest was history. That's cool. Yep.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:That's really cool. I mean, I but I I gotta ask, there's so much competition in Charleston these days, so tell us how you stand above the rest, what you do differently, why people should pick top shelf over any other.
SPEAKER_00:Over like the H one. We all know that one.
SPEAKER_01:Everyone's members of the chamber. We love you all. We love you all. We just happen to be talking to Robert today.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. No, and you know what? You're right. There are great caterers. And the thing that I love about Charleston in most instances is I'm as friendly with my competitors as I am. I say you probably all know each other by now. You know each other, and there's enough business to go around. Um, the the the caterers that come and go, that come in, and you know, they either don't deliver on what they've been contracted to do, they weed themselves out. Um, and so those of us that have been here and and stood the test of time, we all have really great working relationships because for instance, I have a bar service. I might be doing bars for one of the other caterers. Right, right. And vice versa. They might be doing bars for one of mine. So, you know, your bartenders want to eat, yeah, we're gonna feed you, you know, and all those kind of things. So it is um, you know, that's what you have to do. But what I try to tell people is, you know, uh my chef's incredible, and and she has been with me from the beginning and has been cooking for over 40 years. And the food, food is the centerpiece of anything that you do from a catering perspective. But what separates you from your competitors is the service. And my my background going all the way back to those first days at the cloister, has been we're gonna deliver an over-the-top experience on service. And that just doesn't mean from the time you get there for the event, that means returning phone calls, responding to emails, being pleasant, being grateful that you called and inquired about using our business, um, and and then delivering on that experience. And the other thing that I was most proud of is of all the years I've had this company, I've never put an ad on Indeed that I'm looking for people.
SPEAKER_01:It's really funny because that was gonna be my next thing. Yeah. How hard it is to find people, quality people to work these days. Yeah. And to have apparently all these people that have been working for you for a while. Yeah, and it's it's odd hours, it's nights, it's weekends, it's the it's the it's the time of that nobody wants to work. That's right. Yet here you are with this fantastic service. How do you manage that?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'll tell you, it comes from number one, you you build a culture, you know, all the textbook stuff. You make people want to feel appreciated. They come to work, you take care of them. But the other thing is is I think most people when they come to work, um people are confused about this, but I think people enjoy structure. They want to know what to expect when they get there, they want to know what their expectations are, and then if they deliver on that, they want to be taken care of. But for me, where I where where my business separates from a lot of others are everybody, the the main core of my business has been built from within. So, in other words, if I have if I have a college student that's working and they are a rock star, they're gonna go tell their friends, you should come work where I work. And then, or it's your cousin or your sister or your mother. I have so many parents and children that work, or friends and cousins and relatives, husbands, wives that all work for me. And it's because they're like, You want to work, you want to get some hours catering this weekend, you need to come work with me. And that is where I've built my business on. I've never ever used a temp service one time in all the years I've done. And I do, I sometimes I will have 15 events in a day. Not one person is, and there's nothing wrong with the temp services. No, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01:But I'm just saying I know that's something I think it's something to be very proud of.
SPEAKER_03:It is, and I made a commitment, and the commitment is to my clients and my customers is that if you are hiring me, you're hiring me and you're hiring my team, you're not hiring a person that's showing up on the job that has zero accountability, that's gonna disappear when it's service time because they don't care. They're gonna get hired to go work on another job next week and there's no accountability. With me, everyone that works for me is directly accountable or I hold directly accountable, and that is the game changer. That's the difference. I even have had other caterers in town call me and ask me to use some of my folks.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And I've I've said you do that. Yeah, well, it doesn't hurt. Yeah, it doesn't hurt. I know they're not gonna leave and go work for them because they're not they're not gonna have the same experience. Exactly. But um, but that is by far the game changer when it comes to the competition side of things. Crazy, isn't it? Let's talk about chef. Yeah, I was gonna say, let's talk about cooking and food.
SPEAKER_00:What kind of food does what's her name? His Kim Kim.
SPEAKER_03:Her name is Kim Kurse. Kim has been with me for you know, she was with me pre-top shelf in the restaurant business. Oh no kidding. Okay. Um she is Johnson and Wales trained. She has worked at, you know, fancy restaurants downtown.
SPEAKER_00:She can make a trio. She'll make the uh what is it, the uh Olive Garden trio? Is she a chef there or no?
SPEAKER_03:She was not a chef at Olive Garden. She was not a chef at Olive Garden, but I want to hear her breadstick recipe. Yeah. Well, but um, but she's incredible. And um she is a she grew up in Monk's Corner, so she's been in Charleston forever. Um she worked at some of the nicer resort or nicer restaurants downtown, and um she was for she actually trained me in a restaurant job for a while, and then the whole the whole chain of command flipped up, and then I became her uh supervisor, and then we've been close ever since. And then I just brought her along and uh she's been the center, she's been the only chef that I've ever had. Um, and I it and this is uh this is a an absolute true story. This morning I met her at our catering kitchen at 230 because we had a huge, we had a huge breakfast catering going out for some local film production that's do that's happening in town. But I met her there and she beat me there and was already already into it. Is that 230 still considered morning?
SPEAKER_01:Like what No, it's the middle of the night. No, it is definitely, yes.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:But our breakfast order, I can understand. Now, does she physically she's got help? Oh, yeah, yeah. You can't physically cook all that.
SPEAKER_03:She has a great sous chef, but Kim is an absolute beast. She is, she can do the work of mo like three normal people. And that is kind of the way our company is. The the girl that runs the the bar part of my service, she's she's a beast. The girl that runs my operations, she's a beast. And there's no there's no secret that the three women in my company are the ones that run the company, and they I just get out of the way. And I say they say, Rob, how do you work with three alpha females? I say, I just get out of the way and ask them what they want, and I just give them what they want and they go.
SPEAKER_01:So they're great. The one thing I'm happy to hear about as a as a potential customer and not potentially? As an alpha female. Oh, my bad. He's my favorite. See, that's why he's my favorite co-host. Um, no, I love the fact that um if you have a breakfast meeting, say you're serving 100 people for breakfast, you're not cooking it the night before. No, no, no, no. You're cooking it that morning. You have to. I guarantee you, not everybody does that.
SPEAKER_00:Uh uh nobody shop at 2 30 to come.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. No, no. And and and that is part of the the formula to being successful, is there's a fine line between, okay, cooking this too far in advance, and the food quality um suffers to not getting there in time and then you being late. Because if you're a minute late and you're an office manager and you have a training meeting starting and and you're waiting on the food, it it it's that's a one and done for you. They're not gonna hire you back. No, they're not.
SPEAKER_00:Food's stale, food's old, yeah. It's gotta be perfect. Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Every aspect of that. And where's the kitchen? Yeah, the kitchen is in Mount Pleasant. So we we were in Mount Pleasant, really. Yeah, but you know it, you know where it is. No, yeah, you know where it is. Our kitchen is in the Omar Shrine building. Oh. So we were off of Long Point.
SPEAKER_01:I did know that.
SPEAKER_03:We we were off of Long Point for years, and um, you know, on towards the port side of it, off of uh shipping lane. But um we just needed we just needed bigger, and then we had a we had a great opportunity there to kind of partner up with the Shriners and and try to help, you know, revamp some things over there, but also that the the space also includes areas that are ample for our tastings and wedding tastings.
SPEAKER_01:So that's that space, yeah. All right, so that's yours now that you go to the restaurant, correct? Okay, yes, ma'am.
SPEAKER_03:It sure is. We've had so far this month, we've had 14 holiday parties in that state. You have not. We have. We have I mean, didn't you? We have one tomorrow, one Saturday, one Friday, one Saturday. Yeah.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, so it's wow. So how's everybody getting out of? It's gotta be word of mouth. It's gotta be more than word of mouth. It's gotta be I mean, what else are you doing to get the word out? You know partnered with the chamber. That's it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um I just what I try to do is be involved at as many local events as I can. So whereas I may not spend a ton of money on traditional advertising billboards and things like that, which are great if you if you're there, but I like to put my food in front of people. I like to put my people in front of people. So when there's events that happen, like blessing of the fleet, like the children's day festival, any any events in town, the fair, those things, um, when when you can wine under the oaks, you know, there's any events that you can be forward-facing to people, that is that is the key. And and you just try to uh take full advantage of that. If you're doing a B2B type business, like we are this weekend, uh, a very prominent Mount Pleasant business is doing a promotional uh an event. So we are going to be there doing food for their customers, and we have to make sure we put our best foot forward because I've been doing this particular event for a number of years, and I probably get, without exaggeration, eight to ten spin-off of it just from people that go there, take a bite of your food, your people are smiling, and say, you know what, I'm gonna call you. So that is that is where we spend most of our time. And it's at this point in time, it's all referrals.
SPEAKER_01:Well, if you need a marketing person, you know how to get in touch with me, okay? I think that's a good idea. For sure. As long as I get to taste everything, kind of fast stuff. I'll be happy. Absolutely. I'd be happy.
SPEAKER_00:Isn't the town center? Didn't you say the town center wanted to maybe call top shelf on something now?
SPEAKER_01:Well, no, I have restaurants that cater to the city. Oh, yeah. She has tons of restaurants in here. I eat at one, probably two or three. But yeah, I um I try to use my restaurants for all of my own.
SPEAKER_00:You were talking about a rise luncheon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we're talking about the rise luncheon. So we're working with them on that. Yeah. That's great. That's awesome. It should be a good time. I just I just love food. I'd love to do that. What kind of food are we talking about then? Yeah, no. Like what? Well, it's everything.
SPEAKER_03:I understand that. What's Kim's what's Kim's gotta have a I mean, you know, nowadays in Charleston, Chef Kim. In Charleston, you know, if it's a casual event, people are gonna want some sort of variation of barbecue, whether it's pork, chicken, you know, brisket, something along those lines, uh, all the comfort foods, mac and cheeses and different rices and different vegetable dishes. Um, and but you know, and for an elevated experience is you know, Kim to me, my favorite thing she does is she does this uh beef tenderloin. And it's and to cater beef tenderloin and take it off site and serve it um and it still maintain the quality. Yeah, it it is so good. And Kim makes this homemade like brandy peppercorn gravy that I may or may not have been inspired by that I might have been inspired by Peninsula Grill years ago. And I told her, I was like, look, we need to have a gravy for the beef tenderloin like Peninsula Grill, but um it is it is so good. And when you're doing a a nice cut of meat like that, and you're you can do it at a catering event, and people can still cut it with a fork, and people are like, How do you do this? But knowing just how much to cook, knowing that it's probably gonna continue to cook in hot boxes and in warmers until you get there without it drying out, um, slicing it on site, you know, slicing it correctly on slight on site. So those are some of my favorite things. But Kim does, I'll tell you right now, Kim does an incredible homemade chili, which sounds really simple, but in the low country, oyster roasts are a big thing. So we do a ton of oyster roasts and having chili with chili. Um her chili, her chili stops people in their tracks. Shrimp and grits is one of her staples, obviously. That's a Charleston y dish.
SPEAKER_00:Um, you said she's from Monk's corners.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. So shrimp and grits, she she loves to do um, and and there's just it's it never ends. Whatever.
SPEAKER_01:So do the do the clients usually say to you, I want this, this, and this, or do they say to you, tell me what you think I should have at this party?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, you know, most of the time people you ask someone, okay, tell me about your party. Tell me what you're doing. If it's something formal, it's plated, it's this, or is this a um are you entertaining a lot of executives? Are you entertaining high-end clients? Or is this a social function where we're doing hors d'oeuvres and appetizers? So you try to get a feel from the client first. And then obviously, money's a factor. So you say, okay, what is your budget? There used to be a time when I first started off business, I would start these conversations with clients and I would just like dump all this stuff on them, and then they come back and say, Well, I have$12 a person. You'd be like, all right, let me take the beef tenderloin off of there. Um, and uh, and but now I've most of my business is referral, so people trust me. So I go to them and I say, Hey, what you working with? Okay. Are you working with$20 a person? Cool. I'm about to send you pick out of here, pick out of here, pick out of here if you got$20 a person. And I feel like a lot of businesses may not do that because they feel like they leave money on the table. I would just rather, I would just rather get where we need to get from the beginning. Everybody's busy now. I say, why waste somebody's time? Don't waste your time. If you, if you have champagne taste on a beer budget, we need to recognize that first. And we can still give you as much bang for your buck, but it just it really does just help streamline the process. And I think, too, a lot of people sometimes might be embarrassed of what their budget is. You know what I mean? Correct. Yeah. And I tell people all the time, look, you're not gonna hurt my feelings. Like, you know, if you come to me and you tell me what you're working with, then um we can give you some viable options that are gonna work. But if you tell me you want to do a luncheon for 500 people and I'm giving you all these options, and then we go all the way down the road and you say, Well, Robert, we're just gonna order pizza. You know, I mean, you're wasting each other's time, and and nobody wants to do that.
SPEAKER_01:So now, how are you guys involved with all of these new like Charleston wine and food? And I get confused. I apologize. There's Charleston Wine and Food. Is it that what it is? There's two different ones. Well, I think I think there's there's Yeah, there's one like with Food Network, and then one they were just here, and then there's one local, and they're basically that's why I'm confused because it just switches the name. So the Food Network one was just here with like Manit Shohan was here, and my girlfriend volunteers. So she met all the chefs and stuff. Do the local caterers get involved with that?
SPEAKER_03:Or some of us, some of us do, some of us don't. And I do some of those events. Um, there are some, and I'll I'll be honest with you, and there there's this is this is no detriment to the festivals themselves, but there are some of them that ask a lot out of you. So if they're asking you for 2,000 samples and it's a Saturday in the fall and you have six weddings, you're doing that day, exactly. It's just not feasible. And um, and again, without sounding arrogant or unappreciative, I mean, if you've been in business for 14 years and and you're really like you should have an established clientele and you should have a base, a word of mouth. And so going out there and trying to get the word out or having your logo on a banner or something like that, yeah, just doesn't have the same draw as it is if you're someone new and you're trying to get out there. I always encourage new businesses to be involved in those. We would rather, like we did Wine Under the Oaks um last last Sunday, and my chef and I did a cooking demonstration. There's 5,000 people there that you can interact with, and we also have the ability to sell our food. Um, and um, that is a perfect scenario because you can at least break even on what your expenses are by selling and getting your food in people's mouth, but you also get to interact with a bunch of local people. And I can't tell you how many people are like snapping pictures. Oh, I have somebody that's gonna get married, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. So that's where we that's where we try to do that.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm sure you're probably a preferred vendor on most setting venues, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And and that that again comes from doing what you say you're gonna do. Um, and and that is, you know, when you're when you can get in as a preferred vendor, uh, that's the beginning. But you also, if you're a preferred vendor, um, you know, again, you have to make sure that if you're listed as a preferred vendor, if you show up late or whatever, and then these people complain to the venue and say, Why do you have this cater on here? This person is not responsive. You know, they had all these hidden fees and all this stuff. They'll take you off.
SPEAKER_01:Right off real quick.
SPEAKER_03:They are. I the over the last month, there's been two different events as a preferred vendor at a venue where one of the preferred caters got removed, and I had to pick up where they left off because they weren't um being responsive to the client. And it's it was a wedding, and it was unfortunate.
SPEAKER_01:Trust me, you don't want to deal with Bridezillas either. I mean, you I mean, this is this is their day. You certainly don't want to mess something up.
SPEAKER_03:That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what you saw you talked about national. You talk about nation.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's so exciting. Well, you know, this kind of happened. We um we started doing we we started going out and there was uh we we got invited to be a vendor, okay, after A at a music festival, one in Myrtle Beach called the Carolina Country Music Festival. And um we started there. And again, I I've built my business from crumbs and small opportunities and tried to develop them into bigger ones. And so we we got our foot in the door and we were, you know, just slinging barbecue, doing some fun stuff like that. And um I got to know the promoters and the guys that started the festival, and they were, they were, um, they asked me to come at one of the festivals because the caterer that was in their super VIP section was falling short, running out of food, couldn't keep up, all that stuff. And and he said, um, he said, Rob, can I send some people to your booth if they get hungry and we just square up later? And I said, absolutely. So at the end of that weekend, I said, uh, I said, hey, you know, I have I I've served 800 people out of here. And I said, here's what I want to do. Instead of collecting one dollar for all these people we fed, I want a chance to cater in super VIP. And they said, they said, okay. I said, and I said, I just want to do a proposal. And he said, they were telling me, they said, well, we also have to feed backstage hospitality, all the bands and all that stuff, breakfast, lunch, and dinner during these four-day festivals. And they said, Do you think you could do that? I said, absolutely. And I said, and they said, and the promoter, the guy in charge of logistics, said, Rob, if you can make it to where I don't get one phone call about food in super VIP or food from the bands and the artists, you'll have this forever. And we went in there, took it over, and um, and so that was our first big one. We were serving 3,000 people in super VIP. We're serving 400.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, I'm sorry. 3,000 people does not sound like super VIP to me.
SPEAKER_03:That's a big festival, apparently. It is. It is 40,000 people at the festival. That's still that's I mean, VIP.
SPEAKER_01:Tech should be VIP.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and and and well, there's 8,000 in VIP. That's why I don't go to those. So so in in what we have to do is you're serving 3,000 people appetizers for two hours, then you're flipping the space and then serving them dinner. Now, I'm not talking about barbecue, I'm talking about prime rib. I'm talking about, you know, chicken marsala, all this stuff, and you're serving them and doing that in that in a very small location. So we mastered that, and at the same time, we're doing um the hospitality, all the dietary restrictions. The the the artist, Carrie Underwood, wanting hemp bowls, and you know, Keith Urban wanting his green beans to be able to be cut with a fork, but not so hard that they're not that's a real thing, hey? Oh, that's a real thing. You can't make it up. You can't make it up. But um, but you got all these all these crazy requests that you're trying to adhere to. Right. And so once we started doing that, we got a name for ourselves to do that. So then we got invited to do a festival. They said, can you come do a festival in New Jersey? And I was like, Okay, well, I have a mobile kitchen. Um, I've never been to New Jersey, and I went on a scouting mission up there, and I started making all these contacts. What if I need this? What if I because I wanted to use all local vendors, went up there and we we did it, and we've now been doing that event in Jersey for like five or six years. Wow. We we do Charlotte all over the state of South Carolina, um, pretty much um things down into Georgia, and and it's so we we'll go Jersey. We'll go wherever we've done we've done Bonnaroo in Tennessee. Um, the music festivals in Tennessee. So that's kind of become a niche, is that artists?
SPEAKER_01:You're making a name for you're making a name for yourself in that part. That's a great niche, though.
SPEAKER_03:So so so it's been it's been a lot of fun doing that because pretty much the whole month of June we have festivals back to back. My entire staff leaves.
SPEAKER_01:And and you're talking about But isn't June wedding, I know June weddings down here are not as much, right?
SPEAKER_03:Because Yeah, we still we still do a little bit, but um the this business is is such a big part and such a great revenue producer. We don't we don't really take on too many things in June, and there really isn't that much to take on anyway.
SPEAKER_00:So I I'm a product of a of a hospitality owner. My dad ran the bars and restaurants my whole life. Um still is a bartender up in northern Michigan, actually. But my question is it's hard, right? It's really hard the the finances and and the inventory alone to keep up with. What what are you doing? How are you doing that when it's such an ebb and flow industry? You have a lot of great clients, you're lucky like that, right? But you gotta know the jobs to order the food, to order the people, to make the food, to serve the food. But like that's a lot of moving parts just to do it, even on the catering. Like having a brick and mortar, at least you have people coming to you, you know what you're doing, but having a catering business, to your point, you are like the ceiling, so you can just keep going and serving.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, uh that that's a great question. And uh from the expense standpoint, you know, food food and labor are your two biggest, your biggest expenses. And so uh over the years, and I will tell you, uh starting off in the catering business, you know, if you have three hundred people and understanding and learning the formulas as to how many people you're gonna have, okay. If this is gonna be a three protein dinner, are you gonna need all three proteins for all three people? Um, because the last thing you want to do is run out of something before everybody gets it. But also the last thing you want to do is have a hundred of something left because it eats into your food cost and your profitability. There's no magic there's no magic formula for it, unfortunately, but experience helps tremendously. The other thing I will tell you is having a a good partner, a good, you know, a food distributor, um, being able to use local produce, local seafood, local things like that for people that I can call and say, hey, I need six bushels of voice of oysters tomorrow, and they go out that morning and go get the oysters. Or you can go to a local produce company or a local bread company and you can get stuff last minute. That's extremely helpful. But the other thing is, and I'll go back to my people, having people that you trust that are spending your money like it's their money is a big difference. So Kim, Kim is probably tighter than I am when it comes to spending the company's money. She is going to make sure that, you know, she will sit down with me. If it's a client we haven't had before, she will sit down with me and say, okay, Rob, give me a little bit of background on these clients. Are we feeding, are we feeding a construction company at a topping off ceremony out in North Charleston? Right. Or are we feeding school teachers at a school? Um, are these people are are we going to serve this? Are they helping themselves? So being able to can control what you can control, that's the best thing. Now, where it becomes tough, and and you guys probably know this in in this day and age, especially for those of us that have bar services, you know, the insurance and those kind of things that have just skyrocketed has almost made it impossible to do business. And so um then it puts added pressure on you to just absolutely make sure that you're crossing every T and dotting every I when it comes to responsible service, making sure you're not doing anything that's going to jeopardize, you know, your alcohol licenses that's not going to jeopardize your insurance premiums. Um, and that is that is the part that has been tough, but also like disposables, like dry goods now. I mean, we're paying in some instances 15 times for a disposable plate than what we were paying three years ago or pre-COVID. You know what I mean? And and that is the little things that people, the consumer don't get.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the consumer doesn't get that. Wow, okay. I mean, what do you mean there's an add-on for you know a nicer upgraded disposable plate? Um, and and you see people getting nickel in dime now, but the reason they're doing it is because caterers like myself, when they're going back and they're reconciling their numbers at the end of the month or the end of the year, and they're saying, okay, wait a minute, I was only charging$20 per person, but it was costing me$250 a person just in disposables and just in dry goods.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:You can't like that eats into your profitability, so that's gotta be accounted for somewhere. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:Now I've seen a trend, and maybe it's just me, but the last two weddings that I went to, they asked me what I wanted to eat before I got there. Yeah. And at first I was like, I don't know. Because you're asking me six months before the wedding or whatever it might be. But obviously, being in the business and meeting people like you, I realized, wow, that's gotta save a lot. Oh, sure. I mean, obviously there might be a few here and there that change or whatever it might be, but if you've got a 250-person wedding and you know what 245 people are having for dinner, what is it? I mean, that's gotta be really helpful.
SPEAKER_03:It is, but you know where it's even more helpful to the person paying for it. Because let's face it, right? Okay. Let's face it, right, right, right. If if you're getting married and you want to offer a grilled chicken option and you want to offer a steak option and a vegetarian option.
SPEAKER_01:Are they all different prices? Oh, yeah. Oh, so there's not like one.
SPEAKER_03:I remember when I got married, it was just like a flat rate for the but now, but with commodities, the way things change.
SPEAKER_01:That was a long time ago.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but the way things change, commodities, it it does. But now, you know, if I'm I'm the father of a bride and I'm paying for a wedding, and I I just did a plated uh wedding last weekend and it was salmon, it was beef tenderloin, and it was a uh vegetarian option. Um, if people if I say, okay, it's gonna be$30 for the beef tenderloin,$22 for the salmon, and$15 for the vegetarian, you know, I want to know. I and I have 250 people, I don't want to pay$250,$250,$250. I want to, I want to do that. You can get away with that in a plated meal. But if that becomes a buffet self-service, that becomes a problem. You can't you can't do that. But with plated meals that have a more formal setting, you can get away with that.
SPEAKER_01:The last two, I've never, I've never, it did not happen to me a lot. The last two weddings I went to, um I had to tell that I had to say what I wanted for dinner. Sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I have to RSCP to my little sister's wedding. Yeah. Is it included? Should they want to know chicken or steak? Yeah. That's right. That's right. So now steak, Laney, steak. Now I know. Uh I've got a question on behalf of all our uh events folks out there. Um insurance for bar. So let's say hypothetically we have a Spark event on March 5th and we need a bar to have. Do I need to hold the insurance? Does it does the organization need to hold the insurance? Or do you take care of the insurance?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'll tell you, there's a couple of different ways to answer that question. First of all, if you hire a accredited bar service that has insurance, you're you're covered there. Okay, now let's talk about we all know how litigious the world is now. So um, no matter whether or not you hire a a bar service with insurance and everything covered, if lo and behold, something happens, they're coming after everybody. Right. So let's just say your organization is going to say, um, you know, we're covered through our bar service. We don't want our organization to get sued. So there's different companies that will sell insurance for just a one-day event, and they can be a couple of hundred dollars. Um, we always encourage if you're an organization or if you're something like that, you know, you can do that. The other caveat is most of your venues now are going to require me as the bar service to list the venue as additionally insured. Okay. And then I also always put my client additionally insured. But again, when it comes down to it, it's a better to be safe than sorry. But if if money's tight and you really don't have that in the budget to do, you can you can sleep at night knowing that you have a bar service that has insurance. Because, in my opinion, when when the attorneys start circling, if they're if they're coming to you and you're not a huge fundraiser with millions and millions of dollars, if you're a small local organization, they're gonna say they don't have any money and they don't have the insurance. We're coming after top shelf, they've got all the insurance, you know, and that's what it boils down to. Um, unfortunately, it just does. And and um and it's talking to the wrong person. And uh I run a shopping center, remember? Yeah, and so um, so yeah, I I would say at very least, hire a bar service that has insurance and list you as additionally insured, list the venue as additionally insured, and then if you want extra peace of mind, get online, buy a small policy for 250, 300 bucks for the event, and and then you're covered in every possible way you can be covered.
SPEAKER_00:That's a quick Google search, then this online insurance.
SPEAKER_01:I can actually we work with a company that does um specific event insurance because a lot we have any vendor that comes on town center has to have insurance. And these little mom and pops don't have it. Yeah, right. Uh but they there's a company that we work with that they can they'll cover the. I'm just gonna hire a top shelf and do it. Make it easy. Yeah, hire them and forget about it. Check that box. All right, we've got a couple of fun questions before we let you go. All right, let's do it. Because I'm really hungry now that we've been talking about it. I'm hungry. Where are the samples? I know. I should have out of I remember you remember when Callie came, at least she brought us biscuits.
SPEAKER_00:She brought biscuits.
SPEAKER_03:Callie was a terrible call. And we have so much good stuff going out today, too.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sure.
SPEAKER_03:Man, we have great holiday parties.
SPEAKER_01:Go ahead and keep going. Do you want this to air?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, just making sure you want this to air if you keep going.
SPEAKER_03:We're serving a lot of folks from a certain TV show that's that's filmed here today. So good times.
SPEAKER_00:You can't say that though, can you tell? You can't.
SPEAKER_03:I I agree.
SPEAKER_01:Is it righteous gemstones or are they?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, they're done. There well, no, there's there's one that's Outer Banks. They don't. I was gonna say it's Outer Banks. Yeah. They're they're doing a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:I don't want to talk about how much I'd love Chase Stokes. We cannot get in the sky. We cannot talk about that.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, is he an Outer Banks person? Yeah, he's trying to be.
SPEAKER_01:Don't you watch it?
SPEAKER_00:Uh-uh. Oh, come on.
SPEAKER_01:I have to watch it now, Manda. Well, yeah. It's it's um, yeah. Just well, you you'll probably hate it. I'll put it on for my wife and then watch it. Your wife will love it. Tell her to quote me. Um what is the strangest food request you've ever received from a client?
SPEAKER_03:You know, it's it's interesting that you have you have a lot of strange requests, but for us being a southern kind of low country-based company, um doing Indian weddings it can be um very interesting. Yeah, because there are very specific ingredients, and a lot of the times um these clients will bring the ingredients to us because it's they they got it from their their country of origin, whatever it may be, and there's certain ways of it being prepared. So um that is usually the strangest thing that we have to deal with. Um, but again, Kim has adapted so well to it. She's like, oh, we did one of these before, we got this.
SPEAKER_01:She's got curry down past.
SPEAKER_03:She's got curry, all this fun stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Would she ever hire like a guest uh chef to have like a specialized chef to this type of thing?
SPEAKER_03:The only time I've ever done that, I've brought in sushi rollers before and and sub that out. Um, and you know, sometimes, you know, I'll if we sub out to like 167 Raw for doing you know, oysters on the half shell, the shuckers that are in there doing that. But most of the time, if it's a food item that I'm not comfortable with, I just don't do it. Like I don't do I don't do pizza. If somebody wants pizza, I bring in one of the local pizza food trucks or something, and I'm like, look, like pizza's pizza, I love pizza. I'm not gonna pretend like I know how to cook it. Yeah, you don't want to eat pizza pizza, you don't want to eat my pizza. Yeah, I I I I order pizza is what I wanted. Oh, that's so fun.
SPEAKER_01:Um, all right. What is the most hilarious uh-oh moment at an event that you can laugh about now?
SPEAKER_03:Wow, okay, so um I have a lot of those, believe it or not.
SPEAKER_01:What's your favorite?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so one of my one of my one of the funnest uh-oh moments that you run into a lot of times is when you are when you go to do an event and you kind of you you've been dealing with a contact and they've been telling you this is how it's gonna be, this, this, and this, and um then all of a sudden you get there and and the uh-oh moment that I had was we had this huge, very formal, plated meal um at a large venue, and um the folks had supposedly had name tags and assigned seating, and we were giving this seating chart, and they the venue was too small for this group. So when we rolled in there, they had the chairs and tables set so close together that you legit could barely get in between the tables to deliver the food.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no.
SPEAKER_03:But the uh-oh moment came. I'm acting as the Maitre D and I'm directing traffic based on these seating charts and what where they're sitting. Everybody just took it upon themselves. I'm gonna go sit with my friend.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no, no, no, no, no. Yes, but there's a seating chart.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, they didn't care. Not only did they care, there were eight tops, and some people decided we're gonna make this a ten top and we're gonna do this. So not only could you not maneuver through the tables when you got to the table and they were supposed to be four salmon, four steak, it was like, oh no, I I got um I got the the chicken, and you're like, What's your name? John Smith? No, sir. You got the salmon, and you're supposed to be sitting over there, that's where your salmon is. Well, I'm sitting over here bringing oh boy. It was it was crazy. And then to make it so bad, that same event we were trying to maneuver, um, the client wanted us to serve a chocolate mousse um dessert. She wanted them served in martini glasses with stems. Okay. So tray of martini glasses. Oh no. And so I'm back behind the curtains and I'm telling my staff, and you know, they can't move through there. Yeah. My I I say, y'all have to be so careful. Y'all work in pairs. So the very first pair that goes out, he's trying to go through, somebody in their chair backs into him, crash. Oh my god. Or the martini glasses go break in the stems. And I was like, oh, that was my that was. I still have PTSD from that. And every time somebody says, I still go all the way back to that when it comes to assigned plated meals, and I say, There's gotta be room to move in between there, and they gotta stay in their seats.
unknown:Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_00:It's hysterical. Yeah, yeah. Oh no. They didn't leave. There's never too many breadsticks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, if you two more. If you could ban one appetizer from all events, what would it be? Anything on skewers. Why?
SPEAKER_03:Because prep.
SPEAKER_00:Prep.
SPEAKER_03:The prep. Man, I I am so afraid every time I enter in a system a Caprice A salad skewer or a beef skewer or some sort of kebab because I have to face my chef. And it's like, just think about this. You're you're like one item, two item, three item, four item, five item down, and then you have 500 people. Yeah. And it's two skewers per person. Yeah. So you have to do a thousand of those, and you're just sitting there just doing that. So anything on a skewer, I but ours are great. I'm sure they are so good. Well, because you make them with love, right? That's right. And I'm I'm doing them this weekend, and it was funny. My chef said, Rob, I hope you have somebody scheduled to come in and do these skewers. I'm not doing these skewers. And I was like, okay, I got you.
SPEAKER_01:All right. I got one more for you. Okay. What ingredient are you unbelievably passionate about?
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Okay. So if there's one particular ingredient, um I mean, I think it's just basic salt and pepper. Really? Yeah. I I think people will over they they will overthink items a lot of times. And I'm a very picky eater, okay? So what I over the years have realized is I go to a lot of events as well and I've seen a lot of different things. And I feel like when people try to go over the top with all these different types of ingredients, now with people's dietary restrictions and being allergic to this and allergic to that, I think there's a new appreciation for letting people add on what they want. So find flavor in the very simplest form as you can find it, and then let people add on gravy if they want, sauce, you know, different types of spices and things like that. But keep it to where everyone can enjoy it and it's flavorful there. And and you know, don't underestimate the power of just the right salt and pepper and something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love it. My favorite is the mix of garlic, garlic, salt, and pepper. Yeah. Oh, that's yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. That's amazing. I mean, listen, I just keep it simple. Yeah, I mean, I when I barbecue chicken and whatever, it's it's literally salt, pepper, and a little bit of garlic.
SPEAKER_03:I and I should say the not PC correct form of me personally would be sugar. Anything with sugar in it, I'm good. All right, tell everybody how they can find you. Um, very simple. If you just go to Top Shelf Catering Company.com, that is our website. We are also on Facebook and Instagram. You can just kind of search Top Shelf Catering, and those are the best and easiest ways. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. You got anything else, Mark? I'm glad we did this, Rob. Yeah, me too. Yeah, thanks for your time. And I know you're a busy man, man. So uh Yeah, especially this time of year. So we really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no, it has been a pleasure. I love the Mount Pleasant Chamber and everything you guys do to support businesses, so it's always a pleasure to help out when I can.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. Uh again, thank you so much, Rob, for taking your time today. We'd like to thank our sponsor, DK Design, and of course our partner, Charleston Media Solutions, for their support, not only of this podcast, but of the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. Uh, if you're interested in sponsoring or being a guest, uh please reach out to uh Rebecca at the Chamber and we will get back to you. Make sure to like and subscribe to all of our media channels. We will be on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. So here's to an amazing 2026, right, for all of us here at the chamber. Uh listening to us, tune in. Until next time, Mount Pleasant. Until next time, listeners.
