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A WOMAN'S PLACE?
The restaurant business is a brutal one even in first-rate economic times. The old saw is 90 to 95 percent of restaurants fail in their first year. Since the third quarter of 2008, local restaurateurs have felt the pain. The city has a growing list of shuttered eateries. For those who have been in the business for two decades or more, the past year qualifies as the worst of times.
"My customers asked me about the economy, and I said that you have to choose where you want to go and support them. Our customers have taken to heart what we told them," says Lupie Duran, owner of Lupie's Cafe. "We are seeing more of our lunch customers coming for dinner. We are lucky."
But it's not just luck that has kept a group of female restaurateurs in the business for more than 20 years. Duran laughs, "It's because we are hard-working women."
Count them: Catherine Rabb of Fenwick's and the legendary (and now-defunct) Catherine's; Susie Peck of Pewter Rose; Cathy Coulter of 300 East; sisters Bonnie Warford and Tricia Maddrey of Carpe Diem; Ellen Davis of McNinch House; Toi Rogers, creator of Thai Cuisine and Thai Orchid and now owner of Thai Marlai; and Lupie Duran of Lupie's. All are owners of remarkable local restaurants with roots in the 1980s. All, notably, are still standing.
"And most of us had small children," Duran adds.
Susie Peck, whose children were three years old and one year old when she started, attributes her longevity to stubbornness and loyalty. "The restaurant became our children -- our family -- although maybe dysfunctional at times. I've had one server for 20 years." Peck also credits a wine salesman, Jim Broderick, with Pewter Rose's early success. "No one was pouring high-end wines by the glass in the 1980s," she notes. "And he suggested, we serve Sonoma-Cutrer Chardonnay by the glass."
Around the corner on East Boulevard, Cathy Coulter opened 300 East on Valentine's Day 1986. "It took a lot of courage back then," Coulter says. Her opportunity came when her employer, White Horse, filed Chapter 11. "I had been the manager, and knew I could get a deal in the debt assumption." But the bank wouldn't just take her signature or that of her mother. She needed her father to cosign the loan. Coulter credits her success to paying attention to details. "Owning a restaurant is tedious, but there's never a dull moment."
Anyone who has a sister knows she can be a best friend and an irritant simultaneously. "We have a rule," says Tricia Maddrey. "Only one person can be mad at a time." Maddrey and her sister Bonnie Warford have worked together daily in Carpe Diem since opening in 1989. Any Charlottean who has followed the saga of Carpe Diem knows that wherever these restaurateurs open, construction follows. Their first location was in the old Radcliffe flower shop, which had to be vacated so the building could be moved down the street. Next, they relocated to a property that was subsequently destroyed to make way for the Time Warner Cable Arena. In its latest incarnation, Carpe Diem moved to Elizabeth Avenue -- which just reopened after being closed for more than a year for street construction.
The sisters' philosophy for their business has been consistency, moderate pricing and quality customer service. Wolford notes that she's been surprised not more women are in the business -- either in the front or the back of the house. "It's more exciting than it used to be, and more women are in food. But we don't see as many female applicants for the kitchen." She estimated that the business is "still 80-percent men" but notes she "looks for female applicants."
Why do so few women apply for a chef position? Alissa Gorlick, who graduated from the Arts Institute in Charlotte with a culinary degree, says that before she started working at M5, it was rare to see women working the line. "But if you look back here on any given day," she says, "you'll see three girls on the line."
One of the few female chefs to head a kitchen in Charlotte is Tessia Harman, the Chef de Cuisine at the Ember Grille in the Westin Hotel. Harman is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.
"The field is definitely male-dominated. When I started classes, it was probably 70-percent male and 30-percent female. By the time I left, it was more of a 60-40 split," Harman says. She adds that she is "amazed" by the number of female culinary students coming out of Johnson & Wales. Harman continues, "I have never been intimidated. I knew absolutely I was going to be a chef. Kitchens have evolved and grown."
