Here to Serve: Tom Catherall

WORDS BY TONY WARE PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARCUS KRAUSE

YOU GOT SERVED

Twist

Since debuting his first solo venture in 1990, certified master chef and decorated restaurateur Tom Catherall has harnessed an entrepreneurial spirit resulting in six successful fun-meets-fine-dining ventures—with a seventh unfurled this fall—under the banner Here to Serve Restaurants.

Here to Serve Restaurants—Twist, Shout, Prime, Noche, Goldfish, Ola and this fall’s newcomer Strip—is the culmination and summation of Tom Catherall’s 40 years in the hospitality industry, over 20 of which have been in Atlanta. Hailing from Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and the oldest of 10 Irish-Catholic children, Catherall didn’t start out wanting to cook up either dishes or restaurant concepts.

Tom Catherall “I wanted to be an auto mechanic or an artist—anything but a cook,” admits the quick-paced, hands-on Catherall, speaking between his daily visits to each and every one of his establishments. “But my mother signed me up for an apprenticeship as a cook because it was an available job. I was born a few years after World War II, so there was a man shortage in England and people left school at 15 to work. I figured I would apprentice for four years then do something else. Yet, here I am 40 years later doing the same thing.”

Well, not quite the same thing. When Catherall began in 1964, he was one of 30 or 40 apprentices at hotels such as the Royal Turks Head. And back then, the beef, poultry and fish didn’t come in neatly packed boxes as it does today. Catherall would shear his own meat from a half cow or whole pig, brought in fresh daily, and he plucked and rendered fat from chickens and ducks.

“It was a very formal apprenticeship,” says Catherall. “Above all else, it taught me to know and appreciate fresh ingredients.”

Catherall then worked at resort hotels from the Channel Islands to the West Indies, absorbing culinary influences from French and German chefs, while taking business classes at Newcastle Polytech between stints.

“The most valuable thing I learned wasn’t the economic building blocks for running a business, but rather how important it is to treat people fairly,” says Catherall. “That’s the key to success.

Catherall continued doing turns cooking hearty fare in Boston and Cincinnati for the Omni Hotels chain, before landing at Atlanta’s exclusive Cherokee Town & Country Club in 1983. What had seemed a town of fried chicken and ribs turned out to be inspirational to the chef. Cherokee offered Catherall the opportunity to secure relationships with suppliers from local farmers to global fresh fish purveyors, thanks to a progressive dining room initiative more concerned with quality than cost. It was at this time that Catherall completed the Culinary Institute of America’s 10-day exam to become a certified master chef (of which there are only 56 in the nation).

Following Cherokee, Catherall took what he had gleaned to that point, left behind the emphasis on robust European flavors and opened up Azalea with a partner. Along with the Buckhead Diner, Azalea helped usher in the era of New American cooking in Atlanta under the motto “black-tie food at blue-jean prices.” To this day, if a patron walks up to one of Catherall’s restaurants and asks if they are properly dressed, he’ll say to them that as long as they have their wallet, they’re good to go.

Azalea was the first venture where Catherall truly embraced regional cuisine, while at the same time placing steak and sushi beside one another on the menu—a concept that has become key for nearly all his restaurants since. During his two-year arc as executive chef at Azalea, Catherall gained even further renown—winning, among other accolades, a gold medal in Frankfurt, Germany as part of the US Culinary Olympics team in 1988—before striking out on his own in 1990 to found TomTom Asian bistro (and Here to Serve).

“When I left Azalea, I didn’t get a cent because my partner was the majority owner and didn’t have to buy me out. So, I learned to never go into business with less than 50 percent,” says Catherall. “I was taking a risk walking away from a busy restaurant, just like I did leaving Cherokee, but I always knew I’d rather own all of a successful restaurant than part of one.”

Ever since, Catherall has continued to expand his restaurant group as he’s watched the city’s population swell by several million. “My first restaurant I built for $750,000, though a lot of that was covered by a ‘landlord improvement allowance’ in the mall’s rent,” remembers Catherall. “And I just finished my latest restaurant for $5 million. Building costs are way up; ‘allowances’ down. Steel is like oil in the way the prices are sky high. But each restaurant I spend more money because we have the cash flow, and also you’re always striving to make it better. My restaurants turn a profit straight away, but it takes two or three years before we pay back the initial building costs and make any money. The restaurant business is like gambling, and the only way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one.”

Prime The success of TomTom was duplicated and doubled by Prime, also located in Lenox Square, in 1996. “At first, I was hesitant to do this type of dining in a mall,” divulges Catherall. “But then I recognized the high caliber of patron shopping in the area. I just had to make sure the restaurants were up to par. This wasn’t like coming to Macy’s to just try something on and leave. People are at my restaurants to buy something, and they need something worth their money.”

Catherall would then extend the same concept to Goldfish in Perimeter Mall—as well as placing Spanish-meets-South American tapas at Noche in Virginia-Highlands, and now in Colony Square at Ola—before arriving at his ultimate distillation of “fun dining” in the almost nightclub-like, $5-martini-slinging Twist and Shout restaurants.

“I would have girls at the bar of Prime sharing one sushi roll but drinking two glasses of wine each,” explains Catherall. “I realized people wanted somewhere they could concentrate less on full dining and more on mingling. My newest restaurant, Strip, furthers the idea as a place for both meat and to meet, to drink and eat. Even my wine lists are based on sellers, not cellars—I want to offer things and places that are contemporary and accessible now.

Shout Instead of spending lavishly on traditional marketing, Catherall says he prefers to focus his attention and budget on his customers first, using dollars to charge less for food and exceed the customers’ culinary expectations. By marketing on the quality of the plate and service—and offering a frequent diner program that includes all of his restaurants—he creates brand loyalty, expecting to see the same customers popping $5 tapas at Noche as he will sinking into steaks once Strip opens in the youthful, mixed-use Atlantic Station development.

Catherall continues to conceptualize hyper-kinetic eateries with menus of small plates. No matter how high the concept, however, Catherall makes a point to never forget his past and its contribution to the “Here to Serve” prime directive.

“I come from a family that was poor, but I appreciate my humble beginnings,” reflects Catherall. “I was 12 when I found out chicken wasn’t gravy. But it helped me appreciate what I have now. You have to be careful what you dream of—I just wanted one restaurant, and now I’m 56 years old and not at the mercy of anyone but my 600 employees and myself. It’s like having 600 kids, and I’m proud of them all. Everything I have done to date has shown me that if you give people what they want, you get rewarded.”