I was forewarned that there was an emotional adjustment akin to culture shock when leaving life in Aspen/Snowmass. I think it’s similar to PTSD and no one knows how long this adjustment takes because there are so many variables, i.e. age, exercise, hobbies, diversions, etc.
So, upon leaving Aspen, I moved to Houston which was where I called home before moving to Aspen, and it was where I went to high school and my parents still lived there. At the time of our move back to Texas, my wife, Debby was pregnant with our first baby, soon to be known as Andrew. We moved to far west Houston where I began the job search in the restaurant industry. I was not sure if I should apply for a kitchen position or for a job in the front of the house because I was not confident with my kitchen skills but I knew I would get bored in the midst of waiters, busboys, hostesses etc. I needed to be employed by a restaurant that challenged my culinary skills as well as my hospitality skills and front of the house service skills.
This period of time in my restaurant career is all a little foggy. I was losing contact with Gert and the Aspen family, but I needed to independently prove myself.
This was all part of my adjustment to the real world.
I decided on a General Manager position at RG Maxwell’s at Westheimer and Alabama Street. Maxwell’s was an exact carbon copy of Houlihan’s old place which was a successful restaurant chain. This was at the beginning of Houston’s restaurant industry explosion and according to the U.S. courts, a restaurant cannot insure that their theme cannot be copied. Therefore, in the 70’s most restaurants followed the very same format, you’ve seen a TGI Friday’s you’ve seen a Houlihan’s you’ve seen an RG Maxwell’s. After that had been established, Maxwell’s copied Houlihan’s management style, menu format, beverage service, glassware, china, flatware, everything. Maxwell’s went to extreme expense to get secret recipes. Danny Rabinowitz the owner of Maxwell’s was from New Orleans and wanted the famous shrimp dish from Pascal Manale’s restaurant in the garden district of New Orleans so Danny sent a restaurant spy to Pascal Manale’s and this spy withdrew the juice from the shrimp dish into a syringe and then sent it to a lab to have the ingredients and their quantities recorded. There are two dishes that I held onto from Maxwell’s, the shrimp dish from Manale’s and the apple pie with bubbling brandy butter served on a hot fajita skillet, stolen from Houlihan’s. The aroma that both dishes emitted would turn heads as they traveled from the kitchen and through the dining room. Fun fact: In finer restaurants, just before opening for service, the Maître D’ would fill the air with a combination of sautéing butter, garlic and shallots because this combination of flavors is known to excite the appetite and encourage the guest to order more.
Maxwell’s turned out to be a great place to transition back into the real and civilized world. They implemented a system where the manager on duty (MOD) would go through the cooking line with the chef to make sure everything was fresh and up to standard and this MOD also became the expediter during service and called all the waiters orders to the kitchen, then garnished the fresh hot plates and finally helped the waiters tray up and deliver the hot food in a timely fashion, all while also keeping an eye on the kitchen to keep all components running smoothly. The other manager on duty worked the front of the house and assisted the hostesses and waiters and visited with every table to make sure the guests were pleased.
As General Manager, I oversaw the entire process and found the new environment to be interesting at the onset and the job did have many new approaches to learn and this kept me engaged for several months until I had it down pat and it became tedious. Seriously needing a diversion, I saw stacks of empty mayonnaise buckets in the kitchen and upstairs there was an attic that was empty so I put two and two together and did the obvious, I started a marijuana grow room. Everything was growing well and I had found a new purpose and then one unfortunate day, an assistant manager saw the grow light oozing out of a crack in the attic door! He reported it to the home office. This was obviously breaking bad. They sent Dan to fire me which he did. But that is not the end of this story.
I was at home trying to come to terms with my dismissal and what to do moving forward, with a third member about to join our little family, immediate reemployment was of the utmost importance. I decided to edit my resume to show that I had stayed in Aspen for an extra 6 months, leaving no trace of my time at RG Maxwell’s as I felt certain I would not receive a glowing reference from them. I was all set to begin the job search again when the phone rang. It was Dan from the home office of RG Maxwell’s and he asked me to meet him at the TGI Friday’s bar because he wanted to talk. I arrived at the bar and waited for him but he was late so I began doing shots. I figured “what the hell” he had already fired me, what more could he do? I was drunk when he showed up and I continued to do shots after he joined me and drunkenly I informed him he had made a big mistake firing me, I think I listed the reasons why it was a mistake. I don’t remember much else except I do remember chasing him through the parking lot screaming at him. When I finally caught him, he offered me my old job back, but it would be in a different Maxwell’s restaurant in a different city. He called me a cab and told me he would give me all the details tomorrow, when I sobered up. He called me the next morning to explain the details. The company kept me on the payroll and paid all relocation expenses, sending me off to Dallas. Hmm I wonder what happened to those attic plants.
In Dallas, it felt like I was a firefighter. 👨🚒 They had me fill in the gaps and stomp out the nightly restaurant fires at both of their restaurants. They had two restaurants in Dallas, an RG Maxwell’s and a huge restaurant in North Park Mall called Churchill’s. Churchill’s did 600 to 700 lunches a day and 300 dinners at night. Churchill’s volume was so large that they needed 2 expeditors to keep the food sailing away.
After they verified that I wasn’t the Sean Penn character from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” the company sent me to San Antonio and gave me my own restaurant to manage. It was across the street from Tesoro Petroleum and we did very high volume, the bar was always packed and we did about 500 meals a day. I introduced several innovative money-making ideas that made me the star of the corporation. They made me “area director” of all their restaurants in the corporation, that being a total of 4 with many new ones in the works.
Steve Davis, a corporate VP with Maxwell’s and a UT grad with an MBA, approached me about doing our own restaurant together. We determined our theme to be much like The S & D Oyster Co. out of Dallas, a simple seafood concept that delivered fresh delicious food with little fanfare. We called our version, The Broadway Oyster Co. Stay tuned for the next blog to hear our adventures from the “Alamo City”. And never fear, the story of Hudson’s on the Bend is just around the corner, with 31 years of delightful and delicious shenanigans!
This recipe was stolen from Pascal Manale in New Orleans in the Garden District. I highly recommend that you take the St. Charles trolley into the Garden District. Along the way you will see antebellum mansions, etc. The ride on the trolley transports you into an earlier time in the old south. Pascal Manale is a two-block walk from the trolley where you will be greeted with fresh oysters chilled on crushed ice. Their shrimp dish is served with the head and shell still on, messy, but what flavor. The head and shell are full of fat and that is the secret ingredient. They call it BBQ shrimp. Make sure you have a large French baguette to sop up every drop of the juice. That’s what you get when French trained cooks do BBQ. Over the years I’ve changed amounts and ingredients. I think it’s better than the original!
New Orleans Shrimp aka BBQ Shrimp 🦐
This recipe is for 4, but there is enough sauce for 6 people.
Ingredients
2 lbs shrimp (head & shell on) large, fresh shrimp, ½ lb. per person with head on.
1 lb. butter
3 tablespoons of minced red onion
4 tablespoons of minced garlic
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 bay leaves
1 cup fresh rosemary, packed
½ teaspoon oregano, dried
½ teaspoon basil, dried
3 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons cracked black pepper
½ cup fresh lemon juice
Zest of 4 lemons
½ tablespoon cayenne powder, use less if you prefer less heat
Method
In a large sauce pot (6-8 qts.) over medium heat, melt the butter.
Add all ingredients except the shrimp.
Simmer all ingredients for 10 minutes before you add the shrimp.
Stir in the shrimp and cook over medium heat until the shrimp are pink, 4-5 minutes
Serve in a large bowl with French bread.
It is messy, a lobster type bib is in order and a bowl for the shells and heads or if you’re outside throw the shells over your shoulder for some added fun.
Wet hand napkins help with the hands. It’s a messy job for your hands.