The Heart of Hospitality: Carolyn M. White on Food, Wine, and Crafting Memorable Experiences

Carolyn M. White on Food, Wine, and Crafting Memorable Experiences

“Cooking for me is giving a piece of my heart to people on a plate.”

Zaylan: Where is home to you?

Carolyn: I live in the Piedmont of Virginia on a 90 acre farm.

Zaylan: Wow. Are you into farming?

Carolyn: Yes we spend a lot of time in the dirt! My husband Randy farms 35 of the acres for hay. So we have three farmers in the county that buy futures  in the hay, because we're organic and natural.

So Randy does the great big thousand pound bales of hay 'cause he can do it all by himself. And we have a small orchard. We have lots of tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes, garlic, lots of flowers. So it is lots of fun and a lot of work.

Zaylan: Do you do a lot of cooking there? What is your favorite dish to make?

Carolyn: I do a lot of cooking. Well, I started as a chef, so I was a chef for 30 years. And Oh, gosh, my favorite dish, it depends,  I'm going to say the same thing about wine too on if it's hot or cold outside, what's fresh.. I love a lot of Spanish food. I love French food, Italian food. So in the summer we eat a lot of heirloom tomatoes and we do a lot of capreses and we have peaches on the farm. So  we'll grill peaches and do that with tomatoes. Anything fresh.

Cooking for me is giving a piece of my heart to people on a plate and it is, to me, also the epitome of hospitality - set your table, having someone sit at your table and savour everything that's there in front of them.

‍“I always say I'm an Acid Queen (but not like the sixties acid)”

Zaylan: What about when you go out, do you have a favorite dish you usually will order?

Carolyn: I'm a big seafood fan, so if I can find an amazing octopus dish or shrimp or a specialty fish dish.  I love sushi, love sashim.  And I tend to eat regionally. So if I'm in the upper, the mid Atlantic, you, you do crab and whatever's there.

We were in the badlands of South Dakota this summer this fall with one of our granddaughters. And there was a lot of boeuf. Beef everywhere! so we had some fun with that too!

Zaylan: Yeah. South Dakota is beautiful down there. I love that area. The black Hills…

Carolyn: ...the Badlands. It was beautiful.

Zaylan: What about your go-to drink? I'm assuming it's wine or, or something else?

Carolyn: When I go out, I almost always start with a cocktail and I like an excellently, perfectly crafted martini. I don't drink sweet, so I always say I'm an acid queen (not like the sixties acid). I like tart. I don't like sweet drinks or sweet wine. When it comes to dinner, I really do prefer wine and I'll have some fun pairing it. As you know, I do a lot of the Somme Responsibilities for Ellis Adams - wine lists and pairings and things like that. And then I really like an amazing bourbon. So that might be my dessert - a neat, really neat, spectacular bourbon.

Zaylan: Do you have a favorite kitchen tool or piece of equipment that you can't live without?

Carolyn: Ooh, I would say my knives for sure. I can do without a lot of things, but I have knives that I've had... some of them started out this wide [She holds her hands apart to indicate the original size of the blade] and have been honed to about here from just sharpening [she moves her hands closer together to show the shrinkage from sharpening].

I love my knives and they're all different brands. I don't have one. I am not a loyal knife user - I know companies hate to hear that, but there are some amazing paring knives in one brand, a chef's knife and a Santoku and so on.  So I just have a lot of fun finding the fit for my hand.

Zaylan: In your free time lately, have you had any books or movies or shows you've been enjoying?

Carolyn: Oh, gosh. I have to think. I'm not a huge TV fan. I'm very active. So if I can be outside, I'm outside.

I am a law enforcement junkie. So, I like the Blue Bloods if I'm watching something along that line, I really like old movies. I'm also a big John Wayne fan. And I like Pulp Fiction-it is probably one of my favorites, and I just think it's so artistically crafted and built some of the best one liners coming out of movies ever...but it's like everything else, it depends, a big rainy day, you might catch me watching Forrest Gump, or Star Trek. Who knows?

‍“Service is the black and white of the industry, and hospitality is all the colours...it’s a passion for people and doing things well with excellence.”

Zaylan: This might be a hard one to answer, but of all the hotels and destinations you've been to, what was your favorite or which one had the biggest impact on you? Like most memorable, would you say?

Carolyn: Oh, wow, I, I have stayed in thousands and thousands of hotels through the years. I have to think about that one.

Gosh, I don't know that I have one that jumps out. There is a place, an inn in Northern California called Madrona Manor. Years ago, Todd Muir was the executive chef there, and his sister Carol was the pastry chef. It set the bar for my expectation on hospitality, and this was probably before you were born.

Actually, it was a long time ago, but the food, the way the room was laid out, the touches in it were absolutely spectacular. My husband and I also stayed at a JW Marriott in Prague years ago, and it was an excellent experience as well. I think a lot of the European hotels, Sofitel, the Accor Hotel, they get the whole hospitality piece and there is one that I really love (I can't afford to stay in for the most part): The Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay is absolutely gorgeous. I worked as a chef for years in Half Moon Bay before the Ritz Carlton was there. So my husband and I went a few years ago and stayed over a long weekend and it just sits up on the bluffs over the ocean and they did a spectacular job.

Zaylan: Yeah, it looks beautiful. So what does hospitality mean to you? How would you define it?

Carolyn: Hospitality to me is a passion for people and doing things well with excellence. I still read a lot about the industry and Will Guidara has a book called “Unreasonable Hospitality”. In it, he talks about service as the black and white of the industry and hospitality is all the colors.

And that is how I see it. I think it's hard to do hospitality well and consistently, when you have an ever changing churning burning group of people coming in and out who maybe didn't grow up eating dinner at a dining room table with silverware and napkins and China plates, but ate off of to-go containers and paper plates.

So hospitality is the heart and soul of a restaurant in a hotel. And  it takes people, good people, smart people, that put all the tools in the toolbox and execute perfectly.

Zaylan: Do you think people are born good at hospitality or it's something that you can learn from through books or just training or, or what do you, what have you seen in some of the best people that provide the best hospitality?

Carolyn: That's a good question. I do believe there are people that are born with the heart for hospitality. I was an army brat. It was nothing for my mom to put it on a dinner for 50 people in our house or to have cocktail parties that my dad would call in at 1pm in the afternoon. And she'd put together ten appetizers and set up the bar. So I grew up around a lot of that and it's comfortable for me, and it's something I like.

I have seen some really green kids become stellar at hospitality and if you don't have that heart, it's somebody igniting that flame within you, saying “look this is what we can do!. We can take this and we can make it this!” I believe it entails having an open mind. You can't stay in the box and be good at hospitality. That's what the Ritz Carlton's and the Four Seasons and a lot of the higher end hotels figured out.

You've got to be out of that box. You have to be creative and innovative. You've got to evolve as your demographic evolves. You can't do the same thing in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and keep people.

“If hotel employees are required to certify, and I’ve been in a bazillion hotels and worked in so many restaurants, there’s probably a lot I don’t know.”

Zaylan: And I saw that you're a certified hotel supplier. What does that mean? And how did you get that credential?

Carolyn: So when I was running the hotel resort and casino channel for Trinchero, I was active in  A.H.L.A which stands for American Hotel and Lodging Association.

And basically they are the lobby arm of the hotel world, kind of like the NRA is the lobby arm for the restaurant world. And being involved with A.H.L.A, they set up a lot of the C. E (Continuing Education). courses for hotels. It doesn't matter what the flag is. Any hotel can have their employees take a housekeeping test for example and get credits for it.

And when I was involved closely with the Food & Beverage Board, I got to attend in DC every quarter where a lot of food and beverage directors and VPs of F& B and marketing got together for the A.H.L.A board meeting. And I thought, you know what? If people in the hotels are required to certify, while I've been in a bazillion hotels and I've worked in a lot of restaurants, but I bet there's a lot of stuff I don't know.

And so I went to my company and said to the Trinchero family, would you pay for me to take this course? And it took me about three and a half months to go through it. But I learned about concierge, parking and housekeeping. I learned about all of the different responsibilities within the hotel and took and passed the test.

So that's what certified master hotel supplier means. And nobody does that stuff anymore. But for me, I wanted to be able to walk into a hotel and feel like I had that tie with everybody I met on the floor.

Zaylan: Yeah, they don't do that.

Carolyn: A.H.L.A does. I don't think there are a lot of beverage companies that require their people to go through that or ask them or even know about it.

Maybe some of the companies like Tabletop or the bedding companies, they might require you to go through. It did open doors for me. Because the people from the hotel, they look at it, they go, Oh, you did that?  Yeah. I did do that!

Zaylan: Right. That's why I'm curious. I would love to get that same credential at some point. Cause I'm assuming, it's not just beverage supply, it also could be being a technology supplier. I’ll look into that and see if there's still a course that's online there then. Over to you, Gaby, for the next section of questions.

"The kitchen teaches you persistence and determination and how to achieve an excellent result every time"

Gaby: Great. So we're going to start with your early journey. We know you began in the kitchen, working your way from dish washer to chef. Can you share what those early days taught you that still shapes your approach today?

Carolyn: It taught me a lot. Number one, it taught me to be able to work with anybody and to leave my ego at the back door. The first chef I ever worked for in California was the meanest chef I've ever known in my life. But I learned a lot from him. I learned what to do, the prowess, and the technical parts of the kitchen.

I also learned what not to do. I learned how you don't lead people, how you don't manage people. A kitchen—or a restaurant as a whole—is an incredible microcosm of the world. It’s all different kinds of people coming from all different places, lumped together, and they've got to figure out how to work, how to all row in the same direction, basically.

The first restaurant I worked at had a prep team made up of Portuguese women. I have never learned as much from anybody as I learned from these women. They were tough. They were kind. I had my smattering of Spanish, they spoke Portuguese, and we made up all sorts of words! It was so much fun, and they would have done anything for me—like I would have done anything for them.

You learn camaraderie, you learn to count on people. You also learn who you can't count on, and you figure that out quickly. The kitchen teaches you persistence and determination and how to achieve an excellent result every time. And you make mistakes, but you try to learn. Hopefully, you learn from those mistakes.

‍“It’s basically trying to come in with a small, glowing ball of passion and knowledge and hope that it catches.”

Gaby: So with 40 years in hospitality, what are the biggest changes you've seen, and how have they shaped your consulting approach now?

Carolyn: Boy, there have been a lot of changes! COVID did a number on hospitality, and it made me very sad. Some of our best and brightest, hardest-working people had to leave the industry because COVID shut restaurants and shut hotels—and they had families to feed, they had school loans they had to pay… It was so sad to see that happen. And then, as things began to open back up, the knowledge base had left.

And I do think some of the passion left as well. And it's hard. You can't just make that up. It's something you either have or you don’t. Hospitality has become more edgy. To stand out, restaurants and hotels are doing very interesting and amazing things. But for me, the biggest change has been the loss of knowledge and the struggle to rebuild it.

Since I retired, I’ve been hired to open up a couple of hotels from the F&B side—one in Virginia, one in Omaha, Nebraska, and one in California. The labor pool is so different in each place. And the passion is so different. So, it’s basically trying to come in with a small, glowing ball of passion and knowledge and hope that it catches. I think of it like bippity boppity boo—where the fairy godmother blows on something and the sparkles and the magic go out.

I think that’s what the old-timers like me hope to do—to share what we know. And, you know, I hope people don’t make the same mistakes I made. If I’m happy to learn from someone else’s mistake, I hope other people are too.

‍“With wine, I have had the most fun turning on the light bulbs for servers and bartenders.”

Gaby: Looking back, was there a key moment that led you to move from chef to a broader operational role?

Carolyn: There were a couple—there were a couple that happened almost in line with one another. In my last full-time chef role, I was working with Publix Supermarkets in Florida, and I got to be part of a teaching team at their cooking schools. And I loved that. I love teaching. I don’t want to teach kids, but I love teaching adults. And when people came, they would get very excited!

I have always been passionate about wine, and like the Certified Master Hotel Supplier, I studied and took my WSET (initially through the Society of Wine Educators, augmented by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust) all the way through Level 3, and then I sat for both my Sommelier exams and passed.

And once I passed that second-level Sommelier exam, I thought, I’m ready to leave the kitchen. I didn’t want to work every weekend, every holiday. Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day would come along, and I just run screaming from the room because that’s when it’s turn and burn in restaurants.

For me, it was the marriage of food and wine. As passionate as I am about food, I am creative—but I’m not wicked creative. There are infinitely more creative chefs out there. With wine, I have had the most fun turning on the light bulbs for servers and bartenders and meeting event coordinators—showing them how to think about wine from a chef’s perspective. It’s been a bit of a crossover—taking the food piece, marrying it with the wine piece, and setting a different course for myself than I think 99 percent of the other people out there have.

‍“It’s the easiest way to give yourself a raise. Learn how to sell your beverage menu, your alcoholic beverage menu. Move up on the cocktails, move up on the wine.”

Gaby: And how have your roles—from chef to sales—shaped your view on what makes a hospitality brand exceptional?

Carolyn: I was probably a terrible salesperson, Gaby, I’m just going to tell you. I had buyers say, ‘Would you drink this wine?’ And I would say, ‘No, I don’t think I would drink this.’ But you have to sell this wine!

I’m not that hardcore salesperson who’s going to drive it in there. I wasn’t that kind of chef or kitchen person either. I wanted people to love my food. I wanted to set the table perfectly. I wanted the plate to go out and for people to just go, ‘Wow!’ I mean, I was cheffing long before Instagram moments… I probably should be grateful for that, but there were people taking pictures of food back then, and I thought it was strange.

But I think just having those moments where food and beverage come together, people get it. It’s like a cartoon where the light bulb goes on over their head.

I just did training for 60 people in Northern Virginia, and they were young. Oh my goodness, they were young—so many first-time servers. I asked the chef to sit in, and we did tasting plates with everything. At first, I could see some of them sitting there, arms crossed, like, ‘Who is this old white-haired lady? And what is she doing standing in front of me?’

But by the end, I had a bunch of them come up and say, ‘Wow, you made it so easy. You made it approachable. You made it fun. And I get it.

And I always tell them—it’s the easiest way to give yourself a raise. Learn how to sell your beverage menu, your alcoholic beverage menu. Move up on the cocktails, move up on the wine. Know your stuff and be comfortable. Know what you know, and don’t BS!”‍

“They always leave it better than they found it.”

Zaylan: Now a few questions about EAG. So what led you to join Ellis Adams Group? How did that all come about?

Carolyn: Oh, gosh. Well, I have watched this group of incredible professionals operate for a number of years. Initially, it was predominantly Marriott because I was in sales. I was calling on Marriott, and I watched them open hotels, set up conferences, and make changes. As Chris, Maricela, and Jason (The EAG Team) saw how differently I did things—how I was more of a chef with a wine bent—they opened doors for me.

They would ask, Can you do your Jelly Belly training over here? Can you come in and do your wine deconstruction over here? Instead of making it specific to the company I was working for, I figured if I could train and teach them to sell more wine, my wines would naturally bubble up as well.

The passion and work ethic this team has is one reason why, when I retired, Chris came to me and asked if I would be on his board. I said no—I was going to retire. My husband had gotten the worst of me for a lot of years because I spent between 180 and 200 nights in hotels a year. So I said, I just need to be home.

And I was home for about eight months. Then I called Chris back and said, Are you still interested? And he said, Yes, I am. Watching this team, a young team, operate has been incredible. I have mentors in this team—I will tell you that. They are respectful, kind, generous, and they pay it forward.

No matter what I did—whether I was a chef, whether I was teaching at Publix as a chef, or a salesperson with RNDC, and later Trinchero—I always wanted to leave a place better than I found it. That’s what I am most proud of with EAG: they always leave it better than they found it. They have a passion for excellence, and there aren’t a lot of groups out there that have that. I am proud to be the old lady on the team.

I do my wine list writing, review menus, and all the things I do, but what I know is that when I’ve been to a hotel that the team has gone in and opened, reopened, or helped navigate through a crisis, the red carpet is rolled out for EAG. People say, Oh, my gosh, we love those guys! They come in, they get up at five in the morning, and they go to bed at midnight. That is a hard-working group of people.

It is my honor that they still want me there. I’m delighted.

“I call myself the resident cork dork.”

Zaylan: And you mentioned a couple of things, but what exactly do you do at EAG? What services do you offer to clients?

Carolyn: So, I’m the wine guru, I guess. I call myself the resident cork dork. I do a lot of wine list crafting. If there’s an owned and managed Marriott that the team is working on, they’ll send over the POS rundown, and we’ll figure out how closely they’re following the program.

I’ll break it into Pivot tables, look at costing and all of that, and then send my recommendations back to the team. I also work with a couple of hotel groups, like Crestline, and a few others they’re working with, helping to put together cool programming or throwing creative ideas out there.

I also really enjoy the lifestyle side of Ellis Adams Group. A lot of people think we only work with hotels, but we’ve been able to work on some amazing private projects. We’ve built a 2,000-bottle wine cellar, helped merge six different wine cellars from all over the world—that’s the kind of thing I geek out on, and I love it.

“What I do for Ellis Adams Group is put puzzles together.”

Zaylan: Some of these projects you can’t talk about, but what are your favorite projects that you can talk about?

Carolyn: One that was incredible was building a wine and spirit program for a single individual from start to finish. Being able to go out and talk to all of the suppliers and companies I’ve known for years—many of whom are friends—and finding an amazing barrel of specialty bourbon, an aged tequila, or sourcing first, second, third, fourth, and fifth-growth Bordeaux.

It’s about making the right calls, putting the right pieces together. What I do for Ellis Adams Group is put puzzles together. It’s taking a lot of different pieces, figuring out how to make them work, and making them profitable. Bottom line—our job is to help our clients make more money. That means finding the right wines, the right spirits, making sure they’re priced correctly, ensuring their POS system is set up properly so they’re charging the right amount, and their margins are right.

That’s what I love about my role—it’s fun to be on that side of it.

‍Zaylan: And what do you think makes EAG so unique in the industry? You’ve touched on a couple of pieces, but is there anything you can distill it down to?

Carolyn: I think it comes down to one person: Chris Adams. He unequivocally has a hospitality heart. He’s incredibly cerebral—I think that comes from what his father did as a psychologist. He is always learning, always reading. It’s never enough to be where he is, and that’s exactly how I’ve always been. I’ve never been the smartest bulb on the bench—I’ll never say I was—but I have been the hardest-working a lot of times.

It’s about moving forward. Just putting things in the basket, knowing that at some point, I’ll be able to distribute them back out. For me, the thing that drew me to EAG was Chris and Maricela. That team of operations, hospitality, and execution is the best in the business.

And I said it before, and I’ll say it again—I am honored to be associated with this group. That spill-over? I’ll take it all day long!

“Matching the wine list to the identity of the property is critical.”

‍Gaby:   What excites you most about the future of Ellis Adams?   And are there specific goals or innovations you’re particularly passionate about contributing towards?

Carolyn:   A few things excite me about the future of EAG….first, and not because Zaylan is on the call, is Nitecapp.   Watching this develop and build over the past year or so has been intriguing and exciting.  One of the biggest asks by Hotel Chains during the RFP presentations for the past 15 years has been the need for education.   “We need education, education, education.”   I think there are a number of companies that have individually spent considerable dollars, time and efforts on figuring this out.   There have also been a number of companies, spirits, wine, beer and non-ALCs, that have partnered in really creative ways to build platforms and creative ways to educate.  NOTHING has taken hold and all the while, the world gets more and more tech-driven and tech-savvy.   People now seem to think in 2 minute sound bytes so that is how we need to look at meeting them in the middle.    

EAG pioneered, with a group of talented techies,  NIitecapp.  And, here is the beauty of Nitecapp for me.   A ‘generic’ overall education piece is the foundation.   The what, the how, the build.   Assume the ‘viewer’ knows little.   Teach them a lot in a linear way.   There is the base.  

To follow, each brand can make THEIR adds.   Build on their  specific brands, following a concise template of information, in the same 2 min sound bytes.   This information is concise.  Easy to understand.   Has the same feel.   The server, bartender, manager, etc. can begin a training session and knock it out fairly quickly.   They don’t have to know EVERYTHING but they do need to know something!

Second thing with NIitecapp is the compliance opportunity for Beverage companies --- the historical promise for the commitment on a program has been that ALL the properties are required to follow the program.  It almost never happens in hotels and resorts.   Communication from corporate is often not great to the property levels and the follow up on the program takes not second or third seat but about tenth seat to everything else.  Who at HQ on the chain is responsible?   Who follows up at the property level and more importantly, what are the ramifications if you don’t follow?    For the Sales professional and the company, keeping track of WHO is and who isn’t takes a ton of time – truly!   And the ask for menu print support is requested for ALL the properties to be on the program.   So what happens when only 40% are on program and the remaining are not?   Those budget dollars for menu print support are being spent badly.   Nitecapp helps track compliance – man, that would have been a huge time saver for me!  I didn’t have an Admin or someone to make those number dives!

At Trinchero, I ran the Hotel/Resort/Casino division and loved it.   I also spent over 180 nights a year in the hotels because this is the ONLY way to understand a hotel’s biz ---  I met the F&B, the Bar Manager, the GM.   The personal connection, the chats about my brands, the trainings that were executed --- and there were thousands of those ---- they moved the needle.    I stayed in more Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood and Hamptons that I can ever tell you because for ten years, they were Trinchero’s largest hotel partner!     I was honored to become part of their ‘family’.  I knew the people and the Sales Team for TFE, nationally, got into the hotels also.   I was in a ton of Marriott hotels too.

Nitecapp in my opinion is a cohesive overall program that will only be as good as the partnering and input --- it will truly revolutionise our next steps of teaching hospitality, developing continuity for all from the top to the bottom, it will utilise so many knowledgeable and passionate people’s experiences on behalf of those learning and growing --- and we can ALL learn and grow every day!

Gaby: That does sound like a great tool! So tell us about developing strategies for luxury brands, how do you ensure they deliver value for clients and also resonate with their guests on a meaningful level?

Carolyn: Oh, that is a good question. And really, that’s the trick—finding the right product for the right place. You often find that a hotel or a luxury brand thinks they know who they are, but they don’t always. The first thing I always try to do—and something I’ve watched EAG do as a whole—is understand the voice of the property. Understand who they are. Then, the second part is understanding the characteristics of the property—how they present themselves, how they do things internally.

A luxury brand doesn’t want the same airport wine list that every airport has. What they want is something that makes them money—something guests know a little bit about or can learn about, something intriguing. They don’t want it priced so far out that no one buys it, but they need a solid markup to be profitable. And most importantly, it has to speak to their voice.

For example, if you’re a property in Savannah, Georgia—like the Grand Bohemian—you need a wine list that makes sense for Savannah. If they ran with an all-French wine list, it wouldn’t fit. It wouldn’t reflect who they are. Matching the wine list to the identity of the property is critical. That’s why I always ask for food menus before I put together a wine list. There’s no point in writing one if I don’t know what’s on the plate.

Even the design team at Ellis Adams does this—when they work on a hotel, they do an incredible deep dive into the history of the area. What was in that building before? Is there a ghost? Who’s the ghost? Is it a pirate? What’s next door? They want to know everything because it all ties into the identity of the property.

For me, it’s the same thing with a wine list—it’s about knowing what you’re trying to add to. I always want to add, not take away. And that takes a lot of work to get it right.

“I ask a lot of questions. I don’t have a problem picking up the phone and saying, ‘What in the world is going on? Where’s the trend?’”

‍Gaby: That’s an incredibly holistic approach—looking at so many factors.

Carolyn: Yes!

Gaby: What about trends and shifts? How do you see them shaping the future of hospitality, and how do those insights impact the way you advise clients at EAG?

Carolyn: Trends and shifts can be nefarious. It depends on who is declaring the trend. Are we at the start of it? The apex? The end? I read a lot of trade reports. I tap suppliers. I ask, Hey, if you have anything interesting, could you send it my way? What’s the next seltzer flavor? What’s the next spice?

Is the next big food trend Mediterranean? East Indian? South African? When turmeric hit, I remember thinking, This is so cool. This is such a great spice. But Americans didn’t know what turmeric was! It’s been used by 75% of the world, but here, it was still new. So, I ask a lot of questions. I don’t have a problem picking up the phone and saying, What in the world is going on? Where’s the trend?

In the wine world, every year there’s some ‘big trend.’ And I don’t know who decides it. I hate saying ‘they say,’ because that’s the coward’s way of floating something, but they say this is the year of Cabernet, and next year is going to be the year of Syrah or Chenin Blanc or Sémillon. And rarely are they right.

The world doesn’t make radical shifts. Trends usually start slowly, gain traction, and then some stick while others crest and fade. That’s why I focus on what actually moves the needle—whether it’s on a cocktail menu or an appetizer menu. How much turmeric do we want? How much cinnamon? What’s actually resonating?

I haven’t found a 100% formula for it, other than asking and watching. And I do a lot of Googling. I look at European restaurants, check out Prague, Morocco, high-end spots in the UK—what’s on their menus? What cocktails are trending? The goal is to be ahead of the curve. That’s something the EAG beverage team does incredibly well.

Gaby: That’s very interesting that you mentioned turmeric. Do health trends impact hospitality trends?

Carolyn: Well, whose trend do you believe, Gaby? That’s the thing. One minute, coffee is good for you. Then it’s bad for you. Corn is good for you. Then it’s bad for you. Alcohol is good for you. Then it’s bad for you.

I’ve decided—I’ll just wait long enough, and it’ll come back around! I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, and soon enough, it’ll be good again.

I think everything in moderation. And honestly, the allergy thing has really taken its toll on menus. Some of it is legitimate—some of it is not—but a lot of it is just people being people.

“If you’re going to make a spirit-free cocktail, it better look as good—if not better—than the cocktail itself.”

Zaylan: What are your thoughts on the rise of N.A. (No Alcohol)?

Carolyn: You know what? I love this. I love it. And I’ll tell you, I prefer to see it labeled as ‘spirit-free’ on menus rather than ‘non-alcoholic.’ If you’re going to make a spirit-free cocktail, it better look as good—if not better—than the cocktail itself.

Some of them are expensive, but for the most part, it’s an opportunity to make a lot of money. I’ll often start with a cocktail and then switch to the exact same drink, spirit-free. We were in Minneapolis not too long ago, and I was driving. I wanted one drink, and after that, I went spirit-free. But I was still sitting there with everyone, feeling comfortable, and no one was thinking, Oh, she’s just the driver.

I think it’s here to stay. I just don’t see it done well very often. I’d love to see it done better.

Zaylan: One big challenge is getting people to care about joining the hospitality industry in the first place. A lot of people think they have to go to college, get a fancy job, and they look down on hospitality—like they’re ‘better than that.’ How do we change that?

Carolyn: That infuriates me. I have a college degree—I studied English literature. But I put myself through college serving and bartending in San Francisco. It was the easiest way to make money. I’d go to school all day, work at night, and by working just Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I made enough money that I didn’t have to work the rest of the week.

If we want to inspire people, we need to be inspiring. That’s something that’s missing in some parts of hospitality. You know, Maya Angelou said, ‘People will forget what you said. They’ll forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.’ I believe that.

Great managers are leaders. They’re not just box-checkers. Leaders eat last. They roll up their sleeves, they do what they’re supposed to do, and they show people how they want it done—not by pointing, but by doing.

I’ve seen some hotels open with excited staff and terrible managers. And then I’ve seen others where the leader was incredible—young, energetic, inspiring. And I walked away inspired myself.

Until we figure out how to set the scene, put a real plan in place, and hire the right people—giving them the right tools in their toolbox—it’s going to stay haphazard. You can’t just drop someone into a restaurant with no direction and expect them to figure it out. You teach them. You say, ‘This is how we do things. You don’t go into the kitchen and touch food on the line—or you’ll lose a finger.’

“One day, you’re going to have the chance to grab a couple of people and pull them up. You might be tired. You might not want to do it. But you have to … we give back what we get. 100%.”

Carolyn: A friend of ours had a son—a brilliant kid. Tapped out on his SATs. Aced his ACTs. But college wasn’t for him. He said, I don’t know what I want to do. And then, finally, he said, Carolyn, I think I want to go into the restaurant business.

I told him, I can open a door for you, but don’t burn this bridge. Go in, work hard, and don’t pretend you know anything—because you don’t. That’s what I tell everyone starting out: Don’t act like you know anything. Learn everything.

Two years later? He loves it. He has an executive chef mentoring him. And I told him, One day, you’re going to have the chance to grab a couple of people and pull them up. You might be tired. You might not want to do it. But you have to. That’s what we do in this industry—we give back what we get. 100%.

That’s what hospitality should be. In Europe, being a server is an honored position. They’re treated well. Paid well. They don’t look at a table and say, That’s not my table. They work together. They keep things moving. That’s where we need to get back to. And when we do—when we get the basics right—all the extras become so much easier.

Gaby: That’s great to hear. Final question. What feelings or memories do you hope guests take from the spaces and experiences you helped create?

Carolyn: I like that question because I think of that before every training. I don’t want to be the *‘werewerwerwerwere’*person doing the Charlie Brown training. If anything, I always say: I’m not a wine expert—I’m a cork dork. I’m passionate about what I do.

If I can share tools and knowledge with you, and you take that to the floor, you will make more money. I always get a little nervous before I start a training session. I’ve probably done 50,000 trainings over the years, but I still ask myself, How is this group going to be different? How do I need to adapt?

I can tell within minutes if I have the room or not. And when I don’t—which isn’t often—it tortures me afterward. You have to read the room. You have to listen. I always encourage questions. There are no dumb questions. If you have a question, I guarantee someone else in the room has the same one.

I get some crazy questions. I won’t call them dumb, but they make everyone laugh. And that’s great—it lightens up the room. Someone once asked, When do they add the apricots to the Chardonnay? Everyone laughed, and I said, Well, they don’t—but where does that aroma come from? And suddenly, you see people lean in—Oh yeah, where does that come from?

That’s the fun part of what I do—engaging people, making them curious. I had this big guy come up to me recently and say, I don’t drink wine. I drink beer and bourbon. And I said, *Well, we have something in common—I drink bourbon too.*He laughed, then admitted he liked one of the wines from the tasting. I asked what he liked about it. Then I asked what he didn’t like about the other two. He gave great answers. And I said, So you said you don’t like wine—but I just made you a liar. You do like wine. Now we know what you go for. He smiled and said, Yeah!

That’s what I love—when the light bulb goes off, when people get it. That’s what keeps me coming back.

‍