"From mentor and apprentice to professional partnership, it's been a long and mutually beneficial relationship for Lexington caterer and restaurateur Annette Jett, owner of Annette's on Vine, and local gourmet guru Phil Dunn.
"I started working with Phil when I was 17," said Jett. "He basically taught me everything I know. When I was at college at the University of Tennessee, I would come home summers and Christmas and work with him."
The collaboration continues with Jett and Dunn announcing a partnership in support of the dual catering and cafè businesses Jett owns and operates in Lexington with husband Frank Bickel. Dunn signs on with decades of experience in the regional market, a bevy of faithful clientele and plans to offer his renowned cooking classes at Annette's downtown eatery.
According to Jett, the new arrangement - a powerhouse of expertise ranging from operations to presentation - not only brings deep experience to the business as well as variety to its menus, it also provides something rare in such a demanding industry: time for a life. "If you want to do this business, you have to know it's a full-time, 7-day-a-week job," she said. "So if you can have help from somebody who also is willing to give it a commitment, then you can split the duties, the hours, and you can take a vacation and make a family, like we're doing, without jeopardizing the business." (Jett and Bickel have a second in the oven - and we're not talkin' biscuits.)
Dunn said the partnership with Jett and Bickel creates a safety net for the inevitable unforeseen challenges. "I work when I need to help fill in. If a wedding cake needs to be done in a hurry, I'll take care of it. If somebody doesn't show up to go to a party and somebody needs to go, I can be ready to go. It works well for both of us." It is not unusual, he noted, for the catering side of the business to handle at least six events in a day. "And when the holidays come," began Jett with a roll of her eyes. "Holidays are unreal," finished Dunn, with the look of one who has survived more than a few.
Between them, Jett, Bickel and Dunn offer impressive credentials worthy of note to a younger generation contemplating a future in the food service industry. Jett earned a degree in restaurant-hotel management at UT followed by an MBA in marketing from Loyola University in Chicago. After graduating from Loyola, she gained hands-on experience in operations and management working for two of Chicago's most prestigious restaurants. Dunn, noting that he never gets lost on the way to work, has a degree in geography from the University of Kentucky, where he wound up cooking for his whole Sigma Nu fraternity. He went on to receive a master's degree in restaurant management from Florida International University in Miami as well as a degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. As operations manager, Bickel is responsible for all of the behind-the-scenes oversight critical to a successful catering business. Perhaps appropriate to Bickel's 20 years of high-profile catering in Los Angeles, Dunn said of Bickel, "He's our executive producer and part-time director."
Eventually, Jett returned home from Chicago and soon found herself once again working with her old mentor at Phil Dunn's Cookshop on Old Vine Street.
Dunn went on to relocate the Cookshop from its original spot on Old Vine Street to new digs on Romany Road. Events, economy and health, however, soon converged and intervened. "Everything came down at once," he said. "9-11 happened on the first anniversary of our opening there. That was one of the nails in the coffin. We had a fabulous building. We needed a commissary. We didn't need a showplace. We just never got to scale. It's unfortunate that it happened, and I'm sorry for all of the people who are no longer with us. But at the same time, having both hands redone (surgery to correct carpal tunnel syndrome in each after years of repetitive motion) and also having my back redone, caused me to shift directions."
In the meantime, Dunn never forgot his former apprentice. "For the last couple of years, when someone would call me and ask for catering services, I would immediately refer them to Annette," said Dunn. "I knew that she knew food and service similar to what I had done and people would be happy. And it worked!"
Having since earned a real estate license, Dunn knew immediately whom to call after getting word of a restaurant opportunity in the atrium of the Langley Properties building, the downtown headquarters of Central Bank. "Within days, we thought it was perfect," recalled Jett, who was at the time operating out of her original shop in the Keithshire Place Shopping center along Clays Mill Road.
While the business will continue to operate its catering kitchen and carry-out service in the Keithshire Place center, Jett is ecstatic about the location of her cafè in one of the busiest office buildings in downtown Lexington, situated directly adjacent to the pedestrian overpass leading to and from the Radisson Hotel across Vine. "They tell you it's all about 'location, location, location.' Well, we got it!"
In an interview with Business Lexington columnist Kathie Stamps ("Two restaurants, one busy life," April 21, 2006), Jett said she is pondering satellite restaurants in other Lexington office buildings. She is also thinking about the crowds expected for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in 2010. "We will probably have evening hours by then, and we want to do a business that is Internet-based so people can share a little taste of Kentucky with people back home."
While lunch is its forte, the downtown cafè also is available evenings and weekends for office parties and gatherings, and will soon begin featuring an expansion of Dunn's labor of love, his popular cooking classes, now held regularly at Architectural Kitchens and Baths on Euclid. "For me, it's like going on stage," Dunn said with a smile. "I have my rehearsals. I get everything ready and then everybody shows up, the show starts and it's a three-hour non-stop show. But it's a lot of fun and I never get tired of it."
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