When chef Jeremy Ashby was hired to help lead Azur Food Group, the young restaurant needed help. Despite a profitable first year, its partners knew the business needed someone with his energy and experience to refine its systems and put an edge on its culinary identity.
“When I came in 2006, the partnership structure wasn’t working as well as they wanted, but it wasn’t for lack of trying,” Ashby said. “So they had this idea to bring me in as Azur’s executive chef and general manager.”
Only that job description created another problem: “There’s no such thing such thing as a GM and executive chef position,” Ashby said. So he kept his focus on the food, creating a menu mashup of Southern U.S. and Latin cuisines wholly unique to the city’s restaurant scene. Many believe Azur’s repositioning even helped jumpstart the growth of similarly progressive restaurants in Lexington.
Some 18 months earlier, Bernie and Sylvia Lovely had opened Azur Restaurant and Patio, a 100-seat, upscale casual restaurant in Beaumont. The venture came together quickly, with Dominican Republic native Miguel Rivas as chef.
“We started the project in mid- August 2004 and opened at the end of December that year,” said Rob Mudd, who designed and built Azur while president and partner at Denham-Blythe Co. Mudd became the Lovelys’ partner after the restaurant opened. “Designed and permitted to open in a little over three months. Yeah, that’s a ‘wow’ when you think about it. It was fast.”
But if the construction and opening went smoothly, it took more time for Azur to fi nd its footing. Its struggling food and service inconsistencies were obvious, and the partners went looking for help.
BLAZING A TRAIL
At the time, Ashby was executive chef over The Merrick Inn and its sister restaurant, Murray’s, which closed in 2010. In addition to a University of Kentucky business degree and a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales University in Charleston, S.C., Ashby’s restaurant pedigree included valuable externships at Magnolia’s in Charleston and Norman’s in Miami.
Azur’s partners believed his broad operations knowledge would help focus their staff on essentials, while also hoping his experience overseeing the high-volume Merrick Inn and Murray’s would help Azur grow.
“I knew we had to push the envelope more with our food to be noticed in what was mostly a meat-and-potatoes town,” Ashby said. “I had to learn to delegate a lot of things in order to be in the kitchen more.”
Dishes such as grilled rack of elk and braised rabbit were added to the menu, and Ashby increasingly infused dishes with Caribbean and South Florida touches he absorbed while working under renowned chef Norman Van Aken.
Despite its modest strip center location, the restaurant captured the attention of diners eager for something new, and favorable reviews and media attention followed.
“I really feel like Azur awakened what restaurant chefs could get away with in this town,” Ashby said. “I think it was and is a trailblazer restaurant.”
REFINEMENT AND GROWTH
Meanwhile, Azur continued to grow, expanding its patio and adding a wood-fi red pizza oven.
“Lexington’s a patio town, so seating out there has worked so well for us,” Ashby said.
As Ashby and Sylvia Lovely hustled to boost brand awareness through self-produced radio and TV shows (both named “Food, News and Chews”), Mudd pushed for internal growth through catering. An entrepreneur and partner in Bluegrass Angels Venture Fund, Mudd urged the group to maximize the investment it already had made in infrastructure and people.
“For the company as a whole to grow, it has to mature its talent and develop a greater understanding of what it takes to attract people — customers and employees,” Mudd said. “To be financially successful, the company has to grow, and we saw that opportunity with catering and additional restaurants.”
While Rivas had left Azur to take a position at Georgetown College, his amicable departure left the door open for a dramatic return.
Recognizing a shortage of Latin cuisine options in Lexington, the Azur group convinced Rivas to return to the fold and captain the kitchen at Brasabana Cuban Cuisine. The Lane Allen Road restaurant opened one year ago. Not only did Brasabana’s opening give Azur Food Group a new growth vehicle, “it gave us some more room to do catering,” Ashby said. “But even that still wasn’t enough.”
So when catering revenue peaked at a modest $300,000 a year, the group accepted that its existing business model needed adjusting, Mudd said.
“We learned that growth in catering truly is one customer at a time,” he said. “Acquisition seemed to be the best path for our growth.”
When they learned Harriet Dupree Bradley, longtime owner of Dupree Catering, was looking to sell her business, discussions began. Ashby spent several months observing Dupree’s operations and looking for cost savings to ensure it was the right buy. In December, the two companies closed the deal for an undisclosed price.
The merged company operates under the name of Dupree Catering and Events and is managed jointly by Azur Catering’s general manager, Tom Evans, and Bradley.
“With that move, we went from $300,000 a year to $2 million overnight in catering revenue,” Ashby said. “They have a great staff in place there that’s already doing well. My role is to give my opinion and guidance on menus.”
NEXT ON THE MENU
Ashby also is helping Azur explore new restaurant opportunities.
“You might see another Brasabana — hint, hint — but expect to see variety from us,” Ashby said. “Our partners want chef-driven concepts, which is exciting for Miguel and me.”
Mudd was more direct.
“I’m going to tell you, we can duplicate Brasabana,” he said confidently. “It’d be tough to duplicate Azur, but we can duplicate Brasabana.”
For Sylvia Lovely, the success of Azur with Ashby in the kitchen only has one drawback.
“We get to have Jeremy cook for us every night, which can be trouble for our waistlines,” she says. “So these days we get one entrée and split it. It’s too easy to eat too much of his good food.”