Bluegrass Hospitality Group celebrates 20 years

In 1998, Brian McCarty—who at the time owned A.P. Suggins Bar & Grill—reached out to his friend, longtime Lexington restaurateur Bruce Drake, the force behind the former Regatta Seafood Grille, and proposed a partnership to bring a new steakhouse concept to Lexington’s Lansdowne Shoppes.

Brian McCarty and Bruce Drake founded Bluegrass Hospitality Group in 1998.

McCarty had assembled a group of backers on the venture but was hesitant to move forward without Drake’s involvement. “I pretty much insisted that we weren’t going to do the deal unless Bruce joined forces with us,” McCarty said. That year, the pair launched Bluegrass Hospitality Group, or BHG, and introduced their flagship restaurant brand, Malone’s steakhouse, to the Lexington market.

In the 20 years since, BHG has grown to include five additional restaurant concepts—Harry’s American Bar & Grill, Aqua Sushi, Drake’s, OBC Kitchen and Malone’s Prime Events and Receptions. Bluegrass Hospitality Group today employs about 1,600 people, many of whom have been with the company since its earliest days. The group operates eight restaurants in Lexington, with additional Drake’s locations in other cities, including a recently opened location in Nicholasville’s Brannon Crossing.

Launched as a concept in Lexington just nine years ago, with a menu that highlights burgers, craft beers and sushi, Drake’s growth as a stand-alone brand has been fast-paced. Two additional locations are currently under construction—in Chattanooga and in Burlington, N.C.—and are set to open in early 2019, while at least two more will open in the second half of 2019 at locations still in negotiation.

Bluegrass Hospitality Group opened a Drake’s in Nicholasville’s Brannon Crossing shopping center earlier this year.

Drake and McCarty have established a framework for potential franchise arrangements in further expanding the Drake’s brand but so far have not found the right partner, they said. To date, all of their expansion has been supported by groups of mostly local investors. “The last thing we want to do is give the reins of a restaurant over to somebody who we don’t have 100 percent complete confidence in to run it like BHG [would],” Drake said.

Excellence at every step

Despite working in an industry with notoriously tight margins and risk of failure, especially in a competitive market like Lexington where, lately, competing restaurants—both local and chains—have been closing at a fast rate, BHG has somehow managed to not only survive but also thrive. McCarty and Drake say their secret to success comes down to a few simple principles: prioritizing quality at an accessible price, maintaining consistently great service and investing in a talented, well-trained staff.

In Lexington, every BHG employee must complete a rigorous, multi-class training program through the brand’s “in-house university,” dubbed BHGU. Then, before they begin the first shift, every employee is vetted and certified by BHG’s Lexington operations manager, Virgil Covington. Classes at BHGU are led by “the best of the best of our 1,600 team members,” said McCarty. “We have developed multiple layers to make sure that our new hires are getting trained properly and that they are truly ready to hit the floor running and represent the brand the way we want them to represent us,” he said.

Through continuing education, many workers who start out as hosts, servers or dishwashers have worked their way up into management and leadership roles, McCarty said. “Over the years, we’ve had very good luck at discovering and recognizing people who have a good heart and good attitude and a gene for customer service,” Drake said. “We’ve stuck with them, and they’ve stuck with us.”

"BHG’s success goes back to Bruce and Brian and their ability to provide an environment that we genuinely enjoy working in. They are the catalyst behind all of it." — Chief Business Officer John McNamara

Staffers agree that BHG’s investment in its staff is one key reason they stay, often for decades. “BHG’s success goes back to Bruce and Brian and their ability to provide an environment that we genuinely enjoy working in. They are the catalyst behind all of it,” said 16-year BHG veteran John McNamara, the company’s chief business officer, who prior to his current role, spent a decade managing each of BHG’s Lexington locations at one time or another. “They really want their employees to grow along with them.”

Creative concepts

In addition to being close friends, Drake and McCarty point to their business backgrounds and expertise as perfect complements. McCarty, who has an MBA from Case Western Reserve University, is the bigger foodie of the pair. He admits to eating out 10 meals or more a week. (His phone has thousands of images of dishes he’s sampled at restaurants across the country.) Meanwhile, early on, Drake brought his long-term industry knowledge to the partnership, having started as a dishwasher before earning a degree in hospitality management at Western Kentucky University and managing L&N Seafood for many years before launching his own restaurant in Regatta. Both play an equal role in BHG’s concept development and say that a willingness to take chances has been critical to their success.

The pair has put in countless hours traveling across the United States to research new trends and the potential “next big thing” for the Lexington restaurant market. They’ve consistently given their executive chef, Alan Lamoureux, who has been with BHG since its beginnings, the freedom to be creative with his menu development, across all their brands. “Every monthly feature, every sushi of the month, everything is his creation,” Drake said.

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