“We rise by lifting others.”
~Robert Ingersoll
Dave Grayden | founder
Back in the summer of 1992 I got my first restaurant job in the kitchen of a seasonal waterfront resort on the east coast. Cleaning fish, scrubbing pots and making salads, it was hard work but it was a job. Then one day we had a server call in sick and the manager put me out front to wait tables and I was hooked. The fast-paced interaction with our guests, meeting and exceeding their dining expectations, it was a different type of hard work but it was lots of fun and it was there that my passion was born.
The summer ended and instead of returning to college in upstate New York, I got another serving job. From there, it evolved to making it my mission to learn every aspect of what it takes to entertain my guests and keep them coming back for more. Serving turned to bartending and I soon realized that I could work almost anywhere and in any town with my background so I figured I could learn a lot more about the industry by travelling and working in different formats, and I headed out West.
With the East Coast behind me I landed in the Bay Area of California and continued to hone my skills and raise my level of service standards. I traded the SF Bay for the Delta outside Sacramento for a couple years and ultimately landed in the mountains of Tahoe and now Reno for 20+ years. Bartending and serving gave way to managing and director level positions. Grabbing a Somm pin along the way, (just level 1…for now) I still love the industry as much now -if not more- as I did back then, but my passion for learning this trade has intertwined with community and after working through a few programs here in the Biggest Little City and building a tight network of trusted friends in the business, I have embarked on the next phase of a long service career.
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