News
Troutdale Kitchens Featured on the Cover of the Business Journal
Ben Zandi at the Dining Room
by Scott Robertson
As seen in The Business Journal of Tri-Cities, TN/VA,December 2009
Troutdale Kitchens
Ben Zandi’s formed his philosophy for dealing with a down economy during his years as a regional vice president at Marriott. “You can never have a bunker mentality in times of recession,” he says, “because if you do, when you come out of the bunker, you’ll never be prepared for what you find. But if you are aggressive in down times, you will be well-positioned to pick that low-hanging fruit when the economy comes back.”
To that end, Zandi chose 2009 as a time to expand the Troutdale brand throughout the Tri-Cities region. The Troutdale Dining Room had already achieved national recognition for quality, so other businesses were eager to partner with Zandi.
In February, Troutdale took over the kitchen of the Johnson City Country Club. In April, the Troutdale Steakhouse opened at the Holiday Inn in Norton, Virginia. In June, Troutdale took over the food and beverage concession for the country club in Bristol, and the Troutdale Café opened in the Holston Medical Group Plaza in Kingsport in September. “People worried that we might be spreading ourselves too thin, and that the quality might suffer,” says Zandi, “but the economy allowed us to recruit high caliber people from larger metropolitan areas, so we were able to address that.”
In 2010, Zandi plans what he calls an aggressive growth campaign. “I’m working with the idea of creating a sustainable private club dining experience which will involve multiple locations.”
01.01.2010
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