Westmoreland says, “You cannot be overly prideful in this business because we are here to serve. It’s not about us, it’s about the customer.” He adds that it can be difficult for chefs—who can be notoriously competitive—to swallow their pride. But the co-owners lead by example and encourage their staff to see criticism not as malicious, but supportive.
“Ten years ago, criticism just irritated me,” says Scully. “But if you take criticism in the vein that it’s designed to make you better, it makes it easier to take. Take what you can, use what’s useful, and just let go of the rest.”
Westmoreland’s levelheaded management skills are the yin to Scully’s creative culinary yang. With a corporate background in healthcare and IT, Westmoreland brings project management and operational savvy to the partnership.
Westmoreland describes Scully as “Type A, very creative, and very high energy,” with a get-things-done attitude that finds the shortest line between point A and point B. As if to prove that second point, when asked about how they’re different from one another, Scully replies simply, “Kevin’s nicer.”
He explains: “When people say, ‘Your staff is so nice’—and they say that all the time—that’s because of Kevin. If I were to hire them, they’d be cutthroats. Kevin brings a humanity to it that manifests in a healthy workplace.”
Digging a little deeper, it’s clear that this is not by chance. Westmoreland has put an incredible amount of effort into building teams that are functional and friendly. A decade ago, as he and Scully started playing with the idea of opening a restaurant, Westmoreland read every book he could get his hands on about the business side and realized that one of the major industry challenges is high turnover. He was determined to avoid that fate and realized that the best way to do it was to hire nice people.
“You can train people how to open a bottle of wine, or even how to cook,” says Westmoreland. “But you can’t train them to be nice.”
Once they have good people on board, the partners set clear expectations and invest in their employees’ success. If a staff member isn’t working out, they communicate to the employee about the issue and give them three chances to shape up. Then, if they have to let that person go, the individual understands why.
This management approach has resulted in some dynamics that are virtually unheard of in the restaurant business. They have one employee who has been with them for over a decade, and another who came back to work for them some time after being fired. “They said, ‘I’m a different person now, and I understand what you wanted from me,’” says Scully.
Kevin Westmoreland & the Chestnut Staff tasting the dish of the day
Employee retention is certainly bolstered by the fact that both Scully and Westmoreland aren’t above rolling up their sleeves and working in the trenches on a regular basis. Westmoreland says, “I don’t have an ivory tower complex. There’s nothing in this restaurant that I’m not willing to do, whether it’s washing dishes or taking out the trash.”
In contrast to his work in the corporate world, Westmoreland says that he was surprised by the constant urgency of the restaurant business. In an office it’s usually okay to delay a meeting or project until tomorrow; in a restaurant that’s not an option. “Everything has to happen now,” he says. “There’s no waiting. When the train leaves the station, you don’t stop it. You’ve got to help it or get out of the way.”
The upside of this compressed timeframe is that the personal gratification and sense of impact can be more immediate. Westmoreland explains: “The last project I worked on at the IT company was a $3 million Oracle project that took five years. And I don’t know if they ever finished it! Here, you can make a decision in the morning and [by] afternoon see that it made a difference.”
Of course, running three businesses that are only closed three days a year and employ over 100 people combined, there are always decisions to be made, from big picture strategies to dozens of little daily calls. Westmoreland and Scully recognize that the building of a business is never really “done,” and say they’re committed to a continual improvement process. As one recent example, after gathering input from staff, they purchased a new point of sale (POS) system for both restaurants that has made workflow more efficient, enables co-marketing between restaurants, better monitors sales and expenses, and provides a slew of other business benefits.
As Westmoreland finishes describing the POS transition, Scully smiles and adds dryly, “It’s not the kind of thing I get excited about, but that’s what gets Kevin up in the morning. He’s doing all that kind of stuff, and I’m over here cutting celery.”
The give and take between Scully and Westmoreland is natural, and their enthusiasm for their work is contagious. In speaking about the business they sometimes finish each other’s sentences, and as they bustle around Chestnut before the doors open for the day, they share lighthearted quips with the staff and each other. It’s no surprise that these two were friends before they were partners.
Scully and Westmoreland met back in 2002 through their children, who were in the same school district. As their friendship developed, they learned that they shared an entrepreneurial drive. “We knew we were going to do some sort of business together,” says Scully, “but we weren’t sure exactly what.”
