Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Reeves.
Eric, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’ve been working in restaurants since my first job at 17. Like most of us, I started washing dishes, started doing prep work, scrubbing oysters and cleaning shrimp… I bounced around and tried out a few different food service industry jobs working in a chocolate shop as a barista, a busser in a fine dining place between prep shifts. Eventually, I got my degree in the culinary arts from Kendall College here in Chicago. I was a line cook for a few years before I moved out to L.A. and worked in some really great kitchens under some very talented chefs and learned a lot. I was at the point in my back of house career where I wasn’t sure if I loved it because I loved it or just because I’d never done anything else.
I’d also been a big beer geek and home brewer for many years at this point, so I actually ended up taking a job as the beer buyer at Whole Foods in Venice Beach. They had one of those tasting bars that a lot of Whole Foods have now and it wasn’t getting used very often. I started using it to sample out some of the beers that I was excited about bringing in. People needed something to snack on while they drank so I started making snacks. Long story short I ended up doing full-blown tastings and three course meals 5 nights a week and I just said to myself “who are you kidding, Eric? You’re just running a restaurant in this grocery store. Face it, man. You’re a lifer.” I oversaw a small team in that position and I really enjoyed teaching and coaching, so it leads me to my first management job at a brewery in downtown L.A.
Before I knew it, I had made the switch to the front of house management. I ended up back here in Chicago being a part of some great restaurant opening teams for companies like 16″ on Center, Land and Sea Dept., and Boka Restaurant Group. There was something about moving forward with the standard ladder-climbing career trajectory that wasn’t quite right and I was between jobs, holding out for what felt like the perfect fit when I really decided to go for it. It had always been the answer to that question “What would you do if you never had to work again?” I would just throw elaborate dinner parties for people in my home! So, here I am!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t imagine any entrepreneurial endeavor is a smooth road. If everything goes according to plan it probably wasn’t a very interesting plan. It took a lot of setups to get going. Coming up with the name and aesthetic, building a website and just spreading the word. I also sort of obsessing over the details so I wasn’t very patient with myself about getting everything right the first time. Eventually, I just had to bite the bullet and actually invite friends and family to the event. I have to coordinate and organize quite a bit, so I lost a lot of sleep that first couple of times just going over every move in my head before the dinner. There is always a voice in the back of my head at the end of the evening worrying about what I could have done better, but I’ve learned a lot about what sort of dishes are executable out of a home kitchen and with only one set of hands. And the cleanup is always sort of overwhelming. A dishwasher can only hold so many dishes. I’ve watched the sunrise quite a few times while I’m finishing everything up. By the time, it’s all over, though, people genuinely seem to be enjoying themselves and are really able to check out a unique kind of dining experience. And I’ve had so much support from close friends and family that I’ve never felt like I couldn’t do it. I’m lucky to have a great community.
Salt Spoon – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
So, it is actually split into two different concepts. There is Salt Spoon and Salt Spoon Tavern. People sign up for a Guest List through the website and can choose which concept they’d like to stay informed about and an email invitation goes out every time an event is announced.
Salt Spoon is a very intimate dining experience, it’s a multi-course meal for 10 guests, a plus one is extended to every guest so it is mostly strangers seated around one large elegant table, enjoying dinner and making new friends! What I’ve really tried to do is provide as restaurant-like of an experience that I can in a home, and the result is pretty unique. Sometimes I see the look on people’s faces when they remember that they’re in a living room and I know I’ve done the best I can to transport them. Salt Spoon Tavern is a more casual feel. We serve a lot of the food family style, the playlist is louder, the lighting is different, the group is almost twice the size… it’s a little more of a party! I have some help with this one, too, which makes it a little more laid back and I get to enjoy the experience a little more with the group as well.
I change the menu for both concepts seasonally, but the thing that never changes is that everything is made in-house. I make the pasta, bake the bread and burger buns, make the ice creams and sorbets… one of the reasons some of those tasks get outsourced in a more traditional restaurant is because of the scale of serving 200-300 people a night, but If I can’t figure out how to do it myself for 10-20 people then it’s not worth serving. Plus, my heart is in cooking! It had been a while since I worked in a professional kitchen and it feels really good to make something with my hands and share this side of myself with people again.
The actual execution of Salt Spoon, I do by myself and it takes a lot of coordination and organization and I’m proud of the outcome every time, I really do get to curate a special experience for my guests because it’s so intimate, but what I’m most proud of is the community that I’ve been able to plug into. I’ve been back in Chicago for just about 4 years and I have a network of restaurant industry professionals, photographers, farmers, chefs, and just some of the best friends and family that a person could ask for, and so many of them have offered their time and expertise to help me build this thing and keep it going for just over a year now. Chicago is just full of open and warm people and it’s not lost on me that it would be way different trying to do this anywhere else.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I’ve been lucky enough to have some of my closest mentors and friends come in and it always means a lot to be able to share what I’ve learned with those who helped me learn it. I think the best compliment though is returning guests. I’ve had people return 4 or 5 times! Sometimes, they take over the whole table or bring back family members. I had a guest from LA who came to one of the first dinners and the next time she was in town she reached out and came back almost a year later! It’s one thing to check out a different type of dining experience, but there are a lot of restaurants to try in this city and it means a lot that people enjoy themselves enough to come back again and again. It’s an honor to have the chance to make that lasting of an impression on someone.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.saltspoon.com
- Email: info@saltspoon.com
Image Credit:
Mistey Nguyen
Alan Epstein
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