A Time of Transition

I can’t believe six months have passed since my son, Jeff Parr, and I became majority owners of Allyson’s Kitchen. It has been hectic, and even a little crazy at times, but exciting and fun. So many things to learn, new friends to make, and of course, lots of stuff to do. Steve and Allyson Holt worked 24/7 to make this business a success and left some pretty big shoes to fill. However, their vision of Allyson’s Kitchen – neighborhood gourmet, a place for “foodies” and wine lovers, is alive and well.

The staff has been fantastic during this transition, everyone stayed with us and taught us what we needed to know. They have really stepped up to the added challenges, made even more difficult by the economic realities of our times.

In Bend, store manager Adryon Wong and Executive Chef, Joe Morgan, have become a strong leadership team. They manage all aspects of the business and have made Friday Night Wine Tasting, catering and the cooking classes a big success, while maintaining the core café and retail business. They have forged strong relationships with other businesses such as Orvis and have dozens of ideas for improving and growing the business. Jeff and I just have to keep up with them!

In Ashland, store manager, Callie McQueen and deli manager, Jody Hupp, immediately rose to the challenge. The café/deli hasn’t missed a beat and that business has held up well. It’s been nice to see so many old friends coming back as the season picks up. Friday night wine tasting continue to be popular and we’ve held some great events in our cellar (e.g. 63 people from the Ashland Chamber Greeters joined us for breakfast on April 24th). It would be great to see more people use our location for events – it has such a nice ambiance.

The toughest challenge in Ashland has been the Cooking School. Chef Cristina Topham joined us in January to pick up on-going classes and keep things going. She did a fantastic job and brought lots of new ideas and fun classes – Curries of the World, The Ultimate Burger. Everyone loved her, but unfortunately other opportunities called and she has been pulled away to work on a book and other publishing ideas. Cristina remains on as one of our guest chefs, however, so watch for up-coming classes (Lebanese, anyone?)

So once again, we had a big hole to fill. We needed someone with a passion for food and a passion for teaching. Luckily for us, we found exactly that combination in Chef Mare, aka Marilyn Moore, CCE. Marilyn is from Ashland and already teaches at Southern Oregon University. She also runs the Serve/SAFE program for Jackson County. I’ve come to believe she knows every chef in town as she has created a great line-up of guest chefs for our new Tuesday night program (what a great Mexican Mole Chef James Williams (Omar’s) created for us on Cinco de Mayo. Check out our new cooking class schedule on the web (insert link to schedule)and sign up for Confident Cooking with Chef Mare which starts May 18th. Look for other great classes too – including some great recipes from a local nutritionist, Kia Sanford, who is going to show you how to make all that great tasting food be good for you too (who knew cream was actually good for you – well, the right kind of cream…).

More recently we learned of another transition that is coming our way. The Ashland store manager, Callie, has decided to return to SOU to get her Master’s in Education. She will be leaving us in mid-June. This news sent us on yet another search, this time for the perfect store manager – knowledgeable about food and wine, great with people, experience with retail management, out-going and up-beat. We found all of this in our new manager Cecilia.

I will wrap up with a heartfelt thank you to Callie for the great job she has been doing. I know she will be missed by all (don’t you just love her big smile?). Be sure to take time to wish her the best of luck and she and Corey go on to manage their own transition – two students in one house? We look forward to catching up with them at Friday Night wine tastings.

-Lynne Galligan President/CEO