Possession, kitchen at Il Giorgione changes hands: ‘(He) understands this restaurant as well as anyone’

18 November 2022

Whenever George and Monica Kessler, the husband-wife duo at the rear of Il Giorgione on Devine Street, decided they wished to retire from the restaurant company, they knew exactly who these people wanted to take over their cafe. “I could not imagine a much better scenario to leave this particular and to leave it along with someone else because Keven (McDonald) was with me when we opened up, ” George said. “(He) knows this restaurant along with anyone. “The restaurant’s very first employee, a sous gourmet named Keven McDonald, will require over both the kitchen plus ownership of the restaurant, together with his wife, Meagan, at the end of the entire year. The pair hope to maintain the same culinary vision plus dedication to service they said George and Monica have sustained over the last 10 years, while also re-introducing lunchtime and weekend brunch in the restaurant. Both of those foods were cut during the outbreak and haven’t been effectively brought back because of staffing problems, the owners said.

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“It’s Gio’s name on the creating, right? So we want to make sure we honor what they are yet to built and what they’ve invested so much time building, inch Meagan said. “While there’ll be like a few changes whilst we put our own stamps on things, the majority of the local community feel and service will stay exactly the same. “Keven helped open Arianne Giorgione, fondly known simply by restaurant staff and customers as Gio’s, in September. 2012 in an old tapas restaurant along Devine Road. The place was outfitted using a bar and an wear out hood in the kitchen, but not a lot else, George and Monica said. The pair constructed the restaurant from there, using the vision of emulating dining places they had visited on travels to Italy. The set, who both grew up within New Jersey, but didn’t satisfy until they were adults, possess run the restaurant collectively for just over a decade — with Monica on the company side of things and George with the food prep.

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“She couldn’t have done this without my cooking and am couldn’t have done it with out her accounting, ” George said, joking that Monica kept him in check plus made sure the operation has been running smoothly while he or she led the kitchen. Keeping for the reason that fashion, Keven and Meagan plan to follow a similar design, with Meagan focusing on the business enterprise while Keven will be the brand new executive chef. The eating place got its name in one of George’s professors on the University of South Carolina, in which he studied Italian. His teacher, Fausto Pauluzzi, referred to George as Giorgione, which in Italian language means “big George. inch When George opened the particular restaurant, he said this individual wanted to use that title because his time on the university inspired the eyesight for the restaurant. “He mentioned, ‘I’m going to call it Arianne Giorgione. ‘ I stated ‘Oh god, George, no one in Columbia is going to understand what the hell that will name means, ” Pauluzzi said. “But he tied to it and he created this particular nice interior… and I simply enjoy going there, not only for the food, but the a friendly relationship and the comfort that I really feel there. “Like George, Keven has spent decades within the restaurant industry. He obtained his start as a teen working at Deer Area Resort in Park Town, Utah, after he dropped in love with the chaos plus fast-paced nature of the eating place industry after watching their dad own a interpersonal club in the area. He managed to move on to work at High Western Distillery where he met Meagan — who was taking a distance year from graduate college and worked as a host or hostess at the same restaurant. When the lady moved to Columbia for graduate student school at USC, Keven followed.

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“We got around on a Friday before the term started in August and (Keven) interviewed with George plus Monica that Monday, inch Meagan said. “The time was perfect, ” Monica added. Keven found the work through a Craigslist ad plus joined the staff functioning under George, where he worked well for four years prior to moving back to his house state of Utah to become closer to family. When the outbreak began, and on the high heels of the birth of their very first child, the couple chose they wanted to move returning to Columbia, a city that they had fallen in love with back in this year. They reached out to George and Monica and Keven rejoined the staff at the end of 2020. The pair stated they plan to keep the menus around 80% the same as it is currently, with a few added meals. They also plan to make minor renovations to the restaurant, that will cause them to temporarily close in the end of December till January 10, they approximated. They hope to build from the current staff, which is close to 25 mostly part time employees, to 30 people.

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