Culinary Vision to Warehouse Mastery

Culinary Vision to Warehouse Mastery: An interview with Chris Pappas
CEO Chefs’ Warehouse (CHEF)

Distributors and suppliers are integral to the supply chain within the private golf and country club sectors. Their close collaboration with chefs is  essential for devising innovative solutions and addressing complex supply chain challenges. What better person to talk to than Chris Pappas, Founder and CEO of Chefs’ Warehouse (CHEFS).  Let’s dive into his journey, his thoughts, and how they shaped the culinary industry. ~ Diana DeLucia

GK: What inspired you to start The Chefs’ Warehouse, and how has your vision evolved? 

CP: My roots in food distribution run deep. My first humble introduction to food was through my father, who came to America as an immigrant when he was 19 years old and went to fight in the Korean war shortly after. When he returned, he started selling eggs, butter and cheese to all the Greek coffee shops and diners; my brother and I would help him drive and unload his truck throughout Manhattan during high school and college. 

After college, I went to Europe to play basketball. It was my first exposure to Italy, Spain, France, and all these amazing and different cuisines and ingredients. I became interested in French cheeses and butter; they were the finest I had ever tasted. Before I knew it, we had a small business. We started with one van and one truck.

Those were not easy days; my mother, who had a lot of nerve, let us mortgage her house to start our first business, Dairyland USA. The first years were tough. With hard work and perseverance, sales went from $500,000 a year to $5 million of business. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that our small team was able to build the foundation for a business that today will surpass $4 billion in sales. In many ways, we still feel that we are just getting started.

Back in the 1980’s, American chefs started competing for the big jobs once dominated by European chefs., Clubs chefs were mainly of French or German descent. American chefs were coming on to the scene. Some of today’s American legendary chefs like Charlie Palmer and Thomas Keller were our first customers.  We learned alongside them; we would talk about food and learn more from their inspiration and passion. 

Around the same time, American farmers also started improving their quality, producing much better products. One of our first items was our grand reserve butter, inspired by Normandy butter. We would talk and learn from the dairies then and tweak our assortment accordingly. 

With growth came an increasing passion for food. The more I traveled to Italy and France, the more eager I became to bring back more products. Our portfolio has evolved from a few hundred SKUs to over 50,000 SKUs. And this continues to be our mission today- providing the most discerning chefs with the world’s finest food products and ingredients from the greatest sources. 

GK: How do you foster a culture of innovation and stability within the organization? 

CP: It’s in our DNA. We’re proud of what we do. We still call ourselves a family of companies; we have 52 operating companies throughout North America and the Middle East. It’s always about needing more. It’s always about how we can continue to improve. Everybody at Chefs’ Warehouse knows that they constantly have to do better. We’re very open-minded about continuing to learn and evolve, which is part of our success. 

GK: What core values or principles guide your leadership style, and how do they align with the Chefs’ Warehouse mission? 

CP: Our mission statement is to sell the world’s finest ingredients to the world’s finest chefs. Integrity and perseverance are essential qualities when joining the Chefs’ Warehouse team. 

It’s a 24/7 industry, you must have the stamina to fight every day. That has made us successful and is built into our DNA. When beginning a business with little capital, you must fight from day one to survive. This is why being Curious, Flexible and Supportive are three of our key operating values. We developed that just-in-time, can-do mentality. 

We were Amazon before there was Amazon! 

GK: How do you stay ahead of industry trends in an ever-changing culinary landscape? 

CP: A lot of hard work! It is all about staying curious, challenging the way we have done it before. Chefs are very creative; it’s a competitive landfill. Every chef seeks an edge over their competition and needs new inspiration. That’s why the Chefs’ Warehouse exists; we’re the small guy amongst the big national distributors; we call ourselves the food people. We are not trying to sell to the masses. We focus on clubs, independent restaurants, and fine hotels. That’s our life, and that’s our focus. And that’s what separates us.

Our CHEFS core values are: 

C: Curious and Creative

H: Hungry for Food and Results

E: Entrepreneurial

F: Forward Thinking and Flexible

S: Supportive (of Peers and Chefs)
​

GK: What role does sustainability play in Chefs’ Warehouse operations? 

CP: Sustainability needs to be a focus, for our children and grandchildren and for leaving the earth in a good state. In our line of work, we are the messenger, the conduit between the farmers and manufacturers, the people who raise the animals, and the people who plant the seeds. We depend on our producers to continue to evolve, and we know they are working hard to improve and be good stewards of the planet. We also continue to be socially conscious and supportive with our employees and the communities we operate in. 

GK: What is Chefs’ Warehouse’s most significant investment?

CP: We have invested in new facilities and continue to invest in our infrastructure. Ten years ago, a warehouse or facility cost $20 million. That same building today is $50 million.  Our business requires a lot of capital to stay ahead as a leader. We must have the best technology equipment. We are making huge investments in our digital abilities. Our most significant investment is people. We hire the talent, train them, and motivate them to stay with us; we have so many people who have been with us for 20, 30, and even 40 years. 

GK: What excites you the most about the future of Chef’s Warehouse?

CP: Our people and those joining our company are passionate and excited to take it to the next level. Our industry stays active. It’s going to continue to evolve. We all know energy, property ownership, and labor just cost more. We have had tremendous inflation in the last four or five years, so we must get creative. That’s what excites me. We can’t just rest on our success. We know we must bring innovative ideas and solutions to our customers.  
We will be forced to do more with less and we want to be part of that solution. 

GK: Private clubs offer a unique experience, and the demand for luxury amenities and exclusive access is increasing. Is there a demand for Chefs’ Warehouse products in the industry nationwide and abroad? 

CP: Our private club clientele is very close to my heart. When we started the business, I called on clubs. I was a boy from Queens, so I didn’t know what a golf course was, and I was always fascinated when I drove out to the suburbs and went to these beautiful golf clubs with these beautiful buildings, thinking “Wow, this exists?”

The food, though, needed to be better. We were fortunate enough to be part of the movement when clubs started hiring qualified culinary teams. The members wanted the same quality dining that they would get in the best restaurants in New York. We drove that, brought in the ingredients, and supported them. Chefs would say, “Can you get me this? Can you get me that?” We think it helped both sides. They helped us build our business because we were learning more and more about the trends, and we helped bring better quality ingredients into the clubs. They were our best referrals. They would call other club chefs to ask each other where they source olive oil, olives, or cheese. 

Overall, the club industry helped us grow and continues to do so. We’ve had great success in servicing the great clubs. I’m a golfer now, and fortunate to belong to a few clubs. I am out to dinner practically every night. Visiting our customers drives a lot of my passion. I want to see what members are having at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 

GK: Tell us about Chef Middle East (CME).

CP: CME was an exciting opportunity. There are only a few population growth markets in the developed world and Dubai’s hospitality industry is exploding. Dubai and the UAE had all the things that we look for in a market. It had a wealthy clientele who wanted good food and people willing to invest in great restaurants and hotels. 

Chef Middle East (CME) is the closest thing we’ve ever about the opportunity to acquire them. They were a smaller version of us, with similar supply chains, brands, and relationships. We are now doubling the size of our warehouse and we are grateful that our business there has turned out to be a great success. 

GK: What do you think about all the new indoor golf facilities? Like Top Golf, T-Squared, Social, and Five Iron Golf? 

CP: I think they are great to help grow the game. The Nexus Club in New York is a great example where you can dine, drink, and play golf courses on the simulator. I’m a big fan- it’s great for golf. It’s a steppingstone to get people who have not played golf to swing a club. I didn’t play golf until I was in my thirties. There were no golf courses in the streets of Queens. 

Golf is costly and it takes a lot of time. The Tiger Woods phenomenon brought a lot of people into golf. However, golf was hurting before COVID-19. During the lockdown more people began to discover the game of golf, it was one of the only sports you could do. It got a lot of new people into golf, and I believe this trend will continue to grow with the help of facilities like Top Golf.  

GK: Tell us about the 40th anniversary.

CP: We’re excited about our 40th anniversary in 2025. We are working on ways to say thank you to the industry and our team members for coming along for the ride and make it fun. I hope the world is in a better place in 2025 than it is now with fewer  wars,  the presidential election will be over, and hopefully, we’ll all be in a party mood! Wouldn’t it be nice for the pandemic and wars to be behind us.   

GK: Tell us about your friendship with Thomas Keller. 

CP:  I’ve known Thomas Keller since he was a sous chef, and I was just starting a business. We reconnected about ten years ago. He’s our client at the French Laundry in Napa, Bouchons in Las Vegas, Per Se and his growing restaurant empire. 

Promoting his stocks and sauces and discussing other ventures has brought us back together, which I’m pleased with because I love Thomas. I think he’s an American icon. And we’re so glad to be part of his success. Thomas is ​very passionate about golf. He plays in the Pebble Beach Tournament Pro AM and on the 17th hole he wears his white chef uniform and hat to play the par 3 in front of the fans. He hit 4 feet 7 inches from the hole to win $600,000 (which he donated to the Monterey Bay Charity) two years ago. 

This says a lot. I think our passion for golf has also brought us back together. I have played golf with Thomas in Las Vegas and Napa Valley and look forward to many more rounds in the future.    

See the full story in our latest edition at www.golfkitchen.com
          

Chris Pappas and Thomas Keller
Image courtesy Chefs' Warehouse