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Beyond The Plate


The profound journey of a forty-eight-year-old restaurant industry professional who began his career at just fourteen years old in his father’s establishment. Over three decades, he has developed a rich tapestry of experiences across various cultural and culinary settings, from Korea to Miami, Nashville, and North Carolina, and settled here in St. Louis, Missouri. Currently serving as a general manager at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, his story highlights a deep commitment to building a solid foundation within restaurants, focusing on enhancing hospitality and driving overall success. This narrative provides insights into the dedication and resilience required to thrive in a dynamic, customer-centered industry.

Most middle-aged men are known to be one of the two: business people or hands-on professionals. This special person gratefully is able and loves his career of being able to highly speak upon the fact that he has built the establishment of being a top tier hospitality professional where he can cross over both professions and satisfy any individual that walks into the restaurant that he calls his, “second home”: Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

As every professional has a story, I would like to introduce the General Manager of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and what his journey has consisted of and how it has not only taught him so much about his work field but also what he has learned along each step of the way and how his experience can help Maryville Students make sure that they are headed in the right direction of success not just for their major that they are currently in but to help try and guarantee long term success and most importantly happiness within themselves and their workspace that they may spend most of their hours at daily exactly how John does.

A message from John pertaining to the struggles I was facing 

Do You Have What It Takes

As we are all students and are spending our Monday through Friday and even possibly some weekends full of class after class and assignment and assignment, doing our best to learn and increase our knowledge about subjects and topics of our interest to work for a minimum of four years until we can walk across the stage shake the president’s hand and be granted with the diploma that we have all been dying to get receive since we walked into orientation week during our first week of semester one. As we all have a significant amount of courses that we have to complete within our years of undergrad, there is not a single course that I have come across with the three colleges that I have taken classes at that pertains to what skills you need to be successful in your future career. John granted me the words, “Working in the food industry is far from easy, and you could be working 60-80 hour weeks, and you will have a countless amount of to-dos that once you complete, there will always be another stack waiting for you and a lot of the time there is more complicated than success within this industry, and you have to be able to keep a positive mindset not just internally but externally to your co-workers and also to the wonderful guests that chose to dine in with us”. John talked to me about working my way to becoming a manager. He told me that some people have what it takes and some people don’t, and you can usually tell within the first day of working with that person; “This career path is challenging and exhausting, and I always tell kids your age that you are better to start learning how to work with people and handle hospitality in your early twenties because some people get to my age and still steer straight to anger during hand challenges and that is what makes or breaks a person in this industry and even any industry is will you make or break under pressure. Hearing these words from John, all I could think about was how I would tell any and every single one of Maryville Students do this because we do not have a course about this information, and of course, our knowledge is essential for our futures, but what is even more important is how we work with people and how we respond to hardships daily.

Actions Speak Louder than Words


One day, I was having a rough day, and I sent John a text saying, “Hey John, I will be in at work this evening; of course, I work at five o’clock, but I may be running about fifteen minutes behind to be quite honest I have a lot going on in my personal life, and it is getting the best of me so I will be in tonight, but I just need a little extra time to regroup myself so I can bring everything I have to be the best worker.” It took me several minutes to decide if I wanted to send that text because I was beyond embarrassed. I did not want my boss to think I was blowing off work because that was far from the case. I struggled then and wanted to be straight up with my boss so he understood I was not doing my best. What John then responded to that text was why I chose to interview him. John did not say, “Okay. We will see you soon.” or say, “No worries.” He called me within two minutes of me sending that text. I would be far off from telling the truth if I said that when he called me, all I said was, “Yeah, I am just struggling with the balance of school and work. It’s just a lot going on right now.” that was far from anything in response to him saying, “Hey Taylor what’s going on if you feel comfortable I am here to listen I want to make sure you have someone to talk to to get your mental state back straightened out” as shocking as that statement was, that right there is what knew I wanted to be exactly like John when I grew up. John may be my boss, but he did not have to call or tell me he was here for me. He could have texted me quickly and said, “No worries.” He returned to his everyday job duties. As John was more than a helpful hand to me during that time, I texted him and asked a few days later why he called me because he genuinely did not have to do that. He said, “I take my people’s well-being very seriously.” It sounds good for any manager to say to their employees, but it’s another thing when their actions speak louder than their words. Success and happiness are not guaranteed by working daily as a manager or an employee and just doing your bare minimum duties. Success and happiness are when you take care of the people in your workspace and go that extra mile to make sure that your co-workers are doing okay mentally because we all have lives outside of our school and work life, and not only will the extra “hey I’m here for you just to listen” go more than a mile for another person it will help to grow success and happiness in the workplace as a whole but also highly increase the level of trust that you have with your co-workers. Actions speak louder than words, and John has taught me that you must take care of your work duties, of course, but taking care of your co-workers should be on the top of your work duties list just like any other task to be successful from the core of the business to serving hospitality on the other end.  

A leader to John that he shared with me one day 


As John has been in my life for a very short period, he has taught me so much about the restaurant industry and an endless amount of advice that I am so grateful to have and, most importantly, he can share wonderful words with all Maryville Saints, there is something that John has done for me beyond sharing words of inspiration and being someone who teaches me more about success, happiness, and self-development. It is that he is a leader. John is not just a leader to me; John is a leader to the restaurant industry as a whole. He worked in multiple states across the country and even stepped outside of the country to share his lessons, knowledge, and criticism with people worldwide. As all of us students continue our journey to finding and building ourselves within our careers, I found that having a leader along the way of your trip is a staple. John always tells me he’s not perfect, and he is still trying to find his way; he shared with me the other day a professional who is a leader with him. Anthony Bourdain is John’s leader, and John is mine. Although John speaks highly of Bourdain, I can promise that the leader I have been granted to cross paths with holds me accountable and will call me out on my successes and flaws. I believe that all of us Saints deserve the ability to find their “John,” aka my leader, during our tricky twenties and self-evolvement, making us leaders for the next generation.




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