We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Charles Anderson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Charles below.
Charles, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?
Being a local family owned buisiness that adds to the value of our city through hard work, quality products, participation and support locally, colaboration within our industry and my son taking on our business was the goal of our legacy. We have accomplished this in several ways that im imensley proud of but its always a work in progress and will never end. Legacies are only as strong as your current reputation. One example of this that we are proud to share was our “Small business of the year” award for the 36th district of California during COVID. We were one of 50 small businesses in the state of California to recieve this honor. During COVID we pulled a large group of local restaurants together to discuss our options as COVID lock downs loomed over us. Through this call to action we created a group with our local city officials, Visit Oceanside, and Oceanside Chamber to help us all navigate the new landscape that we were dealing with. We helped to strengthen our bond as a restaurant community working together to save eachothers businesses collectivley, strength in numbers. None of our group had to close their doors in an industry that had the most businesses of any other go out of business. This is an example of one piece of our contribution thats helped form a legacy for The Privateer.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Samantha Parker. I’ve been the chef at The Privateer Coal Fire Pizza Kitchen for about 5 years now. I began working with food out of high school. I helped manage a Haagen Dazs and worked as an assistant manager at Pizza Port working various festivals with the Owner, Vince Marsalia. I then went to culinary school at the Culinary Institute of America in Saint Helena and worked with many of the instructors as a teaching assistant and on special events. I moved back to Oceanside in 2o12 and helped open The Flying Pig. I worked under Chef Mario Moser for four years and spent my last year of that as the chef de cuisine of their Oceanside location. I then moved on to help open Campfire in Carlsbad in 2016. I spent two years working there, learning all the different kitchen positions. I also worked part-time at many other kitchens in Oceanside including Petite Madaline, Miss Kim’s and finally landed at The Privateer where Charlie and Maria Anderson asked me to come work for them full time and manage their kitchen. With the help of my sous chef, Oscar Garcia, and my kitchen manager, Ricardo Hernandez, we have helped grow the business into what it is today. We are a scratch kitchen, making most items in house or sourcing them from other local business. We serve neapolitan style pizza pies made from our 100% coal-fire oven. In addition to our delicious pies, we also offer a variety of appetizers including wings, salads, meatballs, fish tacos, daily soups, charcuterie boards and house-made desserts. We also offer different sandwiches on our lunch menu and for dinner we serve up our seafood entrees, gourmet burgers and house-made pastas. We strive to be another excellent addition to Oceanside’s awesome tourist scene while also pleasing our loyal local crowds. Our Marketplace offers an incredible selection of retail wines that even received a Wine Spectator award last year due to our experienced sommelier, Susan Porter-Guarino. It is a beautiful space where we host many special events and parties. I am proud to still be working with most of our original staff who have all stepped up and help to elevate the business and help sustain it during the pandemic and all the new staff that has come on to help support us in our mission.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I remember when I moved to Carlsbad as a kid, we had a neighbor that would often take my brother and I along with her kids to her favorite beach, Buccaneer Beach. There was a burger stand there that we used to swear had the most incredible burgers around. When I worked for Rodger and Aaron Browning around 2015, my chef and I went to an Oceanside flavor festival to serve our food. Charlie and Maria, who were by then the current owners of the Buccaneer Cafe and one of my new favorite local restaurants, The Privateer, were walking around saying hi to other business owners. They were so friendly and respectful and when they came to our booth, Roddy introduced me to them and I remember thinking what nice people they seemed like to work for. When I came to meet Charlie for the second time and interview for a job, some locals were shooting a video with our bar manager, Eric Klier, and Charlie was having the restaurant smudged. I was sitting there waiting to talk to him and looking around the restaurant thinking about what a good vibe it had and how much potential I could see in it.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
I think the most important part of managing a team is treating everyone with the same amount of respect that you would like them to show you. There are so many different personalities to work with and try to help everyone to work well together. Trying to listen to each person individually and showing them that you care about their specific needs is very important to me. Learning everyone’s independent learning styles and adapting to the best ways to teach is crucial. My coworkers have always been close friends and more of a family to me as we most often see each other more than we see our own families so I do try to be caring of each person’s wants and needs. When there is a problem in the kitchen I try to put myself in those positions and help to find the best solutions. Instead of getting upset with my staff when things aren’t getting done properly, I try to look inward and see what I could have done to help make sure they get done correctly the next time. Most of all, I try to lead by example and not ask people to do things that I would not or am not practicing myself. When I start my shifts, I try to make sure to say hello and give high-fives or hugs to everyone on staff to help keep up the good vibes and start our shift off right.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.theprivateercoalfirepizza.com. , https://www.privateer-marketplace.com/events
- Instagram: @spam.samwich. , @theprivateercoalfirepizza. , @privateermarketplace
- Facebook: The Privateer Coal Fire Pizza. , The Privateer Marketplace & Wine Bar
Image Credits
Portrit photo- Kambria Fischer Food photos- Russell Spencer