We were lucky to catch up with Zack Trabbold recently and have shared our conversation below.

Zack, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?

Strongly believe in buying locally and sourcing locally and that’s not just with our food and or sprints. It’s using the local refrigeration company, the local wood worker etc. I love to be able to tell a story about everything and when you keep it local it helps tell a story. It also separates us because we know how our products are cared for and raised and grown because we know the process from start to finish. Alot of restaurant owners would rather buy something from an unknown company because they can get a deal on it or for other reasons i won’t mention. But for us we know that it may be more of a challenge sometimes, but we accept that challenge and use it as a tool to make us better at our craft.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

So, i started in the restaurant business at a very young age of 13 my father was ill and i had to help my brother start paying bills. So, I started washing dishes at a little Italian restaurant in Delaware and slowly started to learn the business and I fell in love with it right away. I quickly found the kitchen and started to watch the chefs and learn from them. My father ended passing away at a very young age he was 49 and my brother was able to get custody of me when he was only 19 and i was 15. After my father’s death all i did was work. I started to work 7 days a week,2 of those days outta the week i would work for free sometimes just to learn as much as i could from different chefs in the area. I ended up moving back to Wilmington De. and going to school in Philly at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill, while attending school i worked in Steven Starr restaurants whenever i could to hone my craft. After school i moved to Wilmington and really focused on my career as a chef working under some amazing chefs, I finally got the chance to run a kitchen. The restaurant won best new restaurant and numerous other awards. I then took a job with Defriscos Restaurant Group as a corporate chef and traveled the country opening new concepts for them. To skip ahead a bit i went to work for a restaurant group as the corporate Executive chef and over seen a fine ding Italian restaurant, a Asian concept and fast casual eatery. While at this group i was nominated best chef of maryland won numerous competitions and really started to create a name for myself in the DMV. I left there after 5 years and decided for a change and went to Atlas Restaurant group and became the Chef de cuisine of the Bygone. Then the pandemic hit and i didn’t know what to do so i bought a catering company and turned it in to a carryout only restaurant until things started to open back up and we started to do very well. But i always had this concept of the local in my head and in 2021 i made my dream come true and since then we have worked our butts off to be the best. Only being open 2 months, we went to the world food championships in Dallas Texas and i won 2nd place outta 1,500 chefs from all over the world, winning 1st place in the beef wellington category and highest score in the sandwich category as well. We have won best new restaurant and best chef of Maryland by Baltimore magazine, first restaurant in Harford County to ever do so. I was also runner up for best chef of Maryland by the restaurant association of Maryland. We have won numerous other awards and its just been a wild ride. We create food that’s totally out of the box while sourcing as much locally as we can. Now we have our catering hall almost open and our 3rd concept on the way called Butcher and Banter a high-end steakhouse and raw bar. This is just the beginning now we cater all of the state and beyond with our catering division Evolved Events and the high-end clients and celebrities we cater for is a dream come true. We have a few more concepts that i want to do so believe me this isn’t all from us at Evolved Hospitality Restaurant Group. This was year one and two i could only imagine the future from here!

How did you build your audience on social media?

Persistence is the key i would spend hours and hours on social media in the beginning just friend requesting anyone and everyone. I would set alarms on when i should be posting some content, but persistence is the key. I know i would get down sometimes when I wouldn’t get as many like i want but over time we grew our brand by not giving up and now we have a great following!

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Never ask a employee to do something they haven’t seen you do. Work as a team member and a leader. I’ve learned that you can’t bark orders and then go sit in the office to lead a good team you have to be in the trenches grinding with them. When its slammed busy you need to crack a joke and put a smile on and keep the team motivated to keep going and let them know your there for them through whatever! Seagull management is when a seagull come and poops on everyone and fly’s away, so in this business you can’t bark orders then walk away. hope that made sense lol.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thelocalharco.com www.evolvedeventscatering.com www.butcherandbanter.com www.evolvedhospitalitymd.com
• Instagram: @thelocalharco @butcherandbanter @evolvedeventcenter @evolvedhospitalitygroup
• Facebook: thelocalharco butcherandbanter evolvedeventcenter evolvedhospitalitygroup

Image Credits
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