“Last year was about nurturing the power of our people to make a difference for our guests, and a focused strategy on defining our processes within our organization,” says City Group Hospitality President & CEO Patrick Valluzzo.
The company took a gamble growing four restaurants during a global pandemic, but “our focus was to create an environment where we could identify the strengths of our core people and develop a company that truly invests in training and retaining more people for longer times,” he said.
Growing from a staff of less than 100 to 400 employees has meant the addition of a corporate office, marketing and human resources departments and a focus on training. The key has been creating a culture of hospitality that trickles down from management to staff and, ultimately, to the guest.
“We have a true standard of hospitality at each location, but the culture is defined uniquely by each concept’s management team,” says COO Stephen Hightower. “I want them to believe the relationship with our guest is key to each of them being proud to work toward being the best restaurant in Baton Rouge in their own culinary segment.”
