SoDel: Behind the scenes at one of Delaware's most successful restaurant empires

Every morning, Maurice Catlett has a kitchen routine that he explains by using a French phrase: “mise en place.”

The translation “putting everything in place” essentially describes the first part of the work day for Catlett and his staff — the heart and soul of the professional kitchen at Matt’s Fish Camp restaurant in Lewes.

For the executive chef, that advanced preparation is crucial as the restaurant staff prepares for a rush of food orders once diners start walking through the door.

When he arrives in the morning, Catlett scans notes from the previous evening’s service.

The daily food order, which covers everything from fresh-from-the-source seafood to scallions, starts arriving shortly after the kitchen crew arrives. That includes fresh-baked breads and rolls from Old World Breads in nearby Lewes.

As his two line cooks work quietly nearby, Catlett checks the inventory of house-made offerings, including soups, pepper gravy, grits, sauces and salad dressings. All of them are kept in stainless steel containers that are easily accessible by the chef preparing each order.

Catlett makes sure his staff has made enough pastry shells for the restaurant’s immensely popular chicken pot pie.

Previously, Catlett had decided which items would be featured on a menu that changes daily.

He was particularly excited about two offerings: panko-crusted chicken livers and bahn mi, a Vietnamese sandwich that Catlett attributed to his mother.

“It’s a family recipe that was passed down,” he says.

READ: At Lupo in Rehoboth, chef Chris Parks brings NYC experience

READ: From dishwasher to chef, meet SoDel's Matt Catlett 

Meanwhile, Ashley Cox, a line cook who will prepare most of the lunch orders, checks the inventory of fresh fish and meat stored in a refrigerated compartment below the gas stove and fryers. She also fries a batch of fresh-cut potato chips, which are included in many popular lunch selections.

In an adjacent workspace, another line cook, Lorena Torres, is opening cans of crab meat and will soon add ingredients for crab cakes. On this particular day, Matt’s offers half-price crab cakes and Torres is anticipating the need for a lot of them.

“I’ll be making these all day,” Torres says.

Torres also spends time chopping salad greens. As the second line cook on duty, she also is responsible for making salads, a popular lunchtime selection.

Catlett refills stainless steel containers filled with garnishes, tomatoes and grated cheeses.

Though the quantity of prepared ingredients is impressive, Catlett says the staff only prepares what it will use for lunch service.

“We’ll prep again for dinner,” he says.

One thing about the kitchen and all the food preparation areas is immediately obvious: Every surface, including the floor, is spotless.

Meanwhile, Jack Temple, Matt’s general manager, sits in his tiny office preparing a list of items he wants to feature for the day.

A short time later, the rest of the lunch staff — two servers and a bartender — arrive to prepare the bar and restaurant for service.

That includes cleaning, filling ice bins, restocking beer, wine and liquors and placing raw oysters in icy beds that are visible to diners as they enter the door.

The restaurant offers eight oyster choices, many of them from the Delmarva Peninsula.

The staff brews fresh coffee and heats water for tea.

At 11 a.m. sharp, the staff gathers for a preshift meeting, an event that occurs at the restaurant before every lunch and dinner shift. 

Presiding over the meeting, Temple asks the staff to itemize anything they see that needs repairs or “deep cleaning,” a regular process that helps maintain the restaurant’s spotless interior.

He also reviews the featured wine and draft beer selections and tells the two servers, Brian Kneisly and Emily Mathews, and bartender Chris Needham that Matt’s is still featuring three local brews from the nearby Dewey Beer Co.

Catlett then unveils one of the featured menu items that day: fried chicken livers, served with mixed greens, hard-boiled egg, kimchi aoli and buttermilk blue cheese dressing. The attractive plate sells for $12.

After explaining the dish, utensils are distributed so each of the staff can taste the chicken liver dish, which helps them provide customers with a more thorough — and, hopefully, appealing — description.

When the first diners arrive shortly after an 11:30 a.m. opening, Kneisly seats them at a booth by a window and provides them with menus.

Mathews supplies drinks for the three women and takes their food order.

The order is relayed to the kitchen by computer.

Catlett takes the order ticket from a small printer and calls out the order to the two cooks: two Caesar salads (one with chicken) and a lobster roll.

Catlett says they always start by preparing the dish that will take the longest, which, for this order, is the chicken. After starting to cook the chicken, Cox warms a roll and fills it with the lobster filling. Meanwhile, Torrez makes two Caesar salads.

When the chicken is cooked and sliced, Catlett completes the salads and rings a bell to summon Mathews, who delivers the three dishes to the waiting customers. The whole process from order to service takes less than 10 minutes in this case.

On busy days, Catlett says there would be a sous chef — second in command — in addition to the line cook. Another staff member would fill the role of “expeditor” to help move orders through the kitchen.

Even on the busiest days, there is never a sense of panic.

“I have a great staff here,” Catlett says.

The SoDel way 

Catlett, the executive chef, was tapped to run the kitchen when SoDel opened Matt’s in 2016. He had been top chef at another SoDel restaurant, Fish On in Lewes.

SoDel was founded by the late Matt Haley, winner of a James Beard Foundation award.

Though some would think that running a restaurant is relatively easy, there is a reason why 80 percent of all new restaurants fail within five years.

And it was that failure rate that had some people concerned when Haley died unexpectedly in a motorcycle crash in 2014.

But Haley had created a strong management team led by Scott Kammerer, president and CEO. And the success of that succession plan is evident, given the year-round popularity of SoDel restaurants.

The Matt’s Fish Camp in Lewes and Bluecoast Grill in Rehoboth Beach were the first new restaurants after Haley died. All told, SoDel has 10 restaurants and a catering company in Sussex County.

READ: SoDel celebrates 10th restaurant with opening of new Bluecoast in Rehoboth

READ: SoDel Concepts' Kammerer wins Delaware restaurant award

Eight of the restaurants feature a fresh seafood selection. They have a section of the daily menu called Chef's Fish Board. It changes daily and features fresh seafood, often from the mid-Atlantic.

The two exceptions: Lupo Italian Kitchen in Rehoboth Beach and Papa Grande’s, a Mexican restaurant in Fenwick Island.

Matt Patton, director of operations for SoDel, says the restaurant group’s success after Haley’s death is because SoDel’s corporate leadership preaches the importance of  detail, which is not readily obvious from the outside.

“We’ve taken Matt’s standards and moved them forward,” Patton says.

'Beach casual' with high standards 

One of the unseen details involves staff training in all aspects of restaurant management.

At Matt’s, a poster hanging inside the kitchen promotes the SoDel Concepts Boot Camp, a series of staff training sessions covering topics like managing food costs, preparing menus, customer service, beer and wine seminars, and staff hiring and management.

The boot camp sessions are held at SoDel headquarters in Rehoboth Beach.

The sessions are intended for chefs and managers but are open to all SoDel employees.

Patton conducts the session on beer. He also does several training sessions a year at each restaurant to help servers and bartenders navigate the increasingly complex world of craft beer.

As a director of operations, Patton also provides management oversight for three restaurants: Matt’s and Fish On in Lewes, and the new Bluecoast in Rehoboth.

“My job is to make sure the (restaurant) manager has everything they need to be successful,” he says.

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Staff training also is provided for another popular mealtime beverage: wine.

That training is the responsibility of Wine Director Mike Zygmonski, who also buys the wines featured at SoDel restaurants.

Zygmonski says he normally visits each restaurant four to six times a year for wine training sessions. He says each server and bartender is expected to have enough knowledge to answer a diner’s questions about any wine on the menu.

Meghan King is responsible for training “front-of-the-house” personnel, including managers, servers and bussers (the staff responsible for clearing tables).

“We want to make sure that everything is running smoothly and efficiently,” she says.

Another of the hidden priorities involves cleanliness food safety.

Cole Bradour, general manager of SoDel’s Highwater Management, has a degree in public health and is responsible for training SoDel staff on another important aspect of food service — food safety and the risk of foodborne illnesses.

In Delaware, it is a requirement that every kitchen have at least one employee who has passed the “ServSafe” food safety training course. The SoDel goal is that every employee have ServSafe certification.

Though Delaware inspects restaurants annually, Bradour checks each restaurant much more frequently. And SoDel employees say he has tougher standards than state inspectors.

“I do have pretty high standards of cleanliness,” he says.

His in-house training includes kitchen hygiene, refrigeration and other food storing standards, personal cleanliness and pest control.

The commitment to behind-the-scenes detail may be one of SoDel’s secrets of success.

“Our restaurants might be ‘beach casual’ but we have very, very high standards,” Bradour says.

Adds Patton: “Our culture is, attention to detail.”

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