Tom Whitehurst

Service couldn’t be more personal

At a luncheon last week in honor of Valero chairman and CEO Bill Greehey, another chairman and CEO was busy working every table in the joint.
   Not that it’s unusual to see Brad Lomax of Water Street Inc., chairman of the Corpus Christi Convention and Visitors Bureau, greeting and seating customers at one of his downtown restaurants. But at this event, catered by his company, he appeared to have appointed himself head waiter and busboy - and appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself while doing it.
   ‘I actually had to sweat’
   It put him in touch with his peers in the business community, who also happen to be regular customers, and they seemed pleased to see him at it, as if they were receiving special treatment that day. Several of them told him so.
   "I’m better at standing around looking important," Lomax said afterward, "but today I actually had to sweat."
   Dee Haven, a restaurant consultant and retired Del Mar College hospitality department head, has said that most successful restaurateurs are just people who genuinely enjoy serving dinner to folks and making sure they have a nice time.
   At the Greehey event, Lomax engaged in the exact type of activity that made him a success, at its most basic level. It was the exact opposite of the activity he had been immersed in a couple of years ago, when he tried unsuccessfully to proliferate into a franchise through a partnership with Luby’s. He learned harsh but valuable lessons.
   "You pretty much have to get out of the restaurant business and go into corporate management to do that," Lomax said. "Building two restaurants a year is not for me. I like the restaurant end of the restaurant business. I don’t like the corporate end.
   "I’m sure the business school books are filled with stories like this. It’s a classic case of trying to grow too fast and getting kicked between the eyes. And I did get kicked."
   Better off now
   The outcome wasn’t so bad. He still owns five restaurants in three cities. And he says he’s in a stronger position now than when he first signed the deal with Luby’s in 1996.
   Not to mention that he knows what he likes to do and what he does well, and can demonstrate by example to his employees. And, after a hard day of waiting and busing tables, he went home to a house fit for a CEO and chairman.
  
   Contact Business Editor Tom Whitehurst Jr. at 886-3619 or whitehurstt@caller.com
  
  

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