Cameron Mitchell and his wife, Molly, moved into their new house last April, shortly after his restaurant empire came to a halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cameron Mitchell Restaurants went from $325 million in revenue to zero in four days and furloughed 4,500 employees.
“(My wife) asked me, ‘Are we going to lose the company? Are we going to lose our house?’” Mitchell says. “And (I said back then), ‘Actually, I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I don’t know.’”
Mitchell is no stranger to adversity. Those who have read his autobiography, Yes is the Answer. What is the Question?, know how Mitchell overcame his troubled teenage years, rising within the restaurant industry to create a company that operates 16 different concepts across 36 locations in 12 states.
The restaurant industry isn’t easy, Mitchell says – otherwise, more people would get involved. He was 16 years old, working as a line cook at a steakhouse, when he realized his desire to pursue a career in the business.
“I was just in the kitchen one day,” he says. “It was four in the afternoon. I was working a double shift that day. I was going to be a host at night and it was just pandemonium in the kitchen; you know that the managers were barking orders. The a.m. shift was trying to leave and the p.m. shift was trying to come on in. The restaurant was half full and the bar was packed for happy hour.
“I had to run home and change clothes and come back and be a host at night, and you know, I was just in time,” he adds. “I love the energy, the people and the party, if you will.”
Following that chaotic day at work, Mitchell set goals to run his own restaurant company. Years later, when he was an operations director for the now-defunct 55 Restaurant Group, Mitchell realized he had hit his limit with the company. He decided to start his own restaurant in 1992.
Going out on his own came with a new set of challenges. Mitchell spent the first six months working on a restaurant concept in downtown Columbus and was close to finalizing the property when the landlord went bankrupt.
“I had to start all over again. It took me 14 months to go find another location, and that was one of the darkest points in my life,” he says. “I was broke and down to rolling change to buy groceries and so forth.”
Mitchell was able to bounce back, opening Cameron’s American Bistro in Worthington in 1993. He continued to meet his share of challenges, including budget issues with the 1998 opening of Mitchell’s Fish Market and Mitchell’s Steakhouse (which he later sold for $92 million in 2008); the slowdown in business following the 9/11 terrorist attacks; and the Great Recession in 2008.
“(There) have been very dark times,” Mitchell says. “To know dark times and weather in those dark times has given me a certain sense of confidence that I’ve been through a lot of those before. Always, deep in my heart, I felt like … I was going to figure out a way. That’s what I do.”
The pandemic, however, was the most difficult time Mitchell has ever experienced in his 40 years in the business, he says.
“As difficult as it was to operate (in the 2008 recession), I never really felt like we were to go out of business or not make it,” he says. “We never had our business shut down.”
Mitchell says he expects the pandemic to have shorter duration than the recession, but to be “more devastating and hard-hitting.” Most, if not all, of decisions the company has made in the last year were in reaction to the crisis.
Chris Casella
"I’m a planner by nature … and for many months throughout COVID, we could do very little planning. It was mostly just reacting to what was coming at us,” he says.
The company furloughed its 4,500 workers, and company executives took salary cuts to create a relief fund for affected employees. As the company reopened restaurants starting last May, it brought back most of its employees, Mitchell says.
“We have about 1,000 hourly associates not back yet, because the business levels are not there,” Mitchell says, “but I am proud to say we brought every single associate back in the manager ranks and every single person in the home office back. … I told everybody we’ll get there together.”
Mitchell described the rest of 2020 as a rollercoaster ride. The company improved its carryout, which made a fraction of its earnings prior to the pandemic, and dealt with surges of the virus affecting its workforce.
There were more than 300 cases in the company, he says.
“We got it to about 75% of sales by October of last year’s sales,” he says. “Then we finished up October down to 52% of last year’s sales.”
Among the factors that helped the company persist is the human element, Mitchell says.
“The team working across the company was phenomenal,” he says. “Everybody rose to the occasion and everybody understood that there’s really only one way we were going to survive this, and that’s by working together and making the sacrifices we need to make.”
Mitchell made focusing on his employees part of the company culture when he started his first business.
“(It’s) an ‘associate comes first’ mentality, not a ‘guest comes first’ mentality,” he says. “Obviously, (I) believe in great guest service and genuine hospitality. It runs the deepest depths of my heart, but in our company, we really value the associate first and we look at a training relationship. We take care of our people; our people will take care of our guests and our guests will take care of the company.”
The Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program loan also helped keep the company going during the pandemic.
“We wouldn’t have made it without the PPP dollars,” he says.
The diversity of the company’s geographic footprint helped, too, Mitchell says.
“America will come out of this," –Cameron Mitchell
Cameron Mitchell plans to open El Segundo in the Short North this fall. The Mexican restaurant will offer a similar experience to the Pearl and Marcella’s, Mitchell says. The company has other restaurant openings slated for this year and next, some of which are concepts that have not yet been announced.
Mitchell is optimistic about the future as vaccinations are now rolling out to the public.
“America will come out of this,” he says. “... I’ve come a long way since April 3, with my wife (and I) not knowing whether the company was going to survive or not.”
Mitchell’s Gives and Takes
The Columbus culinary scene still has a long way to go to compete with those of other major metropolitan areas, says the founder of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants.
“It’s not like in New York City or Chicago,” says Cameron Mitchell, “where it’s so densely populated we can have these great restaurants all over the city and down through the city core.”
Columbus is getting better with the addition of new restaurants, he says. He expects further improvement as the city grows; Columbus is projected to reach 3 million people by 2050.
In 2019, Mitchell donated $2.5 million to Columbus State Community College to establish Mitchell Hall, new home of the hospitality management and culinary arts program. The facility features teaching kitchens and labs, a full-service restaurant for students to practice their culinary skills, a bakery, and a culinary theater.
Mitchell got involved as a way to give back to central Ohio and to the industry that is his livelihood. He says a byproduct of the program is creating a pipeline of culinary talent that can help restaurants such as his.
“The impact of (Columbus State’s culinary program) will continue to produce tens of thousands of people … over the next several decades, and as they come into the Columbus scene and add to it, they’ll become leaders,” Mitchell says. “The Columbus restaurant scene is alive and well, and will be alive and well over the next 10 to 20 years.”
What is Cameron’s favorite?
The restaurant entrepreneur is often asked about his favorite restaurant concept, dish or other component.
“I always answer that question: the same as the next one,” he says.
Mitchell says he experiences his restaurants and the food they serve in a more analytical way than his customers.
“I’m always thinking about it in a business way. ... I don’t get to go out as much and just really just dine and enjoy it, like everyone else does,” he says.
Occasionally, however, Mitchell does visit places for enjoyment. He and his family recently dined at New York’s Le Bernardin, one of the world’s top restaurants.
“That food is so grand and so over the top, so you really can’t replicate it anywhere. Those types of restaurants, I can sit down and just really be a guest to really enjoy because it’s on such a high level,” he says. “I probably couldn’t replicate if I wanted to.”
Brandon Klein is an associate editor. Feedback welcomed at bklein@cityscenemediagroup.com.
