Introducing Our Director of Culture & Hospitality, Tawna Oliphant
A Message from Lavish Leadership
Hello Team!
Over the past year, we have faced many challenges and overcome them together as a team. For this we are thankful for your hard work, dedication and patience as we have experienced our biggest growth year yet. One of the best changes we have made is promoting Joel Mertens to Director of Operations. Joel has accomplished an incredible amount in the past 8 months in bringing his 25 years of Restaurant and Hospitality experience to our team.
We are proud to announce that after much planning and collaboration we have decided to add a key position to our leadership team. As most of you know, we have over doubled the size of our team and we need strong leadership and planned direction to ensure our core values and company mission can hold true for years to come.
With the recent Meta changes and focus on the Hospitality Experience, ownership and Joel have been building this role and considering candidates for months. We've made the decision on the candidate based on background, personality fit with our team and shared values surrounding leadership and culture. We know that adding this role to his team will push our company culture forward and strengthen our team for the future, while providing a focused resource.
Introducing Tawana Oliphant, Director of Culture and Hospitality
Tawana Oliphant starts with us on December 12th and will be our Director of Culture and Hospitality; she will be working in this role to provide oversight and direction for not only our experience teams in their interactions with each other and with our guests, but in addition, helping our Chef and kitchen teams to do the same. She also will be working with Joel as a member of the Operations team with a focus on our Experience teams and Company Culture.
Tawna Oliphant is a 15-year hospitality veteran and mother of three. Professionally Tawna builds multi-location Hospitality teams while staying focused on establishing a solid reputation amongst her staff. She harnesses warmth, care, appreciation for detail, multitasking, and attuned problem-solving skills to develop solid professional relationships and credibility with her colleagues, employees, and guests. A creative soul, she spends her free time listening to audio books, baking, traveling, and testing cocktail creations on her friends and family. Tawna joins us from McMenamins Pubs, Breweries & Historic Hotels where she spent the last 10 years honing her Hospitality, Leadership, and Food & Beverage skills. Tawna believes in the importance of team cohesiveness and fostering a culture of unity, inclusivity and fun in which guests and employees gravitate towards. As she joins our team, Tawna shared that she is most excited to collaborate and be a part of a Company whose shares her emphasis on culture, hospitality, and unity.
Soup Season With The Kettle Boyz!!!🥄🍲🥣
At the RAD Kitchen, we have fully shifted into soup mode. As you may recall from previous posts, we have a huge machine called the TUCS that uses 4 gargantuan kettles to help us cook and cool large quantities of soup for consumption across the Redmond campus. While this machine by itself is impressive, it wouldn't be anything without our dynamic duo known internally as The Kettle Boyz! Adam and Brian are the dream team that are trained with the skills to operate this unique machine. They regularly produce 500 to 600 gallons of soup and stock on a weekly basis while prepping and processing up to 1,500 LBS of vegetables every week to make the magic happen. This takes a lot of time and attention and that all happens before they even begin their 3 hour cleaning process. I think that is pretty souper. Thank you Brian and Adam for making us delicious soups to keep us warm this winter.
Team Member Promotions! Congratulations!
Damian Baucom-Slavin - Lead Cook
Virginia Gonzales - Line Cook
Patrick Mangum - Sous Chef
Congratulations on your promotion! Your hard work has been noticed and we are so proud that you are a member of our Lavish Roots family! Make it a great day, Chef B & Lavish Roots
New Health & Wellness Page
A new page has been added to your Team Member Website called "Health & Wellness." It can be found under the "Resources" tab. This has been a highly requested page! At Lavish Roots, we recognize that your wellbeing and your self-care practices are completely unique to you. In whichever ways you choose to care for yourself and others, we want to emphasize that the Lavish Roots community is here to support you. This new page is full of local and statewide wellness resources for you to explore.
lavishrootsteam.com
Password: 41degrees
Home > Resources > Health & Wellness
If there is anything you'd like to add to this page and share with the team, please let me know: sarah@lavishroots.com. All other inquiries pertaining to your Health & Wellness Resources can be directed to Team Member Resources at people@lavishroots.com.
