01/26/2023
Well friends, clients and associates, after 30 odd years of catering in Dallas both as the owner of Gil's Elegant Catering and later Petaluma Catering I have officially sold all of my interests and am retired from active duty.
To recap, I purchased Mr Gil's company in 1999 and ran it successfully with my ex Partner until 2008. At that time, we went through what I refer to as an unfriendly "business divorce" and subsequently ended up walking away from the company I had spent over 10 years developing into a muti-million dollar enterprise.
In 2009 my wife and I opened Petaluma Cafe in Cedar Hill which was successful in every way except financial. In 2010 I decided to go back to my catering roots and stared Petaluma Catering, first operating out of the Design District with Doug Boster and later at the Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church. We had a good run in Preston Hollow, made lots of good friends in the area and the PHPC family.
Along the way, we specialized in corporate catering and more specifically with the film and commercial television industry under a new trade name, Food Dance Foods. I sold the company in 2020 right before Covid happened and ended up re-purchasing it in December of the same year. The new ownership like many of our citizens did not survive the epidemic. We operated in 2021 with some success and in the summer of 2022 I met Marlene Faulkner of Knife and Faulk Catering. Marlene was looking to expand her McKinney operation into the Dallas market and we subsequently sold the assets of Petaluma once again. By all indication, she seems to be doing really well and I must say that her approach to food and presentation are a breath of fresh air for the Dallas market. We wish her and her team all the success that they rightly deserve.
As to me, if you need me, I will be somewhere on a sailboat looking for a westerly breeze.
To my staff, I say thank you, I could not have done this without you and to former partners I say adios. I hope you're happy.
