Name: Joe Scully
How long have you worked for Corner Kitchen?
Since 2003.
What is your favorite dish at Corner Kitchen?
My favorite dish at Corner Kitchen has to be the Calamari. The reason I say that is because it is the one item that has been on the menu since day one and continues to be very popular with our guests. It also relates to my friend Jon Nishiyama, a chef in Atlanta Georgia who I worked with for several years.
If you could travel anywhere in the world were would it be?
If I could go anywhere in the world I would go to a place called Vallerana (in La Marrema) which is in Southwest Tuscany. It is the place where my wife and I took our first trip abroad together, and became engaged. The landscape, food, history and everything else combined makes it my favorite place in the world.
What life lessons has working in the service industry taught you?
Working in the service industry has taught me to persevere but in kind of a strange way. The fact is, it is often chaotic and fraught with danger and worry. We do a lot of different things during a very compressed period of time. So, you must persevere but you also must stay loose in order for it to go well. So the lesson in a nutshell is you must wear your life like a loose garment. You must be able to move with fluidity and decisiveness all at the same time.
What has your most memorable experience with a guest been?
It will be hard to be specific in answering this question. The most memorable thing that I get to do with the guests in general is being able to move through the dining room during service, visiting with people. It’s like being a host of a really nice party every single day/night of the week. I have met some amazing people doing this. It’s really wonderful when we can touch their lives using the medium of the restaurant, food and wine, etc.
A story about a favorite regular…
The regular that I think about would have to be classified as the entire Jennings family. I was introduced to this great group of people through Dick Jennings Senior. He’s the guy who started Sunburst Trout Farm and he used to come and visit me every month or so with samples to try to get me to carry his farm raised Trout. I finally consented to try the trout and it turned out to be a great product which is still on the menu exactly the way it was prepared the day Mr. Jennings brought it to us. As a result I managed to meet the rest of his family – Dick, Sally, Binford and of course his wife, Francis; not to mention various grandchildren. This is just a great example of how the restaurant has allowed me to enter into the lives of other people, and allow them to come into my life.
Someone you would love to cook for? What would you cook them?
If I could cook for anyone, I would cook breakfast for my father the late Vin Scully and his coworkers Sam Fuchsman and Jim link. These were the three men who gave me the most joy when I was a little child. I would make my dad the Corn Beef Hash with horseradish sauce and a side of burnt rye toast. I would make Sam the Cream Cheese Scrambler with Bagel and Lox. And i would make Jim Eggs Benedict because he always liked the finer things in life…
