Matt Mannick is president of Forking Amazing Restaurants, which he joined in 2014 as general manager of the Bistro Aix restaurant in San Marco. The group includes Il Desco in Riverside and Downtown’s Cowford Chophouse, which opened Oct. 26. That’s where he is spending most of his time.
On any given day, I could be doing a number of different things – from designing a menu layout to managing a construction crew at Bistro Aix during our remodel from the hurricane to designing the bars to helping out with training and coaching managers to interacting with guests. It’s not a presidency-type job where you sit in an office 9-to-5. Every day I learn something new and try to apply that to the individual restaurants. Today I’m learning about storage options.
I’ve opened up multiple new restaurants. It’s always intense. You have a two-month window where you’re pretty much nonstop. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’re at a smooth enough point where I can get back to a somewhat normal lifestyle. My wife, Emily, and daughter, Hadley, miss me at home. I’m very fortunate to have a great family and an amazing little girl. She turns 3 the day after Thanksgiving. Hadley is the best thing that ever happened to me.
I went to Penn State and graduated in 2005. As soon as I graduated I was ready to get out of the cold. I love seasons and everything about it, but I was ready for a change. My sister was a traveling nurse and doing a job in Crescent City. I packed everything I could into my Jeep and hit the road. Twelve years later, I’m still here.
My first job in Florida was as a server at Fiddler’s Green in Vilano Beach. I did a sales job during the day. I left the sales job to go to Biscottis and bbs restaurant and bar for a number of years. I was with The Capital Grille for just shy of five years, then I came over to Forking Amazing Restaurants.
I was transitioning out of Biscottis when Emily started to work there. After I left, we stayed in touch, started dating and the rest is history. She is with III Forks Steakhouse, so it’s nice and interesting that both of us are in the steakhouse industry.
We both love to dine out a lot. We’re both in the restaurant business, so we’ve kind of immersed our daughter in it from the very beginning. When she was 3 to 4 months old, we were taking her out to dinners and getting her used to it. Now she’s a champ. She loves to go out. Her favorite food right now is mac and cheese.