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Snooty Special Reports: Brad Fuller

While I was busy wining and dining myself into a Valentine’s Day food coma, those clever Snooty Foodies were working all weekend on a few Snooty Special Reports, as I’ve dubbed them, for your reading pleasure. For this report, they’ve interviewed Brad Fuller, GM of Al Biernat’s. Read on:

AL IN TRAINING

Al Biernat is known as one of, if not the very best, hosts in the restaurant biz.  His passion for pleasing and damn near photographic memory when it comes to remembering guests’ names spans over two decades, has become legendary and sets the bar for other front of the house guys on the local fine dining scene.  But, if you are a frequent flyer at Al’s, or were one of the 600 or so customers that darkened their doorstep on Valentines, you’ve no doubt seen the tall, thin good looking cat at the hostess stand shaking hands, greeting guests and basically doing his best imitation of Al himself.  No doubt Big Al casts quite a shadow, but jump to learn more about Al’s nephew Brad Fuller – GM at Al Biernat’s and a rising star in Dallas fine dining.

What they said. Read on!

Let’s just say that the restaurant business is in my blood.  My dad’s mom was in the business and my parents met while they worked at a Detroit area restaurant called Big Boy.  My dad was the manager and my mom was a waitress – true love.  My mom stayed in the business as a waitress for a few years of my childhood, and I hung out where she worked.  

In the summer of 1993 I visited Dallas for the summer between my junior and senior year in high school.  My uncle, Al Biernat, invited me down to work with him as a busboy at The Palm in Dallas.  At the time my restaurant resume included a stint as a dishwasher at Big Boy and a server position at another casual Michigan restaurant. 

Leaving small town Michigan and being thrown head first into one of Dallas’ see-and-be-scene restaurants of the nineties was quite a revelation.  At the time, The Palm was the place for business lunches and deal making steak & lobster dinners (I still remember cracking the gigantic lobster claws over my knee to get them open).  I quickly learned the life lesson, “it’s not what you know; it’s who you know.”  But I was still a kid and not sure what I wanted to do with my life.  I enrolled into El Centro Community College, moved into an efficiency apartment, and life seemed to be on track.  But, let’s just say being young, single and having plenty of friends in the restaurant and bar business wasn’t the best combination for excelling in the classroom!  Plus, I was really missing my family back in Michigan.  So I returned and enrolled at Central Michigan University student and began working in a nut & bolt plant.  It wasn’t too bad.  I worked in the engineering department but, after sitting in a cubical for a few months, I longed to be back working in the hustle and stress of a restaurant. I also longed to get the heck out of the bitter cold and gloomy days of the Michigan winter.  I said thank you, but no thank you, to the engineering department, begged Uncle Al for my job back, and moved to Dallas – round two. 

A highly coveted server position opened up at the Palm, and I had to take it.  At the ripe old age of twenty, I was enjoying a steady income and being the midst of Dallas’ movers and shakers.  It was then that I was introduced to Campbell Agency, a talent agency in Dallas.  While continuing my gig as a server at The Palm, I started doing print and runway modeling for companies like Pepsi, JCPenney, Radio Shack, Dickies, and Nokia.  I met some really fun people and enjoyed every bit of it.   

While I was living it up, Uncle Al was planning his namesake restaurant on Oak Lawn. In 1998 I remember showing up for work one night at The Palm to co-workers in shock that Al had quit.  Tony Tamaro, the corporate chef for the Palm, pointed right at me and said, “I know you’re going!”  I was offered a server position at the Palm in New York which was pretty tempting for a 21 year old.  I checked in often with Al while his restaurant was under construction and once he offered me a management position at his restaurant, New York was put on hold forever.   

I had no management experience, but I learned from the best.  I enrolled into the school of Al Biernat, but the school of Al Biernat proved to be a lot of trial and error for the first few years of the restaurant’s operation.  I split from Uncle Al for about nine months in 2001 and went to work at Salve! with Phil and Janet Cobb, Wayne Broadwell and Kevin Ascolese.  This experience made me realize that I was not too bad of a restaurant manager.  I also realized that I missed working with Al. 

Al missed me too evidently, so I went back as a part time manager/waiter.  Now married to my wonderful wife Cassie, I spent the next few years at Al’s while also flirting with the idea of pursuing a career in advertising.  But, Uncle Al made an offer I couldn’t refuse and, in 2006, I was promoted to general manager.  Working at Al Biernat’s continues to be an adventure.  We will be open 11 years in June 2009, and business is thriving.  We are blessed to have one of the busiest restaurants in the city. 

I handle the day-to-day operations of the business, the advertising, the marketing, and enjoy life to the fullest.  Al is a great uncle, friend, and boss.  He is my mentor in the restaurant business and I live by his example on the dining room floor.  I guess you can say I’m an Al in training, but really we are a great team. 

The Dallas metroplex is a great city to call home.  Cassie, my wife of ten years and my two sons live in Allen.  We plan to stay in Dallas to raise our boys, and strive to carry on the legacy my uncle has created.