Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul C. Reilly.
Hi Paul, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started washing dishes and bussing tables in a very traditional German restaurant in the town I grew up in Westchester county, NY when I was 14. One day the prep cook didn’t show up and the chef called me over to help. I remember peeling carrots and thinking how fun it was. I kept working in kitchens through high school and worked as a short-order cook at foolish Craig’s cafe in boulder during college to make pocket money for beer.
I had a friend that worked at a higher-end restaurant across town and one day he invited me in to hang out in the kitchen and I was more than intrigued. After college, I was a little lost w my literature degree, so I kept cooking in telluride, co. That’s where I worked at 2 restaurants both using high-end ingredients it was the first time id seen more mushrooms, foie gras, and seasonal menus and I was hooked. I moved back to NYC to attend culinary school at FCI and was living and working and fully immersing myself in the restaurant and food culture of NYC.
I worked at various restaurants and for leaders of seasonal cuisine for the next few years including Michael McCarty and peter Hoffman. I eventually settled at Danal, 4 blocks south of the union square greenmarket where I worked for Ronna welsh and we would shop the greenmarket 3 days a week to plan our menus. I left NYC to take a break from the hustle and bustle and took a job back in colorado w the intention of moving back to Brooklyn. A few months later I met my wife, Shannon. In 2008, I became a chef partner with the black pearl group while manning the kitchen at the encore.
2 years later the owners put the encore up for sale, and that’s when I got the crazy idea to buy it but I needed a strong presence, so I called my sister Aileen who’d been running concepts for Marriott in Los Angeles the last few years. We ran encore together for the next 3 years before the lease ended and we moved on in 2012. For the remainder of 2012, we both honed our skills in NYC, France, and Italy and came back to Denver to open beast + bottle in march of 2013, featuring farm, focused food and working with Colorado’s best farmers and ranchers.
Beast was no stranger to the city’s highest accolades before its closure in 2021. In the summer of 2016, we opened coperta, featuring seasonal wood-fired fare with deep roots in roman and southern Italian traditions. We briefly had a roman style pizzeria in a food hall before it was forced to close due to the covid 19 pandemic. In late 2021, we opened apple blossom downtown celebrating the best of American seasons with breakfast, lunch, brunch, and dinner daily.
I am a large ambassador of the good food movement working closely with many groups including boulder county farmers markets, slow food USA, James beard foundation smart catch, and the Monterey bay aquarium blue ribbon task force. I live in Arvada with Shannon and our three kids; grace, Owen, and Quinn. When not cooking at my restaurants I enjoy skiing, camping, listening to records, and cooking at home.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are too many struggles to name: as a young cook, learning how to properly season food, learning to cook with integrity, when no one is watching not taking myself too seriously. It’s just dinner, we’re not curing cancer, being able to let go, spending time with my family at home versus my family at work, training new cooks, being patient, staffing restaurants, opening restaurants, closing restaurants, turning my brain off, taking care of myself.
On the flip side, when I look back at a young Paul as a greenhorn in the kitchen, I have achieved what I set out to do, own my award-winning successful restaurants. that’s pretty powerful. it also comes with great responsibility, greater than a younger version of myself could’ve ever imagined
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
These days, I don’t cook in the kitchen as much as I have over the past 20 years. this is something new to me and I’m still learning how to be good at it. I’m used to rolling out my knife kit and knocking out a prep list and service for hours on end. I have taken more of a culinary director role now. I am an owner, leader, coach, cheerleader, therapist, and father of the restaurants.
I still love to clank pots in the kitchen and I miss the creative side a lot but my skill set now lends itself to being more productive not in the kitchen 15 hours per day. I am known for singing in the kitchen. no seriously. I have a robust Irish tenor voice and singing ridiculous songs while I work makes me happy.
I am most proud that many people who have worked in our kitchens and our restaurants have told me that in addition to creating kick ass food and drink they also look back on their time with us fondly, that they learned something and that it was a fun place to work, not fun like drinking and partying. But fun like you could be silly, but know when to turn it off and be a professional and provide an experience for our guests. Restaurant work is hard. If you’re not having fun, it must be miserable.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
My greatest resource to keep my head above at work are my business partners, Aileen and JP. I couldn’t do this without them, I pretty much bounce all of my cockamamie ideas off them and there are some out there. They help keep me grounded and push me when I become stagnant. I am blessed to be surrounded by amazing family and friends in my life.
Both industry and non they make me laugh. That’s how I keep going. I have a stupid amount of cookbooks and cooking-related literature that probably drives my wife crazy. it’s a venerable library. it makes me happy and believes it or not I find inspiration in all of them. I also read a ton. I don’t watch a lot of TV.
Mainly because my family never lets me have the remote and I usually fall asleep quickly if I do. I was once a literature major and reading fiction is my jam. I make time to do it nightly. I also am an author. I have published works in local periodicals mostly advocacy and cooking-related. I hope one day to take that craft further. I should’ve been a musician, but it probably is dead if I was.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @chefpcr
Image Credits
@hirezphotography, @beastandbottlegroup, @appleblossomdenver, and @copertadenver
