Jesse Goldstein is on a roll. The North Carolina native has already established his reputation in town as a shrewd marketer through his own company, Food Sheriff Consumable Marketing. In his Trinity Lane facility, Goldstein develops and tests food and drink recipes taking advantage of the best-stocked bar this side of The Patterson House and a phat kitchen filled with brand-new KitchenAid equipment. In addition to recipe development, Food Sheriff offers photography and video services for food and drink brands.
This is all in addition to Goldstein's work as one of the co-founders of 3st of the Month, a series of events where wine and spirits enthusiasts gather on the third day of every month to celebrate "booze, food and all the good things in life." Although the 3rst series is currently on winter hiatus, it was showing tremendous momentum over its first year. During the downtime, Goldstein has put together a new partnership with Fresh Hospitality. The management of Fresh has also been quite busy of late, announcing new additions to their portfolio of 13 restaurant concepts, which includes Biscuit Love, Taziki's and Martin's Bar-B-Que. Their model of partnering with local operators to share revenues allows them to pursue rapid geographical growth, and they currently manage more than 100 separate restaurant locations.
Together, Goldstein and Fresh Hospitality have formed Fresh Branding to offer full-service branding and marketing services for food and beverage specialty businesses, including the brands owned by the parent company. In addition to the standard logo development, branding, menu design and website services that are offered by many marketing companies, Fresh Branding will also assist in catalog creation and merchandise fulfillment, two areas of expertise that Goldstein brings to the dining table from his experience working with the Loveless Cafe for nine years. He had worked his way up to brand manager when he left in 2013 to start his own company.
While this is much of a business story as it is a food story, this is another one of those behind-the-scenes developments that demonstrate how important Nashville has become to the dining industry as a whole. As we (deservedly) heap praise on our independent restaurateurs and thank them with our patronage for their efforts in the kitchen, it's important to remember how many jobs are associated with the fact that Middle Tennessee houses the headquarters for large restaurant companies like Fresh Hospitality, Captain D's, Shoney's, Cracker Barrel, O'Charley's, J. Alexander's and others.Â
We're a great restaurant city in more than one way, and that's a good thing.
