Tulla White is a fourth-generation restaurateur. He opened his first restaurant, The Basil Leaf, in LaGrange in 2001, when he was just 25 years old. By the time he was featured on our cover in 2006, he operated four restaurants, all in downtown LaGrange, and a catering business, employing a total of 55 people. Today, of those four restaurants, White still operates the Italian restaurant Venucci along with his catering business.
Major takeaways from your years in the hospitality industry?
Take care of your people. I don’t think that’ll ever change. As long as the food is good and consistent, you can have some hiccups with service, you can have some hiccups with other things. If the food is great, they’ll overlook some of that.
How do you feel the hospitality industry has changed since 2006?
The Internet and accessibility. When I started in 2001, the Internet was here but you couldn’t go to your phone and say “Hey, we’re coming through from Atlanta to Columbus. Are there any restaurants that are off the interstate that we can check out?” You didn’t have that kind of accessibility. You weren’t able to look on somebody’s page and say “Oh okay, they’ve got 4.5 stars. Let me click on their menu.” To me that’s really changed people’s dining habits. They can look within a matter of seconds and decide if they want to come to you and give you a try or not.
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