Grace 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award
Winner: Karen I. Bremer, consultant , Bremer Consulting
For more than 30 years, behind the doors of Dailey’s and City Grill, tucked into the kitchen at Mick’s and the Pleasant Peasant, there was Karen Bremer. Since 1981, she has been there, working to build a business, helping to strengthen the city’s restaurant industry and taking countless employees under her wing.
As President of the Peasant Restaurant Division of the Atlanta Dining Group, Bremer was the chief officer in a $26-million, multiunit, high-visibility citywide operation. In her first year as president, she increased the revenues of her division by 6% and overall profits by an impressive 7%. After three years as president of the Peasant Restaurants, she assumed ownership of two of its most popular restaurants, Dailey’s and City Grill, and began her own Atlanta-based company, Great Hospitality, LLC.
However, it is her commitment and dedication, her responsibility to the restaurant industry and her employees that drive Bremer.
“When one is in a leadership position and responsible for other human beings, I think you have the responsibility to give back to your community,” she says. “We take, so, therefore, we give back. I was brought up in a home where volunteerism was considered to be a part of who you are.”
She has served as past president of the Georgia Restaurant Association, treasurer of the Georgia Hospitality and Travel Association and was appointed in May 2002 to serve on the board of directors of the National Restaurant Association. She is on the board of directors of the Atlanta Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and a member of the executive board of the TEAM Georgia.
Although she didn’t know it at the time, the seeds of Karen’s career in the restaurant industry were planted when she was just 15 years old as a checker for S&S Cafeteria.
She went on to major in public relations, but after an internship with WR Grace Restaurant Company helping to open restaurants in California, she was hooked.
“I just fell in love with the opening of restaurants, and making the magic of a whole team of people coming together and serving people food and making sure there was hospitality, all of that.”
She has gone on to lead a successful career in the restaurant business. Unfortunately, like many in the restaurant industry, Great Hospitality could not outlast the economic downturn. In the summer of 2009, both Dailey’s and City Grill closed.
“When I closed the restaurants, the amount of letters I received, e-mails and telephone calls from regular customers and ex-employees – there’s been a tremendous amount of support within the community and from other restaurateurs, and that’s been very uplifting,” she says.
Although the closures were difficult for Karen, she vows to remain in the restaurant industry and recently launched her own consulting company.
“There’s this next chapter on hold for me,” she says. “You know, the true measure of your success at the end of the day is not what you’ve got in the bank; it’s the difference you make on those around you. We’re supposed to leave this place in better shape than when we found it.”
