General Manager, MTH Pizza in Symrna
At only 11 years old, an age when most kids wouldn’t dream of working, Christian Bowdoin voluntarily bussed tables at a family friend’s restaurant as an extra set of helping hands. When she could legally work, she got a hostess gig at the Wing Café in Marietta. She then quickly worked her way through nearly every front-of-house position at several restaurants until, eventually, she joined Muss & Turners in 2016.
Bowdoin, 36, has worked at every Muss & Turner location, in addition to a stint at its sister restaurants Local Three and Eleanor’s. “It’s good to know the ends and outs of all the restaurants,” she says. “I’ve seen so many different concepts [that] I’ve been able to take from each of our restaurants the things that I see work well and enjoy doing and implementing them and in my current space.”
Bowdoin not only carried over inspiration from her earlier positions to her current role at MTH Pizza but a sense of authenticity, positivity and complete comprehension of what it means and what it takes to be an incredible leader.
“The way you communicate with your staff is extremely important to get the results you need,” Bowdoin says. “Patience is probably a close second if not right there with [communication], because the restaurant industry is not for the thin-skinned. It can be very trying, but you cannot lose your cool with your guests or your staff or you lose their trust, and it’s all downhill from there.”
Besides communication and patience, Bowdoin focuses on cultivating a positive workspace for her staff to keep them engaged. During the team’s daily lineup before shifts, Bowdoin likes to implement some hands-on fun, like wine tastings and contests to reward the staff.
After the daily lineup ritual, Bowdoin doesn’t retreat to an office or isolate herself from the workplace grind. You’ll find her right alongside everyone else.
“You can’t manage from an office,” she says. “You’ve got to be on the floor and in it with your team. As long as you’re engaged, they’ll definitely be engaged right along with you.”
As far as the future’s concerned, Bowdoin isn’t too sure of what it holds for her or what she’s looking for exactly, but she stays passionate about creating successful, happy restaurants.
“Restaurants are about numbers,” says Bowdoin, “but right now more than ever it is really about our staff and making people happy.”
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