The Columbus Hospitality Group is one of the premier hospitality groups and restaurant groups in the Boston area. If you’ve ever been to Mistral, Sorellina, XV Beacon, Ostra, Gary’s or any of the Mooo restaurants, then you’re familiar with Columbus. Lisa Flores is director of sales and marketing for the company, and she joined GBH’s Henry Santoro recently to talk about the hospitality business, and specifically women in that industry. The transcript is shortened an edited for clarity. For the full interview, click on the “listen” button above.
Henry Santoro: In our chatter before we turned on the microphones, we learned that we have a lot of friends in common. You’ve been in Boston for 25 years. You moved here from Texas to attend Boston University. And to make a few bucks, you got a job as a hostess at Mistral, one of the top restaurants in the city. Did you have any idea of the caliber of restaurant it was before you started working there?
Lisa Flores: I had no idea. I didn’t know what it was. It was like this mysterious Mistral in the background, and I worked retail on Newbury Street. Two women worked there, they were managers that said, “You should apply and be a hostess.” And when I first went to interview, I couldn’t find it. I walked back and forth ... finally, Mark D’Alessandro grabbed me for the interview and then my next interview was with our friend Seth Greenberg.
Santoro: And he put you right in the payroll.
Flores: I think he did, yes.
Santoro: Yes, and you have been on the payroll ever since for 25 years. So walk us through how you went from being a hostess to an important position in this company.
Flores: I was at Boston University as a hostess, and I was a hostess at Mistral, and I feel there is something incredibly special. I don’t gamble, I don’t feel like I’m lucky, but I knew at that point there was something special about Mistral and that I should continue there. When we graduated, all my friends went off to New York, and they were moving and stayed and worked as a full-time hostess. I got promoted to maître d’, and then shortly after, the reservations manager, special events manager, where I worked with our friend, Megan Cormier. And then after that, I was promoted again, and then I became the director of sales and marketing.
Santoro: And you’ve been here long enough, and you’ve seen your own career keep blossoming. And you’ve seen how other women have done the same in other restaurant groups.
Flores: Yes. I have been lucky enough to know many wonderful chefs and owners. Joanne Chang, she collaborated with us right before she opened Flour, which I think is amazing. And she is still close friends with Chef Jamie Mammano. I love to see that connection still. Jody Adams [of A Street Hospitality], I worked with a lot of her team. Her former event managers were best friends of mine, and her former publicist.
Santoro: She’s on fire.
Flores: We’ve started a networking organization together called SERV for restaurant event managers. And we’re very excited about that... We started this 10 years ago. It stands for Society for Event Planner’s Restaurant Venue. It’s a networking and educational platform for event managers. It’s for event managers specifically in restaurants, but we also work with vendors and restaurant owners, and we help develop their team and get them into that same space for contracting and education and mentoring. We have hundreds of members in Boston, and our next seminar is next week on April 1 and it’s talking about the value of private events.
