High Cotton works to put its best faces forward
Although High Cotton has anchored a prominent chunk of real estate in downtown Greenville since 2007, the people behind the restaurant haven’t been as visible as they would like. Greenville is a community that knows its restaurant owners better than its chefs and managers, but High Cotton’s new general manager Chet Green and executive chef Adrian Carpenter have been tasked with changing that.
Green has worked for large and small companies in the Northeast, and Carpenter developed his career in Colorado and Oregon. At four and six weeks on the job, respectively, they sat down with UBJ to discuss their vision for their piece of the Maverick Southern Kitchens group.
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What are your big plans in for Greenville?
CG: The opportunity to come back to South Carolina, where I’m from, is a great thing for me. But it was also a big thing for me to get back to working with people who I liked and respected and could learn from every day. In my interview I saw Adrian nodding in agreement with a lot of what I was saying.
Coming back to a smaller company, I feel like we have a chance to be the premier restaurant in Greenville. I think that although people in Greenville like the fact that [president Dick Elliott] brought a Maverick Southern restaurant here from Charleston, they want this place to stand on its own.
AC: I’ve had it on my radar for quite a while to get back to the South. I see the Southeast as an opportunity to grow in the culinary and hospitality community. New York, Chicago and San Francisco are developed and will keep doing what they do. What I see for Atlanta, Greenville and Charleston is a real opportunity to land on the map. The Southeast is the one place in the culinary and hospitality world that’s continuing to grow and has an opportunity to step up and become something special. We are close to the Appalachian Mountains and I’d like to see a little bit more representation of the foothills in the food.
What did you bring back from your years out west?
AC: Farm-to-table has been alive out there longer, so bringing those ideals home and helping with that movement. There’s a lot of opportunity in Greenville. There are a lot of farmers, foragers and purveyors out there who need someone to kind of help lift them up and put them on the map, if you will.
There’s also the west coast style, which brings a little bit cleaner, more natural flavors into the food.
How will you connect better with the community?
AC: Through relationships – with the food community, business owners and the everyday citizen. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of work to go out and greet neighboring businesses, the folks at Starbucks, the security guard in the parking garage, charities – all these things that have an impact on people. Getting out in the community takes a lot of effort.
DC: I really think from all my past endeavors that the business that we’re in, the hectic and frenetic pace at which we go sometimes doesn’t lend itself well to 8 a.m. chamber meetings. I think that kind of keeps restaurateurs from being better connected. So in January I certainly look to get active in those kinds of things and be vocal and seen. I think it’s important.
Being so new, what’s your sense of how people see High Cotton?
CG: I think they see us as one of the top restaurants in Greenville. I think the only negative is that there has been a different GM here and there, and they’re looking to come in and have that “Cheers” effect and that stability in the both of us. Mr. Elliott wants people to recognize me when I walk down the street.
Any surprises so far?
AC: There are a lot of little hidden parts of Greenville. A lot of ethnic areas to check out, different foods and cuisine. You can see it developing all over the place.
CG: Not one single person has said anything negative about Greenville. They don’t even go, “yeah, but…” I’ve never heard people rave about a police force before. They don’t have to convince me, though: I just adapt. Move, change, adapt.
