Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Abuso.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Joe. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve been a chef in top-notch restaurants for many years, including Café Annie here in Houston and The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. I then went on to be the chef/owner at Abuso Catering Co., one of the most successful, high-end operations in the city. After a great run of almost 20 years, 12 years ago I sold the company and started doing Food & Beverage consulting.
About five years ago, I was hired to develop an in-house dining program from the ground up at an established senior-living community. I worked on that project for two years, learning the industry, developing every facet of the operation and instituting a very popular program that is still in place. That project opened my eyes to the senior-living dining industry, and what a quickly-growing, changing and underserved market it is.
As the Greatest Generation is replaced by the oldest Baby Boomers as the principal demographics of this industry, the standards and expectations for food are changing. No longer is Institutional, “Hospital Food” accepted as sufficient. The new residents didn’t live through the depression, have never done without, have traveled the world and expect and demand great, varied, made-from-scratch food.
I developed Recipes & Rotations – Real Food for Mom and Dad as the perfect tool for any senior-living community to be able to easily prepare and serve real comfort food, drawn from a variety of ethnic and regional favorites. It’s Real Food – the kind that the residents have enjoyed for years.
Has it been a smooth road?
Overall, it’s been very good. There were a lot of things to deal with that didn’t exist in the world of fine dining, which is what I was used to. Senior dining is tightly regulated, with many facets needing the approval of Registered Dietitians. It was a finite group of hurdles to overcome and, once we understood them, and found some like-minded colleagues, it was easy. There is also some resistance from operators who would rather not change the way they operate. But the truth is, doing business as usual is not really an option if they want to stay viable.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
The gist of what we do is help operators of senior-living communities transition from a traditional, institutional foodservice concept to more of a culinary/hospitality model. I spent a lot of time learning exactly what the operations in a typical senior-living dining department are like. My product is a web-based subscription service, offering these facilities menus (“rotations,” in the industry lingo), recipes and associated tools. They are chef-developed, Dietitian-approved and VERY user-friendly.
I have spent a lifetime in the highest levels of fine dining, have thoroughly learned the senior-living dining industry, and have made a sincere effort to offer a product that bridges the two worlds in a very practical, useful way.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I’ve always felt that Houston is the best city in the world for anyone to start a business. Nowhere else are people as open to the new kid on the block succeeding. If you work hard and provide a great product, you’ll succeed here, and the City will be glad to see it happen.
Contact Info:
- Address: 6711 Stella Link, Houston, TX 77005
- Website: https://recipesandrotations.com/
- Phone: 7134443467
- Email: joeabuso@mac.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recipesrotations/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Recipes-Rotations-471915656683447/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecipesRotation
Image Credit:
All photos of Joe alone are copyright: Alexander Rogers.
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