Looking for a challenging and versatile career? Consider food and restaurant PR. But if you think this career is all about schmoozing and dining in top-notch restaurants, think again. This job is demanding and requires a multitude of skills. Professionals in this industry must be quick-witted, self-motivated, resourceful, and energetic. Julia Child once said “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” Meet four public relations professionals who are all passionate about their careers in food and restaurant public relations.

Wendy Reisman is the Corporate Director of Food and Beverage Public Relations for the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. The Ritz-Carlton operates 57 hotels worldwide and has future plans for major expansion in Europe, Australia, Asia, North America, Latin America and the Middle East.

StarChefs : What drew you to work for this company? How did you get this job?
Wendy Reisman: I was drawn to this company because of its reputation for service and quality in the luxury hospitality industry. I was particularly interested in their food and beverage division. Fortunately, the Ritz-Carlton recognizes career goals and expertise. My background and interest was in restaurant PR, so when this position was created, they fulfilled my goal of growing within the company.

SC: How would you describe the company culture?
WR: There’s a mutual respect and uncompromising service for each other and for all our guests. The Ritz-Carlton follows the motto: "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”

SC: Have you always been interested in this area of work? How did you prepare yourself for this work?
WR: I started in this business as a feature and food journalist, though I actually wanted to be a chef. I realized restaurant and chef public relations was a perfect way to employ both interests. From there, it was a matter of studying journalism and then seeking a job in the field. I gained a lot of information about this field by researching and phoning various companies within the industry.

SC: What kind of training, education, or course work is required?
WR: It’s helpful to have a background in marketing strategies, writing and all technical aspects of journalism. It’s also essential to gain experience and create relationships within the industry. Most importantly, you must have passion.

SC: What skills or talents are most essential in this career?
WR: Good “schmoozing” skills are important. You should also be able to recognize where “the story” really is and whether the media will find your story appealing and newsworthy.

SC: What personal qualities are important for your career?
WR: Infinite patience, a good sense of humor, a strong constitution, and again, passion.

SC: What is a typical day like for you?
WR: There rarely is a “typical” day. There is a great deal of diversity in my day and that is one of the reason’s my career is so enjoyable.

SC: What is the most satisfying part of your job?
WR: Getting a major story on one or many of our chefs and restaurants.

SC: What is the least satisfying part of your job?
WR: Getting edited out of a major story.

SC: What are the toughest problems you deal with?
WR: Once again, the problems are very diverse, but so are the solutions.

SC: What are the opportunities for advancement in this field? Is any additional training necessary?
WR: In this company, the sky’s the limit. You can go wherever you wish and there are always opportunities for growth.

SC: What is the current and future demand for people in this occupation?
WR: With the constant opening and closing of restaurants as well as the “chef as celebrity” phenomenon constantly on the rise, I think there will be a bigger demand for PR professionals in this industry.

SC: What advice would you give to someone wanting to enter this field?
WR: Get plenty of rest…now.

Kara Slife is the President of Slife Public Relations. Prior to breaking out on her own, she was the Executive Director of Wagstaff Worldwide, Inc. in Los Angeles, California. Wagstaff is a hospitality public relations firm with offices in Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.

StarChefs: How did you get your start with Wagstaff? What drew you to work their company?
Kara Slife: Since I was very young, I loved going to restaurants. My first job was in a restaurant, working in both the front of the house and in the kitchen. While attending University of Southern California’s School of Journalism, I interned for several public relations and advertising firms. These internships enabled me to gain a true understanding of the business while learning about different companies in the field. After graduating with a degree in public relations, my passion for the food and restaurant business led me in search of a career in a public relations company that specializes in the hospitality industry. Frustrated with the options that were in front of me, I enrolled in the California School of Culinary Arts, a division of the Cordon Bleu. Soon after I graduated, I was introduced to Mary Wagstaff by one of my chef instructors. Mary had just formed her new hospitality public relations company, Wagstaff Worldwide. I was the first employee she hired.

SC: How would you describe the company culture?
KS: Our company is constantly growing. In the past four years we have grown from two to over twenty employees in three different cities. Our office environment is casual and comfortable. We work together on a daily basis to generate ideas, share thoughts, and create results for our clients. We put in a lot of effort, but enjoy what we do, the people we work with, and the clients that we work for.

SC: Have you always been interested in this area of work? How did you prepare yourself for this work?
KS: Restaurants and the restaurant business have intrigued me since I was very young. I remember sitting up on the bars at restaurants on several occasions, watching the bartenders and being fascinated by the work that they do. I have an amazing amount of respect for chefs, restaurateurs, and the restaurant business as a whole. I have studied the business inside and out. Attending culinary school gave me the insight and knowledge that is critical to what I do. I understand the obstacles that restaurateurs are up against, as well as the evolution of a cuisine and the people involved in this constant development. Knowing all this helps me communicate efficiently with my clients and media. This business allows me to learn from top talents in the industry and then share these experiences with people I talk to everyday. And I get paid for it – not a bad deal.

SC: What kind of training, education, or course work is required?
KS: There are no requirements in terms of training or education. It is important to have an understanding of public relations and marketing. Interest in and knowledge of the restaurant business is key.

SC: What skills or talents are most essential in this career?
KS: Writing and editing skills are essential. It is also important to have good people skills and sales skills. You must also be self-motivated and organized.

SC: What personal qualities are important?
KS: You must be personable, knowledgeable, sociable, outgoing, creative, passionate, and self- disciplined, to name a few.

SC: What kinds of prior experiences are absolutely essential?
KS: Real life experiences such as dining out, traveling, cooking, entertaining, writing, reading/watching/listening to various mediums and how the media shapes and affects our society are all helpful experiences to have, but they are not essential.

SC: What is a typical day like for you?
KS: Typically, my mornings are spent on the phone, talking to the top media - writers, editors, and producers- about our clients. In addition, I spend my mornings pitching and developing story ideas to generate coverage that will make an impact on our clients’ business. My afternoons are filled meeting with clients and with my staff. At this point, I am also following through with requests and tasks generated by my morning conversations, brainstorming ideas and strategizing client agendas, writing press releases, and other materials. My evenings usually involve going to my client’s restaurants and dining with media and/or checking out what the other chefs and restaurateurs are up to.

SC: What is the most satisfying part of your job?
KS: Seeing and hearing that my clients’ restaurants are packed every night. I enjoy hearing that someone read a great story about one of my restaurants and when a client is selected for a top honor in his or her field. It is very gratifying to read a story I pitched and developed with the writer in print, and seeing the positive affects on my clients’ business. It’s also amazing to be able to work with people that I have idolized since I was a child.

SC: What are some of the toughest problems you deal with?
KS: There are never enough hours in the day, and I am constantly trying to figure out the patterns of diners and new trends in the industry.

SC: What are the opportunities for advancement in this field? Is any additional training necessary?
KS: You must continuously build your knowledge base if you want to excel in this career. Dining out, reading everything related to the industry and meeting as many people as you can is essential. Always keeping an ear to the ground is good training in this business, believe it or not. Being able to see the bigger picture for your clients, and not only spot trends, but create trends within the media are some qualities that make a restaurant publicist successful. This is a very personal business, so if you don’t truly love it, it will show – on your face, in your work, and in your paycheck.

SC: What is the current and future demand for people in this occupation?
KS: There is a huge demand for people that can do this job well. Chefs are celebrities these days, and publicists are the professionals who build that celebrity image in the public’s eye.

SC: What advice would you give someone wanting to enter this field?
KS: Call me.

Rose Marie Morse is the Founder and President of Morse Partners, established in 1996. This boutique firm, located in New York City, focuses its efforts on Public Relations for food and culture publications.

StarChefs: How did you get this job?
Rose Marie Morse: I founded Morse Partners because I found that in my then-current career as editor at William Morrow, I was always promoting books. I decided that if I was doing a publicist’s job, then I should just be one. Since food has been a primary interest of mine since my childhood in Italy, I decided to direct my publicity efforts towards professionals in the food industry.

SC: How would you describe the company culture?
RMM: We are a small, boutique company and our hard work revolves around a very important time: lunch. Since this is a home-office, we are able to cook from the various books we publicize.

SC: Have you always been interested in this line of work? How did you prepare yourself for this work?
RMM: My business partner, Kary Keiffer, has been in the food industry for nearly twenty years. She was a caterer, teacher, restaurant cook and a butcher. I’ve been in publishing for nearly 25 years. So between the two of us, we know food.

SC: What kind of training, education or course work is required?
RMM: A college education or equivalent life-experience is required. You must be able to listen, observe, identify trends and write prose.

SC: What skills or talents are most essential to this career?
RMM: You must be organized and lively over the phone. You must also have many facts at your fingertips and remember that no one pays you sufficiently to give away an ounce of your integrity.

SC: What personal qualities are important?
RMM: Curiosity and the ability to identify the talents of others.

SC: What kind of prior experiences are absolutely essential?
RMM: Reading, writing, organization, and networking.

SC: What is a typical day like for you?
RMM: During the course of a day, I talk to potential clients and current clients. I pitch stories to various press and media. We usually take an hour to eat a home-cooked lunch and then hit the phones again.

SC: What is the most satisfying part of your job?
RMM: Getting a hit.

SC: What is the least satisfying part?
RMM: Spending hours writing client reports.

SC: What are some of the toughest problems you deal with?
RMM: The occasional disconnect between a client’s actual talents and the vision he/she has of themselves.

SC: What are the opportunities for advancement in this field? Is any additional training necessary?
RMM: Certainly, someone who works for Morse Partners can go and work for a much larger firm. Ours is a small firm, but there’s an advantage here in that each one of us works on all the clients. Variety makes for continued interest.

SC: What is the current and future demand for people in this occupation?
RMM: Given the volume of books that are published in the food area, I think there will be a greater demand for publicity-savvy people in the future.

SC: What advice would you give someone wanting to enter this field?
RMM: It is a fun and lively field. You should keep your ear to the ground and try to meet as many people as possible. Eat good food so that you know what you are talking about. Read some of the seminal authors in this field.

Liz Goliwas is President/Owner of EFG and Associates. In addition, Liz also does public relations and marketing for restaurant and food/wine related business in New Orleans. She works with several fine dining restaurants as well as the New Orleans Wine and Food Experience. Liz also co-publishes and is the art director for Culinary Concierge Magazine.

StarChefs: How did you get into this business?
Liz Goliwas: I sort of "fell" into a job with Ralph Brennan about 10 years ago. I was with that The Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group for over 5 years. I started there right before he was named President of the National Restaurant Association. It was my fist job and I loved learning the ins and outs of the restaurant industry through his eyes. I began as Ralph’s personal assistant and my career grew quickly thereafter. I later left that company and my title as Director of Marketing and became part of the opening team of three new restaurant concepts and was then able to observe every detail of how a restaurant concept is named, marketed, and developed. I learned everything ranging from where telephone lines need to be installed to how large a walk-in needs to be. It was fun and I loved dealing with the press. I opened my own business about 5 years ago because I love doing public relations work for restaurants. I find pleasure in working with my clients and seeing results.

SC: How would you describe the company culture?
LG: I work out of my home so the culture is comfort but non-stop hard work. I am always on a deadline.

SC: Have you always been interested in this area of work? How did you prepare yourself for this work?
LG: I grew up in New Orleans in a family that loves to cook. Food has always been a natural part of my life.

SC: What kind of training, education, or course work do you have?
LG: I have a history degree from Tulane University, but I wish I had focused more of my college education on marketing courses. However, my degree has helped me learn how to pay better attention to detail and tell a story in an interesting way.

SC: What skills or talents are most essential in this career?
LG: You must truly love people. The most important thing I do is work with people - communicating effectively and in a timely manner.

SC: What personal qualities are important?
LG: The ability to work all the time and still love it. I am constantly thinking about what I can do to help get the word out about current promotions.

SC: What kinds of prior experiences are absolutely essential?
LG: Knowing how a restaurant operates is invaluable. This is part of what makes me marketable. I know how the kitchen works and I understand how a menu needs to read, from both a marketing perspective as well as from an operations perspective. I also recognize how important staff is to a restaurant. If I am dining with a food writer, there is almost nothing as important as attentive staff. They can make up for almost any other flaw.

SC: What technology can you not live without?
LG: Definitely email. When I first started working we didn’t even have a fax machine! Today, I don’t know what I would do without e-mail. Dealing with the press in a timely manner is essential. People often comment on how quickly I respond to media requests. Sometimes if you are not fast enough, you miss the coverage. You can't take that risk in this business. I have every client's full press kit available via e-mail including photos, recipes, press release, and bios, ready to distributed at any moment.

SC: What is the most satisfying part of your job? Least?
LG: I love getting national coverage for my clients. The least satisfying is actually the amount of time I need to be dining in the restaurants. I know that sounds crazy, but eating can be hard work sometimes.

SC: What are the toughest problems you deal with?
LG: I am at a point where I either need to expand my company and hire more employees or stay where I am. It is a big decision, to develop and expand my business or stay small.

SC: What is the current and future demand for people in this occupation?
LG: There will always be a demand for good, attentive public relations professionals in the restaurant world. Reputations are built on public relations, and sales are built on reputations, so the demand works both ways.

SC: What advice would you give someone wanting to enter this field?
LG: Get agency experience. I always wished I had true agency experience. I did it the other way around - I built my career working in the restaurant company. Agency experience would have really helped me, especially in the beginning.