Executive Team: Jamie Kaye

Jamie comes to the Met Restaurant Group with twenty six years of experience in the hospitality industry.  He says “I thought I’d seen it all and done it all but when I saw the Met Bar and Grill for the first time I knew it was going to be a home run and I wanted in”. 
Though he set out on a conventional route, the journey through the industry has been hardly conventional. In 1985 Jamie was hired at the Los Angeles Hard Rock Café as the first “official” management trainee. He managed the San Francisco HRC, and finally settled at the HRC Houston as the General Manager, which became the training location for Gm’s for locations all over the country.
Though the six year experience with the Hard Rock Café was a great starting point he wanted more culinary involvement and experience. Jamie was hired by Pino Luongo (Coco Pazzo,Le Madri, Tuscan Square), in 1992 to run the Piccola Cucina concept at Barney’s New York in both Houston and Dallas. He remembers “The food experience was over the top there.  I was introduced to Tuscan cuisine at a time when everyone in America was just discovering it for the first time”.
In 1995 Jamie started his own restaurant, Carmines Big Tomato.” I wanted to capitalize on my Tuscan food experience but also wanted to combine it with familiar Italian American classics. Chick pea and clam soup is great, but there are always people who stick to pizza, Caesar salad, and spaghetti and meatballs.”  For those two years Jamie hand baked every loaf of bread and foccacia, made homemade mozzarella, stuffed ravioli, made fresh pasta, and all desserts. If he learned anything it was, owning a restaurant and working in one are two different things...”if someone breaks a glass or plate everyone claps, when it’s yours you cry!”
In 1998 Jamie moved to Boston Massachusetts as the Gm of Stephanie’s on Newbury. At its first inception Stephanie’s was a gourmet food shop and bakery with a small bar and about 90 seats. After several renovations, today Stephanie’s is a 300 seat full service restaurant and bar and is a Boston instititution.
In 2005 Jamie started Fit Chef Meals, which is a healthy, low fat, made to order catering company which services about 50 clients from housewives looking to shed a couple of pounds to body builders looking to gain a few pounds.
In addition Jamie attended Cornell University  school of Industrial and Labor Relations and has owned and opened, as a partner, or managed, several bars, nightclubs, and restaurants,  and has been in the restaurant design and food service equipment business.