April 16, 2021 – Chef Mark Wright, retired Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Hospitality Management Department at Erie Community College North Campus in Buffalo New York; the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs Conseiller Culinaire Provincial for the Northeast Province; current American Culinary Federation (ACF) National Secretary; and candidate for ACF President, has nurtured hundreds of young culinarians in the last 40 years, first in kitchens and then in classrooms. Having compassion for his students gave him a little bit of a “softie” reputation but the proof as they say is in the pudding. Many of his students are achieving at the highest levels within the culinary profession and still seek out his advice to this day. “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. I must have done something right,” Chef Wright said to Chaîne during an April 8, 2021 telephone interview.
Compassion did not mean compromising learning standards when Mark guided students at Erie Community College. He felt students should not be overwhelmed when they begin college. They will be there for two to four years with plenty of time to overwhelm them after the first couple of semesters,” Mark noted with some humor yet clear concern for students who navigate the transition from high school to college.
Mark’s path to culinary excellence began inauspiciously in the early 1970s washing dishes in the kitchen of Buffalo’s Peppermill Restaurant. He remembers standing in one spot during his entire shift washing dishes by hand, a part-time job he had in high school. From that vantage point, he absorbed back-of-the-house operations. “I enjoyed the hustle and bustle,” Mark said. But it never occurred to him it could evolve into a career. As he approached his high school graduation, he looked around at colleges but the chef for whom he was working suggested culinary school. Erie Community College had a program so he enrolled even though the program’s focus was more on restaurant management than culinary arts.
Mark immersed himself in this new culinary world through his studies and work experience.
“Anything I’ve ever done, I’ve always put a lot of effort into it,” Mark said.
He joined the Buffalo chapter of the American Culinary Federation (ACF) becoming its first Junior member in the early 1970s. He is now the longest active member of the chapter. In the 1970s, ACF members in Buffalo included chefs from around the world who were drawn to Buffalo for its size (10th largest city in the nation at the time), many Clubs, elegant hotels, and large corporations. The International Food Service Executives Association started in Buffalo in 1901 and Ellsworth Statler, a legendary hotelier, built and opened the Buffalo Statler Hotel in 1907, providing many amenities to hotel guests for the first time. Chefs were drawn to the city from the earliest days of the 20th century into the 1980s. “Buffalo was a hopping town,” Mark said.
After graduating from college, Mark spent 28 years at the Transit Valley Country Club in East Amherst, New York with 25 of those years as Executive Chef. He took stock of his career during this time and could see the day when the pace of 12-hour days would catch up with him. He returned to college at Buffalo State University as a nontraditional student in their Food Systems Management program while keeping his full time job at the Club and raising a family.
As he nurtured his own career and his family, he followed a parallel track nurturing his staff at Transit Valley and then his students at Erie Community College where he worked for 21 years, 17 of which were as Department Chair. “There is no reason anybody needs to work 90 hours per week,” Mark said. As Executive Chef, he put in a few more hours than the traditional 40 hours a week but he never missed his kids’ hockey, football or lacrosse games or his daughter’s cross country meets. He may have shown up in his whites but he was there. And he wanted his staff to do the same. “You have to spend time with your family. You have to spend time doing things you like to do. We all need time off,” Mark said. He would sit down with his staff to plan ahead so requests for days off could be honored most of the time.
He joined the Buffalo Bailliage of the Chaine des Rotisseurs in 1981 and still remembers his first dinner at the Buffalo Club for which he rented a tuxedo. As Chaine’s current Conseiller Culinaire Provincial of the Northeast region, he will serve on the Jury for the 2021 Young Chefs Competition, a much anticipated event because last year’s competition was canceled due to the pandemic. The Northeast Province was able to hold a regional competition in 2021 and will send a chef to the finals at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas this June. Other events will take place in Kansas City, Missouri.
The ACF and the Chaîne are complementary organizations, Mark explained. The ACF’s accreditation program is second to none in the world. For example, the ACF Master Chef exam is an eight-day hands-on, rigorous examination. “I think it’s the premier exam in the world,” Mark said.
Young culinarians have defined career paths for accreditation through the ACF and scholarship opportunities through Chaine.
“Chaine and the ACF go well together. We’re doing as much as we can to help them and they’re doing as much as they can to help us,” Mark said. It’s always about the students. “We’re there to bring them up,” Mark added.
It’s a challenge as never before because of the pandemic, which has changed every aspect of the culinary industry. “It’s tough out there,” Mark said. He believes the “old normal” is in the rear view mirror. The new normal will be smaller restaurants, smaller staffs and less formal environments. He does not see many 150-seat, white tablecloth restaurants in the future. Well managed restaurants that focus on a specific niche will continue to survive and thrive. Currently, family friendly restaurants and plant-based cuisine are popular with guests.
Mark recommends Chaîne members reach out to local culinary schools and programs at community colleges to support young culinarians. National and regional competitions are wonderful but there are many things that can be done on the local level to support the next generation of chefs, Mark said. “We need to put some excitement back in the industry,” he noted.
What never changes is the recipe for success. A restaurant is one team, requiring the back-of-the-house to be regarded with the same importance as the front-of-the-house.
“The front-of-the-house, the Maître d, the servers, the busboys, the bartenders, and the sommeliers are just as important as the chefs and cooks in the back-of-the-house. But the most important person here is not any of these folks but the one washing our dishes,” Mark said. “We need to take care of them.”
Mark’s jar of honey is likely always full.
“It’s got to be a kinder, gentler world out there,” Mark said.
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Nice article about a great chef, great educator and a really good man :-). Buffalo Chaine is proud to claim him as our own.