RESTAURATEUR AND PHILANTHROPIST Steve Bidgood, owner of Salt Creek Grille in Rumson, was named Restaurateur of the Year by the New Jersey Restaurant & Hospitality Association, the organization announced Tuesday.
Bidgood, 58, will be honored at the group’s annual awards gala on Nov. 30 at Stone House in Stirling Ridge.
The winner is selected each year by a panel of fellow restaurateurs who have won the award in past years. Past winners include celebrity Chef David Burke and the Knowles Family, owner of the Manor in West Orange and a number of other restaurants.
NJRHA President Marilou Halvorsen said that criteria for consideration include commitment to the industry, charitable contributions and participation in their local community.
“It’s the highest award we bestow on someone in the industry,” Halvorsen said. Past winners submit nominations for the honor and deliberations are done in secret, she said. The winner doesn’t know they have been nominated until the winner is announced.
The award is a great honor for Bidgood, he says, because it is recognition from his peers in the business a business he’s worked in since he was 14 years old. Prior to joining Salt Creek in Dana Point, California in 1997, he worked for Chart House chain of seafood restaurants in the U.S. and the Caribbean for 16 years. Bidgood also won the NJRHA’s Gold Plate award in 2008.
Salt Creek Grille opened on the banks of the Navesink River in Rumson on April 15, 1998 with Bidgood as managing partner. He, along with co-owners Tim McCune and Hugh Preece, now own the Rumson location and Bidgood also oversees operations at Salt Creek’s Princeton restaurant with co-owner Preece.
“I’ve been in the restaurant business my whole life,” he said. “You have a lot of headaches in this business, but it’s still fun. It’s not boring, and every day is a new experience.”
Bidgood says the headaches of operating a busy restaurant are overshadowed by the satisfaction of meeting customers who tell him how much they enjoyed a meal, a drink or an event at Salt Creek.
While many restaurants struggled for survival during the economic downturn that began around 2008, Salt Creek stayed busy, offering special wine nights, complimentary food in the bar area and deep mid-week discounts.
Bidgood said Salt Creek was the only area restaurant to offer such discounts. “If you look around now, everyone is doing it,” he noted.
The biggest challenge the restaurateur faced in recent years was Superstorm Sandy which devastated much of the Jersey Shore on Oct. 29, 2012. Salt Creek was flooded with 4 ½ feet of water, destroying the building’s banquet room, rest rooms and storage on the lower level.
Bidgood said he called Joe Hemphill from Hemphill Construction, who was on site the next day, along with other contractors. The lower level was totally gutted, and 12 days later Salt Creek Grille opened its doors to storm-weary customers and weddings and family celebrations went on as scheduled.
NJRHA’s Halvorsen noted Salt Creek Grille’s contributions to the community as one of the criteria that made Steve Bidgood a standout in the industry. Under Bidgood’s leadership, Salt Creek Grille has raised more than $850,000 in 12 years at the restaurant’s annual Wine and Martini fundraiser. The most recent event in April raised $115,000 for the Kortney Rose Foundation, a local charity that funds research for pediatric brain cancer.
Bidgood is a long-time supporter of local charitable organizations, and serves on the boards of the Community YMCA and the Count Basie Theatre. NJRHA, previously known as NJRA, has more than 1,700 members in the restaurant and hospitality industry. According to NJRHA, New Jersey’s 25,000 eating and drinking establishments combined are the state’s largest private sector employer, generating $14.2 billion in annual sales and employing more than 318,000 people.
By Marion Lynch
Photo JACLYN SHUGARD
