BRIAN TWOMEY
Village People
Not so very long ago, 38-year-old Brian Twomey, the ambitious boy-
next-door behind restaurants The Common Table, Marquee Bar &
Grill, Village Theatre, and Loft 610, was a financial analyst—
intellectually stimulated, but itching to do his own thing. He knew he
had a choice: He could follow in his banker father’s footsteps slogging
through a career in marketing and finance, or he could play the
riskiest of hands—the restaurant hand—and in doing so run the risk
of failing on Dallas’ most visible stage.
His background was not entirely devoid of restaurant relevance.
Twomey majored in finance at Baylor and received an MBA in
marketing and entrepreneurship from the Cox School of Business at
Southern Methodist University. At his first career outpost, Citigroup,
he learned to walk and talk like a commercial lending analyst. At his
next stop, Pizza Hut Inc., he polished up his marketing chops,
managing a $2.5 billion sales portfolio.
“At Pizza Hut, I fell in love with idea of taking care of people and
designing products to meet a consumer need,” Twomey says. “Then,
when I moved to Coca-Cola as a customer insights consultant, I
suddenly had the world’s largest consumer insights database at my
fingertips. It didn’t take long for ideas to percolate.”
Two to three years in, Twomey started noticing a macro trend. People
were continuing to move to the suburbs for quality of life;
unfortunately, independent restaurants had yet to make the outward
move as well. So, with admirable vision, he opened Plano’s Loft 610, a
concept centered around aspirational urban living in the suburbs.
“Loft 610 was successful for the first two years. But once the economy
hit, it was harder and harder to have fine dining up there,” he says.
“There are a lot of rooftops up there but not a lot of single people
going out.”
Around the same time, Twomey partnered with Corey Pond. The duo
started layering their ideas—Pond is in the beer industry and Twomey
is in food. Together they opened Common Table in Uptown in June
2010.
“It all happened a lot faster than I anticipated,” he says. “My business
doubled in size in six months. Handling a second restaurant, faced
with what would become the biggest projects in my career thus far, I
knew it was time to sell and get out of Plano.”
Soon after the sale of Loft 610, a real estate agent told Twomey about
an opportunity at Highland Park Village. Turns out the owners, Ray
Washburne, et. al, had a grand vision to refresh the village and add
three new restaurant spaces. “The Realtor said, ‘I can probably get
you a meeting, but you’ll have to act fast,’ ” Twomey recalls. “It was
the chance of a lifetime, and I wanted to make sure I could get at least
one of my ideas developed, so I devised three different restaurant
concepts for the spaces, as well as one for the theater.” The first was a
sushi concept, the second a Japanese concept, and the third was a
straightforward concept based around the talents of Loft 610 chef Tre
Wilcox.
Twomey began seeking out funding and management partners. “I was
lucky enough to get in touch with Pizza Hut president [and former
COO of Yum! Brands] Peter Hearl,” he says. “I pitched him on the
idea during the ride home from a ranch weekend. I told him that, if I
was going to do this right, I needed help from an operational
standpoint. By the end of the ride, we had a deal.”
As part of Hearl’s due diligence, he summoned his son Mark, a vice
president with JPMorgan Chase, down from New York City to
evaluate the situation. “Mark and I are about the same age and hit it
off really well,” Twomey says. “On his last day he was here, we were
hanging out at Mi Cocina at Highland Park Village, and I said, ‘You
should come down here and be my partner, my COO.’”
It took a little leaning from all sides, but by June 2010, Mark was on
board. “He’s my partner in all aspects of operating Marquee Grill and
Village Theatre,” Twomey says “I’ve always been able to recognize the
power and importance of having the best possible people working
with you. If you can get that right, it makes everything else a hell of a
lot easier.”
After they got the green light from Washburne, Twomey and Hearl
embarked on a year of development. Between the first architectural
meeting in October 2009 to opening day in April 2011, the duo
completely reconstructed the restaurant and the Marquee Theatre
building—a tall order considering the theater’s spot on the National
Historic Registry. “We had to get town approval for every single thing
on the exterior that we wanted to touch,” Twomey says. “So we
thought long and hard about precisely what we wanted to create. We
built it so every part of the design is relevant.”
Then he set about assembling his dream team, bringing in Wilcox as
executive chef and Justin Beam (whose pedigree includes both
Fearing’s and Craft) as general manager. Beam then introduced
Twomey to Jason Kosmas, and the cocktail menu—and Marquee’s
talent core—solidified. Following an initial investment of $4 million
to $5 million, Twomey says, the Marquee/Village venture should
bring in better than $12 million this year.
“For a while, with the exception of my wife and children, Highland
Park Village was the most important thing in my life,” Twomey says.
“I put everything into that proposal. I left Coca-Cola to do my own
thing 10 days before my second child was born. At the time, I asked
my wife, ‘Are you sure you’re okay with me doing this?’ She said,
‘Brian, I believe in you, and if you don’t do this now, you’ll regret it.’
Let’s face it, her support has made this whole thing possible.”
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