The view from the Metropolitan Club
By Vicki Prichard
NKyTribune Reporter
The skyline view of Covington’s Metropolitan Club is a long way from the local diner in Reading, Penn., where Kelsey Yerger washed dishes on the weekend as a motivated 13-year-old boy.
“I was just eager to get out and work, make my own money, and buy things I wanted,” says Yerger.
That work ethic served Yerger well and there’s no disputing that the trajectory of his career landed him at the top, quite literally.
The Metropolitan Club eyes its 25th anniversary next month, and Yerger, the club’s executive chef, has been a staple for as long. His tenure spans the growth and evolution not only of the club but a region, and the culinary history along the way.
The making of a chef
Yerger, who was born and raised in Reading, spent his youth preparing for a career he loves. After a year washing dishes for the local diner, he decided to go to one of the local hotels. After school he washed dishes for the Abraham Lincoln Hotel, but it was what he did in his spare time in the kitchen that inspired him to grander plans.
“The kitchen I washed dishes in was just half a flight above the galley kitchen and the chefs would always come and grab me to help them peel carrots and such,” says Yerger. “That led to me getting my start in cooking.”
Every weekend Yerger would work as a short order cook, helping fill orders with entrée sides. Soon, it became a full-time gig and at 14 he was cooking.
“I think that at that young of an age you’re always eager to do more,” says Yerger. “I knew I was quick and fast, and that’s what they saw, that I was able to accomplish the task they through at me. It was great.”
At the time, a young Culinary Institute of America (CIA) graduate was doing his externship in the kitchen, and Yerger saw the opportunity to learn and followed him closely.
“He went back to school and then came back to the area and went to another hotel, and I latched on with him again, moved to different restaurants and learned what I could,” says Yerger
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Career takes flight
He wound up at the Young Republican Club in Wyoming, PA where he met a man who was getting his own restaurant at the Reading Airport. Yerger was invited to come along and be the chef at the InFlight Restaurant at the small municipal airport. He was a high school graduate at the time.
“It was there that I realized that if I really wanted to make money I needed to get my education,” says Yerger. “I knew at the time that I could cook, so I ended up getting into the Culinary Institute of America, and by that time I was 21.”
After completing the 21 month program and a four-month internship, Yerger received his associate’s degree.
By now, Yerger knew he could cook, but wasn’t as confident about his managerial skills – managing employees and staff.
He decided to join the Stouffer’s restaurant division and go through their managerial program to learn what makes employees tick, how to treat them properly and get them to work for you.
His first job assignment was a brief stint at the James Tavern in Blue Ash. Then he was off to Columbus, Ohio to work at One Nation, a restaurant located in Nationwide Plaza with a panoramic view of the city.
Yerger spent a year and a half in Columbus until the restaurant’s general manager made him an offer to join him in Philadelphia where they were in need of a chef. Yerger had been eager to return east – to go home – and it seemed like a good opportunity, but he wound up with an arduous commute.
“I was burning it at both ends, it was crazy,” says Yerger.
His fiancé, at the time, was from Middletown and she urged him to send out resumes. When an opportunity came from Maketewah Country Club in Cincinnati, he accepted the offer. The setting wasn’t necessarily Yerger’s “cup of tea,” but it put him in place to make a connection that would put him back on top, so to speak.
At home in the Commonwealth
A salesman Yerger met while at Maketewah told him about the Commonwealth Hotel (now the Hilton on Turfway Road in Florence). The hotel had just opened and already they’d let their first chef go.
“Back then, they were the only game in town,” says Yerger. “We used to do a bang-up business – anywhere from 300 to 400 on Friday or Saturday. We hit the floor running, which was a no brainer for me because when I was with Stouffer, their properties were very physical and they would have the same guest counts.”
Yerger was with Commonwealth for three years when it became clear that another opportunity was calling him.
When the Metropolitan Club opened, Yerger had worked his way into the corporate chef role. He was on top in every way, and he was there to stay.
“It’s all been good, and we’ve got a great membership,” says Yerger.
His role as corporate chef has brought the opportunity to offer what he had sought in his youth – to teach, to mentor, to help other restaurants get off the ground in other properties that have opened, both local and across the country.
“We opened the Marriott next door, the Embassy Suites in Dublin and Independence, Ohio, Denver, Colorado, and from Phoenix to Reno,” says Yerger. “It’s a nice breakaway and I think it’s one of the reasons why my tenure here is good, because it gives you a break and you get to see other operations.”
Chef Yerger, the early years
And ever the learner, Yerger comes home from his visits with new ideas for his own patrons.
“You can go out, meet different chefs and get different types of regional cuisines,” he says. “You come back refreshed and with a clean set of eyes, and it just gives you more of that drive to do.”
Keeping what works, and evolving with the new
Over time, Yerger has witnessed much growth and change, particularly with regard to food and the culture of food.
“It’s evolved enormously, since the birth of the Food Network and Food TV; it’s educated so many people,” he says.
As such, he tries cutting edge trends and aims to stay ahead of the curve through menu development. Right now they rotate the menu at the Metropolitan Club four times a year to keep it fresh, but there are always staples, he says.
“There’s always going to be a filet on there. The accompaniments will change, but then we always try to do whatever sounds good. It could be fusion, regional, whatever our thoughts are,” says Yerger.
Among the ‘staples’ in the club’s kitchen is pastry chef Terry Biehl.
Yerger hired Biehl to work the lunch buffet in 1992. Prior to that she had worked at “country-style” restaurants and Big Boys. But the following year an opportunity opened up when the pastry chef left and Yerger gave Biehl the chance to show what she could do. She didn’t disappoint.
“My only experience was making pies and rolls,” says Biehl. “He knew I had a passion to learn and he let me go at it.”
Twenty-four years later Biehl is still “at it.”
“I couldn’t have done it without Kelsey and the club’s support,” says Biehl. “He taught me how to experiment with recipes, to think outside the box, and the passion for wowing our members, and attention to details. He taught me a lot about cooking. Who needs to pay for schooling when you have a teacher like that?”
While Biehl has a passion for pastries, Yerger has a passion for the challenges of trying new dishes – researching and try things that bring him out of his own culinary shell, he says.
With a growing interest in healthy eating, Yerger says he’s responded to requests for vegan and gluten- free options.
“We have two vegan dishes, then we try to do components to our healthy composition to where that it can also be an option for a vegan,” says Yerger.
The club has also become part of the locavores movement, cooking with locally grown and produced food.
“We do it as much as we can,” says Yerger. “We use fresh micro greens which comes from Price Hill, and we buy a lot of produce from Piazza [Produce] which is out of Indianapolis.”
When he isn’t preparing food for hundreds, Yerger, who lives on Cincinnati’s west side, in Dent, still finds cooking for a crowd to be most satisfying. Preparing Sunday breakfast for his children and a gathering of their friends over the years remains a highlight. Stuffed French toast, pancakes filled with anything from apples to chocolate chips, plates of sausage and bowls of gravy are a star lineup for a group of hungry kids.
“We had a houseful of kids on Sunday mornings which we looked forward to,” says Yerger. “It was a treat for them, and an education for them on good food. We wanted to know what was going on in their lives, and that was the best day to do it.”
The right ingredients
For Yerger, the philosophy that inspires his approach to running his kitchen is excellence in food quality and service.
“From the moment you walk through the door through the moment you leave, the steps to service need to be right — the attentiveness of everyone, the quality of the food, from starters to dessert, to coffee,” says Yerger. “It’s the attention to detail. For someone to leave and say wow, that was excellent, that’s what we strive for, and that’s tough to do on a day in, day out basis, and that goes back to the staff.”
As the Metropolitan Club celebrates its first 25 years, Yerger looks forward to what’s ahead, but he also looks back on the good fortune he’s had over the last quarter century and is grateful for the good fit.
“You talk to a lot of people and they say, “Wow, how did you make it?”” says Yerger. “It’s a two-lane highway. I was always content doing what I was doing here at the club.”
In the earliest years he never thought of changing jobs because he had a family to raise, and once his next was empty, well, he realized he was content where he was.
“I’ve been blessed, I’ve got a very competent staff on board with me,” says Yerger.
