SEBASTIAN — In the “all good things must come to an end” category, Chef Michele Hennessey recently announced that she is retiring the River Grille, the restaurant she co-owns with husband Gus Rivera, on May 25.
Despite its Sebastian location, the restaurant has long been a favorite of barrier island residents, drawn to the intimate eatery as much by Hennessey and her staff as by her fresh and flavorful dishes.
Nevertheless, it is a sure bet that Hennessey will never be far from a hotline – the heart of any restaurant kitchen.
Quite simply, she is the epitome of the words stenciled over the restaurant’s bar to “live, love and dine with passion.”
Raised in the picturesque Connecticut town of Bethel, Hennessey says she originally wanted to pursue a career as an attorney. But a job at a restaurant lured her in when she discovered the sizzle of its seriously disciplined, professional staff.
“I really felt closer and closer kinship to the restaurant lifestyle. It was demanding, the pace was really fast and there was the immediacy. There’s some pressure to it and I loved it. I felt good about it and I enjoyed it.”
She furthered her knowledge working for a large catering company while attending the famed Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
She ultimately worked up the courage to branch out on her own and opened Café Michele in 1996.
“I lived 200 feet behind my first restaurant; I bought a little truck stop. It was a dinky little 30-seat operation in Naples. It was exciting and fun and I could be there all day every day and all night. It had wonderful reviews and was booked solid.”
Commenting on how much easier it was to run a restaurant then than today, she cites the ever tightening gap between profit and loss due to escalating food costs and business expenses.
“The same thing that the consumer faces, we face, but on a larger scale. We’ve all been through the same terrifying economy. People all have to eat, but they don’t have to spend $50 a plate.”
Of the astronomical 500 percent increase in liability expenses, she says only half kidding, “Because of the increased litigation, maybe I should have been a lawyer after all.”
Hennessey and Rivera opted to relocate to Sebastian in 2006 and the River Grille made its debut in 2007, garnering consistently rave reviews. In 2009, Hennessey was voted Vero’s top chef in the Homeless Family Center’s annual fundraiser, wowing the crowd with a macadamia nut-crusted grouper, and she served as its chef coordinator the last few years.
“I was excited; it’s an exciting thing to win. The chefs take it seriously. It’s competitive at every level. It should never be underestimated how much time and effort the chefs put into that. They treat that event with real respect. And it’s a great charity.”
The decision to step away from the stove now was primarily predicated on the gruelingly long hours devoted to the restaurant – away from her six-year-old son, Felix.
“Cooks start at seven in the morning and your shift ends at one in the morning. I just need to have some time with my son that is uninterrupted. It wasn’t a rash decision; it’s come over the course of time. Six years ago, I didn’t think I’d be working this many hours.”
Having grown up just minutes from Newtown, Conn., and as the parent of a son in first grade, Hennessey has been particularly haunted by the senseless shooting death of 20 innocent first-grade students. The tragedy took place just five days before their planned Christmas trip to visit family in the area.
“Newtown just sealed it for me; I’ll never forget where I was. Holding my son in my arms; something these 20 mothers can never do again. There isn’t a parent of a first grader that didn’t feel that. What it did for me was, I looked at my child in a newly treasured light – one that others no longer had.
“These women no longer had the option to be the mother – and I do. You can fail at the restaurant business and eventually open another restaurant. If I personally was to fail as a mother – to fail that young man – there would be no redemption for that.”
Plans are in the works for Rivera and other River Grille staff to open an old school Italian restaurant called Pasta Nostra sometime in late summer.
