My Biz: Room used for receptions, meetings and lots of cooking

Name: Mary Pat Esch

Title: Club Room Coordinator

Company: Hy-Vee

Address: 5050 Edgewood Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Phone: (319) 378-0762

Website: www.hy-vee.com/stores

Elevator pitch: Sushi and more

CEDAR RAPIDS - Hy-Vee Club Room Coordinator and self-described foodie Mary Pat Esch laughed when she described her diet as “cream and butter - and chocolate, too.”

The Club Room is a fully outfitted teaching kitchen inside the Edgewood Road Hy-Vee Store, similar to what one might see on the Food Network.

“The Club Room was a Hy-Vee concept,” she explained. “It was kind of a new trend for Hy-Vee to build the club rooms, taking it on to educate our customers.”

Esch brought her experience in the food/catering business to the job when the new store opened the teaching venue six and a half years ago. Formerly with the Collins Plaza Marriott in sales and marketing, she honed her skills working for a catering company out of Sioux City called the Culinary Experience.

“The owner, June Kleider, did all French food and classes out of her home and I started working for her,” she explained, adding that the very first project included serving for French chef Michel Pasquet, who'd come to conduct a cooking class.

“He'd made this elegant scrambled egg dish, topped with caviar (oeufs brouilles) and served out of the shell in special little dishes he'd brought along,” she recalled. “My hands were kind of shaky and I dropped the first one in a lady's lap. I was just mortified.”

Pasquet did sign his hat and give it to Esch at the end of the class, however.

“He told me that I had hope!”

A native of Jesup, Esch landed the Hy-Vee job “30 days before the store opened,” she said. “They said, Here's your room. We want to do cooking classes and we want to rent it out.”

The room, which can seat 72 for dinner and boasts a full-sized kitchen, also is available for business meetings, family gatherings and receptions.

Esch estimated that she has put together 72 class calendar schedules since becoming the coordinator. She lines up area chefs - professional and amateur - as well as other local food aficionados who like to instruct.

“I'm good at menu planning and organizing time,” she explained. “We pick out the theme for our class, get the recipes written out for the participants, and then I shop for the ingredients they'll need, and set everything up for them to come in and prep according to the way they want it for the class.”

In her spare time she goes out to eat: “I find a food event or go to farmers markets and talk to people because I want to keep new people coming in here all the time.”

Know a business owner or manager at a company in operation for at least a year who should be considered for “My Biz”? Contact business editor Michael Chevy Castranova at michael.castranova@sourcemedia.net.