City of Fort Worth
A city official on Friday denied an allegation by two prominent Fort Worth restaurateurs who said in a letter to the City Council that staff at the Will Rogers Memorial Center were undercutting a compromise made with local caterers.
Mike Micallef and Jon Bonnell said in the letter that they have been informed from “several clients” that the staff is encouraging users of space at Will Rogers to use Craft Culinary Concepts, which has a contract with the city, by offering an incentive in the form of a reduction in the fee to rent the facility if it does so.
“If Will Rogers, as an arm of the city, is reducing the fee that has been set in stone for years to encourage events to utilize the services for Craft, not only do we find it unethical, but fiscally unwise for a facility that regularly claims budgeting issues for lack of upkeep,” the letter reads.
Mike Crum the city’s director of public events denied the allegation in an email.
“The allegation that the WRMC Sales Team is ‘strongly encouraging’ clients to use Craft Culinary (and Craft’s local partners) for catering is not correct,” Crum said. “As Craft is a new contractor at WRMC, the WRMC Sales Team has been educating clients about the Craft team and its capabilities. The decision about who to use for catering, though, continues to rest with WRMC’s clients.”
Crum also said clients who use Craft do not receive any discount or incentive from Will Rogers for doing so.
“Outside caterers pay WRMC a 25% commission on the revenues generated by their events,” Crum said. “Per the profit share arrangement between the City and Craft, the City receives 90% of the profits generated by food and beverage operations at the complex. When the profit share calculation is applied to Craft’s catering operations, the City’s share of profits is an estimated 25%-30% of gross revenues.”
In January, the City Council approved authorization of a contract with Arizona-based Craft Culinary Concepts, LLC, to become the food and beverage concession provider at Will Rogers for a period of 10 years.
To assuage the concerns of local caters concerned they might lose a pivotal piece of business over the deal with an out-of-state company, city officials inserted language to allow users of Will Rogers the option of choosing an alternative caterer.
At the time, Micallef and Bonnell, both then leading voices of opposition, found the language and compromise acceptable. In the letter, both echo sentiments they shared in January, writing: “This not only allows charities to use companies that they are comfortable with, due to long standing relationships, but also opens the possibility for smaller locally-owned catering companies to have an opportunity to provide their services in one of the most well-known and frequently used venues in Fort Worth.”
They noted that with an extensive history of doing business in Fort Worth and obvious ties to local charitable organizations that conduct large events at Will Rogers, the compromise “naturally … was beneficial to us, but we are also very passionate in assisting those other local companies that we feel may benefit from an ‘open-bid’ process.”
Incentives, of course, would defy the spirit of “open competition,” they wrote. More akin to fixing the game. The practice, if it was being deployed, they said, “is detrimental for our local businesses trying to cater on the grounds of Will Rogers.”
Using an “unproven caterer” is also not good for the local charities, they said.
Micallef is president of Reata, a downtown staple, and Bonnell heads Bonnell’s Restaurant Group, which operates Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine, Waters Restaurant, Buffalo Brothers, and the recently opened Jon’s Grille.
Micallef is in the midst of finding a new home for Reata after Sundance Square management apparently declined to offer a new lease. The now iconic restaurant has been in the location for the better part of 20 years after the circumstances of the 2000 tornado forced the restaurant from the former Bank One Tower.
Micallef and Bonnell said they took the action of writing out of an abundance of concern from only anecdotal evidence, including one losing a client who told him: “I know we had a great time, and your staff were some of the best that we have ever worked with. I think with the new catering/liquor contract at Will Rogers we are being encouraged to give them a try.”
Micallef and Bonnell punctuated its letter of protest by saying: “We both completely understand losing a party if our team has performed poorly, but the undercutting of fees and contracts in a public venue is something that we both find improper, unethical, and unsuitable for Will Rogers.”