Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2003 | 8:15 a.m.
Point to anything on the menu at Rosemary's Restaurant, and odds are Michael and Wendy Jordan can give you a detailed background story.
The Jordans give credit to loved ones who helped them get where they are today, and use their life experience to flavor the cuisine they serve Las Vegas.
"Hugo's Texas BBQ Shrimp"? Named after Wendy's now-deceased stepfather.
"Caesar for Mark"? Named after Michael's former next-door neighbor, who insisted the Jordans put a Caesar salad on the menu.
"Halibut Linquist"? Named for Eric Linquist, Michael's mentor and a lover of all things halibut.
And the name of the restaurant? We'll get to that later.
The Jordans, who opened their first restaurant at 8125 W. Sahara Ave. in 1999 and their second at The Rio in 2002, never intended to settle down in Las Vegas. In fact, given their roots, penchant for travel and love of French-influenced American cuisine, the desert is the last place they expected to land.
Southern comfort
Wendy, 35, was born in Laurel, Miss., and lived primarily a split life as a child after her parents divorced, spending summers in Mississippi and the rest of her time in Houston.
She got valuable experience from both families. Her stepmother, Debbie, taught her a love of traditional Southern cooking.
"She would buy produce from farmer's markets and spend the weekends freezing everything and stocking for winter: shell beans, lima beans, corn and more," Wendy said. "We had one of those giant Kenmore freezers in the garage."
Summer activities also included canning everything from jams to bread and butter pickles to making her own ice cream. Debbie made it all from scratch, "even pizza dough. I thought you had to go to Pizza Hut to get that," Wendy said.
"As part of Southern hospitality, whenever you went to anyone's home, you took a gift, so we would take a jar of food off our garage shelf whenever we went anywhere," Wendy said. "Making our own food was the seed for me wanting to make everything from scratch."
Wendy's love of the fine-dining experience came straight from her stepfather, Hugo.
"He loved to go out and eat three times a week," Wendy remembers. "It didn't have to be a special occasion. He just loved to eat out. I really started to enjoy restaurants. Now, I love to sit, relax, order, drink wine."
Food became an inseparable part of Wendy's life. As she grew older, she found herself making birthday dinners for others, and as a teen she prepared dinner parties for friends. By the time she turned 19, being a chef was the only career she wanted.
Unfortunately, society had other ideas.
"In the 1970s, the thought of Americans being chefs was new, since most were European," she said. "Being both American and female, it was discouraging."
Wendy went to a restaurant school in Houston, but "hated it" because the focus was not on food preparation. She decided to get advice from a French chef, who had come to the school to speak, and didn't get the advice she sought.
"He completely discouraged me," she said. "For a year, I dabbled in photography."
But she couldn't get the cooking bug out of her system, and soon applied for the New York City-based Cooking Institute of America. Call it Midwestern stubbornness, but she decided to bend the rules in order to succeed.
"I lied on my application to get in," she admits. "I needed six months restaurant experience, but I was fired after three months because I was so terrible."
She got in, and 18 months later had her associate of arts degree -- and a future husband. She and Michael met while students there, and eventually married in 1993.
Early riser
One of Michael's most vivid memories as a child is getting up at 5 a.m. to spend time with his grandmothers.
Born in North Platte, Neb., in 1966, Michael, 37, was raised in Iowa City, Iowa, amid a large family. His grandmothers, who lived in Omaha, Neb., and Valentine, Neb., made all the food at family gatherings, and everything was made from scratch.
Both grandmothers were popular with the rest of the family, and Michael had to fight for their attention. His solution? Get up before everyone else and join them in the kitchen. Both, according to Michael, were "incredible Midwest cooks," and everything he knows about breakfast he learned from them.
So great was their impact that Michael now employs a "grandma test" for quality.
"Whenever I smell a bran muffin and think of my grandmother, I know that's a great muffin," Michael said.
Despite his exposure to quality cooking most of his early life, Michael had no real aspirations of pursuing it as an adult. His initial ambition, he said, was to be a high school psychology teacher.
But first, he had to follow the family edict.
"In my family, when you turn 16, you get a job. There was a McDonald's being built, so that's where I went," Michael remembers. "I didn't like the uniforms, so I ended up in the back."
Turnover was high, and Michael found himself at the top of the seniority ladder in three months. All the basics of his work ethic he credits to that first job experience; he ended up staying there nearly three years.
What he remembers most about McDonald's is the camaraderie he built with his co-workers.
"My parents were divorced when I was in kindergarten, and the restaurant, I think, replaced a little of what I was looking for," Michael said, adding that building that type of atmosphere became a priority in everything he did afterward.
Despite pursuing various courses of study in college three times and dropping out each time, Michael still refused to acknowledge his talent for food.
That's where his mother came in.
"My mother said, 'You cook. That's what you do,' " Michael remembers. "She showed me an ad for the CIA, and she put me in a car and drove me to New York so I could tour the campus. She was so brave to do that."
That trip was also the first time mother and son got to know one another. The impact of that experience has forever been immortalized by the Jordans: Michael's mother's name is Rosemary.
A long journey
The Jordans' road to starting their own restaurant was quite a journey -- literally.
Upon graduating from the CIA in 1989, Michael and Wendy spent a year working in a restaurant called The Kitchen in Iowa City. It would be the first time the couple tasted the satisfaction of customizing their cooking.
"We could do anything we wanted," Michael said. "We could practice and apply everything we had learned. In no time, we were having fresh fish flown in, making stock from scratch, things people in that area had never seen. We were like kids in a candy store."
When they had saved up enough money, the Jordans did something completely disruptive to their careers: They went to Europe for three months.
"Any place with a food connotation we went to," Michael said. "We tried to get jobs in Amsterdam, but they wouldn't hire us."
Despite the "wonderful food experiences," Wendy said at times the couple had to choose between eating and a place to stay. "We lived on $30 a day."
Their jobs at The Kitchen were waiting for them upon returning, but after another year the wanderlust was back.
"We'd seen Europe; now we wanted to see America," Michael said. They took off -- "with a pregnant cat" -- to Alaska, where they spent three months. After heading off to Oregon and then to San Francisco, the couple beelined to Houston, and were next planning to visit relatives in Georgia, but decided to stop in New Orleans first.
That was the turning point.
"I said to Wendy, 'If we see a "for rent" sign, we should move here,' " Michael remembers. "We saw a bar with a 'for rent' sign and walked into the bar and said, 'We'll take it.' "
It was in New Orleans that Michael met Emeril Lagasse, who at that time had one restaurant, Emeril's. Michael started as a line cook while Wendy worked at the bar below their apartment. In less than two years Michael had attained the rank of sous chef, and in 1993 helped Emeril open NOLA. By that time, Wendy was working at Bayona in the heart of the French Quarter.
When Lagasse opened New Orleans Fish House at the MGM Grand in 1995, Michael was brought over. While he worked his way up the ranks, Wendy started a catering company -- and had a baby. They now have two children, Ben, 6, and Sarah, 4.
A good investment
After four years in Vegas, Michael decided it was time to make a move.
"I had planned to have my own restaurant by the time I was 30," Michael said. "I was 31, and I had to decide whether I was going to spend the rest of my life with Emeril or do this."
Michael found a parcel of land earmarked for a shopping center and decided the demographics were right.
Before the first restaurant was open, Michael took off eight months, both to spend time with his son and to "beg every person we knew for money. We got turned down by so many banks."
Hard work and persistence paid off, and the restaurant was soon a reality. But nothing came easy. The Jordans expanded the restaurant when the opportunity arose, but financially the timing couldn't have been worse.
"We really had to bite the bullet and just do it," Michael said.
In a city where gambling is often rewarded, Rosemary's Restaurant became a success, earning citywide and national acclaim. The second restaurant struggled initially after opening so close to 9-11, but is starting to do well.
The West Sahara location was designed to give the feel of a New York bistro. More than 120 tables spread across two dining areas and a smoking section are accented by cool greens and autumn golds. A bar in front welcomes diners to sit while they wait for a table, and French doors separate the dining areas.
The Rio location is more vast, with a slightly different decor, but the food -- and the Jordan's policy of "great food, great wine and great service" -- is the same.
Adding a boost to business was Lagasse, who went so far as to promote their restaurant on his cooking show.
And the family atmosphere is still of prime importance to the Jordans. To that effect, helping with public relations is Maggie Bock, Wendy's mother.
In addition, Wendy Kveck, the in-house artist for both restaurants, is the wife of the restaurant's general manager.
"Now that we've gotten through our first years, we're very confident," Michael said.
Giving back
Whatever it was that brought Michael and Wendy to Las Vegas, they have never forgotten the community that continues to sustain them.
In addition to charity work -- which includes Christmas in April, March of Dimes, Share Our Strength and the leukemia foundations -- Michael hosts Cordon Bleu students in his restaurant once a month to educate them on the administrative side of the business.
"I try to give them as much of a dose of reality early on," he said.
One of the Jordans' early realities was that you have to be willing to adjust to whatever life throws at you.
"We almost didn't stay here," Michael remembers. "We were going to open the restaurant in Madison, Wisc., but we couldn't sell our house here. And then the landlord in Madison wouldn't let us put a restaurant there. I turned to my wife and said, 'Maybe God is telling us to stay here.' "
And the Jordans are now Las Vegans through and through -- for their 10-year anniversary, Michael and Wendy renewed their marriage vows at an Elvis chapel.
"We love it here," Michael said.
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