Olden puts new spin on catering business

Public Record, The, Nov 16, 2004 by Kleinschmidt, Janice

Russell Olden dispels the myth that business people who "go it alone" don't need to be team players.

The founder of The Commissary in Rancho Mirage owns his own catering company (Olden Days Catering), but subleases kitchen space to Kelly Taylor (Luscious Cheesecakes by Kelly), Donald Silverstein and Jon Russikoff (Chocolateria) and Maria Meaney (Above the Best Services).

"The key to this operation is we must all work like a team," Olden says. "We are going to be family, friends, partners, and we are going to support each other's business." Additionally, he says after taking a lengthy telephone message for Silverstein and Russikoff, "We respect each other's clients."

Olden recently opened The Commissary on Highway 111 just west of Frank Sinatra Drive in the former Duc Le restaurant.

"I was looking for just a kitchen," he says. "I didn't need a banquet facility. I didn't want a banquet facility." What he now has is a banquet facility. But more than that, he has a kitchen from which he can cater. He credits his publicist, Janet Newcomb, with the idea to sublease kitchen space and with the name The Commissary. She also brought him his first two team members: Luscious Cheesecakes by Kelly and Chocolateria.

His third tenant, Meaney, came in after reading about The Commissary. But it turns out they went to high school together in Anaheim and Meaney was a friend of Olden's sister, which takes us back to Olden's formative years in Anaheim. Long before high school, Olden made a career decision. His mother - Jackie Olden (who now has local TV and radio cooking shows) - ran a catering business. "[Her business partner] told me the reason he always had pretty girls around was because he was a chef," Olden says. "So at the age of 11, I decided I wanted to be a chef, too."

At the age of 15, he got a job as a dishwasher, but - because he was twice as fast as other dishwashers - he was promoted after three days to prep cook. His first task was to oblique-cut 50 pounds of carrots. "Each day the chef would teach me something new," he says. He continued working in restaurants, and his first day as a chef was at age 27 at Cancun in Diamond Bar.

Then Olden took a four-year sabbatical to serve in the Navy - where he was a cook, traveled overseas and "saw the world." He then went back to working at restaurants until taking a job as a butcher while attending the two-year program at the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, from which he graduated with high honors. He then became chef de cuisine at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where he ran the Coconut Club and Trader Vic's. After three years, he took a position as chef of retail operations at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. There, he ran multiple restaurants and the USC catering arm in a four-story building - a $28-million-a-year operation.

In the meantime, Olden's mother was making a TV cooking show in the desert. The producer suggested Olden join the show and told him there was a restaurant that had gone through five chefs in five months that needed help.

So in December 2002, Olden became the executive chef of Atlas in Palm Springs and got the restaurant back on track. He left in May 2003 only because he "got an offer of an obscene amount of money" from the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. But he didn't like being what he calls "a corporate chef."

"It was based on their recipes ... and I wasn't around to do what I do," he says, referring to sitting in meetings and just giving recipes to kitchen chefs. "I didn't work in the restaurant anymore," he says. "I was miserable."

Olden returned to the desert in March and began searching for a kitchen from which he could run a catering business. He used the money he made selling his Las Vegas house to finance renovations at the former restaurant in Rancho Mirage, doing most of the work himself with the help of his girlfriend. In addition to painting and decorating, restoration included repairing plumbing and refrigeration, overhauling five air-conditioning units and adding a walk-in freezer.

So far, the kitchen-space rental program has been successful. "We have had, no problem with logistics," Olden says. "We have had no problem with organization." He "zoned" the kitchen so each of his tenants would have their own space, and each has a designated shelf in the walk-in freezer. Their schedules tend to be staggered, though Olden himself is there seven days a week a minimum of 10 hours a day. He has a few rules that he established early on: (1) everyone works as a team; (2) everyone cleans up; and (3) all business cards read "at The Commissary."