The Hall Management Group of South Carolina married the best of the home-dining experience with a special night out, building a multi-restaurant group expanding from Charleston, S.C. to Nashville, Tenn.

Founded by Bill Hall in 2009 with a single restaurant, he drew from his long hospitality history working for Ritz-Carltons to imagine and create the perfect restaurant.

Besides great food, he sought to imbue every employee with his own personal credo of “service before self”; his prescription for delivering an exceptional dining experience.

His standards of excellence distinguish a restaurant group of 9 restaurants and a single event space, which are owned and operated by his wife and sons.

“We know there are so many great restaurants that we’re competing against, so we’ve developed our own system for reading a table, talking with guests, and doing everything we can to make our restaurants the place they choose for celebrations and special events,” says executive team executive assistant Haley Kramer.

In this week’s Q&A with Boxerbrand blog Recipe for Success, Haley shares insights into the way the Hall restaurants carry on the legacy of fine hospitality service left by Bill Hall after his death in 2020.

Boxerbrand: What makes the Hall family restaurants great?

Haley: The patriarch of our restaurant group, Bill Hall, who passed away in 2020, worked for many years for the Ritz Carlton. And the mantra he developed before opening his first restaurant was “service before self.”

At all our restaurants we teach everyone we employ to pay attention to guests in ways many restaurants don’t.

We only hire for career-minded individuals. None of our servers are part-time. This is their career, and it takes months to train.

And we are very lucky and humble to be one of the best restaurants in the country, and we have no shortage of applications.

Boxerbrand: How have you codified service into the culture?

Haley: We have 26 steps of service that everyone must learn and adhere to. This is how we train our staff to pay attention to our guests and tables.

When a guest is seated, notes are made on every ticket order on the guests for the server to look at, which include little details about the guest, like, for example, if there’s a birthday, a first-time visit to us or their VIP, to name a few examples. Our hosts write the notes by asking questions when the guest first arrives because we want each guest to feel that they’re known.

The majority of our guests don’t come in once a week but maybe come in every six months for a special occasion.

Another key element is that our servers know how to read a table to understand their needs. We ask our servers to talk with our guests to find out a little more about them.

Boxerbrand: How does knowing when to clear a table factor into the experience?

Haley: If you’re at a lower-tier restaurant, plates are stacked to make them more compact for the servers to carry away.

We don’t do this. Instead, we utilize the ‘swarm clear’ method, which pulls our entire team, from our managers, our owners, and servers, to clear the table when the last diner in a party has finished their meal.

We want everyone to feel the way they do at a dinner party in someone’s house, when everyone lends a hand to clear the table when the meal and conversation ends.

We don’t rush our patrons either.

Our owners, Billy and Tommy Hall and their mother Jeannie Hall very much believe in these ideals outlined by our Bill Hall. And they’re frequently helping to clear tables along with the staff.

Boxerbrand: How does restaurant design elevate the experience?

Haley: Most of our restaurants have unifying architectural details, like smaller dining areas. Instead of seating our guests in one large room, we build rooms within a larger space to hold three or four tables. This enhances the feeling of intimacy and privacy and elegance. Our flagship restaurant holds six smaller dining spaces.

Jeanne Hall and her husband very much wanted guests to feel like they’re dining in someone’s dining room, so she has hand-picked oil paintings and other decorations to fit a theme or reflect some moment in their family history.

Our interiors are layered with a variety of textures to make dining spaces cozier.

We’ve used a lot of mixed materials, from hard wood, velvet and fabric on the walls to help with sound mitigation. In a very old-school way, we also have real candles flickering on the tabletops, and fresh flowers delivered weekly for tables, the host stand and bar area.

At our five Halls chophouses we have thick window treatments to keep out harsh, glaring light.

Boxerbrand: How have you maintained consistency in product?

Haley: When Bill Hall opened the first of our nine restaurants and one events venue in 2009, he made it a point to source the best steak he could find.

And this led him to Allen Brothers in Chicago, which is a family-owned business, and vendor to all our restaurants.

Our vendor is one reason our steaks are to die for.

And because we have such a longstanding relationship with Allen Brothers, they help us out on the steak costs, and that helps us with the cost to the customer.

Boxerbrand: What’s the difference between wet- and dry-aged steaks?

Haley: A majority of steak house restaurants offer more wet-aged steaks because they’re easier to freeze and transport.

Wet-aged steaks are pre-portioned, vacuumed sealed and bagged in their natural juices. Filet mignon and boneless strip steaks are the best when they’re wet aged. Dry-aged beef is more delicate in the aging process because it’s aged in the open air and humidity and other environmental factors must be closely monitored for food safety.

The great thing about dry-aged steak is that it develops a firm outside crust and has a center that’s a little more tender. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, and we offer both types on our menu, with our claim-to-fame being our massive tomahawk steak on the bone. Other favorites of our guests are our Kansas City strip and our Japanese wagyu.

Boxerbrand: How does Boxerbrand fit into your concept?

Haley: Right before Covid, a development company sought us out to build a restaurant in a high-rise they were building in Nashville. All of our restaurants up to this point were in South Carolina, but the restaurant (Halls Catch) was so successful that brothers Billy and Tommy decided to open our first fine-dining concept, Hall’s Catch, also in Nashville. And this is how we started with your Boxerbrand.

We wanted a classy menu cover and we’ve been so happy with the product that we’re hoping to begin the process of putting Boxerbrand products in our other restaurants!

The Hall Management Group owns and operates Hall’s Catch Nashville, Halls Chophouse (in five locations), High Cotton, Rita’s Seaside Grille, Slightly North of Broad, and Halls Signature Events.

— They use Boxerbrand Metallic Tones, Capri, and Italian Ultra menu cover lines in Halls Catch—Nashville https://hallscatchnashville.com.