Interview by Abernathy Cochran intern and Gainesville High School senior Philip Mady

Meet Rand Carswell! Rand, originally from Gainesville, is the head chef and owner of the newly renovated Chattahoochee Grill, which is open to the public at the Chattahoochee Golf Course. Carswell and his wife Macy recently moved back to Gainesville from South Florida. Macy has worked to introduce a new cocktail menu at the Grill, which features modern cocktails and a great selection of beer and wine.
The Chattahoochee Grill now offers reservations, curbside and to-go options, catering and even pre-orders the night before a golf outing.

The Chattahoochee Grill Crispy Brussel Sprouts, Dynamite Shrimp and Chinese Chicken Salad.

“My mom told me about this opportunity here and…I just remember how it used to look. She sent me pictures and I was interested in it but we were competing with seven other people, which was the first time ever. We put out a great menu, a great concept and they chose us. Right now, we’re doing phenomenal. Business has been better than we could ever imagine,” Rand said. “We’re trying to elevate the food and beverage here by offering new and innovative services. Now you have QR codes that you can scan out on the golf course and someone delivers the food out to you and pre-orders for the coolers, someone can select what beers they want, what snacks and fill their coolers when they check-in.”
“The majority of our business is at night, it’s been great. We have a full liquor bar here, which has never been here before. My wife who runs the whole front end and cocktail bar made a great craft cocktail list. She’s doing a really good job at not only having us bring people in with food, but with really good cocktails, as well.”

Question: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Answer: “I was born and raised here in Gainesville, but I left about 15 years ago and went down to South Florida. I went to restaurant and hospitality management school at the University of Alabama. Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted to be in the restaurant business. I studied the hospitality and management side of it and I wondered more about the culinary side. I went and did the culinary school part down in Miami at Johnson & Wales. I was there for a couple of years and one of my professors said, ‘You have really good work ethic. My husband could use someone like you.’ He was a private chef down in the Miami area, I was his sous chef and I started working for him, cooking for a bunch of cool people,” Rand said.
“One of the clients was going to the Bahamas to their house on their yacht and the chef couldn’t go so they asked me to go…We were on our way back after a couple of days and they called me upstairs and told me, ‘we love your food, you’re better than the chef and we’d like to have you be our full-time live-in chef.’ I lived six months in Miami, six months in New York City. I cooked for them and followed them all over. These people happen to be the backers for a lot of celebrities. I started cooking for the Kardashians and for Jennifer Lopez and then they started liking my food. So it was a very interesting couple of years. I worked ridiculous hours. I was making really good money, but I didn’t have any time to do anything with it. So, finally I requested some time off, months in advance to visit my brother on a trip to Key West.
“I get down there and it’s about noon on a Friday and they (the Kardashians) call me and want me to come up for dinner tonight and I say ‘I’m off.” They called me back and it’s the estate manager, you never talked with them directly, and he said we are fueling a jet in Miami and we will get you back to Key West tonight. Needless to say, I didn’t make it back that night and I decided to part ways and start my own business.”
“Soon after, I got the opportunity to go on the Food Network. And I won a Food Truck Face Off and I won a food truck! I started working my way around the circuit of South Florida and turned the business into a brick and mortar location. Now, my partner and I have two restaurants in South Florida called Press.”

Q: What inspired you or led you to your current career?
A: “Honestly, I have no idea. Nobody in my family has worked in restaurants or has been in the restaurant industry but when I was 10 years old, I said, when I get older, I want to have a restaurant and I want to be on Food Network. I loved watching Food Network, so some of it probably stemmed from that.”

Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County?
A: “I really like Scott’s and Avocado’s. I also like The Collegiate burger. There used to be a burger place called Brad’s Grill, it was like the original ‘smashburger’ before Shake Shack made it famous. Everybody had thick burgers that were either dry or thick, with no sear. And these guys made that, I think it was called, Messy Burger and it was so good.”

Crispy Calamari and Strawberry Lemon cocktail with Tito’s vodka and lemon muddled strawberries.

Q: How long have you lived or worked in Hall County?
A: “I was born and raised here in Gainesville, but I left about 15 years ago but I’ve been back here for 18 days.”

Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in Hall County?
A: “I’d have to say the most interesting and the person I looked up to most was my grandfather. He was an entrepreneur before I knew what entrepreneur was and a go-getter. He said something to me when I was younger that he could have been a little fish in a big pond or a big fish in a little pond. I was like, I want to be a big fish in a big pond so that’s why I moved down to South Florida, built that business, trying to expand that business into something big and I don’t think I would have appreciated the big fish in a small pond if I wouldn’t have gone down there because just word of mouth here. The community here is like 50 times better than being in any kind of big place.
“When it comes to cooking and restaurant business, I would say Geoffrey Zakarian. I wouldn’t say we weren’t equal by any means, but he kind of had the same circles based on the people that I was looking for and that he was around. I really like his personality and what he’s done with his restaurants.”

Reserve outdoor seating for some of the best views in Gainesville.

Q: What is your favorite thing with Hall County that made you come here?
A: “The community. It’s weird because I haven’t really been back more than a few days in 15 years. And it’s just different to seeing people that I knew that were children and now they’re adults or young parents and now have gray hair. It’s just interesting but it’s still like I was just here yesterday.”

Q: What advice would you give to people?
A: “Something that I’m learning now and still trying to do. I’m like a go-getter. I like to take on far more than I can actually do. So, my biggest thing would probably be like to stop and smell the roses to appreciate life instead of it just being, go, go, go all the time.”

Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: “I have three other concepts I want to do. I won’t talk about those, but I’ll say that they’re very needed here and I have the locations picked out and everything, so once this is rocking and rolling and we have all the staff in place and I can kind of step out of the day-to-day.”

Q: Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
A: “Here in Gainesville with family and kids. When I came here I actually started the Carswell Restaurant Group…I really would like to have a good size group of restaurants that kind of fills a lot of needs that Gainesville is missing.”

Q: (Even for friends or family), what is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
A: “I’m pretty open book. My passion is aerial photography, so I have a drone business, as well. I haven’t had time to focus on that in a little while, but I love my drones. People that really know me know that.”

Q: What 3 words or phrases come to mind when you think of the word HOME?
A: “Family, Community and Love.”

Q:Which hole at the Chattahoochee Golf Course is your favorite?
A: “13.”