Today we’d like to introduce you to Dixie M Benca.
Hi Dixie M, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My husband (John Benca) and I (Dixie McGee Benca) met and married while attending the University of Georgia. He & I had just graduated (BS in Physics & a BLA – Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, respectively). He worked as a Manufacturing Engineer & we moved back to the Upstate of SC so he could attend graduate school at Clemson University. We got settled on my family farm & got jobs in the restaurant industry….he as a bartender & me as a server….to pay basic bills & figure out a plan. He’s assistantship fell through & while we were formulating our next course of action, we started thinking about opening our own bar/restaurant as many people do. However, our desire for it didn’t center around a love of cooking or food per se. We’d been to Europe & Ireland a few times by then & where charmed with the culture (as people often are). We particularly loved the folk music & wanted a place to showcase it. We found an old warehouse-like building on a side street of our downtown that the owner was willing to sell us. At the time, our downtown was just starting to get serious about revitalization. There were day businesses & luncheonettes, but no real night life AT ALL!. There was one contemporary restaurant – Friends, Food with a Flair – and a newly opened blues club – Vintage Blues – that seemed to be making a go of it, and downtown was really cheap to get into at the time. The owner of the building we wanted sold it to us for what we now know was a “song”. We applied for and got approved for a low interest business loan the City of Anderson was offering at the time, had some savings, max out credit cards, and went to work doing the demo ourselves at night after work. We found a small shop general contractor, electrician, & plumber: All were willing to do the work we could afford based on my rudimentary sketches from my architecture background & the City of Anderson “power people” worked with our “build as you go” method advising us along the way how to satisfy current coding for food service establishments. It really was a quintessential “boot strap” endeavor. I would not necessarily recommend this way to anyone, but we were just young and determined enough that it worked for us.
We opened on March 17th, 1997 to invited guests only, but were soon rushed by an eager crowd who’d evidently had gotten the word on what we were doing. Little did we know they’d been eagerly awaiting our opening. This was quite a feat considering all this word-of-mouth took place before the internet & social media was ever a daily thing. The luck of the Irish was upon us, and I guess you could say we were an instant success. I’d intended to be an absent owner, but quickly knew more on-site management was needed. I took over the kitchen management immediately thinking it would be just simple bar food, but soon realized I liked experimenting & cooking more than I’d ever known I would. As time went on, I expanded the small Celtic classic dish menu (Fish n Chips, Shepherd’s Pie, Bangers n Mash, Corned Beef n Cabbage, Irish Stew) to include signature entrees, steaks, local ingredients, etc eventually gaining Chef credentials. John, too, started learning about wine & regional craft beers (well before it was a trend) & expanded the bar offerings winning several Wine Specter Awards which is rare for pubs. We were a “gastro pub” before the word was invented. Over the years, we have continued to invest in the physical expansion of our pub (building a lovely private dining room & covered patio/garden area out back), a private dining room, & better equipment than we could afford in the beginning. We’ve come through wars, recessions, & a pandemic. Our downtown has also developed nicely around us. We are now the oldest single owner restaurant in downtown Anderson (almost 30 yrs) & we continue to discuss daily how we can make it better, incorporate trends, & remain relevant. And through it all, we have, in fact, continued to feature the best in Celtic, Folk, & World music every weekend.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The art of the hospitality industry is never a smooth road for anyone. There are thousands of moving parts to manage, trends to keep up with, & existential factors that can negatively affect your business even when you are doing everything right. Equipment is always breaking, employees are transient, & guests can be fickle. You must start with a solid concept, stay in your lane, keep high standards of food quality & service (especially), don’t fall for every trend or try to be all things to all people, & remember that consistency is king for your core offerings.
We update menus seasonally, but our Celtic Classic core menu items have never changed from day one. Many people have wanted us to have normal “cover bands” or karaoke for entertainment, but we’ve always stuck to our folk & world music format. Some years it’s more popular than others.
Especially in today’s food & beverage market, hospitable, knowledgeable service is critical & we train new hires deeply in that ethos. The biggest struggle we’ve encountered is learning what motivates employees to do the kind of physical, high stress work that comes with choosing the hospitality industry. Let’s face it, you cannot run a successful restaurant alone. It’s as labor intensive as it gets & even “good wages” are hard to live on. It’s also a very social & emotional business. As bosses, we have learned to work with our strengths. We aren’t always “nice” in the contemporary sense of the word, but we are professional, fair, & consistent in our expectations of people who choose to work at McGee’s Scot-Irish Pub. We also insist on the respectful treatment of each other among co-workers which can be a challenge within a diverse group of people. But a well-trained staff can handle almost any unexpected situation with grace, charm, & ease. Invest in your staff, be choosy as to who you hire, pay better, train better, offer better perks & benefits (We hired a babysitter for 2 years while trying to come back from Covid to make it easier on families to come back to work. We turned our private dining room into a “kids’ corner” & got national/international news coverage over the idea. It worked!! Our staff turnover stopped in its tracks & more than paid for the sitter). If you do these things for your workers, you will soon see a core staff develop that are bonded to the business & each other. These people will walk through hot coals for your business when times are tough & you will need them to, because there will always be up & down cycles of waves you have to figure how to ride. When you’re in a trough, hang on & in there with your people. When you’re riding high, you invest where you can & enjoy the good times together.
Have we followed this advice all the time??? Heavens no. But we have remained flexible, changed coarse quickly when we knew we’d made a bad decision, and showed up every day determined to give our best to guest & staff alike.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I have always loved design & working with my hands. I started out with aspirations of fashion design in high school, adjusted to Landscape Architecture in college, then translated these foundations to food service by becoming a Chef after opening McGee’s Scot-Irish Pub in 1997. I study and enjoy Euro-centric cuisine as well as Scot-Irish/Appalachian heritage cooking.
What I am most proud of is that I continue to have a vision of growth for McGee’s Scot-Irish Pub, always finding ways to stay relevant, & still enjoy learning/trying new ideas. I like bucking trends & NOT following the crowd. When the trend became craft beers, rather than get lost in a sea of local breweries that popped up overnight, we change our taps to offer international selections or retro beers all at lower prices. When several places were closed for Sunday business, we opened. When Chef centric crazy foodie trends were the rage, we kept our menu classic comfort foods.
What I think sets our business model apart from others it that while I do enjoy cooking & menu development, my biggest effective achievement is developing an efficient kitchen operational system. I was not professionally trained in this aspect of the business (as managers of chain restaurants are), but I figured it out non-the-less. It’s rare for an independent “mom & pop” restaurant to operate at our level of organization & efficiency.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Grit
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mcgeesirishpub.com
- Instagram: mcgeesirishpub
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mcgeesscotirishpub
