From Trial Attorney to Culinary Ambassador
Can you share a bit about your background and what inspired you to start your food tour company? Was there a specific moment or experience that sparked your journey in the tourism and culinary industry?
I first came to Savannah in October of 2011 on a three-day business trip. I was a trial attorney and a partner of a growing national law firm based out of Chicago and working 80-plus hours per week. The beautiful low country city had such a profound effect on me that in just over a month of visiting Savannah, I had retired from the practice of law, moved my wife and two kids across the country, and convinced one of my brothers, Donald, to open up a food tour business with me.
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Savannah is just such a special place. If you are not swept away by the picturesque historic squares lined with giant live oak trees dripping in Spanish moss, or mesmerized by the preserved antebellum architecture, or charmed by the Slow-vannah pace of life, or just simply intoxicated by its storied food and hospitality culture then I don’t know what to tell you.
I have traveled across Europe and all over North and South America, and I can honestly say that there are few places better in the world to slow down and enjoy the finer things in life – family, food, and friends – than Savannah, Georgia.
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What makes your food tour unique? Are there any signature dishes, local stories, or hidden gems you are particularly proud to showcase to your guests?
Savannah is the biggest part of what makes our food tours special. Beyond that we have spent the last nearly 13 years immersing ourselves in the food and hospitality culture of the city – becoming friends with the restaurant owners, capturing chef’s stories and recipes, and even running GoFundMe campaigns to help storm-damaged businesses and helping industry-members in times of need. Taking a tour with Savannah Taste Experience means getting a true locals perspective into the real culinary scene of The Hostess City.
Ordinary Pub features an extraordinary Pork Belly Donut Slider.
What impact have your tours had on the local community? What’s something you hope to achieve in the future for the area?
Beyond the GoFundME campaigns, the support we offered laid-off industry members (due to COVID) through our Picnic Club Angels program, and the publishing of Savannah’s first culinary history book (Savannah’s Food: A Culinary History. History Press, 2017), we hope that careful curation of some of Savannah’s best dishes, restaurants, and specialty food stores through consistent award-winning food tours over the past 13 years has helped bring the Savannah food scene to national attention.
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What trends or opportunities do you see in food tourism right now? How is your company adapting to or leveraging these trends to enhance the traveler’s experience?
With rising food costs and the sharp rise of inflation since the pandemic, the unfortunate trend at the moment is food tours across the globe now typically cost north of $100 per person. We have leveraged our long-standing reputation in the industry and the city to help keep our tour prices under $100 per person, while still providing a ton of value, fun, and flavor to our guests without hurting the restaurant partners we work with.
Zunzibar Drinks are famed for their delicious taste.
What tips or best practices can you share for effectively organizing food tours for group travelers? What impressions or stories are you trying to leave behind for guests after the tour is over?
Be trusting and flexible. In other words, let the experts in the city your group is traveling to guide you. In other words, if your group is larger than 80 guests it may be impossible to provide a quality food tour experience for that size group (even if they are broken up into several smaller groups), but . . . perhaps there is a way to get much of the same experience in a different format.
Savannah Taste Experience®, for example, offers Micro Food Fests® – private curated food fests where the restaurants come to the group (instead of the group going to the restaurants) for groups up to 3,000 guests. Just think . . . 10-20 restaurants, specialty food shops, and food trucks cooking up their signature dishes in one 3-hour event with live music, a historic Savannah location, and hosted by award-winning tour guides.
What is one of the biggest challenges and rewards you’ve experienced while running your business? How did you navigate through these and how did it shape the way you approach future tours?
Operating a tour company specializing in restaurants during the pandemic was . . . let’s just say “challenging.” But we grew as a community during that time. We learned to lean on each other – as companies, as colleagues, as friends, and as neighbors. We found ways to keep each other going by being creative and knowing that the entire food and hospitality industry needs to be strong if any individual business was going to survive.
We keep that community mentality in our business culture to this day – we’ve housed tour guides when the need arose, we bought a car for our operations manager, we volunteered our time and energy to restaurants damaged in hurricanes, and we donated meals to our local food bank.
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Stu Card- Email – stu@savannahtasteexperience.com
- Phone – (912) 221-4439
- Website
- Tripadvisor
- Yelp
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