The Market Man

Hank Holliday is changing the face of Charleston, one restaurant at a time.

BY ALLISON WEISS ENTREKIN

DEVELOPER HANK HOLLIDAY has helped Market, putting the MIDAS TOUCH on every hotel transform Charleston’s City and restaurant he opens.

If you’ve taken a stroll through Charleston’s historic City Market lately, you’ve no doubt come into contact with Hank Holliday’s work. Perhaps you’ve stayed at the Planters Inn, Holliday’s celebrated Relais & Châteaux property, located on the western edge of the market. Or maybe you’ve had dinner two blocks away at Hank’s Seafood Restaurant, Holliday’s eponymous eatery, where the line to get a table and order a plate of shrimp and grits oft en spills onto the street. Or perhaps you’ve simply browsed the shops along the market and wondered how a place that not so long ago served as a meat, vegetable and fish market transformed into the epicenter of Charleston’s booming tourism industry. In all cases, credit Hank Holliday.

“I’ve always believed in the City Market because it’s in the very heart of one of the biggest and most beautiful historic districts in America,” says Holliday, the CEO of The Holliday Companies investment firm. Indeed, his belief is tangible—the company’s headquarters are in the area, and it also operates three restaurants and three hotels there.

Perhaps Holliday could be accused of bias; aft er all, he was raised just a few blocks away. The son of a mortgage broker, Holliday says he assumed he would one day “take over the family business, buy a little house on the creek and go fishing and shrimping the rest of my life.”

But when he was in college, his father passed away, and suddenly life’s course didn’t seem so clear. He decided to earn his MBA and enter the investment-banking world, where he worked with major companies in New York, San Francisco and Atlanta. “It was a 10-year PhD program in real-estate investment,” Holliday says of his tenure in the corporate world. “I learned what works and what doesn’t and why.”

In 1985, Holliday saw an opportunity he felt confident would work— acquiring Wild Dunes Resort in Isle of Palms, SC. There was a slight problem, however: The barrier-island resort came with a $50 million price tag and required the same amount in renovations.

“At the time, I had a mattress, a stereo, a VW convertible and 1,500 bucks,” Holliday says. Still, he managed to use his contacts to gather the necessary capital, and in a few short weeks, he became the proud owner of a high-end resort with a mortgage of $31,000 a day.

Over the next four years, Holliday worked around the clock to capitalize on his investment. Though he had no experience in the resort industry, he generated $250 million in sales in four years, and sold the resort just months before Hurricane Hugo devastated it. “At that point, I needed a break,” Holliday says. He packed his bags and moved to Key West.

While on Florida’s southernmost island, Holliday says his favorite restaurant was a place called Café Marquesa, and it was there that he met the man who would eventually join him for his career’s next chapter: Chef Robert Carter. “Bob had gone to culinary school in Charleston, and his dream was to go back there and open a restaurant,” Holliday says. “So there he was, this 24-year-old chef at the Marquesa, and he would walk out and wag his finger at me and tell me I needed to go back to Charleston and open a restaurant with him. I told him he was nuts.”

Still, the sun and surf of the Florida Keys couldn’t keep Holliday from looking for another good investment opportunity, and in 1994, he found one. An old dry-goods emporium on the edge of Charleston’s City Market was in bankruptcy court, and Holliday sensed a diamond lurking in the rough.

“I grew up in a historic house in Charleston, and my first love in the realestate industry is the restoration of historic structures,” he says. “Here was this 150-year-old building that was built like a fortress, with 18-inch exterior walls, 11-foot ceilings and heart-pine floors. Between the building itself and its location, it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

The courtyard
at Planters InnHolliday purchased the structure and called it the Planters Inn; today it is a 64-room luxury hotel that attracts travelers from across the globe. It also houses a four-star restaurant, Peninsula Grill, where the executive chef is none other than Carter. “Hank took a chance on that snot-nosed kid he met in the Keys,” Carter says with a laugh.

Together, Holliday and Carter have devised a menu that is at once cosmopolitan and accessible; it off ers items like seared foie gras with duck barbecue biscuits and a dollop of Carolina peach jam, and has an impressive wine selection. The atmosphere is one of classic sophistication, with a large main dining room, dark-wood booths and velvet-lined walls.

So successful was their venture (Peninsula Grill made Esquire’s Best New Restaurant list the year it opened, and the readers of Charleston City Paper have named it the area’s top restaurant nearly every year since), Holliday and Carter decided to tempt fate twice. They made plans to create a Low Country seafood restaurant out of a dilapidated City Market warehouse, and Holliday recruited Frank McMahon, formerly of New York’s acclaimed Le Bernardin, to serve as executive chef of the new operation.

Peninsula Grill’s dining
room“We hit it off right away,” McMahon says of his first meeting with Holliday to discuss what would become Hank’s Seafood Restaurant. “Hank and I see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. He gets things done, and I liked his straightforward approach.”

Hank’s Seafood Restaurant quickly became another success story, and from there, the momentum was virtually un-stoppable. The company added two additional hotels and a popular Italian restaurant to its stable of City Market holdings, and today, most of the area’s businesses are following Holliday’s luxury-minded lead.

“Hank is a very driven individual and very smart; he knows how to identify a niche or opportunity and bring it to the table and make it a success,” Carter says.

For his part, Holliday says his greatest knack may be for finding quality associates. “The most important element to me has been to work with people who are not only extremely talented but who have impeccable integrity,” he says.

Holliday will soon be searching for even more talented individuals, as a local group he helped found—City Market Preservation Trust—was recently awarded the opportunity to redevelop the actual public market for which the City Market area is named. “I envision turning it into one of the great public markets in the US, not unlike Faneuil Hall in Boston or Harborplace in Baltimore,” he says.

Despite the new projects, Holliday swears it won’t eclipse his other goals: fishing, shrimping and living on the water. “I love to spearfish and fly-fish and hang out by the ocean,” he says. “It’s important to do well in this business, but it’s also important to have a life.”

HOW-TO FOR HOSPITALITY

1 Surround yourself with talented, service-oriented hospitality managers who possess a strong work ethic and are goal-oriented, creative problem solvers.

2 Never forget that everyone employed in the industry is a “waiter.” Focus on hospitality “opportunities” at all times, and work to create uplifting human experiences and relationships.

3 Hospitality staff are “actors” in a theatrical production. Be conscious that you are always on stage and are being watched by customers. Dress for and diligently perform the role that you are playing.

4 Focus on quality, cleanliness and customer satisfaction, and never forget that the customer is writing the paychecks.

5 Know your competition better than they know themselves.

TIMELINE HANK HOLLIDAY

1985: buys Wild Dunes Resort in Isle of Palms, SC, his first property

1994: acquires what later becomes Planters Inn in Charleston’s City Market

1997: opens Peninsula Grill with Chef Carter

1999: opens Hank’s Seafood Restaurant with Chef McMahon

2006: opens Mercato Italian restaurant with Chef Larson