Photo: Michael Derr
Olivia Hinsey-Langlais took one bite of her off-menu creation of herbed mascarpone, truffle ricotta, caramelized onions, and meatballs on a crispy crust and became so excited that instead of eating it herself, she shared it with her coworkers, then made a few of the special pies for guests.
Server Colleen Neary, who has been around since opening day in 2008, helps her trainees understand that using up the decorative candles on the tables instead of replacing them before they run out of wax saves the company money.
As a line cook and an owner-operator at Narragansett’s Trio restaurant, part of Newport Restaurant Group, Hinsey-Langlais enjoys exercising the liberty to think up potential new menu items from time to time. And for Neary, a dollar saved is a dollar earned.
All Newport Restaurant Group employees benefit from employee ownership the day they walk onto the job. The group’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan, set into motion in 1995, gives employees the chance to earn annual retirement income without the requirement of contributing from their paychecks.
“We started that process in 1995,” NRG’s Human Resources Director Kristin Allain explained, “continued to buy shares from the existing shareholders over the years, and then redistributed them to employees.”
“We continued that process until 2018 when we became 100% employee-owned, so all outstanding shares are held in a trust, and all employees of the company, based on their years of service, are the beneficiaries of that trust,” she said.
Along with the financial benefits of the trust (employee accounts work just like retirement plans and carry tax penalties for early distribution), employees are held to different standards for both themselves and those around them.
“I’ve worked with the Newport Restaurant Group for 26 years,” Allain said, “and what I can tell you is we feel differently about the work we do, and we feel differently about the people we work with.”
Allain explained that the culture of the group helps to elevate everyone in it.
“There’s just something very special about working side by side. Regardless of what our roles are, regardless of our individual salaries, we know that our individual efforts are worth more collectively.”
With transience and high turnover being enduring realities in the hospitality industry, Newport Restaurant Group took a risk in making such a large investment in its employees. This method, however, appears to be paying off both operationally and financially.
With Newport Restaurant Group’s ESOP program, all employees are taught about and trained within the framework of their expectations as owner-operators. With that knowledge comes responsibility for one’s work, assisting coworkers in meeting their own goals, and doing, in general, what is best for the success of the organization.
For one employee, that might mean maintaining equipment, and for someone in the kitchen, it might mean cutting vegetables more uniformly to reduce waste. For a manager, it may mean working with an employee’s disability or availability needs.
Essentially, all employees are responsible for the work set before them and helping their co-owners in any way they can.
The ESOP is comprised of profits drawn from all 14 restaurants in the group, which are located between Narragansett and the Boston area. Whether an employee is salaried or a college student working through their summers off, each employee, based on a calculation of their salaries and total annual hours, will receive a deposit.
Trio’s General Manager, Narragansett’s Michael Accetta IV, has been with the company since 2010, save for a year he left to help a friend start their own business.
Accetta said the key to success for Trio, and other NRG locations where he has worked, is supporting his employees instead of imposing on them.
“We always take the approach like, ‘Hey, what’s your dream schedule?’” he said.
Though schedules are ultimately created around the restaurant’s needs, he said he and other managers make the greatest efforts possible to ensure both positions and hours are a mutual fit.
As a manager, he explained, it has been impressed upon him to think like an owner.
“Our directors and our executives really instill the mentality of running and planning your budgets as if you were the owner,” he said. “There really is an owner mentality of like, ‘If this was your restaurant, what would you do?’”
He says that being an employee-owner helps him determine long-term strategies for the restaurant, helps the chefs and kitchen staff make adjustments that benefit the company, and allows servers and bartenders to take the best care possible of the patrons visiting the restaurant.
“If it’s a special occasion, we are given the right to send out a glass of champagne for someone if it’s their anniversary or send out dessert,” server Colleen Neary explained, “We don’t have to run that by a manager. We are empowered to do so.”
Neary said the best parts of her job are the flexibility, as she is a mother of a young child and her husband works long hours, the pride and care taken by everyone on staff, and the level of structure and organization within the company.
“If you need to get something done, it’ll get done. I like that,” she smiled.
Accetta described his management style as making sure all of the employees not only have what they need to do their jobs but also have the time invested in them to learn and become comfortable with all aspects of their positions.
“We have very detailed and thorough training programs. We always want to do the right thing and make sure that we give employees all the tools they need to succeed,” he said.
Hinsey-Langlais has been a line cook at Trio for six years. With experience in quick service, she was brought into the Newport Restaurant Group fold immediately after applying.
She says she enjoys her job at Trio, the structure, and their flexibility with her working in her field, horticulture. She sees the ESOP as a bonus.
“It’s great that I am able to balance jobs. The company values me enough to let me do my own thing and let me stay here as well,” she said.
Hinsey-Langlais also highly values the fact that they are flexible with her physical needs.
“I’m an amputee, and the management team is willing to work with my disability and give me time when I need to rest, when I need to get off my leg.”
She says she enjoys the standards that are upheld in the restaurant and that she has been hard-pressed to find similar setups in the community.
“One thing I want to point out is the level of standard I’ve learned to hold here,” she said. She explained that it has not only elevated the expectations she has for herself and her teammates, but also her expectations of other businesses, especially other restaurants.
And she takes great pride in the food she prepares for patrons.
“I genuinely want to serve people food they’re going to enjoy,” she said. “We want you to have a good experience. And even though we don’t get to interact directly with our customers, our opportunity to interact with our guests is giving them good food that they want to eat.”
She says the goals all Newport Restaurant Group employees share, of being responsible, treating each other and customers well, and giving patrons the best experience they can, is what has kept her coming to work at Trio for the past six years.
“When I meet other people in the company, there is a mutual respect,” she said.
The most poignant aspects of the company are so prominent and tangible that they permeate positions, locations, and business units.
“The culture that the employee ownership business model creates is unlike anything I’ve ever seen or experienced before in my lifetime,” Kristin Allain said.
“Your integrity, your showing up, your having the back of the people you work with every single day — it just doesn’t happen in as special a way as it does with an employee-owned company.”