When Reston, Virginia-based Thompson Restaurants entered the Washington metropolitan area’s food market, the D.C. area’s already budding food industry further expanded. One of the company’s acquisitions in 2020 was Milk & Honey restaurants in the D.C. area only– not to be confused with the Atlanta-based establishment that has been in the middle of social media chatter for the past few weeks.
Sammy Davis, Jr., the founder and co-owner of the original iteration of Milk & Honey restaurants, spoke exclusively to the Washington Informer about his challenges with the restaurant business. His first iteration of Milk & Honey, created in 2006, did include those sites in Atlanta. Davis said they failed miserably, so he shut them down.
“They didn’t fail because of the food. It was because I was bad at business,” Davis said.
The chef and entrepreneur came to Maryland, but hard luck continued– he was unhoused sleeping in his car at rest stops. Davis then connected with his cousin, who was opening a restaurant in Baltimore and agreed to help with that project. At the same time, he was approached by the Food Channel show “Chopped.”
“Oh no,” he told them. “I don’t do reality shows.”
Davis agreed to do it anyway. He did not win but gained a lot of positive visibility, which opened doors for Davis to be a food service consultant in the DMV. Due to an overwhelming flood of emails, “Chopped” called Davis again to participate in a redemption competition because his fans felt he should have won the first time. Davis won the second time around on “Chopped.”
With confidence and a bet from a friend, he revisited the Milk & Honey concept in the D.C. area.
You can’t open a successful restaurant serving breakfast,” Davis’s friend told him.
With a $5,000 investment from that friend, Davis flipped it, making $3 million in the first month. His friend and investor could not believe it. Davis opened more locations only in the DMV.
Thompson Restaurants, part of the larger Thompson Hospitality group, liked what they saw, so Davis decided on the 2020 sale of all the Milk & Honey restaurants in the DMV area. With that sale, Davis was asked to come to Thompson as a chef consultant to oversee the food operations for the company’s restaurant group. That also includes the company’s headquarters in Reston.
Thompson Restaurants has 15 brands and operates more than seventy restaurants in Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC, Ohio, and South Florida. The company’s brands are Big Buns, Cut 132, The Delegate, Hen Quarter, Locals Tacos, Makers Union, Matchbox, Ralph Sampson’s American Tap Room, The Ridley, The Rub, Social House, Velocity Wings, Willie T’s. and Wiseguy Pizza. The Milk & Honey brand has 11 locations in the metro area.
As a chef consultant for Thompson, Davis literally and figuratively has his hands in rolling out new menu items, coaching kitchen staff at the various restaurant brands, and assisting with the opening of Thompson-owned restaurants. The bottom line is Davis has a quality control responsibility to ensure brand food is top tier. He has a mantra for a restaurant to be successful, which is something Davis is a stickler about.
“We have to be able to give those we lead clear direction,” Davis said.