Panorama Resort

Panorama Resort Lots of things were happening for me as I became more adapted to my profession. I was offered the job of as the executive chef to a soon to be resort owned by Calgary entrepreneur Allan Graham and The Cascade Group. This was a very rewarding position and I had lots of interviews and did several food presentation trials before being accepted. The resort operations manager was Robert Rutter hired especially for his expertise on this project from Spinney’s Support Services in Abu Dhabi. The resort manager was Rodney Darwin from The Gloucestershire House in the UK.

The project was touted as being a first class destination resort. I was flown to the Calgary offices and found that the company I was working for was very large and was involved in many different adventures from insurance to owning hotels and museums worldwide.

Alberta was bursting at the seams and this new resort was just four hours away from the city. It is tucked into this pristine back country range with bountiful snow falls with lots of vertical runs upon this Purcell Mountain retreat.

I was told that a road had to be completed from below the mountain starting in Invermere and then a water and pollution control plant had to be the first part of the operational plan. I was flown to the mountain area where this was all to start and the first thing that I had to do was get a modular kitchen and workers barracks with a functional cafeteria from ATCO structures and get it flown and set up in place on the mountain by helicopter.

Several structures were set in place and we soon had our first kitchen operating in less than a week. I hired a small staff from the village and began to feed the army of workers and suits that arrived daily to work and oversee the huge project.

Bridge Brand Food Services and the Tamagi family staff was my chosen supplier and were instrumental in helping me get this project off the ground. I was serving three meals a day and the project was still growing with workers. There were hundreds of carpenters, roofers, window installers, carpet and interior décor workers. Large crews of ski hill trail developers; lift manufacturers, heavy equipment operators, hill groomers, government inspectors and numerous visitors and investors. My staff grew and after the first months and major setback due to a fire burning almost half of the condo project to the ground we were entering the second season and the Pine Inn was taking shape. At this point I was running on all cylinders and was involved in numerous meetings and staff interviews as well as keeping the owners and his entourage well fed and happy.

The new Toby Creek wing was first to open as to house the Canadian Mountain Heli Skiing crowd. This restaurant served guests 3 meals daily and had a complex contemporary menu.

The Tobey Creek staff were all in place and the second phase the Femme Fetal café/bistro was next in line.

During my down time I would be writing menus and keeping the food and labour budgets inline and continued to hire more cooking staff.

The first full operational season was over and the second summer brought more construction and several more facilities became inhabitable. A new fire station was built making all management staff be trained. I drove the truck being the only one with an air class license.  I also ran a 960 payloader to help out to move the huge volumes of snow on the resorts roadways. The swanky new resorts Canyon Ranch opened offering horse boarding, mounted over night excursions into the back country. Panorama was also offering a new sport, Heli Golfing and Hiking.

I was kept busy and the job just got bigger daily. The winter weather was on it’s way and we were on schedule.The resort was now in full swing for the third winter season and the huge Pine Inn opened along with the daily skier’s cafeteria.

I was now in my element trying to keep tight controls, manage and feed all the staff and guests daily. I never needed any rocking to get to sleep for sure.

Thekitchenman’s B.C.