Web By:  Design Carte
About GrandView Steakhouse & Lounge
320 2nd Avenue NE, Beulah, ND 58523, Telephone:  701.873.4455
Chad Stockwell is the new manager of GrandView Steakhouse and BIGs Lounge.
Stockwell seeks consistent excellence at the GrandView.
By Jerry W. Kram

“It shouldn’t matter who’s cooking or what you order. When you order something it should always taste the same and be good.”

That’s the philosophy of Chad Stockwell. He took over as manager of the GrandView Steakhouse and BIGs Lounge. Stockwell was hired in May.

Stockwell was born in Beach and went through junior high there before his family moved to Minnesota in 1989.

He attended Moorhead State University in the early 1990s before moving to Minneapolis in 1997. There he started with Border Foods Ind.; a fast food franchise. He worked there in food management until 2003. He moved into retail management with Sears for two years and then took a position with Strata Corp. in Bismarck in 2006. When he heard there was an opening for a restaurant opening in Beulah, he was intrigued with the chance. He is currently commuting to Beulah from Bismarck where he lives with his wife, Cassie, and son, Carter.

“I looked where their business had been and where they would like it to go,” Stockwell said. “I looked at the opportunities that were available to this business and I kind of fit the role of the guy who could do it for them. I basically told them that if I can’t do it, I’m pretty confident no one can. It’s a great business, it just needs some great direction.”

Mike Hammerschmidt, spokesperson for the group of investors that owns the GrandView, is impressed with Stockwell’s progress so far.

“I think Chad has great management skills,” Hammerschmidt said. “That’s what you need to run a restaurant and make it work long term. Looking at the books for the last three months, things are looking good. I think he is doing a good job and the employees respect him. The guy is just a perfectionist. I really believe he is going to work out.”

Stockwell said he looked at the businesses financial statements and met with the owners before he agreed to come on as the new manager. He even ate in the restaurant a few times before he made his decision.

“Knowing what Beulah has and what the surrounding area has, it was enticing enough to bring me up here to try it out,” Stockwell said. “I’ve always wanted to own my own restaurant. That’s always been a passion of mine. I kind of let it go for a few years and I realized how much I liked it. Within two weeks, I realized how much I missed it. I really have a passion for the food industry.”

Stockwell said his first priority for the business is to establish a consistent quality product. He said that a number of customers would decide what to eat depending on who was cooking or what vendor the restaurant bought from that week. He said that in his experience such inconsistency doesn’t work. He said his biggest accomplishment of the last three months is to have consistent quality and vendors in place with consistent training for the staff.

“I’ve heard people haven’t come up here for three years because they had a poor experience,” Stockwell said. “I say, ‘come and give me a try. I’m confident that you will receive great service.’ Fifty percent of the experience is great service and the other half is great product. I’m confident we have pretty good product now.”

Another thing Stockwell is trying to do is make a consistent set of specials that will be set in stone. He said the specials will try to play off the drink specials in the lounge. For example, Monday is Margarita Night at BIGs, so the special will be steak and chicken fajitas. He added that Saturday’s barbecue rib special is pretty well established. Even when his specials are set, that doesn’t mean Stockwell will quit innovating.

“I am trying to adapt to what our guests and the community wants,” Stockwell said. “It’s not going to be the same old thing either. We are always going to be inventing new things, creating new dishes.”

Stockwell also pointed out that there are signs on the building for the first time ever telling everyone there is a restaurant up on the hill. He will be holding a grand opening for the restaurant in the near future.

In the long term, Stockwell would like to bring on enough staff so the GrandView could be open for lunch. Finding that staff is one of his challenges.

“In this community you don’t have the stacks of applications where I could sit down and do daily interviews,” Stockwell said. “Here they’re few and far between. It’s hard to find good applicants to fill a position. It’s not so hard to keep them here, because from what I hear people like working for me. It’s just hard with all the competition with higher paying jobs at the mines and plants.”

Stockwell wants to get comments from the public on how he’s doing at the GrandView, both positive and negative.
“A lot of people don’t even know I’m here yet,” he said. “There’s always room for improvement and I always want to hear comments. That’s the only way I know I am going to make it better is to hear both the positive and the negative feedback. The only way I can correct situations is if I know about it.”

701.873.4455