The National Culinary Review

HISTORY Recipe for Success By Kay Orde Salvador Marino, CEC, HAAC, bought the first of several restaurants he and his wife Jean would own in Birmingham, Ala., in 1948. They were 20-somethings, and the purchase was made with $2,700 they had saved up between them. Flash forward 50 years, and Marino has left the restaurant business—but he hasn’t left foodservice. In 1999, he began to produce Chef Sal’s Southern-Style Vegetables, now available nationwide.

Today, Marino is 85, but he remembers growing up in the Great Depression, the son of Italian immigrant parents, as if it were yesterday. “My daddy had a grocery store, and by the age of 10, I was up at 5 a.m. and opening the store by myself. Then I went to school, and came home to work in the store until 9 p.m.” This introduction to what would become his life’s work seems an unlikely inspiration for a youngster, but Marino saw opportunities. He would help unload the truck that delivered meat, including sides of beef, and it wasn’t long before he figured out how to cut off a slice and cook a steak, or cook some sausage with sawmill gravy for breakfast. “I was making béchamel sauce and beurre blanc before I knew what they were,” he says.

When World War II came along, he enlisted in the Army, just before his 18th birthday. His cooking skills were recognized during basic training, and with other soldiers of various ethnic backgrounds he formed a “league of nations” that soon earned a reputation for preparing outstanding food. “The officers would leave the Officers Club and come eat our food, ” Marino says.

After the war, he went home to Birmingham
and married Jean. They sold their first
restaurant and bought a larger one. Soon,
22 employees were reporting to Marino,
who was barely in his 30s. But there was a
downside. “I was working from 5 a.m. one
day to 2 a.m. the next, seven days a week. I
felt I had to be there every minute,” he says.
“When I sold it, I promised myself and God
that I wouldn’t work on Sundays again.”
Marino’s next career move continued his
professional development when he went to
work as an assistant manager in a restaurant
located in a national department store chain.
He was hired by Master Chef Carl Schmidt,
who saw something in his new employee. “He
encouraged me to go to culinary school,” Marino
says. “So I went to The Culinary Institute of
America in New Haven, Conn. It was there that I
met Joe Amendola, who became a great friend.”
When his studies ended, Marino went
back to Birmingham and bought another
restaurant. His life would revolve around
restaurant ownership for many years,
a decision, he says, that he has never
regretted. “This business is a hobby, not
work, to me. I would put in long hours and
ache all over, but the fruits of it made it all
worthwhile. I never thought of it as work.”
Although he’d left behind his formal training,
he was on a constant quest to learn. A trip
to Chicago found him tracking down the
best deli in town. “My son thought I was
crazy,” Marino says. “But I just wanted to
know what others in the business were
doing and how they were doing it.”
It was one of the reasons he joined ACF
and ACF Birmingham Alabama Chapter in
1985. He wanted to learn from other chefs
and explore the foodservice world. Today’s
members might learn something from past
chapters, he says. “We need to get back to
basics, back down to earth, to be successful.
We’re losing chapters because of how our
thinking has gone. Not everyone can be a
master chef. Feed people and make them
feel good. That’s what we do best. Some
chefs want recognition and glory, but they
need to get back to basics and fix good food.”

Marino

To keep young people involved, he believes, there’s nothing like a good dose of honesty. “We should be more truthful with them about foodservice. Kids go to culinary school, pay high tuition, come out and can’t make it. It breaks my heart. I tell them to work under chefs and learn from all kinds of different people, and be aggressive as they make their way in the business. I would try to help the kids I thought had potential, and encourage them.”

He’s equally as likely, though, to dissuade young people who are in the wrong line of work. “I had one young man who worked for me who’d come in about 8 a.m., have breakfast, smoke a cigarette, etc., and start working an hour later. I said to him, ‘Why don’t you find something you enjoy doing?’ He became a fireman, and is still a fireman today. If you want to be a success in life and live a long time, find something you enjoy doing.” That Marino enjoys what he’s doing is obvious, but why, when he could have retired a decade ago, did he branch out into another area of foodservice? “My son called and said he was starting something new. He was putting quick-service food outlets in nontraditional locations,” Marino says. “I hadn’t worked with him long before I said we needed to get into the business of producing our own vegetables and side dishes. So I did the R&D, wrote the recipes and started producing. When we put the products into the locations, it was a hit. I showed them how simple it was to use the products— since they were already cooked and seasoned.” Marino has no plans to retire. “If you quit working, you die.” Instead, he says, “Help people out when you can. Lead a good spiritual life. Be productive. Have a love for the business and for God, and don’t be afraid to work.