Michael Tuohy

Food Professional, Chef, champion of local food, responsibly produced. It is important we think about where our food comes from, how it is grown and raised, and by those that do it. Connecting the dots.......

Michael Tuohy, founder and principal of Charleston, South Carolina based Fullhouse Hospitality. Fullhouse Hospitality is a food & beverage consultancy to Restaurants, Hotels, Sports & Entertainment, Gourmet Specialty Food retail and Mixed-use Commercial Real Estate. Tuohy, brings 40+ years of real industry experience. He began his career in restaurants at the age of 15, starting as a dishwasher at a neighborhood steakhouse in his hometown of San Francisco. Tuohy graduated from Hotel & Restaurant School at City College of San Francisco 1982. After which entailed stints at the Four Seasons Clift Hotel, Olympic Country Club and others. In 1985, he joined acclaimed Bay Area chef and cookbook author Joyce Goldstein of the highly acclaimed Square One Restaurant to launch its sister restaurant, Caffe Quadro, an Italian-inspired caffe/enoteca.

Working with Goldstein proved to be a pivotal experience for Tuohy. Goldstein’s love of Italian food, as well as other cuisines and cultures of the Mediterranean, was incredibly influential to Tuohy’s burgeoning culinary philosophy. Square One’s daily changing menus explored the regions of Italy, Southern France, Spain, Greece and North Africa. Goldstein’s experience prior to launching her own restaurant included working with the renowned Alice Waters as manager of the Café at Chez Panisse. Tuohy also had the opportunity to work closely with Joyce Goldstein’s son, Evan Goldstein. Evan was the architect of Square One’s award-winning wine program and at 27 was the youngest person to achieve the designation of Master Sommelier.

Armed with a passion for fresh, seasonal cooking, Tuohy came to Atlanta to launch Chefs’ Café in 1986. Chefs’ Café became known for its eclectic, inventive menu and was frequently tagged as “groundbreaking” by the local food media. At that time, Chefs’ Cafe was the only local restaurant that changed its menu frequently and cooked using local and seasonal ingredients. Tuohy brought a Northern California ethos and aesthetic to Atlanta dining that has become commonplace today. While most restaurants were buying their goods from large distributors, he developed relationships with local farmers who supplied Chefs’ Cafe with just-picked lettuces and vegetables, an approach that was unheard of in Atlanta in the late 1980’s. Tuohy was instrumental in helping to start the Georgia Grown Co-op of local farmers. For the next 15 years, the Co-op would deliver the goods from a dozen local Certified Organic Farms to restaurants and markets around the city.

In 1996, Tuohy joined forces Tom Murphy at Murphy’s restaurant, now considered an Atlanta institution, and retooled Murphy’s menus and style of service.The menus had a heavy orientation toward soups and sandwiches, to include more appetizers and entrees and create a full dining experience. This also prompted a shift from lots of convenience and canned type products to sourcing and working with fresh ingredients.

Tuohy left Murphy’s in 1998 to pursue other opportunities, which included a consulting for restaurants offering expertise on operations evaluation, menu/recipe development, concept development to opening, feasibility analysis and day-to-day management.

In 2000, Tuohy realized that he missed working with great ingredients on a daily basis to create food that he truly believed in. The prospect of cooking exciting foods that were rooted in tradition and serving appreciative customers lured him to take the leap once again to launch his own restaurant, Woodfire Grill. Woodfire would be a restaurant that would incorporate all of Tuohy’s experiences and passion for great food and wine. Woodfire, as the name implies, would utilize the time tested methods and techniques of cooking over wood and open flame. Woodfire would emphasize the freshest and best locally sourced ingredients and artisan products from around the world and would showcase them in a menu that changed daily as well as seasonally. In August 2002, Woodfire Grill opened to big crowds and rave reviews. During Tuohy's tenure, Woodfire received numerous local and national accolades in many publications. Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Gourmet, Wine Spectator, NY Times, USA Today, Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Atlanta Magazine, Georgia Trend, to name a few. Woodfire was recognized for its rustic yet refined what became known as, "Farm-to-Table" cuisine. He helped fuel the fire and movement of local-farm-fresh cooking.
In 2008, Tuohy sold the restaurant to return to his native California in 2008 where he was recruited by, and joined Joie de Vivre Hotels.

Joie de Vivre was, the largest boutique hotel company in California at the time. Tuohy assumed the role of Executive Chef, to launch the flagship Citizen Hotel and Grange Restaurant and Bar in downtown Sacramento, the state capitol. The property and restaurant were an immediate success under Tuohy’s guidance, connecting local farms and artisan producers into a daily changing menu. Grange was awarded 4stars by the Sacramento Bee shortly after opening. It helped define the future of restaurants in the State Capitol. After the company sold in 2011, Tuohy departed for the Napa Valley where he became Executive Chef for Dean & Deluca and the famed Oakville Grocery, featuring farm fresh gourmet foods for retail. In 2013, he returned back to Sacramento to work on several food & restaurant related projects. First, joining the owners of the popular LowBrau Sausage & Beer Hall, to create and launch Block Butcher Bar next door. Block was Sacramento’s first establishment dedicated to the art and craft of charcuterie and brown spirits.

In 2014, came the opportunity to build the food & beverage program for the state-of-the-art Golden 1 Center NBA Arena, home to the Sacramento Kings. He partnered with New York based Legends Hospitality, to build a locally based food & beverage program know as "Farm-to-Fork", the first of it’s kind in sports & entertainment. The program would aim to source 90% of the Food & Beverages from within 150 miles of the arena. Golden 1 Center was the first LEED Platinum Certified Sports and Entertainment facility.

In 2018, Tuohy and his wife Patti, moved too Charleston, SC. Tuohy began working with The Dewberry Hotel, a boutique luxury property in downtown. There, he managed and all food & beverage outlets on the property and launched the rooftop bar called The Citrus Club growing food & beverage revenue by 33% in one year. In 2019, Tuohy launched Fullhouse Hospitality. Projects include, restaurants, hotels, sports & entertainment, commercial mixed use real estate.