Executive chef Bobby Eckert first entered Reflections' kitchen as a teenage dishwasher. "I try to be a positive influence, instead of just screaming and yelling," he says.
Reflections general manager Richard Callamaras is a veteran restaurateur with a lengthy resume, bottomless confidence and a stable of catchy motivational slogans. "We can do anything we set our minds to," he says.
Reflections executive chef Bobby Eckert returned to the restaurant in 2000, as a line cook. "You can trust him to cook great food," new general manager Richard Callamaras says.
Together, GM Richard Callamaras (left) and chef Bobby Eckert hope to lead Reflections, located in a character-crammed 230-year-old former hotel, into the future.
Eckert (left) and Callamaras hope to take Reflections into the future, beginning with a new menu, set to debut April 7. The new dishes reflect current food trends and offer diners more choices, Callamaras says.
Celebrated chefs often exude a self-confidence — in some cases, an ego — equal only to their talent.
But when Bobby Eckert stepped in front of a crowd earlier this month, he froze. His face turned ghost-white.
How could he cook in front of all these people?
Eckert, a sort of anti-Emeril, suffers a distinctly uncheflike affliction: stage fright.
But he competed in — and won — the second-annual Iron Chef Cocalico, a charity cooking challenge witnessed by a live audience of 500 and a camera crew.
"That 40 minutes was the most grueling, scariest moment of my life," says Eckert, executive chef at Reflections, Leola.
That evening, Eckert teamed up with his new general manager, Richard Callamaras, a veteran restaurateur who's no stranger to the spotlight.
While Callamaras entertained the crowd with his tortilla-making prowess, Eckert marinated meat and chopped vegetables in a rear kitchen, largely out of sight.
"Most chefs are real cocky," says Callamaras, a chef himself. "They're brash."
Not Eckert, who first entered Reflections' kitchen as a teenage dishwasher and wears a baseball cap along with his chef's coat.
Callamaras, who will eventually buy the restaurant from longtime owner Jim Garland, has a lengthy resume, bottomless confidence and a stable of catchy motivational slogans.
Together, he and Eckert hope to lead Reflections, located in a character-crammed 230-year-old former hotel, into the future.
They'll start with the restaurant's first revamped menu in 2½ years, featuring their prize-winning pork fajitas.
***
Callamaras grew up in New Jersey, peeling potatoes in his parents' diner kitchen at age 2.
He found early success as chef/co-owner of several restaurants, from Italian to Middle Eastern. But his long hours weren't cutting it at home.
Looking to realign his misplaced priorities, Callamaras and his wife moved to Lancaster County, one of their favorite vacation spots, in 2002.
"I was a great restaurateur, but I was a horrible husband," admits Callamaras, who will be a father for the third time in May.
But as director of operations for Keares Restaurant Group, he still found himself working 80-hour weeks.
Consulting for corporate restaurants meant saner hours and fat paychecks, but he missed the creative challenges of owning his own place.
In January, Callamaras, now 35, joined Reflections, with plans to buy it when Garland retires. (Coincidentally enough, he lives on the same road as the restaurant.)
Eckert, 32, worked his first job at Reflections as a Conestoga Valley High School student. He graduated from Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Culinary School, partially funded by a job pouring concrete.
He worked at the former Checkers, Ephrata, before his 2000 return to Reflections as a line cook — a position he applied for between making deliveries for a pizza shop.
Eckert, who lives with his wife in Ephrata, tries to avoid the common trap of demanding too much, too loudly, from his kitchen staff of nine.
"I try to be a positive influence, instead of just screaming and yelling," he says.
***
Chefs can inhabit the coveted ground between self-confidence and screaming.
Iron Chef Cocalico was part of Callamaras' efforts to turn his shy chef into a showman.
"You can trust him to cook great food," says Callamaras, who served as Eckert's sous-chef for the event. "(But) the one thing you can't be if you're executive chef is demure."
He and Eckert created julienne pork with stir-fry vegetables, an Asian glaze, sesame tortillas, cherry salsa and apricot-infused sour cream.
From scratch. In 40 minutes.
Before the event, they brainstormed ideas and analyzed endless "Iron Chef" episodes. And one of them — guess who —!q stayed up all night, worrying.
"I was nervous," Eckert says. "If Rich hadn't been there, I probably would've broken down."
Callamaras, who has cooked on live TV, says the battle was the most nerve-racking thing he's ever done.
But he took the heat and stayed out front, allowing Eckert to cook largely unnoticed in a rear kitchen (where he nicked a finger while slicing vegetables with a mandoline).
But Callamaras wouldn't let Eckert off the hook when the time came to make a victory speech.
***
Reflections' new menu, which debuts April 7, was sadly lacking in the Other White Meat.
So Callamaras and Eckert added their "Iron Chef" Asian pork fajitas.
The new menu reflects current food trends and gives diners more choices.
Regulars, don't fear. The calves' liver isn't going anywhere.
But the prices are headed somewhere unexpected: down.
Restaurants' food costs are rising, but diners are also feeling the economy's pinch. What good is charging higher prices, Callamaras reasons, if the dining room is empty?
Reflections goes completely smoke-free April 14. Callamaras hopes to boost the restaurant's community profile with fundraisers for local charities.
Last year Eckert, a diabetic since age 7, raised $1,000 for a diabetes charity at a private cook- off. Now he's been challenged to double it.
Eckert looks a tiny bit doubtful — $2,000 is a lot of money.
Callamaras quickly squashes that morsel of skepticism. "We can do anything we set our minds to."