This article was originally published in Coast Magazine, written by Susan Segal.”I love giving parties, especially dinner parties, where I can show off my culinary and design talents at their best. Matching the perfect appetizer with the perfect entree with the perfect wine and the perfect guest, arranging a cunning design of flowers, adjusting the lighting to evoke just the right mood, these are skills I have always prided myself in, and, if I do say so myself, my parties are rather well received by the attendees. That, of course was my other life. Now, I am a single mom with three jobs, a volunteer position at my son’s school, and a relationship with that has more mood swings than a boozy actress. After a long day simply negotiating my life, I’m lucky if I can open a can of Spaghetti-O’s. For the last few years, it has become abundantly clear that my entertaining days are over. That is until I found Nelse. Perhaps you’ve heard about Nelse too. If not, I am about to give away Orange County’s best kept hospitality secret. Nelse is a self-styled Hospitality Manager. What that means for the ones like me is that I can once again invite friends over without having to carve out time to steam clean the carpets and scour the specialty store aisles for the perfect portabella mushrooms. Nelse does all that, and more. Nelse may describe himself as a Hospitality Manager, I describe him as a lifesaver for hire.
https://www.viagrageneriquefr24.com/achat-viagra-suisse/you may have retained everything from a valet to a personal chef to a flower arranger to a dog walker to a house sitter. Need someone to open up the Laguna cottage while you’ve been wintering in Jamaica? Nelse is your man. Throwing together a small soiree for 100, including five vegetarians, one vegan and one who keeps kosher? No problem. Simply need someone to see that the kids get a hot meal they’ll actually eat? Nelse again.With over 17 years of culinary, hospitality and entertaining experience, Laguna Beach native Nelse Shepard is ready to, as he puts it, “accommodate any need with the utmost competence and efficiency”. Having formerly trained and served as a personal chef, valet and butler, Nelse has done everything from the oversight of five residences, 14 cars, two yachts and two jets-at the same time!-to acquiring and managing private fine art collections and libraries, to “fluffing” (decorating and refurbishing) houses that are about to go on the market. Very quickly, his services were so in demand that he expanded his business to include employees whom he personally trained to provide the same quality care as he does. In fact, he’s often asked by clients to train their own staff up to his standards.Think your household needs too modest to call for Nelse’s Hospitality Management? Not so, says Nelse, who prides himself on working within the parameters of the client’s budget, whatever that may be. “Simple elegance is one of my ways of life”, he says, and one can acquire that with a select group of services almost as well as one can by using him for every household and social need. Nelse says flexibility and options are key to satisfying his clients needs. Speed and efficiency are also key; “I try to get everything done within 24 hours, down to changing the light bulbs”.Asked to name the most elaborate request he ever fulfilled, Nelse doesn’t hesitate: “I had to take a vacant ocean lot and line it with rose petals on the eve of the Summer Solstice as a birthday gift for a client’s wife. They were then greeted by a butler, Krystal Champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries”.
After discovering Nelse’s services, the next time I have the urge to be the hostess from Heaven, or need someone to “fluff” my house prior to its sale, or simply need some home-cooked meals to get me through the week, I know whom to call. Ask him if there’s any request he can’t or won’t fulfill, and, like the superb Hospitality Manager he is, Nelse simply replies, “Not yet”. -Susan Segal Ten years later, Coast’s Editor-in-Chief peers into the life of Nelse Shepard. “I really got to know Nelse when he was managing the Renaissance Cafe in Laguna Beach. He was always a friendly face, and for locals, he always provided a great table without to much of a wait at his very popular eatery in my hometown. When he ventured off in 1997 to start his own events and catering company. The coast thing to do was to help promote a business that-in keeping with our mission statement-created a sense of community and vitalized the local economy. Now, Shepard is still setting some of the nicest tables in town.“ “In 2001, Coast featured my business in a chef issue with a nice article about creative hospitality management”. He had started a hospitality an food service company, primarily to cater meals for wealthy residents in coastal communities of Orange County with his specialty being personal chef services in Emerald Bay and Irvine Cove. The goal was to entertain people in the most hospitable way possible in their homes. ” We were doing private parties, catering and large corporate featuring a casual-yet-elegant sense of style.” “When the Coast article was first published, I had a wonderful response, way more than I had expected. I received 20 calls the week it was released, with requests ranging from intimate dinner parties to corporate parties to estate management for a couple of the more elegant homes on the coast. Now, nine years later, I still work on a daily basis for six of the people who called from that article. One of them I have been working for every Monday for the past four years. They had read about me in Coast and literally had to wait for a year for my schedule opened up.” “I’ve always been a believer in word of mouth; it’s the most positive form of advertisement. Coast represents the most positive word of mouth around- I use it spot trends and a guide to style. My whole team uses it to track where business development is going and how fashion is trending in Orange County, and that helps me better serve our clients. Coast has always been an asset and a tool. About 80% of the business I have based on that article.” For more information and to contact Nelse directly, please send an email to nelse.co2020@gmail.com or call at # (949) 500-6375 “You’ve heard the rumors, now come taste the good life” |