Confessions of Toni Watkins

Q. What is the best part of your job?

I’m encouraged to think out of the box and to move forward with projects by creating viable business plans. For example, this recently led to adding the Chick-fil-A brand to my organization as a franchisee in 2015.

Q. What is the worst part of your job?

Constantly dealing with productivity and having to justify staffing.

Q. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

During the 1980s, I helped to create a program on military bases in Germany at the local commissaries for American soldiers and their families to select healthy food options. The program was called Fit To Win.

Q. What is the most unusual foodservice/catering request you have ever received?

To create a Christmas party for physicians inside of an art museum.

Q. If you weren't in foodservice what would you be doing?

Food research and development.

Q. If you had a time machine what historical event or era would you visit?

I would love to have seen the Three Tenors when they debuted in New York.

Q. Which talent would you most like to have?

I would love to be able to sing.

Q. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would like to have the creative skills for fashion and design.

Q. Which living person do you most admire?

My mother.

Q. What would be your dream vacation?

I would like to tour Italy.

Q. What is your favorite meal?

Corned beef and cabbage.

Q. If you could eat dinner with anyone living or dead, who would it be?

Oprah Winfrey.

Q. What is your guilty pleasure?

Chocolate and fried chicken. 

Q. What will people always find in your refrigerator?

Some sort of dessert.

Q. What is your most treasured possession?

My grandmother’s diamond ring.

Q. What food fad do you wish had never started?

Krispy Kreme donuts.

Q. What activity is at the top of your bucket list?

Attend a Broadway show.

Q. What is the weirdest food you have ever eaten?

Menudo.

Q. Are you a morning or evening person?

Morning.

Q. What are your words to live by?

Lead by example.