Self-Taught Chef, Brooks Cooks With Tankersley

In the years since he was honored as a member of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s 2008 Forty Under 40 class, Steven Brooks’ career has included several stops.

The most recent, though, has been life changing.

Brooks, 44, was hired in June to be the corporate chef for Van Buren-based Tankersley Food Service Inc., the largest independent foodservice distributor based in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The company was founded in 1944 and distributes more than 10,000 products to schools, health care facilities and restaurants throughout the country.

During a recent interview, Brooks said: “It’s a lot of fun, a good job, and it’s changed my family life, for sure. I’m home at night and on the weekends, and my 10-year-old son has never known his dad to be off by 5 o’clock and be off on the weekends.

“My wife and I sure are enjoying it. I am so blessed to have this opportunity.”

Thirteen years ago, Brooks had an established reputation as a self-taught chef when he moved from Alabama to Northwest Arkansas.

The Alabama native — and one-time football player at Auburn University — was working as a cook at Vincent’s Market in Birmingham when his boss moved to Northwest Arkansas in 2000 to establish and manage the gourmet kitchen at The Market at Pinnacle gourmet store in Rogers.

Six months later, Paul DeMartino summoned Brooks to join him as a sous chef. He remained there until 2005, when John Tyson offered Brooks the chance to become executive chef and food and beverage director at the ultra-exclusive The Blessings Golf Club in Johnson.

“That was really good for me because The Market announced they were closing three days after I gave my notice that I was going to The Blessings,” Brooks recalled.

Brooks said his time at The Blessings was the greatest learning experience of his career. He continued his involvement in the local culinary scene in 2007 when he and a business partner opened a restaurant on Fayetteville’s east side called Soul Restaurant & Lounge.

The business had sales of $690,243 and $632,777, respectively, in 2008 and 2009, but it was shuttered in early 2010 for owing more than $30,000 in sales taxes.

Brooks left the restaurant in late 2009 for a return to the country club scene. Pat Hennessey, general manager at Pinnacle Country Club, brought Brooks to the club as executive sous chef in January 2010. Just before Thanksgiving that year, he was named executive chef and food and beverage director at Springdale Country Club, where he remained until joining Tankersley this summer.

“Northwest Arkansas has been really good to me,” he said.

At Tankersley, Brooks works with the company’s sales team to introduce new items and products to its customers.

Brooks also does a lot of menu writing for customers. He is working on new menus for restaurants in several areas including Hot Springs, Van Buren and Harrison.

“It’s a new challenge and new phase for me,” he said. “They’ve never had a corporate chef before, and they chose me to be that guy. I’m trying not to let them down.”

Along with his job at Tankersley, Brooks has achieved a certain level of fame in the Northwest Arkansas fish bowl with his appearances on local television.

He’s hosted cooking shows in recent years on Jones Network Television and FOX affiliate KFTA-TV. Brooks currently has a morning program on local NBC affiliate KNWA-TV called “Cooking Today.” The program airs each Thursday morning on “KNWA Today.”

That television audience is soon to increase. Beginning Jan. 6, the 30-minute show will begin airing each weekday on KNWA at 12:30 p.m.

“The good thing is we’re on right before Days of Our Lives,” Brooks joked. “I’m a chef. I’m a cook. And these guys have asked me to do a TV show for them. I am so lucky.”

Brooks is hopeful that the show will one day be broadcast statewide via Little Rock NBC affiliate KARK-TV — a sister station to KNWA — and the television ambitions don’t end there.

“I hope one day to be on The Food Network, honestly,” Brooks said. “I’d like for everybody to get to see what I do.”

When the family dines out, Brooks said he has a few favorites including Crabby’s, Tusk & Trotter and Eleven.

“All those (chefs) are my friends, my buds,” he said. “I always want to know what they are doing. They’re the young guys and their food is up and coming. They keep you hip to the game.”