Tom Hughes moved from flower pots to pots and pans, from flower stakes to grilled steaks.
Hughes, 46, who is executive chef at Folk’s Folly Prime Steak House, grew up in upstate New York. “I had worked — my father owned a garden center — since I was 4, filling flats with dirt and transplanting, so to this day I hate flowers.”
He also enjoyed helping his mother and grandmother in the kitchen.
“When I was 16 I got a job at what used to be a Dairy Queen. The Adirondack Ice Cream Co. Just doing burgers on the grill, milkshakes, and making ice cream cones.”
But something clicked. “I had a blast. I did it through the summer. And then I got a job at Renee’s restaurant, a small family-owned restaurant that summer.”
Hughes washed dishes, but he also worked on the line. He then studied culinary arts at Paul Smith’s College in Lake Placid. He thought, “Cooking will never go out of style. It’s good job security.”
Hughes did his externship at the Iguana Cantina, a Mexican-Caribbean fusion restaurant outside of Boston.
He then began the next almost eight years moving to different kitchens, where he’d usually stay for a year and a half or so. These included The Balsams Resort in New Hampshire; The Sagamore Resort on Lake George in Bolton Landing, New York, where he worked as a cook in Mr. Brown’s Pub; and The Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where he cooked during the MCI/WorldCom Heritage golf tournament. “We worked 16, 18 hours a day and knocked out buffets for the club house.”
He also loaded up steaks and lobster tails in a golf cart and cooked dinner for executives in their private villas.
Hughes remembered one occasion when he was “flipping burgers on the side of the 18th fairway for the governor and his buddies.”
In the beginning, Hughes just wanted to work somewhere other than where he lived. “I was just kind of looking for a way to get out of my small town. And after that, I was just kind of along for the ride. When somebody offered me a position, if I wasn’t tied down, I’d just go for it.”
His career moved along quickly. “I think I was just in the right place at the right time.”
Hughes recalled instructors in culinary school telling students, “Don’t think you’re going to be a chef the minute you graduate from culinary school. You’ve got a long way to go.”
They’d say students might get a sous-chef job in five years and become an executive chef in 10 years. Hughes was a sous-chef two and a half years after he graduated.
He ended up in the Memphis area when he got a job at Gold Strike Casino Resort in Tunica Resorts, Mississippi, and, later, Bonne Terre in Nesbit, Mississippi.
But he was on the go again after a year. He took a job at The Griswold Inn in Essex, Connecticut. Hughes was the chef de cuisine over the new wine bar.
Then it was on to Copper Beech Inn in Ivoryton, Connecticut, where he was “interim head chef.”
“When opportunity presented itself, it seemed like a better offer, I went for it.”
Hughes and his wife, who he met when he was working at Bonne Terre, thought about buying a house in Connecticut, but this was during the housing market crash in 2009. They couldn’t even “buy a two bedroom condo up there.”
So they moved to Southaven, Mississippi, where his wife’s family lives. He worked as a line cook at the old Mesquite Chop House before taking a job at the old L’Ecole Culinaire culinary school. “I was able to teach international cuisines, which included the beverage classes.”
He stayed at the school for four years, where he worked with chefs Spencer McMillin, Jimmy Gentry, Derek and Kim Buchanan, and Jordan Buchanan. “I can still count all those guys as friends.”
Hughes then worked at Chickasaw Country Club for five years and landed his first executive chef position, then TPC Southwind, and the short-lived Tenero butcher shop.
One day a friend from Off the Dock Seafood told him, “Call Folk’s Folly. They just created this executive sous-chef position.”
On October 4, 2022, Hughes began working with then-executive chef Max Hussey at Folk’s Folly. “He had the ability of someone I was wanting to work with. Super creative. We had a lot of things in common. Both had young children. He knew the importance of working hard as well as being home and having family time.”
About five months later, Hussey left to open the Mad Grocer & Deli in Crosstown Concourse. “I was promoted to executive chef.”
Hughes loved Folk’s Folly from the beginning. He liked the “stable environment” of the restaurant. “The bones of the operation were already in place.”
For instance, he says, “The food costs were there. I didn’t have to create my own inventory sheets. That was very enjoyable for me because I want to cook. I don’t want a clipboard in my hand.”
And, he says, “I haven’t changed the menu at all.” But Hughes does create a couple of appetizers, entrees, and dessert specials each week.
Then there are the famous Folk’s Folly steaks. “There are four ingredients to our steaks: salt, pepper, the steak, and then clarified butter that we squirt on the hot plate.”
Over the years, Folk’s Folly has served several types of steaks, including bison, wild boar, and elk.
Their popular hamburger is served in the bar on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. “We hand cut our filet mignons, New York strips, and rib eyes six days a week. And every day that beef is ground fresh. That’s what we use to form our half-pound burgers.”
The late Humphrey Folk opened Folk’s Folly in 1977. Folk, who was in the construction business, “felt that Memphis needed a family-owned prime steakhouse. Everyone said, ‘You’re crazy.’ So he decided to open it anyway and call it ‘Folk’s Folly.’”
The Folk’s Folly menu was “created decades before I got there,” Hughes says. “It’s just a big machine. I’m just trying to keep it rolling along.”
Hughes loves working at Folk’s Folly, which is owned by the Boggs and Folk families. It all boils down to “the people that we work for. I’ve got dozens of examples of them going to bat for their long-term employees.”
“I’m not sure how many people have worked there over 12 to 10 years, but it’s got to be a few dozen.”
He says, “We get to use the finest products available, put our creative spin on specials, and just keep making friends.”
Folk’s Folly is represented at several charity functions during the year. Hughes believes in giving back. He also believes in getting out in the dining room and meeting the customers.
“Honestly, my dad taught me hard work. And that’s what’s carried me through my career.”
Hughes is approaching his Folk’s Folly anniversary. “In a month, it will be three years,” he says.
The day he started working at Folk’s Folly has a special significance for Hughes. “I told everybody it was going to be my last first day.”
