The Hospitality Hero Recognition Program is an Explore St. Louis recognition program designed to acknowledge exceptional service by hospitality industry employees. Butler’s Pantry is thrilled to celebrate these truly outstanding team members. They go above and beyond for our guests and clients, and pull out all the stops to ensure positive and memorable events.
Read about each of our team members and why they are our heroes, below.
Pedro Alcantara
As the event industry experiences a resurgence in demand, there are certain team members that have stepped up to ensure there are no gaps in the quality of service we provide and Pedro is one of them. During a recent two-week span, he more than doubled his hours, but maintained his positive attitude and commitment to the team. Furthermore, when noticing a surplus of untouched, leftover food, Pedro took it upon himself to drive to multiple local shelters after his shift to make sure the food could go to those in need. This act of kindness shows the incredible heart of Pedro and we could not be more grateful for his time and talents. Pedro has been with Butler’s Pantry for quite some time. He’s a one-of-a kind guy that takes great pride in the work that he does. He started out in a part-time capacity while also working events as a Kitchen Attendant, Server and a Driver. From there he worked his way up into a full time role on our operations team and was recently promoted to be our Operations Manager and oversees the day-to-day activities at our warehouse. He ensures that every piece of equipment that is sent to an event is accounted for and is operational. While we don’t see him as much onsite any more we can rest assured knowing that Pedro and his team are handling all of the efforts behind the scenes to ensure everything goes well for those onsite.
Amber Held
Amber worked for Butler’s Pantry for 3 years before leaving to develop her skills in HR. She returned in February of 2020 only to face the most challenging year possible – personally and professionally. Within a month of returning, Amber would take on constant communication of safety & sanitation policies, development & enforcement of new procedures and bear the brunt of hard conversations related to layoffs and furloughs. Every task was an extremely difficult and sensitive one. Amber’s skill as an HR professional blended with her kind spirit & huge heart, helped Butler’s Pantry survive and come back thriving.
Amber is the ultimate model of hospitality in the way she communicates, listens and actively helps in whatever capacity is needed. She is a well respected and appreciated team member!
Colleen McBryan
Colleen has been with the company for more than 8 years. She began her time with us working at our commissary in Bake Shop and then moved over to our pastry shop, Piccione, as the Lead Pastry Chef and Manager. When Piccione closed back in 2019, she accepted a full-time role to assist us in the office as an Accounting Coordinator.
Amid the chaos of 2020, she switched gears from accounting back to bake shop, pulling from her prior years of experience. During this difficult time, she was also credited to be a “one man army” and worked tirelessly to ensure that everything at Butler’s Pantry kept moving forward.
Once business picked up, she was able to go back to her normal role in accounting for a short period before jumping in to help fill the role of staffing while a team member left for maternity leave. She has also filled the role of many service positions onsite at events. Basically, Colleen is willing to help in any way that she can and has an incredible ability to use both left and right sides of her brain to get the job done, no matter what it is! We appreciate her constant positive attitude and how she flawlessly juggled work in the kitchen AND in the office. She truly is a hero to our team and we don’t know what we would do without her!
Amy Moore
Some of the main skills needed for working in the hospitality industry are flexibility and decisiveness. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned, and when that happens, decisions need to be made fast. At a recent event, Amy Moore was a Service Captain and discovered the freezer on the catering truck was stuck shut with all the dessert inside. After multiple attempts and team collaboration, it was time to come up with Plan B if the event was going to have any kind of dessert. So, Amy quickly delegated a few of her onsite tasks and drove to Ted Drewes to bring ice cream back to the party. She made it back just in time for it to be served and no one even knew there was a problem. This was exceptional service and we are certain the family would be touched to know the lengths that Amy took to ensure their big day went exactly as planned.
Amy is an extremely devoted and trustworthy service team member that can fill a variety of roles with no problem. A teacher by day, she still accepts Butler’s Pantry shifts for evening and weekend events as a Service Captain, a Server, a Bartender, a Driver, a Kitchen Attendant and more. She’s a natural hard worker, but also has the gift of motivating and guiding others to embrace the same work ethic. Her ability to lead with kindness and patience makes her an approachable and encouraging individual — the perfect model for teaching others how to provide exceptional catering experiences!
Jake Reichert
Jake has received positive client feedback before, but in April of 2021, Jake received a full page review from an extremely happy client who said Jake helped elevate their event. Due to COVID-19, a hotel downtown was not able to provide onsite food and beverage services. Instead, they put their guest in touch with Jake. From the moment he spoke with Jake, the client said, “Everything went right…really right!” Jake’s friendly personality and his attentiveness to the specific needs of the group are some of the reasons why this client sang his praises. Jake had to coordinate food delivery for multiple times during a day-long event and everything was seamless. The client said he wasn’t used to people caring so much about the delivery and even though it was a smaller group, he never felt like he was receiving “less than” services. Bottom line, this client was delighted and grateful that Jake was the service-oriented superstar that he is and we couldn’t be prouder to have him on our team!
Jake is an amazing team player that goes above and beyond. He is always willing to help, no matter the task — often arriving at the office early or being one of the last to leave at an event. From a client perspective, if there’s ever an issue, he personally makes it right. From quality of food to the presentation, he takes pride in making sure the deliveries are the best they can be.
Aaron Thomas
Aaron is always willing to go above and beyond to make sure our guests are happy and that an event goes off without a hitch. Recently while Aaron was enjoying his day off, he received news that an event was missing something important and without a second thought he dropped what he was doing to run by the shop to pick up the items and drop it off at the event. That’s something that definitely isn’t in the job description and he didn’t think twice about it. He’s a true team player. In the hospitality industry we know that sometimes the details behind the scenes are what make those “WOW” experiences possible.
Aaron works as a Financial Advisor during the week but he is always picking up shifts in his free time. He works as a Server, Bartender and from time to time a Service Captain. We have received positive feedback from clients that reiterate that he does whatever he can to make them happy. We are lucky to have someone like Aaron on our team that understands our company and is willing to pass that knowledge onto other individuals that are excited to learn.
Chad Vanderleest 
Over the course of the last decade, there have been several occasions where Chad will drop his personal life to help out the Butler’s Pantry team. If someone calls in sick, or we are short staffed, Chad will find a way to make it happen. He takes pride in completing exactly what was promised and ensuring every client has an positive event experience. Chad is a Hospitality Hero because he continues to reinvent the wheel while upholding his commitment to quality. He initially pursued a career in Pharmacy, but after completing all his pre-requisites he made a life-changing decision to take a position as sous chef at a local, widely acclaimed restaurant to live out his passion for culinary art. This information is important because it shows his ability to drastically innovate and execute completely new concepts. He always achieves more than what is expected and that is exactly the kind of person we needed to lead our culinary team through a Pandemic. He evolved with the ever changing environment and was able to logistically provide direction for the team to continue providing exceptional celebrations even when people could not gather in traditional ways.