Keating Culinary out, Valley Hospitality in as RiverMill management company

The management and catering services at RiverMill Event Centre in Bibb City will be changing hands early next year, the event venue’s owner confirmed Wednesday morning.

Columbus-based Valley Hospitality Services through It’s Your Day Catering will assume management and food service responsibilities beginning Feb. 1, said Frank Morast, the president of the Hospital Authority of Columbus. In 2014, the authority purchased the riverfront property, which is on the site of the former Bibb Mill.

The event center is a popular site for weddings, galas and large events of 500 people are more. Many of the events for RiverMill are booked well in advance.

Keating is one of the city’s most well-known chefs and owns Epic, a nationally recognized fine dining restaurant in downtown Columbus.

“There was an automatic renewal and they did not renew the contract,” Morast said Wednesday morning. “We began looking for other companies. Valley Hospitality was the best fit we could find.”

Keating said late Wednesday an oversight caused him to miss a deadline that triggered the end of his lease.

Keating, who started the event center 11 years ago, failed to notify the authority of his intentions to renew the lease, Keating said.

“I am 100 percent in the wrong, but in no way did I think we were not going to be there,” Keating said.

Keating was required to notify the authority in writing 180 days before the lease expired of his intention to extend the lease for a year.

Valley Hospitality, a subsidiary of The Pezold Companies, owns and operates a number of hotels and restaurants in the Chattahoochee Valley. It has the management and catering contract for the National Infantry Museum.

Cassie Myers, marketing and public relations director for The Pezold Companies, said It’s Your Day Catering will work with those who have events planned after Jan. 31 next year at the RiverMill.

“We will honor anything that they already have,” Myers said. “We will work out the details. We’re going to do the right things.”

It’s Your Day Catering employees have not seen the booking schedule past Jan. 31 and have not worked with the current management company on what is booked into the RiverMill for the last 11 months of next year and beyond.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the scheduled events after Feb. 1, so we urge event planners and brides that have booked an event with us after Feb. 1 to contact us at the numbers we had provided,” Myers said.

Myers said for those who have booked events to email her at info@rivermilleventcenter.com or call 706-225- 9309.

Keating has been notifying clients who have weddings and events booked in the center for the past few days.

“I am in the emotion business,” Keating said. “I am concerned about my team and the bookings and families I am hosting. Everyone who books at RiverMill and books with Jamie Keating Culinary becomes family. That is No. 1. No. 2 is to look at how do we provide them with an experience, if we can.”

Keating is looking for alternate venues to host some of the events even if his company cannot cater the event, he said.

“Now, it is on me to make it right in a bigger way, even if we can’t be there,” Keating said. “I they want to book with the new tenants, absolutely 100 percent, go ahead. I am not trying to hold back from them booking. I would never do that.”

It’s Your Day Catering currently is housed at the National Infantry Museum, where Valley Hospitality operates the Fife & Drum restaurant. It’s Your Day Catering, which is led by Executive Chef Jeffrey Brammer, will have operations at RiverMill and the National Infantry Museum when it assumes the new management contract, Myers said.

Brammer and Valley Hospitality Vice President of Food and Beverage Donny Troutman will be involved in the RiverMill operation, Myers said.

Troutman has more than 25 years of food and beverage experience, 12 years with Valley Hospitality and the last five as a vice president.

Brammer has been corporate executive chef at Valley Hospitality for more than 10 years and his primary responsibility is It’s Your Day Catering, but he works out of all of the Valley Hospitality full-service restaurants.

“The addition of the RiverMill further enhances our capability of being a one-stop-shop for event planners and others with busy schedules needing someone to arrange their event location, catering, hotel rooms, transportation, tent rentals, floral or band coordination, along with the numerous small details required to host a spectacular occasion or celebration,” said Valley Hospitality President Brian Plemmons in a statement released by the company.

Hospital Authority of Columbus, a nonprofit entity that operates three nursing homes including Muscogee Manor, purchased the nearly 15-acre property that housed the Bibb Mill before most of it burned nine years ago. The authority is holding the property for future development.

This story was originally published October 25, 2017 at 10:55 AM with the headline "Keating Culinary out, Valley Hospitality in as RiverMill management company."