About Bill Stephens
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| During three decades as an active foodservice
entrepreneur Bill Stephens wrote over 1,000 weekly wine and food columns
for Harte-Hanks, Murdoch, and Hearst newspapers. His food and wine
features appeared in Wine News, Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, Food
& Wine, and Chef. His short story “The Decanter –
A Christmas Carol” is the only fiction ever published in Wine
News.
Stephens has traveled the world and written many travel features
in The San Antonio Express News (circ. 300,000). He has published
in Field and Stream, and his short story, “Toby Tire’s
Erratic Curve Ball,” was published in Texas A&M University
English Department’s “Big Tex(t)” Ezine. |
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A passionate amateur cook
and wine aficionado for most of his early life, Bill Stephens
“always wanted to have a restaurant.” During his
many years traveling and selling equipment to the world’s
largest construction projects, he made it a point to dine in
the finest restaurants on four continents. At age thirty he
forsook the comforts of the corporate life, and opened My Place
Restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. |
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Now, twenty-five
years after he sold My Place to someone who “always
wanted a restaurant,” (the new owner failed and closed
the restaurant in less that one year), My Place is still remembered
as an institution by his customers. Stephens successfully
diversified into other types of food service.
At one point during his three-decade
tour of duty in active food service, he concurrently owned
and operated a leading San Antonio white tablecloth restaurant,
three airline in-flight kitchens, three employee feeding facilities,
catered a dinner train, and his company was third largest
off-premise caterer in South Texas. |
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| Stephen’s catering clients included
Texas governors, presidential candidates, the family of the King
of Saudi Arabia, The Prince of Wales, Pope John Paul II, Tom Jones,
Neal Diamond, Willie Nelson, and many other notables. |
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He has traveled extensively
in the wine growing areas of Australia, France, Spain, South
America, Germany, and The United States. He developed and
imported his own wine brands from California, Australia, and
New Zealand, and also developed and marketed his own brands
of beer (Sportz Beer) and tequila (Don Sergio Tequila). |
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| Stephens served as a wine competition judge
in the Sonoma Harvest Fair, The Sonoma County Wine Festival, and the
Dallas Morning News Wine Competition. He has lectured many times at
The Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival, and served many consecutive
years as broadcast auctioneer for South Texas public television stations’
fundraisers. Stephens also served as Executive Chairman of The San
Antonio Express News Wine Festival (www.sawinefest.com). |
His fun loving approach to wine and food makes him
sought after as a speaker and for cooking demonstrations for civic
and social groups and TV talk shows. He has food-styled for television
commercial clients from Burger King and Budweiser to Plantation
Poultry and Roegelein Provision Company.
He graduated from The University of Texas with a degree in engineering
and studied postgraduate economics and creative writing at Trinity
University, San Antonio. He is a past President of the San Antonio
Restaurant Association, past Director of The Texas Restaurant Association,
founder of the Cordon Bleus Brothers, an anonymous organization
dedicated to feeding the homeless, and the 25th inductee into the
Dallas Morning News/Texas Department of Agriculture “Who’s
Who in Texas Food and Wine.” |
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Stephens is a avid outdoorsman
and has hunted and fished from Alaska to Mexico. He and his
motorcycle gang, Los Compadres, have ridden their Harleys from
border-to-border and coast-to-coast in the USA and ridden over
12,000 miles in Mexico. |
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| He lives in San Antonio, Texas.
His company, Bill Stephens Associates, is an active restaurant consulting
firm specializing in independent restaurants. (www.independent-restaurant-consultants.com).
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Support Materials
Visit the author’s restaurant consulting website - www.independent-restaurant-consultants.com.
Complete copies of the following stories and articles are available
upon request.
"Toby
Tire and His Erractic Curve Ball", Summer 2005, Texas A&M University
Big Tex(t) Ezine
“Poetry in Motion,”
a feature on Champagne , The Wine News
“The Decanter: A Christmas
Tale,” short story, The Wine News
“Tipping the Scales,” a series on weight loss written while attending
the Duke University Diet and Fitness Clinic, The San Antonio Express
News
“Losing
to Win” - October 20, 1996
“Three of Me Weigh a Lifestyle Change” - October 28,
1996
“Dear Diary: I’m gonna change my lifestyle” - November
4, 1996
“The Will to Change” - November 11,1996
“The ‘E’ Word Doesn’t Come Easy” - November 18,1996
“When Will Power Takes a Holiday” - November 25, 1996
“Home for the Holidays” - December 2, 1996
Bill Stephens’ San Antonio Express News weekly wine columns can
be found at the
San Antonio Express News Archives. Search under “Bill Stephens” from
1989 -1999 |
