Banquet Hall & Facilities

• Wedding Receptions & Rehearsal Dinners
• Courtyard Weddings
• Business Luncheons & Seminars
• Organizational Meetings
• Company Parties
• Private Parties
• Family Reunions& Anniversaries
• School Reunions

The Chef

Robert Wright: Executive Chef
The Shamrock is proud to bring Executive Chef Robert Wright to the Shamrock. Chef Robert has traveled the country for over 30 years perfecting his culinary expertise and introducing hundreds of thousands of people to his exquisite culinary skills.

Robert started his culinary career in the late 60’s where he grew up on the California Coast. The trend here at this time was dining out at funky little eateries in Carmel and Monterey with movie stars, writers, poets, political figures and other world-class celebrities. For Robert Lee Wright, being a teenager in those times and that place was like existing in a fictitious world come to life amongst the surfers and bikers and beautiful people.

“I was raised on a farm,” recalls Robert, “so I had some choices to make. I could either shovel out the horse stalls and buck hay bales all day, or I could follow my fascination with food and get into the restaurant business. It wasn’t a difficult decision. ”

Wright was inspired by a friend who was the chef at the Hog’s Breath Inn in Carmel, a restaurant owned by Clint Eastwood who defined tough guy cops with his ‘make my day’ line and a smoking .44 magnum. According to Wright, Eastwood played an active role in the daily management of the popular gathering spot. Although Wright (only 15 at the time) didn’t land a job with Dirty Harry, he did get one at another highbrow eatery called the Sans Souci in Monterey.

“It was a five-star restaurant according to the Michelin guide and the chef was a crazy Austrian with a twisted sense of humor,” says Wright. “He had a hard time keeping help because he treated people so badly, but I worked my way up from washing dishes to pastry chef and he helped steer me into the Culinary Institute of America, otherwise affectionately known as the CIA in the industry. Essentially, I got my high school GED degree while I was cooking at the Sans Souci – which means ‘No Worries’ in French – and then earned my tow year degree at the CIA in 1973. My first year was at New Haven, Connecticut, then they moved the school to Poughkeepsie, New York, where it is today. ”

Life on The Road to Culinary Heaven
A four year internship followed, including some time back in Monterey at the Hyatt House, one of the first of the famous Hyatts; this one housed in the old Del Monte Hotel. He worked in several other exclusive hotels along the California coast and then entered a phase in his life that took him across America, always expanding his skills and always honing his penchant for creative menus and lip-smacking customers who were delighted by his cuisine.

“I’ve worked in Phoenix, Colorado, Texas, the Carolinas…usually at highly-rated restaurants in world class hotels,” Wright states in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’ve become accustomed to living in the most opulent rooms on earth and eating the finest foods known to mankind. Along the way I’ve met world figures from all walks of life, especially political figures. For some reason, whenever they come to speak and stay at a high-class hotel, they always take a tour of the kitchen and shake my hand. ”

Wright can rattle off the names of presidential candidates and sitting presidents who have wandered through his kitchens. The last one to visit his kitchen  at the Fargo Ramada Plaza was at the time Texas Governor George W. Bush:  “That was particularly fun,” says Wright, “because I spent quite a long time on South Padre Island off the Texas coast, so I got along really well with Governor Bush’s Texas Ranger security people…you know, swapping jokes and talking about people we knew in common.”

Even as a youth in California Wright came to know the rich and famous who visited his restaurants. He was on a first name basis with the late, great Steve McQueen and wife, Ali McGraw…at one point riding around viewing real estate in McQueen’s old Dodge Power Wagon pickup truck.

“We always knew when Steve and Ali were coming to the restaurant,” He remembers, “because the owner would stock up on Old Milwaukee beer. It was all he’d drink and he drank a lot of it. Plus, he had a voracious appetite. Sometimes he’d order two meals and eat them both in one sitting. ”

Wright’s recollection of one evening’s guest list is particularly telling. He says the motorcycle crowd in California gathered at the Ventana Resort in Big Sur to protest a helmet law and McQueen helped assemble a table of note worthies that included Sir Alec Guiness, Robert Goulet, Candace Bergen, Henry Miller (author), Peter Revlon (cosmetic magnate)…and Sonny Barger, president of the notorious Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. Sonny was accompanied by two of his cohorts, all in ‘clean’ denim colors. ”

Robert Wright isn’t new to the area after having spent 9 years in North Dakota as the Executive Chef at the Ramada in Fargo. He was also the Executive Chef at the Sheraton in Sioux Falls, SD and started the Sutton Bay Golf Resort north of Pierre, SD. He is coming to the Shamrock after two years with the Riverside Golf & Casino Resort near Iowa City, IA. Here he started and successfully ran a $180,000,000 facility where he was in charge of five restaurants ranging from casual to fine dining and buffets with an average of 32,000 served meals a month.

Source: “Robert Wright: Cultivating Our Taste Buds”, by Rick Killion Fargo Moorhead Today, April 2000