ABOUT ME
On the hospitality side of things...
My partner Ali and I have enjoyed many hospitality industry endeavors. Most notably, we owned and operated a AAA-rated Four-Diamond property in New York's Hudson Valley called Old Drovers Inn, which was inducted into the prestigious Relais & Chateaux organization and featured a restaurant 2,000 bottle wine cellar, a Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence and a menu highlighting the names of local growers (a new concept at the time).
Oiginally built in 1750, the inn gained fame when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton booked it exclusively for a week after filming Cleopatra. More recently, we were featured on national TV shows, appeared in publications like Bon Appétit and New York Magazine, hosted a dinner at the James Beard House in Manhattan, and welcomed countless notables, from Barbra Streisand, Mick Jagger, and Meryl Streep to Kevin Bacon and Paul Newman.
Outside of our personal endeavors, I’ve assisted new restaurateurs with menu building, marketing, and staff training, managed several other restaurants and small hotels (including The Ship's Inn on Nantucket), was the GM for a New England-based hospitality group, and worked behind more bars than I'd care to admit!
In December 2020, we wrapped up a successful 21-year run of owning and operating our inn and spa on Cape Cod, where we received accolades from The Travel Channel, Good Morning America, and Travel & Leisure. We were named "One of the top pet-friendly properties in the world" by CNN. We maintained "Hall of Fame" status on TripAdvisor. In the summer and fall of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, we had one of our highest-grossing seasons, thanks to some reconnoitering, finger-crossing, and very successful "spicy" marketing!
"We love the story written by one of our all-time favorite writers, Tommy Dott.
While we love ALL of Tom's writing, his humor pieces are really very funny and informative and are a bright spot in our day each time we get to read one of them!"
~ Edible Communities founders and James Beard award recipients for Best Publication,
Tracey Ryder & Carole Topalian.
And on the writing side...
After years of dabbling in food writing, Edible Cape Cod approached me in 2007 to write a feature article for their magazine. So I wrote an article, and they liked it enough to ask me to write a second one. Sure! Why not? The content of the first assignment came easily, and I had fun doing it.
The second article was about a local candy store owner making wine in a back alley. It was titled “The Vines That Bind” and was submitted for a national writing award at a publisher's symposium in Santa Barbara, CA. It won “Best Feature Article” that year.
But here's the thing: I didn't set out to win any awards; I want the reader to stay engaged enough to keep reading. After many years of honing my writing skills, I eventually became Edible Cape Cod's senior contributing editor and received five national writing awards for "Excellence in Publication."
I've since provided website and marketing content for Chambers of Commerce and served as a senior copywriter at a marketing agency, where I provided copy for company websites and blogs and created content for social media, marketing campaigns, e-newsletters, digital ads, and white papers. Examples of my style can be read on the Hospitality Industry page (or the Alternate Universe page for non-hospitality-related businesses).