Running a Tight Ship at Clyde's of Reston

Last year, when was rapidly transforming, the venerable there from the very beginning, needed to stay in step. So they brought back “The Healer.” 

“That’s what they call me,” Clydes’s General Manager Hans Olson says with a laugh. “In this business, there are two important people: the customer and the employee. I treat them both the same. That’s the key.”

Clyde’s thinks Olson’s approach works – he started with the company 20 years ago as the Reston kitchen opened, but has moved around the Beltway whenever Clyde’s thinks one of its restaurants could use his help. He worked at the Clyde’s in Georgetown, Chevy Chase, and Tower Oaks (Rockville) before coming back to Reston in April 2010.

“It’s nice," says Olson. "Everywhere I have worked, sales have gone up."

For that, and other accomplishments in his career, Olson was also lauded recently by his peers in the business. On June 26, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington awarded him a RAMMY for Restaurant Manager of the Year for 2011.

In an area with thousands of places to dine out, including some of the finest restaurants in the nation, Olson says he was delighted and “a little surprised” to get the nod.

“What an honor to be here with these folks who are really thought highly of and do so well in this business,” he says.

Olson says he didn’t come back to the Reston kitchen to make drastic changes, but rather to reaffirm the restaurant’s “commitment to this community."

“The Town Center has changed,” he says. “You’ve got some really big players in here. I said to my staff, we are going to compete. I talked to a lot of the customers about what they would want to see us do.”

Nobody wanted Clyde’s to abandon what it is best known for, Olson says. Many people come in to order the same dish - such as the crabcakes or the trout - that they have been ordering for 20 years.

But some of the changes he has instituted, such as beer and wine dinners (with a selection of beverages that complement the meal) and themed nights, such as adding a few Caribbean entrees when a jazz band is playing at Reston's Concerts on the Town, have been hits. He gives a lot of credit to the head chef, whom he calls “great” and “inspired.”

Olson also says he is making full use of one of his restaurant’s best advantages. Big names may enter the Town Center, but none of them has what he has – the sprawling outdoor patio, smack in the center of the action, that draws so many patrons to Clyde’s.

So he is offering more specials there, and doing things like quickly re-opening the patio after a recent storm, when others were closing down.

“That’s what I mean by being there for the community,” Olson says with satisfaction. “People started coming back on that evening, and we were full till 2 a.m.”