Meet Debbie and Carolyn Harbin of Treo Blue Ridge

Today we’d like to introduce you to Debbie and Carolyn Harbin.

Treo is owned by 2 sisters who moved fulltime to Blue Ridge 2 years ago, after owning a second home here for 10 years. Neither had any previous restaurant experience, other than Debbie having worked in a fast food restaurant the freshman year of college. Debbie came from a banking technology background and Carolyn still has a full-time job in healthcare IT services, in addition to running the restaurant.

Carolyn had a vision of opening a wine bar featuring an Enomatic server for a couple of years. She had picked out a location, but it rented before she completed a business plan. Not too long afterwards, we were having drinks with friends and one of them mentioned a restaurant newly listed for sale. From this point on, there was no stopping Carolyn. Debbie was not so quick to jump on the bandwagon.

Having never been in the restaurant business, it was very scary to think about making such a big investment in the unknown. We met with a restaurant consultant and this just highlighted how much we truly did not know. Once he agreed to work with us, Debbie slowly started to come around. Another big hurdle was finding a chef. Our consultant had heard that Chef Chris Adgate was interested in coming to Blue Ridge. Chef Chris was well known and had quite a following in the area. We reached out to him and found he was interested. We offered to give him full control of the kitchen and to showcase his talents in an up and coming restaurant. He decided Treo would be a good fit and was excited that he would be able to be as creative as he wanted with his dishes.

Has it been a smooth road?
Learning the restaurant business has been the biggest challenge. There are so many things that go on behind the scenes and you never think about those as a patron. Luckily, we have an excellent staff and they have helped make the transition a little easier. Being in such a small town, it’s often difficult to find staff, but we have a good reputation and have not had an issue finding or keeping staff.

Our biggest obstacle has been with some of the unknowns from the previous owner. A lot of the maintenance for the electrical, plumbing, and appliances was done incorrectly and not up to code. Making these corrections presented a large expense not expected as part of the startup cost.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Treo Blue Ridge story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a casual, fine dining restaurant in downtown Blue Ridge, featuring new southern cuisine. Our menu offers steaks, seafood and pasta and changes seasonally. We use only fresh ingredients and buy locally whenever possible. Once a month, we offer a wine pairing dinner. Chef Chris selects wines from a certain region and creates 6 incredible dishes to pair with the different wines. These are booked far in advance and Treo is the place to be that third Thursday of the month. Treo also has a monthly cooking class led by Chef Chris. The chef selects 3 courses and gives instructions and demonstrates how to prepare and the meal is then presented to the guest. We are very active in community events and have hosted events at Treo to benefit local charities. We have one coming up to benefit Toys for Tots for our local kids. We also had a ‘Paws on the Patio’ in which we invited our guests to bring their dogs for special treats and we donated a portion of our sales to the pets affected by Hurricane Harvey. In addition to the wonderful food, the patio area is a favorite for our guests. We are pet-friendly, have an outside bar and feature live music on the weekends.

What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes?
Blue Ridge has become a destination site and many from Atlanta have second homes here. We realize we have to stay at the time of our game since these folks are used to dining in top-notch restaurants. Our goal is to be the best restaurant north of Atlanta. Later this year, we are expanding our space to include a wine bar as part of Treo. We have the only sommelier in Blue Ridge on our staff, and plan to showcase fine wines as part of the dining experience.

Contact Info:

• Address: 588 East Main Street
  Blue Ridge, GA
• Website: Treoblueridge.com
• Phone: 706-946-5200
• Email: info@treoblueridge.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/treoblueridge/

Image Credit:
Daniel Loudermilk

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