1 in 8700: Danielle Boyce

Danielle Boyce is ready for yet another adventure. On March 21, she and her husband, Steve, will become the owners of American Flatbread in the Marble Works. Having been manager of the restaurant for the past five years, Boyce is knowledgeable about the business and has worked closely with many of the current employees. She is enthusiastic about her new role, and suspects the transition from manager to owner “will not be that dramatic.”

“The way I manage people is to empower them to be able to run things on their own without me meddling,” she said, adding that her new, more administrative position “means that I am just going to have to continue to strengthen the team.”

This mentality has proved successful for Boyce, a New Jersey native who has worked in the restaurant business since her years at North Carolina State University, where she majored in English. She met her husband working at a restaurant in Raleigh, NC; he was taking a break after graduating from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, “goofing off and waiting tables,” according to Boyce. They both grew up in the Northeast and wanted to return, so the pair moved to Vermont in 1999. Boyce became the manager at the Four Seasons Garden Center in Williston, Vt. After working there for close to five years, she realized she preferred the restaurant business.

American Flatbread was the perfect opportunity, as Boyce has both management and restaurant experience, but had not yet combined her skills. Plus, she said, “my husband and I knew we wanted to open up our own restaurant.”

As manager, Boyce fully embodied the company’s mission: “to produce good, flavorful, nutritious food that gives both joy and health.”

“The fact that we have the food first in the mission is not a coincidence,” she said. “The food is the center of what we do.”

Another central tenet of American Flatbread is the belief that “food remembers the acts of the hands and the heart.” Boyce believes that how everyone, from the farmers to the chef, feel when making the food “is going be a direct representation of what you taste when you have it as a customer.” This notion is what drives Boyce to create a supportive, positive atmosphere for all her employees, each of whom, she believes, should be actively involved in the food-making process.

Boyce also values the restaurant’s connection to the College.

“The College is a significant part of who we are,” she said. “It keeps it vibrant and fresh. We get to know the students over four years and sometimes longer, then the freshmen come in and it starts all over again.”

Though Boyce and her husband are not planning any major changes for the restaurant, she wants to continue to hold events for student groups. For the past two years, American Flatbread has hosted a graduation party for Febs; in previous years, the restaurant also hosted a party for graduates in the spring. It has also held benefit dinners for various student organizations, including an auction event to raise money for relief after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.

“[We] are always open to connecting in that way with the students,” said Boyce, who is happy that the restaurant has a space large enough to accommodate all kinds of groups.

In the coming weeks, the restaurant will also host a wedding reception and a rehearsal dinner.

Though she loves the restaurant’s Dancing Heart pizza with butternut squash on the side, Boyce said that her favorite part of the job is seeing the restaurant functioning smoothly on its own.

“What brings me the most joy is to have a night where were packed full of people enjoying themselves,” she said. “Seeing the staff work with such synchronicity together as a team and just completely have it handled and also having fun and enjoying themselves, that’s what I love about working here. It’s very satisfying.”

Boyce’s ascent to ownership marks the second franchise of American Flatbread; there is another independently run restaurant in Burlington, Vt. The company’s founder, George S who began the original restaurant in Waitsfield, Vt., currently own the Middlebury establishment, which will mark its ninth year of operation this June.

While she misses the diversity of authentic ethnic food that New Jersey has to offer, Boyce loves a good flatbread — and for more than just its taste.

“The very nature of it, the fact that you share it, [and that it is] served family style … is pretty cool,” she said. “It’s nice to work in a place that offers that in a way that is still pretty healthy.”

Customers agree wholeheartedly. Boyce said that she often hears positive feedback from customers, who are able to forget the troubles of their workweek and enjoy good food with friends and family.

“[We want to have] a really comfortable, warm place where people can just leave their cares here,” she said.