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Boston's Restaurant & Sports Bar names new presidentBoston's Restaurant & Sports Bar names new president

Company also promotes Sergio Carvallo to president of Mexico division

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

November 21, 2016

2 Min Read
bostons restaurant eric taylor president
Boston's Restaurant & Sports Bar

Eric Taylor is now the president of U.S. operations for Boston's Restaurant & Sport Bar. Photo: Boston's Restaurant & Sports Bar

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Boston’s Restaurant & Sports Bar has reorganized its U.S. and Mexico operations, naming Eric Taylor president of U.S. operations, and promoting Sergio Carvallo to president of Boston’s Mexico, the operator said Monday.

Troy Cooper, former chief operating officer of Boston's, with responsibility for supervising restaurants in the U.S. and Mexico, has left the company.

Taylor was most recently senior vice president and chief operating officer of Rita’s Italian Ice. He has also held executive positions at Sbarro and Bennigan’s.

Taylor will oversee Boston's 29 casual-dining restaurants in the United States, including developing relationships and best practices with franchisees, as well as expansion efforts, the company said in a release. Carvallo’s promotion was confirmed by a company spokeswoman. The former executive vice president will oversee the chain’s 12 locations in Mexico.

Both presidents will report to Mark Pacinda, president and CEO of Boston Pizza International.

“The Boston’s team is thrilled to welcome Eric Taylor as the new Boston’s U.S. president, as he exemplifies the leadership style and operational experience that Boston’s needs to grow and succeed as a company,” Pacinda said. “Eric has established an expertise in successfully developing franchise brands both domestically and internationally and understands what it takes to effectively rise to the top in the casual dining segment.”

Taylor said, “Aside from being a loyal Boston’s customer for more than 10 years, I immediately saw the value in the brand and recognized its growth potential in the U.S.”

He added that he would work to develop the brand in a way that reflected the “quality product and premium services” it provides.

Boston's sister brand, Boston Pizza, has more than 400 locations in Canada.

Correction: Nov. 21, 2016  An earlier version of this story misspelled Mark Pacinda's name. It has been updated. 

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
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Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
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