The vice president of culinary operations at Electric Hospitality, one of Atlanta’s most high-profile restaurant groups, is moving to a similar role at a much smaller organization.
Chef Joseph Schafer will join the team behind Bovino After Dark and Seventh House where he said he plans to put his imprint on the growing restaurant group in its startup phase.
“I do really enjoy my job, and I love these concepts and Electric (Hospitality) and the people and everything. But I think it’s more exciting for me to be able to put my stamp on it in the beginning and build it from the ground up,” Schafer told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Schafer plans to join forces with Alex Sher, founder of Stone Mountain Cattle and co-founder of Bovino After Dark, as well as chef Chris McCord, the restaurant’s other co-founder. The new position, which he’ll start July 9, is also an opportunity to reconnect with old friends, Schafer said.
Credit: Ligaya Figueras
Credit: Ligaya Figueras
Bovino After Dark is an intimate chef’s counter-style restaurant that takes over Sher’s Hero Bovino space inside the West End Hop City four nights a week. McCord and Sher expanded earlier this year with Seventh House in Adair Park, a zodiac-themed cocktail “omakase” that serves food from Bovino.
The bootstrapped Bovino operation is a much younger, smaller organization than Electric Hospitality, which runs popular, high-volume restaurants like Muchacho and Ladybird Grove & Mess Hall. The group has announced a second Ladybird location in West Midtown, which will take over about an acre of space in the heavily developed commercial corridor along Howell Mill Road.
Though Sher and McCord are both restaurant industry veterans, Schafer brings to the team a wealth of experience in large-scale culinary operations. Schafer worked his way through the Atlanta restaurant ranks to become the executive chef of Bacchanalia in 2015, but left a year and a half later to take the executive chef role at then-Philips Arena, which was undergoing its near-$200-million transformation into State Farm Arena.
Schafer joined Electric Hospitality in 2023 when the group expanded to West Midtown with its Electric Room event space in the Star Metals District. He said he enjoyed the strong sense of design and style displayed at concepts like Ladybird and Ranger Station, but wanted the opportunity to apply more of his own vision.
Sher already runs Stone Mountain Cattle and his Hero Bovino shop and occasionally works the line at Bovino After Dark, according to Schafer. With his operational savvy, Schafer will help streamline and professionalize the fledgling restaurant group, though he hopes to retain the extreme-DIY ethos that has attracted a following for Bovino After Dark.
Schafer said the Bovino team’s “organic, almost underdog quality” was the most exciting aspect of his move. “It’s authentic,” he said. “Maybe we can take this thing anywhere we want to go.”
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