Dynamic Entrepreneur
Blake Gotliffe
Smithfield restaurant owner quickly shifts gears during pandemic By Randy Capps
Being a small business owner is a roller coaster ride in the best of times. Being one in the midst of a global pandemic is like riding Space Mountain without a seat belt. Blake Gotliffe, of Under the Oak Restaurant and Catering, has been hanging on with both hands in 2020, and that determination has earned him the 2020 Johnston Now Honors Dynamic Entrepreneur award. When the first executive order came down in March, Gotliffe found himself in need of a Plan B. “We immediately made a big change back when they shut down restaurants,” he said. “Given our style of food, we relied a lot on destination diners that come from Clayton and Raleigh, not necessarily just Smithfield. When everything shut down, I knew that take out wasn’t going to be a viable option for us. 12 | JOHNSTON NOW
“So we switched over to doing a prepared meal service, which I started my business doing four years ago — cooking for a few families in Raleigh. Cooking their weekly meals. It just so happens that I still had it on my website. It was just kind of hidden in a menu. I just updated that, changed some things and it was ready to go in a few days. “It’s not your everyday prepackaged meal that you’d get in the grocery store. Right now, we offer two really big grilled pork chops with the jalapeno peach chutney. The menu’s changing with the season, so before, we did our bacon bourbon sauce with it. We have a stuffed meatloaf, which is grass-fed beef and Italian sausage stuffed with mushrooms and provolone cheese. It has a marinara sauce and romano cheese on top, like an Italian-style meatloaf.” There are also vegetarian options, hibachi and much more. Even with the good response and wide selection, another
solution was required at the end of May. “(The meal service) went really well,” he said. “We had tremendous support from our regulars in the community. As restaurants were able to slowly reopen, it started dropping off a little bit. But, at the same time, you started seeing all the food supply issues nationwide. Given that 90% of our ingredients are from North Carolina and small farms, that didn’t really affect us at all. “We were able to continue to provide fresh produce, pasteurized meats, chicken — everything you couldn’t find in stores I could still get from the small local farmers.” In addition to his culinary talents, Gotliffe is also a trained butcher. That allows him to offer steaks, beef, chicken, pork and top-quality deli meats. While pivoting to and from various aspects of his business plan, Under the
