100 Years Ago This Month: Historical events from August 1923

The month of August has been home to many historical events over the years. Here’s a look at some that helped to shape the world in August 1923.

• United States President Warren G. Harding dies suddenly in San Francisco on August 2. President Harding was conversing with relatives when he passed away from what was then suspected to be a stroke but is now believed to have been heart failure. President Harding was 57 years old.

• Henry Sullivan becomes the first American to swim the English Channel when he completes the feat on August 6. Sullivan needed a little more than a full day to make his mark on history, swimming the channel in 27 hours and 25 minutes.

• Many businesses close and owners go on strike in Berlin on August 9. The protest is an attempt to force German Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno from office. Opposition to Cuno hardened over the next several days, ultimately prompting him and his cabinet to resign on August 12.

• An expedition by the American Museum of Natural History to the Flaming Cliffs in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert leads to the discovery of the first velociraptor fossil on August 11.

• A series of tidal waves strike the western coast of Korea on August 15. At least 346 people are killed and an additional 1,000 are considered missing after 25,000 homes are submerged in waves and flooding.

• Thousands of Canadians lose their savings when the Home Bank of Canada closes its doors on August 17.

• Ada Delutuk Blackjack is rescued on August 19 after being marooned on Wrangel Island above the Arctic Circle. Blackjack, an Alaskan native hired as a cook for a Canadian expedition to claim the island for Canada, had been marooned since September 15,1921. Blackjack was the last survivor among the five-person expedition team.

• On August 20, a train is robbed near Okemah, Oklahoma, and bandits take off with $20,000 in cash and bonds. The incident marks one of the last train robber- cont. on page 33

Hometown: Ridgewood

According to Tim Doherty, President and Chief Operating Officer of Allendale, New Jersey’s Doherty Enterprises, the key word he and his colleagues live by is accountability.

Doherty says, “We have to hold ourselves to execute on accountability - not just every day, but every shift and every interaction. It’s not just cooking that one hamburger, but it’s those interactions throughout the day that we must execute on 100% of the time.”

The self-proclaimed “baseball guy” then brings America’s pastime into the discussion. Doherty says, “If I hit a baseball three out of 10 times, I’m going to the Hall of Fame. How- ever, if I only execute on wowing our guests three out of 10 times, I’m out of business in 12 months. Holding ourselves accountable is so critical.”

Courtesy of its website, Doherty Enterprises (www. dohertyinc.com) “is a franchisee of three iconic national brands (Applebee’s, Panera Bread, and Chevy’s Fresh Mex), showcasing that innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. Doherty also owns and operates two independent, proprietary concepts, the Shannon Rose Irish Pub and Spuntino Wine Bar & Italian Tapas. Today, Doherty is a regional powerhouse with over 140 restaurants in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Florida.”

That indeed is a lot of accountability for Doherty and his team, but his upfront enthusiasm and love for what he does has you feeling – and if you’ve visited one of the before mentioned eateries, you’ve experienced it – that Doherty Enterprises is a Triple Crown winner in location, food quality, and team and service.

Doherty currently lives in New York City, but he grew up in Ridgewood. He lived there from the time he was born until he went to college at Lehigh University.

“I had a fantastic and ideal childhood,” Doherty says. “Ridgewood was a fantastic town, I had great friends, and I had a great education from the public education school system. I have wonderful parents. My father, Ed, started our organization back in 1985 when I was eight years old, and my mother, Joan, was a world-class mom who took great care of myself and my two younger sisters, Shannon and Kerry. Both of my sisters work with me in the organization from a strategic point of view on a dayto-day basis.”

Doherty started in the family business as an Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar + Grill host and assistant server, but he remembers being in the many Roy Rogers restaurants his dad was franchisee of over 30 years ago. “I remember vividly when I was eight, nine, and ten years old, and being in the restaurants with him. Heaven forbid something was going poorly. He would say to me, ‘Get your butt over there and start bussing some tables.” Doherty laughs before continuing.

“So vividly I remember barely seeing over the tables and clearing things off.”

Those early days led to October of 1994, when Doherty was at Applebee’s in Paramus on opening day. Then a 17-year-old senior at Ridgewood High School, he was too young to serve alcohol, so he toiled as a server’s assistant - essentially a busboy and a host – and he worked there throughout his senior year of high school. When the following summer arrived and he turned 18 in July, he became a server. Anytime he was home from college over the next four years for more than 24 hours, he was picking up shifts, and officially became a trainer in the service position.

Following his Lehigh graduation with a bachelor’s degree in finance, Doherty returned home once again, and this time, in his words “per family rule, I had to get a ‘real job’ be- cause you can’t just come and work for dad.” Doherty next moved abroad to Dublin, Ireland and worked for the country’s largest bank, Allied Irish Bank.

He eventually wound up back in New Jersey and then in New York City with the bank, and stayed with them until 2003, when he made a big career decision. He had achieved success, and there was potential at AIB for him to achieve more.

There was just one problem. ‘I was at a crossroads in my career,” Doherty says. “I was struggling with that decision because I just wasn’t particularly passionate about the industry. I really enjoyed the people I worked for, I got a great education from them, and they treated me well. But despite all of that, I was sitting behind a desk staring at numbers all day long, and I didn’t have any passion behind that.” He approached his dad for, not a future employer\employee relationship discussion, but a father and son talk. “I told him, ‘I’m just not happy, and I don’t know what to do.’ And we started talking about potential options for the future – one of which was working for the organization.”

His heart was calling him, and although Doherty had always enjoyed working in the restaurant industry, he did not want to return to it in a managerial role. The time was apropos, however, for something else. When he came on board, Doherty Enterprises had 36 restaurants at that time, were continuing to grow the Applebee’s brand, and just beginning their Panera Bread journey. Dad and son chatted about his possible role, and the real estate development arm was raised, which Ed Doherty had been doing alongside of running the organization. He trained his son in that realm, and ultimately growing the number of the organization’s restaurants, as well as the number of team members, were both now in Tim’s court.

Doherty embraced both opportunities. He says, “What I really started to pride myself and get passionate behind, while we were growing our restaurants, was growing our team member base, and continuing to provide jobs for fantastic people who wanted to be in this industry and get ahead. We were able to grow that employee base, and I started to really find passion behind our people. When I transitioned over to the operations side of the business, I initially became the COO, and I worked under our president for about a decade, who was really a great mentor of mine, Edward Choe.”

Doherty, now 46, officially became President and COO in 2018.

“Our culture is what differentiates us from our competition,” Doherty says of the popular Applebee’s concept. “Anyone can make a burger, anyone can make a sandwich, anyone can make a salad. What really differentiates us is the guest experience, the hospitality experience. We only do that through our culture and how we impact, not only our guests, but also our people. Applebee’s has been around for over 40 years at this point, and we are as vibrant and doing as well - not only Doherty, which we are - but as a system on a national basis, as we ever have. That really comes with, in my mind, being part of the neighborhood, and delivering what we call a ‘Wow Every Guest Every Time’ experience, which is part of our mission statement. And that’s how you can impact people and guests and remain vibrant and successful 40 years into a concept.”

Doherty has a great support team at home. His wife, Valerie, he says, inspires him every day. “She is an incredible spouse, an incredible support to me, and she has always been in the service industry, so she understands the business. I love her with all my heart.”

The Dohertys are parents of a four-year-old daughter, Emma, and a 15-month-old son, Alexander.

And for Tim Doherty, his family is most important. “That is my immediate family, my parents, and my sisters and their families,” he says. “We are a very close-knit family, which is very special, and which I couldn’t be more proud of.”

Then there’s the extended family, the eatery clans, the backbone of what Doherty Enterprises does.

Doherty says, “What gets me going every single day, and why I come to work, is because I want our business to be a strong and viable business for as long as we own restaurants. There are about 6,000 people that I employ, and if they believe in our vision, if they believe in our mission, and if they execute on that day in and day out, then I want them to have a home with me, and I want to make sure that their experience at Doherty Enterprises truly wows them, too.”

He then adds, “I’m very proud to be an Applebee’s franchisee. I’m very proud of our business and I’m very proud of our team. I’m also proud to be a Panera Bread franchisee, and all the other brands we operate.”