Jim Noble, Executive Chef & Owner Noble Food & Pursuits

Chef Jim Noble went to school to learn how to build things. His father built a prosperous sales pipeline for a successful furniture business and Noble—fresh out of school with an engineering degree—expected to follow suit by earning an engineering degree from NC State University and beginning his career in the furniture industry. But an undiscovered passion led him down a different path, one that brought people together around the most essential piece of furniture toany home: the table.  

Noble’s path began to diverge when he cracked open a used copy of Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” purchased with money he earned as a bar owner. Having no formal culinary training, he gleaned what he could from Child before beginning an extensive study of Auguste Escoffier, the first chef to commit the secrets of French cuisine to paper. Over time, he cultivated his vision for a new Southern cuisine, one that seeks to preserve and renew our best traditions by applying the rigorous technique of the Old World masters.  

What Noble lacked in formal training he made up for in his commitment to excellence, which in turn was driven by an even greater commitment to serve people. He opened his first restaurant in 1983, J.Basul Noble in his hometown of High Point, N.C., and today operates fourteen restaurants and culinary concepts: Rooster’s (four locations in Charlotte and Winston-Salem), Noble Smoke (Charlotte), Bossy Beulah’s Chicken Shack (five locations in Charlotte, Fort Mill, and Winston-Salem), Copain Bakery & Provisions (Charlotte and Winston-Salem) and Field Pea Catering. Additionally, his establishment of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Dream Center illustrates his commitment to the needs of the community and his belief that service should extend beyond the table.  

For more information on his restaurants and community outreach, visit www.noblefoodandpursuits.com.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's iHeartMedia CEOs. You should know. You've probably heard of
Rooster's wood fired kitchen, Bossy Bulah's more Noble Smoke. Today
we sit down with chef Jim Noble talking about his
passion for food and giving back.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
If you're not passionate, this is a tough business to
be in because this is a service industry and we
do two things, food in pursuits and one's ministry in
one's the restaurant business, and they parallel so much. We
are passionate about it, and passion can be contagious if
you're when the leaders of the of the organization or
leaders of your store and all of our team we
talk about passion all the time, and we do really

(00:33):
care about food, and food is memories for so many people.
It's not what you do to people, it's how you
make them feel. And when the food's good, it really
makes a difference. And everybody has memories and you can
smell something that takes you back to a place in time,
and I just love that and it really is a
passion for me.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
For sure.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Food memories are pretty strong.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Now you are in the food business. But there's more
to that, right I say it this way. I'm in
the people business. I just happen to sell food, and
that really is true. It's about people and being about people.
Ten million meals to go and giving back.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
We've got it now set up so anyone comes to
any of our restaurants a line on the check that
says donation, and we're promoting ten million meals to go
in all the stores. It takes a while to get
that into everybody's heart so that everybody's talking about it.
If you can feed somebody, I mean, no strings attached,
we want to help you. If we can help you
beyond that, we're here for you.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Service beyond the table. Jim Noble with Noble Food and
Pursuits on iHeartMedia's CEOs You should Know