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Indigo Road Hospitality Group promotes Katharine Ames to chief marketing officer

In the newly created position, the public relations veteran will continue to report to CEO Steve Palmer

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

July 24, 2024

2 Min Read
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Indigo Road Hospitality Group chief marketing officer Katharine AmesIndigo Road Hospitality Group

The Indigo Road Hospitality Group has promoted Katharine Ames to chief marketing officer, a new role for the multi-concept restaurant company.

Previously she was the company’s director of marketing, a position she had held since joining the group in 2021. In her new position she will continue to oversee programming and branding, public relations, partnerships, social media, and internal communications, Indigo Road said in a press release announcing her appointment.

Before joining Indigo Road she was a media relations specialist at Huff & Co. for two years, and before that spent eight years at Phase 3 Marketing & Communications, eventually becoming its vice president of public relations, according to her LinkedIn profile. While there, she represented several Indigo Road properties, according to her appointment announcement.

“The Indigo Road has been such an integral part of my professional career that this new role feels like a natural progression, and an incredibly exciting step for me personally,” Ames said in a statement. “Being a part of the company’s thoughtful growth, and a leader on a team that values authentic hospitality is incredibly rewarding.”

Although Indigo Road is based in Charleston, S.C., Ames will remain in Atlanta and will continue to report to the company’s founder and chief vision officer, Steve Palmer.

Related:Indigo Road Hospitality plans expansion of modern Japanese concept O-Ku

“Katharine has been a crucial part of the Indigo Road team since day one,” Palmer said in a statement. “Her deep knowledge and passion for our overall brand and her ability to communicate on a large scale have been essential to our continued success. I look forward to watching her continue to do amazing things in this new role.”

Palmer founded Indigo Road in 2009, and since then the company has expanded to 35 restaurants in 14 markets in the Southeast. It also operates six hotels.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

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/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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