In recognition of Women’s History Month, IFMA The Food Away from Home Association is looking back at six women whose pioneering work earned them the association’s coveted Gold Plate Award, an honor synonymous with foodservice operator of the year.
We present them chronologically beginning with our first female Gold Plate honoree who received the award in 1961.
It wasn’t her original calling, but successfully running a massive restaurant beloved by the local community and celebrated by the national press became Van Eure’s lifelong passion. She’s still at it today.
Van Eure’s career might have been forged by her family, but her success was uniquely her own. Read more.
Path to Gold held plenty of twists for Angus Barn’s Van Eure
Van Eure had envisioned a much different life for herself when the restaurant industry issued a summons she couldn’t refuse.
The North Carolina native was pursuing her dream of educating children in Africa, where she’d opened a Montessori-style progressive school. But five years into the job, she learned her father was direly ill. Teaching was a passion, but family trumped everything. Eure returned to the States to help care for her dad, the highly successful restaurateur Thad Eure, Jr.
He would die of pancreatic cancer in late 1988 at age 56, leaving Van to join her widowed mother in running Thad’s brainchild, The Angus Barn in Raleigh. The steakhouse was and remains one of the nation’s highest-volume restaurants. By 2020, it was serving over 300,000 meals a year at an average of about $75 a pop, for gross annual sales of more than $24 million, according to Restaurant Business’ Top 100 Independents list.
The restaurant, a behemoth with more than 600 seats, was an integral part of life in the Raleigh area—the place to go for anniversaries, birthday celebrations, or just an outstanding meal. The restaurant estimates that it has hosted more than 14 million guests since its opening in 1960.
Inheriting a landmark comes with its own challenges, as Van Eure was to learn. A restaurant of Angus Barn’s size requires a large staff, which can pose significant recruitment and management challenges.
When the restaurant opened in 1960 midway between Raleigh and Durham, there was nothing else around it. Indeed, getting there required a considerable drive. But by the time Van took the helm, the area was booming, and that meant competition.
Fortunately, the second-generation Eure was well-versed in the restaurant’s operation. Starting at age 14, her father had put her to work so she’d experience every job. That included cleaning the restrooms and scrubbing the kitchen equipment.
She’d also been given a key bit of advice by her father: Be there. Absentee management wouldn’t work with as many moving pieces as the Angus Barn encompassed.
Van decided she’d be more than a caretaker. By all accounts, the operation improved under her tutelage. Wine Spectator named it Best Steak House in the United States and celebrated the restaurant’s wine list as one of the tops in the nation for 18 consecutive years.
The younger Eure added more capacity, including a 34-seat breakout area called Thad’s Room and a 28-seat private-dining area named Alice’s Room, after her mother, who died of ovarian cancer in 1997. After the matriarch’s death, Van’s husband, Steve Thanhauser, joined her in running the facility.
Throughout that time, Eure remained active in charity work. Her father had launched a fund-raising program called Walk for Hope to help individuals like Van’s brother, who suffered from schizophrenia.
Van was also active in animal rescue, housing abandoned dogs and horses at her ranch-style home spread.
Her work as restaurateur and benefactor to her community earned Van Eure a Gold Plate from IFMA The Food Away from Home Association in 2004. She continues to operate Angus Barn today.
Special thanks to our sponsors Cargill and Unilever.