Savannah Racquet has been working in restaurants since starting out at age 14 as a dishwasher and cook. Also she graduated from college as a nurse; then she went back to restaurant work and now is the manager of Mobjack Tavern, 5036 George Washington Memorial Highway at Hayes.

The restaurant offers casual upscale dining of seafood, steaks, pasta, burgers, and pizza with a local brewery attached.

“Getting started was the hardest part,” said Racquet, of overhauling an existing restaurant building for the August 2018 opening. A complete remodel was on the menu for the organizers, a process that went on much longer than anticipated. “We are happy to be open and have a great staff and team,” Racquet said. The coronavirus pandemic has presented new challenges.

A native of Rome, New York, she has worked every job in the restaurant: line cook, delivery, catering, waitress, bartender, manager, bookkeeping—in diners, biker bars, fine dining establishments, beach clubs, mom-and-pop restaurants … you name it.

She is grateful to owner Dean Tsamouras for allowing her to run Mobjack Tavern “with my own artistic freedom” and to develop her talents, and for “always having faith in me to be able to handle things on my own. He has become my only family here in Virginia, and Mobjack Tavern would be nothing without him.” In addition, her staff has become like her family and she said, “I am nothing without them.”