Uzay Tumer has been working in the restaurant/bar/hotel industry for over 30 years.  He is a proven operator and leader in the Food & Beverage industry with a specialty in opening new ventures.  He has been part of over 50 new restaurant/bar opening teams and has led most of them.  Uzay is just as comfortable in independent restaurants as he is in a corporate or chain environments.  He grew up in restaurants and has worked every position possible from the front to the back of the house and loves to get his hands dirty alongside the team.

Uzay began his management career in a very public way working for China Grill Management in NYC as one of the stars of NBC’s hit reality show The Restaurant with Rocco Dispirito in 2002.  He went on to open many concepts with CGM for high profile chefs Alain Ducasse, Todd English and Claude Troisgros.  

In 2005, he moved to Boston to join the Aquitaine Group as General Manager of Armani Café and in 2007 opened the wildly successful Gaslight Brasserie du Coin.  He went on to open Morgans Hotel Group’s only Boston location, AMES in 2009 as Director of Food & Beverage.  In this role, and along side his current frequent collaborator Howard Wein, he helped re-launch the F & B outlets at iconic hotels Delano and Shore Club in Miami, Hudson, Royalton and Morgans in NYC and Clift in San Francisco.

In 2012, he joined Franworks Group of Companies based in Calgary, Alberta that owns and operates the Original Joe’s, State & Main, and Elephant & Castle brands as Director of Brand Development.  After a year, he was promoted to Director of Operations U.S. & Ontario.  During his tenure in this role he was responsible for the eastern and southern growth as well as the operational success of the brands with annual revenues over $45M.

Prior to founding Jaxellie, Uzay served as the first Corporate Food and Beverage Director for Hay Creek Hotels who owns and manages many boutique and historic properties across the U.S.  In this role he developed concepts for new projects and oversaw all aspects of F&B for existing properties.  This included but was not limited to overseeing the annual budgeting and purchasing, hiring, training and menu development.  As part of this role, Uzay was responsible for implementing new technology and systems for all F&B outlets to help make data driven decisions that lead to a greater guest experience and more profitable operations.

Uzay currently resides in Upstate NY working with Jaxellie clients across the Northeast.