Lauren Wilson: From counter-service to helping run her family’s Central Texas hospitality empire
By JANNA ZEPP | Photos by BECKY STINEHOUR
Hospitality is truly a family business for Lauren Vickers Wilson. She and her family own and run TCP Catering in Marlin, Cheeves Brothers restaurant in Temple and Cathedral Oaks Events Center in Belton, among others.
“Our company’s first venture in 1979 was a single-room, counter-service restaurant, located in Marlin, Texas, which is still in operation today. My parents opened their first business in their early 20s, with humble means and lots of hard work. One of the greatest gifts they ever gave their children was raising the three of us in that business,” Wilson says.
Whether Danny and Linda Vickers’ children were raised at the restaurant by necessity, or whether it was by some wise and well-designed parenting strategy, is hard to say for certain. But what is indisputable is that the lessons they learned invaluable lessons about life, developing relationships, hard work, and business.
“I always say that the best thing my parents ever gave me was a five-gallon bucket. Flipped upside down, I would stand on it as a small child, so that I could see over the counter to ‘help customers,’” says Wilson.
Over the years, the family expanded into other hospitality ventures, the genesis of what is becoming a hospitality empire in Central Texas and parts of North Texas. Currently, as a family, they operate three restaurants, two event venues, and a catering service with two locations currently and a third in development.
Wilson’s brother, Scott Vickers, and his wife Anna operate the Watauga restaurant and North Texas location of TCP Catering, which serves the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. Wilson’s parents, Danny and Linda Vickers, operate the Marlin restaurant and Central Texas location of TCP Catering. She and her husband Joe Wilson, together, operate Cathedral Oaks Event Center in Belton, The Magnolia House at Cathedral Oaks in Belton, Cheeves Brothers Steakhouse in Downtown Temple, and are developing a new Downtown Temple location for TCP Catering, which is projected to open next spring. TCP Catering in Temple will enable catering service to continue to serve the Waco and Temple areas and expand into areas further south with greater ease.
“In 2014, my husband Joe and I returned to my home of Central Texas from Fort Worth and are proud to be a part of the community, the development of Temple and Belton businesses, and carrying on the traditions of our family business as we continue to expand our areas of service. One of the greatest joys of our operation is that, while we are each responsible different facets of daily management, we all work together as couples and as an extended family. We are fortunate to be able to involve our children, the third generation, in our businesses as well — in hopes that our children will have the example in us that we did in our parents,” Wilson says.
In any of the Vickers/Wilson businesses, the philosophy has always been simple: providing a consistent and superior product, coupled with exceptional customer service, at a good value, while focusing on developing and maintaining relationships.
“Guests at our restaurants often become clients of our catering services or venues. Clients of our catering services may begin with corporate or civic needs that develop into weddings and other social or personal celebrations — all of which merit the same level of significance and for which we apply the same philosophies no matter how large or small the event or transaction may be,” she says.
