Dennis Quaintance, “Why I Skip to Work!” (January 24)

Dennis Quaintance, Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants & Hotels

Chief Executive Officer and Chief Design Officer

Why I Skip to Work!

The youngest of five children, Dennis Quaintance was born in Spirit Lake, Iowa and began his hospitality career in 1973 at age 15 as a housekeeper’s assistant at a hotel in Missoula, Montana. He quickly worked his way up to assistant general manager. For four years after high school, he worked in leadership at several hotels around the Northwest, until 1971, when he moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, to help a friend open a restaurant, Franklin’s Off Friendly. In 1988, Dennis teamed up with Mike Weaver to form Quaintance-Weaver and opened Lucky 32 restaurant in Greensboro in 1989. Lucky 32 was named for Dennis’ father’s racecar (a ‘46 Mercury with a flathead V8).

Today, the Quaintance-Weaver family of businesses includes a second Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen in Cary. The four-diamond, 131-room O.Henry Hotel and the adjacent Green Valley Grill opened in Greensboro in 1998. The four-diamond 147-room Proximity Hotel and neighboring Print Works Bistro opened in 2007 and are the first hotel and restaurant to gain Platinum certification with the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. In 2016, Dennis facilitated the transfer of ownership of the QW operating businesses to a trust that provides retirement benefits for QW staff members.

Dennis is affiliated with many organizations and has won awards both for the excellence of his businesses and his community service, including Restaurateur of the Year 2004 by the NC Restaurant Association (along with Nancy King Quaintance) and the Junior Achievement of the Triad “Spirit of Entrepreneurship” Award 2006. Dennis married Nancy King in 1983; they have two children, Kathleen Troy and Dennis Carlisle.