Rising Star: Caroline Skinner Steers Tupelo Honey's People-First Growth

Leading the pack of this year's class of Rising Stars 40 Under 40, Caroline Skinner has successfully navigated multiple roles while maintaining a consistent focus on investing in people and driving sustainable growth as chief operating officer of Asheville, North Carolina-based Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen & Bar.

A native of Asheville—a small, artsy city nestled against North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains—Skinner joined Tupelo Honey in 2013 after working for a natural and organic grocer, Earth Fare, and expanding it to a national brand. "When I got the phone call from Tupelo, I was about, can you help us grow particularly with people, and that was the focus of the role—in HR," she recalls. "It seemed like a really great opportunity to take an iconic Asheville-based brand and be part of the early phases of growth, and for me, I felt like that was something I had done well at Earth Fare."

Rooted in Appalachian cuisine and Southern food, Tupelo's first phase of bold growth began in 2016, when they opened a location in Denver. "We really wanted to understand the scalability of the brand," she says. "Let's take this brand outside of the Southeast and see if people in the west or Midwest can relate to southern food, and if there's that same passion and that same enthusiasm for the brand."

Soon after, Tupelo opened an outpost in Dallas, and found the same level of fanfare in both markets. Since then, Skinner has helped the NextGen Casual concept grow to 22 locations and counting, including cities in Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and additional units in North Carolina.

"I did not want to be seen as or pigeonholed as a regional brand," notes Tupelo Honey CEO Steve Frabitore. Tupelo Honey was originally founded by Sharon Schott, who sold the brand to Frabitore in 2008 when it had two stores. "I wanted to prove to ourselves and to others that this brand registers with people from all four corners of the country. It works in any type of environment—urban, suburban. That was important to me."

When asked why she thinks Tupelo is resonating with consumers across the country, Skinner says "it's just authenticity; people look for that experience that is well defined, meaning you know who you are, but your food is not generic. And I think our food, being that it's scratch made, but also being that it's rooted in heritage—that we're honoring the heritage and we're bringing something new to it—it's interesting."

With large prep kitchens so chefs can comfortably prepare everything fresh, Tupelo's menu ranges from honey-dusted fried chicken to blackened shrimp and avocado po' boys to its Mountain Morning Bowl with two sunny-side up eggs, rosemary and parmesan crispy potatoes, cheddar cheese, chopped apple cider bacon, green tomato salsa, red pepper sauce, and stone-ground goat cheese grits. "Southern food in and of itself is already flavor forward, and sort of rich in whole foods and whole ingredients. And so we're sort of borrowing from that, but bringing a new culinary flair to that, and people appreciate that," she adds.

In 2019, Skinner was elevated to Tupelo's chief operating officer, with an initial focus of restructuring the company's new store opening process to make it more efficient. In less than two months, Skinner was able to attain normalized profit levels and reduce new store opening costs by 100 percent.

"The nice thing about working with Caroline is we have distinctively different styles. And I actually like her style better than my style," Frabitore says. "Caroline's approach is professional, compassionate, [and] strong when [she] needs to be. I can be prickly. I'm a very passionate guy, and I know this company inside and out. I can tell you every inch of the downtown restaurant because I worked every inch of that restaurant. I cooked on the line. I redid the equipment. It was literally a game of inches. I'm not as patient. Everybody around here knows patience is a virtue, just not mine. So I can be impatient, I can be blunt but fair … And I like the way she can do the same thing without being quite as blunt as I am."

While only in her mid-30s, Skinner has successfully managed many roles, but her approach to leadership has remained focused on consistent investment in people from the time they join and train to internal promotions to helping them through hard times in their life.

"What I love about this business is the people. You can create a restaurant without people, but it's going to feel extremely sterile, it's going to feel extremely transactional," she says. "I think what a good restaurant concept does is they put humanity into the experience, but they also bring emotion via people. For me, hospitality is creating joy. It's an emotion, it's an experience, and you can do that through great food … but the mode in which it's delivering is a feeling."

Skinner has led the charge on many of the company's people-focused initiatives—many of which were unheard of before the impact of COVID on the industry—like Tupelo Honey's "Honeypot" benefits including medical and dental insurance, paid time off and paid family leave, wellness and tuition reimbursements, and more. "Eight years ago, nobody was doing paid family leave at all, and so we were one of the first to do that in the industry and just say, we're going to figure out a way to support our people through these life events," she says.

Skinner started the company's Fair Start Wage initiative, which starts all team members off at $15 per hour. "We haven't had an issue with [state mandated] wage increases because we've always been ahead of it," Skinner notes. She also created the company's "Biscuits for a Cause" program, where all biscuit profits go directly to Tupelo's Employee Relief Fund to help employees facing financial hardships. "You can be a great company in good times, and that's easy. Being a great company in hard times and doing right by people, that really will show what kind of company you really are," she says.

Since starting the program, over $700,000 has been raised for employees in need. "That's just a testament to the orientation of this company. It's always been about people, and I think that's why the scalability has been what it's been because we've been able to cultivate loyalty, trust, and allow people to really bring their best selves to work," Skinner adds.

Another example showcasing Tupelo's people-first mindset is Project Aspire, which was born out of COVID and recognizing the need to have a program focused on mentoring, training, and development, especially for people of color, women, and others who historically haven't been promoted to leadership positions in restaurants. Tupelo is now on its fourth cohort of Project Aspire, with 12 people per cohort who sign up for a year-long commitment involving coaching, group training sessions, and more.

"We also like to have groups blended between front- and back-of-house leadership, even some of our high corporate level folks, and the benefit to that is that the people who are participating in these programs are hearing perspectives from leaders in different areas of the business, so they're learning from one another, they're learning from their coach, and then they're poised for access to the next level, whatever that looks like," Skinner explains.

Her commitment to elevating the brand has already left a lasting legacy, though she's nowhere near to being done. Skinner's efforts in raising the team member experience and offering cutting-edge benefits over the lifespan of their careers hasn't gone unnoticed, either. In addition to Tupelo receiving national recognition for its approach to human-centered hospitality, Skinner has also been tapped to take the helm of the brand within the next few years.

"As the company goes through succession planning and [I] approach retirement, Caroline has been announced internally as Tupelo's future Chief Executive Officer, pending board approval. This designation reflects the numerous and significant contributions made by Caroline in the last 11 years," Frabitore disclosed to FSR in an email statement.

"As this brand has grown, I've grown as a person," Skinner adds. "For most in this industry, you learn it as a dishwasher or as a server. I learned it a little bit backwards. I had the advantage of being in a position of hearing from people about what they loved about their jobs and what they didn't like about their jobs … I think we still work really hard to make their jobs as enjoyable as possible, as easy as possible, and at the end of the day as successful as possible, because when they're successful, we know our guest has a great experience."

Read the full September 2024 issue of FSR Magazine featuring Caroline on the cover: issuu.com/wtwhmedia/docs/fsr-septemeber2024-issuu

In March 2026, FSR Magazine caught up with Caroline as part of its "Cover Stars" series to explore her next chapter — from Tupelo Honey's COO to fractional executive leadership at The C Society. Read the follow-up feature: www.fsrmagazine.com/feature/catching-up-with-fsr-cover-st…