Chef Ira and His Team Cook Up Great Meals at Mount Vernon Towers

28 Aug Chef Ira and His Team Cook Up Great Meals at Mount Vernon Towers

For almost 17 years, residents at Mount Vernon Towers have enjoyed Executive Chef Ira McClure’s culinary talents. Chef Ira, as he is known to his kitchen staff of 20 and to the seniors in the independent living community in the heart of Sandy Springs, started his career already in high school.

Growing up in Montgomery (AL), Chef Ira worked part-time after school and during weekends to help his mother – when he wasn’t playing football on his high school team as an offensive linebacker. He started out washing dishes at Huntington College, where Chef James Moses was impressed with young Ira’s quick intellect and sense of responsibility. Chef Moses took him under his wing and before too long, trusted him with preparing the weekend meals for 400+ students at the college.

Though he trained to be a welder, Chef Ira enlisted in the Navy as a mess cook and was stationed in San Diego, where he also attended the Culinary Arts School. He and his wife, his high school sweetheart Betty, spent a total of 13 years in California, where two of their three children (Ira Jr., Sparkle and Cherish) were born. He worked as a chef in a number of establishments in California, including the Navy Hospital in Long Beach, before he and his family moved back to the South to be closer to their extended family.

In 1997, Chef Ira applied for and accepted the position of Executive Chef at Mount Vernon Towers, and since then has implemented a lot of the lessons he learned along the way from Chef Moses to his instructors at the Culinary Arts School, who stressed the importance of using proper recipes and ‘mise-en-place.’ According to Chef Ira, the recipe to make the residents at Mount Vernon Towers happy includes consistency, quality products and a great team.

He and his staff, of whom many have been at Mount Vernon Towers for at least 10 years, have developed a number of favorite dishes, also based on the feedback of the residents. The kitchen serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and offers brunch for different floors on a regular basis. Meals are enjoyed in the dining room, but may also be picked up or delivered.

All soups are made from scratch, the desserts include many Southern and ‘old-time’ favorites, and Tuesday night is ‘Chef Ira’s Famous Fried Chicken Night.’ Any new dishes are introduced with a star on the menu, and can always be sampled.

“I love the feedback from our residents, and we listen to their wishes. We know that a great meal can make your day – every day!” says Chef Ira.