Chef Jason Bowers on pushing boundaries and roast beef sandwiches by the ocean

At the age of 15, Jason Bowers wasn’t really supposed to be in the kitchen. But a friend from down the road in Kirksville, Missouri, was manning the meat slicer. So Bowers would sneak in back and fry up a few steaks for the cooks. If he got caught, that would likely be the end of his career at the Golden Corral. But he never did; instead, he discovered how good a mid-rare steak could taste and earned a spot on the line by the end of high school. Bowers, now the executive chef at Hotel Phillips, found that if he just kept pushing, he could open the door to any kitchen he wanted.