Tre Wilcox: The path of an outlier

After a jam-packed weekend of endorsement and cooking events in New York City in 2007, Tre Wilcox flew directly back to Dallas-just in time to make the peak of Abacus’ dinner rush.

“Behind,” a dishwasher hollers as he dodges a sizzling frying pan that’s crashing to the floor.

“Corner,” yells a waiter as he scurries past the flaming grill.

Exhausted and jostled by a turbulent flight, Wilcox wearily creeps into the humid kitchen.

“Hey man, you need to help too,” says a kitchen cook.

Shaking his nausea off, Wilcox secures his apron and steps up to his station.

“Game on were going down,” says Wilcox.

But just a few moments later, Wilcox eye’s a trashcan, hurls his torso over the side and vomits.

Without a hiccup in the kitchen’s commotion, Wilcox hurries off to a restroom to tidy up.

He realigns his gear and suddenly he’s right back to the job.

“I don’t know how you do it,” the amateur kitchen cook says in awe.

Wilcox chuckles. Abacus guests shouldn’t be kept waiting.

Working a minimum of six days a week, at around 10 hours per day, for over 20 years, Dallas’ renowned chef Tre Wilcox is inching awfully close to what Malcolm Gladwell argues as the 10,000-hour rule. Gladwell believes this “practice makes perfect” rule is characteristic of an outlier, that is, someone whose success isn’t solely due to an innate phenomenal talent. An outlier isn’t born a prodigy, nor do they have a “rags to riches” tale. However, the essential element attributed to the success of an outlier is unrelenting practice.

Maybe Gladwell would consider Tre Wilcox an outlier, or at least comprise a few characteristics of one.

“I am driven. I have always been disciplined and extremely driven,” Wilcox said.

“I taught Tre to work very hard and be passionate. He could choose whatever he wanted to be, but he needed to sustain a job and provide,” said Tre Wilcox’s father, Bennie Wilcox. Wilcox asserts his father as very influential in his life and one of his two mentors. “My advice clearly rang home with him,” said Bennie Wilcox.

At age 16, in Duncanville, Texas, Wilcox got a job at a Boston Market franchise. Not knowing food would eventually consume his life, he picked up the job solely to fund his car payment. “Back then, I cooked just for money,” said Tre Wilcox.

But by the time Wilcox was 19, cooking became more serious to him and also a potential career option.

“I always knew if Tre could just dream and go after something, he would be successful,” said Bennie Wilcox. “I found cooking to be a passion that I would chase forever. I wanted to know how I could get better. How do I grow,” said Tre Wilcox.

Following Boston Market, Wilcox landed a job at Eatzis, a Dallas-based bakery and gourmet food chain founded by American restaurateur Phillip J. Romano. But where Wilcox’s career truly started to cultivate was at Abacus.

“I met Tre quite a while ago-about nine years,” said Kent Rathbun. Rathbun is a Texan culinary legend who has been featured on popular television programs such as NBC’s “Today Show” and Food Network’s hit series “Iron Chef America.” Rathbun opened Abacus in the Knox-Henderson area of Dallas in 1997, which has since then been inducted into the Nation’s Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame. Justifiably, Rathbun became the second of two mentors Wilcox has to date.

“Tre’s got a lot of talent,” said Rathburn.

As many fans are likely to agree, “I’m excited to see what his next move is, whatever that might be,” said Bennie Wilcox.