Meet Chef Brandon Velie

Want to get to know Chef Brandon? Check out just a few of his incredible accomplishments! Brandon Velie was born in Hyattsville, Maryland but moved to Poughkeepsie, NY when he was six years old. His first restaurant job (at age 14) was as a dishwasher at a local college where he quickly learned to ask the Chef lots of questions so he could work his way up to prepping and get away from the dishes. Throughout High School he worked in a variety of restaurant positions until joining the US Marine Corps at the age of 18. Brandon served honorably for four years as a Marine Corps cook and also completed a Cook apprenticeship through the US Dept. of Labor.

After leaving the Marines Brandon tried his hand at a few other careers to include working as a corrections officer and working for UPS but found his way back into kitchens and worked his way up to Sous Chef at the Holiday Inn State Capitol Raleigh, NC. From there he moved to Washington, D.C. and worked on the opening team for Palomino Euro Bistro in the Ronald Reagan Center. He then worked for Eurest Food Services at Fannie Mae as District Executive Chef and Restaurant Chef at the prestigious Cosmos Club. In 2002 he was offered a position as Executive Chef at The Green Boundary Club in Aiken, SC and after three years there he and his wife Jeanne opened Juniper in Ridge Spring, SC in 2005. Since opening Brandon, Jeanne and Juniper have been featured in many local and national media outlets to include a great segment on SCETV titled Original SC and most recently in a video for the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism titled “Follow a South Carolina Chef”. In 2014 Brandon worked with Governor Nikki Haley and the SC Dept. of Agriculture and the SC Dept. of Parks, Recreation and Tourism to create the SC Chef Ambassador Program and he is currently the Chef Advisor Emeritus to the SC Chef Ambassador program. Brandon has been invited to cook at Charleston Wine & Food Festival, Euphoria in Greenville, SC and Atlanta Food & Wine Festival numerous times and was a Chef Advisor to Atlanta Food & Wine in 2016. Brandon has cooked at the James Beard House in NYC twice and was the featured Chef in June 2017 to a sold out crowd. Brandon & Jeanne are also the proud parents of four awesome children and the proud owners of one amazing restaurant (where he still regularly washes lots of dishes).