Innkeepers Chef Chaz and Dana recently moved to Hickory from Wolcott, Connecticut. They met thirteen years ago while attending the University of Kentucky, in Lexington, KY and were married five years later in Bermuda, at the oldest church in the western hemisphere. Currently Dana has a career in accounting, while Chaz has worked as an advertising company's graphic designer and chef at many fine establishments.

Chef Chaz's culinary background started early, cooking in a Greek restaurant as a teenager.  He continued his culinary skills while putting himself through college as a kitchen supervisor at DeSha's, a well established restaurant in Lexington. While Dana and Chaz lived in Raleigh, NC, Chaz left his advertising career to pursue his first passion, cooking. He went on to becoming the Pastry Chef and Sous Chef at Syzygy, a Micheal Olanders' (Owner/CEO of Applebee's) white table cloth California Cuisine restaurant. From there, Dana and Chaz moved to Connecticut to follow Dana's career. While living in New England, Chaz studied Baking and Pastry at The Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, NY. His culinary experiences include: fine dinning, catering, health care dietary chef, and corporate chef with Aramark. Chef Chaz continues to add to his more than 15 years of culinary experience and is looking forward to serving his culinary delights with new friends/guests.

Owning a Bed and Breakfast has been a long time dream of Chef Chaz' and Dana's. When the time was right, we began our search for our perfect B&B. Our search brought us to many B&Bs, mainly in the southeast so that we could be near family. Eventually we came to Hickory, NC and stayed at the Vineyard Bed and Breakfast (the former name of the Inn at Hickory). We fell in love with the inn and the area because of it had "the feel of a small town, with the benefits of a large one" (i.e a Mall, cultural attractions and of course, a Home Depot).   Our first offer was declined by the former owner,  so we continues to look at other inns in the Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina, but we found that all of these other inns just didn't have the appeal as Hickory, and successfully tried again one year later.

Although, Dana & Chef Chaz are the innkeepers, Chef Chaz operates the inn. Dana is currently working as an accountant for Baker Furniture, which recently relocated its headquarters to Hickory, but she enjoys assisting with the daily workings of the inn. If your visit is for a special occassion, please feel free to call us to arrange a special dinner or package. Our goal is to ensure your visit to the Inn at Hickory is relaxing and unique.

We look forward to your visit and hope you will return to see us again.