Community in shock after restaurateur Haley's death
- Haley was driving a motorcycle in the mountains near Leh%2C India
- Haley was involved in a high-altitude%2C high-impact motorcycle accident
- Haley is one of Delaware%27s most well-known restaurateurs and philanthropists.
Sussex County restaurateur Matt Haley may have been the only Delawarean to receive a prestigious James Beard Foundation Award, but he didn't care much about fancy foods.
Each month, Maria Mairlot, one of three Carmelite sisters who helped start La Esperanza, a Georgetown community service agency that assists Spanish-speaking immigrant workers, had Haley over for a meal.
Haley had been part of the organization for nine years and board president since 2011, and the prospect of cooking for one of the state's most well-known restaurant owners always made Mairlot nervous.
"I said, 'Oh my God, what are we going to cook for you?'" Mairlot recalled.
"But he was so down to earth. He said: 'Hamburger, meatballs, spaghetti.'"
Mairlot said many Hispanic immigrants found work in Haley's restaurant kitchens.
"He really wanted to help this population, especially the immigrant population. It didn't matter what race," she said.
Friends, colleagues and people whom Haley, 53, touched through his restaurants and much-honored global humanitarian work were stunned to hear of his death Tuesday night from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident in India.
His business partner, Scott Kammerer, said Wednesday that Haley was in the country for the start of a 6-week trek through northwestern India and eventually Nepal.
He was there partly for his well-known love of adventure, but mostly because he planned to deliver stoves to a Nepali village.
According to Kammerer, Haley was driving a motorcycle in the mountains near Leh, India, around 4 p.m. Monday when he collided with a truck. He was taken unconscious to a remote hospital and was in the hospital's intensive care unit. Haley was wearing a helmet, Kammerer said.
Kammerer said Haley died at about 11:25 p.m. Tuesday while being transported by a medical jet from Leh to a hospital in New Delhi, India.
Haley, who has traveled to India and Nepal for the last three years, was with about eight or nine other motorcycle riders and international filmmaker and motorcycle expert Guarav Jani.
During the trip, Haley posted on his Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter accounts about the potential risks of the roadways he was traveling.
On Aug. 11, he wrote on Facebook he would be traveling "on the highest and, some say, most dangerous roads in the world."
"The entire team at the Matt Haley Companies is incredibly saddened by this huge loss. We will release more information as it becomes available," said Kammerer, president and COO.
Haley was one of Delaware's most respected culinary ambassadors and philanthropists. He owned eight popular restaurants in the state's beach resort towns, had a total of 25 operations in at least four states, served on several boards and was a frequent speaker.
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His Delaware restaurants include Lupo di Mare and Papa Grande's, both in Rehoboth, Fish On in Lewes, NorthEast Kitchen in Ocean View, Matt's Fish Camp and Bluecoast, both in Bethany Beach, and Catch 54 and Papa Grande's in Fenwick Island.
Through his restaurants, catering business and consulting work, Haley employs about 1,000 people during the summer. He told The News Journal he generated $45 million to $50 million in revenue.
Kammerer said the Delaware restaurants serve 25,000 meals a week.
One of the highlights of Haley's culinary career came this past May when he received the 2014 James Beard Humanitarian of the Year Award at a star-studded ceremony at New York's Lincoln Center.
The Rehoboth Beach resident was recognized for his good deeds both in Delaware and across the world. His moving speech about his love of Delaware and the restaurant community that embraced him after he overcame addiction to drugs and alcohol and time in prison earned him a standing ovation.
"I'm a member of the most compassionate, caring industry in the world. There's no other industry that would have been there for me. Everybody shut their door on me when I got out of prison 20 years ago," Haley said after receiving his Beard medal from Food Network star Ted Allen, one of the hosts of the ceremony. Haley said he was giving the medal to his mother, Georgie Haley.
Haley frequently spoke of his love for the restaurant community, for traveling and for helping others, especially the less fortunate.
When contacted by The News Journal after it was announced that he would receive the Beard Foundation's Humanitarian of the Year Award, Haley was on a beach in Puerto Rico. He traveled to the country for vacation, but then decided to work on a food truck for minimum-wage pay.
"I was knee-deep in boxes and trash. It was so apropos."
Haley said he wanted to know if people could live on the pay.
"You can't," he said.
Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and his wife extended their sympathies to Haley's family.
"Carla and I are devastated by the loss of our friend, Matt Haley. He was truly extraordinary."
In a phone call Wednesday, Markell shared several memories. Last month, he and Carla and their two children, ages 19 and 21, had dinner with Haley at his Papa Grande's restaurant in Rehoboth.
Haley told them the story about his addiction and the second chance he received at life when he became sober.
"To hear his story of rejuvenation and rebirth, it really was inspiring – what happens after you get knocked down. He built this incredible, successful life," Markell said. The governor added that Haley would always talk to anyone who was going through treatment and recovery.
Last year, he and Haley had lunch together and the restaurateur asked Markell if he would call his mother, Georgie. Haley said it would mean the world to his mother to get a call from the governor telling her that her son was doing well.
"That guy had so much wisdom. It's such a tragedy," Markell said.
The news of Haley's death shook friends and restaurant colleagues.
"He lived the life of 50 people," said his longtime publicist Stacey Inglis. "He did so much for so many. He just ate life every day."
The James Beard Foundation said Wednesday that videos of Haley's speech and of his life story that played at the New York ceremony in May are among the most viewed on its website.
"We are all so sad," Beard Foundation President Susan Ungaro said in a phone interview. "He was just amazing. He touched the lives of thousands of people, not just in Delaware, but around the world."
Ungaro said she met Haley about 1 1/2 years ago at a Beard House dinner in New York. She said the story of his life, and of his humanitarian works, was presented to an awards committee for consideration for the Humanitarian of the Year Award.
Ungaro said the choice was obvious. "We said, 'This is our guy.'"
"There is some comfort in knowing that we honored him this year," Ungaro said. Past recipients of the Beard Humanitarian of the Year Award included celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, the late actor Paul Newman and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer.
Haley had a banner year in 2014. He also was recognized for his humanitarian work by the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C., and the International Association of Culinary Professionals in Chicago. Haley later picked up a Jefferson Award for Public Service at Wilmington's Hotel du Pont.
Of the James Beard Humanitarian Award, he said: "This is for every Delaware chef, every Delaware restaurateur, it's for everyone in Delaware who has ever given back. The examples that I first learned in Delaware, I've just taken to the next level."
A Washington, D.C. native, he often shared the story of his life and eventual redemption. Haley said he has learned empathy for others through the years. As a teenager, he said he started doing drugs and alcohol, and his behavior got him kicked out of 13 schools in 12 years, though he did graduate.
At 30, he was sent to a detention center following a drug arrest. Cooking was part of his rehabilitation and the culinary arts became his salvation. His cooking talent led to jobs at various restaurants and a management position at a friend's Rehoboth restaurant, The Third Edition.
His first eatery was Redfin in Bethany, renamed Bluecoast Seafood Grill in 2001. By 2009, his company, SoDel Concepts, was named to the "Inc. Magazine" list as one of the fastest-growing food and beverage companies in the nation.
In recent years, Haley had serious health problems. He had recurring bouts of cancer, but Kammerer said Haley was cancer-free when he left for India on Aug. 10.
Paul Cullen, a personal chef, former bassist with the rock band Bad Company and one of the partners in Eating Rehoboth and Eating Lewes – guided, walking food and wine tours in the two resort communities – said, like many in the area, he thought Haley would recover from his injuries.
Cullen was shocked to hear the sad news.
"I was just thinking the other day how he was really just getting started," Cullen said. Once Haley received the Beard Foundation's Humanitarian of the Year Award, his efforts to help others reached a whole new level, Cullen said.
He said he does not expect the restaurants to skip a beat.
"He had such a great team," Cullen said, adding Haley hand-picked each member. "I don't think the restaurants are going to be affected. They knew Matt."
Cullen said the Friday Eating Rehoboth food and wine walking tour was to include Lupo di Mare on Rehoboth Avenue. He contacted the staff to let them know the food tour would find another restaurant to feature.
"Absolutely not," Cullen said he was told Wednesday morning. "Matt would want everything to stay the same."
"I'm still stunned," Cullen said.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons Wednesday called Haley "one of the most remarkable people I've ever met."
"He was so much more than a talented chef and celebrated restaurateur – he was such a good man. He was a great Delawarean. He was a friend. His death is heartbreaking."
Coons said the weekend before Matt left for India, he met a woman in Dover – a recovering addict who couldn't find work because she said she couldn't find anyone willing to take a chance on her.
"I told her Matt's story and the incredible life he'd made after the mistakes of his youth. I called Matt the next day and he leapt at the opportunity to help her. He took her number and promised to call her right away because he was getting on a plane the next morning."
"Matt was going there on a mission to bring what his heart made possible. I told him how proud I was to know him."
On Wednesday, at Lupo di Mare , the tables were set with white cloths, flatware and stemware. But there was no sign that Haley had died – no black bunting, flower bouquets or stuffed animals on the doorstep.
Bob Yesbek, a blogger and food writer known as The Rehoboth Foodie, said it is exactly the way Haley would have wanted it.
Once, while drinking morning coffee together, Yesbek said asked Haley whether he had a transition plan in place.
"He had everything set up," Yesbek said. Because of Haley's frequent travels for his humanitarian efforts, the "restaurants were basically running without him."
Funeral details have not yet been released.
Kammerer said in lieu of flowers, send donations to the charity Matt founded, the Global Delaware Fund at P.O. Box 49, Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971 or www.theglobaldelawarefund.com.