Suzy Johnson has been in the Food & Beverage business for 33 years. She began her career in 1978 after attending University of South Florida, Tampa. During a summer vacation she took a job crewing as a cook on a 70ft sailboat going from the Bahamas to England. While in England she took a Cordon Bleu cooking course, then moved to Paris where she honed her skills cooking for a Parisian family. Upon her return to the US, she took her first restaurant management job in the corporate world with Specialty Restaurants, Inc. in 1980. From there she moved to T.G.I Friday’s as a new store opener, opening locations in Orlando, Indianapolis, and Miami. She returned to the St. Petersburg area in 1987 and developed the concept of Apropos Restaurant. She opened the first location on 1st Ave NE as chef/co-owner, in 1988. The restaurant was a huge success. In 1990, Suzy moved to Sarasota, Florida to become the Catering Director for the Ringling Museum of Art. In 1992, she took the position of Executive Chef for Entertainment One Pacific, Inc. and moved to Hawaii. There she helped develop and open five restaurants on Oahu, the Big Island and Maui. After 10 years in Hawaii, she decided to return to the mainland and back to her hometown, St. Petersburg.
Throughout all her travels, she never lost sight of the dream of one day re-opening the original Apropos. She had retained all of her original recipes, and when the perfect location popped up in March 2011, Apropos Restaurant & Catering re-opened in the historical Snell Arcade Building in downtown St. Petersburg in June 2011.