Bader Labidi
EVENT & CATERING MANAGER – OWNER
Bader brings his multi-cultural background to Food for Thought.
Bader’s father is a Michelin Star level Pastry Chef and his mother is a Chef. Their work allowed their family to move around the world consulting and upgrading restaurants. As a result, Bader has lived in 17 different countries. Bader also speaks 4 languages.
Bader and his family settled down in Nice, France. There he attended high school and he received his Master’s Degree in Communication and a Bachelor’s Degree in Management & Event Planning.
He began his event planning career as a quality control and sales representative in catering for private jets and yachts. During that time, he catered for US presidents, diplomats, royal families from the Middle East and Europe.
Eventually Bader started an internship as an event planner for the Cannes Film Festival. He ended up spending seven years there and was even once stuck in an elevator with Steven Spielberg. “He was like, well, OK, let’s talk young man.” He was nice and curious!
At that same time, Bader began working for a company in the French Riviera renting out homes and châteaux for photoshoots, advertisements and movie productions.
Finally, Bader followed his partner, a teacher in Bozeman, to the beautiful Gallatin Valley in 2018 where he has fallen in love with all the amazing things Montana has to offer.
Amber Bliss
Chef
Born and raised Montanan, Amber settled down in Bozeman in 2006, where she then completed her M.S. in Psychology in 2012. After leaving her role as a professional student, she jumped into the corporate insurance world for close to a decade. In early 2020 she decided to finally pursue her lifelong passion in the culinary arts field. Self-trained home cook, she does it all in the kitchen from baking comforting nostalgic cookies, creating flavorful unique pastries, designing scrumptious hors-d’oeuvre platters and cooking delicious main dishes. Amber loves expanding her knowledge base and skills in the kitchen, always up for a challenge, she strives for perfection on a plate and creating a memorable experience for the client through the food.
Read More About Team Member
When she isn’t in the kitchen at work she’s usually in the kitchen at home caring for her family, teaching her kids their way around the kitchen and experimenting with recipes. When Amber finds time to leave the kitchen she tries to fill her free time with yoga, hiking and taming her wild beasts (kids and dogs).
Samantha Pliler
Chef
Executive Head Chef Samantha Pliler studied culinary arts at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY where she received a classical French culinary education. As a part of the program, she completed an externship at Lone Mountain Ranch in Big Sky, Montana, where she fell in love with the natural beauty
Sam graduated from the CIA with an Associate’s Degree in Culinary Arts in 2018 and went on to work at The Modern, a two Michelin starred restaurant in New York City. After two very successful years creating sophisticated creative cuisine, Sam worked her way up through the kitchen, leaving as the lead line cook. In response to the pandemic closures, Sam returned to Montana to work again at The Lone Mountain Ranch as the Sous Chef. She moved on to become the executive chef for both locations of Copper Whiskey Bar & Grill where she worked to improve all aspects of food at both restaurants.
Read More About Team Member
In 2021, Sam left Copper and joined the Food For Thought Team as the Executive Head Chef, where she has led the culinary team in executing numerous luxury events of various sizes, from formal private chef dinners to large plated elegant weddings, and corporate events and retreats of all kinds.
Emily Ryan
Founder
What started as a deli in 2008 has evolved into a full-service catering company for Bozeman and Beyond. In addition to providing clients with excellent food, Emily shines when it comes to evolving her company’s offerings to match the needs of her clients. This means keeping sight of an evolving vision wile also dedicating her time to managing business – both of which can be easily overlooked in a highly creative industry.
With the deli a thing of the past, today Emily pairs her mind for business and her love of great customer service with her degrees in Food Nutrition & Dietetics and Political Science to lead her team forward. Within that forward momentum, each catering opportunity is treated with deep consideration to the client’s vision, the staffing support needed to make sure no detail goes overlooked, and that the cuisine is something that gives guests reason to rave.
Read More About Emily
As Emily puts it, “Think about this as you would the staffing for a restaurant – you have the ‘front of house’ team who tends to every guest’s needs and you have the ‘back of house’ team who focuses on the food experience.” Emily has purposely structured Food For Thought and her approach to catering so that clients receive both.
A St. Louis native, Emily Ryan attended Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and graduated with honors from Montana State University in 1999 with degrees in Political Science and Food Nutrition and Dietetics. She completed a post-graduate Dietetic Internship at Oregon Health and Science University in 2006, and is a Registered Dietician. Emily opened Food for Thought in 2008. In 2015, Emily was selected for recognition as part of the President’s Circle honorable mention candidates in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle’s 20 Under 40 awards. The annual 20 Under 40 awards recognize businesspeople, entrepreneurs and employees in southwest Montana who have achieved success and improved the quality of life for others in their communities. Since 2018, Emily has sat on the Woman’s Advisory Board for The MT Woman’s Business Center, offering valuable feedback on training programs, grant opportunities and mentoring female entrepreneurs through the region.
