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Meet John Moeller, a former White House chef who served under three presidents: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. – and soon he’ll be serving Veritas families, too!

Join us as John shares fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from his years at the White House preparing state dinners, spending time with the presidential families, and his experiences during the historic events of 9/11. John now runs the Greenfield Restaurant and Bar in Lancaster and will be catering the Veritas Scholars Academy End of Year Gathering picnic this spring!

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox. The voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us John Moeller. John, welcome.

John Moeller:
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Marlin Detweiler:
John, many of you might know if you've been to the end of year gathering, is a caterer for us. This year, he'll be catering the picnic in our backyard and the teachers' breakfast. But John has a very interesting past and career path. John, tell us a little bit about yourself.

John Moeller:
Well, good afternoon. It's great to be here. And I started out here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You know, I graduated from Lecture Catholic High. I started out in public school before that, and then I left for 30 years and came back in 2010. But during the time I had left, I went to a culinary school up in Providence, Rhode Island, and then went on a European trip to go see a friend of mine and ended up spending two and a half years in France.

So I decided in 1984 to buy a one-way ticket and put a backpack on and see what happened. And most people thought it was crazy. You know, they said, do you speak French? Do you have a job lined up? Not really. Yeah. You'll be back in a couple of months, maybe even a couple of weeks.

But two and a half years later, I came back. And **speaking French**

And I learned another way of life. And the cuisine over there was incredible. So I did that. Upon returning to the States, I found a job right away down in the Virgin Islands, worked the season down in Saint Croix.

And at the end of the season, I was heading back to Lancaster, landed in DC, and then had an opportunity to work in a French-style restaurant at DuPont Circle. For that summer, I was planning on going back to the islands in October or November. They went from there until June. That was their season.

But after I arrived in DC, I kind of liked it. I started working with this French-Belgian chef, and he introduced me to a variety of other French chefs locally in DC. A guy I met within two weeks of being there in that summer of '87, by 1990, he became a sous chef at the White House.

And then I heard about it and said, well, that's pretty cool. Pierre, a Frenchman, he's a sous chef there. And then about two years later, at the beginning of 1992, he called me up and said, "Hey, John, if you know or not, I've been the sous chef here. Now I'm in a position where I'm looking for someone to be my sous chef."

"Would you be interested?" I said, "Yes, I would." So when we sat down to talk about it, he said, "There are five chefs who work full-time in the White House. You have three in the cooking, two in the pastry." He said, "I'm French-born, but you have to be an American citizen to work full-time." I said, "The pastry chef is also a French-born American citizen."

"I could bring another Frenchman in that's an American citizen, but I think it's too many French people. So, what I'm looking for is an American that knows something about French cooking." So that little season in France is what set me apart from other candidates and got me in there, starting with George H.W. Bush, then eight years with Bill Clinton, and then five years with George W. Bush.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, it's a wonderful experience that I've heard you talk about before. And it isn't every day that we get a chance to talk to a White House chef. It's been a real pleasure to be able to work with you as a caterer for many events, for Laurie and me personally, but also for Veritas Press, especially tied into our end-of-year gathering.

Tell us a little bit about where you are now. And then we'll get back to some of the stories. I'm sure people listening here would really love to hear some White House stories.

John Moeller:
Absolutely. So right now, since 2018, I took over a restaurant here. It's very well known here in Lancaster. It's called the Greenfield Restaurant and Bar.

Marlin Detweiler:
We just plug that to right now. If you're coming to the end of your gathering, folks, the Great. Excuse me, Greenfield Inn. It's not called old Greenfield, just Greenfield in this.

John Moeller:
Well, actually, neither got read about ten years ago. Now it got rebranded as the Greenfield Restaurant Bar, the Greenfield restaurant.

Marlin Detweiler:
Greenfield Restaurant and Bar. It's actually fairly close to the Eden Resort, which is kind of the center of attention for the end of year gathering. It's a restaurant that you can check out if you like when you're in Lancaster for the end of year gathering. Please continue.

John Moeller:
Sure thing. And then, so since 2018, I've taken this over as a restaurant and eating facility. I had a catering business from 2011 after I moved back to Lancaster in 2010 until, and actually, I still quite still do have it, but it's kind of a small-scale thing now. I don't push as much suzette as I do the Greenfield, but it was called State of Affairs Catering.

And that's where we first met, through State of Affairs Catering. And then also, I met a local publisher here in 2011, and we started working on a book. It took two and a half years, but later, lead of 2013, it was released, and it's titled Dining at the White House.

Marlin Detweiler:
And that's available on Amazon. Correct?

John Moeller:
It is. Amazon's the only place to find it right now. Since Covid, I stopped having them in bookstores. It just changed the mechanics of it. So Amazon is the best place, or you can contact me through the restaurant, and I can sign and get it off to you.

Marlin Detweiler:
There you go. Well, that's wonderful. So there's a lot of mystique around the idea of being a chef at the White House. And somebody might be inclined to say, wow, you worked for the Republicans and you worked for a Democrat. How does that work?

John Moeller:
Well, our job, as we recall, residents, staff, butlers, maids, electricians, plumbers, a florist department, we were all part of maintaining the house. And when I got the job there, they said you serve to the pleasure of the president. What that meant was that we were government employees, but we were not civil servants.

We had this special little world that we lived in. If a new president comes in, he can do whatever he wants with the house to make his time as comfortable as possible. While he's there, he can bring his own chef, his maid, his butler. Any of those things can happen, but usually, they don’t. But the warning is always there. So politics had nothing to do with my job. We were there to serve to the pleasure.

I got to know them as just regular people. At the end of the day, between chefs, the butlers, and the maids, we were the closest ones to them at very private moments—just hanging out on a Saturday afternoon or enjoying a breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Marlin Detweiler:
What are some of the fun stories that you remember that you're allowed to tell? So without having to worry about Secret Service showing up?

John Moeller:
Well, now I'm Joe Citizen. I can release a lot of things. But for the most part, I didn't have any crazy things. I never sat in the Situation Room and watched major things going down, but—

Marlin Detweiler:
No Training in the Situation Room?

John Moeller:
Actually, the Navy takes care of that. When we're inside the boat, it's called the Executive Residence. But under the Oval Office, there's something called the Navy Mess. The Navy Mess, where they have a small dining room for senior staff, is where the Situation Room is. The Navy Mess takes care of that.

The Navy will also dispatch and come out on the road with him and follow him wherever he goes, which has a personal valet to take care of all his personal items and also his food needs when he's on the road. Also, Camp David is managed by the Navy. They maintain the cabins and there's the food service up there.

Unless the person wants to turn it up a little bit, or if there's a head of state up there, then we are always up Camp David to take care of that. I enjoyed going up there. It was kind of neat to go someplace that nobody can see and be inside the gates. It was pretty cool. I love going up there.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's interesting. As a pilot, I've actually flown over Camp David a couple times, and even from the air you can't see much.

John Moeller:
And if you get too close, you might have an escort.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, I was always legal.

John Moeller:
That came in close to the house here at the White House, and they were escorted away. It happened quite a few times in those months after 9/11. The first time it happened, it kind of freaked me out a little bit, but we all started getting used to it after that point.

Marlin Detweiler:
So give us some stories from your experience in the White House.

John Moeller:
Well, you know, like I said, I started with George H.W. Bush, and they were just very nice, gentle people. I mean, I got to know them as regular people. I was actually kind of amazed at how down-to-earth they were. What you saw was what you got. Unfortunately, I had only that last year of their administration to enjoy some time with them.

But it was very well met. It meant a lot to me to spend that much time with them when I had a chance to. But it kind of leads to what is the most incredible day being at the White House. For us, pretty much, it's Inauguration Day. What does it take to get a president out in the morning and bring another one in a few hours later? A lot goes on.

That morning, when George H.W. Bush was getting ready to leave around 10 a.m. or so, at 9:30, they said all resident staff should go up to the State Dining Room. So we're all standing in a circle—chefs, maids, butlers, people in blue who are like plumbers, electricians, and all the operations staff.

The ushers' office is another big one that manages the house. So there were about 80 of us standing in a big circle. Then, the big mahogany doors opened up from the cross hall. The chief usher, who is like the general manager of the house and our boss, opened the doors and let the president and first lady in, then closed the doors. It was just us and them.

I'll never forget as he walked into the middle of our circle of workers. His head went down, and he swung back and forth for a moment. He said, "You know, of all the goodbyes that we have to say, this is going to be the toughest one because all of you have taken care of us for the last four years, and we can't say thanks enough."

So it was very heartfelt, and we traded back some fun stories, all the things that happened over the years. Before you know it, boom. There they go. They go off onto the North Portico. I went to a window from the old family dining room. I saw him get into the limousines and leave. As soon as they're outside the gates, guess what happens? Moving trucks come in. The moving trucks pull up, they take the Bush belongings out, and then there's a moving truck behind them with the Clinton things to come in. They get out of the trucks and get connected with the curator's office. They're the ones that know where everything is and where it has to go.

But guess what? They can't do anything because the president is still the president. They cannot touch one thing in the House. The transition team has already decided what the Oval Office is going to look like, so they're going to dismantle and take everything out of there and put it in storage. When his library is created, they will reconstruct the Oval Office like it was the last day he was in office. But they cannot do anything until that hand comes off the Bible.

Once he is sworn in, boom. That's when we go into action. It's amazing to see how much work happens from 12:20 in the afternoon until about 5:30. They get the place flipped and get the majority of the stuff done. Because when he goes in the Oval Office, he's not opening boxes and unpacking. Everything's kind of ready to go. They're ripping up carpeting up and down the hallways, doing a paint job in the hallways and the Oval Office. They have the big air handlers blowing air, trying to get it dried out. They're trying to hang up new artwork. It's incredible the amount of people that descend on the place. They keep looking up at the TV, watching him take that slow walk down Constitution Avenue towards the White House.

Like, don't go too fast. Slow down. We're not quite ready yet. It's quite extraordinary to see what happens there. That evening, there are all the inaugural balls, so there are no steak dinners or anything like that. The only thing we do on this night is have a light buffet available from 5:30 to about 7:30 when they all need to go up to the congressional balls and the inaugural balls. I'm up on the third floor in the solarium, this beautiful glass-enclosed room over the Truman Balcony overlooking the South Grounds. We have a light buffet there. At 5:30, I have it ready. I'm just standing by, waiting to see if anybody needs anything. I hear nothing. 6:00 comes. Nothing. But at 6:15, finally, the elevator door opens up, and there's Bill Clinton. He's walking in for the first time to see the place.

I'm the first chef he met that day. I said, "Hey, Mr. President, welcome to the White House." I pointed up the hallway to the solarium and said, "We have a light buffet up there available for you if you need something to eat. If you need anything, just let me know." I thought that was kind of cool. I shook the hand of an outgoing president in the morning, and a few hours later, I met the new incoming one.

When they first got in there, they said, "Chelsea eats what we eat." The first couple of months are the toughest time. We're watching everything, listening to them, trying to figure out what types of foods they like and how to create menus. About two weeks after they were in office, the president and first lady were going out for dinner for the first time. Chelsea was by herself, and I was the only one on dinner that night.

At about 5:30 that evening, Chelsea called me and said, "John, Mom and Dad are out, and I'm hungry. I'm really in the mood for some mac and cheese. Can you make me some?" I said, "Sure, I can take care of that." She told me, "I want it now." So I went in the back, found some elbow macaroni, and started to boil it. I had some cheddar cheese around, so I made a quick béchamel. Whipped this thing up in 20 minutes or so. I had gone upstairs, and then the phone rang about 20 minutes later. Chelsea said, "I enjoyed it. It was all well and good, but next time can I have the one from the box?"

You know. So, yes. Does it hurt? Yeah, a little bit, you know. But hey, she was 12 years old when she got there.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Oh that's great.

John Moeller:
So for the next couple of years when Mom and Dad was out, I got the box of mac and cheese up, and I do a marinated grilled piece of chicken and some type of vegetable. And that was a go-to until she was about 14 or 15, you know.

Marlin Detweiler:
You know, I remember you telling another story, too, about her. You measured out ingredients for a recipe. She wanted to cook herself, you know, stir it.

John Moeller:
Yeah. Well, I just completed lunch on the second floor, and I came downstairs. It's a Saturday afternoon. There's nothing on in the house. I'm the only one in there. I did lunch, and I was going to do dinner that day. And so it's like 2:00 or something like that. I've cleaned up my lunch mess, and I'm getting ready for dinner now.

And the butler came down with a silver tray with a list of ingredients and said that Chelsea's on the second floor and there's a small kitchen in a private area because they live on the second floor of the White House, and there's a small kitchen that we work out of. When we serve them downstairs, the ground floor kitchen is the main kitchen that we work out of.

And so the butler said there's a list of ingredients. He said, you know, Chelsea wants to bake something, and here's a list of ingredients that she's looking for. I said, no problem. So I looked at it. It was like two and a quarter cups of flour, a teaspoon of this, a teaspoon of dried that, whatever, whatever.

So I measured it all out. I put it in bowls, I put the list of ingredients there. I gave it to the butler. He took it upstairs. And then afterwards, he came down with the list, with the ingredients. He said she wants to measure it out herself. Yeah, okay. That's cool. I mean, you gave me a list here, so I dumped everything in the big bowls.

I put some teaspoons and cups and stuff there. I said, that's pretty cool. She wants to measure it out herself, you know. So she baked some cookies that afternoon, you know.

Marlin Detweiler:
Now, there's something else I remember, something that George H.W. Bush would say, and that is that he hated broccoli during my serving. And broccoli.

John Moeller:
No, no, when I got in there, George. Yeah. The do's and don'ts list, the top of the don'ts was no broccoli. Now, the First Lady, Barbara Bush, if she ate by herself, I was able to use broccoli. It did not matter. But when the president was around, he did not. He hated it when he was a kid, and he said, "I'm the President of the United States. I still don't like it, and you can't make me eat it," you know.

But if you actually saw everything he did, he actually outweighed everyone else. His palate was pretty good. He just didn't like that broccoli, you know. And I guess the son wasn't too far from it to a degree. I mean, George W. came in, and it was a summer evening.

He was by himself. The First Lady was traveling somewhere, so he was by himself for dinner. And so I thought I would make chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and corn. And so it's just one plate. I'm in the second-floor kitchen area. I give it to the butler. He goes through the swinging door into the dining room. Within 30 seconds, the butler's back in the kitchen, and he's laughing, like, kind of hard and funny.

I go, "What's so funny?" He says, "He cracks me up." And George W. was pretty quick-witted. I said, "Well, what did he say?" He goes, "Well, I put the plate in front of him. He leaned over, looked at it, and said, 'There's nothing green on it. I like it.'" So I guess he wasn't far from that. The green vegetables there, you know that.

Marlin Detweiler:
That is too funny. Well, what are your takeaway, your personal fondest memories from that experience? What an experience over three different administrations. And really being at the heart of American politics, American leadership. What are some of your big takeaways?

John Moeller:
I would say that, you know, what I witnessed earlier, like we talked about the inauguration, that was just incredible. I mean, it's an incredible day to watch something unfold. And then a couple years later, when Bill Clinton was president, he had a state dinner for someone, and his name was Nelson Mandela.

And it was his first time out as the leader, the head of state of South Africa. So his first trip out of South Africa was to come to America for a state dinner. And so, yeah, I remember we had some halibut and a few other things, but just the fact that he made it there and saw him arrive and be the head of state now of South Africa was just incredible. I mean, that was a very historical day to witness, you know.

Marlin Detweiler:
That really would be. Can you describe in ways that we would enjoy, the nature of a state dinner? What are some of the things that we might not easily anticipate that would be typical of state dinners?

John Moeller:
We used to get about three or four months' notice for a state dinner, and then we waited for the State Department to forward to us dietary restrictions of their visiting head of state and their spouse. And so we would wait for that to start looking at menus, start seeing if there were any themes that they were looking for, obviously also looking at seasonal things that were available throughout the year.

We tried to turn towards local stuff. They are visiting from their country to here. We would like to offer American cuisine of some sort here. Sometimes I might put a little twist on an ingredient that they have from their country, but, you know, I wouldn't make sushi for a Japanese prime minister, you know? So, yeah, we tried to play with things, start coming up with some ideas.

We would send that over to the office of the First Lady. The social secretary would get hold of the menus, and most of them had to go through her anyway, and they would get the thumbs up on it. But the state dinners were the ones that we had to scrutinize the most. We had to make sure that protocol sounded good, that the evening had a run of show, and that all these things came into place to execute a beautiful evening.

One thing that might be kind of surprising is that, yeah, we spent some money on food, but I saw some of the bills for state dinners, and we actually spent more money on flowers than we did on food. I mean, the floral arrangements and the table setups were pretty extravagant.

If you ever see any of the full shots of the state dining room—In fact, I have a picture in my book here—you can see how elaborate everything looks. I mean, there's a lot of work that goes into it, and each one of those flower stems could be $10, $15, $20. It could be $50 or $100 a piece. I mean, when they go extravagant, they go pretty extravagant.

And then, of course, that evening we started with a light reception with the heads of state and their inner circle up on the second floor of the White House with the president and First Lady. Then they descended down to the Cross Hall, and then they stood in front of the Blue Room with the door shut.

There is a presidential seal above that entry. That’s where people are introduced, couple by couple, or individually if they are alone. They are introduced by military personnel, and they will introduce you to the visiting head of state, the president, and the First Lady. As soon as you leave the president and First Lady's presence, there's someone there from the social office who knows exactly where you have to sit.

So they will escort you right to your table. The State Dining Room holds 13 tables of ten, and that's the maximum. We've spread out a little bit further sometimes into the Red Room. We've tried to do things in the East Ballroom, but it gets kind of tight, though, because usually the State Dining Room has the dinner, and everybody gets up and moves to the other side of the house. They open the door to the East Room, and that's where they'll have a performance of some sort and enjoy the rest of the evening like that.

We're standing on the sidelines just waiting to go. What we're waiting for is once they all sit down, there is a toast from the visiting head of state and our president. As soon as ours is done and they click their glass, we have to have the food ready to go with the butlers.

There are two butlers for every table, and the doors open up for the whole family dining. They just flood the room. We serve everybody as fast as we can, getting the first course down as quickly as possible. Every single table has a host designated, someone who has been there before and knows the situation.

People can follow their lead if there's something they have to do in front of everyone else, like take some sauce off of a platter or a gooseneck. People get kind of nervous, saying, "Oh my God, what am I supposed to do?" The butler knows who the host is, and they go to that person first so that everybody else can follow suit and serve themselves if that's the type of service we're doing that evening.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's interesting. And then the whole idea is to make sure that people are made very comfortable in a setting that they may not have been before.

John Moeller:
Correct. Every place setting has a menu card that is probably about six, seven, or eight inches tall by about five inches wide. We have a calligraphy department that draws these up and does them by hand, and then they print them off. Every place card and every invitation that goes out is handwritten by our calligraphers.

It's kind of cool to go over there and watch those guys do their work. There aren't too many calligraphers left out there, I think.

Marlin Detweiler:
Tell us a little bit about the process for purchasing food for the White House and the fact that there are obviously security concerns with what you bring in.

John Moeller:
Yeah. Nothing can be delivered. Nobody can back up to the house with trucks, with drivers we don't know. That just doesn't happen. Even the pencils have to be picked up. For myself in the kitchen, I make my shopping list every day.

I give it to someone in the storeroom. They go out with a Secret Service agent in plain clothes. He's packing, of course. He's driving an unmarked vehicle with D.C. residential plates, traversing around D.C. He could be at a supermarket right down the road. You could be right next to somebody, and that guy is buying something for the White House and the president.

You'd have no idea who they are. This randomness is how they try to thwart any problems with the food supply. That's done every single day, Monday through Friday, and sometimes on the weekend. On Saturday, if it looks like it's a little busy, we'll bring a Secret Service agent.

And if not, it's just basically the president just in on the weekend. It's nothing going on to buy enough stuff on Friday, and then Monday morning they'll go back out. But if I do need something and it does happen, there's some things that happen from time to time that I have the authority to go out and bring food in, carried into the house and serve to the president, first lady. Once I got my security clearance, there's no Secret Service agent in the kitchen watching me.

On the second floor where they live, where we're serving them, the Secret Service is not allowed in the private quarters. They have to stay outside the door when you get off the elevator, and when they walk through the door into the president's living space, the Secret Service has to stop. They do not go into the private area.

They're not standing in the dining room watching him eat or hanging up when he's in the West sitting hall or standing in the kitchen watching me. So, like I mentioned earlier, between the chefs, the butlers, and the maids, we're on that second floor when they're having some downtime. That was probably one of the most interesting parts of what I did—just getting to know them as regular people.

Marlin Detweiler:
Interesting. What fascinating experiences, and what a joy it is to hear you relate them. Are there other stories you want to share in our last couple minutes here?

John Moeller:
Well, the big one might be a few more than a few minutes, but 9/11. A lot of people don't realize that on 9/11, we were having the largest party of the year that day. The congressional barbecue was that evening for over 2,000 people coming.

Marlin Detweiler:
Do they have that at the Rose Garden outside?

John Moeller:
No, in the whole South Grounds. When the president left that morning to go to that school in Florida, he left from the reflecting pool. That's the alternative location where the helicopter comes down, picks him up, and he'll take a limo over there. He was going to come back around 2:30 or 3:00 from Florida, go upstairs, and get ready for the dinner that night.

Of course, once the second plane hit the second tower in New York, my boss came to me and said, "John, this looks like a terrorist attack. There's no party tonight. Let's get everything broken down and put away, and let's get everybody out of here who's not a pass holder."

Instead of five chefs, we probably had at least a dozen or more. We had local chefs we knew who were on clearance to come in as escort workers. They had to stay with us the whole time. They couldn't wander off or go to the second floor. We were in full production mode, getting things going. Once the Pentagon got hit, I remember evacuating the house, walking from the Oval Office to the northwest gate to exit and get away.

I turned around and looked over my shoulder, and that beautiful blue sky was clouded with black smoke and fire swirling up into the sky. I thought, "Oh my God, is that the Pentagon?" That was the first time I saw it, as I was exiting the house. That image is burned in my mind.

I never took a picture. I had no phone or anything like that at the time. But it's burned in my mind for eternity.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. Well, John, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you for what you do for Veritas with your catering and folks, if you're coming to the end of your gathering and going to be at the picnic in our backyard, you'll get a chance to meet John. If you, make an effort to do that, it'll be, catering there with his crew. Thank you so much, John.

John Moeller:

Well, thank you very much, Marlon. And, you have a great day.

Marlin Detweiler:

Thank you. Good to talk to you. Folks. Thank you for joining us again on this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian Education. We look forward to seeing you next time.