What’s in a name? For Receptions Event Center, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, everything

By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor

For a quarter of a century, Receptions event centers have been among the go-to places in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati for weddings, receptions and corporate events.

In that time, the four Receptions locations, and The Monastery Event Center in Mt. Adams, have hosted 9,134 weddings and 15,000 other events. Approximately 1.8 million wedding guests and more than 2 million additional visitors have attended an event at one of the company’s locations.

Chairman Dan Goebel, who founded the company with his brother-in-law in 1992, credits the success of the businesses in the highly competitive hospitality market to the company’s hard-working and loyal employees.

“We are not micromanagers, we just hire good people and let them do their job and it has worked across the board,” Goebel said. “We do our best to make sure we keep up with them on pay level and you reap the rewards.”

When many Northern Kentuckians hear Receptions, they think of the location on Donaldson Highway in Erlanger that hosts more than 600 events each year, including the monthly Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Eggs ‘N Issues meeting. Receptions, however, also has event centers in Loveland, Fairfield (the original location) and Western Hills, as well as the Mt. Adams facility.

Goebel said the Northern Kentucky Receptions location does the highest volume.

“Erlanger does about 160 weddings a year and they do more non-wedding business here than we do weddings,” Goebel said. “We spend more time moving tables and chairs than we do working events. The biggest part of the job is resetting rooms.”

A big advantage, he says, is that the Erlanger facility was built specifically as an event center and was designed to accommodate groups of varying sizes.

“One of the advantages on the corporate side, is that when we open the walls we are the biggest in Northern Kentucky next to the Convention Center,” Goebel said. “The maximum on banquets is about 750 seats. The size of the space, for those types of functions, makes a substantial difference.”

Goebel has been in the food business all of his life but it took some prodding to nudge him in the direction of event centers. Growing up, his father owned a meat store and an adjacent restaurant on Glenway Avenue in Price Hill.

After a stint in the U.S. Air Force, Goebel returned to Cincinnati and helped his father with the store for a while. He also worked in wholesale food sales and kept his fingers in the restaurant business.

His brother-in-law approached him about 26 years ago and said they ought to try the event center business.

“I was doing pretty well on my job, so I kind of pushed back a little bit, but he kept hounding me,” Goebel said. “The direction the company I was working for was not going the way I thought it should, so I decided to give it a shot.”

The name “Receptions” for an events center seems like a brilliant marketing decision, but it was actually more of a happy accident.

In late 1991, they had pretty much settled on a suburban Cincinnati location for the business, but were still working out the logistics.

“The first one was up in Fairfield and he didn’t want a kitchen in the space and I didn’t want to do it without a kitchen,” Goebel recalls. “I didn’t want our reputation being staked on somebody else’s food.”

To this day, each location features an executive chef with all food prepared on site.

They were still working through their differences when someone brought to their attention that there was one only bridal publication at the time and it was about to go to print.

“We had the graphics person on the phone talking about the concept and we were going to do an advertisement,” Goebel said. “We hadn’t even completely agreed to do the business yet, but we couldn’t miss the ad because it was the only opportunity we were going to have.”

She asked what seemed to be a simple question which was the name of the business, but they were so busy working through the details of the business, they had not given that much thought.

“He said, ‘just call it Receptions, we can change the name later,” Goebel said. “I didn’t like it, but at least we had the phone number out there. We got another graphic designer that did the logo and I said OK let’s go with it.”

At the time there was no internet, so nobody gave much thought to the marketing impact of the name. Of course, now, when you enter Receptions in Cincinnati in a search engine, theirs is the business that usually comes up first.

The first event at the Fairfield location, on March 28, 1992, was the wedding of Bill “Seg” Dennison, a WLW radio personality.

Dennison’s parents, Mary and Denny, attended the event and became instant fans of the place. In fact, 25 years later, Mary 88, still drives Denny, 92, to the Fairfield facility twice a week, where they fold napkins before events.

Sandi Monhollen, senior sales manager at Receptions said it is that kind of close-knit environment that makes it a pleasure to come to work every day.

“Being with a small group of what we call the family around here has just been a pleasure,” Monhollen said. “I’ve done weddings, I’ve done the corporate end, I’ve done the fundraisers, so it’s very interesting, but my favorite part is the fundraisers and the really big events. The thrill of executing a really big event and having it turn out wonderful is what’s exciting for me.”

She’s one of a number of long-time Receptions employees.

Mary Bey has been at Receptions in Erlanger for 18 years. Her husband got her the job she didn’t even know she wanted.

“He had just recently retired and he came in to make a delivery for my neighbor who baked wedding cakes,” Bey said. “He asked if they ever did any hiring and he said ‘my wife would be interested.’ The following Saturday I came in and I have been here ever since.”

She worked mostly weekends as her grandchildren were growing up, but as they got older she started working weekday shifts as well.

“It’s good for homemakers who want to work a little bit on the weekend,” she said.

Anne Beck, who has been at Erlanger for 17 years lives right around the corner and decided to stop in one day to see if they needed help. She has been there ever since.

“I was in nursing before I got married and I didn’t want to go back to that, so I came here,” Beck said. “It really is such a family atmosphere and it’s fun. It’s like, ‘come on in, let us entertain you we’ll enjoy ourselves, too.’”

Goebel said the wedding business is very steady, but the corporate market fluctuates with the economy and technology.

“At first we thought it might take a back seat to internet meeting, but the face-to-face is still important and we actually see that strengthening as the economy improves,” Goebel said. “The one difference with weddings is the demand for the ceremony here. The churches are either not available or they are not interested in using them so they may do the wedding in one room and the reception in another.”

The event center business has become very competitive, but Goebel said Receptions is well established and is now seeing second-and third-generation events.

“The name is good, the reputation is strong,” Goebel said. “We’ve got a good strong foothold across the board thanks to these guys and their service, the business repeats consistently.”

Goebel knows, however, that the business can’t survive on reputation alone.

The Erlanger location is now 18 years old and last year $250,000 was invested in renovations at the facility.

“We knew we needed to do a little renovation, so we put some money into it, starting in late December,” Goebel said. “We redid all of the banquet rooms and we’re going to spend a pretty good chunk on the exterior this year and next year in stuff that you don’t really notice as much, but it’s important.”

Four years ago, Goebel took on a new partner, Doug Betz, as CEO of Receptions and they have plans for continued growth.

“We are right now taking a look at somewhat of a unique venue, not far from the river,” Goebel said. “We don’t intend to pull our horns in.”

Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com