Restaurant Legends

For every restaurant in the planning stage, whether it’s a small mom and pop shop with a zero-based budget or a 15,000 square foot place with 400 seats that’s ready to spend five million dollars or more on construction and FF&E…there’s a design team involved.

So, here’s Andy Shrader. A guy with a plan who’s been through one highly disorganized launch with the restaurant group he’s called home. Who’s now ready to right all the mistakes he witnessed there and set a future of his own making in a brand-new restaurant in his own hometown.

In some way, his is the story of every woman or man wearing the mantle of Chef. His is also the story of every dreamer who may have never set foot in a restaurant kitchen but somehow knows there’s a place for them in the restaurant cosmos. There’s a conviction in some that allows them to make the decision to put it all on the line and create. The belief that their ideas are right, their vision is clear, and they will succeed. Well Andy’s restaurant, an American eatery called PLate on Main (the PL in capital letters standing for Prior Lake, the town where both he and the restaurant live) is underway and construction has begun. Andy and his working partners have infused the project with the all corrections of missed opportunity they’ve experienced while working for others. Or have they? Only time and the first busy night will tell.

Johnson & Wales University

Leann Chin - Wikipedia Page

Ike's Food & Cocktails - Bloomington

Design Filter

Zeman Construction

Rapids Restaurant Equipment

This week we start with Glenn Fahlstrom extolling the largess of a man we both worked with roughly 40 years ago. His name; Richard Melman, founder of the wildly successful restaurant group with locations all over the country, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. We were both with him in the fledgling years of the mid to late 70’s and it was this exposure to the energetic drive, limitless creativity and irreverent attitude to the status quo that formed both our approaches to the business of launching a restaurant.

After our brief skip down memory lane we talk about the journey that brought Glenn from those early days at Lettuce to his current restaurant in Chicago, Fahlstrom’s Fresh Fish Market a hard to describe very unique restaurant that defies any attempt to fit it into any specific category. As the name implies it is a fresh fish market with ice filled display cases …but it doesn’t stop there. It’s also a breakfast and weekend brunch joint with benedicts and a wall of cereal boxes, it’s a casual seafood house with a wide range of fresh fish entrée choices and an even wider range of fresh fish salads and sandwiches. There’s a modest retail area selling bottled sauces and conservas; those very fashionable imported ultra-high-quality seafood tins from Spain.

On the way we talk about raising money, selecting staff, developing operating systems and other launching issues. Fahlstrom’s is a very busy place, serving thousands of guests every year.

Lettuce Entertain You

Glenn's Diner

Fahlstrom's Fresh Fish Market

Diners Drive-Ins and Dives Episode

Ok, here’s a nightmare. The place is ready to open. The staff is hired and in training mode, then late one night you take a close look at the work you’ve done, and you realize…this is not what I thought I was building. This doesn’t happen that often, at least I hope it doesn’t. And if it is more prevalent than I thought, at least most of the owners I’ve worked with in the past hid their anxiety well. That is, all except Chip Isaacson who let me in on this feeling of dread one night as we were getting Ike’s ready to launch. His worry was that Ike’s was too “nice”. It wasn’t the simple neighborhood bar he enjoyed and was trying to emulate here. Or to put it simply, he missed the mark.

This got me thinking, the concern from something like this so close to opening may explain certain odd behaviors I’ve witnessed in others over the years. An abnormal demeanor in the owner of the soon to open business was usually chalked up to just being a “quirky personality trait”. What with all this money (and reputation) on the line, the sudden realization of I’m not sure I’m getting it right can be disturbing enough to halt some people in their tracks. I’ve seen several examples ranging from a devil may care, of well to a real decision paralysis. But, so what if suddenly it feels wrong?

Without getting too analytical, first thing to consider is the validity of the feeling. Is this joint I’ve spent nearly a year working on and have spent a lot of money to create (mostly not mine) in fact, wrong? If so, what is it that makes it so? And then if it is wrong, how wrong is it and will I be able to fix it in time?

The answer to all these questions is YES. If, after studying the competition for the elements you wanted to rival and corrected the errors you saw in them, your restaurant isn’t giving you the vibe you expected…then its wrong. Until you let guests through the door, you’re the judge and jury. You built this restaurant for yourself. And if you didn’t, you should have.

Ike’s Food and Cocktails

Runyon’s (no website)

112 Eatery

P.J. Clarke's NYC (Chicago closed)

Cov Edina

Flash of Genius