Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (book club reads .txt) 📕

will pop against the wood. It will feel strong under your hands.” Grant clearly had pictured all this in his head a thousand times. I could see that the business plan was irrelevant compared to the vision he had in his head.

“Is there a four-star restaurant anywhere with bare tables? Where do you put the silverware? What about when a water glass sweats and it goes all over the wood with nothing to absorb it?” My list of concerns was long.

We sat at my computer and did what we would do a thousand times during the course of creating our new restaurant: We consulted Google.

In this case, the quick survey was that no, there was not a top-30 restaurant in the world that had bare tables. The dew point of water could be calculated with a simple formula, and we could refrigerate water just above that temperature so that a glass would not sweat when placed on the table. Laundering fine linens for twenty-two tables, fifty weeks a year would cost approximately $42,000 annually. We could build mahogany tables for less. It all made perfect sense.

And just like that we had our first design mantra for the new restaurant—no tablecloths. More important, we could tell instantly that we spoke the same language, we enjoyed challenging each other, and we got along well.

The scariest part, for me at least, was over.

“Look, Nick. Grant is a genius, but don’t put half-a-buck into a restaurant. I know people who have invested in restaurants, and they do it because they want a reservation and they get emotionally wrapped up in the romance of it. It’s like a charitable donation. You will never see your money again.”

I was driving to a coffee shop with Greg Callegari, the hedge-fund manager with whom I had been working for the past four months. Greg was in his late forties and ran a fund-of-funds that had a few hundred million in assets. Well dressed and relaxed in an old-world-Italian-via-New-York manner, he seemed like he should always have an espresso in one hand and a phone in the other—and he usually did. In his world, “half-a-buck” meant half a million dollars, and he gave his advice with his usual smile, shake of the head, and easygoing laugh.

“I know, I know,” I replied, “but this will be different. It’s not really a restaurant. It’s going to be more like a performance-art theater, something that no one in this country has really done before.”

“You’re not helping your case.” He smiled again and almost giggled. It did sound absurd when put like that.“Look, you’re gonna be feeding people, right? In my book that’s a restaurant. And in the real world, investors get screwed when they invest in restaurants. But that’s okay; they know that going into it. They are patrons of the arts; it’s an ego thing for them. They want a fancy living room where they can take clients and say they own the place, get the best table. All I’m saying is sure, help Grant out, but put in an amount of money that you can afford to lose. Tell me you’re not going to put in five hundred. You don’t even know the guy.”

I would come to hear that a great deal. This was a rich man’s folly, and while it’s okay to get a tax write-off and hobnob with a great chef, it would be stupid to drop everything and build a restaurant—especially with someone you actually met for the first time a week ago.

“Greg, I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I am going to close up the fund and build this with Grant. I know how my money will be spent because I’ll be the one spending it. I appreciate the risk you took in helping me start the fund, but you can tell that my heart’s not in it, right?”

Greg looked at me with a smile and shrug of the shoulders. I think deep down he knew that I wasn’t in love with the hedge-fund world, that I wasn’t putting in an all-out effort. He had seen it all in business and wasn’t easy to frazzle. “All I’m saying,” he said calmly, “is to take a few days before you decide. Figure out what this guy is about. For all you know he is an addict or something. These guys—chefs—are unstable. You don’t want to spend that kind of money to find out he has three kids in Mendocino and an ex-wife chasing him across the country.”

“He does have two kids, and they’re living with him in Evanston,” I replied. “He was the sous chef at The French Laundry at twenty-two or some such shit. I’ve eaten all over the world and I’m telling you, he is the best right now.”

“Married?”

“No. Living with her.”

“See?”

“Whatever. The real reason I brought you here was to get you to invest.” I looked over to him in the passenger seat and smiled a wicked, ironic smile. “I suggest half a million because this is a fantastic opportunity, but will take an amount as low as a hundred thousand should you lack vision.”

I had considered Greg’s objections myself. Since the e-mail from Grant and the subsequent meeting at my house, my mind raced constantly through the scenarios. Why did I want to do this? How could this fail? Hell, how could it succeed? Would it really happen?

Part of me thought that some objection would surely arise that would make doing it impossible. Part of me hoped that I could find a graceful exit before I did too much damage to Grant and his career. I searched for reasons to not get involved, and there were many. Anyone I asked, even casually, about their experience in restaurants told me tales of hardship, failure rates, and lack of profitability. I mentioned my plan to a chef I knew who owned three successful suburban restaurants, and his response was blunt: “You seem like you have a great life.