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

And yet. And yet.

These were all of the same objections I faced when I started out as a floor trader. Other traders would tell me, “You seem like a smart kid, why the hell do you want into this crazy business?” The saying on the Chicago floors was that only two out of every hundred guys break even their first year, and out of those only one out of a hundred becomes a millionaire. Usually, though, they were telling me that just as the valet brought around their Porsche. The restaurant business seemed similar—long odds, difficult hours—but with huge rewards if you succeeded. The chef who told me not to get into the business was himself now building a fourth restaurant. If the first three were so bad, why would you build another one? I never really got an answer to that question.

I left the breakfast with Greg determined to press on at least another week, to see what happened. But either way, I knew for sure I would close the start-up hedge fund. I couldn’t be sure that the restaurant was a good idea, but it was clear that my trading days were, for now at least, over. And that clarity felt pretty good.

When I got home I called Grant and told him that I quit the hedge fund, and that much at least was definitely true. I did not, however, voice my hesitancy or concerns.

“Good. Because I gave notice to Henry today.”

“What?” I panicked. “Even if we go through with this it’s not the kind of thing you just open a month from now. I mean, we have a business plan but those are total bullshit. This could take years to put together, eighteen months at least.”

“I want to be open by the fall. I think we can be open by November. Why should this take more than nine months? Anyway, I can’t work at Trio while we build the restaurant, and you quit, right? So let’s go.”

Maybe Grant could sense that I would waver, or maybe he was just nuts. Or maybe he was bluffing. Either way, I just felt scared more than anything. Maybe Greg was right. Maybe putting that much money behind a guy you don’t know is just plain stupid.

But my gut was telling me the opposite.

“We need to send out a packet to potential investors. Something sexy, not a typical business plan,” I said.

“Let’s send ’em food. That’s what I do, after all.”

“Yeah, and I’ll work out the rest of the plan. Can you come by this afternoon?”

“No, I told Henry I would be here for the next two months. I owe him that. But Monday is no problem. I’ll be there at ten.”

That would give me the weekend to figure out a way to tell Grant that I was out. By Wednesday he could tell Henry that he wasn’t going anywhere, that his deal fell through. It would only be a mild embarrassment.

But when I got home, I sat down at my computer and started writing:

AG will fulfill the culinary and aesthetic vision of chef Grant Achatz. At twenty-nine years old, chef Achatz has already received two of the most prestigious national awards available to young chefs. In 2002 he was named one of Food & Wine’s Top Ten Best New Chefs, and in 2003 he was awarded the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star of the Year Award. Under the direction of chef Achatz, Trio Restaurant was granted its fifth Mobil Star—an honor bestowed upon only thirteen restaurants in North America. With the establishment of AG, chef Achatz will create a restaurant experience that will be completely unique and will compete with the very best in the world. . . .

Three hours later I had a fourteen-page executive summary that told the story of Grant, the vision for the restaurant, and the plan to raise funds and search for real estate. It was all of my thoughts, all of my conversations and e-mails with Grant, distilled into an explanation of why this restaurant needed to exist. It flowed easily.

I wasn’t writing it to convince investors; I was writing it to convince myself. By the end of the day I had reread the plan twenty times, and despite my better judgment I e-mailed Grant:

Chef,

Find attached the investor packet overview and revised spreadsheets. Let’s talk on Monday about how to make this look aesthetically beautiful, and if we can send food, that would be pretty cool . . . but that’s your department.

—Nick

My overall plan for raising the money for the restaurant was pretty simple: go to the people I had done business with for the past ten years and convince them that we would be building the best restaurant in the country. Just as important, I’d let them know that I was in this as a full-time gig and would personally be watching over their money.

I quickly laid out an operating structure that was both simple and effective. The restaurant would consist of three companies—the restaurant itself, an investor group, and the management company. Grant and I would be the only people who were members of all three groups and therefore had a controlling interest. But the fact that I was also the biggest investor meant that I would always have the other investors’ best interests in mind when making decisions. After hearing all of the horror stories about investors getting screwed in restaurant deals, or having kick-out clauses in contracts as soon as things got good, I wanted to create a structure that rewarded investors long-term and that kept them interested in future projects.

Just as important, I would stress to Grant that we needed to keep the scope of the project small. We couldn’t have a giant Bonnet stove that cost a few hundred thousand dollars. That’s just a chef’s ego in the kitchen—like a sports car. I called it the “dick in the kitchen.” Grant was doing brilliant work at Trio