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

of the building that we just went through.” She gestured toward the lobby area.

“Can’t we just open something up over there?” I pointed to the windows that looked out over a branch of the Chicago River.

“No. The building doesn’t want the foot-traffic pattern that way. Bad for the residents.”

“So basically, this is inside of a mall,” I said.

The building rep had clearly heard this complaint before. This was a totally workable space, but hidden inside a huge, huge building. “We are offering a sizable rent credit against build-out costs,” he offered.

Kim seemed surprised that they mentioned this to us so quickly. He and the listing agent were still unsure about us. But I guessed the building rep was desperate. Nick chimed in, “What is ‘sizeable,’ exactly?”

“Well, that all depends on how much you intend to spend. But three hundred fifty to four hundred thousand dollars is not out of the question. And by the way, chef Achatz, I have eaten at Trio three times and it’s extraordinary. I can’t wait to see what you build.”

This was a first. Someone recognized us and knew that we would have big ambitions. And my reputation could work to our advantage. But I didn’t want to be stuck in a residential building, hidden from the street.

“Thanks very much,” I said. “However, I don’t think this will work, though it is a great space. I really imagine something that has a street presence, that when you think of the restaurant you think of it as a building, not inside of something else.”

We headed toward the door. Nick shot me a look, and when we got in the car he said, “I completely agree that that wasn’t right, Grant, but if you tell them exactly what you’re thinking all the time, they’ll simply stop looking for us.”

This seemed incredibly stupid to me. “Really? Why? Is it so hard to make a couple of calls, dig through the MLS, and set up some meetings? Isn’t that what they do?”

“Yeah, it is. But if they think we’re going to say no to everything, then we won’t be worth their time.”

“Hell, he’ll make more on one deal than I do in three months. Seems worth it to me.”

“Okay. But don’t be negative. Tell me what you think, but don’t tell them.”

“But if I don’t tell him, then he won’t know what I want!” This was absurd!

“You don’t know what you want! You just sound wishy-washy and inexperienced.”

And that much was true. We were exploring neighborhoods and buildings and I was learning by elimination what I didn’t want. But now I knew.

“Okay. Here’s what I want. I want a building that is all by itself, a stand-alone structure. It needs natural light. The kitchen needs to be on the first floor, and ideally the whole thing is on one floor. So I need a one-story building on one of those streets we highlighted in green or yellow. Thirty-five hundred square feet. You know how much it needs to cost, I don’t. So you deal with that part after we find it.”

“I’m pretty sure that the building you just described doesn’t exist on those streets. We’ve been up and down them a dozen times.” We had been at this for a few weeks. News of my impending departure from Trio was starting to leak, and to be sure, I was itching to tell people and the press myself. Nick was constantly reminding me that this might take a year or two, when I kept insisting that we could open in six months.

We went to see two more former restaurants. One was near the Hancock building and had a submarket lease and seven years left but was asking $600,000 to buy a load of crappy tables and kitchen equipment that we would never use. The second space was three doors down from Paul Kahan’s great restaurant Blackbird. The public space wasn’t bad, but the kitchen reminded me of the co-op walk-in I cleaned out when I was a kid. Whoever left just walked out of the place and left things to rot. Why wouldn’t the building owner clean that out before showing it to a prospective tenant? Everyone involved seemed lazy and I was growing exasperated by the process. We told Kim that neither would work and that we really, really didn’t want to see any former restaurants since we didn’t want to buy stuff that we wouldn’t end up using.

“Well, you know what they’re really selling is the liquor license, occupancy permit, and the value of the lease if it’s submarket. It can take six or eight months to get a liquor license and costs, well, a lot of money. I’ve heard forty or fifty thousand dollars to get one these days.”

I looked at Nick and he didn’t seem surprised by this. We got back in my car and headed toward Lincoln Park, where there was one more space he wanted to show us, which wasn’t a restaurant. When we got about halfway there I spied something across the street.

“You know, hold on a second. Pull over here. The other day I was driving around here and saw a sign hanging off a building . . . there!” I pointed at a building on Halsted Street and Nick pulled over. Kim was in the car behind us and he pulled over as well. We hopped out of the car. “What does that say?”

A sign hanging off the building read: FOR LEASE. 1,000 TO 5,000 SQ. FT. DIVISIBLE. It was indeed a stand-alone building, but it was ugly. A woman sat at a desk in the front window. “Let’s go have a look?”

“Sure,” Nick said, though he and Kim looked skeptical.

I knocked on the door and the woman came around to open it. “Can I help you?” she said.

“Hi, I was just driving through the area and saw your sign. We’re looking for a space for a . . .” Kim cut me off.

“Hi. I’m a real estate broker representing