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

knows the goals here, the ins and outs of this place and the ideas. What are you going to do once we open?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I laughed. “That was all just bullshit to make you feel okay with me.”

We stood up, laughed, Grant slapped me on the back, and we headed downstairs to lock up.

Tomorrow was a big day.

The health inspector came on May 1 and told Grant and me that everything was perfect, except we needed baseboard moldings in the basement to prevent pests from going back and forth between rooms. Our foreman, John Lincoln, refused to force his people to stay overnight, so I grabbed a cook who I had never met before, headed to Home Depot, bought some vinyl baseboards, caulk, and glue and headed to the basement at 8:00 P.M. We spent all night measuring, cutting, and installing the baseboards so the inspector could be back first thing in the morning. It was the basement, a nonpublic space, so it didn’t need to look great—at least not for now. For good measure, we finished up laying the ceramic tile as well. There was no point in driving home to go to sleep for an hour or two.

When John came in the next morning carrying a bunch of vinyl base, I let him know that it was unnecessary. “You can take that back out to the truck. It’s done and the inspector will be here in an hour.”

“How? Who did it?” he asked.

“I did, John. That’s how you get shit done. You stay up all night and do it.” I was tired, hungry, and pissed off. But it now looked like we would open on time.

The liquor license inspectors came on May 3, and I was feeling pretty smug. Hardly any restaurant in Chicago opens on time, and none of them open with a liquor license in place.

I had sat in City Hall for hours and hours, waiting to meet with the appropriate clerks to personally file the paperwork. Everyone told me to hire a lawyer and an expediter who “knew City Hall.” After interviewing a few of them I didn’t feel like there was any special difficulty in the actual filings, it was just about access.

So I figured I would get everything together in a really organized fashion and then simply wait it out. I told the secretary that I was her new friend who would be sitting there waiting to see someone. She encouraged me to simply leave the paperwork there and it would be filed appropriately. But I figured it would just sit on a stack. So I spent a few days working on my laptop while sitting in the waiting room. Every time I left to get lunch or a snack I offered to bring something back for the ladies behind the counter. Eventually they started saying, “Sure, honey.” I knew I was set.

After a few days of waiting, I was finally able to sit down with a stern, overworked processor who was literally buried behind two huge stacks of license applications. She did not look happy to see me. “You know, you can hire an attorney to do this for you. It’s the best way. If you can’t afford one, then there are city agencies that can help.”

“I do know all of that. I’m here today personally because I want you to know how critical it is that we get a liquor license by May 1st. We could open without one like everyone else does, but we’re aiming far higher than that.”

I told her the full story of Alinea. She ate a sandwich. I was now a pleasant diversion, a crazy guy who was building a restaurant who thought it was going to be great. I finished up.“All I want you to do is review what I have here, right now. Then I can make any corrections necessary and it skips that first stack. Then I hand it right back to you, we know it’s correct, and you can send it on its way right now.”

She smiled and stuck her hand out. Everything was neatly subdivided in an accordion-fold legal folder. She grabbed a red pen and went through it all. She asked questions, made a few notations, and handed it back to me. “You can work over there,” she said, motioning to an empty desk in the corner.

An hour later, all of the information that was incorrect or problematic had been fixed. She looked it back over, grabbed three stamps and an ink pad, and started stamping like crazy. She handed it back to me. “You gotta go file it at the State building. Pay the county money here first, though.”

Everything was filed in time for the inspectors to be cajoled into showing up the day before we opened. They walked through the restaurant, jaws dropped. “Where’s the bar?” they asked.

“We don’t have a bar. Just wine service and some spirits as part of the menu or perhaps an after-dinner drink,” I said.

“Fancy shit, huh?”They looked at each other and laughed. It felt more like a tour of the restaurant than an inspection, but once we had everything we needed, I sent someone off to get the actual license.

It felt like a coup. I was told over and over again that “no one opens with a liquor license.” We never had a contingency plan. We joked that we would hand out bottles across the street as people pulled up, but really, we just knew that somehow we would make it happen. “MIH” was our mantra.

One by one the inspectors came, and one by one we got the stamps needed for our occupancy placard. I thought we were done when we got a knock at the front door.

“Buildings,” was all the man said as he rushed past me in the front hall. He was short and wide, in jeans and work boots. He had a wallet on a chain and a big inspection badge hanging around his neck.

“Hey, nice