How To Open A Restaurant
Some assembly required. Silverware not included.
I WAS SITTING AT MY DESK earlier this year wondering if anyone would notice if I left for lunch at ten-thirty when the phone rang. Cruelly torn from my reverie of cheese enchiladas, I picked up the receiver. On the line were Lisa and Emmett Fox, Austin chefs and restaurateurs, who had an offer that no food critic in her right mind could refuse: “We’re opening a new restaurant,” they said. “Wanna watch?” I asked them to hold for a minute while I cleared my calendar. And that is how I got to be—I was about to say “a fly on the wall,” but that seems an unfortunate metaphor—an embedded reporter chronicling the highs and lows of the eight-month gestation of Fino Restaurant, Patio, and Bar.
For three decades I’ve been looking on as fledgling dining establishments struggle to open—often behind schedule and hopelessly muddled—so I was prepared for Murphy’s Law to operate with a vengeance. But if anybody could survive the ordeal relatively unscathed, I thought, it was the Foxes, for the compelling reason that they had already opened one successful restaurant. At their five-year-old neighborhood place, Asti Trattoria, Emmett acts as paterfamilias to his staff and customers and Lisa takes care of business. A big bear of a man, Emmett graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, New York; Lisa, who is shyer than you would expect for someone so pretty, studied art at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. But their experience isn’t limited to Asti. Emmett worked at chic Cafe Annie, in Houston, and was executive chef for a restaurant group in Austin that included the Granite Cafe. Lisa, whose specialty is pastry, was in demand for her lavish desserts at several tony places around town. Now that Asti was running smoothly, they couldn’t resist the lure of, well, having a second child.
By the time of our first meeting, in February, the two had already decided that their new baby would be Mediterranean. Casual but stylish, its menu would emphasize small plates meant for sharing. Wines would be important, especially interesting, affordable European ones. They even had a name picked out: Fino. The word refers to a type of dry Spanish sherry and also means “fine” in both Spanish and Italian—surely a good omen. And they had a location, which by coincidence was Emmett’s old stomping grounds, the now-defunct Granite Cafe. True, the interior needed an extreme makeover—it had last looked cool when Ronald Reagan was president—but otherwise, it was perfect: space for around a hundred, plenty of parking, and, sexiest of all, a covered patio. Another bonus: The landlord, Jim Holden, owner of the Live Oak Group real estate development company, was so tickled to have a major tenant back in the vacant space that he had agreed to pay for major improvements.
As for the rest of the money to support this addition to their family? After circulating a 32-page business proposal before Christmas, complete with a mouthwatering sample menu (lamb chops with couscous and feta, pistachio baklava with honey ice cream), the Foxes had ended up with eight investors: four of the five who had funded Asti, Lisa’s two brothers, her doctor, and her doctor’s mother. It took two months to raise $400,000, in shares of $50,000 and $25,000. Having acquired the money, they immediately started depleting it by hiring a project designer: Michael Hsu, a partner with prestigious Dick Clark Architecture. Low key, almost Zen-like, Michael, out of all the candidates they interviewed, had the most practical knowledge about restaurants. “He told us stuff like the restrooms and stove hood not being up to code,” Emmett said. And in going with Dick Clark’s firm, they got a package deal: Equally unflappable interior designer Kasey McCarty was assigned to the project. They were ready to go.
EARLY FEBRUARY
One cold winter afternoon, I sit down with the Foxes at Asti to play catch-up. The staff is preparing dinner, and I can see Emmett’s eyes following everything in the open kitchen. One of the big things I want to know is this: Did you or Michael come up with Fino’s look? “We talked in broad strokes,” says Lisa. “It was a feeling, more than details.” They envisioned the space as divided into two sections, a quieter dining side and a lively lounge side. But their specific mandates were few: Incorporate wood and the color orange into the plans, and don’t do anything too trendy. Wood and orange? I ask, baffled. They lend a warm, Mediterranean feel, Lisa says. And why nothing too modern? So the look won’t get dated. Michael’s solution has three key elements: a sleek, blond paneled bar in the middle of the room, an intricate wood screen behind the bar, and a floor-to-ceiling “wine wall” with built-in wood racks. As for orange, he’s leaving that up to Kasey. The three of us talk for a good hour, but when Emmett starts to jump up every two minutes, I figure I’ve worn out my welcome. On my way out the door, I call out one last question: “When are you opening?” “Mid-MAY,” they shout back, “if we’re lucky.”
FEBRUARY 23: It’s my first meeting with the Fino crew, and we’re all crowded around the groovy conference table at Dick Clark’s office.
The idea is to meet here every Tuesday at eleven to hash out details until the plans are final; once construction starts, we’ll meet at Fino. Lisa and Emmett I know, of course, and I feel like I’ve already met Michael and Kasey. Dick Clark is sitting in today (he likes to kid around and serves as a nice leavening agent); also on hand is Carey Dodson, a designer who’s assisting Michael. Here from Asti is Brian Stubbs, who with his mop of sandy hair resembles a tall, blond Beatle. He’s slated to become Fino’s manager. And representing the building end is Beth Selbe Lasita, the owner of Pinnacle Construction. Frankly, I’ve never met a contractor like Beth, who wears ruffly skirts and mules but can talk hood chases and fire-rated wraps with the best of them. Maybe it’s just because I’m taking notes and everybody is on their best behavior, but the inevitable disagreements are being handled with impressive diplomacy. If I expected shouting and pouting, it hasn’t happened yet.
Everybody’s got their calendars and PDAs out, and big sheaves of architectural drawings are unrolled. Today’s goal is to finalize the building plans so Beth can advertise for bids; Kasey needs to get started too, selecting furniture and fabrics. But in fact, the discussion is all over the map, and soon I wish I had a “Building for Dummies” to explain all the technical terms and acronyms: HVAC, elevations, TAS, Lumacite, lap-and-gap. There’s a mountain of minutiae to be dealt with, like how tall to make the banquettes (“Just high enough so you can see waiters’ heads going back and forth, like a puppet show,” offers Dick) and how many restroom stalls the city codes require. It’s a long meeting, and after a while, Dick disappears and returns with cappuccinos for everybody. When we finish, with plans still not final, Emmett and Michael head off to a showroom to look at flooring. Beth agrees to come back in three weeks with estimates. The meetings may be just once a week, but the work never stops.
EARLY MARCH
Speaking of work, one of the main hurdles in opening a restaurant is getting a liquor license. Booze doesn’t just keep the customers happy, it helps pay the bills, and the Foxes expect a third of Fino’s sales to be beer, wine, and cocktails. So it’s crucial to be nicey-nice to the lovely people at the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. To handle the paperwork, the Foxes have hired a professional facilitator, Carole Terry-Gonynor. In a calm voice that leads me to believe she might have once been a horse whisperer, Carole explains that the worst part isn’t paying the license fee ($1,250 in Fino’s case). The headache is the background checks. Once again, I’m mystified. Background checks? Carole says that restaurants and bars have so routinely been used to launder money by organized crime, drug moguls, and crooked businessmen that the TABC is now required to compile records on liquor license applicants and their financial backers. Lisa’s distressed over having to ask her investors nosy questions, but Carole assures her, ever so soothingly, that Fino will have a license by mid-May at the latest. Famous last words.
MARCH 8: We’re huddled around the conference table, knee to knee, and Michael and Emmett are jabbing at a spot on the plans and looking exasperated. Emmett would dearly love to move a bulky, three-compartment sink, but the health regs say it has to be in a certain place, never mind the inconvenience. Grinning, Dick sums up everybody’s frustration: “Bureaucracy makes the job so much more fun.” Other problems are trotted out, some solved, most not. Several times, the subject of cost comes up. I’ve noticed—we’ve all noticed—that the laundry list of stuff they hope Jim the landlord will pay for is growing…and growing…and growing: the air conditioning, maybe the vent hood, the kitchen floor, the drains. After a bit, Lisa says, “I’ll call him today to let him know what’s going on.” Dick adds, “We’ll get him pumped.” They hope.
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