So You Want to Start a Restaurant

by Ethan on November 12, 2008

Chef Thierry Rautureau, the so-called “Chef in the Hat”, is an institution in Seattle. He hosts a radio program, is on a first name basis with top chefs around the country, and for twenty one years has run one of the city’s finest restaurants, Rover’s. He’s a local celebrity chef.

Last night we had dinner with Thierry and his wife Kathy at Cascina Spinasse, a new Italian place on Capitol Hill. We chose it because it was high on all our wishlists, and because it’s fun to eat Italian with a Frenchman. Also, it turns out Martha Stewart raved about it just last week, so this may be our last chance to get a table. The food didn’t disappoint (particularly a delicate ravioli with Castelmagno cheese), and the decor was delightfully rustic, but we were there for the company.

At Urbanspoon we’ve gotten to see just how difficult the restaurant business can be. In Seattle alone we’ve seen a dozen restaurants open and then close up shop this past year. We were eager to chat with someone who had “made it” and see if he had any tips to pass along.

Lesson One: Shmooze

Thierry walked in the restaurant door, eponymous hat on his head, and immediately people began to greet him. Servers, fellow patrons, the owner, everyone. Half the people in the restaurant knew him from the first moment, and by the end he’d introduced himself to the other half. Many knew him from his restaurant, others knew him by reputation, and still others just wanted to meet Mr. Popular.

Needless to say, no one seemed to recognize us Urbanspoon guys. We should have worn hats.

So that’s the first lesson I’d take away if you want to be a successful in the business: be sociable, don’t be shy.

Lesson Two: It’s a Business

When it came time to order, we carefully considered the menu and then Thierry gleefully announced, “Of course we have to try all of it”. Fourteen dishes later he was still eager to try more. He regaled us with stories of his eating prowess. And he didn’t limit himself to haute cuisine — he was as effusive talking about his favorite phở joint as he was about Le Bernardin.

So clearly Chef Thierry loves food. But his mind is always on the business. There was a gleam in his eye as he talked about the bottom line. He chatted happily about Excel spreadsheets and web infrastructure. We spent hours (it was a long meal) talking about blogging, data mining, and other technical trivia and he took that as hungrily as the anchovies.

On the subject of phở, Chef Thierry predicted it’s the fast food of the future. Healthy, tasty, quick, with cheap ingredients. In today’s economic climate, those are considerations every would-be restaurant owner should take into account.

Food is important, but money keeps the ovens on.

Lesson Three: Don’t Start a Restaurant

We got to talking about his advice for people starting a restaurant. In short, he says: don’t.

But if you really want to start restaurant… still, don’t.

According to Thierry, only if your compulsion is so great, so irresistible, so frankly neurotic that nothing else will satisfy. Only then should you actually start a restaurant. This way, you will either prevail or the physical and economic punishment of the restaurant business will eventually “eliminate the bug”.

Lesson Four: Find a Sugar Daddy

There was one circumstance under which he felt starting a restaurant made sense: if the money doesn’t matter. If the latest stock market crash didn’t rattle your plans to spend a month at your place in the Hamptons and you love the romance of having your own restaurant, you just might make a perfect owner.

Photo courtesy of Lara of Plates and Packs.

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