Generation Chef by Karen Stabiner Read Free Book Online Page B

looking at, to the Houston Street trains just below First Street. The neighborhood had easy access going for it, and south of Houston there was a growing number of smaller, scrappier places. Eventually, surely, the two restaurant rows would gobble up the blocks in between, and Jonah would have himself a prime location.
    There was no way to know what lurked behind the plaster or under the drop ceiling, no way to anticipate plumbing or electrical problems in a building this old. But the space was the right size and had a full basement and two large wood-burning ovens, which was one more than he needed. Jonah was tired of looking. The landlord asked for a monthly rent of $15,000 and agreed to $14,000, at which point Jonah asked the realtor to get the listing taken off the market while they negotiated. He didn’t want an established restaurateur coming in to overbid him, and he was prepared to pay for the privilege for thirty days. The realtor scheduled a meeting so that Jonah could meet the head of the realty office, who stood between any applicant and the landlord; once Jonah had his blessing, they could move ahead.
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    Jonah got there an hour early and sat on a stoop across the street from the office. He was about to play the supplicant in a drama where he, of all the people in the room, had the most at stake, not a comfortable position for someone who’d always had a plan and been able to execute it. He needed to collect himself, to retrieve the positive feelings that had made him think he’d be in business by now—his faith in himself and in his talent, a healthy ambition, even a slight sense of destiny, given that he’d spent half his life in professional kitchens. If he could just get on with things, he’d get to the part of the process he could control.
    The realtor obviously thought this was a good match, or he wouldn’t have wasted his boss’s time on this meeting. The landlord, whom Jonah had met on one of his visits to the space, seemed to like him well enough. He had solid investors, people he knew, family and friends, because he wanted investors who spent with their hearts—eager to recoup their investments and more, someday, but equally happy to support what he did. He might have gotten closer to that $1 million if he’d gone afterwealthy investors who spent money on restaurants the way they bought art, strictly business, but that made him a little nervous. He didn’t want to be considered an appreciating asset.
    His original plan had called for a capital budget of $500,000, but the people he shared it with—a restaurant development executive, a chef he’d once worked for, his dad—said he was cutting it too close, so at one point he had revised the figure up to $900,000. As he’d anticipated, he couldn’t come close, though he was convinced he could make this location work with the $420,000 he now had, plus an extra $100,000 from the more skittish prospects. Several potential investors were holding back because Jonah didn’t yet know where Huertas was going to end up—which limited his ability to look because he wasn’t sure exactly how much he could spend.
    â€œYou need a certain amount of money to sign a lease,” he said, “but people don’t want to sign on until they know the location. And the less experienced you are, the more money you need up front to make a deal.”
    He refused to be demoralized. He tweaked the numbers again and told people he was going to find a way to make his place look like a million dollars on less than half that amount. That’s how good a business head he had—rather than lose another six months to fund-raising, he had tightened up the plan until he could see how to make it work on what he had, which the realtor would have to admire.
    He started to feel better. He was sitting across the street from the official start of his restaurant future,