How One Restaurateur Plans to Handle the Off-season

It’s November in the Hamptons. Your restaurant isn’t half full half the week. You have become a Saturday night special, a destination for weekenders and anniversary celebrators; the fall-off from the summer is not a surprise, just steeper than expected. You don’t know if it’s the weather, the uncertain economy, the occupation of Wall Street, or your own particular issues.

You have just changed from prix fixe to a la carte. You have added midweek specials. You discount all bottles of wine on Fridays. You have Sunday lobster specials. You are fishing for answers. You fear you have been so flexible, so eager to please, that you are confusing yourself and your public. You are trying to fix a reputation for being pricey and prissy; still, you will neither serve burgers nor host a happy hour. You will have to settle on an off-season menu and stick to it. You wanted to keep the summer mojo working. You thought your second October, cantilevered on good reviews and word of mouth, would see a spike in business. It has gone where the geese will soon follow, south.

The dead of winter is deadly. There are more snowstorms than hungry visitors. You had always planned on closing for a few months come New Year’s Day, as you did last year, but your timetable might have to change. The glow of your fireplace cannot illuminate the solutions to your problems. You have to consider the possibility that your restaurant is a part-time enterprise, a six-month affair. You never wanted it to be so, but reality is sitting at the bar, alone, sipping on absinthe and staring into a space where a television does not sit. You are not mollified by the news that other local restaurants are also going through trying times.v
There are three kinds of restaurants in the Hamptons. Some close up shop right after Labor Day. They don’t battle the winter exodus. This works best when you have another restaurant or two, and can shuttle staff  to and from the city, or Florida, without having to start from scratch every spring. Some restaurants remain open only on the weekends during the winter with a reduced staff and reduced expectations. They understand the ebb and flow. They are loath to miss the holidays. Other restaurants are daunted by neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor gloom of night and stay open day in and day out, all 365; they swear their reliability pays off in the long run. We are not that kind of place. A skeleton crew cannot run our place efficiently and make ends meet when the turnstiles are not turning in the style to which we have become accustomed.

Choices. We can lower prices and increase advertising. We can explore alternative and additional streams of revenue. We can set up an events department for parties and office shindigs. We should probably do all of the above, but each idea costs money and time, time and money. None will turn a profit. As hard as it might be to say or to swallow, one has to, in the end, spend more time and money in order to not lose as much money and time as one is already losing in a frozen economy.

What is our most likely option? What further investment might actually make fiscal sense? Opening a second restaurant.

What? Are you nuts? You haven’t even figured out Restaurant One, and now you’re diving into Restaurant Two?

Sure, on the face of it, it sounds illogical, maybe even hysterical. But in for a penny, in for a pound. (Or perhaps a pounding.) A second restaurant? Look at it this way. At least half the year in Bridgehampton will always be swimming upstream. No matter what we do, the population shrinks and money will be hard-earned if earned at all. When traffic is down, tips are down, and spirits surely follow. We will probably lose some important staffers from an excellent team, and that would be a pity.

So the assets we possess and can transport to a second eatery are a Michelin star chef, a loyal staff, sterling reviews, a growing reputation and a concept with currency. What we don’t have is actual currency. We have to raise about $250,000 to safely cover two full years of a smallish restaurant in a New York borough not named Manhattan. We have half the money pledged, from friends and friends of friends, from relatives, from industry people and guests who have expressed interest over the last year.

We are not looking to duplicate Southfork Kitchen. That is particular to the Hamptons, equal parts rustic and elegant. Each space tells you how it would like to be treated. Whatever neighborhood we end up in will have specific needs, quirks and priorities. Price points will be determined by local denizens and the competition. A new restaurant will have a new name and fresh identity. It’s connection to Southfork Kitchen will not be a secret, but there is no intention of starting a chain or Southfork West. The elements that will overlap and fuse the two restaurants are the chef and the mindful sourcing: sustainable, artisanal, organic, eco-friendly, small batch, green, hand-hewn. You name it, we aspire to it, hyphenated or not.

Right now, we’re lookin’ in Brooklyn. The rents are affordable, and our staff is intrigued; Southfork Kitchen will benefit by sharing staff salaries with another entity, while decreasing the possibilities of losing valuable team members. Our business manager, who lives in Brooklyn and knows the borough well, swears it is filthy with foodies, from breakfast to last call, from Sunset Park to Gravesend.

We are fantasizing 45 seats. A reasonable landlord. Lunch and dinner. Wine and beer. The Italian influences of Chef Isidori’s family. Grandma to table.

Brooklyn has its own community gardens and breweries, chocolatiers, chicken farmers, green markets, and coffee roasters. Situated half-way between the Hudson Valley and the Hamptons, a restaurant can pull anything it wants out of the ground or right off the turnip truck.

While Park Slope is not Red Hook, and Fort Greene is not Flatbush, the entire borough seems hungrier than the Hamptons, welcoming eclectic and ethnic cuisine, the experimental as well the comforting. It could be just a matter of skewing younger, and multicultural, but Brooklyn seems to enjoy the reimagining of your mother’s best dish or your motherland’s favorite food. Be sure the hearts of palm are from the heart, not a best-selling cookbook.

So we’re lookin’ in Brooklyn. We take daily walks through the neighborhoods via Google Earth and have seen a half dozen places. We have an agent and a local guide. If and when we find the right space with the right rent, we will tap our potential investors. We can move quickly. We can cut down on the time and money because we have a team that knows each others’ strengths and peccadilloes, and communicates in grunts and glances.