Life, on the Line (36 page)

Since we need to raise more money, it seemed equitable to offer Roy the opportunity to invest in Alinea. In addition to aligning his interests with ours, Roy is a highly successful entrepreneur in a variety of disciplines—he will certainly be an asset to the Alinea Investor Group. Investor Keith Goggin has done business with Roy on the floor of the American Stock Exchange for years and has during that time expressed to Nick his high opinion of Roy and his character.

Roy has accepted our invitation to invest in Alinea, and wishes to contribute 10 percent of the total raise. Of course, such an addition is subject to your approval, and we ask that you e-mail me such approval as soon as possible. Also, we ask that our investors keep the provenance of the wine completely private—for many reasons, we do not wish to disclose how or where we acquired such a collection, especially since this has been a wellkept secret and is sure to surprise many patrons and the press.

Welcome Mr. Welland—and thanks Keith for the concept and introduction.

Construction is moving apace now and nearly every day brings major changes.

We passed all of our rough-out inspections a few weeks ago.

The entire interior is now insulated and dry walled, and this, quite obviously, has really given shape to the rooms. The entire restaurant is taped, mudded, sanded, primed and ready for tile and final paint. The kitchen tile is complete . . . and the entire kitchen will be installed by SML starting tomorrow. By this time next week, the kitchen should be completely done! It was quite a sight to see it all coming in off the 18-wheeler this morning at 8 a.m.
SEE FIGURE 32

SEE FIGURE 33
Right now we are pressing very hard to be finished with everything by April 22nd. This will allow us a short (!) window of time to have the inspections and the liquor task force through prior to opening. I have spoken to the city about this dilemma and they appear to be willing to help. It will not be easy to make it, but everyone involved, from the architect to the designer to the contractor, are taking the attitude that there is no other choice. Crews are working extended shifts seven days a week to make it in time. As always, we will know better as time goes by, but for now, we are optimistic and sticking to our schedule.

We continue to receive phone calls every day for bookings in May and June. We are still a month from opening and May is filling up very well. Every Saturday and nearly every Friday in May are booked to capacity—about 1,000 guests for the month. The media frenzy is about to begin, which will solidify the remaining positions open. Below is a list of press that will land before the opening.

1. Chicago Tribune “Aroma in Cuisine” cover story in good eating section.

2. Chicago Tribune April 15th story about deadlines “last chance to make your Alinea reservation now if you want a table”

3. Chicago Tribune cover page feature in the “Tempo” section.

4. Chicago Tribune friday “Dining” section “Chefs Cooking For Other Chefs”

5. Chicago Tribune friday “Dining” section “The Alinea Timeline”

6. Chicago Magazine “Alinea Opening” written by Phil Vettel

7. Where Magazine cover of Spring Dining Issue

8. Met Home Design 100 Issue “#66 . . . Restaurant to go to”

9. Metropolis Feature on Martin/Alinea Service Pieces

10. RES—Sweden, high-end travel magazine (similar to Travel + Leisure)

11. Arena Magazine UK-based men's-interest mag (similar to GQ)

12. Playboy short feature on Alinea's opening

13. Bon Appétit story on Alinea and Moto using technology

14. Nation's Restaurant News feature on Alex Stupak (pastry chef)

15. Travel + Leisure small paragraph on where to go in Chicago

16. Food Arts small pieces on Alinea's opening

17. BusinessWeek small piece on opening of Alinea.

Soon after opening we have some major hits lined up:

As you can see, Alinea will consistently be in the public eye over the next six months. As we all know, this will dramatically help put people in the seats. The latter list does not include the inevitable reviews from the
Tribune
,
Chicago
magazine,
CS
,
North Shore
,
Chicago Reader
,
Newcity
, and the
Sun-Times
.

The preview nights are still scheduled for Saturday, April 29th and Sunday, April 30th. There have been some questions as to who is invited to these nights and if investors can bring guests.

These nights are a chance for the Alinea staff to simulate a normal service night. As such, they are critical to polishing the kitchen and front-of-house staff's training prior to opening to the public. Just as a normal night, you will be assigned a reservation time, and, since we have so many groups of two, we will also group some folks together into 4-tops and sixes. As it stands now, just with investors, their spouses, and those individuals who have contributed to the design of Alinea, or have graciously provided goods or services as partners of the restaurant (Zegna, CookTek, PolyScience), we are at 42 people per night. Therefore, we will not be able to accommodate any guests on these nights.

We will be having an investors-only champagne toast late Friday night prior to the preview nights. This will occur after the Alinea staff goes home . . . and hopefully things are in good enough shape that we are able to host a small gathering this evening. We look forward to giving you the personal and in-depth tour of the restaurant at that time.

We have intentionally undersold the first week of operations (in case we don't make the deadline, and because of the desire to put on a superb face to press the
NY Times, Tribune,
and
Bon Appétit
—all of whom are dining at Alinea in the first two days). Therefore, if you are coming from out of town and wish to have a guest fly in, we will be able to accommodate a limited number of reservations on Thursday and Friday of opening week. Please let us know.

Finally, we were looking back over some papers from early in this process and found the Investor's Dinner Menu from last year. The date: May 4th, 2004. One year to the date!

We expect that this will be the final formal investor update. Nearly one year has gone by since most of us gathered at Nick's house to embark on the “new train of thought.” While much has been accomplished during that time, we understand that we are just now approaching the beginning of Alinea, the restaurant. We genuinely thank each of you for your financial support, confidence, and assistance that has gone well beyond money. Each of our investors has contributed ideas, time, expertise, and goods that have gone beyond the role of an investor. We intend to remember and honor those contributions.

 

 

Thank You,
Grant Achatz
Nick Kokonas

T
he painting was finished, the drapes hung, and the furniture delivery truck was coming up to the front door, followed shortly behind by Tom Stringer. A small army of men carried in the table bases, wrapped tops, service pieces, lamps, and chairs.

Up until this moment we had no idea what Alinea would look like. Certainly we imagined it in our minds; we had seen and approved each of the designs one by one. But we really didn't know.

Quickly the tops got screwed into place, the chairs were unwrapped and laid out, and Tom was putting the perfect crease in each of the forty-two (down from “fifty-plus” for budget reasons) pillows that decorated the banquettes. As night fell, the room took on a glow from the LED tube lights and the scene was set. I looked over at Grant and he was shaking his head.

He was standing alone in the upstairs dining room near the window looking across at the stairway and the other rooms. I approached him. “What do you think?”

“It's beautiful. Everything I hoped and yet very different in some ways. They did a great job . . . and I gave them so much shit,” he said, laughing. “It looks great.”

I pulled out a chair and we sat down at newly numbered Table 25 and rubbed the armrests the way you would the first time you hold on to the steering wheel of a new car. “How does it feel?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Grant said as he looked around. “It feels . . . just . . . surreal. Like this can't exist.”

“Congrats. Now you get to start doing what you know how to do. And I will fade away.”

Grant looked at me. “I have been thinking about that, actually. I want you around after we open. No one else 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.