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“To Dine For” (downtown palates), Business New Haven, August 20, 2001

  Business New Haven is a regional business-to-business publication targeted toward and circulated to business owners and top managers at companies throughout south central Connecticut.

How do you make a small fortune in the restaurant business?

Start with a large one.

It's an old adage many entrepreneurs and speculators in the restaurant industry chuckle at, especially in markets characterized by Acute Restaurant Turnover (ART), such as New Haven. Just ask around and proprietors will tell you: Starting a restaurant is the single riskiest entrepreneurial venture one can undertake. It requires an enormous investment of time and capital. It's no wonder that restaurants fail faster and more frequently than any other small business.

New Haven County is home to roughly 1,300 restaurants, according to the Connecticut Restaurant Association and the state's Department of Labor. These employ some 12,200 workers who make their living from consumers increasingly spending up to half their food dollars eating out. The county ranks third in eating and drinking establishments, following Hartford and Fairfield counties.

Statewide sales are expected to top $3.3 billion next year and to grow by five percent in 2002. Compared to California - the nationwide leader with annual restaurant sales of $26.9 billion - Connecticut, and New Haven in particular, represent just a drop in the bucket. But there is a tremendous amount of money spent dining out in New Haven. So, how do you lasso a market already crowded with cheap pad Thai?

From concept to operation, the restaurant business is a notoriously precarious proposition. It's no secret that 70 to 80 percent of all new restaurants fail within the first three years. Over the years New Haven has had literally hundreds of causalities. The most recent is the Soco Grill at 230 Crown Street, which shut its doors last month after just six months in operation, but purportedly will reopen next month (although phone calls to its management were not returned).

Most restaurateurs wouldn't recommend the business to their closest friends. It's a tough sector and a hard lifestyle: long hours, nights and weekends, you're always on your feet. There are plenty of easier ways to make money.

In the face of all those odds, a dozen or so new restaurants have opened in downtown New Haven over the last year, with several more in the works. Driven by continued growth in the number of high-income consumers - prime restaurant customers - as well as by a growing need for culinary novelty, convenience and value, the industry in New Haven is currently benefiting from continued gains in consumers' real disposable income despite the stalled economy.

While motivations for opening a restaurant vary, most people don't go into it for purely economic reasons. The Alexandria Café (400 Crown Street, 203-776-1919) opened last November as a family run venture designed to bring a little bit of Egypt and its Arabic roots to downtown New Haven. Owner/manager Fayez Ghaly, a native Egyptian, took a foreclosed and long neglected building and transformed it into a friendly place where friends and neighbors could sip ahwa (coffee) or take afternoon tea, discuss politics, play tawla (backgammon) or dominos, listen to Egyptian music or watch their favorite shows on Arabic television, and smoke the shiisha (water pipe).

Concepts and themes are as individual and diverse as the city's multi-cultural inhabitants. But don't pity the poor suburbanite. Fine dining establishments has been cropping up at an impressive rate in New Haven's neighboring towns to such an extent that local restaurateurs have started to feel the angst once characterized by suburban food lovers.

Many non-city folk, however, prefer the safety of their bedroom communities to venturing far afield. Just note the rise of critically acclaimed restaurants in Branford, for example, home to some of New Haven County's finest eating establishments. With a population of less than 30,000, Branford boasts Asian, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Caribbean, American and New American cuisines - possibly more tastes per capita than any other suburban town in Connecticut.

Though these tranquil suburban venues can't offer the glitz and glamour of New Haven's nightlife, real food lovers, responding to olfactory stimulus, will venture far and wide from the suburbs to satisfy a longing for outstanding gulab jamun (dumplings in rose-water syrup).

In recent years, new restaurant operators have begun to pay more attention to design, décor and atmosphere. Many are making sizable capital investments to create particular types of dining environments. Physical setting and ambiance are becoming integral components of the competitive battleground. This has perhaps become the final frontier in the battle to make their restaurants stand out in the crowd. Substantial capital investment in design and décor doesn't exactly encourage a do-it-yourself approach unless one of the partners happens to be artistically inclined like Brian Gilhuly, co-owner of the newly opened Neat Lounge Martini and Wine a Go Go (124 Temple Street, 203-624-4422) with Peter Apotrias. Gilhuly is the welder and designer responsible for the trendy cosmopolitan look and style, replete with stainless-steel chairs and tables and even a concrete bar.

Owner/manager Apotrias says he decided to open Neat with Gilhuly because downtown lacked an upscale, lounge-type bar aimed at the urban professional crowd. Located on the corner of Crown and Temple streets, he hopes to also attract hotel guests staying in town at the Omni. Apotrias is a restaurant rookie but he felt the time was ripe for a stylish, destination lounge on the west side of the Green. “I talked to many owners and chefs about what works and doesn't work,” he explains. “I used to live in South Beach [Miami] and saw a lot of cool spots that I felt I could draw upon in designing a new type of modern bar.”

Apotrias credits the resurgence of downtown, particularly the revitalization of Temple Street opposite the Omni New Haven Hotel as a major influence on their decision to take the plunge. “We chose the building because it was in a highly visible location and upcoming area,” he says “It's a great space filled with big, architecturally designed windows. We created this place to encourage business people to stay in New Haven after work and felt this building would appeal to our [target] demographics.”

Business, so far, has been brisk since Neat's August 1 opening. “Right now, just by word of mouth, we've been pretty busy.” Neat serves appetizers provided by the Almalfi Grill until a kitchen is completed. Apotrias says the club eventually will serve appetizers and light fare to avert hunger pangs induced by martinis and single malts.

A restaurant's setting can enhance the dining experience and appeal to customers needs and moods - and give it a competitive edge. That's what owner Dee Patel of recently opened Nirvana (148 York Street, 203-776-8644) hopes her restaurant will do. With a proliferation of Indian restaurants in the city, she believes her restaurant will fulfill a niche in the market by offering fine Indian dining for a discerning clientele.

A veteran restaurateur, Patel has had other operations in the past but this one is a product of her aunt's design flare. Patel, along with her partners (all family members) and her aunt, Shaku Patel, flew to Bombay to individually select the pieces that would create the ambient décor of their newest venture. “We really wanted the people in New Haven to experience a little bit of India,” she says. “I envisioned the restaurant as a luxurious place to eat high-quality food at a reasonable price.”

Patel found the York Street space ideal. “We wanted to buy the property, and had been looking for the right space for a while. When this came up, we loved the proximity to Chapel [Street] and bought it.”

Much of Asia's and the Pacific Rim's best cuisine can be had in the square mile encompassing Crown, York, Chapel and Broadway. There are dozens of Asian houses serving up oodles of noodles, mouth-watering satays, fragrant curries and those peculiar, cooling ice drinks studded with tapioca pearls.

Opened last September, the Ivy Noodle (316 Elm Street, 203-562-8800) is compact but complete with the steaming vats of stock and the energetic tossing about of homemade noodles found in Singapore-style noodle houses throughout China and Malaysia. Bustling holes-in-the-wall, noodle houses are a staple of the Asian food scene. Ivy Noodle owner Coreen Guo crafted hers after the noisy cafeteria-style houses found in her native Singapore.

“I wanted to recreate that ambiance here,” Guo says. “Our customers are mostly internationally [oriented] - from students to professors to white-collar workers. This concept of restaurant wouldn't work in the suburbs.”

The Blues Café (71 Whitney Avenue, 203-498-2583) owned by veteran restaurant operator Sandy Eliazarov [owner of Sandy's Place, a gourmet breakfast and lunch spot in the Connecticut Financial Center, 157 Church Street] and chef Patrick Nims, evokes a different mood. A seasoned blues lover impassioned by Delta-inspired Southern cuisine and soul food, Nims laced his restaurant's menu with the tastes and textures of Italian cooking to infuse new life into standard Southern cooking. The duo launched their restaurant/nightclub to satisfy the area's cravings for all things sinful and soulful. The space houses life-sized statues of such blues legends as Louis Armstrong, Memphis Slim and the Blues Brothers, as well as many others. “A lot of folks get their pictures taken with them,” Nims explains. “It lends a cozy, down-home atmosphere.”

Comfortably appointed, the Blues Café's entertainment emphasis is on diversity. “We attract a mature crowd of varied ethnicity and race who come from as far away as Springfield, New York or Boston to catch a show.” This summer, the club introduced regular performances by stand-up comics and poets in addition to its ever-changing lineup of live blues bands.

Some entrepreneurs are singularly qualified to create successful establishments because they are qualified to do nothing else, or so goes the venerable saying. Take Eamonn Ryan, owner of the Playwright Pub & Restaurant (1232 Whitney Avenue, Hamden, 203-287-2401). He and his partners have created several Irish pubs since 1994 (notably in Hamden, South Beach and Stamford) and are smack-dab in the middle of renovating space on Temple Street in downtown New Haven, which he says will be three times larger than the Hamden location.

“The last shipment of wood and stonework left Dublin three weeks ago and is expected in New Haven next week,” he explains. “We found windows, pieces of wood and stone from old country churches - even an opera house in London. Everything is genuine.”

Ryan and his partners Dennis and Richard Guifoyle, Dublin natives and adoptive New Haveners, have spent much of their lives in Irish pubs. Ryan recalls starting to work in his parent's pub at age 14. After his arrival in New Haven, he recognized a need for a prototypical Irish pub and restaurant serving authentic fare surrounded by an essential part of the Irish-pub scene: live traditional Irish folk music or a combination of folk and rock music (popular with the younger crowd).

“Downtown has changed significantly,” says Ryan. “There is so much happening now with festivals and concerts. It's a good time to open a place here. Besides,” he adds, “I love New Haven.”

What are the keys to success for his establishments? “You have to create an atmosphere to which people feel attracted and in which people can feel like they are at home, “ he says. “Personal attention of the barkeepers to the customers is also an important thing. Getting to know people and having conversations. And a good Irish pub has to have spirit.”

Like Ryan, other restaurateurs have known all their lives that they wanted to open a restaurant; they merely needed the right inspiration.

Wowed by France's street food, owner John Robinson and chef/manager Jura Moss, of Whimsels (280 York Street, 203-787-9862) went to Paris to sample crepes. The trip was inspired by Robinson's daughter, who had just returned from a high school senior trip raving about how delicious and cheap they were.

“It seemed like the perfect product to offer students,” explains Moss, a 1994 graduate of the Connecticut Culinary School. ”Crepes are quick, easy, tasty and nutritious. And there was nothing like this in New Haven besides finer French dining establishments, which use them in classic preparations, or bed-and-breakfast [establishments], which serve them in the morning.”

Robinson and Moss modified France's version of fast food to appeal to vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike, offering both sweet and salted combinations made with locally available fresh, quality ingredients and a healthy preparation. They took the York Street space because of its proximity to Yale students and faculty, but have now expanded their customer base to include professionals and the general public. Opened in January, Whimsels' design is an earthy, modern twist on European flare. In the middle of the space is a custom-made stainless-steel countertop in which the crepe grills are embedded.

Some culinary trends such as Roomba (1044 Chapel Street, 203-562-7666) , which serves nuevo Latino cuisine, or Zinc (964 Chapel Street, 203-624-0507), which serves up modern American food with an Asian influence called “fusion,” have become the hottest seats in New Haven.

Although trendy cuisine remains hot in many kitchens across the country, chefs and industry experts herald the resurgence of simple foods and flavors with a visionary twist - such as the New American cuisine available by Chef Marc Woll at the three-year-old Tibwin Grill (220 College Street, 203-624-1883).

Additional new or planned downtown eateries: Sahara, on Temple Street, which after its mid-August opening will offer Mediterranean fare; Luigi's Apizza, 166 York Street (203-773-3069), which will sell pizza, etc.; DelMonaco's, which will open this fall on Temple Street and specialize in Italian cuisine; Nile, 39 Elm Street (203-776-4292), offering Egyptian, Italian, Greek and American cuisine; and the intriguingly named Sci-Fi Café, an “American theme” restaurant opening this fall, also on Crown Street.

Population demographics affect culinary trends too, which may go far to explain why there are so many Asian, Indian and pizza restaurants in New Haven. However, New Haven seemingly can support multiple cuisines and restaurants in close proximity to one another. The competition may well be a natural outgrowth of the global, affluent, well-educated patrons who are accustomed to variety and choice. But the real trend may be for chefs to expand beyond what industry analysts have defined as “what's hot and what's not” to explore their own culinary creativity.

Whether these new eateries can attain lasting status as hubs of culinary rapture - or become a part of that long list of failures - will remain to be seen. But one thing is certain: There will always be speculators and dreamers in this business, hoping to become one of the few lucky ones who get it right and make it.