Eddie Huang (left) with Russell Steinberg (middle) and Roman Grandinetti, his business partner, on the right.
Photo: Courtesy of the subject
In this series, “Looking to Settle,” Eddie Huang chronicles his search for a downtown restaurant space.
The day before I relaunched the Flower Shop as its executive chef, I got a text from my old friend, Stretch Armstrong.
“My partner is in commercial real estate and aware of your property hunt. Unsure the status of that but if you’d entertain a convo with a great guy, he’d love to speak to you.”
I was in a bad place because ICE had grabbed my lead line cook, Daniel, two days before. If I wasn’t doing prep or picking up his shift on the line, I was talking to attorneys and journalists trying to help locate him.
In that particular moment, I was questioning my return to the kitchen, much less opening another spot, but I grew up listening to Armstrong’s radio show Stretch & Bobbito, and even if I was going to curve his homey, I told him, “Feel free to give him my math.”
“Named Manny, will link.”
For the next few days, I blocked out all the noise and worked doubles until we found someone to pick up Daniel’s shifts. People in the dining room were happy, but as is the case in most restaurants, they were unaware of the chaos in the kitchen.
One cook who said he was experienced promptly cut his thumb open on a meat slicer during his first shift. Another guy with fake Cartier buffs on his face and a quart of cranberry juice in his hand was unaware he had set parchment paper on fire because he was trying to talk to me about his burgeoning career as a digital content creator. Yet another asked to leave his shift early because he wore Jordan 11s to work and his feet hurt.
I wanted to throw my Kunz spoon across the kitchen but didn’t because I’m aware that kitchens — and the world — have changed a lot since I began standing in front of the stove.
I was also aware that it wasn’t their fault. The real issue was that management at the Flower Shop had denied my request to hire a sous-chef, so I had to make do with the cooks from its previous regime and was only authorized to hire people at the $23-an-hour level, which is fine for a line cook without any leadership responsibilities, but it’s insane to populate the entire kitchen that way. Without the ability to hire another adult in the kitchen, it was a romper room back there.
In the midst of this, I got a call from Manny on a Saturday afternoon. “Eddie! How are you? You remember me from Griffin? You threw your birthday party there.”
I distinctly remembered that birthday party because it happened between the release of Coke Boys 2 and Coke Boys 3, which we listened to standing on the couch there. “Right, right, great party. How are you?” I said, getting to the point.
“I’m in real estate now and I know you’re looking for property. I also know Roman, who you’re working with.”
“Oh, you know Roman? Yeah, whatever I’m doing next will be with Roman, so if you have a relationship there, just let him know,” I said.
I’d quickly learned that Roman Grandinetti was much more astute with real estate than I was. From the moment he brought up the Baohaus idea, he’d sent me three to five locations a week. All of them very thoughtful, most of them pocket listings. I hadn’t talked to my original broker in quite some time.
What I realized by then was that once a commercial property hit LoopNet or whatever database brokers use, it had already been passed on by the usual suspects. Landlords with a property coming to market would contact successful operators in the area to offer it personally. If someone liked it, they would snag it before it even got listed. Multiple times a week, a broker would offer me space that Roman had already seen.
Not only did Roman have his finger on the pulse of downtown commercial real estate, but he knew how much it cost to build a restaurant. I didn’t have to go see the space, then bring a contractor, an electrician, as well as an architect, and then wait a week for an estimate. Roman would get offered the location, go see the space, and tell me exactly how much it would cost to renovate, and I got to focus on being a chef.
If only Roman were also a goddamned sous-chef, my life would have been fine.
We looked at 700-square-foot spaces on Eldridge, a gigantic clubstaurant space at 99 Stanton that used to be Stanton Social, and a magnificent 17,000-square-foot space on the West Side that needed programming. None of them made sense for what we were trying to do, and I continued to focus on the Flower Shop. From November to January, there was only one night I wasn’t there: December 26, because my entire family had the flu. That night, the kitchen sent undercooked wings and a cold steak to my wife’s cousin. When I was on the line, there were four misfires over four months, but the one night I wasn’t there, we had two; I simply couldn’t maintain quality without help.
The next day, I wrote an email saying that either today would be the day we put up an ad for a sous-chef or it would be my last day at the Flower Shop. Within 12 hours, I had a call with management, where it was revealed that we had increased food sales by 15.5 percent in December alone. They were happy and allowed me to make the hire.
I really didn’t enjoy the stress of opening a restaurant without any other leadership in the kitchen, but in an odd way, I respected these assholes. They were aware of their leverage and drove a hard bargain, and it worked because I supervised every single dish that left that kitchen from November to January.
After stomaching several terrible trails from so-called sous-chefs — one who showed up with what looked like an antique machete to break down protein — I got a call from a chef doing privates on the West Coast named Nik Kyler who’d worked at the Mark as well as Achilles Heel and had recently left his post as executive chef at Sea Wolf in Greenpoint.
He was aggressive, asking for a lot more money than everyone else, but he was refreshingly coherent. The way he talked about prep, labor, and food cost had me feeling like I would perhaps get to see my family in the near future.
“You know, chef, I actually spoke to the owner of the Flower Shop the first week of November.”
It made me smile. Dylan Hales, my partner at the Flower Shop, must have tried independently to find me help but simply balked when it was too expensive. It’s the thought that counts.
Within the first 45 minutes of working with Chef Nik, it was clear that he was the guy. The next day, I got a call from Roman.
“We gotta move fast. Look this place up. The old Yaffa Café, 97 St. Marks. The space changed hands a few times since Yaffa closed, but this guy, Russ, put a lot of money into it, and it’s turnkey. Full kitchen, venting, 1,200 square feet, outdoor patio — it’s everything you wanted for Gazebo.”
“Where you at?”
“I’m on Orchard.”
“Let’s just go see it. I have a sous-chef now.”
Roman laughed. I was always like this.
“Okay, okay, I gotta call Manny first and schedule, but I hear you, brother. We’ll go see it.”
A day or two later, we went to look.
97 St. Marks Place, where Yaffa Café and then a series of restaurants once stood. Russell Steinberg had opened up Cecilia.
Photo: Courtesy of the subject
There was a checkered floor reminiscent of Mr. Chow, a back patio to smoke sour or play dominoes, and a kitchen with a graduated flattop, which I’d always wanted. The only drawback was that there wasn’t a liquor license, but I also saw it as a positive that we could focus diners on a by-the-glass wine program.
“The only thing I worry about is if Gazebo as a concept is too slick for this block,” said Roman.
He wasn’t wrong. To me, St. Marks has always been the place for aggressively authentic and experimental Asian food or dive bars, but I really liked the spot and its history as Yaffa Café for over 30 years.
From left: Photo: Courtesy of the subjectPhoto: Courtesy of the subject
From top: Photo: Courtesy of the subjectPhoto: Courtesy of the subject
From left: The kitchen setup at 97 St. Marks. Photo: Courtesy of the subjectThe back patio Photo: Courtesy of the subject
From top: The kitchen setup at 97 St. Marks. Photo: Courtesy of the subjectThe back patio Photo: Courtesy of the subject
“What’s the deal?” I asked Roman, who turned the floor over to Russell Steinberg.
“I put about a million dollars into this place,” he said, looking around before revealing the inspiration. “I wanted to be like Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, you know? Retired with a restaurant.”
“You can’t play restaurant, you’ll get smoked.”
“I know that now. It was a very expensive education.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Well, Manny told me we could put it on the market and get key money, but I’d actually like to stay involved and bring on new operators. You can keep me on the license, the LLC, and we just work out a deal for you and Roman to come in.”
I liked the sound of that but didn’t want to reveal too much, so I started feeling walls and looking at floors to avoid eye contact. It was a smart deal for all sides, so I deflected.
“How’d you come up with the name Cecilia?” (That was the name of the place Russ had opened.)
“It’s my daughter’s name.”
I looked at Russ and asked the obvious question.
“What’s your daughter’s birthday?”
“February 28,” he said, and I smiled.
“I’m March 1.”
The Flower Shop opened March 1, my birthday is March 1, my wife was born March 6, and my brother was March 7. Put plainly, I swim with fish, no pun intended. That was all I needed to know. Lawyers would work out the rest. I shook Russ’s hand, thanked Manny, and walked out with Roman.
“Gazebo won’t work here, but Baohaus will,” I said as we walked to his car.
“You wanna bring that back? This place is subterranean.”
“Original Baohaus on 137 Rivington was subterranean,” I said. “It just feels like its time.”
“If you tell me that you wanna bring Baohaus back here, I’m gonna shake Russ’s hand, bring my guys back tomorrow, and take a hammer to the walls.”
“I wanna bring Baohaus back here.”
I shook Roman’s hand, sent Russ a term sheet, and about two days later, Roman was taking a hammer to the walls.
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