in time to make curtain, followed by nearly three hours of complete
inactivity. The far end of West 46th Street in 1982 was nowheresville.
Only predators, Guardian Angels and junkies seemed to walk by; the
whole crew, kitchen, floor and even Tom and Fred would hang out and
gossip to stay amused, hoping for a second pop when the shows let out
near eleven. Work Progress was by now only a few weeks from complete
ruin, so I began peeling away a few key men; Dimitri became my sous-
chef, and a couple of other cooks and dishwashers followed me uptown
as well. I did my best to punch up the menu, putting on some beloved
American regional/comfort dishes I thought in keeping with the meat
loaf and jalapeño corn pudding theme. We fooled around with a lot of
retro classics like chicken pot pie, fried chicken steak with cream gravy,
black-eyed peas and collards, ham steak with red-eye gravy, New
England clam chowder, San Francisco cioppino, and the like. I did my
best to work the line responsibly, spend Tom and Fred's money wisely,
and generally behave in such a way as not to offend the delicate
sensibilities of my very kindly new masters.
But things were already not going as planned. Tom and Fred had taken
over the entire building, and dropped big money making it over into the
bistro of their dreams. They'd purchased a lovely serpentine zinc bar at
an auction in France, put in all-new equipment, built living quarters,
office space and a small prep kitchen upstairs. It had, I'm sure, cost them
a lot of money. But I don't think they were prepared for a sudden
requirement that they extend the range-hood exhaust vent another 200
feet and three floors to project beyond the roof-requiring a new motor
the size of a small economy car to provide suction. And there were the
bafflers and filters to muffle the damn thing to meet city sound-level
requirements. Lunch was quiet, and a decent pre-theater followed by a
so-so post-theater rush was not enough to pay for rent, food, liquor,
labor, power and all the other hidden and unglamorous expenses of a
midtown restaurant. Tom didn't help matters by hovering at the door,
peering out into the street in search of a walk-in trade that would never