and throw the fish into a very hot oven. Roast till crispy and cooked
through. Drizzle a little basil oil over the plate—you know, the stuff you
made with your blender and then put in your new squeeze bottle?—
sprinkle with chiffonaded parsley, garnish with basil top . . . See?
OWNER'S SYNDROME AND OTHER MEDICAL ANOMALIES
TO WANT TO OWN a restaurant can be a strange and terrible affliction.
What causes such a destructive urge in so many otherwise sensible
people? Why would anyone who has worked hard, saved money, often
been successful in other fields, want to pump their hard-earned cash
down a hole that statistically, at least, will almost surely prove dry? Why
venture into an industry with enormous fixed expenses (rent, electricity,
gas, water, linen, maintenance, insurance, license fees, trash removal,
etc.), with a notoriously transient and unstable workforce, and highly
perishable inventory of assets? The chances of ever seeing a return on
your investment are about one in five. What insidious spongiform
bacteria so riddles the brains of men and women that they stand there on
the tracks, watching the lights of the oncoming locomotive, knowing full
well it will eventually run them over? After all these years in the
business, I still don't know.
The easy answer, of course, is ego. The classic example is the retired
dentist who was always told he threw a great dinner party. "You should
open a restaurant," his friends tell him. And our dentist believes them.
He wants to get in the business—not to make money, not really, but to
swan about the dining room signing dinner checks like Rick in
Casablanca. And he'll have plenty of chance to sign dinner checks—
when the deadbeat friends who told him what a success he'd be in the
restaurant business keep coming by looking for freebies. All these
original geniuses will be more than happy to clog up the bar, sucking
down free drinks, taking credit for this bold venture—until the place
starts running into trouble, at which point they dematerialize, shaking
their heads at their foolish dentist who just didn't seem up to the job.