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On his first official day at work, hedge fund trader Sean
Feeney faced a huge order backlog and a mob of disgruntled
clients. His solution: hand out Champagne.
He’d already finished for the day at Anchorage Capital
Group LLC. He was now working the January 2016 inaugu-
ral dinner shift at Lilia, the Italian restaurant he’d started
with chef Missy Robbins in Brooklyn, N.Y. As the credit trader
became increasingly overwhelmed, he grabbed glasses of
bubbly for eager diners. Robbins asked for a word, pulled
him aside, then told him off. Giving out Champagne was fine;
doing it without a tray was not.
“The trading floor and the restaurant floor are as high-
intensity environments as you can get,” says Feeney, who
previously worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “You have
to make split-second decisions on every position of a restau-
rant the same way you’re making decisions as a trader. You’re
taking information in and reading people.”
Feeney left his trading job early this year and now works full
time running Lilia and sister restaurant Misi. He doesn’t miss
his former life. “In finance, I was always reflecting on nega-
tive things: I didn’t get the big bonus, I didn’t get promoted asfast as I wanted,” he says. Still, at Grovehouse, the restaurant
company he started with Robbins, Feeney has kept his finance
habits. He writes meticulous notes in green ink, which denotes
a rising market on trading screens. His penchant for Excel
spreadsheets lets the restaurants track precise data on the
turnaround time for tables—too big of a window, and you lose
money on empty seats; too tight a new seating, and you’re
handing out pricey Champagne to angry diners who you’ve
made wait. Likewise, Feeney tracks profitable menu items and
measures the cost of ingredients, down to the gram. “I wanted
to have real-time P&L,” he says, adding that this attention to
detail has given his restaurants a profitability margin that’s
higher than the 10% to 15% average.
Feeney is one of several bankers who’ve swapped finan-
cial markets for hospitality. Wall Street pros bring a lot to
the table: capital, connections, analytical skills, and razor-
sharp focus on profits and losses. They’re also generally good
at schmoozing and can tap into their networks for wealthy
potential customers. They tend to like the restaurant world;
after all, a lot of business gets done there.
“There are long hours, and the pace is also intense,” saysTrading finance for fine dining is a natural swap
By Lananh Nguyen and Kate KraderFor Reformed Bankers,
The Restaurant Life Beckons
The dining
room at Lilia