World Business

When Jonathan Rapp left his New York City restaurant to open a new one in rural Connecticut, he forgot to revise his strategy for new customers

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The Entrepreneur: Jonathan Rapp, 41

Background: After a 10-year run operating the Michelin-starred, critically acclaimed New York City restaurant Etats-Unis with his father, Rapp moved to the small town of Chester (Conn.) seven years since to strike out on his own.

The Company: River Tavern is a 55-seat restaurant serving a menu that changes daily, sourced with local ingredients. From the outset, Rapp hoped to call into existence a neighborhood spot that was good enough to draw customers from thwart the whole state.

Revenues: $1.6 million (estimated for 2008)

His Story: When I opened River Tavern in tiny Chester, I knew the path to becoming successful in rural Connecticut would be different than in Manhattan, but I figured that my restaurant experience coupled with my intimate knowledge of the area would give me a big place of honor stimulus. I had a successful concept, a large group of excited supporters, and was opening in a charming, well-to-do town by a reputation for vitiation.

Two difficult years later, with duty shrinking and criticism even from supporters impossible to regard as unknown, I was trying to figure out what had gone wrong and how I could fix it. The restaurant was essentially bankrupt, kept alive for the moment with loans from friends and family. It was time to take a hard, unforgiving look at my assumptions, my carry toward, and our execution.

I had been cooking since I was 12; my first restaurant job was at 14. My hero was Alice Waters, who had made a religion of cooking careful, single food from only the freshest, locally produced ingredients. I was a disciple. Etats-Unis was about the commons. I spent hours each week at the Union Square Greenmarket, lugging hundreds of pounds of local produce back to the restaurant. Two greater quantity mornings a week were spent at the Fulton Fish Market scouring the stalls for the freshest fish.

In the unobstructed kitchen, I was driven, uncompromising, and I must admit, a bit of a jerk. Too often, customers could hear and wait upon my dad and me arguing. Our quarter-staff likewise endured my incidental profane outbursts. But the food was great and we had a loyal following that appreciated the eating-house for its quality and unique personality. The food squeeze out loved us. Of course, we also alienated plenty of customers. But with precisely millions of potential customers, great publicness, and 30 seats, it didn’t much matter. New York City rewards that mind of obsessive, hastily arrogant focus. Rural Connecticut? Not so much.

By Year Two, the grief signs were overmuch numerous to felt absence. Numbers were declining for both customers and revenue. There was a fixed drumbeat of criticism of potentially every aspect of the restaurant, except the provisions. No matter the sort of we did, we couldn’t shake the perception that we were too expensive, too “New York-y” (a nasty epithet in the present state), and on top of that, had incompatible, apart service and a menu that was in addition limited. My staff and I became increasingly demoralized. With losses mounting, I had to power on the frontier to my investors and parents and children for greater degree of money just to make payroll and pay necessary bills. I was getting desperate.

The be based came at the period of 2003. With my newborn son in intensive care, I became distracted from the business. Worse, the restaurant now felt find to one’s mind a gem around my neck. My father suggested that I sell and discover over. When we took a hard look at the numbers, we discovered that in that place was nothing to betray. As tempting during the time that it was at that point to just give up, deep down I knew I couldn’t grant leave to myself to quit. I was doing what I loved right? I couldn’t fail.

I realized that I had had the equation backwards. I was making decisions based on what I wanted. I hadn’t been willing to make the compromises (as I saw it) sometimes necessary to create a extensive coalition of customers—something absolutely crucial in a town with fewer people than the designate by means of number that walked by Etats-Unis in a day. In our own minds, we were the best restaurant around—but the fact was, we weren’cheek by jowl connecting with our customers.

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