IT IS 7:30 A.M. ON THE DAY WHEN LITTLE LOUIE'S Fish House is set to open. The kitchen has been stocked, the basic broths and sauces simmered. With four permits down and two to go, the health inspector arrives and makes a pronouncement. The kitchen must be cleared of all food before he will inspect. The liquor inspector is coming at 11, however, and she won't inspect unless the kitchen is stocked. Owner Jay McSharry reveals no trace of dismay. It's as if he somehow anticipated this Clash of the Inspectors, which will delay the opening for a whole weekend. "When everything goes smoothly," he explains, "that's a surprising day."
McSharry's easygoing manner makes him seem an unlikely namesake for his first restaurant, Jumpin' Jay's Fish Café in Portsmouth, N.H. Yet he is indeed the one who put the jump in Jumpin' Jay's—not to mention Radici, Dos Amigos Burritos, and now, in nearby Dover, Little Louie's Fish House and Dover Soul. "If I had to pick one word to describe Jay," says Louis Hamel, partner in Little Louie's, "it would be 'nonstop.' He's always working two phones and doing three things at once." The cell phone is indispensable. "It allows me to be in one place while still running the show in another place," McSharry explains. A case in point: "Can you call me back in about 15 minutes?" he asks mid-conversation. "I'm in the dentist's chair."
McSharry racked up 6,000 minutes on his cell phone and worked some 300 hours the month Little Louie's opened. Long hours, big responsibilities and constant crises can be hard to take. According to the National Restaurant Association, six out of 10 restaurants fail within the first three years, and one study found that owners usually quit for personal reasons.
"The walk-in goes down overnight," McSharry says by way of example. "Things are still cold, but it's losing temperature fast. Then there's a staffing issue. Somebody's out with bronchitis. Somebody else cuts his finger. And you know it's just going to be one of those days." On a raw November "one of those days" he finds himself up on the roof at Radici, his Italian restaurant in Portsmouth, troubleshooting the vent fan.
McSharry has seemingly abundant energy—enough to open four restaurants in four years, with plans for two or three more. Hoping to have a family with as many as four children some day, he expects to cut back his hours once his businesses are established.
"When you open a restaurant, the hours can be intense," says Joe Durocher, UNH professor of hospitality management. "Don't do it if you want a 9 to 5 job." He identifies three requirements for success: a good location, a sharp eye for expenses in an industry with narrow profit margins, and a clearly defined "concept," or identity.
McSharry particularly enjoys designing the concept of a new restaurant and choosing appropriate furnishings and knicknacks. "For me the process is so organic that the name is the concept," he says, using Jumpin' Jay's Fish Caf&eacte; as an example. "It has white Corian tabletops—nice and clean, but no formal tablecloths. It's a lively place. A subdued place is great for a date, but I wanted something with a little more push to it." Push it has. And fish. Six different kinds on any given night, ranging from amberjack to wahoo.
By filling the fish-but-fun niche, the restaurant has earned great reviews, received two calls from Bon Appetit requesting recipes, and taught diners to call well ahead for a weekend reservation.
McSharry, who worked in several restaurants growing up, majored in communications at UNH with a minor in business. After graduation in 1990, he tried sales, film production and advertising. One day he found himself at a photo shoot in the kitchen of the Manhattan meat-eaters' mecca known as Smith and Wollensky's, surrounded by all that sizzling, charring, clattering and energy. "Everything was in motion," he recalls. "I wanted to say, 'I'm in the restaurant business, too!'" He pauses. "But I was in advertising."
Not for long. McSharry left with a new determination to open his own restaurant. He read a book on writing a business plan and waited tables to stockpile money and observe a successful business from the inside. He opened Jumpin' Jay's "on the cheap," with $20,000 of his own money pooled with $30,000 from three friends plus a $30,000 loan. He did much of the construction himself, opening one-third of the 40-seat restaurant initially while he renovated the rest.
The Italian restaurant Radici happened next, almost by accident, when the landlord offered McSharry the space next door to Jumpin' Jay's. McSharry discovered he enjoys identifying a need. He opened Dos Amigos Burritos, it seems, to satisfy the city of Portsmouth's communal craving for short-order burritos made with fresh ingredients. Then he was on to help Dover with its hankering for fish.
In short, McSharry has a passion for providing customer service. It started in high school, when he was named Class Partier—for all the right reasons. Back then he didn't "throw" a party so much as coordinate one, he recalls, "working the phones, taking everyone's ideas and channeling all that into something bigger."
It is not clear, says McSharry, where he will end up, other than "involved in the community somehow." But for the foreseeable future it is clear that, if not jumpin', he will certainly be in motion—and working a phone or two.
BY DAY, BRIGETTE HOMRIG RENAUD '89 WORKS IN A MIDTOWN Manhattan law firm where she can go for long periods without seeing another person. Instead, she often holds conference calls with corporate clients and actuaries, and pores over the federal tax code in a set of books that go out of date every six months. By night, she enters a different realm, behind the scenes in a cozy French restaurant that she owns with her husband in New York's Flatiron District. Here, 30 people of different complexions and native tongues move deftly in and out of each other's space in a kind of dance. It is a workplace where there is no such thing as a private phone call and everyone always knows who's having a bad day.
This is hardly the life Renaud envisioned when she graduated from the UNH hospitality management program in 1989, headed for a career in international hotel management. She got her first job at London's Hilton on Park Lane. The only American working in the huge hotel and the only woman in her department, she befriended another outsider, a Frenchman named Cyril Renaud. When they parted a few months later, they vowed to keep in touch while she attended law school back in the United States. For three years they communicated by letter, in French and English.
The pair married in Renaud's native Brittany. Following local custom, virtually the entire town of 400 people turned out for the "toast of honor" after the ceremony, and every one of the guests expected the bride to deliver the customary four bisous, or kisses, alternating cheeks twice. (This grand display of affection must have been contagious. Today she greets friends and restaurant workers alike with two bisous and an expansive "Hi, how are you!")
The couple moved to New York, where Cyril Renaud worked as a chef at two of the city's most famous restaurants—first Bouley and then La Caravelle. But Brigette suggested they open their own place. Fleur de Sel, or "flower of salt," was named after the gourmet salt from Brittany.
Fleur de Sel, which opened in 2000 in a small brick townhouse on E. 20th Street, has received excellent reviews from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and New York magazine. "Who doesn't pine for that little neighborhood restaurant, tucked away on a side street, where the lighting is subdued, the Chef is French, and the food is terrific?" The Times asked rhetorically. Fleur de Sel's many repeat customers, including some famous New Yorkers like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jimmy Fallon, apparently agree.
When it comes to running the restaurant, Brigette Renaud says she takes the "20,000-foot view." Her business background continues to be helpful in dealing with insurance policies, investor relations, human resources and legal concerns. She also enjoys debriefing people she knows—often from her Midtown world—who have recently dined at Fleur de Sel. "Sometimes I feel like a spy," she says, "but they know I want the whole truth!"
When Renaud spends time at the restaurant, she can usually be found in the cellar, perhaps joking with the pastry cook about how many times "Chef" has come down to sneak a pastry. She might spend some time going over figures in a snug cockpit of an office near the wine storage area. It's a typical New York space, crammed with two or three people and four computers, and she enjoys hearing the workers "buzzing around" just outside the open door.
Of the many roles Renaud plays in her double life, none is more enjoyable than "food appreciator." Her husband, whose paintings adorn the walls of the restaurant, is an artist as well as a chef, and she often describes his dishes in visual as much as gustatory terms. She speaks lovingly of the "beautiful little pillows" of goat cheese ravioli in a brilliant red beet-Dijon jus. But her sentimental favorite has to be the caramelized apple crêpe—a traditional dish from Brittany. "I can take some credit for the Devonshire cream Cyril puts on top," she says. "It's a dessert where English meets French."
"I LOVE SEARING SALMON," SAYS LANTZ PRICE '88. "Some fish don't sear very well." It's just one of many things Price loves about the restaurant business. He loves the energy and camaraderie. He loves getting ideas from other restaurants, like the tiny oyster house in Boston's South End where he got the best sandwich he's ever had in his life—a lobster BLT—along with his favorite Belgian beer. (Back home in Beaufort, S.C., he created his own southern version with crabmeat and twice-smoked bacon.) He loves his knuckle-sparing offset serrated knife. Price even loves being "in the weeds," restaurant parlance for being overwhelmed with orders.
"I'm jammed up against the wall with 18 orders on the board and more coming in," he says. "It's very stressful, very inspiring, and requires great energy." When Price cooks at his bistro, Plums, he is the point person, sautéing and calling out the orders to the "oven guy," the "salad guy," and the "grill guy." When they're in the weeds, they could really use six cooks. But the staff of four can dig their way out, if they're "on" and if they're prepared—the pasta water must be at the boil by 5 p.m. "Sometimes it's beautiful, like a really well-executed symphony," he says. At the end of a performance, the cooks may applaud themselves with a few whoops of elation.
Price has been braving, and enjoying, this kind of pressure for much of his life, starting at 14 when he got a job as a dishwasher. "I grew up in a Kitchen Confidential world," he says, alluding to chef Anthony Bourdain's best-selling tale of life in the "culinary underbelly," where drugs, tattoos and testosterone run rampant. "Unfortunately, I've seen all of that," Price says, "but I gravitated toward the management side."
Price purchased Plums in 1995 without investors or partners. "If I can't afford it," he says, "I shouldn't be doing it in the first place." In 2003, he opened the Saltus River Grill because he wanted to "go to the next level" with a more sophisticated cuisine and urban ambience. He succeeded: Reviewers always write that they felt transported to New York or Los Angeles for a couple of hours.
Even the menus at his two restaurants seem to reflect his energy and embrace-life attitude. Saltus River Grill features an oyster menu with 27 varieties from around North America, with names like Giga-Moto and Tatamagouche. A New Hampshire native, he notes that "Some people down here, no matter how rich they get, want fried shrimp and grits." No problem. Price is only too happy to offer grits—though not just your ordinary grits—daily. "They're stone ground," he says with some reverence. "We cook them al dente, but you still get the creaminess, thick with heavy cream and butter."
Price intended to study zoology at UNH, but loved his required English classes so much that he majored in English literature with a minor in business. He believes writing all those literary-analysis papers helped him develop an analytical approach to his restaurants. The business courses were useful because he must watch costs so closely—adding or subtracting one 25-cent shrimp can really make a difference over time. He thinks that's why many restaurants fail: "They don't run by the numbers."
Some of Price's lessons have come the hard way. As a young restaurant owner, he decided to economize with a $30 safe. Three burglaries later, he purchased a $500 industry-standard model. Now 38, Price has much to teach would-be restaurateurs. Clearly he thrives on the pressure that has driven others out of the business. Yet every couple of weeks he takes the time to go fishing. And every day, he spends time with his wife, Jennifer Lussier Price '88 (a.k.a. the Test Menu Queen), and their two children. About to open his third restaurant, he won't be cooking much at Plums anymore. "I love putting all the pieces together," he says, "but in the end, I'd just love to own a bistro and cook." ~
Return to UNH Magazine Features, Winter '05