Before he was a chef on TV, before he opened his own string of intown restaurants, Kevin Rathbun feared he didn’t know enough about the dining business. But he didn’t want to enter his 50s working as a hired chef. At the time, he was corporate executive chef for Pano Karatassos’ Buckhead Life Restaurant Group, which includes top establishments such as Atlanta Fish Market, Buckhead Diner and Chops Lobster Bar. Now, 51, Rathbun has four establishments of his own: Rathbun’s, Krog Bar, Kevin Rathbun Steak and KR SteakBar. He’s appeared on Food Network shows and had his restaurants garner national attention. His business, a decade old this spring, garners nearly $10 million in annual sales, he says.
I’ve been in the restaurant business for 37 years. I worked for other people for 27. I realized that it’s the only thing I know how to do. I know how to cook. I know how to run a restaurant. I know how to treat people. But I know nothing else. I knew I didn’t want to be a chef at 51 years old, working for somebody else. What are they going to say? That guy’s getting too old to do the job? He’s overpaid? I knew that I had to at least try.
I was absolutely terrified. The biggest thing for me was having a team together. What I call that is the four table legs: My wife, who worked at the executive offices of the Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. She is a numbers guru. Me, I’m more of the creative side. Cliff Bramble, he knows the nuts and bolts of the front of the house, table seating. He knows all the computer stuff. Kirk Parks is the pastry chef. Pastry is not one of my fortes.
I’d ride around looking at restaurants. I met managers and general managers and chefs. It was all about asking lots of questions and being humble. They would tell me, yeah, this place does that. This is how we do that. This is how we got started. I asked, “Hey, do you think I can do this?” (Their yeses) were the kinds of things that really pushed me out of that nest.
I walked away from $175,000 a year (at Buckhead Life). It was pretty hard. I was willing to take half of that if I had my own place to see where it went.
I looked in every area (for a restaurant site). Everything was so expensive. How am I going to pull this off? I was looking for character buildings that I could do build out in. I wanted to be off the beaten path because of the price. I ended up in Inman Park. Ten years ago it was just a mess.
Rathbun considered subleasing a restaurant space in a former potbelly stove manufacturing plant. But he thought the price was too high. Later, during a chance meeting in a bar, he was introduced to the property’s owner.
Six months later, I get the phone call: “Kevin, have I got the deal for you.” He said, “If you can bring me a $20,000 check today, you are in the restaurant.”
“I’m on my way.” I handed him the $20,000 check. It’s December 4th. It’s 28 degrees. There is no heat in the restaurant. I’m sitting going, “What the hell have I just done?”
I call my wife. I said, “Honey we’ve got a restaurant.” She said, “Where?”
“Inman Park.”
“Why the hell would you be in Inman Park? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. Everybody knows you at Buckhead.” She almost divorced me.
Wise men have told me along the way if you can do anywhere between $3.5 million and $4 million (in annual sales) you won’t be married to your restaurant. You can grow. But if you (make less) it is very hard to step outside the kitchen, because you run every part of it. What happens to people like that? They get tired. If it is not working real well, it gets upside down really quickly. But if you hit it right and make those gross dollars you can afford the marketing piece. You can get better talent, which makes inevitably your whole system run much better.
Rathbun put together a proposal about what he was looking to do, hoping to attract wealthy investors.
I gave it to 100 people; I got nobody. They all told me the same thing: I don’t invest in the restaurant business; it’s like rolling dice.
I was always going to own 51 percent, no matter what. They want to do 80/20 flop, which is they own 80 percent. You get 20. When you pay them back it flops 80/20. There were all kinds of ways to structure the deal, which I had no idea what or how to do. All I knew is that I was going to own the majority, and Kevin Rathbun was going to be in charge.
He took out a $100,000 loan backed by his house. He and his wife’s partners, Bramble and Parks, took out loans so they each could pony up $50,000. Eventually Rathbun convinced two separate outside investors to put in $100,000 each, for a grand total of $400,000. Renovation work started on the building.
(The outside investors) were always going to get their money back first before we got anything really other than our salaries.
Opening night, I talk to my staff. We all have champagne. I cried in the bathroom. My wife asks, “What’s wrong with you?” I said, “We did it. Now we are opening. Now, I’m comfortable with this.” That day was the best day of my life.
For that first night, a Thursday, 80 customers made reservations. By the following Monday night, only 20 did.
I’m thinking, “What have I done? Twenty people are not going to pay the bills.” Within one month, Saturday nights were 350 to 400 (reservations).
It was word of mouth. People knew me around town. People talking about us review wise. The AJC. Atlanta magazine. They loved the fact that I was in that neighborhood.
Bramble worked with hotel concierges around town, trying to drum up business and accommodating guests they sent over at the last minute.
Never ever paid a dime (to concierges). A couple of them wanted us to. We just wouldn’t do it. But we would buy concierges dinner, and they come in a lot.
We had our mistakes. It’s a million little things. We had grease traps (under) the patio. It’s under peoples’ feet. The perfume of that was just permeating the restaurant. The electricity at the place: You plug in a toaster or a griddle, it would pop the lights. It would pop like three times a night. “Oh, God, go hit the breaker.”
I was cheap; we did it with a skeleton crew. I didn’t want to hire (more than a couple) dishwashers. I washed dishes every night. I did that for three months because I was trying to skim every dollar. I didn’t know what was going to happen.
Eventually, he opened the other restaurants, relying on his name to help draw crowds. But his newest restaurant, one-year-old KR SteakBar, isn’t doing as well as planned, though Rathbun says it is profitable.
The more I get saturated, the less my name carries. The brand can lose its luster. That’s what scares me the most.
(KR SteakBar) had a huge uptick in the beginning, and it fell off a little bit. We tried to figure it out. Too loud, we thought. The menu wasn’t right. They couldn’t get a drink on time.
He made changes, including spending $20,000 on improvements to dampen noise.
Now it is build back time: Every customer. Make them feel good.
(Overall for the company) my big day-to-day now is trying to teach my people how to be nice to people. A lot of my days are spent looking at the reservation list and finding the VIPs and making sure I stop by their table and say thanks for being here. I’m around six nights a week, 12 hours a day. I’m not always working. I’m shaking hands and kissing babies a lot of that time.
He also thinks about eventually buying property to become a minority party helping other chefs get a restaurant of their own off the ground.
I always wanted to be financially independent. I never did really have anything handed to me. I worked since I was 14 years old. There was always a financial motivation. There’s also a great feeling of being an entrepreneur.
About the Author
