DAN'S PAPERS, April 24, 2009 Page 26 www.danshamptons.com
Restaurant
(continued from page 22)
I was really astounded by this. I had no idea one possible outcome was that I could own the restaurant. What, for heaven’s sakes, did that mean? “You don’t own the building,” the Sheriff explained. “He leases the space. So you own everything in it. The kitchen equipment, the utensils, the dishes, the tables and chairs, the checkered tablecloths. The sign out front. Even the cash register. You own it all.” “So I own it?” “I just told you that.” “So I could go down there and collect the money from the cash register every night?” “It’s up to you. You collect the money. You pay the bills. But you would have to start it with a new corporation. You don’t want all this guy’s debts. Maybe he wants to stay. He would work for you. Anyway, it’s yours.” Oddly, the first thing I thought was that what I ought to do is put an ad in Dan’s Papers advertising the menu. Ads worked. Come meet the new owners. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I’d rather not own a restaurant. I’d be truly clueless how to run it. So that meant, and I confirmed this with the sheriff, I could clean the place out of everything in it I owned and auction it off for whatever I could get for it.
That night, I took a deep breath and called the restaurant. The owner, as he always did, cheerfully answered the phone with the name of the place. Slowly and carefully, I went about explaining to him what the sheriff had told me. I got the impression that he had not fully grasped that concept until just this moment.
“Should I come down there with a truck?” I asked. There was a long silence. “Come on down on Sunday night. I’ll pay you the $2,000,” he finally said. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll be home most of Sunday. Here’s my number. When you’ve got the money together that evening, call me, and I will come over and you can give it to me. Then I won’t take all the furniture.” “Okay,” he said. Sunday was in three days. During the interval, it tickled me that I owned a spaghetti house in Sag Harbor. It was kind of bragging rights, I know. But it was also true. I told a few people. Sunday came, and at 5 in the afternoon, he called me. Dinner is on me, he said, and I have an envelope for you. And I want to advertise with you again next year. “All of what you owe?” “Yup. The whole thing.” My wife and I went at 7, and as we sat down, he came over with an envelope with 20 $100 bills in it. “Thanks for being patient,” he said. As promised, there was no bill. So I left the waiter a big tip. And that was the end of my owning a restaurant. How was it? It was okay.
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