Z Square was not a gigantic failure in the small world of Boston restaurants but neither was it routine. One source thought that the total amount of money lost approached $7,000,000.

The first “unit” or “store” occupied a bullseye location in the heart of Harvard Square. Rent was said to be $29,000 plus a percentage of sales. The company grew out of a successful Marin County cafe and the owners exuded great confidence. They eventually took over a former flatbread pizzeria near Boston University for a second store and a kosher deli in Boston’s financial district became their third unit.

Everyone connected with Z Square was a star. One person was a member of a famous Boston rock band. They had a cookie consultant.

And they had expensive offices on the other side of the block that suggested a possible negative outcome, despite all the confidence and the past accomplishments of everyone who was involved. Most restaurants have offices that are appropriate to submarines or tenement museums. Z Square had a lot of expensive space in Harvard Square.

One sage thought Z Square was doomed. She was right. They opened slowly and quickly began firing people. Very gradually the level of sales rose but like Howard Hughes Spruce Goose the enterprise never took off.

We sold them ice cream and checks became infrequent and ordering grew disorganized. Suddenly the restaurant was closed and newwspapers were accumulating in their doorway. We were owed a little more than a $1,000.

Finally the news of the restauant’s closing became public and eventually we received a notice from the bankruptcy court. With more curiousity than hope my sister and I trudged down to the bleak Tip O’Neil building to attend the bankruptcy hearing. Maybe we would benefit in an implausible way from showing up.

The hearing was in a room as banal as any high school classroom. We recognized a few familiar faces. Before the court got to the Z Square bankruptcy it swiftly processed two poignant personal bankruptcies.

The bankruptcy judge was authoritative. Z Square was represented by the least prepared member of the downtown bar I have ever seen. His manner was impeccable but when the judge asked about hundreds of thousands of dollars he said, “We didn’t have funds to do any forensice accounting, but we think most of the money went into the corporations.” There were, as is common, multiple corporations, but a lot of money slopped around and it became clear that we weren’t going to get any of it. The valuable liquor license now belonged to the landlord’s agent, who had also purchased all the equipment and leasehold improvements for a bargain price. A slightly bigger vendor had lost thousands of dollars and there were rumors that a produce vendor had lost much more than that.

At one point the judge asked where the principal was, that confident casually dressed Californian from Marin County. “I don’t know” said the attorney. That was probably literally true, that at that one moment the lawyer did not know where the captain of the Titantic was but almost everyone else involved thought he was in England and some people claimed to have his address.

A number of well known professionals worked with the company and did not succed in saving it. One person said they “rode it down” which involved getting paid for work while the corporation crash lands.

The miserable case was continued and on our way out we commiserated with the dairy supplier. Most of the time the restaurant business can seem like an upright if tough section of the economy, but not that morning in Boston.

Restaurant Depot is a nationwide chain of warehouse stores that cater to restaurants. In order to shop there you have to be in the restaurant business.

In order to enjoy shopping at Restaurant Depot I think it helps to have an affection for American Democracy Aborning.

I always go to the store in blue collar Chelsea, Mass. Chelsea contains the very large New England Produce Market, a wonderful bagel company that struggles on in a town with few Jews, several almost abandoned Polish fraternal organizations and a leftover Russian steam bath. It is also a vibrant town full of new Americans of many origins.

The restaurant industry has few of what economists call “barriers to entry.” If you or your mother can make a great fresh mozzarella or tasty arrepa you are almost ready to open. The staff and customer base of Restaurant Depot reflect those possibilities.

Occasionally I will encounter a more established chef or restaurant owner. Some act embarassed as though I’d caught them in the act of buying frozen vegetables but sometimes they will confess how much fun they think it is to save money buying supplies in such a hurlyburly, Star Wars bar atmosphere.

The interior of Restaurant Depot consists of towering four story shelves that are filled and emptied by young men driving noisy frontloaders. The aisles resonate with that regular honk vehicles make when backing up, except the honking is inside the building and not in the surrounding parking lot. On busy days all the motion can verge on chaos.

Customers reveal the future of the American food business and maybe even the country’s future. Religious Moslem women lead their sons, who are already dressed in hip hop sports clothing. A percentage of the customers bring their children. A good day will include a turbaned Sikh or a Haitian family with a high school age translator.

Once I was in line behind a Brazilian purchasing hundreds of pounds of marscapone cheese. After guessing about the appropriateness of a question I asked what he was doing with all that Italian cream cheese. “I make cannoli with them and we sell the cannoli throughout eastern Massachusetts.”

On another occasion I needed soy milk. I approached a worker and asked if he spoke English. “Un poquito” he said, making a small measure with thumb and forefinger. “Tiene leche de soy?” I asked. He then turned into Senor Koharski, my high school Spanish teacher, “la leche de soya?” he asked with emphasis on the missing “a.” “Si,” I said, “la leche de soya.” Switching to English he said, “No. We don’t have any.”

I went down an aisle and asked another worked in Spanish if he spoke English. He was apologetic, “I’m sorry. I only speak English.” Which is okay because I only speak English.

Lucky J’s
Jason T. Umlas
www.luckyjs.com
5703 Burnet Rd.
Austin TX 78756

Chicken for strength
Waffles for speed

April in Austin Texas is as good a place as any, and that includes Paris. There are bluebonnets. The weather is wonderful. The grackles are noisy. I went to Austin to visit Amy’s Ice Creams, and spend time with the nice people who started Amy’s.

Austin Texas has many charms but the city seems determined to obliterate as many of them as possible in the name of progress. Right now there is a dispute between the mainstream restaurants and the interesting collection of trucks and sidewalk vendors.

The established restaurants are burdened with regulations. Most of the street vendors are immigrants and they cheerfully ignore regulations that would get a normal restaurant closed by the determined agents of the city and county health departments. This dispute calls for the wisdom of Calvin Trillin.

While meeting with Amy and discussing new flavors and happy cows we noticed an irregular amount of activity across the street. My friend Rob now runs a flock of sophisticated white tablecloth restaurants but he is a chowhound who can’t resist the smell of mesquite. People at Amy’s said that the place across the street was another “street vendor.”

Rob and I were curious so we hopped into a rental car and drove across Burnet Road, which is what Texans do when they want to cross the street. Lucky J’s sells barbqued chicken and waffles. “Chicken for strength and waffles for speed” said a sign.

Barbequed chicken and waffles is what restaurant people call “a concept” and its making largely unacknowledged progress in black neighborhoods and hipster enclaves.

Inside a small lunchwagon was a man who said hello. “You don’t sound like your from Texas?” I said.
“I’m from New York” said Jason T. Umlas.
Rob and I looked at each other like detectives watching a case fall into place. “Did you go to Stuyvesant or Science or something like that?” I asked, naming New York’s two most selective high schools.
“Yeah, I went to Stuyvesant and then I did East Asian Studies at Brown. I lived in Tokyo for six months and moved to LA. I worked for five years as a chef and executive chef but my girlfriend and I couldn’t imagine staying in LA so we moved here.”

Rob sheepishly admitted his own background “Actually I went to high school in Manhattan and college at Yale.”

We ordered what the ex-New Yorker suggested. I’m not a big fried chicken person so I had to ignorantly hack my way through the crust. The chicken was okay. Rob disappeared and returned with two sauces that transformed the chicken into something extraordinary.

“This is great.”
Rob and I decided to keep driving and eating, which are always good things to do in Texas. I said, “I’m leaving the chicken scraps on the hood of the car.” We drove down Burnet Road and Rob said “The entire neighborhood smells like fried chicken.”

We couldn’t cross the oncoming traffic to visit a Czech calleche bakery. In Texas, Czechs rival Germans as culinary antecedents and every Texan has a favorite bakery for these stuffed pastries. All those bakeries are located in distant small towns. Rob said we would come back tomorrow.

Then we pulled into Taco Deli. Rob ordered a taco and at his suggestion I ordered a soft taco. Both were good. We were in a chowhound groove. Then we got back in the General Lee and drove to South Congress. Rob was staying at the superhip San Jose Motel. I enjoyed the street scene from the Motel’s open air bar/coffee bar.

We got a phone call from Amy asking where we were and we zoomed off to Uchi, the city’s fabulous fusion sushi restaurant. That meal took hours. It was mystifying that so many people who looked like they had not much money could eat at such a primo retaurant. Rob picked out wines and I drank slowly, but I drank slowly for hours. By the end of the evening I was slowly glowing.

The next day it was off to tiny Smithville to deliver tables and chairs to be put in storage. We had lunch at Sherry’s, a restaurant located in a double wide trailer. I had the Fiesta Steak a la Queso. A fiesta steak is something in between a minute steak and a hamburger. The Queso was a watery cheese sauce dotted with peppers. The dish came with buttered potatoes, fried okra, buttered toast and a complimentary cupcake.

EVAN CRANKSHAW

Evan Crankshaw is a drawer and painter from North Carolina. His work deals with drawing issues, biological, evolutionary, and erotic abstraction, and the interplay between outer and inner space. He received a Diploma from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2007 and completed the Fifth Year program there in 2008. He just finished a year as Visiting Faculty in the Drawing department at SMFA, and his studio is a tire warehouse in East Boston.

On view for several weeks at Toscanini’s.
Opening reception Th May 14 6–8pm.

For more information on Evan Crankshaw try www.evancrankshaw.com

Toscanini’s hosts several exhibitions per year of new and established artists. For more info try adam@tosci.com