All of my restaurant hours devoted in the Aspen/Snowmass area was not an appropriate training ground for the real world because in Aspen, you were always on vacation and/or at a party.
On the other hand, the three years I spent working for RG Maxwell’s was the exact opposite, a great training ground where I learned many money-making tricks in this corporate restaurant world where you were judged by the bottom line on the monthly P & L statements. The general manager at each restaurant produced a P&L statement every 2 weeks, which kept you ever aware of the importance of profiting from every penny you spent and it kept your thumb on the pulse of your business and vigilantly on top of the daily goal of making a profit. You were considered creatively brilliant and held in high regard if you introduced money making ideas to the company that increased their bottom line, profits. I had a few creative money-making ideas that resulted in notice from the home office and my early ascent up the management ladder.
My out of the box, clever thinking also drew attention from a young want to be entrepreneur that was working in the home office, Steve Davis. He was attracted to my “no guts no glory” approach to the business and he had a restaurant concept of his own and was looking for a partner. After we sat down and had many development sessions we gave our two-week employment notice at RG Maxwell’s and broadcast our plans to open our own restaurant.
Following with what we had observed of the Maxwell’s style of replicating the formula of a known successful restaurant, we decided to copy the S & D Oyster Co. in Dallas. It was a simple and successful restaurant that we thought would be easy to put together. It all seemed so simple while in the planning stages but in hind sight, there were several mistakes in our plans. The first mistake being our choice of city, we thought San Antonio would be the perfect city. The big mistake in this choice was the number of residents in the Alamo City that had disposable income or rather the lack of this required populace. Between the seven military bases and the huge Hispanic population (that was not at all interested in our cuisine), we appealed to a smaller population than anticipated. We found a restaurant location hidden in the old Alamo Heights neighborhood on Broadway Street that was a failed and fallen Black-eyed Pea Restaurant owned by Gene Street and Phil Cobb. Second mistake in our planning, if a Black-eyed Pea Restaurant couldn’t survive, not a good indicator and the issue with this location was confirmed when I walked up to the locked-up door and read the handwritten sign on the front door, “We were here and you were not. Now you are here and we are not”. The Black-eyed Pea had completed all the costly renovations so it seemed like a steal, but, this indeed was our mistake number two. Howard Johnson was right when he said “There are three things that make a restaurant successful…location…. location…location”. The front entrance door of the restaurant was down a hidden alley, but we had already drunk the Kool Aid and had convinced ourselves we could overcome this visibility issue, we could not have been more WRONG I say in all caps.
I did have previous experience of opening a restaurant on a shoe string budget, not ideal, but it forces you to be creative. So, we got a cash loan from my dad and voila we were open for business, the Broadway Oyster Company was born! We were open for lunch and dinner with Steve running the front of the house and I was chief in charge in the kitchen. This was my first time being solely in charge of the back of the house, it was a modest menu concept and it turned out to be a great introduction for me in to the kitchen world. Fresh and simple was our motto. Simple lasted about a week because our daily specials were so well received that these dishes were put on to the permanent menu and now you have just doubled your prep list for the kitchen crew. The back bone of my kitchen was a brother and sister team, Louie and Maria. I would order 300 lbs. of whole red fish per order and they arrived so fresh that they still had the slime and smell of the ocean which I would then hand to Louie and he would have them fileted in short order, lickety split. I soon realized that a reliable shucker was like a dishwasher, you cannot operate a restaurant called “Oyster Co.” without them. They became the most valuable employee if they didn’t show up. We went through sacks and sacks and sacks of oysters daily delivered fresh from Louisiana. My shucking record was seven sacks of fresh oysters shucked in one shift. Harry the Hippie soon became my favorite oyster shucker, he looked just like Jimmy Hendricks and man could he shuck. One little trick I learned along the way was the best way to guarantee that you had a complete kitchen staff was to hop in my car and run a pick up and drop off service for the kitchen crew. It was worth the gas money to ensure that I had my ass covered, as shucking was just not my favorite thing.
In San Antonio restaurants, diners were accustomed to receiving a complimentary warm basket of chips and salsa shortly after they were seated to start things off. So, our answer to this was our waiters served a complimentary basket of fresh savory hush puppies to every table, we thought hush puppies would set the mood. We served the pups with several dipping sauces; our spicy tomato dipping sauce was the favorite. Point of interest…hush puppies got their name during the poor post-civil war Deep South when the plantation cook was frying corn fritters, the hungry pups were barking at her feet so she threw a corn 🌽 fritter at them while saying “hush puppies”. I guess it stuck.
Having our front entrance in an alleyway was detrimental and we were learning the hard lesson of the importance of location. It became obvious that we needed to make our presence known and get out there and promote…. promote…. promote, anything to make the residents of San Antonio aware of us and get them in the door.
ENTER THE LAND SHARK. 
The land shark was knocking on doors on Saturday Night Live and was drawing lots of attention among its millions of viewers. We were needing lots of attention and a big boost in guests so I began a search for a land shark costume of my very own. I found one made of flexible, dense foam covered in gray fabric, with gills, eyes, fins etc. with a realistic shark look in a cartoon sort of way. I had a double-sided sign made; advertising our restaurant’s name, hours, and our fresh seafood and mounted it on a holding stick. I would smoke a big fatty and then slip into the hot shark costume, grab my sign and head out to the concrete divider on busy Broadway Street. Poking my head out of its menacing wide opened mouth with the ominous sharp shark’s teeth I would wave at the cars with one fin, while holding my sign firmly in the other fin. I was pelted by all kinds of things from tennis balls to coke cans, as well as all types of verbal assaults flying at me, the speeding cars and the honking, it took a while to get used to this sensory overload. The chaos I created got attention, mission accomplished, I even got interviewed by the local news. The restaurant got calls from confused parents saying that their kids were driving them a little crazy because every time they got in the car to go anywhere, the kids wanted to drive down Broadway Street to see the land shark. My shark shenanigans created confusion and brought us attention but this did not translate into enough business. We tried everything else to draw them in the door from daily specials to happy hours for food and drink. I think we would have succeeded eventually, but it would take years and we did not have the financial backing to wait it out. Debby and I had added to our family and had our new baby girl, Kristen and I just could not wait it out. We just wanted and needed volume and profits NOW.
“Good time Charlie got the blues, you’re not a kid at 33 anymore” was pretty applicable as I was 33 with a family to consider. This was also about the time that my drinking was getting more out of control. There was a bar just down the street that served a frozen margarita. One of the regular customers said“this is so weak a BABY could drink it” so the bartender floated a shot of tequila on top and the baby margarita was born and it became my drink of choice and I drank plenty.
Meanwhile, Gert was talking about opening another restaurant in the Hill Country just outside of Austin and it didn’t take a lot of convincing to convince Steve. We had given it a good college try, but it was time to close. It was on to Austin and a new adventure.
My favorite dish from Broadway Oyster Co. menu was the gumbo and we served gallons of it once I learned how to cook a dark roux without burning it. It was trial and error for me but I must say once I got it, I really got it. When you cook a deep brown roux, the gluten is encapsulated in the deep brown crust. In short, the roux loses its thickening power, but is full of flavor. If you have a thick, pasty gumbo the roux was not cooked enough. The Louisiana cookbooks say “begin each day with a dark roux”. The other trick is to have a flavorful stock. Reduce, reduce, reduce. You may think your stock is disappearing, but do not worry, it is getting intense flavor. Once you have a good flavored base you can add anything you want. Below is my gumbo recipe. It’s easy to make it your own recipe, just change 3 things. There is no error combining flavors. Do whatever your taste buds tell you. My taste buds tell me not to combine seafood with meat flavors (red meat). Chicken and sausages are good together. Oysters and crayfish are a tasty combo. Oysters and chicken tastes muddy to me. Below you will find my recipe for duck and sausage gumbo. The official way to serve gumbo is to serve approximately 3 tablespoons of white rice in the bottom of a 12-ounce bowl, with hot sauce (tobasco) & file(sassafras) on the side …. so you can customize your gumbo. Seafood is easy to overcook, be careful. I always add seafood just before service. ENJOY THE CRAFT!!
Duck and Sausage Gumbo
Ingredients
1 store bought duck (2 wild ducks)
1 cup AP flour (for the roux).
4 tablespoons chopped garlic
3 cups chopped yellow onion
2 cups chopped celery
1 cup chopped poblano pepper
2 quarts poultry stock (If you are using box stock simmer it until it is reduced 50%. So, you need to start with a gallon. Strengthen it with chicken bouillon. Be careful this adds extra salt.)
¼ cup file gumbo (ground sassafras)
4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Tabasco (adds heat be careful)
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons sea salt or to taste
1 tablespoon cayenne (its hot…adjust according)
1 lb. of sliced sausage
2 cups cooked white rice
Method
Cook white rice and set aside for service
Roast duck 🦆 in a 350-degree oven.
Reserve 1 cup of duck fat for the roux.
Cool duck and then pull the meat.
Reserve meat for gumbo.
Cut up the duck carcass and simmer it with the stock.
Simmer the 1 cup of duck fat with 1 cup of flour to make the roux. You must constantly whisk the roux on medium low heat. Cast iron works best.
In a heavy bottomed pot add the strained stock
Whisk in the roux, garlic, onion, celery and poblano peppers.
Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes.
Add all the spices, duck and sausages.
Simmer for 1 hour and serve.
It’s better day 2.