Nicois' demise sign of times

The Denver Post
January 7, 2003

Nicois' demise sign of times for eateries Customers' tastes dictate success of restaurants Major restaurant closings: 2002
Author: William Porter Denver Post Staff Writer

Edition: TUE SCENE
Section: SCN
Page: F-01

Echoes of New Year's Eve revelers scarcely had faded at Nicois restaurant when owner Kevin Taylor raised a champagne toast to his staff, thanked them for their hard work and announced the room was closed forever.

Two days later, he and partner Denise Mease, aided by some loyal staffers, carted dish boxes out the door. It was an ignominious end to the restaurant the high-profile Taylor opened six years ago in downtown Denver's refurbished Guaranty Bank building.

"Business is down in this economy, but our rents are as high as they've ever been," Mease says. "We've been dipping into our own pockets for payroll and purveyors. We can't do that any more. We need to regroup."

Denver's restaurants are as pinched as the economy. Everyone from waiters to industry analysts seems to agree on that. Consumers are dining out less and charging smaller tabs when they do; $50 bottles of wine are replaced by a lone $6 glass. Chains such as Maggiano's, Il Fornaio and the Cheesecake Factory, with their deep pockets, name recognition and buying power, siphon customers from the independents.

The Colorado Restaurant Association reported flat statewide sales through the fall, with 2002 sales projected at $5.9 billion in sales. That tops 2001 sales by 1.7 percent, less than half the 4.5 percent growth forecast a year ago.

Margins are nil at many restaurants. Recent closings include Sacre Bleu, Radex and Micole in Denver, plus Oasis in Boulder.

With the flintiest months of the restaurant year looming, more failures will likely follow, observers say.

Amid this gloom, an odd fact: New restaurants keep opening. Not just mom-and-pop joints, but trendy rooms with star chefs. Recent months have seen a string of splashy debuts: Opal, Vega, LoLa, Adega, Claire de Lune and the Coral Room - many in spaces lately occupied by splashy failures.

With customers clutching their wallets, owners and observers alike say kitchen Darwinism comes down to this: To survive, restaurants will need to offer a unique product at good value, with customers feeling welcome. And they must do this right out of the gate.

"The window for expensive restaurants who don't have their act together has snapped shut," says Wendy Aiello of Aiello Public Relations & Marketing, whose clients include restaurants. "If you're going to charge the money, you better be on the money.

"The chill factor of this economy, even for people whose household income hasn't gone down, is bone deep."

Five years ago, Kevin Taylor was the "It" chef on the Denver scene. National food magazines lauded him. His restaurant group expanded like a souffle: Dandelion in Boulder, Jou Jou and Kevin Taylor Restaurant in Denver; Palettes at the Denver Art Museum; and Brasserie Z, a room that would morph into Zenith, then Nicois.

Six weeks before closing Nicois, Taylor pulled the plug on Dandelion. Business was off 35 percent, he said, an unworkable margin.

"This has been very, very tough," says Taylor, who is retrenching in his three surviving restaurants. Colorado Restaurant Association president Peter Meersman says owners and chefs must be flexible. "You need to be nimble and listen to customers," he says.

"Lots of restaurants are re-tooling their menus to meet customer budgets." A realistic view of the clientele is crucial, says Jamey Fader, chef-owner at LoLa in Denver.

"Every chef's dream is to open a high-end fancy place where you can pour out all your creativity," he says. "But in doing that, sometimes you miss out on the demographic. What you want your restaurant to be is not always what customers want."

Fader, in partnership with restaurateur Dave Query, offers dishes from central Mexico at LoLa, which opened in late summer. The mid-priced menu changes monthly.

"The most acclaimed restaurants in critics' eyes tend to be the priciest ones," Fader says. "But the most profitable ones are where people eat five times a week."

He cites Chipotle Mexican Grill as a textbook case. The homegrown chain's formula: great burritos, big portions, cheap prices. Fader cites this kitchen truism: Your stomach knows best. "Think about what you crave when you wake up in the middle of the night," he says. "You don't want seared foie gras with truffles. You want egg rolls or a burger."

John Imbergamo, a hospitality consultant who heads the Imbergamo Group, says more shakeouts loom. Troubled restaurants try to stay open through New Year's Eve and that night's big-bucks biz.

"They want to get that money and close, because January and February are always lean," he says."Two words are central to the restaurant industry in the next year: uniqueness and value," Imbergamo says. "You can't just be another restaurant. You have to break out of the pack somehow."

No one's advising that restaurants start dispensing foot massages, but a unique offering is crucial. One such niche restaurant is Cuba Cuba, which opened 18 months ago in the Golden Triangle neighborhood. A cheery room boasting vibrant, mid-priced food and jumping bar, Cuba Cuba already owns a cadre of loyalists.

Co-owner Kristy Socarras says an eye for detail, plus routine injections of new looks and flavors, is a key to keeping restaurants afloat.

"Staying creative with food is important, especially for the regulars who know the menu," says Socarras, whose kitchen offers nightly non-menu dishes. "Having the owner on premises is also critical, for staff as well as customers."

Some chef-owners are running smaller rooms to stifle costs. Sean Kelly recently opened Claire de Lune, where he serves as the lone cook for its eight tables.

Aiming for profit with less overhead, Kelly also saves money by not taking credit cards; payment is by cash or check. Card companies charge restaurants fees for the service, and small rooms pay more than big ones. Claire de Lune would have to fork over a 4 percent surcharge to the company.

"I figured that comes to $15,000 or $20,000 a year," says Kelly, who doubles as his own bookkeeper. "With that money I can hire a dishwasher. I've really tried to keep everything streamlined."

Aiello points to the Irish Hound, a new venture in north Cherry Creek, as a template for tight times. Styled after a Dublin pub, the room features wood booths, simple but tasty food, and an array of beers. There are no white tablecloths. Waiters wear jeans.

"It's a very homey, cozy place," Aiello says. "If you can put out an amazing burger, you've got them." Aiello adds that the days of absentee owners are over.

"If you own a restaurant, it's time to get your butt back into your restaurant," she says. "You've got to be there making sure everything runs right. At the very least you need to give managers the power to make a customer happy if something goes wrong."

Not all restaurants are hurting. Imbergamo says business is up 13 percent over last year at Panzano Restaurant, one of his clients. Panzano and Nicois offer a study in the up-and-down nature of restaurants. A room's fate is not just tied to economic cycles. Good food and service is a must, but intangibles exist. Buzz counts.

A stone's throw from the defunct Nicois, Panzano chef Jennifer Jasinski is enjoying the sort of top-toque kudos once showered on Taylor. Three years ago she took an underachieving room and began dishing up top-drawer Italian fare. Raves followed. So did customers, including entertainers Gwyneth Paltrow and Sheryl Crow.

Jasinski is a model of an executive chef with her feet in the kitchen. When not wielding her tongs, she's checking outbound plates or walking the floor, greeting tables.

Attitude - or a lack of it - is important. "I don't know how many times I've seen the line, 'This is a restaurant Denver's never seen before,"' Imbergamo says. "Well, I think Denver has seen it before. No one wants to be treated like a rube."

Take Sacre Bleu, a restaurant that opened in 2000 with an ad campaign insisting it was the coolest thing to hit town since the Blizzard of '97. The vibe? Scrape the hay off your boots, Denver.

The Seventh Avenue room was spiffy, the food yummy, the service spotty. But Denver had seen the restaurant before, down to the way-1980s misbehavior at the bar.
Sacre Bleu shuttered a few months ago. Vega, Sean Yontz's new venture, just opened there.

"There's a fine line between what you as an owner want your restaurant to be and what the public perceives it to be," Fader says. "You have to evolve, but in a way customers like, not what you necessarily like."

Tony Walker has worked both ends of the Denver restaurant scene. He co-owns the Spicy Pickle shops, which specialize in premium sandwiches. But he is also former executive chef at Barolo Grill, Blair Taylor's high-end Italian restaurant on Sixth Avenue.

"People in Denver want great food, but they don't need a lot of pretense, especially when everyone is watching their budgets," Walker says. "People are going to go out to eat, but there's no margin of error for a restaurant. You have to make it worth their while."

Kim Adams, ex-chef at the Rhino, predicts ritzy establishments will seek a middle ground. "Restaurants that remain exclusively high-end aren't going to make it," she says. "They'll need to become places that aren't just for special occasions and anniversaries."

On a recent night at Cuba Cuba, Socarras was a blur, moving from bar to kitchen to front door. A party of six stepped in from the cold.

"I do my best to make these people happy because they've come all the way here to eat our food," Socarras said.

Then she was off to mingle with her customers.

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Major restaurant closings: 2002
Recent months have seen several high-profile casualties on the area restaurant scene, plus some optimistic openings. Among the closures:

Nicois - Dec. 2002. Nicois was the third restaurant owner Kevin Taylor ran in this space in the six years since moving into the former Guaranty Bank Building at 17th and Stout. Brasserie Z and Zenith were the others. Closed New Year's Eve after 15 months of operation.

Oasis Restaurant - Dec. 2002. The restaurant and brewpub arm of this Boulder brewery closed after a six-year run. The wholesale operation remains open.

Dandelion - Nov. 2002. Kevin Taylor's Boulder restaurant opened in 1997.

Papillon - July 2002. Chef Radek Cerny closed his long-standing room. Business was down 10 percent since 9/11, Cerny said, adding he mainly just needed a break. Replaced by Larry Herz's Indigo.

Radex - August 2002. The restaurant at Ninth and Lincoln was retooled by its owner into Opal just weeks after it closed.

Sacre Bleu - July 2002. Trendy restaurant opened with a bang in Spring 2000. Recently replaced by Vega.

Micole - March 2002. Occupied the old Greens and Hugh's space on South Pearl Street; closed after a two-year run. Replaced in late summer by LoLa.

- William Porter

Caption:
PHOTO: The Denver Post /Glen Martin Kevin Taylor's Nicois restaurant closed on New Year's Eve, just missing becoming one of the first dining casualties of 2003.