Fate Takes a Hand
Investing in restaurants was not always the formal,
complicated process it is today. In 1985, Drew Nieporent, a young, ambitious,
Cornell-trained foodie, was looking for investors to help him jump-start his
career. At a Manhattan bus stop, he bumped into a former coworker from the
restaurant 24 Fifth.
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“Hey,” Nieporent asked, “know anyone who wants to invest
in a restaurant?”
“I do,” replied the friend, who soon was able to come up
with $50,000.
That investment, along with Nieporent’s life savings of
$50,000, $50,000 from Tony Zuzula (another Cornell alumnus), a loan of $75,000
from the Small Business Administration and $25,000 from his mother (after his
father turned him down), launched a career that has made Nieporent a lion in the
international restaurant business.
Nieporent answered an opportunities ad in
the New York Times for a space in a desolate and undiscovered part of Manhattan
renting for $12 per square foot, then set about creating Montrachet. Seven weeks
after its opening, the restaurant received a three-star review in the Times. “It
was like winning the lottery,” Nieporent recalls, and he was on his
way.
After six months in this once-forlorn space, Nieporent took over an
adjoining woodworking shop and added 2,000 square feet. It went from a café
seating only 40 to 60 to a 100-seat establishment. Along the way he virtually
invented the neighborhood (Tribeca), propelled the career of a relatively
unknown chef (David Bouley) and teamed with celebrities including Robert De Niro
and Robin Williams in several other ventures. Nieporent now has 19 diverse food
enterprises in his realm. Not a day goes by that someone does not pitch him a
new opportunity to run a restaurant or invest in one.
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