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The Best Sauce Is Hunger
A Branford restaurant makes a go of it with a generous prix-fixe menu and an owner with flair
Company: Nata's, 779 E. Main Street, Branford 06405 (203-315-0180)
Principal: Richard McLain
No. employees: 21 (18 part-time)
Startup date: June 15, 1996 Startup costs: $25,000
Financing: Personal First-year revenues: est. $120,000
Profitable?: Yes Principal drawing salary?: Yes
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Business New Haven
11/17/1997
By: Kevin Wheeler
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Service: Restaurant offers a fixed-price dinner menu (hors d'oeuvres, salad, entrée, dessert and coffee or tea) for $12. No alcohol served. Lunch is $6 á la carte. Open daily. Dinner starts at 6 p.m.; lunch served Tuesday through Saturday 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.
Restaurateurs are a tough breed. They work long, odd hours and in many respects start their businesses from scratch each day.
Nata's Richard McLain, Rick or Ricky to those of his acquaintance, is not only tough, he is a survivor. He has earned his own way from a young age, working off and on in restaurants since he was 13.
When he opened Nata's, he was juggling work at the state Department of Correction as a community-service officer reintegrating ex-offenders into society. After he got off work at 4:30 he would head home to change, get to the restaurant around five and open the doors at six to work solo as host, chef and dishwasher. Adding to the stakes, he says he put off paying bills to keep the restaurant afloat for the initial six months.
That he could have survived to grow from a one-man operation to a restaurant with 21 employees and turn a profit in the first year sounds fishy - until you see McLain in action: He has only two gears - fifth and neutral - and runs on a combination of ambition and something akin to madness.
Though he needs no introduction, he always makes an entrance. On a dreary Friday afternoon, he flies into the restaurant, sticks out his hand to introduce himself, tosses his keys and cigarettes on a table, plops down his soft-sided leather briefcase, drapes his leather jacket over the back of a booth and moves quick to answer the phone.
In about ten minutes, he takes care of two or three delivery men, answers more calls, takes reservations, straightens some things out in the kitchen, pours himself a cup of coffee, grabs an ashtray and tells his visitor she's about to see a very bad habit he has. Camels. He smokes the poor things.
McLain named Nata's after his oldest daughter, Natasha (not Satan spelled backward), whom he refers to as the restaurant's “creative force,” most notably responsible for the ceiling painted like a sky with clouds. By contrast his youngest, nine-year-old Jessica, is the “business partner.” He says he runs all the numbers by her.
Those numbers didn't look so good for the first seven months. Nata's lost money until February, when McLain's luck turned. Patronage crept up in March and April, and by May Nata's was grossing about $20,000 a month. June doubled to around $40,000.
Nata's didn't change over that time. As it got busier, the food stayed equally good and easily one of the best values around (a fixed-price menu for $12, inclusive of appetizer, salad, entrée, dessert and beverage). He brought in his nephew, Michael Lavoie, who in some ways assumed McLain's style, which is courteous and considerate but strikingly familiar and unpredictable. If a customer asks for sour cream, it's not unusual to get the tub and a spoon. Or, for one of them to start loosening up customers with hugs or pulling up a chair to joke around.
Although the price is fixed, the menu isn't. Customers can get entrées prepared virtually any way they want. As a guide, the staff lists the fish and meat offered that night along with a variety of sauces and preparation.
Because Nata's average per-person cost is the prix-fixe, $12, the staff's income depends on the generosity of tippers. It's a gesture easily made.
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