Why Did Alinea Publish Its Business Plan Before Opening?

Alinea published its business plan before opening so strangers could fix it and so future guests would already feel part of it. Nick Kokonas was reading restaurant how-to books, including Restaurant for Dummies, and they were not teaching him how to run the place, the same way options textbooks had not taught him how to trade. He built one spreadsheet, the Universal Restaurant Calculator. One tab, about 80 cells, and the cost of insurance is a single cell. He thinks the bar to opening is low, which is why so many restaurants fail. A good dinner party is enough to convince someone they can do it.

He put the plan on eGullet, a food forum whose archive is still up, and called the thread the Alinea Project. Names they considered, names they rejected, how the menu was coming. It drew hundreds of thousands of views. Food & Wine, Gourmet, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal paid attention. He agreed with the aim that it should look bad for Michelin if the guide skipped them. He thinks the post itself said they were trying to build the best restaurant in America, and that it had to be profitable. Sean Brock was the first customer through the door, and the New York Times head food critic was in the room on opening night. Kokonas says the same restaurant, opened in silence, had no chance of being as good.