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  I was doing my usual routine of running around and getting in everyone's business—you know, managing. I always tried to deliver my “orders” lightheartedly, like I was making a serious suggestion but joking around at the same time. If you can show your staff you have a sense of humor, it goes a long way. On this night, I noticed that the guy working the grill was being a little lackadaisical. A little sloppy.

  “Be careful,” I told him. “You're being a little lackadaisical.”

  He got a little ornery. I will spare you his more “expansive” language. Suffice it to say, his response ended with a simple directive.

  “You take over,” he said.

  I didn't hesitate a second. Unbeknownst to the grill man, I had plenty of experience cooking on a grill from those summers at camp. I felt pretty confident.

  As it happened, I ended up burning myself pretty badly. But I made some quality burgers. The staff noticed me working the grill, and I proved to everyone that there was nothing I wouldn't do. As the night drew to a close, I got on my knees with a flashlight and cleaned the grease off the floor.

  You don't need to do other people's jobs as a manager. But your employees should know that you're willing to mop, bus, or get down on your knees with a flashlight to wipe up grease with them, should the need arise.

  In addition to building credibility with the staff, I made it my business to establish credibility with the Hard Rock clientele.

  As I indicated, in those days the restaurant was immensely popular with musicians and celebrities. There were always famous people there: Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Elton John, Jack Nicholson, Darryl Strawberry, Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez. (The Mets were there all the time.) While the rest of the staff was fawning all over these beautiful people, I made sure they got impeccable service, and didn't get taken advantage of if they were a little tipsy, or otherwise indisposed. I made sure they felt safe.

  It didn't go unnoticed.

  The stars saw how hard I worked. They came to rely on me. In that way, I developed real relationships with some of them.

  I probably had more interaction with Keith Hernandez than anyone else. He stopped by most nights to meet up with friends. He frequently invited me to parties he was going to after dinner, or to go to a Mets game as his guest. But I wasn't as interested in being his friend as I was in being his favorite restaurant manager.

  “How many times have I asked you to go to games?” Keith asked me one night at the restaurant.

  “I wish I could go,” I said. “But I need to be here.”

  He respected my answer.

  I wasn't Keith's pal, but he saw me as a serious person.

  Business goes up and business goes down; consistency over time is what equals credibility.

  Every day, I was at the Hard Rock from about 3:00 in the afternoon to 5:00 in the morning. I managed nine people at the door and around 150 in the restaurant. Day or night, there was a line of 200 to 250 people waiting outside that wouldn't start to dwindle until 2 a.m.

  I was on my game at the Hard Rock. It was some of the best managing I've ever done. I knew I was at the perfect place, at the perfect time. I couldn't wait to go to work every day, and I felt like I was coming down every time I left. Maybe that was why it wasn't unusual for me to call a meeting at 4 or 5 in the morning, when the rest of the staff was bleary-eyed and keeling over the tables, to go over what had happened the night before. There was always something I felt we could do better.

  Unfortunately, I worked so intensely that I made myself sick. I was getting very little sleep and wasn't taking the time to eat right. I just wasn't taking care of myself; I was only taking care of the restaurant.

  Your ability to succeed in any endeavor depends primarily on your state of mind. If you can summon the will to truly commit yourself, you can achieve almost anything. Occasionally, when you're in that zone, striving to operate at your highest levels, you get consumed. You forget to eat and shower. But that can be a good thing. No one makes money eating and showering.

  I felt like I had the most exhilarating, rewarding job on the planet. But after a few months, I started to realize that no matter how far I rose at the Hard Rock, it would never be mine.

  I could never truly be responsible for the Hard Rock's success. The ingredients for that were in place long before I arrived—the unique décor of authentic rock and roll memorabilia; the brand; the location; the celebrities who filled the place with electricity on a nightly basis. It was as if I had come in and flipped the switch of a powerful machine. I felt like I was running a family business, but wasn't a member of the family. No matter how much of myself I poured into the Hard Rock, it would never fill me up emotionally and spiritually.

  So I started seeing the job as more of a learning experience. Every day on my way to work, I made believe that I was going to school. The restaurant was a giant classroom with teachers and lessons everywhere. I may not have an advanced degree, but the Hard Rock was better than any business school. “What's bringing all these people here?” I asked myself. “What's inspiring them to wait two to three hours in line outside?”

  I left the Hard Rock after working there about a year and three months. I heard that they increased the staff by about 30 percent to replace me. That was enormously flattering to hear—but it also made me realize that maybe I should have hired more staff. I couldn't believe I had tried to do so much by myself.

  Managing at the Hard Rock probably took years off my life. But it was a very happy time for me—a priceless experience. I made so many friends and contacts. And because I was working so much, I didn't have time to spend the money I was making. I just salted it away, which would come in handy later on.

  Chapter 6

  The Only Sports Bar in New York

  Even though I was a sports fanatic my whole life, it took a dose of serendipity to steer me into the sports business.

  One night while I was working at the Hard Rock, my girlfriend Nina came home with an announcement for me.

  “There's a big sports bar opening downtown, in Tribeca,” she said. “It's called The Sporting Club. You should go check it out.”

  In 1985, Tribeca (Manhattan's Triangle Below Canal Street) wasn't the fashionable, hip area it is today. It was a ghost town of abandoned cast-iron warehouses and factories, and decrepit, Colonial-looking brick buildings that had survived from the 1700s and 1800s.

  The Sporting Club was located at 99 Hudson Street. Although Nobu and Tribeca Grill would open years later on that very block, the neighborhood was deserted at the time.

  The restaurant had a big-screen TV, a scoreboard showing results of every game and race held that day, and pretty nice décor. Marble tables. Marble bar. White tablecloths. The service was very upscale. Many of the meals were cooked tableside, by waiters in smart, tailored uniforms. They were aiming to give their customers Vegas-style treatment.

  The Sporting Club also had one of the first satellite dishes installed in New York City, but it seemed like no one there knew how to use the thing (trust me, it was no DirecTV). People would come from out of town just to see a specific game, and it often took 10 to 15 minutes for the staff to find the right broadcast. The owner was paying an arm and a leg for satellite service every month, and it was clear he was far from getting his money's worth.

  The place was relatively empty. On any given day, there were 2,000 covers at the Hard Rock, while The Sporting Club seemed like it had about 5 to 10.

  It was impossible not to see this cavernous, quiet restaurant's potential. A little voice in my head told me that what the Hard Rock was to music lovers, the Sporting Club could be to sports fanatics.

  I introduced myself to the owner, Billy Rose, and we shot the bull for a bit. I told him I had some ideas for the restaurant. I knew I didn't need to describe them; I just needed to invite him.

  “Why don't you visit me at the Hard Rock?” I asked him.

  “What night is best?” Billy asked.

  “Any night,” I said. “It really wo
n't matter.”

  He came on a Tuesday, which was perfect. Normally, Tuesday was a pretty quiet night all over the city. It was anything but that at The Hard Rock. The place was bumping.

  I gave Billy a tour and we sat down for a drink.

  “Look at this place,” I said, sweeping the room with my arm. “Why can't we do this with the Sporting Club?”

  “I don't know,” he said. “You think that's possible?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “Besides, I can't watch any games working here.”

  I felt confident that I had acquired the skills and know-how to turn around the Sporting Club. And since it didn't have much of a personality, I knew I could put my own mark on it. I couldn't wait.

  My work at the Hard Rock, and my eagerness to give it up to work for his empty restaurant impressed Billy sufficiently. He offered to double my salary, make me the general manager; and he promised me a percentage of profits.

  It was a done deal.

  Billy's vision had been to model his place after The 21 Club, a famous restaurant, bar, and lounge in midtown that had originally opened in 1922 as a speakeasy. Decorated with antique toys and sports memorabilia, it's been featured in countless movies and TV shows, and it's been a go-to hangout for celebrities, politicians, and even gangsters. Jeans were not permitted. Men had to wear jackets and ties. It was as ritzy and prestigious as New York City got, and the closest you could get to Las Vegas glamour in New York.

  But the Sporting Club fell far short of The 21 Club. Billy had neglected the intangibles that made The 21 Club famous—the star-studded clientele, the Prohibition history, the overall reputation and buzz. He had a shell without the filling. It was a 12 at best; maybe a 13.

  The place had been open for about a month, but most nights, only a few people came in.

  One night I invited Keith Hernandez and his crew to the Sporting Club. After he sat down, Keith looked around at the empty tables, and then he looked back at me.

  “Are you crazy?” he asked, bewildered by my decision. “You left the Hard Rock for this?”

  But all I could see was potential. At the time, there were only two veritable sports bars in the country where you could go to watch a non-local game on satellite or closed-circuit television: Bobby V's in Stamford, Connecticut, and Ultimate, in Chicago. There was more than enough room in New York City for such a place.

  I went to work.

  My first order of business was learning how to properly operate the satellite dish.

  It's nice to have assets. But if you're not properly utilizing them, they're nothing but liabilities.

  I brought in a treasure trove of sports memorabilia and a slew of additional televisions to liven the place up. I reinvented the menu. Basically, I turned the place into the basement I never had as a kid—albeit a bit more upscale. I retrained the entire staff.

  I worked like a dog. I didn't have set hours. When I woke up in the morning, I went to work. And I stayed until 2 a.m. Five months straight, without a day off.

  Most importantly, I brought the buzz.

  The Hard Rock taught me many, many things—but the one thing that really stood out was that celebrities attract people.

  Stars and Bars

  On nights when business was slow I invited celebrities I knew from the Hard Rock to come and tend bar. Part of the proceeds always went to charity; liquor and soda companies helped me promote the appearances. Sometimes I even got a little radio time. There were nights when you could go to the Sporting Club to see a big football game or boxing match, and the likes of Carl Banks, Wayne Gretzky, Jerry Cooney, Mark Gastineau, or Walt Frazier would be behind the bar, mixing drinks. We gave them a little training when they got there, but they pretty much winged it. When Wayne Gretzky makes you a martini, it tastes delicious no matter what the heck's in it.

  Creating celebrity bartender nights was one of the biggest initiatives I undertook at the Sporting Club. It was a page straight out of my mom's playbook, a lesson on bringing in customers on usually-slow nights. You'd be surprised how much room there is to turn your worst business days into some of your best. My mom used to promote two-for-one deals on wash and sets at the salon on her slow nights. At the Sporting Club, I wrangled up celebrity bartenders.

  The Celebrity Bartender Nights were a huge success, and they began to bring to the Sporting Club the kind of traffic Billy had envisioned when he opened the place. Soon, they naturally evolved into our Fight Nights.

  Boxing was huge in the 1980s. It was the last golden age for the sport, with icons like Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, and Mike Tyson enjoying their primes. There were great fights all the time, and everyone wanted to watch them.

  The problem was that hardly anyone had cable back then, let alone HBO or Showtime. And forget pay-per-view. So most people just couldn't watch boxing at home. Bars, restaurants, and movie theaters bought the rights to big fights on closed-circuit television—or via satellite—and people came to watch them. At the Sporting Club, there were even a lot of athletes and celebrities who regularly came in to watch boxing.

  I turned this standard practice into a celebrated event at the Sporting Club. I paid some of the athletes and celebrities—who usually came in to watch the fights anyway—to come for my special Fight Night parties, and we promoted those appearances ahead of time. The place would get totally packed.

  We really did it right. We had great food and liquor. We even had ring girls. It was a huge party, like at the Hard Rock, but for sports fans. That was the first time I really began to work with athletes and celebs—hiring them for our Fight Nights. We regularly drew names like Mickey Mantle, Charles Oakley, Lawrence Taylor, Dan Marino, Alex Trebek, and Dustin Hoffman. It wouldn't be unusual to have 10 to 20 stars at a Fight Night.

  We were basically the first true sports bar in the country. Sure, there were bars that featured sports on TV, but we were the first to focus on sports. The Sporting Club was the place to be—and my Rolodex grew fatter and fatter.

  One night we hosted a huge charity event where we inducted three athletes into the newly created Sporting Club Wall of Fame: Knicks legend Walt Frazier; Rangers legend Rod Gilbert; and Floyd Patterson, former heavyweight champion of the world. A cadre of stars showed up, including sizable contingents of Yankees and Mets players.

  I couldn't believe it. New York City's major leaguers—coming to an event I created!

  My mom had visited the Sporting Club when I first started there and had seen how empty it was. On this night, four months later, she had to fight through a long line and a crush of people inside just to reach me.

  I remember seeing her big hair weaving through the crowd, like a periscope above the surface of the water. When her colorful face appeared, it revealed a shining smile.

  She gave me a big hug.

  “Do you realize what you've done here?” she said, beaming. “I think you got it. I think you're ready for big things.”

  Chapter 7

  Waiting to be Struck by Lightning

  A couple of years ago, I saw the documentary Joan Rivers: A Peace of Work, which chronicles the life and career of the fearless—and Brooklyn-raised—comedienne. In the film, discussing Joan's unbelievable resilience, her friend Larry Thompson says, “You can't get hit by lightning if you're not standing out in the rain. Nobody can stand in the rain longer than Joan Rivers.”

  This quote resonated with me because people are always asking me: “How did you get started?” But I can't single out any one moment as the point where I got started. The answer is as long as this book! In other words, my success was more about standing in the rain and capitalizing on the opportunities—the lightning bolts—when they came along, even when they weren't quite what I envisioned.

  But for those who want something slightly more specific—well, let's just say this chapter comprises some of the more formative rainstorms I stood in as my career really began to take shape.

  Making Connections

  After working at the Sporting Club for
about 14 months, Billy and I began to get under each other's skin a bit. I felt he was a little too lax as an owner—that he wasn't sufficiently detail-oriented to maximize the restaurant's potential. Looking back, I'm sure Billy thought I was a little too intense. I eventually left, but in the end, it was a pretty amicable split.

  My leaving the Sporting Club was a more important turning point for me than I realized at the time. From my time managing the restaurants at the Hyatt in Baltimore, through the Holiday Inn in Danbury, the Hard Rock, and most recently the Sporting Club, I had more or less been working over 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for almost four years. And it wasn't like I had been sitting at a desk. It was four years of loud music, smoke, junk food, tending to movie stars and athletes and drunks, and all the rest of it. I was burned out. Physically and emotionally. I had trouble sleeping. I was only 26 at the time, but I felt like I was 100.

  At the tail end of my time at the Sporting Club, Billy had recommended to me a therapist named Rita Sperling. I began seeing her twice a week. The year or so I spent in therapy with Rita was a tremendous step for me. She helped me recognize that I was still angry and confused by my childhood. (Initially she couldn't quite believe that the stories of my childhood weren't exaggerated, so my mother even came with me for a few sessions, to corroborate them.) Rita helped me come to terms with some of the issues I had from that period. For a long time, I had needed to take my foot off the gas; now, with some help, I was finally able to slow down a bit. I changed my attitude for the better; I started to behave more consistently with my family and friends, and to think seriously about where I was and where I was going.

  A positive attitude opens up doors you don't even know are there, and this time period was a good example of that. Right around the time I started counseling, a friend of mine introduced me to a man named Peter DuPre.