Restaurant Risk

Restaurant Risk

A retired hospitality industry executive knows he should know better than to open a restaurant during a severe industry slump. But the chance

to do it with his sons was too good to pass up.

Steve Seidensticker learned a lot of business concepts over the 25 years he spent working his way up from bartender to chief executive of a posh collection of waterfront hotels and restaurants on Boca Grande.

Top among those lessons: Timing goes a long way toward determining success, be it a new menu item, a change in decor or opening an entirely new restaurant. Given that, it appears Seidensticker might be developing a case of selective amnesia because, along with his two sons, he's opening a new restaurant during what could be peak hours of the Gulf Coast's economic slump.

The Seidenstickers - Steve and his sons Joe and Patrick - are currently putting the finishing touches on Libby's Cafe + Bar, on Osprey Avenue in Sarasota's Southside Village, a few miles south of downtown. The 9,000-square-foot restaurant, in the space once occupied by Fred's Restaurant, a popular spot with the Sarasota business crowd, is scheduled to open Oct. 14.

It's the ultimate contrarian play: Opening a restaurant during an economic downturn that only seems to get worse as time goes on.

"I'm not foolishly optimistic," says the elder Seidensticker, who came out of retirement from his past gig running the Gasaparilla Inn, a conglomerate of five restaurants, two hotels, a spa, a marina and a beach club in Boca Grande to open Libby's with his sons. "We went into this with our eyes wide open. We know what we are facing."

Although the pot of entrepreneurs and budding restaurateurs willing to face the current market challenges is shrinking in step with the economic slide, there are several others, like the Seidenenstickers, lurking on the Gulf Coast.

Tampa-based OSI, for instance, the parent of the Outback Steakhouse chain, recently spent nearly $1 million to upgrade and redo an Outback in Sarasota. And the owners of Gecko's Grill & Pub, a small chain of restaurants in Manatee and Sarasota counties, are spending about $700,000 on a pair of renovation projects.

But Libby's is more than a renovation, say its owners. It's a rebirth of a restaurant in an area that is in need of one, ever since the previous owners of Fred's closed it earlier this year.

"We want to integrate ourselves in this neighborhood," says Patrick Seidensticker. "We want to be a place where people come one or two times a week."

The formula to achieve that devoted customer following at Libby's - named for Steve Seidensticker's mom, Libby Seidensticker, whose surname is German - is to combine some restaurant staff star power with a full-service, anything to anyone kind of menu. The Seidenstickers call the menu Florida Cuisine.

Meanwhile the star power from the personnel side features a mix of local and imported players. Locally, the restaurant manager is Molly Klauber, daughter of Michael Klauber, a well-known Sarasota entrepreneur whose family runs several restaurants, including Michael's on East. In addition to working for her family, Molly Klauber has managed the floors at two other trendy Sarasota restaurants: Selva Grill and Zoria.

And the restaurant's executive chef is Fran Casciato, who comes to Libby's straight from Miami, where he was behind the food and menus of several Miami-area restaurants, including DeVito South Beach, which actor Danny DeVito opened a few years ago. Casciato says he contacted Seidensticker for the Libby's head chef opening - after seeing an ad for it on Craig's List - because he was looking to step back from the intensity of working in Miami.

People like Klauber and Casciato are why the younger generation of Seidenstickers doesn't necessarily share their father's market-driven worries. Patrick Seidensticker, for instance, says that even though the family is borrowing a "small amount" to refurbish the restaurant, it's worth it; the family declines to elaborate on exactly how much it's putting into Libby's, only to say that it's close, but not over $100,000 - so far.

"It's a large risk," says Patrick Seidensticker, 22, who graduated from Tulane University with a degree in Finance and Philosophy. "But the upside is more huge."

Adds Joe Seidensticker, 26, who was considering attending the Culinary Institute of America before staying closer to home at Rollins College in Orlando: "The ultimate dream was for us to own our own place."

- Mark Gordon