Payton's Place

The most brilliant restaurateur in London slathers a bit of American on every dish. The English eat it up.

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Being American is the only thing I'm good at," booms Bob Payton, ripping a meaty pig bone from therack of ribs on his plate. He is sitting in The Chicago Rib Shack, one of his four favorite restaurants in London. The others are The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory and two joints called Henry J. Bean's But His Friends All Call Him Hank Bar and Grill. He owns them all. He also owns his favorite restaurant in Barcelona, Spain, and his soon-to-be favorite restaurant in Paris -- both Chicago Pizza Pie Factories.

The restaurants are knockout examples of how to export American Culture. The Rib Shack, for example, where the proprietor has chosen to eat today, is a $1.2-million piece of Chicago on Raphael Street in the Knightsbridge section of London. There is a huge curved mahogany bar where Payton enjoys watching the British, refugees of wretchedly cramped pubs, negotiate for drinks without the embarrassment of having to elbow one another aside to get at them. There are stained-glass windows and a flashing light sculpture that reads BONE APPETIT. No other sign is needed: Rib-bones -- smoked and marinated in a secret barbecue sauce before being given a final spin under the broiler -- are the principal entry on the menu.

The Rib Shack opened in 1982, to just the sort of notices an American (if he was good at being one) would hope for. "Carniverous," huffed the [London] critic. "Artless," sniffed The [London] Evening Standard. "A horribly jaunty menu," lisped Tatler magazine. The word-of-mouth reviews were more balanced. "I can see why they call Chicago the Windy City," said one British patron. "The food is quite good, but, how shall I phrase it . . . Let's just say that there are certain gastric consequences after enjoying one of Mr. Payton's meals."

Payton smiles, stabs a fork into a creamy banana cheesecake, and says loudly: "I call this place The Chicago Rib Shack for the same reason I named The Pizza Factory after Chicago. I wanted to give the product a birthplace, a heritage." Europe, you might suppose, has quite enough heritage of its own, and in truth the continent is strewn with the bones of American products that failed to "take" in that alien culture. General Motors Corp. went into Belgium only to discover that its famous "Body by Fisher" slogan translated into Flemish as "Corpse by Fisher." General Mills Inc. bombed in the UK by putting cute freckle-faced, carrot-topped kids on its cereal boxes, failing to foresee that the English would associate them with Irish Republican Army terrorists. Pepsi-Cola flopped in Germany because "Come Alive!" was misunderstood, in German, as a call to rise from the grave.

Bob Payton, however, has foisted his Chicago heritage on Europeans with appalling success. He has taught Barcelona sophisticates how to devour two-inch thick hunks of Chicago pizza while listening to the Ronettes. In London, 14,000 Brits a week shed a century's worth of inbred dining propriety as they tear into Payton's slithery ribs, their dignity guarded by one simple plastic bib. In Paris, thousands of patrons will soon be instructed by Payton himself in the sophomorically American art of chugging a pitcher of beer without causing a brawl.

This is no Harry's Bar phenomenon -- a little corner of America in Europe where, in the 1920s, expatriates like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald would huddle together out of the Old World cold. Payton's restaurants and gin mills are the avant-garde of a cultural takeover bid. Between the pizza place and the rib joint, he sells 1 1/2 tons of ribs, 230 cases of beer, and a Niagara of pepperoni every week. The Queen herself is rumored to have dined on his tender ribs. (Without the plastic bib, however. A Buckingham Palace source revealed that "H.R.H. used a knife and fork.") Through a trust called Boogie & Pal Ltd., Payton enjoys the benefits of a tax haven in Bermuda. His return on this invasion, which he launched in 1977 with $120,000, is already some $9 million a year.

"I must go back to the States for about a month a year to eat and recharge my batteries," exclaims this 240-pound Yankee at Elizabeth's Court. He finishes his meal now, wiping his greasy fingers with a scented towel. "But I get excited when I land at Heathrow [Airport] and see the long lines of black London cabs . . . . I love the smell of diesel smoke in the morning. It smells like victory!"

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