Therapy is so pervasive it has put off some people who otherwise might have pursued jobs with the company, according to Lee Cohn, president of Big 4 Restaurants Inc., in Phoenix, a partner in the Ed Debevic's chain. But Lettuce's managers swear by therapy. No one bristles at being asked, "Do you see a shrink?" "If you're feeling more balanced emotionally, you run the company better," says Kevin Brown.
All this nurturing behavior tends to mask Melman's fiercely competitive side. It emerges in full flower, however, on the baseball field. Among the artifacts in Melman's office are a brass jockstrap given to him by his employees, a Louisville Slugger embossed with his name, and a framed Chicago Cubs 1969 schedule. Warning: Don't ever play baseball with him, unless you run out pop flies. You'll never know when Melman, all those years of therapy suddenly cast to the wind, will be right behind you with blood in his eyes and a bat in his hands.
Melman really did chase a man to first base with a bat. "I said, 'You son of a bitch, if you don't run I'm gonna hit you.' " And the other guy did run, because Melman did mean it.
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"Uh-oh, look out! The boss is here," shouts a throaty waitress, in 1950s mufti, including a button that reads, "Eat and Get Out." Fifties music beats in the background. This is the Ed Debevic's in Phoenix. Like the other Ed's diners in California and Chicago, and the one scheduled to open in November in Japan, this one faithfully evokes the feel of a '50s diner, specifically one you might have found operating in 1952. The waiters and waitresses here are by design outlandish and brash. One waitress, who uses the name Imogene, bangs among the tables wearing a beehive hairdo, awful teardrop glasses, and a small dead fox.
Melman, restaurateurs say, is adept at picking concepts that appeal to the dining public, and was among the first to sense America's longing for '50s-style dining. "Rich stays closer to the customer than anyone I've ever seen," says Dick Bermingham, CEO of Collins Foods International Inc., which owns 60% of the five Debevic restaurants. (Melman, who created the concept, and his partners own 32%; Lettuce handles the administrative work.) "He's got this uncanny ability to know what you'll want to eat six months from now, even though you may not know."
Part of this ability comes from Melman's practice of touring his, and everyone else's, restaurants. "He spends four or five hours a day in different restaurants," Bermingham says. On business trips, he is indefatigable. "It's not unusual to see 25, 30 restaurants in a day," says Brown, who has accompanied him on such journeys.
When he asks customers how they're enjoying their meals, Melman doesn't take "fine" or "OK" for an answer. He pushes for the truth. "When people really believe that I want to hear it, and that I won't take it personally, that I'm not going to be offended, they'll tell me," Melman says. Melman also guides himself by his own tastes. If he likes a new entrée or a new concept, he assumes the rest of the dining public will too. "I'm sure he's building restaurants to satisfy Rich Melman," says Larry Mindel. "The reason he's so successful at it is he gets an idea of something he would love to do, and he just does it."
Where Melman is most expert, however, is in following through on his ideas and making the concepts come alive. In this, he considers himself something of an artist. "An artist uses canvas," Melman says. "Restaurants are my canvas."
This, however, sounds a little pretentious, and Melman knows it. "Look, I don't want you to think I'm some starving artist. I'm in this for fun and to make money. Either one alone wouldn't be enough.'
Melman considers the smallest details. The team that starts a new Lettuce restaurant picks a reference point -- a date, a place, a mood. "With Ed Debevic's it was 1952, it was before Elvis," Melman says. "And we would always come back to it." Customers would have expected to see a lot of Elvis memorabilia, he says. "I wanted Ed's to be more real. Restaurants in 1952 didn't have Elvis posters." Or quiche.
To help keep the team focused, one member wrote a kind of primer on the characters who would populate the restaurant: jock, prom queen, nerd, cheerleader, greaser, and greaser's chick. It includes sketches of how each character might have behaved, and a list of likely names, clothes, and accessories. Consider the cheerleader: "No matter what the context, she ends each conversation with a roll of the eyes, a twist of the pom-poms, a slight jump in the air, and a muted 'Yeah team!' "
Ed Debevic's is theater.
Melman moves back through the restaurant. He's wearing aqua shorts, blue shirt, sneakers, and a baseball cap. He points discreetly at a long table crammed with lunchtime customers, including a bald, elderly man in a wheelchair. One of the waitresses has planted a big gooey red kiss on his gleaming scalp. She makes a second pass, stops short: "Are you cheatin' on me?" she says to the man. "Honest to God, I left you alone two minutes. You better watch it."
There are shiny vinyl booths, stainless-steel coat racks, table-side jukes. Another waitress zeroes in on Melman. "Oh boy," she says.
"I just came in to give ya a thrill," Melman cracks.
"Listen," she says, her hips dieseling. "I want you to know that I'm like the tan detective. If you're takin' too much tan home, I wanna know. So I'm gonna check those lines." She drifts off. "Tan lines," she says, turning. "Ooo!"
Melman's range is broad. Ed Debevic's occupies the low end. At the Phoenix Ed's, only three meals top $5. From there, Lettuce's restaurants climb the scale, each restaurant having a distinctive theme. There is Shaw's Crab House, an old port-city seafood house, with red vinyl banquettes, subdued lighting, fish on the walls, and a raw bar. And Scoozi, a large, warm-hued dining room serving fancy pizzas and pastas; a big tomato protrudes over the entrance. And The Pump Room, a Chicago landmark revamped by Melman: here an attendant replenishes the ice in your water glass with silver tongs; the wine steward wears a red tunic.
