ON TRUMPETS
a lesson in avoiding accountability
As David Berman so adeptly announced on his website, “Board Votes for Trumpets Operator.” Indeed, that is exactly what the January board did when they voted 4-3 in favor of accepting the one candidate, Tirzo Hernandez, that was recommended by the new Trumpets working group. The members of that new and select working group were Roz Berman, Dan Forgeron and Robert Murphy, one board officer and two board appointed committee members.
Board Treasurer Shirley Cheri has written to assure the community that our board members had exercised due diligence in their decision to select an operator for Trumpets. Apparently, all that’s remaining to do is to finalize and execute the terms of a lease. As to the exercise of due diligence, it’s simply preposterous to suggest that the board’s decision to hire a chef and not a viable a restaurant operator for Trumpets involved anything approaching due diligence.
Many homeowners are no doubt relieved to learn that the process of selecting a new Trumpets operator has been completed and we will soon be enjoying tastily-prepared meals again in our restaurant after so many years of waiting for Trumpets to reopen. However, that relief needs to be tempered with a hard dose of reality. One might be tempted to conclude from David’s headline announcement that the board’s majority of four, Roz Berman, Shirley Cheri, Barry Friedman and Roger Cooper had actually voted to bring to Sun City an actual restaurant operator to operate Trumpets. Well, of course, who other than a restaurant operator would the board even be considering as a potential lessee, let alone selecting, to operate Trumpets? The sad reality is that nothing could be further from the truth.
If you thought that due diligence meant that the board would bring Sun City a restaurant operator, you are mistaken. In simple terms, due diligence for a potential landlord refers to making sure you get what you think you are acquiring in a lessee. Now, if Sun City homeowners thought the mandate of the board was to secure a restaurant operator for Trumpets, then homeowners should be prepared for an unpleasant surprise. Our board’s majority voted not to bring Sun City a restaurant operator, but, instead, to bring us a person who is employed as a chef by a restaurant operator.
Yes, Tirzo Hernandez is the chef at Brando’s Bistro & Bar located nearby in Henderson, in the Albertsons shopping center at the corner of Green Valley Pkwy. and Sunset. In this case, the restaurant’s operator is not Mr. Hernandez but is Nicholas Brandonisio, who is the president of the family run business, Brando, Inc.
Tirzo Hernandez, pictured at left holding one of his signature preparations, is but one three chefs in the Brando chain, which operates two additional and similar restaurants in the Las Vegas area. It is chef Tirzo Hernandez who the board decided to offer a lease to operate Trumpets. Practically speaking, it would seem that if Tirzo Hernandez were an employee of the association rather than a lessee, his engagement here as a chef/manager might make some sense and would be more easier to justify. But that’s not what’s in the offering, which is just as well.
What exactly is Brando’s Bistro & Bar. It's advertised by the owner as a pub and pizzeria!
For some, this may help clarify the extent of chef Tirzo Hernandez more recent working experience. According to Brando's website for this establishment, here is how the company describes their offering, quoting from their website:
“Brando's Bistro & Bar is an interesting combination of a bistro, neighborhood pub and pizzeria. Staying with the theme of Chicago style pizza, Brando's Bistro & Bar also features deep dish pizza, calzones and Stromboli's.”
http://www.brandoslasvegas.com/Brando's%20Bistro%20&%20Bar%20Main%20Page.htm
Should it make any difference if Tirzo Hernandez is not a restaurant operator? Some on the board would like us to believe that it should make no difference. The simple answer is, YES, it does make a difference. The board obviously acted otherwise, for reasons they seem reluctant to share with us. The difference between hiring a chef and having him execute a lease and leasing to an actual restaurant operator all depends on what one expects from one who is placed in total charge of operating a 7,500 sq. ft. turnkey restaurant like Trumpets.
Remember, in our last go around six months ago with the Boulevard Group, the board was negotiating with an actual restaurant operator. That should tell us something. In that case at least two of the three finalists were restaurant operators. The third candidate was, well, in bed with, figuratively speaking, a leader of that first search team.
That prior negotiating experience with an actual restaurant operator would seem to present all parties with a quite suitable and mutually beneficial landlord/lessee outcome. Are there any advantages to Sun City that would be realized by bringing the community an actual restaurant operator? Clearly, the answer is, YES. Just what might we expect to get out of such a relationship? That’s not too difficult to envisage. For example, would it not benefit the homeowners of Sun City if the prospective lessee was an already established, financially viable restaurant operator. Of course, that would be of tremendous benefit. Such an operator would possess a broad knowledge of actual restaurant operations, would have had an extensive restaurant operating experience, would have already demonstrated their stability and permanence through existing restaurant operations, would have evidence of conventional financial resources based on their existing operations, and, significantly, would have successfully managed what is intended to be a profit-making enterprise?
To date, the board has been unable or unwilling to demonstrate that Tirzo Hernandez possesses any of those qualities. That’s not Hernandez’ fault. The obvious reality is that Tirzo Hernandez is not a restaurant operator but a chef who happens to work for a company that is an operator and does have those qualities and skill sets.
While David Berman has suggested elsewhere that Tirzo Hernandez is somehow responsible for the financial management of his bistro, that suggestion is plainly ridiculous. Since the Green Valley Brando’s is part of chain of three similar grill and bar establishments, one should correctly conclude that the officers of Brando corporation are involved in and responsible for the ordering of supplies, setting pricing guidelines, making marketing and leasing decisions, determining profit margins, plus a whole range of related decisions needed to manage their restaurant operations. Brando leaves the cooking decisions at their Bistro to chef Hernandez.
And when those price point decisions are made on meals, one must not forget one likely ingredient in that calculation is the presence of 15 gaming machines at Brando’s Bistro to augment the income from food and alcohol sales. That additional income feature to help offset food and labor costs will not be available here in Sun City.
Clearly, the selection of Tirzo Hernandez has nothing to do with bringing Sun City a quality, financially viable restaurant operator. So, then, why was the board so intent in moving in the opposite direction? Some possibilities come to mind. After a six-month delay from our last attempt to bring on a restaurant operator, the board has been under increasing pressure to do something, virtually anything, and especially and literally on the eve of an election campaign. Unfortunately for the community, the action available to the board anxious to make a decision was severely handicapped by the paltry number of want-a-be’s and leftovers from the last go around. Not wishing to take the time necessary to conduct an actual search for a proper restaurant operator, the board has been mulling over what to do and with the same handful of mostly rejected hopefuls, like Tirzo Hernandez, for almost as long as the community has been waiting. Rather than doing what’s needed, such as engaging in a bona fide search effort, the board has wasted so much time dillydallying that their competence to properly act in the community’s interest is being seriously called into question. While the board has now acted with the selection of Tirzo Hernandez, that action must raise anew not only the quality of their decision-making efforts but also its timing for political gain.
Why would the board refuse to perform a reasonable search effort? One can only assume it was for the same reasons they acted to select Tirzo Hernandez, such as avoiding the adverse consequences of further delay, the pressure to do something, and the upcoming election campaign where board members seeking reelection would face mounting criticism if they had done nothing. When forced to bottom feed and with no qualified restaurant operator in sight, why would the board want to continue such efforts? Why not move into deeper waters where the catch of restaurant operators is plentiful and the benefits to Sun City are real and meaningful.
While Tirzo Hernandez may be a good chef, was it unrealistic for the board to conclude that a qualified restaurant operator would not have provided Trumpets with an equally qualified chef? Of course not. At least then Sun City would have the benefit of both worlds, a qualified restaurant operator that knows what operating a restaurant is all about and delicious food. Why was that necessary combination of tested experience and good food so difficult for the board to understand?
With literally hundreds of quality restaurant operators in the Las Vegas valley to solicit, why should Sun City literally handicap their decision-making efforts by selecting someone who has never assumed the role and responsibilities of a restaurant operator? While David Berman pooh-pooh's restaurant ownership as a necessary ingredient, no doubt in an effort to defend his wife’s role on the search committee and her board decision, who can doubt that Trumpets and the community would have benefited greatly from having an actual restaurant operator we can trust with the control of Trumpets, rather than leaving that control in the hands of a chef, who clearly, as far as we know, must lack that needed experience.
How difficult would it have been for the board to task the new search committee to perform an actual search for a restaurant operator rather than confining their efforts to a handful of leftovers and want-a-bee’s? From the results achieved, it is apparent that the board had no interest in bringing Sun City a qualified restaurant operator. With only a few hours of effort, the search committee could have on their own developed a listing of several hundred restaurant operators to solicit. There would be no expensive broker fees to pay, just some simple down to earth search efforts on the part of the board and search committee. There is absolutely no evidence that such a search effort would not have produced a number of qualified restaurant operators for the board to consider. Had the board's time to do something simply run out?
That listing has been widely available for anyone to peruse on the internet from the website of the Nevada Restaurant Association. All one had to do was to click on “NvRA Members” and then “Restaurant Members” and the names and addresses were yours to view, copy, list and contact at: http://www.nvrestaurants.com. Instead of performing that more responsible search effort, the board floundered repeatedly until their failed efforts became an increasing embarrassment, or until it was too late to do the proper thing in the face of an upcoming reelection campaign. How much more ill conceived and disappointing can the board's actions on this very important issue have been?
While it must be tempting for the board to put the keys of a turnkey restaurant in the hands of chef Tirzo Hernandez, is that risk and untested experiment really one we ought to be taking?
Ron Johnson, 1 February 2009