Restaurateur's work is play
November 28, 2005
Four times in the past several months, John Tunney III has flown to the beachfront resorts of Cabo San Lucas, at the southern tip of Mexico's Baja Peninsula. He's developed a taste for blue corn tamales and the "oaky, smoky" flavor of a kind of aged tequila called reposado, which means rested or relaxed.
A break from work? Well, not entirely.
Tunney has been making research trips for the newest restaurant he plans to open on New York Avenue in Huntington, where he's already operating two others and opening a second-floor office in a corner building to manage his growing business.
"I fly down, I take my notes, take my photographs, do my research," says the 47-year-old ponytailed entrepreneur. "I have a fantastic time."
He stayed for four days at Las Ventanas, a celebrated resort where rates go from $600 to $4,500 a night, and where Tunney got the idea for the ceiling of his new Mexican restaurant, Besito (it means "little kiss").
He's importing 20,000 eucalyptus poles from Africa to be nailed to the ceiling, above broad beams of weathered wood.
There's no dividing line between work and leisure in John Tunney's life. "My world is one really big world of work and play," he says. His girlfriend told him he should carve out some truly recreational time, and he was wavering until he read that Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson also blends his work and play lives.
There's an almost constant smile on Tunney's face as he talks about his life. "I don't have time for any things that aren't fun," he says. "For me, fun is really important every day."
Fun is sampling the new Mexican restaurant's planned menu in tastings at his Hawaiian-themed restaurant. Fun is dropping into Little Vincent's pizzeria for what he estimates is 20 slices a week. Fun is sampling at least two cheeseburgers a day at his burger joint.
Fun is eating a 17-course meal at his friend Mike Maroni's Northport restaurant. ("Vietnamese crab on pancakes to a truffle mascarpone cauliflower ravioli, unbelievable.") And fun is a leisurely drive back to his waterfront home, chewing a cheeseburger and drinking from an old-fashioned Coke bottle on the way.
Yet Tunney's upbeat tone doesn't always prevail. The creator of restaurants on Long Island, in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, Tunney admits he's in a very tough business.
Novices should know that "it's the hardest business in the world; everything is perishable, everything is against you every minute of the day," he says. "You could be all set for a Saturday night and suddenly there is a rainstorm or a big news story and people stay home. You can't recover Saturday on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday."
The obstacles don't seem to daunt Tunney, who has taken an inventive approach to an industry that often sticks to the tried-and-true categories of restaurants and traditional ways of doing things. The key is to "tickle the senses" of customers, to make them feel "there's magic in the walls," he says.
He was planning to open a standard seafood place in Huntington when a surfing trip gave him the idea for a Hawaiian-inspired fusion restaurant called Blue Honu, which launched in 2001. The restaurant, which he says is nearing $5 million in annual sales, can serve up to 550 dinners on a busy Saturday night. He has two partners - his brother, David, and John Rieger.
Two years ago, he started a casual dining business by opening the American Burger Co., which has an outlet a few storefronts away in Huntington as well as an Atlantic City restaurant. Tunney touts his place as providing food that's fresher and lower in fat than the fare at large fast-food chains.
Customers who eat a "4 X 4" (four cheeseburgers on one bun) get their names posted on the walls and ceilings of the restaurant - a gimmick that's roped in 7,000 diners at last count.
For his new outlet under construction in Hicksville, Tunney plans a new twist on the individual jukeboxes that were popular in 1960s diners - individual iPod speakers so that customers will be able to plug in and share their music with friends.
Tunney spent most of his childhood in East Setauket and got his start in the restaurant business at the age of 14 as a dishwasher at the Three Village Inn. School was not a strong point, so he didn't go on after high school, but jumped in his car and hit the road, traveling widely and learning the catering business.
Working with partners, he ran catering at Oheka Castle, developed Carltun on the Park in Eisenhower Park, created restaurants at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and at Caesar's and Resorts International in Atlantic City. At Oheka, he says, "I got it ready for my own wedding, which, like some of my businesses, I'm out of."
Gary Melius, owner of Oheka, says Tunney is a "very creative guy." But like many of Tunney's ambitious ventures, the Oheka stint came to an end after a while. "His term ended, and I took over," says Melius, who adds that "a lot of his concepts we've kept."
Tunney and his partner in American Burger, investment banker Cary Sucoff, are looking at locations in Smithtown, on the South Shore and in Manhattan, Tunney says. He envisions a chain with hundreds of locations, though he's been saying that for two years.
Why the delay? Tunney says he keeps tinkering with the size of the burger, going from a 2.46-ounce disk to 2.67, 3.2 and finally, the current size, 3.5 ounces. Prices have increased as well; a burger with lettuce, tomato and sauce goes for $3.22. The size is crucial because you want to satisfy the customer, but leave them yearning for more. "That's part of the magic, you want that one more bite," he says.
Here's the tension in the story of John Tunney. To thrive in the hotly competitive restaurant business, innovation is crucial and good ideas may only have the life span of the average Broadway show.
Yet creating a chain with hundreds of outlets is a long-term venture, requiring years of methodical effort. Tunney says he's ready for that, anxious to bring the burger concept to a wider audience. He talks of offering stock to the public and opening 10 to 20 restaurants a year.
You sense that whether or not he succeeds at creating a huge chain of restaurants, Tunney has done a lot of serious thinking about fast food.
It bubbles out of the conversation when he complains about competitors' burgers that come fat with lettuce on one side and stuck under a glob of mayo on the other. Shakes that won't come up the straw. And then there's the tomato question.
"Tomatoes should never hit a refrigerator, never, ever, ever," he says. "And don't serve it until it's ripe. They all will ripen. If you're serving it ahead of time, it's because you don't care. You just don't care, and it just drives me wild that the people in the food business don't take more responsibility ... and by the way, I pay the same price for a tomato whether I serve it to you ripe or not."
E-mail Richard Galant at rgalant@newsday.com.
