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Boston restaurateur Myers takes a casual step

Boston restaurateur Myers takes a casual step

News

Christopher Myers, 49, has spent much of his adult life in the restaurant business. Despite forays into teaching, acting and even house painting, he has always found his way back to the industry he loves. Myers has been a fixture on the Boston fine-dining scene for years, partnering with renowned chef Michael Schlow and Esti Parsons in such restaurants as Radius, Great Bay and Via Matta. Now he has turned his attention to a more casual operation with Myers & Chang, a diner-like eatery that serves Chinese food. He opened the restaurant two months ago with his fiancée, Joanne Chang, owner-operator of Boston's Flour bakeries. 

How does an actor, a Harvard doctoral student and Ava Gardner's house painter end up becoming a restaurateur?

The day after I graduated from high school, I moved to L.A. to be an actor. I guess the best thing I can say about my acting career is I made one hell of a maître d'. If you're an actor, you learn a lot about restaurant work. When I was 18 I started working at restaurants on the West Coast. Fortunately it was right when the California cuisine explosion was going on. Wolfgang Puck was coming on the scene, and I was working at a restaurant called Michael's in Santa Monica that was decidedly hip. I just got the bug, no matter how much I tried to delouse myself. I taught for a while and was not unsuccessful at everything else, but I was unsuccessful at leaving this business.

What makes your latest venture different than any of your others?

Myers & Chang is something I opened with my fiancée. I won't say it was for the sole purpose of spending more time together, but that was one reason why I did it. She works baker's hours, and I do restaurant hours always. We always talked about opening a Chinese restaurant and finally I said, "This is ridiculous. We need to open a funky Chinese place with a diner atmosphere." And so it's half-diner and half-Chinese, with Mandarin and Szechuan cuisine. We've been open for three months, and it's doing great, even though it couldn't be any more different [from the other restaurants].

Are you still working on projects with Michael Schlow?

We're still working together on three restaurants, but he's going down to Foxwoods [casino] and taking a concept there that I'm not involved with. It's challenging. I have two partners — one I see every day, the other I don't. It just requires a different way [of working] that at first seems really difficult because it's just different, but once given a little time it works. We're not nearly in each other's hair as much. And if the restaurants are created and branded in a way that the partners have a great deal of faith in, they can ride out difficult periods. We're convinced we've created the best restaurants. I guess if you believe in what you've done in the first place, it's like having kids — they grow up and they're strong and stand on their own two feet. So far, the restaurants we've built have been able to do that.

What is the operating climate like in Boston right now? What challenges do you anticipate this year?

It's definitely challenging, I'd say. Since 9/11 the industry here has been challenged in a variety of ways, and we stayed injured for a while longer than New York did. Right now Boston's population has sort of stagnated, and even though I think we have a vibrant economy, restaurants pop up all the time around here, but not at the same commensurate pace. I think the economy is strong even though the real estate industry certainly has hit a wall in some areas. But it's Boston, and as far as Bostonians are concerned, this is one of the greatest places to live, despite having one of the worst climates on the planet.

Has the weather had an impact on business in Massachusetts?

Sometimes we'll have emergency storm warnings before we have storms. The other day the forecasters were crying, "Nor'easter, nor'easter," and we got, like, 4 inches of snow. We're New Englanders; we deal with it. But that alarmist attitude can really be harmful to business. In this neck of the woods, January, February and March can be difficult. You just hemorrhage money, and it's worsened by that kind of behavior. The consequence is it can ruin businesses. You could spend the rest of the year trying to make [the losses] up.

Is fine dining alive and well or do you see changes on the horizon?

Fine dining is alive and well, but I think that if you're in that segment, you can't afford to make any mistakes. Anybody can get someone to come to their restaurant once, but you have to give them a really concrete reason to come again. Boston is not a big city, so considering the number of restaurants we have, you have to be extraordinary. Right now [our company] is really strong. Radius had its best year in 2007, and we've been open for 10 years, but I do think the climate here is incredibly competitive.

What trends do you see for 2008 and beyond?

I'm seeing less of a search for innovation and more satisfaction in quality and excellence. If you're doing what you're able to do with skill and confidence, you'll survive in this or any market. You don't have to do an Indonesian kebob menu in order to last. Just do what you do, but do it without shocking or startling anyone. In scary economic times, that scares people. People will spend great amounts for a good meal; they just don't want to be hoodwinked.

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