heresjonnypodesta | 45 points | Nov 13 2016 21:12:31

This is not going to be an effort post. I am not up to speed but I see no discussion of what I found. I hope this will be of some use.

JimmyComet gave an interview about his restaurant and its history a year ago. http://www.metroweekly.com/2015/04/from-scratch-james-alefantis/

Lots of context. Some disturbing implications.

ALEFANTIS: Well, we make everything from scratch. Other restaurants, even good restaurants, will, like, not roast their own peppers. You can just buy the roasted peppers in a can. Or you can buy garlic oil. Some products you can get, and they’re consistent and they’re easy. But I didn’t even know that existed actually until they said that. I was like, “What do you mean? There’s another way? You can just buy these things?” Because a lot of restaurants will open a can and put it on. Like our sauce — we harvest a whole crop of organic tomatoes — 10 tons of tomatoes every year. Can them all, store them in the basement, have like a harvest party when it gets loaded in...

Putting this first as it's what set off alarm bells. We have seen the picture of the basement room. And at some level there has to be a way to dispose of remains. 10 tons of tomatoes that they can in their basement every year - plenty of margin for shipping other...fungible...objects out. Not to mention a useful color. The link with tomato sauce and their codewords is also a red flag.

ALEFANTIS: Oh really? Well, they are. [Laughs.] One of the ways that a restaurant is so fascinating is that it’s really not about me, it’s about everyone who works here in a way. I have 70 employees between the two places. And at any one moment, a couple of them might be gay. And it makes me really happy when that happens, because it’s a way of mutually supporting each other. But it’s also really interesting to be working with cooks who are from other countries — Gambia, Nigeria, El Salvador, Guatemala. And having them be like, this guy is just like me and he’s gay. And he’s out. And that’s okay.

70 employees seems a bit high for a couple restaurants but I could be wrong. It isn't exactly rare to have foreigners working as cooks etc., but it's important to note the leverage JimmyComet has over them because of this.

A lot of my staff has worked for me for 10 years. My cooks at Comet have been there since I opened. And over those eight years I hope they’ve learned to respect me for who I am, and that being gay is part of who I am.

Isn't 10 years really long in the restaurant industry? I would assume turnover is usually way higher, especially for the majority of the staff.

MW: What inspired you to open Comet Ping Pong? ALEFANTIS: I had Buck’s, and there wasn’t a lot up here. There’s Politics and Prose, an amazing bookstore and an institution. And there was a Thai restaurant called the Thai Room — the first Thai restaurant in Washington. It had kind of gone downhill. It was known for its Thai food, but either our conception of Thai food changed, or their food changed — but anyway, they were there for 32 years. And then one day there was a For Lease sign on the outside, and they were closed. So I was like, “Oh, no! I’m going to have to open a restaurant there or else someone else is going to do it. And it’s my block.” It was just a couple years after I started Buck’s. It felt like I had been in Buck’s for a long time at that point, because it was like two years and I was exhausted. It was just grueling.

The origin story. Not much to say here, other than to notice the callout to the bookstore we are already familiar with.

MW: So Comet Liquors essentially inspired the ethos of Comet Ping Pong, though not ping-pong itself. Where did that come from? Did you grow up with the game? ALEFANTIS: Yeah, I loved ping-pong. We played it at my family’s lake cottage in upstate New York, because my parents are from outside of Buffalo. I wanted a place that was really inclusive, where people would feel you could just jump in and play. You don’t have to be super-skilled. It’s for everyone. And it has the nostalgia. It reminds people of where they came from, or their childhood. I’ve seen kids born and now they’re starting to play ping-pong. They’re someday going to be like, “Oh, this is the place I went every Friday night with my dad, and it was so cool. I could run around, I could play ping-pong, and it had the best food — best sundaes, best pizza, whatever.”

I think I'm going to puke.

I’m about making things from scratch. Comet’s wood-burning oven I imported from Italy, we built it on site. We built everything from scratch on site. It took way too long — it was like a year and a half in construction, every day. Every detail. Custom-building those light fixtures.

That is, total control of the space and everything in it, and lots of cover for additions and extras.

ALEFANTIS: I do have time for a personal life. I make time. At the moment, I’m single. But I date. I had a 10-year partner starting Buck’s. That was helpful because you could work all the time because you’re in a relationship, especially if you’re in a relationship with someone else who wants to work on their own things all the time. So that was nice getting started. I’m dating someone now. Who’s adorable! And so nice. But he lives in New York, so it’s a problem.

Who is this guy?

permalink