For those of you not familiar with Atlanta, OK Café has been called the “rich man’s Waffle House”. It’s an amazing southern meat and three kinda place right off I-75 and at the corner of Northside and West Paces Ferry (within walking distance of many of Atlanta’ finest homes, including the Governor’s mansion). It is the place to see and be seen in the business community here. I liken it to Il Fornaio in Palo Alto or Beverly Hills. During heady times, it’s not uncommon to wait 30 minutes in the morning for a table. It’s a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for – white napkins, heavy silverware, and bowls of cheese grits the size of your head.
But for all of its popularity with the business glitterati, I sense a change afoot. As the economic downturn persists, folks are opting for something a little grittier (pun intended) – folks are opting for the Waffle House itself. Indeed, if you were at the Waffle House on Roswell Road just up from Piedmont a couple of weeks ago, you would have found Alan Taetle and me breaking bread with a well known Atlanta entrepreneur. While we ordered our eggs, bacon and hashbrowns (scattered, smothered and covered of course), it occurred to me that while the economic downturn is bad news for our 401(k)s, stock portfolios, and near term exits for us in the VC world, these difficult times can sometimes serve as an opportunity to simplify, to clean things up, get organized, and get focused. The Waffle House is all about that – nothing pretentious, nothing over the top. Get in, eat, get out, period, maybe throw a quarter in the jukebox if you’re feeling like a hair band tune or the Dukes of Hazzard theme song. No “air high 5s” and finger-pointing across the room with a smile that you have to fake. None of that nonsense. Just sit down and talk business – and get out of there in time for that 9 AM conference call. Yes, times are tough, no doubt, but I am thankful for the chance to push away all the noise and focus on the real, the stuff that matters, the essence. That… is a very good thing.
Stay tuned…
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Andrew Watson 12.04.08 at 12:29 pm
I have also noticed this phenomenon in other ways around Atlanta and even in The Bay Area. I think people (even people who’s livelihoods are not directly in jeopardy) are deciding that what’s important now has changed. It’s not as necessary to replace that 2 year old BMW with a new one. The old one still gets them from A to B even if it doesn’t have the new Dolby 7.1 surround etc… I remember one article in the WSJ about 2 months ago about 16 year old debutantes not automatically getting the nose jobs their older sisters had gotten and the angst their poor mothers felt about it. (The article struck me as surreal at the time because that’s such a different world than the one I spend my 168 hours a week in.)
I think there is also a parallel between the trend you’re commenting on (downshifting expectations / priorities / Target instead of Barneys) and another trend I’ve been noticing.
I think that with the implosion of a lot of “financial instruments” and the failure of luminaries like Alan Greenspan or Richard Rubin to steer us away from danger that people are noticing the lack of production of anything useful from the billions of capital that’s flowed into Wall Street over the last 1.5 decades or so.
In other words, investment in the past (think WWII through 1980s maybe?) probably meant supplying capital to a business that was going to produce tangible assets and sell them or construct something like a bridge or a road. Investment in the 90’s and the 00’s started shifting towards derivatives, CDO, CDS, futures contracts etc… and less capital flowed into the production of tangible infrastructure, solid assets that could be used to generate electricity, move freight, get cars over rivers, deploy broadband Internet access to rural America… the list goes on and on…
I’m hopeful that the incoming administration recognizes this as well and can help sell this concept and try to direct investment, whether it’s stimulus spending or something else, towards production of productive things and not esoteric financial instruments. Richard Rubin’s involvement worries me some on that front. Don’t get me wrong, those instruments have their place in our financial markets - I just feel like the balance of investment needs to be shifted away from them towards our crumbling national infrastructure.
I’m hoping that the company I work for is setting itself up to put that freshly allocated capital to good use. Our CEO talks about wanting to get into things currently very far afield from our current ventures - things like Green Energy production - but I’m not privy to discussions held on the 15th floor so I’ll just have to hope that’s the case. Or, having some background in entrepreneurship myself I could go out and create my own destination for some of that capital…
Andrew Watson 12.04.08 at 12:37 pm
Wow! Serendipity is alive and well! I clicked through your blogroll over to Stephen Fleming’s blog and this was the Random Quote over on the right margin:
In a poorer and less socialist era, we produced a nationwide network of roads and bridges and subway systems that were the envy of the world. Today we are unable even to maintain them.
– Milton Friedman
Greg Foster 12.10.08 at 2:40 pm
I think Obama’s legacy might be government investment in old world infrastructure…
mark bell 12.12.08 at 8:36 pm
greg,
this is a formal invitation to meet me at the white house diner on peachtree rd.
BigDogKC 12.16.08 at 5:14 pm
When you guys want to have a real hearty business breakfast without the assembly-line efficiency of a chain like Waffle House, come to KC for breakfast at Mama’s 39th St. My treat. Enjoy the blog!
Mike 12.22.08 at 9:13 pm
I’ve never loved the OK Cafe myself - probably because try as I might, I just can’t develop a taste for grits. I like lunch there better than breakfast actually.
I think J. Christophers in Sandy Springs and on Mt. Vernon/Chamblee-Dunwoody is starting to pick up that OK Cafe traffic. I get those locations suggested to me more and more often.
White House is a very good call and I miss La Madeleine - the two locations closest to my house have closed. Yeah it’s pretentious. It’s the only good chocolate croissant in town. Sue me.
But if Waffle House is now “in” for biz breakfasts, man I am happy. It’s among the top 10 reasons they’ll drag me from Atlanta boots dragging.
– mike