Tom Colicchio On How Not to Run a Restaurant

In a new Newsweek interview, chef Tom Colicchio gives some solid advice on how to run a successful restaurant. He suggests chefs get talented and savvy business partners to negotiate deals and deal with the numbers, says that restaurateurs shouldn't spend too much on design, and reminds that running a restaurant is completely different from having a dinner party ("If the air conditioner breaks at 8 p.m. and everybody’s screaming at you that your restaurant’s too hot, that’s not fun"). Most interesting, given the rash of lawsuits breaking out in New York this season, are his thoughts on HR:

In this age, HR is so important. I’m not saying you should have an HR director at a small restaurant, but a lot of people are getting sued these days. So you really need to understand local labor laws because you don’t have to be doing something maliciously to get sued...a lot of these laws are bizarre, but not knowing them can hurt you.