Few people — let alone those in the cutthroat restaurant business, — get to take a second bite at the apple. But when Phil Davis opens the new Phil the Fire on August 8, he’ll become the exception.
Ask Davis how long it’s been since he last served his trademark chicken and waffles, and he’ll respond with precision: “Seven years, four months, and some-odd days.”
Seven years and five months ago, Davis was on top of the world. His bustling Shaker Square restaurant was doing brisk business, which led to a second downtown outpost bankrolled by a wealthy hedge-fund manager. That man turned out to be a swindler and a crook, causing both restaurants to fold within a week of each other. Davis’ dreams were shattered, his reputation in tatters.
Walking around the spacious new home of Phil the Fire, an 8,600-square-foot, 280-seat behemoth that long housed a Houlihan’s, Davis is notably moved. Not a day has gone by during those seven-plus years, he says, that he hasn’t allowed himself to think of the day when he might rekindle Phil the Fire.
“It is a moment that I have always wanted to happen but wasn’t sure would ever happen,” he says. “And I certainly didn’t expect that it would happen in this way.”
Davis is not a chef by trade — he’s an entrepreneur. While earning his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in California, he got hooked on a crazy soul-food dish that combined fried chicken and fluffy waffles. He introduced it to Clevelanders first through catered events and then at popular Sunday brunches held in a rented church basement.
The response was so enthusiastic that in 2002, Davis opened a 45-seat restaurant of his own on Shaker Square.
Done right, chicken and waffles is a greater-than-its-parts experience. Crunchy, salty fried chicken married with those fluffy, spice-scented waffles and doused in sweet maple syrup and spicy hot sauce creates a symphony of taste and texture. Since the days of Phil the Fire, of course, chicken and waffles has become downright ubiquitous, popping up on half the menus in town. That doesn’t worry Davis one bit, he says.
“It only reinforces the fact that people appreciate the combination. Plus, there’s more to it than just throwing chicken and waffles together.”
And there’s more to Phil the Fire than chicken and waffles. The restaurant will feature a menu nearly identical to that of the original, says Davis. That means diners can look forward to heaping portions of fried catfish and grits, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, candied yams, and black-eyed peas. For dessert there’s peach cobbler, banana pudding, and red velvet cake. One of the few additions to the menu will be rotisserie chicken, for folks who want to lighten up the chicken-and-waffles experience.
Davis calls his fare “comfort food for the soul,” a line he pulled from my long-ago review of the old Civic Sunday brunch. And that’s just what it is. When prepared well, soul food classics like those served at the original Phil the Fire create lasting food memories. It is precisely those memories on which Davis is banking.
“People have strong memories of food, and people have fond memories of Phil the Fire,” Davis says. “I don’t want to fool people. I want people to have confidence that my food in 2011 will be as good as the food was in 2004.”
To that end, Davis has, as he puts it, “gotten the original band back together.” Co-executive chefs Jerron Nickens and Gregory Williams go back to the Shaker Square days, as does desserts wiz Meredith Woods. New this time around, however, is an experienced team of general managers, assistant GMs, and a staff of close to 100.
“Before, I was too deeply involved in every detail,” he says. “I’ve learned to take a step back and appreciate the skills that others bring to the table.”
After all, Davis knows that second chances don’t come around all that often.
“The question is what do you do with that second opportunity?” he asks rhetorically. “I’m wiser, I’m better, and I’m humbled by my experiences. This time around, I will appreciate every single moment and every guest who walks through that door.”
If that’s not comfort for the soul, what is?
This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2011.
…On March 14 and March 29, 2003, Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield, Oberlin College class of ‘73, executed two $20,000 promissory notes to Phil B. Davis, Phil the Fire’s flamboyant proprietor, at prime plus 200 basis points, collateralized by an equity stake in Phil the Fire. Mr. Davis, a former deodorant salesman, failed to make a single payment on the bargain-rate loans. On October 31, 2003, the well-heeled ice cream czar and the wannabe waffle king consummated a Halloween wing-and-a-prayer loan consolidation through a $100,000 line of credit issued by Shore Bank. Mr. Davis subsequently defaulted on every facet of the original loans.
According to Cuyahoga County Court records, Phil the Fire’s tax returns, prepared by leading public accounting firm SS & G, show a loss of nearly $50,000 in 2002. In an amended July 19, 2004, brief attached to the extensive litigation spawned by Phil the Fire’s demise, Phil B. Davis declares on line #93, “Defendant never claimed that the operations of Phil the Fire on Shaker Square had yielded a profit after its first year of operations.” The Ohio Department of Taxation affixed eight liens totaling $69,555.63 to Phil the Fire’s Shaker Square carcass. The Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation weighed in with unpaid claims of $7,265.37.
Mr. Davis’ Shaker Square operation inherited the retail storefront formerly occupied by Hungarian strudel purveyor Lucy’s Sweet Surrender, a 49-year Buckeye neighborhood fixture employing a bevy of elderly, veteran strudel kneaders. On assuming the balance of Lucy’s ten-year lease, Mr. Davis seized $75,000 in specialized bakery equipment belonging to Lucy’s proprietor Michael Feigenbaum. Lucy’s never fully recovered and, according to Mr. Feigenbaum’s Hotel Bruce web posting, is “living on fumes.”
On Sunday, March 26, 2006, the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a front-page expose detailing the implosion of both the Shaker Square and downtown Phil the Fire and Waterhouse Restaurants, established with the financial backing of fugitive Atlanta hedge fund manager Kirk Wright. I, not any member of this body [Oberlin City Council], was the original source for that story.
Wanted on state and federal mail and securities fraud warrants for allegedly absconding with $185 million in investor assets, Wright targeted novice minority investors, particularly professional athletes with significant discretionary income. Equipped, according to the New York Post, with “a materialistic streak that would make Madonna blush,” Wright’s illicitly acquired auto collection included a Bentley, a Jaguar, an Aston Martin, a BMW and a Lamborghini. A March 9, 2006, Wall Street Journal article reported Mr. Wright’s financial seductions occurred in “suites he rented at Atlanta Falcon football games.” Since February 2002, SCA’s financial patron, Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, has owned the Atlanta Falcons. According to Phil B. Davis’ Cuyahoga County court filings, Davis “met twice with Wright in Plaintiff’s Atlanta office.”
In a short, tumultuous five-month life-span, Phil the Fire’s illiquid downtown Cleveland gravy train racked up well in excess of a million dollars in unpaid debts and forfeitures — including over $15,000 in Ohio workers compensation liens — was on a C.O.D. basis with vendors and, according to Phil Davis’ July 28, 2004, court filings, had a chronic negative cash flow. Channel 19 reporter Scott Taylor ran an investigative piece broadcast March 14, 2004, on Phil the Fire Gateway’s imminent meltdown. On March 23, 2004, the IRS slapped a $226,259 tax lien on Phil the Fire for failure to pay federal withholding taxes. On April 15, 2004, Phil the Fire employees picketed outside the swank downtown eatery to protest their untendered paychecks. Although Phil Davis’ initial capital contribution to the Gateway Phil the Fire restaurant was a nominal $100, as set forth in the operating agreement, Mr. Davis retained a 60% ownership stake. On March 31, 2004, as the downtown Phil the Fire hemorrhaged cash and the chickens came home to roost, Mr. Davis borrowed $20,000, via a promissory note, from Phil the Fire’s talented chef, Alexander Daniels. Despite receiving $50,000 from Mr. Wright on April 26, 2004, in an impetuous, global out-of-court settlement, Mr. Davis defaulted on the bulk ($15,000) of Mr. Daniels’ unsecured loan and a contracted $11,000 culinary consultant’s fee…
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