It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives.” He clearly never imagined Phil Davis, founder and proprietor of Phil the Fire, the restaurant that introduced Cleveland to the southern homestyle delicacy chicken and waffles — a unique combination of golden-brown fried chicken atop thick, cinnamon-spiced Belgian waffle, topped with butter and syrup. Phil the Fire — a nickname based on the Peabo Bryson song “Feel the Fire” — took Davis from a dazzling rise to a devastating fall, followed by a seven-year sojourn in the desert of legal troubles and a low-paying job loading boxes in the middle of the night.
The journey began in 2001, when Davis began serving Sunday brunch in the basement of The Civic in Cleveland Heights. His chicken and waffles became a sensation, enabling Davis to open Phil the Fire restaurants at Shaker Square and downtown. Then, fatefully, he relied on the promises of an unscrupulous hedge fund manager, leading to the loss of millions of investor dollars and the closing of Phil the Fire in 2004, followed by a rash of lawsuits.
“In January 2004, I was a local quasi-celebrity, and within a week went from being the toast of the town to the talk of the town,” he reflects. “That was very humbling, because when your fall from grace is very public, you have nowhere to hide.”
During those dark days, Davis underwent a period of personal growth. He worked out a plan to repay his debts and spent time caring for his daughter, Machiah, now 10, all the while keeping in mind a line from his mother’s favorite poem, Invictus: “My head is bloody, but unbowed.” He spent endless hours in the kitchen perfecting his recipes, and drew upon his business-school training to launch new inventions (including “the world’s smallest microwave”) and plan how he would do things better if he had a chance to reopen Phil the Fire.
Davis’ second act began in August, when he opened the new Phil the Fire restaurant at the Fairfield Inn in Beachwood: a warm, inviting space that serves up Davis’ signature “comfort food for the soul” — rich, flavorful dishes based on the Sunday brunches his parents, Alberta and Sherman, cooked when he was growing up in Cleveland.
The location is one Davis had long been eyeing. “I’d always been a big fan of this area, and when I walked in, it just felt like this is it — this is the space I’ve been dreaming of.” The new restaurant enabled Davis to bring back two of the original Phil the Fire chefs, hire a savvy general manager, and create 125 jobs.
“That’s a great feeling,” he says.
When Phil the Fire reopened with an all-day Sunday brunch, it was as though the place had never closed. People had been yearning for another taste of Phil’s chicken and waffles.
“The support, love, and warmth we’ve received have been overwhelming. We’ve had people drive in from Columbus, Ashtabula, Canton. We’ve served about 10,000 people in the first month. We’ve had people create special memories here: wedding anniversaries, birthdays — one man proposed to his fiancée in that room over there. It’s humbling and overwhelming.
“If I had to wait seven years for anything in life,” he says, “this would have been it.”
Davis made a conscious decision to limit the menu to “what we do best.” That means that aside from chicken and waffles, there are such mouth-watering favorites as the creamy Three Cheese Mac N Cheese, fresh collard greens, buttermilk pancakes, rotisserie chicken, fried salmon strips, broiled salmon, and catfish (blackened, fried, or broiled), as well as Phil’s signature desserts: Mom’s Famous Double Butter Peach or Apple Cobbler, and Pecan and Sweet Potato Pie. As the weather grows colder, the restaurant will provide hot gumbos and a fireplace for people to gather around.
Every dish has what Davis calls a “signature flavor,” and he is meticulous and demanding of his staff about achieving it. “We cook everything from scratch,” he says. “Everything is fresh, not frozen. We honor the food.”
But food is only one part of the Phil the Fire picture. “I asked the staff, what do we sell here? Memories. This food evokes memories, like the scene in the movie Ratatouille where the critic tastes the ratatouille and it takes him back to his childhood. This food is a daily reminder of the things I grew up on, and a way to honor the memories of my mother and father.”
The restaurant business is a tough taskmaster, but Davis says it’s addictive. “It’s hard to get out of your system. I’m here 20 hours a day, but this is easy. I love to cook, I love to serve. It’s a labor of love. I’m just having a ball.” The entrepreneurial Davis has plans to capitalize on his brand with a line of Phil the Fire prepared comfort foods and Phil the Fire restaurants in other cities.
After only a few months back in business, Phil the Fire has already become a destination. “People are saying, ‘Let’s meet at Phil’s,'” Davis says. “This is something you can’t buy. Things like this keep me going.”
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 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…
bit.ly/jrg4o0