[Restaurateur] Talks About DineLA

LAist interviews a restaurant owner who participated in the DineLA Restaurant Week to see if the $1,000 entrant fee, the discounted menus, the overworked staff and occasionally underwhelmed diners were all worth it. But the restaurateur remains anonymous, and the writer couldn't mention menu items so not to divulge his/her identity. It could be Neal Fraser from Grace or the cook at the American Girl Cafe for all we know. (Ok, it's most likely not the the cook from AGC, but still.) They don't dis DineLA week, the diners or the organization so why not go on the record? See if you can guess the verbally pixelated restaurateur by the clues below. Guesses in comments, please.

· "The first couple of days we ran out of a lot of stuff we didn’t have, because we did not expect we were going to get such a high turnout." [Ed. note: newbies, amateurs.]

· "We did 240 of them [DineLA covers] the first night."

· "Our prices usually run 75 – 80 dollars per person"

· "It's probably going to bring people only on special occasions once a year, for birthdays and anniversaries"

· "But what's cool about it for us, is an average diner is there for 2 1/2 to 3 hours with fine dining."

· "We did have a [expensive dish] so you can try the quality of our meat. We wanted to do it in a way where if you don’t eat red meat, you can have chicken or seafood, because we have a really good seafood selection. For the appetizers, we offer [expensive seafood dish], which for us is a very high-priced item"
· DineLA: The Other Side of the Story [LAist]
· Restaurant Week Thinkage: Making the List [~ELA~]
· Restaurant Week Week One: The Poll [~ELA~]