From Fried Chicken to Veggie Burgers

A health crisis persuades a restaurant owner to transform his neighborhood barbecue joint into a haven for diners seeking healthy meals

by David E. Gumpert

From 1991 to 2005, Ridley's Home Cookin' was a big hit on the west side of Detroit, with its fried chicken, barbecued ribs, pork chops, and meatloaf. The neighborhood restaurant drew suburbanites, and revenues topped $150,000 a year. But owner William Parker's health didn't do so well. It had been on a gradual downward slide nearly the entire time he ran the restaurant, which he attributes to consuming its fried and fat-laden specialties.

Diabetes and chronic high blood pressure led eventually to kidney failure, and in 1998 he had a kidney transplant. The transplant took, but Parker had to continue taking heavy-duty medication to keep his body from rejecting the transplanted kidney—medication Parker, 63, says "was devastating to my body."

Just how devastating he found out in April, 2005, when the anti-rejection medication reacted badly to grapefruit juice that he had been drinking. He wound up in the emergency room and spent a month in the hospital. Ridley's Home Cookin' stayed shuttered.

After the hospital, he moved to a nursing home, where he would spend 120 more days. As Parker gradually recovered his strength, he suspected his physical deterioration might be related to "the quality and type of food I was eating."

When he was finally sent home, in late August, 2005, he devoted himself to learning about nutrition and health, and transformed his diet. Parker began thinking about reopening Ridley's, but this time as an eatery serving the same kind of organic and locally produced foods he was now consuming.

"I couldn't in good conscience serve something to people that I know is no good for them," he says. Because he owned the real estate that housed his restaurant, he could afford to gamble on the business' transformation.

Bison Burgers

By going the locally grown and organic route, Parker is following a trend popularized by Alice Waters' Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., among other chefs and celebrities, including actor Paul Newman, who recently opened The Dressing Room restaurant in Westport, Conn. In a National Restaurant Assn. survey of nearly 1,200 members of the American Culinary Federation last October, locally grown produce and organic produce ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, on the list of expected top-20 hot items for 2007. And in a separate association survey of fine-dining operators, more than half who serve organic or locally sourced items anticipate these will represent a growing proportion of their sales this year.

Parker worked out an arrangement with an area farm to supply his new restaurant, which is set to open by early July. In addition to the locally grown chicken, he'll be serving bison, turkey, and veggie burgers, along with steamed vegetables. Pastas will be whole wheat.

"I used to sell Pepsi products, but I decided my Pepsi machine has to go," he says. In its place, he'll be serving anti-oxidant drinks and teas with turmeric, ginger, and cinnamon, and sweetened with the stevia herb. He's installed a new filter to clean all the water coming into the restaurant.

What will Parker, who doesn't have the same celebrity credentials as Paul Newman, and the same trend-oriented consumers as California eateries, do to attract customers? He understands that many of his old barbecue buffs won't be returning for steamed veggies.

But he's convinced there's a new base of potential customers out there, "a vast market of people who want healthy food." He's planning television ads to reach people in all parts of the city and the suburbs. He's also planning Saturday classes in nutritious cooking.

In the meantime, he says he is close to being off insulin for his diabetes. "I'm healthier now than I have been in years,"says Parker. "I'll need to be to make this business go."

David E. Gumpert covers business/health issues and also writes the biweekly What Entrepreneurs Need to Know column.