"The East Coast Grill opened its doors on August, 18, 1985. At that point it seemed a pretty risky venture. Although my partner, Cary Wheaton, and I had plenty of restaurant experience, we had no business experience. Restaurants have high failure rates and a lot of folks didn’t think Inman Square was that good of a location. And you know what? If I had known then, what I know now, I definitely would have talked us out of doing such a crazy thing – but we were young, fearless, and had a dream of opening a restaurant."

