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| CRBJ Home > February 2007 | ||||||
Best year yet for family team at Delaney'sBy Pamela Cotant
"We both want to work here," said Dan Delaney, the middle son of Jim Delaney. "We both contribute quite a bit to the restaurant." The established Far West Side restaurant just ended its most successful year ever. Jim Delaney took an unconventional route when he started in the restaurant business. He owned a service station, which he had built at Park Street and Badger Road, for 7 years. During that time, he frequently went to Namio's - a popular restaurant formerly on Park Street - and was hooked on the idea of running a restaurant. "I got to liking the business," he said. In 1973, he purchased a former deli on Odana Road not far from Gammon Road at a time when the area was underdeveloped and much quieter than it is now. Jim Delaney, who was 34 at the time and had never worked in a restaurant before, remodeled and turned the deli into a steak house. The menu was small and painted on the side of odd-shaped bottles that had contained Lancers Rose, a popular wine served in restaurants at the time. He got the idea from a restaurant he visited in New Haven, Conn. Three years later, Delaney's had outgrown its space and in 1977 moved to a new location in a building constructed by Jim Delaney at 449 Grand Canyon Drive. At the time, it was still a fairly desolate area. The menu was expanded and put on a printed copy of the Wisconsin State Journal from Nov. 16, 1973 - the day the first Delaney's opened. The front of the menu was the newspaper front page and the menu items were pasted over a page from the local section. "It looks like everybody is reading the paper," Dan Delaney said of looking at the old menu. A more traditional format for the menu, which is now larger but continues to change, was created in 2000. Jim Delaney has three sons - Jim, 40, Dan, 32 and Matt, 29. All of them worked in the restaurant, starting by coat checking and bussing tables at age 13. As they grew older, they waited tables and took on other responsibilities. They worked during high school and while they were in college. It was Dan Delaney, who studied political science in college, who decided to make restaurant work his career. He moved to Milwaukee after college in part because his girlfriend, Erin, who is now his wife, lived there. He went to work for Eddie Martini's restaurant. "I wanted to get out and experience another restaurant and move out of Madison," he said. He held a variety of jobs; as a server, wine captain and bartender. He returned to Delaney's in 2004 because the timing was right on a number of fronts. For one, he was starting to hit a ceiling at Eddie Martini's and figured he could bring in some ideas he picked up at the upscale Milwaukee steakhouse. "When he came in he offered a lot of new ideas and policies, which were put into place, and they were all good ideas that he picked up from his previous employment," Jim Delaney said. "He took this wait staff to a much higher level." Jim Delaney was pleased his son was back. But Dan Delaney, who came in as general manager, created waves when he spearheaded efforts to step up the menu, service, look and feel of the restaurant and improve consistency. Some staff saw him as the "kid" who was getting his way because he was the boss' son. But the staff adjusted and some moved on. Jim Delaney was OK with the changes as long as they weren't implemented too quickly. "Of course, I wanted to do it all in the first half hour I was in here," Dan Delaney said. Dan Delaney said one of the advantages of working in a family business is an intimate knowledge of his boss and an inherent desire to please him. "I definitely know the background of my dad, my boss," he said. "When his expectations are laid upon me, I feel like have to fulfill them because I remember as a kid getting in trouble if I didn't do what I was supposed to do." Working with his father gives him flexibility, which is handy for the father of a two-year-old daughter. Dan Delaney oversees the day-to-day operations, trains new servers and books parties. He also works with the chefs on menu items and helps the bar manager buy the wine. Jim Delaney, who has reduced his responsibilities, is still a large presence in the restaurant, greeting longtime customers. He oversees the office and financial end of the business. He interviews to fill the occasional job opening, maintains the general policies of the restaurant and sometimes helps with the wine selection. He still has never waited tables, tended bar or worked in the kitchen. "It's knowing how to run a business," Jim Delaney said of his success. "More than 50 percent is customer service and customer relations." There aren't many secrets between father and son and there aren't many arguments either. When one occurs, they talk it out. "Sometimes my dad, Jim, wins because he has the last say," Dan Delaney said. "That's something I've come to grips with." The younger Jim Delaney now works in the real estate business in Green Bay and owns income property in Madison, Green Bay and Dublin, Ireland. The youngest of the three brothers, Matt Delaney, was working as an appraiser and now works as a financial adviser. He also has been tending bar at Delaney's a few times a week for the last year. The older Jim Delaney's sister, Maggie Delaney-Potthoff, and her husband, Sims Delaney-Potthoff, perform occasionally at the restaurant with their band, Harmonious Wail. Jim Delaney, 67, said he is taking steps to create a succession plan to formalize Dan Delaney's role. "The only way I would ask him to come in here is if he was going to get the business," he said. "Dan likes the restaurant business and he's a student of the restaurant business. There's nothing better than to have your own son in the business." Pamela Cotant is a Madison freelance writer. pcotant@mailbag.com madison.com ©2009 Capital Newspapers. All rights reserved. |
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