The story elaborates on the promises made, the SBA loan, and the attempted buyout.<\/p>\n
Galehouse confirms the issue that we feel is at the heart of the controversy:<\/p>\n
Gould came up with a new plan: to buy Gravitas from Tycer. He told Tycer what he was doing, found some financial backers willing to buy out the SBA loan and gave Tycer a letter of intent to take over the restaurant's financial obligations.<\/p>\n
But Tycer felt low-balled. He said Gould's investors were \"looking for someone frantic who wanted to be pulled out from underneath a boulder.\"<\/p>\n
He counteroffered, and Gould's investors pulled out.<\/p>\n
But as recently as July, he said, Tycer told him he still saw him as a partner.<\/p>\n
That changed on Aug. 7 when Gould got a call from Tycer's wife. Annika Tycer, a management consultant who helps her husband with the business side of food, had been involved in the buyout negotiations. She told Gould that he was no longer considered a partner.<\/p><\/div>\n
Our summary:<\/p>\n
Something smells funny. If Tycer didn't want to be bought out, why did he enter into negotiations?<\/p>\n
Here's the timeline as we see it:<\/p>\n
Tycer negotiates with Gould.<\/p>\n
Gould can't raise enough money in this economic climate.<\/p>\n
Tycer feels lowballed, but still considers Gould a partner.<\/p>\n
Then Tycer's wife comes in and tell him that he's not considered a partner.<\/p>\n
Gould feels betrayed, and quits.<\/p>\n
Maybe that's just business as usual in a Tycer establishment. But we think it stinks. Ethical firms don't promise a key employee equity and then yank it away because they get mad.<\/p>\n
We stand by our position to avoid Tycer and his establishments; we can't support a restaurant with these sorts of business practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maggie Galehouse at the Houston Chronicle has posted her take on Battle Ownership, the Tycer vs. Gould controversy at Gravitas. Chefs' rift grows into a chasm The story elaborates on the promises made, the SBA loan, and the attempted buyout. Galehouse confirms the issue that we feel is at the heart of the controversy: Gould […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/htownchowdown.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}