Hubris: (n) The belief that the general public will blindly bail out a private company when its own investor(s) won't.

but this guy must have them and they must be huge.

Still, don’t know if I’m more embarrassed for him or WATE. If people mismanaging and begging others for money is a news story, then they’re going to need more than 30 minutes.

Show me the business plan.

RouXbarb owner says he can't handle money and has a couple of health inspection fails (because he says he can't afford to keep things up to standards).

That's bad enough, but judging from Russ McBee's review here from a couple of years ago it sounds like he might have a couple of other problems. One, it sounds small (haven't been, don't know), and two, it is (or was then) BYOB.

I'm guessing restaurants make a lot of money, maybe even enough to cover their basic overhead, from alcohol sales. And it seems like such a small place would have to be a very upscale, exclusive, high-dollar dining destination to afford much more than a couple of staff. (See Foothills Milling in Maryville). This place doesn't sound like it meets these criteria.

But I'm not in the restaurant business, so who knows?

At least he's asking for help rather than forcing taxpayers to help thru TARP and unlimited QE to the tune of $85 billion per month, and that's just what we know about.

This whole thing makes me sad. I hope he makes it but a relative of mine who grew up in the restaurant business says this is death throes. People can be really talented at something and still be the kind of people who just need to work for somebody else.

The Wrangler made it there for years . I hear Frussies is moving. Perhaps this would be a good spot for them to move to.

I liked the Spooky's incarnation.

BEST fried chicken in town and the best slaw ever. And I don't even like slaw.

And the smokehouse at the wrangler building is one of the best in town. It's a profitable spot waiting for the right tenant.

WATE wrote ; “Chef Bruce Bogartz says he needs $25,000-$40,000 to keep running.”

Which is it; $25K or $40K? Keep running for how long? Will $25K give you a week, month or a year? Have you paid yourself while your employees have gone unpaid? Is the debt personal or business related? When was the last time you had a GM? Have you had to close other establishments due to financial issues? Why not seek investors instead of donors?

This story should have not ran without asking at least half of those questions.

I always thought curiosity was a reason for getting into journalism. It appears we live in the land of the incurious.

primarily a number of healed individuals who stake a restranteur from time to time, given the extreme costs associated with the opening of a restaurant, the fluctuating (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) dining out patterns of their patrons, and the monthly hard costs associated with staying compiant with a number of health/cleanliness/usage regulations.

Bruce has probably gotten the right idea, but you go to your outside investors at the inception of the organization of a business, not necessarily on the backend when the doors are about to close (again).

Hope he makes it, but he really needs to be a chef at a restaurant he does not own or manage.

I've worked in a few kitchens downtown and in the Old City. I haven't worked for Bogartz, though someone did point him out to me one time, so I don't really know anything about him. And while I have been cooking for a few years I can't claim to know everything about food, and most of the places I've worked don't even involve fancy jackets. While not an expert I feel I do know a thing or two about restaurants and bars and feeding people.

As I read this I keep coming back to the health inspection and the moldy produce. According to the article the chef claims that it's hard to have standards, and yes, I'm paraphrasing, but he and I, while at different places in the food universe, do the same job. I don't think I have words to describe how I feel about that statement coming from someone who makes his living feeding people.

Outside of a few cheeses mold generally goes in the trash, pretty much the minute you see it. You might want to weigh or count before you toss it so it can go into your waste and be accounted for, or maybe it's small enough that you just count it as the cost of the business we're in. But if you keep mold around so long that the health inspector gets you for it then that's not even bad business; it's just gross.

Per Knox County clerk: Bruce Bogartz of RouXbarb has a tax lien filed against him in the amount of $36,980.71.

— Carly Harrington (@knoxgirl75) September 27, 2013

Rule #1 of business: pay your taxes. Get a good accountant to help you avoid as many as possible, but you gotta pay what you owe.

And if it's payroll tax withholding that hasn't been paid, that's like stealing from employees. An unpardonable sin in my book.