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Dave’s Dispatch: Return Performance
April 24, 2007

One of my favorite on-the-job memories is of baseball Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, who was a celebrity guest at a BT Alex. Brown reception at Camden Yards, in Baltimore in the early 1990s. After a day of listening to restaurant companies make presentations, I was looking forward to a tour of the then new ballpark and a spread that included game-day fare.

As luck would have it, I was sitting with Palmer along with a few other guys. As he talked about his brilliant career, one of them got up and filled a plate with hot dogs and quietly set it in front of the great pitcher. Palmer, a spokesman for Jockey International, looked up and politely muttered, “When you’re modeling underwear, you can’t eat stuff like that.” I almost burst out laughing.

I have Steve Rockwell to thank for the memory—and a lot more. Rockwell, who spent 19 years at BT Alex. Brown, was then one of the country’s leading restaurant analysts, having managed or co-managed IPOs for Chili’s (now Brinker International), Cracker Barrel, Outback and Papa John’s. Reporters, like me, frequently called him for information and a quote, which he was always good for.

Then Rockwell, like other analysts, recommended ill-fated Boston Chicken. “I hate to admit to that. The company failed,” he told me the other day in an hour-long phone call. “It went into bankruptcy.”

Rockwell, who left Alex. Brown shortly thereafter, was until late last summer managing a small-cap portfolio of health-care and technology issues. Now he wants back into the restaurant game. “I missed the industry,” he sighed.

Rockwell thinks he could help small chains with important strategic decisions, the kind that require looking beyond what’s in the cash box. He wants to help small companies operate as efficiently as possible to “optimize” profits and ultimately boost their value. He says he is nearly ready to hang out a shingle, yet he doesn’t want me to print his phone number. Let’s hope that day comes soon

Posted by David Farkas on April 24, 2007 | Comments (0)