An excerpt from The Silver Grill Legacy that sets the stage for everything that was about to come.
With the deal done, it was time for Mike and me to start learning how to run a restaurant. Gordon agreed to meet us at the Grill that evening to show us how to open up the next morning. True to his word, Gordon showed us how to unlock the doors, switch on the lights, check that the refrigerators were running, and turn on the equipment.
While Mike and Gordon discussed other details and headed for the griddle next to the front window, I walked to the back of the restaurant. Suddenly, I heard a loud boom. I rushed back to the front and found Mike and Gordon uninjured but lying on their backs under the cashier’s stand across from the griddle. I helped them up and tried not to laugh, since they looked like mirror images of each other. Mike’s right eyebrow and the right half of his bushy mustache were missing, and there was no sign of Gordon’s left eyebrow or the left half of his pencil-thin mustache.
As Mike and Gordon gathered themselves, they explained what had happened. The griddle was old, dirty, and greasy, and the pilot lights did not work. To light the griddle, Gordon would use an “extension rod” that he had created by twisting a coat hanger and wedging a match into its pinched end. That evening, when Gordon turned on the gas and bent over to show Mike how to use the rod to light the burners, Gordon was a little tipsy. He lost his balance and fell backward into the cash register stand. After Mike helped him up, Gordon struck another match, and they again leaned toward the griddle.
Kaboom!
While Mike had been helping Gordon, the gas had continued to flow. When Gordon struck a second match, the accumulated gas ignited. Flames shot out from under the griddle like an industrial blowtorch.
Today the explosion makes for a great story about how our ownership of the Silver Grill started with a bang, but at the time, it was the first sign that everything was not as it appeared.
