Original subtitles

(Crackling)

(Dishes shuffling)

Five to bring, two five.

Yeah, would you say two four?

There's a soup scallop, he wanted a veg.

(Thoughtful piano music)

It's frustrating.

But it's been frustrating for three years.

My most comfort zone

Is in the kitchen, of course.

Do I like this kitchen?

No, I hate it.

But the space is a big limiting factor,

Because if the space was bigger,

We could certainly expand on our food

That we want to expand on.

We can't push forward

Without the extra hands.

And we're very short-staffed in the front house, too.

We don't have a manager.

We haven't had a manager in six months.

And Michael's our expeditor.

He should be up-selling all of our wine right now.

He should be making the restaurant money,

But what's he doing?

He's forced to stand there and expedite for us,

Because we don't have an expeditor.

Because they're not gonna hire it.

They won't hire.

They want more, but they don't want to give more.

We're still a restaurant that has six coffee cups.

That's it.

You know, we're still a restaurant

That doesn't have the ample amount of silverware

To feed our patrons every night.

Now, you walk out of here, you're paying

Over $200 a person, for an experience.

We better damn well be giving that to them.

(Banging)

So, this is it.

We're looking at 5500 square feet

Up top,

Which we'll use all for the restaurant,

Kitchen, storage.

After looking at 80 to 100 different spaces in Chicago,

Obviously it was exhausting.

It suits what we wanted to do

And the location just kept getting better and better

Over the last year or so with pre-existing restaurants

That are our neighbors now.

This row of Randolph is just gonna be amazing.

It's a huge opportunity.

I mean, we get one shot to make a great restaurant.

So we have to put 150% into this space,

From now until the day we open.

And then, we even have to do

Even more.

Because once the doors open,

It's even more important.

[Voiceover] You want this to be the best restaurant

In Chicago?

I want it to be the best restaurant in the country.

That's the goal.

We know we can do it.

I think we have a lot of the key people,

We have the talent, we have the know-how,

We have the drive.

You know, a lot of sleepless nights thinking about

What's gonna happen, how I'm gonna get this done,

You know, there's a list of a million things

That need to get accomplished in the next eight months.

[Voiceover] How confident that you'll meet that deadline?

Not confident at all. (Laughs)

I mean, I say, if we say eight months, I think we'll hit

Maybe the eight-and-a-half, nine month mark.

(Twinkling music)

He's very disciplined.

And that comes off right away.

I mean, one of the things that I remember about him is,

He has an impression about him.

He's fit.

He exercises, he lifts weights, he runs.

His hair is always clean cut.

He's like a,

He's solid, right?

Everything about him.

His persona, that, he's just,

Meticulous, detail-oriented, ready to go.

Well, his reputation is brilliant.

I mean, I've eaten his food many many times

And he's just such a huge force to be reckoned with

As far as his talent goes.

His food is very thoughtful.

It's very thought out.

It's very, incredible concentration of flavors

And the look is beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful look.

He has a sensuality with food and a touch

That you can't teach.

He has a way with people,

You know, I think that naturally he's calm,

He's a natural teacher.

He's a very good teacher.

He never got frazzled.

He was always very calm.

No matter what.

Under the most pressure.

We're gonna get it done,

Don't worry chef,

We'll make it happen.

Like, that's very rare

In the cooking world.

(Beeps)

I think you'd be foolish not to be scared of failing.

It's like Mike Tyson, you know,

Like he's scared to death to step in that ring

Because he doesn't want to lose.

It's the same thing for me.

I don't want to lose.

I'm putting everything on the line.

Not only that,

I have 60 employees that depend on

What we do on a daily basis.

On the choices that we make.

That's a huge burden to have on your shoulders.

When I first took the job at Avenues,

Not meeting Michael yet,

And I just read his last name,

I said Muser, I'm like, aw.

This is gonna be some French fuck.

Goddamn, some stuffy French guy

That I'm gonna have to work with.

European.

(Laughs) Muser.

That's all I could think about, and I'm like,

Ugh, this is gonna suck.

(Laughs) But it was completely the opposite, so.

Even when we're not getting along,

And we're at opposite ends of the spectrum,

I still love the guy.

You know what I mean?

That's when you know you got something good.

And we've reached a point where we can definitely go there

Under any circumstances

And there's no topics that are off the line.

We have a lot of the same interests.

You know, wine and food

And motorcycles and girls.

Well, I like girls, he don't.

(Laughs)

Cooking at his level like that?

Charlie Trotter?

Come on.

I mean, you can't say anything bad about the guy.

He's an incredible chef.

He's been doing what he's been doing for 20 years,

25 years, so.

If I'm doing what he's doing in 25 years,

Awesome.

Curtis had a great training ground in the sense that

Charlie Trotter was known before almost anyone else

For just getting the most unusual, exotic,

Specialized precious ingredients.

And so, there was really the sense of,

The ingredient was very important.

And that was well before farm to table

Became something that every gastropub did, right?

Alinea also had wonderfully sourced ingredients,

But there also was a high degree of,

Sort of, manipulation to them.

Like, what can you do creatively,

What can we do with foie gras

Other than serve it as foie gras?

What can we dehydrate or make into a powder

Or, you know, make into some other thing

That's gonna surprise you, when you bite into it.

What Curtis Duffy has done since then,

His personality is not to be, sort of, science-y

For the sake of science-y.

Whereas Curtis' stuff tended to be plated

Fairly traditionally, as opposed to using a lot of,

You know, unique, crazy service ware.

But, he also still brought that creativity to it.

How can I make these ingredients sing,

Maybe in a way that they haven't sung or anyone else.

We gotta hustle, we gotta hustle.

I'm gonna read this real quick.

Five o'clock, we got a dues payable 25,

F & B, professional SVP, US Chairman,

At the what?

Calorie Control Council, wow.

And this is on Courtney's request to be here tonight,

She just wants to wish Chef well on his new venture,

And Tom and Courtney are obviously people

That we want to keep close to our side, so.

Nine o'clock, table 44.

We would love a window table if possible,

Looking forward to dining for the last time

With Chef Curtis at Avenues!

Web reservation, no avocados here!

The guest is a lawyer.

They enjoy sparkling water.

The attorney office is on Wacker Drive.

He attended Ohio State University in 1988.

[Woman] They've been here a lot.

Okay.

Pumped up.

[Curtis] Ten times.

Ten times.

Any questions on any of the resos?

We're good?

Awesome.

Pretty awesome last service, right?

It's pretty incredible.

I've walked away from a lot of restaurants

Through my career.

Never closed one, though.

Hopefully the last one that I close.

This is hard, sorry.

We achieved a lot of great things in this restaurant.

I don't know, I'm speechless,

To be honest with you.

I've written down a couple pages of stuff,

But, you know, I speak from my heart from this,

But I'd rather speak to you

Without having to read stuff that I've written.

So.

It hasn't been the most restful week, for sure.

It's been a lot of sleepless nights,

A lot of laying in bed, just,

A lot of thoughts going through my head.

You're constantly around these people

For 12 plus hours a day.

These people that you grow to know

Or you become intimate with them.

You're with them all the time, you know?

Even more so than your families.

It's like ending a relationship, you know.

You put all that energy and effort into it,

And all of the sudden it's gone.

(Driving percussive music)

Service, please.

Last beef, guys.

Last beef.

Last beef, guys.

(Laughs)

You know, we look back at the style of food

That we put out every single day,

And what it means about that definition.

Grace, and the gracefulness and graciousness

That we offer to our guest

And extend to our guest.

It's all about that one word.

Grace.

Thank you.

Take care.

See you in a bit.

All right.

See you guys down there?

Yep.

Do you need the keys,

I don't need the keys any more?

See you, Chef.

Goodnight.

Take care of yourself.

I will.

Goodnight, Chef!

Goodnight, see you!

Going down?

24?

Okay.

Okay, hang on one second

Because I'm gonna read these dimensions out to you.

The boys are kicking ass, Mike.

They already have a 3-D rendering of the space.

We're looking at, for as far as workable space goes,

Actual square footage we're looking at,

4400.

This is our first official meeting with them

After hiring them.

You know, you start to get excited about the possibilities.

That's essentially why we ended up going with an empty box,

Because it's essentially our canvas at this point,

We can make it as complex or as simple as we want.

It's definitely a marathon, for sure.

You gotta train like it is.

So we do things on a daily basis.

We try to get a little bit done each day,

And by the end, obviously it's gonna come together.

The pressure will come

Once we get a schedule down, I think.

Yeah.

You know, we have to start hitting deadlines

And things like that when we know that

X, Y and Z needs to be here.

Yeah, we'll be under a little more pressure than we are now.

For sure.

What are you doing on Thursday?

Nothing.

Getting caught up on some emails and stuff like that.

I just gotta check in with my wife,

Because I haven't seen her in three days.

(Phone ringing)

Pretend like I'm still married.

Yeah, so I'm free tomorrow.

What's up?

(People chattering)

Everybody really respects him,

Because he's a talented chef,

But he's a great person.

And I used to work with Trotter with him

For like two years.

So we're like, next to each other

On a hot line with Trotter.

He was a great guy,

Just head down and work really hard.

That's what he does right now, too.

He's a chef, like two star Michelin restaurant.

And I know he wants to, like,

Get his third star.

And someday he's gonna get it.

Hey!

How you doing?

Good, how are you?

This is my friend, Jackie.

Hi, nice to meet you.

So there's a lot of, constant struggle,

Physically and mentally, what happens

In the kitchen.

You take a lot of baggage home,

And you sleep on it,

Talk about it with your spouse.

You know, me and Yvonne have this rule,

When we get home, to try not to talk about work,

And be husband and wife when we come into the door.

It hardly happens!

It hardly happens.

I do the same thing.

Never talk about work.

My wife ask me, like, so how was your day?

I'm like, well, it was good.

I fired somebody, had a great day in there,

And that's part of our day, I'm done talking about work.

Well, I think the low point is separating from Kim

And moving in that direction's been difficult.

Not just for me,

For the girls, for her.

I think the high point, for me,

Has been the concentration on this restaurant.

I'm finally being able to build the dream restaurant

That I've always wanted,

It just happens to be at the worst fucking time.

I am surprised that he succeeded so well, yes.

But does it surprise me that he did succeed?

No.

Because he's always been,

You know, goal-oriented.

From all that we have went through in our lives,

Whether together as a family,

Or him on his own or whatever,

The tragedy set me back a few notches.

And he was striving forward.

I don't know how he feels

Emotionally, now,

Of the whole situation,

But he's doing so well,

And I'm so proud of him.

He has always set his mind to something,

He has always achieved.

(Hopeful music)

What I'm showing here,

Is there are a number of ways to do this.

In this same amount of space, in this 10 feet two,

We could put two Traulsen reach-in refrigerators.

The financial side of it freaks me out a little bit,

How much we're gonna spend on this restaurant,

Knowing that we have to financially pay back

With a percentage.

So, do I wanna spend $500,000 on a kitchen?

No.

This size of the kitchen, yes,

This is what we have to do.

You know, we can go back and change a few things,

Negotiate further.

But every time we negotiate, two weeks.

Two weeks.

And it takes three weeks to do the bid,

It takes two weeks to go back and refigure it out,

So now we're waiting for that.

It's a waiting game.

Today we're basically just walking

Around the merchandise mart,

Looking for table tops and table bases.

Unfortunately, because Curtis has this obsession

With a particular type of linen

That he wants to use in the dining room,

The table bases are extremely important now.

Because they're going to be exposed,

Because the linen's going to be really tight,

It's gonna wrap up underneath the table.

Do you feel like, if you sat at that table Chef,

That your feet would get tangled up

And be banging into those legs?

You essentially have to ask yourself,

If you notice them during your experience,

Then that's a fail.

Well then we fail, because, yeah.

Your feet are gonna hit this.

You know what I mean?

Thanks, peace out!

Anything that's aesthetically pleasing to us

Takes a long time to fucking figure out, you know?

The other thing to remember too is.

Fucker!

What is wrong with you? (Laughs)

Oh, my God.

(Banging)

(Whistling)

(Drilling)

And we're not sold on this for our dining room carpet.

Nope.

I think it's too dark.

Too dark?

What about that one,

That's just black, right?

If you had told me three months ago

What we were going to end up paying for dining room chairs,

I would have said, you're insane!

There's just no way.

The reality is,

The world of chairs is not what I thought it was.

(Laughs) And chairs are fucking expansive, man,

They are really pricey.

We bought 90.

A lot.

We paid a lot.

(Laughs) It's embarrassing to say, I don't know.

We paid a lot.

We paid more than I thought we were gonna pay,

We paid more than 600.

We paid $1000 a chair.

$1000 a chair.

That's a lot of money.

That's damn near $100,000 on chairs.

Can we call SML and find out

If they have our plans and are they in that process

And when can we expect a number from them.

Because if that number comes back at $350,000,

Then it's going to be a process of,

Take that out, move that there.

We're gonna be back at square one.

Not at square one.

Close.

The longer that we wait,

The longer our doors are closed,

We're spending money that there's no revenue coming in.

We're spending a lot of money right now.

I have no idea.

June, July.

Might as well wait until 2013, at this point.

Let's fucking, let's not rush anything,

Let's just build brick by brick, you know?

Door by door, hinge by hinge, nail by nail.

Let's do a nail a day.

Let's fucking take our time.

Obviously we're talking about opening up a restaurant,

But we've got a brand we want to represent,

We've got a demographic, a target audience

That we want to cater to,

And we've got a certain style and aesthetic

That we really want to present.

The differentiation thing, for us,

Is that Denis Ray Wheaton said in Chicago Magazine

When he wrote Curtis up, he said that,

Because Curtis comes from Charlie Trotter's

And then he was with Grant for a long time,

And he said that Curtis is the bridge that connects the two.

That was brilliantly said and brilliantly written.

Mhm.

So he's this middle version of that.

That connects him to the Alinea thing.

The thoughtfulness, the intensity,

The concentration, the gravity of every single plate

That leaves the kitchen, fine, we're tied to that.

But the performance aspect of it, we're not.

He's still got that piece of classic, traditional,

All about the ingredients Charlie Trotter aspect to it.

Is that representing you properly?

You're not talking a lot right now.

No, it's fine.

You're saying it all.

(Laughing)

So, as much as people want to draw connections to

And say, you know what I mean, oh, he's that guy from.

Because Alinea is such, this monster.

Uh huh.

It's so hard to get out of it's shadow.

Part of the story is watching the rise

Of this new and different animal.

One of the tough questions that he has to field all the time

Is why'd you leave, what was wrong.

I don't know that I'm often happy with your answer,

Because it's not always positive.

(Laughing)

Can we package it in a way that,

Essentially what we had was a caged tiger before?

I'm not even joking,

If you added three more feet

To the other side of this table on the width,

That's the size of the kitchen.

We had limited staffing.

We had extraordinarily limited staffing regiment.

Going into work every day with your boxing gloves on.

I needed to fight for every single.

All right, enough.

To be positive.

(Laughing)

You know, it's like,

That's how I personally feel.

Right?

It's like, I look at him and I go,

Dude, if you think my kid was badass before,

Wait 'til you see him when he designs his own kitchen

And gets to play with his own toys.

And has nobody to ask or deal with,

And just spreads his wings and just starts freaking out.

That's gonna be exciting.

Charlie Trotter became this mecca for young chefs,

And really has an incredible alumni list

Of people running kitchens who came from his kitchens.

Curtis was one of these people who,

Charlie Trotter was very influential in these cookbooks,

You know, it just looked beautiful, sounded amazing,

Looked really difficult to make,

And this cookbook turned out to be a great recruiting tool.

Curtis Duffy read the Charlie Trotter cookbook

And was really blown away by it

And came up, and went to the kitchen,

Said he wanted to work there.

And one of the things that amazed him

Is that when he got in the kitchen,

They were actually making the stuff

That looked like the stuff in the cookbook.

And it was like, oh, this isn't just for show,

This isn't sort of this showpiece for the book,

This is what they're doing every single day.

And just the level that they were making these dishes at

Really, kind of, it was a big defining moment,

I think, for Curtis.

How are you?

Hi!

(People chattering)

It could have been maybe a year or so after he had left,

He was contacted by,

Well it had to be some legal folks,

You know, attorneys or something,

About a class action suit that had been brought

Against Charlie Trotter.

And it had to do with labor.

I still to this day don't remember signing anything

That says, yes, I want to be a part of this.

That's where I was so shocked

When I got the letter in the mail,

Like, a check.

I don't remember signing

And agreeing to be a part of any lawsuit.

There were two lawsuits filed.

The first one was the kitchen staff,

Basically saying that they were being paid a certain amount

But they weren't getting any overtime,

And they should have been getting overtime,

And so they were being underpaid.

There was also a lawsuit from the front of the house,

Saying that they were not only working these long hours,

But they weren't receiving all of their tip money,

Their service money.

I don't think anyone had to sign on for this lawsuit,

But people who had been there a certain amount of time,

Were said, okay, you receive X amount of money

Because this lawsuit was settled.

At the time when I got the check,

I was at Trio.

And I was making the same amount of money

That I was making at Charlie's, which was 400 a week.

You know, as a cook

In a city this big, you're scraping pennies.

So, you know, I wanted to travel extensively,

And get the knowledge abroad

And dine at all these great restaurants

That I've only looked up to and emulated.

So I felt like,

Here's an opportunity to take this money,

And do exactly that.

I mean, Charlie Trotter felt like he was right.

He did things in a certain way

And he felt like everyone who worked for him owed him

Because he gave them the opportunity

To work at Charlie Trotter's.

And so, if they complained about it,

Or if they sued him or were part of a suit

Or accepted settlement as part of a suit

That they hadn't filed in the first place,

They were kind of dead to him.

Um, you know, I felt a little disappointed.

But I can see his point.

I'd probably feel the same way.

Do I respect him as a person?

No.

I've dealt with him for three years, he's a monster.

But he's from a respectful level,

The way he ran a business and the way he ran a restaurant

And the way the food was operated.

You can't take that away from him.

I still respect him for that.

Dropping off plans.

Hopefully in about 58 days,

We'll actually get a permit.

It's a big step.

I mean, having the permit drawings ready,

That's a big chuck of the project.

That makes it serious, you know?

This is like, we're set with this now.

We're going for it.

This is the permit that we're gonna get.

I'll feel better when it's built.

(Laughing)

Then I'll probably sleep a little bit better.

But yeah, no, it's a major step.

(Relaxed bass guitar music)

This is actually the first time

I've been back in the kitchen since I left Avenues.

It's a great feeling.

Philip Voss has been nice enough

To allow us to use his kitchen

To prep for, you know, 800 people that the event's for.

We try to balance the dish with fat, acid,

Herbal notes, and a textural component.

So we think the fatty component's gonna be squash

That's been roasted and caramelized.

Another fatty component's gonna be the coconut, of course.

And then we think of acidity, we're making a vinaigrette

With kumquats and Buddha's hand.

As a counterbalance to the fatness.

We've got the pickled han-ja-meen-gees.

We've got an herbal note from five different herbs

That we're using.

And just the texture that we're getting

From the whipped herbs that we're using

Is gonna bring out another fatty mouthfeel to your palate

Without actually having to add fat to it.

(Sizzling)

Where are we at with the rest of this stuff?

Julienned squash, we're doing tomorrow.

Or is that done?

We're just going to shave it.

Today or tomorrow?

Tomorrow.

A young chef who's trying to make a name for themselves,

Are always going to be cast upon the shadow

Of someone who they worked for.

I had an amazing time working for them.

But, you know,

Every article that comes out,

I don't wanna be mentioned with Grant Achatz

And Alinea, all this stuff.

Because, it's about Grace at this point.

It's not about where I've been.

It's more about what we're gonna do.

Grant did the same this, with Thomas.

You get tired of seeing Grant Achatz

Associated with Thomas Keller,

And I know he got tired of it.

Heard him say it many times.

Not an article didn't come out

That didn't have the French Laundry attached to it.

Okay, at some point that's gotta get old

When you're trying to have your own identity,

You know, as a restaurant.

By most people, Alinea is the best restaurant in Chicago.

By some, the best restaurant in the country.

Those are his ambitions.

So now, he needs to bump me out.

He needs to surpass me.

In order for him to achieve his goals,

He needs to jump over me.

I'm okay with that.

Chase it down.

I did the same thing.

As the mentor,

If the protege never surpasses their mentor,

The mentor didn't do that good a job.

So if Curtis comes on the scene,

Comes up with something that is new,

Attracts enough attention

To achieve a status that's higher

Than Alinea has achieved,

I win too.

There's no losing.

I mean, we're always early to these events.

Curtis always wants us here

At least two hours ahead of time,

Set up and ready to go.

It's one of the first dishes for Grace, too.

So it's gotta be perfect.

I haven't seen the dish yet.

So I'm a little concerned that it's not gonna work.

The idea is that the bubble sits in the glass

And then they get to pop it,

And then kind of work through that.

I think when the bubble hits the glass,

I don't know if the bubble's gonna be able to sustain it.

You know what I mean?

I think the bubble's gonna pop.

Ah! (Laughing)

799 more.

(Lively samba music)

So you have butternut squash,

A little piece of Buddha's hand,

Whipped herbs and smoked coconut,

With a breath of lemon tea.

When you lift that coaster up,

You're gonna get a little bit of smoke,

That's a lemon tea breath.

Wanna say hi to the camera?

No.

Aside from like rock musicians,

And policemen and firemen who are putting their lives

Out on the line on a daily basis,

You'll be damned to find a profession

That is more taxing on the individual

And creates itself for failed marriages,

For drug addiction, for alcoholism.

For losing control of one's life.

And it's from as early as you can stand to get up

'Til as late as you can stand to stay awake.

You start to, you almost start to shut down

And shut out everything.

At least, for me.

Not spending time with your wife,

Not communicating with your family.

If I were to walk out of here tonight

At 11 o'clock at night,

Go home, go to sleep,

I would wake up tomorrow feeling guilty.

Because I didn't put in the amount of time that was required

To run one of the best restaurants in the world.

Conversely, my girlfriend would really like it

If I came home at 11 o'clock tonight.

And I'm sure Curtis can speak to this directly.

We've all been through it.

When you're in a relationship

And you're a chef working at this level,

It's incredibly difficult.

In fact, it's basically impossible.

It's just not fair to someone else to say,

Let's date, you can have two and a half hours a week.

Especially if they're not in the industry, because then,

What, they're going to bed at 10 o'clock

To get up at six AM to go to work?

And it's like, okay, well,

I'll meet you at four AM

To make a bowl of cereal for you?

You know, what do you do?

A lot of people who don't work in this business

Don't understand why you can't do things.

You know, why can't you have drinks with me on Friday night?

Well, because we're working.

Why can't you, oh, can you meet me at three AM?

That's when I can go have a drink.

Because we're closing.

So it's hard.

People who don't work in this business, who never have,

Don't understand it.

You know, I tell cooks who come in to Alinea,

Before they're hired, I say,

You're basically getting in a relationship.

Like, you need to really think about working here,

Because you're basically getting married.

And you're going to devote 14, 16 hours of your day

To Alinea.

And it's going to leave you very little time

For anything else.

If you have a dog,

Find somebody to feed it.

If you have a girlfriend?

Good luck.

You need to take out your garbage?

You might want to pay somebody to do that,

Because you won't have time.

You know, you just start to grow apart.

It became very difficult to talk,

And I think that's ultimately what separated us,

Was the lack of communication

And being able to talk

Because I was never there.

And when I was there, it's like,

It's not the thing you wanna do, is deal with problems,

Because you want to spend time with somebody.

But it's not what you want to be doing,

Talking about issues.

This is going to be the first Christmas

That I don't get to wake up

To hear them running around the house,

All excited about the Christmas presents

And things like that.

So, it's gonna be painful.

I can tell you that right now.

It's not gonna be a fun day for me.

But I don't have an answer of how to deal with it

Because this is the first time for me,

And I have to learn how to deal with it

As time goes on.

I want to see them,

I want to continue to experience that.

But right now it's not possible.

(Sentimental hopeful music)

Johnstown, Ohio is a rural setting.

It's 20 minutes from Columbus

And it's 20 minutes from the Amish country,

So there's a lot of farm area out here.

It's very wide open.

It hasn't changed much.

It's still a small little berg.

Not a lot of restaurants in Johnstown.

This is what amazes me about Curtis.

There wasn't anything here to say,

Boy, I'd like to be in culinary school for this reason

Because of this and this restaurant.

It's a big area, but it's still got that small town,

You know, everybody knows everybody's business. (Laughs)

Everybody knows you, everybody, you know,

Especially when you've been here for so long.

When you experience something very dramatic in your life,

You tend to forget a lot of things from your childhood.

A lot of those memories I either push away, or hide,

Or I don't remember at all.

We weren't wealthy, we were pretty poor.

And I think that's where I get a lot of my drive,

Is because I never wanted to live the way that I lived

When I was younger.

It was a tough childhood.

They were very strict.

My dad would kick my ass all the time.

All the time.

And my mom, the same way.

Actually, my dad was a cop for a while as well.

And my uncle, both were cops.

And I think, had them not both of them been cops,

I probably would be in jail.

I was headed up to a football game here in town.

He threw a ball or something,

Hit me in the back of the head.

Next thing you know, we're wrestling around on the ground.

One thing led to another,

Ended up being good friends, you know?

He was the guy in class that, you know,

He had olive skin and all the girls liked him,

And I was kind of the short, tubby kid

That, you know,

I figured, well if I hang out with a good looking guy,

Maybe I'll get one of them gals too.

Junior high, you have to take certain classes.

Home economics was one of the classes

That everybody had to take,

Part of your curriculum.

Well, as a guy, you look at that and go,

This is gonna suck.

Because I was into skateboarding,

I was into heavy metal music,

And I was just like, that's not what I,

I don't wanna iron.

I don't want to learn how to sew something.

But, when it would come to cooking,

My teacher Ruth Snider, would see this sparkle in my eye

About like, we're gonna cook today

And I was really excited about it.

The home ec room has always been here.

And this is where I first met Curtis,

Probably in the late '80s I believe it was,

He was in the sixth grade.

And this is the room.

I can just picture Curtis, I remember him,

Especially as a sixth grader, being at the back table,

And we were making pat-a-pizzas.

And he just was so engrossed in working,

You know, working with the food.

He could be a little ornery at times,

Never disrespectful, though.

Never, ever disrespectful.

You know it's funny, some people can't even sew.

Some people don't know how to iron their stuff.

But every time I iron a shirt,

I always think about Ruth Snider.

Always.

He kind of led the group.

He was the go to person, you know.

Somebody didn't know how to do something, it was,

Well, Curt will know.

He really wanted certain things done a certain way,

And I think that's what's gotten him as far as it has,

Is how he just really likes to have it done

Absolutely the best way possible.

She was such a great teacher in that sense of,

Very patient with everybody,

And just the sweetest lady you would ever meet.

Ever.

She's incredible.

He had a rough start before he came here.

Okay, that I do know.

I really feel that he thought it was a safe place

For him to be.

And that he knew that things would be okay in here,

At least for that 40 minutes.

In the eighth grade, the students would be able to choose,

Like I would say, you're doing a main dish this week.

He always had that extra flair,

Or the extra, you know, let's try this.

And he had that ability about him

That other kids would kind of follow along then

And say, oh, okay, if that's what you think we oughta try.

Then I moved on to high school,

And at that point, home ec was optional.

So you could take it or you not could take it,

And I opt to take it.

When he learned how to cook

And he was old enough to get a job,

It really did change him.

He had more of a direction.

So I had already started working

In a restaurant full-time.

And my focus was like, this is it,

This is what I want to do,

I'm going for it.

The first time I met Curtis was in the kitchen

In the pavilion at Muirfield Village.

I mean, just different from any other young person

That comes in.

He separated himself from the rest of the pack there,

And he just had a yearning,

He just wanted to learn learn learn, he was a sponge.

So I went directly from school to work.

And I worked from like 3:30 to 11:30.

So by the time I got home after the commute,

It was 12:00, 12:30.

I didn't spare a lot of time for family at the time.

I didn't see him any more.

He was either working,

Or doing his competitions at school.

Mhm.

The summer of '94, I had just finished high school.

My parents had been going through some rough times.

So they decided that they wanted to separate.

Mostly my mom's decision.

It was a game to both of them.

It was a game that they were playing

With each other's lives.

You know, they started going, I mean basically,

Through a divorce.

My dad didn't want it, my mom did.

My dad had started taking some antidepressant.

And he seemed to be doing really well.

And decided to really just, stop taking it.

You're not supposed to stop medicine like that cold turkey

Like he did, you're supposed to slowly wean yourself off.

So it started messing with his head a lot.

I would walk into the kitchen or I'd walk into the house,

All the lights were off

And there would be pills on the counter,

Just kind of randomly spilled out.

And there were times when I couldn't wake him up.

He wasn't stable.

You know, he was a very unstable person at the time.

The day of their wedding anniversary,

Dad tried one more time

For my mom to drop the divorce.

He had come up to the apartment in the morning

With roses and a card

And said, give this one last chance.

She said no, she was going through with the divorce.

He left, she went to work.

But he had already had it planned out,

What he was going to do if she said no.

She went to work and it was about lunchtime.

Her and Angie were walking over to McDonald's for lunch,

And Dad pulled up on a brown car

And had a sawed-off shotgun.

Bought an old car,

Ripped the insides out of it,

Took all the door handles off,

All the window rollers off,

The locks off, everything.

Once you were in, you couldn't get out.

Made my mom get in the car,

Threatened to shoot her friend Angie,

And Angie took off running and he grabbed my mom,

Put her in the car.

Drove 40 miles back out to the house where he was living.

At the time, the house, you know,

It was completely barricaded in.

He had set everything inside

To where you couldn't see in.

And I want to say Angie and a police officer

Came to the school,

To get me out of school because they weren't sure

Where Dad had taken Mom.

We weren't sure what he was gonna do,

So they were gathering us all up.

I had a police office knock at my door

And said, you need to come with me.

This was probably two o'clock in the afternoon.

And I asked what was going on, why, what's going on?

And he explained to me that my dad had come

To take my mom hostage, and they're out at the house

And I need to be out there.

The police officers took me and Angie and my daughter

To a safe house

Until he could be located, until they could be located.

And of course, there was a phone there,

So I called Dad's house.

And that's where they were.

So I called and I talked to my mom.

Tried to talk to my dad,

But my dad wouldn't talk to me.

I just promised,

I promised my mom that I would get her out of there,

And that I loved her.

She told me to stay away.

And I just promised her I would get her out of there.

And then he hung up the phone.

(Phone ringing)

Hey, this is Bear.

Me and Jan aren't home right now,

Leave your name and number,

We'll get back with you as soon as possible.

Later on.

(Beeps)

[Voiceover] Bear, this is Sergeant Mason.

You need to pick up the phone and talk to me.

Right now.

I need to know that everything is all right in the house.

(Beeps)

Bear, Sergeant Mason.

You need to pick up the phone and talk to me.

Bob, you promised me that you were coming out.

That everything was okay.

(Beeps)

[Voiceover] The person placing the call has hung up.

I was literally down the street about a quarter mile,

About three houses down.

In a hostage situation,

It's a give and take negotiation type thing.

From what I understood, he was constantly asking

To talk to me.

I don't know why,

And I still struggle with that today,

I don't know why.

I can hear the radios of the police officers,

Or the detectives that were there.

All I remember is hearing, shots fired,

Shots fired, shots fired.

The end happened very quickly.

(Crashing)

(Yelling)

Close the doors!

My dad had shot my mom and then shot himself.

Basically it ended in a murder suicide.

14, 15 hours later.

I remember being very confused,

A lot of it was very confusing to me.

Because it was planned out,

Extremely well.

I think at my dad's calling hours,

I can remember my brothers.

I don't remember any reaction from Curtis,

There was nothing really there.

It seemed like he was almost in a dream state,

Like, is this really happening?

I mean, that he just hadn't grasped

The severity of the situation yet.

I just remember the dark circles under his eyes,

He was going through the motions, at that point.

My mom's funeral was in Colorado

Because my grandparents wanted her there.

The communication was lost between us, as an entire family,

And people who were dealing with the arrangements.

She was literally on her way to the airport,

And we were able to get on the phone with somebody

Able to bring her back to a very random funeral home

Where we could at least say goodbye.

So, the last memory I have of her is very,

It's very cold, it's not warm.

I know my mom had goosebumps.

That's the only thing I can remember.

She was on a gurney.

A pretty gurney.

Yeah, she had goosebumps.

I wasn't able to make the funeral in Colorado

And from what I understand and see pictures,

It was very beautiful.

And I'm glad she was able to have that there.

Unfortunately I missed it

By a day, I couldn't get out there.

I didn't have the funds to do it.

I was at least able to see her before she left.

It just wasn't the most pleasant setting.

I remember writing a letter that I gave him that day

And asked him not to open it 'til he got home.

Because I know that, as a young man, he needed his privacy,

But I also wanted him to know

That he was not out there all alone

And that he was not forgotten.

I think that was probably a turning point,

Even though we were close to that point,

I think it was something where I kept in touch with him

A little bit more.

I just felt so devastated for him.

I remember going into the house,

And I literally couldn't be in the house

For 10 seconds at a time

Because the tear gas was so strong,

You couldn't breathe.

It was just like it hadn't hit him.

We went to the house

And it still didn't seem like it had hit him yet.

When Curt's mad, he always just kind of stayed reserved.

He just wouldn't speak to you.

That was the type of person he is.

I felt like he was bewildered and I was trying

To basically put his heart at ease, you know?

I actually found this notebook at his house.

So it was a letter that I never got.

He had finished, I can show you if you like.

There's a page in there that's addressed to my brother,

There's a page in there that's addressed to my sister,

And there's a page that's addressed to my mom,

But none of them are written except for me,

Except for mine.

[Voiceover] Do you think we could see it?

Yeah, of course.

I found this at the house when I went back.

But I had put it away for a long time, of course.

Says, "this is Dad."

"I'm telling you from my heart that you, (laughs)"

"You're a very special young man,"

"And I wish I could tell you"

"How proud of you I am,"

"But words do not cover it all."

(Clears throat)

"You will be a great chef."

"No doubt in my mind,"

"You will be one of the best in the world someday."

"Please don't ever say you can't because that is not a word"

"But can is, and I know you can."

"Your life is just beginning."

"Try to do all the right things in it."

"Make sure if you ever get married and have children,"

"That you show them and your wife all the love in the world."

"Always take time to be with them"

"And show them love."

"Your wife should be,"

"Your wife should be shown the most love of all."

"Take time to talk to her and hear what she has to say,"

"Because she will be the most important person in your life."

"I asked you Curt, to look back"

"And see how many wrong things you have seen me do,"

"And please don't walk in my footsteps"

"Because you will be in a world of pain, hate,"

"And sure won't be loved,"

"And won't be able to show love."

"I know you have it in you,"

"So please show it to your loved ones."

"Everybody needs it, you can't survive without it."

(Sniffs)

I need a minute.

"I love you, son."

"Signing off for now, we'll talk another day."

"Remember I love you, son, and always will."

"My love, your dad."

(Sparkling creative music)

We've been staring at it on paper

For like, eight months now.

When you walk in, it's hard not to smile

Like an eight year old child,

Because you see the actual physical wall structure

Of what you put in your head.

I don't know, man.

It's pretty cool.

If I go down that hallway,

It's a very gradual ramp

That goes up into the dining room.

If I'm gonna go into the lounge,

I go, step, step, up here.

It's progress,

And it's one step closer to getting into the space

And opening this restaurant,

So how can you not be excited about it?

It's a lifelong dream.

Every single day, it's a new step.

(Laughing)

[Curtis] We're at the chef's garden,

Which is located five hours east of Chicago in Huron, Ohio.

They're here to serve and provide us

With ingredients that you can't find anywhere else.

The purpose of coming here to the chef's garden this weekend

Was really to get the team away from the city,

And get the team back together in the kitchen.

Over the past few months,

That sense of reality is starting to sink in quite a bit,

So it's intensifying these moments that we're having now.

I mean, it's really starting to get real.

(People chattering)

Five seconds, stand by!

Well it is one of the most highly anticipated

Restaurant openings in the country,

And it's happening right here in the West Loop.

It's called Grace, and it will be homed

By Chef Curtis Duffy, and he's here with us this morning,

So give it up for him right now, good morning!

Thank you, thank you.

(Audience applauds)

That's a pretty nice intro, huh?

It's fantastic.

Does that put the pressure on you?

A little bit, yeah.

Absolutely.

Okay, now this has got to be one of the most

Highly anticipated openings across the whole country.

How are you holding up under all that pressure?

I'm good, we just started menu development yesterday,

So we're excited about getting back into the kitchen

And really start to hone in some of the dishes

That we've been thinking about for,

Now, a year or so.

Can you tell us an exact date?

Because I know the opening's been pushed back a bit.

Yes.

You know, we're pushing for late October,

But probably the first week of November

Is where we're really gonna focus on, so.

We're really close, we're really close.

Why so many delays?

Because this was supposed to open up in June, right?

Yeah.

There's so many delays, there's just obstacle

That we have to overcome, you know, all the subcontractors

And things like that, so.

Right, right.

You know, they're kind of unexpected things,

So you try to foresee a little bit of them,

But some of them you just can't.

I wish sometimes the subcontractors had the same drive

And mentality as a chef does,

Where it's like, you do what it takes to get it done,

All the time.

Whether you stop to take a break or not,

It's not even an option.

They blame it on one person,

Who blames it on the next,

Blames it on the next,

Which goes in this big circle of,

I can't do this until this guy does this

And I can't do that until this guy does this

And this guy can't do that until that guy does his stuff.

And they're all pointing fingers

And going, what do I do?

I worry about him.

I know that being a chef has taken its toll

Personally on his life.

And I hope he knows that, in a drop of a hat,

If he would call and say Ruth, can you come to Chicago,

I need you here,

I would drop everything and I would be there.

I just feel very fortunate

That I can look upon him as a son.

I really do.

That completes the life.

The day that Grace opens,

Or when he has family and friends night,

Or whenever he wants me there.

If he wants me there both times,

I will be there both times.

I'd wash dishes if he needed me that night to wash dishes.

If he needed me to set tables that night, I would.

Whatever he would need done, I would do for him.

There's no doubt in my mind, I will be there.

It's 4:00AM and we're at Acadia restaurant

In the South Loop, working on menu development

For Grace restaurant.

Chef Brian McCaskey was very generous in allowing us

To step into his kitchen.

Basically handing over his restaurant to us

And letting us come in here.

We're working on the sunchoke dish

That's based around four ingredients.

We have sunchoke, we have mustard,

We have celery, we have onions.

We typically take sunchoke

And peel them and cook them in a way

That to me was very boring, always.

I always thought, why did we get rid of the skin?

We use potato skins, we used a lot of different skins

When we cook.

My thought process was, let's poach it,

Try to get some flavor into the sunchoke,

And then let's fry it and see what happens.

And the result ended up being,

Because of the natural sugar in the sunchoke,

Became sticky and had this really nice chewy texture,

A little crispy at the same time.

Then we started thinking of what else do we want to use

Within that realm.

First thing that came to my mind was celery and mustard.

We've taken the ricotta, it's actually goat milk ricotta,

We wanted a little bit of a sour note to it.

What we've done with the onions,

We've also roasted the onions.

We burn them completely, dry them,

And then turn them into oil.

And then we also blacken some other ones

That we keep one side of it is charred

And one side of it is cooked through.

So we take four major components,

Usually no more that five,

And try to expand on that ingredient

And see how many different techniques we can use

For that element.

Once we get back into the kitchen,

It'll be refined even more.

It just needs to be a little bit more balanced,

So it needs to have a little bit more fat

Throughout the dish

And a little bit more acidity throughout the dish.

(Muffled talking)

Right now, we're gonna call our potential hires

And see if they're still interested,

And then offer them a position, so.

(Phone ringing)

[Voiceover] Morning, Chef.

Good morning, how are you sir?

[Voiceover] Very good, Chef, how are you?

Fantastic.

I'm calling you to let you know and ask you

If you're still interested in the position at Grace.

[Voiceover] I am, Chef.

Okay.

Well, then I want to say welcome aboard.

[Voiceover] Oh, man!

Awesome, thank you Chef!

You're welcome.

Andl'd like for you to keep it very confidential

That you're hired, as well.

[Voiceover] Okay, Chef.

Thank you.

My pleasure, thank you.

[Voiceover] Okay, Chef.

I look forward to hearing from you again.

Okay, we'll talk to you soon.

[Voiceover] Okay.

Thanks, bye bye.

Super enthusiastic.

Really excited.

(Energetic music)

We've been waiting on the truck, it's been late

For four days now, and when it shows up,

The shit is just in total chaos.

Some of these major boxes that have all the equipment inside

Have fallen on top of each other, so.

Trying to assess the damage as they come out.

We're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars

On this kitchen, and to me, it seems like,

Eh, just another kitchen.

You know what I mean?

And it's not.

Can you just, it's kind of right here,

Your first name, last name and then he lists it here.

Okay.

Have fun.

Jordan.

Nice to meet you.

This is your restaurant, so walk around.

Go see the kitchen.

Stone went in on the countertops in the kitchen.

It's breathtaking.

It's absolutely beautiful.

So, walk around, see the bathrooms and stuff.

(People chattering)

This is the largest piece of glass

That can be tempered.

And we have three large pieces brought over here.

We have to take 17 people

From zero to 150 miles an hour

In, you know, these next two weeks.

The expectation on behalf of the people walking in the door

Is that they're gonna be at that level.

So if they're not, then shame on me.

And shame on Chef.

So we just can't let that happen.

(Serious piano music)

All we're doing today is just going over

The employee handbook.

Talking about, in general, just Grace philosophy.

What we do here, how we got here,

Our expectations of you.

Our goal is to achieve the highest level of culinary

And service standards without pretense,

Snobbery, or presumption.

Instead, every moment in our service pattern,

Every gesture we make,

Every ingredient we place in a plate,

Every drop of wine we pour in a glass,

Comes from an honest and genuine place.

We are never called robotic, dry or insincere.

This is not a job.

It cannot be.

It represents much more than that.

Our ability to achieve these standards

Does not represent what we do, but who we are.

There are 50 billion restaurants in the city of Chicago.

And you travelled here and chose us.

And for the prices that we charge,

It's even that much more of an honor.

What an unbelievable thing.

They gotta know, they will know,

That we are faithful, that we are gracious

About their presence and their participation

In our dining room.

Good afternoon, thank you for calling Grace.

This is Amy, how may I help you?

Certainly, for one?

Any food allergies or dietary restrictions

That we should be aware of?

Oh, certainly.

You said four people, what time would you like to come in?

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you so much!

Bye.

(Cars honking)

Yeah, Ava's lost four teeth now.

I was there for her last one, which was last week.

Unfortunately I'm not able to be there

And put that stuff under her pillow

That she's thinking is the Tooth Fairy.

I remember the conversation that we had with Ava

When we told her that I wasn't going to be living there

Any more.

It was pretty upsetting for her, of course.

And then, Eden?

Yeah, I just think she thinks I work a lot.

When I leave at night time, after I tuck them in bed,

I tell them that I'm going back to work,

And that I'm leaving.

I'm thankful Curtis cooked the turkey in our new oven.

And I'm thankful all of our health and success

In the future, yeah?

Cheers.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

(Adventurous music)

32, thank you.

At home, I do practice by myself,

Giving a full description to the mirror, or with my brother.

I practice on my standing point,

And speaking out loud clearly.

But not too loud where I'm bothering the next table.

Gonna be 14, 12 to 16 hours in the kitchen.

Yeah.

[Voiceover] Is that normal for cooks?

When you work in restaurants like this, yes.

When you're trying to be the best,

You sacrifice your sleep, family, friends, your social life

To become the best.

Yes, I miss my friends, but at the same time it's like,

I've gotta get somewhere in my life,

And I know what I need to do to get there.

So this is part of it.

So I'll keep pushing and pushing and pushing until I do.

(Building percussive music)

You know, you eat with your eyes first.

And it's very seductive.

You know, from the linen to the china

To the ambiance, and then the flavors,

And it just, it all comes together,

It's like poetry.

Well, I have a son,

And I decided to come see how well he cooks.

When he was young, he didn't eat a whole lot of food.

He was kind of finicky.

Very proud, very impressed with him, getting very full,

And it's, the food is out of this world.

Coming from a small town in Louisiana

To come eat food like this, it's pretty amazing.

Give me a kiss.

Only on camera.

Yeah, we love what we do!

Every night's been such a stress fest,

And you know, you're sitting thinking to yourself,

At some point I'm gonna start crying like an idiot.

You know what I mean?

I said to every single one of them,

If you bring to me every day drive and focus

And positivity and energy and work ethic,

If you bring that to me,

Then what we will give back to you

Is a thousand times that.

If you need a ride and I got a car, you'll have it.

If you need money and I got it, you'll have it.

If you need support, if you need to learn something,

If you know, whatever.

Most of them haven't seen their significant others

Or done anything, you know.

To be here until four in the morning

And turn around, see them here at eight,

Doing fucking laundry.

How do you say thank you to those guys?

You can't.

You just can't.

I'm grateful.

I'm thankful.

Trying not to be emotional about it.

But this is, for me, it's a dream come true.

This is what I've worked so many hours for,

So many days away from my family.

I wanna say, to you guys,

From the very bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thank you very much for being a part of this team,

Being a part of opening this restaurant,

And the journey towards something great.

I'm blessed to have a business partner, Michael,

To support me 100% in every decision that I make.

But mostly as a friend, first and foremost.

Because I know he has my back 100%

And I'm thankful for that.

What he said.

(Laughs) I don't know what else,

Yeah, exactly, ditto.

I don't know, I can't, how am I supposed to say it?

I can't.

So, be good.

Do good, try hard, okay?

That's it.

(Sniffs)

(Positive excited music)

I'm nervous as hell.

I'm anxious.

I'm overwhelmed with excitement.

It's hard to sit back and realize that this is the day

That all those thought and all the time,

Everything that we sacrificed for this moment,

I don't think about that.

But I have to sit back at some point today

And try to enjoy this moment.

Because this is everything that we worked for.

Yeah.

(Laughs)

(Building guitar music)

Good luck, Daddy!

We love you, goodbye!

(Laughs)

Goodnight Daddy, we love you.

Good luck.

That's awesome.

Push push push, pairings pairings pairings.

Captains, my Cadillac salesmen,

Let's see pairings all night tonight on that.

Let's see some real sexy pairing sales.

Move fast.

Move, fast.

This is our business, ready?

This is what happens with us,

And this is what's going to happen to us

Forever from here on out.

These 5:00 to 6:30 resos, they gots to go.

They gotta go.

Push, push, push!

At 5:30, we have a one top.

He's a conductor.

He is a big fan of ginger ale.

Not so big on food descriptions.

He's a regular at many of the other restaurants

That we've dined, let's befriend him

And show him how warm and gracious we can be.

At 6:00PM, we have three tables.

Two deuces and a three top.

The first deuce, Juan Flores.

He's a line cook over at the Trump.

Mr. Flores is also a Marine.

He served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I have a soft spot for taking care of those

Who have done those things.

Let's take very, very good care of him,

And champagne, on me please.

7:00PM, another two top.

A Chicago-based foodie

Who's always looking for the next new meal.

Fond of Twittering.

Pulls out her phone, pay attention.

8:30PM, a two top at table one.

What's this name?

No Facebook, doesn't turn up anywhere on the internet.

Somehow figured out how to score a reso here

On our opening day.

Why do I say that?

'Cause we're so hot?

No.

If anybody was here on opening day

And saw how many times the phone rang,

You had to call like a thousand times just to get through.

For somebody like that to try that hard to get a reso here

On our opening night, and not exist on the internet,

Is weird to me.

And then at 9:30PM, our final two top.

Table 11, Ruth Snider.

This is Chef Duffy's home economics teacher.

Very close and personal friend of mine.

No check for them.

Champagne 'em, the whole nine.

All right, let's go!

Have fun.

Okay?

Stay focused.

(Uplifting rock music)

We got two caviar?

Two caviar, table four.

I'll take those right back.

Hands, please?

Thank you.

Four beef and a chestnut on deck?

Take hands, please.

Ruth has always been there.

You know, she's always been there.

She's there for support,

And that's hard to ask somebody to be there for support.

If you need anything, if you need a place to live,

If you need money, if you need whatever you need,

I don't care what it is, I'm there for you.

To have that, and feel that from somebody is,

You know, it's pretty special.

A true friend.

Ruth Snider's a true friend.

Oh, my God.

Oh honey, I'm so happy for you.

How've you been?

I'm just so happy for you.

So awesome.

Hi, how are you?

Good to see you.

You too.

This is just so elegant.

Wow.

So elegant.

Oh, we do get to see the kitchen!

Oh my, thank you sir.

Thank you.

Enjoy.

Thank you, thank you.

Amy?

Great, Amy, thank you.

I know Chef Duffy's very excited

To have both of you in tonight.

And you'll be able to really get the nice feeling

Of getting to see.

Oh, this is wonderful.

[Curtis] I'm gonna take care of that.

Let me see them.

[Voiceover] They're two of the best pieces, Chef,

Your best ones.

If you need to fire more, fire more.

These are your two best ones, Chef?

They're oiled and salted?

I want him to know that I'm proud of him

For being the man that he is.

Not the chef, not all of this wonderful restaurant.

I'm proud of him for him.

But I'm so thrilled that his dream has come true.

I mean, all his hard work,

And we've talked, he has sacrificed.

There's been things that have happened

That he has sacrificed to get to this point.

She's special because she was able to see somebody

That was not in a place to financially buy things

That I needed to buy for school,

And I was constantly in trouble.

And I think she was the lady that looked past that

And could see something unique or special

Or whatever you want to call it,

And nudged me and guided me in that direction.

I'm just, it's just,

It is just awesome.

I am just so so proud of him.

He really, he means a lot to me, he really does.

So, he's like a son.

Clock out and go home, everyone.

Please go home.

2:00PM tomorrow, two o'clock tomorrow.

It was a good night, but don't get all crazy,

Because tomorrow we have more, and it's gonna get crazier,

And then Friday, and then Saturday.

(Thoughtful piano music)

Yeah, it would be nice to understand happiness, sure.

I mean, I'm happy of course,

But balance is what's missing.

In this lifestyle, there is no balance.

You can't be great at something and put 100% into everything

Without sacrificing something else.

Because I'm so hungry for the professional,

Yet I'm still hungry for the personal.

But this kind of overweighs it.

For some reason.

(Phone ringing)

[Voiceover] Hi Curtis,

I'm calling from the Michelin guide.

We are calling you with some amazing news.

You are being awarded three Michelin stars for Grace

In the new edition.

Oh my God.

[Voiceover] Congratulations.

All right, thank you.

[Voiceover] All right, bye bye.

Bye bye.

We did it.

Yeah, buddy.

Let's go tell the kids, huh?

Three stars, guys.

(Erupts in cheers and applause)

(Uplifting rock music)

* What is it you're looking for

* Do you really think you need any more

* It's the edge of waging war

* To even out to score

* 'Til you feel secure

* Enough to break the rule