Cooking Up a Storm

Rumored to be among Samuel's most contentious business relationships, however, are those with vendors. While few suppliers would comment for this article, Samuel admits that several refuse to do business with him. In addition, industry sources allege he has left a trail of unpaid bills. Yet no vendor would confirm the allegation, although Seafood Supply has had a $4,000 judgment against him since 1993.

But they do confirm that he can be difficult to work with, often hammering relentlessly on price. "I'd pick up the phone and say, 'Look, you say $6.50, I say $5.50. You don't want it, I'll send it back. You want it, come change it to $5.50," boasts Samuel. "I could tell the vendors, 'Go to hell. That's how much I'm going to pay you.'"

Some who have worked with him say he constantly pressed vendors for favors as a condition of future business. Other sources contend some of the wine poured at Avner's was demanded gratis from suppliers as a condition for inclusion on the wine list, a violation of Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission regulations. "He would try to work something out with the purveyors on the order of kickbacks," says Felix Agillon. "Or you make a list of everything that was missing, and you weren't really missing nothing. You're just going to get it all over again, and then you have money to spare on something else. Those tricks were done all the time."

One contractor says that when he submitted a bid for work on a restaurant Samuel was developing with outside financial backing, he instructed the contractor to inflate the bid by $10,000 and then rebate the markup to him. The contractor refused. "He definitely has an uncanny way of promising you the moon and getting you to do things that you wouldn't normally do," he says. "Like expose yourself a little bit more, and then nothing ever comes of it."

Agillon adds that Samuel would construct other schemes to bleed cash from his backers. These included fabricating invoices, requesting funds for payment of bills that weren't outstanding, or putting in for reimbursement of expended personal funds on bogus transactions. "He would sit on the counter scratching his head, pulling his hair out...and say, 'We're going to go down unless you help me out,'" says Agillon, recounting how Samuel would confront his partners.

Samuel denies falsifying invoices or scheming to take money away from his investors.

Bahman Ayrom asserts that Samuel's tactics almost ruined him. After huge cost overruns and a stormy dispute over the direction of Avner at Preston, Ayrom says, he was forced to sell Okeanos and Cafe Highland Park to keep from going under. "I lost a lot of money," he admits. "[Samuel] got banged up at this restaurant and got three [Dallas Morning News] stars. We did not get any result from our review like we did for Okeanos."

But Samuel says Ayrom underfunded the restaurant, failing to come through on a promised advertising and public relations campaign. "We were arguing every day," he charges. "I had to throw him out of the kitchen sometimes." Days before Avner at Preston closed for good, Samuel resigned in frustration, browbeating--according to inside sources--the kitchen staffs from both Avner and Okeanos into walking with him. Samuel contends they resigned out of loyalty, willingly gathering at his house after he left.

Yet a day later, Samuel apologized to Ayrom for his behavior, pleading to return to his position. "Those guys need their jobs," says Samuel. "He needs to have the restaurant open. So I call him the next morning and say, 'Look, let's work out these differences.'"

He committed to remain at the restaurant until February 14, at which point he would reassess the situation. But Samuel left several days later and demanded his name be taken off the restaurant signs. Avner closed December 17, 1997.

According to Vincenzo Pappano, chef at Avner at Preston Caviar Bar (now Ayrom at Preston), the critical financial losses had more sinister causes than simply internal contentiousness and a Morning News star deficiency.

"Let's just say he confused the ingoing and the outgoing very well," Pappano says with a laugh. He charges that Samuel routinely ordered large amounts of food and loaded it into the walk-in coolers. The next day, most of it would turn up missing, despite the fact that the previous evening saw little business. "He knows exactly what he's doing," Pappano continues. "I saw an invoice one day for some shrimp that came in. There was 50 pounds of shrimp. The next day, there was only 15 pounds of shrimp...35 pounds was gone overnight. He was robbing it for sure."

Pappano claims Samuel confided he was stockpiling food for the next restaurant he was planning to open, a charge Samuel fiercely denies. Pappano adds that on one occasion when he accompanied Samuel on a run to pick up bar supplies, Samuel stopped at his house on the way back to the restaurant. "He'd take a case of Cristal Champagne and a case of $100 bottles of wine and just stick it in his garage," Pappano alleges. "And it was all on the invoices for [Avner]. And he controlled all of the inventory; he controlled all of the invoices. You're talking a $3,000 theft in one clip."