THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 29, 1994 TAG: 9408300377
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY GREG WARD, SPECIAL TO BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
James Otley had a big house in Virginia Beach and a big salary as controller of Tarmac Mid-Atlantic Inc. That is, he had those trappings until November.
Otley quit the job, sold the house, shed the corporate suits. He kept his native English accent, and with his teenage son Paul and wife Aleta moved into an apartment. Then the Otleys spent almost $200,000 in life savings turning an abandoned bar into . . . you guessed it, a restaurant.
While lots of folks dream about shucking corporate life, Otley and family actually did it. Launching a sit-down, full-service restaurant called Positive Vibes, they flew in the face of conventional wisdom.
It says the last thing you want to do in a Navy town when the military is downsizing is open another restaurant. Otley says, in his unmistakably English tone: ``If you look around, there's a thousand restaurants in this area, and only the best are going to survive.''
Otley, 42, looks content as he sits at a picnic table on the deck outside Positive Vibes, a tropical restaurant on the Virginia Beach shore of Chesapeake Bay. His soft and gentle smile hides behind a black mustache.
He talks about the satisfaction operating his own business; the irony, too. He never owned or managed a restaurant, let alone worked in one. The closest he's come to work in the food trade was as a teenager selling blackberries to taverns near Nottingham Castle.
As for familiarity with tropical cuisine, Otley doesn't even try to cook in the restaurant. In fact, he's never made it to the Caribbean. He explains all this with no hint of exasperation.
``The way we're heading, we're doing very well,'' Otley said.
Largely through word of mouth, the restaurant has gradually filled with diners. Rather than focus on tourists, the Otleys have drawn area residents using special promotions such as children's night. Entertainment is provided for youngsters in the corner while the parents eat at the tables.
The restaurant, opened in April, covers 4,000 square feet and can seat 120 diners. Food and drinks would set back a typical couple about $30.
The size of the place and the ambition of the menu means the restaurant will break even when sales hit $750,000 to $1 million a year. Break even is the point where profits begin, the point where revenue begins to exceed the cost of wages, food, cutlery, taxes, electricity, gas, rent and all the other expenses inherent in business.
The menu is an eclectic mix of dishes. English fish and chips are served because Otley likes them, but other meals are creative works by a chef put on a salary to run the kitchen.
When they placed a classified ad in the newspaper, the Otleys were looking for an experienced cook. What they got was a full-fledged chef, Richard Christy, 38.
``It was a marriage of convenience, really,'' Otley said. ``We wanted someone local and mature who was not frightened of creativity. As soon as he walked through the door, we knew he was the guy. I said, `If he can cook as good he talks, he's a winner.' ''
In the early going, it wasn't tropical fare that Otley had in mind for the restaurant, but fish and chips in a traditional English setting. His son, Paul, 19, pointed out that British pubs are dark and dreary and that Americans think English food is bland.
The way Paul's thinking went, the English are steadfast in their tastes, which explains the dearth of Chinese restaurants around Great Britain. Compared to the British, Americans are explorers when it comes to dining out. That led to the idea of Caribbean cooking, an idea Christy and the Otleys turned into island fare.
``Owning a business and devoting all my time to it had been in the back of my mind ever since we moved to the States back in '87,'' Otley said.
Otley, a longtime Tarmac employee in England, transferred to Virginia after the company bought Lone Star. A year ago, the Otleys began scouting for property to buy or lease.
``We really didn't go out looking specifically for a restaurant. It could have been a retail store or shop, but when we found this place we knew what it would be,'' Otley said.
The place now is entirely difference from the place then. Turning the dilapidated building into a tropical oasis was just as challenging as making the transition to culinary management.
The place had been the proposed site of Lovely Ladies, a go-go bar that officials said no to a couple of years back. On the outside, a new paint job and a little landscaping gave the building that tropical feel. The inside, however, looked more like it had been hit by a tropical storm. The bar had to be demolished and the floor beneath it replaced. The job turned out to cost twice as much as originally expected, and ate up much of the cushion the Otleys had set aside for the first year of operation.
What's more, the electrical system needed rewiring. The building didn't meet certain city codes. The list went on.
It took Otley two months longer than planned to get the place open for business. Just inside there's a bamboo- and palm-fringed bar accented by colorful lights and pastel bar stools. Photographs of the Caribbean and island art adorn the walls.
Otley figures ``brave'' doesn't describe his business venture. He just wanted to break away from the normal corporate discipline.
For him, being content means being secure, and that's not always a good thing. Said Otley: ``Security can become like a noose around your neck that ties you to something, and can prevent you from doing something different, something that would make you happy.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
James Otley, with wife Aleta and son Paul.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB