Unlikely ABC would be instantly notified, as the license is a valued asset when it comes to sale/sublease of restaurant space. Everything else reeks of a quick exit.
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IMO, thatās kind of an a$$hole-y response from AF (that, as other poster have noted, totally misses the point)?
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This guy Shawn Hakim might be a majority owner. Heās the manager of the Slow Burn 1 LLC and the principal of FHMM LLC, which has an interest in Slow Burn 1 LLC.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnhakim/
My point is that they have a liquor license, which means they had to file a shit-ton of notarized paperwork documenting everyone involved. I was responding to:
Ha, he has time to respond to Facebook posts but not explain why his 1 week old restaurant closed without notice.
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Wow. Gonna pop myself some popcorn lolā¦
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More like Adam Fleeceman, amirite?
Sorry.
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All kinds of other ways while still running it like a legit biz. Pay himself a big salary as part of the ongoing set up. Inflate receipts, etc. If youāre planning to run it as a quick exit, operate in a manner that will extract out as much cash as possible for yourself in the short term.
Then shut the business down to āretoolā or claim market conditions, etc. Given the high failure rate of many places, it wonāt arouse a lot of suspicion especially with naive investors. All someone has to do is show one past decent success such as a place running for a couple of years. Thatās enough of a reputation to rope in investors for other ventures.
If you know you donāt have to plan for long term success and just want to get some money in, itās easy enough to set up a business and get it going.
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Have you ever bought, owned, or sold a liquor license in California?
I kind of doubt Shawn Hakim is a naive investor.
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That wasnāt the original point though. You said it was impossible to defraud investors. Iām saying itās possible to extract a lot of money from investors by starting a business and knowing you donāt have to worry about long term results. That of course is more likely with naive investors.
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Holy cow. I get that having to deal w/ criticism of your restaurant (esp during these times) is really, really painful, but thatās just gross.
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If your investors were so clueless that they gave you all the money up front, didnāt keep an eye on the accounts, and didnāt track whether things were progressing according to the business plan, and you had a crooked accountant cut in on the deal, sure, you might be able to embezzle a lot.
I was thinking of The Producers, where they oversold shares of the business. That would be pretty much impossible if there were a liquor license as you couldnāt keep them from finding out about each other.
What really is odd is that ppl still continue investing with them. Iām just a nerd that reads/talks about food online and I would never invest in a project connected to either of them based on their reputations. You would think investors in the food world would know a little more about their reputations and failures?
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Doing a proof of concept at one location is a small financial risk compared with the potential payoff from a chain.
I guess Umami Burger and 800Ā° are both successful enough for investors to overlook that three of his last four prototypes didnāt pan out.
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Plenty of naive people out there with money who get dazzled by rep. If theyāre just asked to pony up X amount of money for a share and promised Y return later, that is usually enough.
Especially as you say if itās sold as proof of concept. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Someone could still set up a proof of concept and pay themselves an large figure from the investment. Double dip by paying a friend to do the marketing or buy equipment from a vendor friend.
Plenty of history of people who get dazzled by being involved in what looks like a glitzy business and want their name associated with it. A movie, an art gallery, restaurant, etc. Put up $50-100K to be able to say they were part of it.
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Itās a joke that Fleischman is incensed because Eater didnāt contact him. How? āthe phone was disconnected, website went offline, and Instagram account disappeared, maybe they lost access to the Resy account as well.ā
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People at Eater have Fleischmanās personal phone number.
Instagramās back.
1st time here after reading an article on my Google cards about slow burn closing so fast!! Clicked your link and read it and had to create an account just to post this comment! France is bacon, thatās cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute 
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Welcome!
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