The Man Behind the Curtain

We all know the scene in Wizard of Oz. It’s the great metaphor. Toto pulls back the curtain to expose the great and powerful Oz as a small-town traveling salesman stranded in a strange land, doing his best to make a go of it. Well, aren’t we all?

I was at Heidi’s restaurant the other night. It’s a little bistro on 50th & Bryant, right next to Patina. Third time there. The ambiance is similar to what you might find in New York or Paris, along the lines of another fave, the 112 Eatery in downtown Minneapolis. Dining rooms are smallish with uneven wood floors. The art on the wall is far out, music - eclectic (I love Miles Davis, but I’m not a fan of muffled trumpet-fusion jazz while I’m eating, it’s too noir for me, makes the food seem “weird”), the wait staff is excellent, unobtrusive yet notably attentive. Frank, the maitre’d, is out of an Elmore Leonard novel, constantly busy on the phone, a Mose Allison-cool that says, “I’ve been around blocks you may not be aware exist, and, welcome to Heidi’s.” Speaking of which, she works the room checking and smiling on diners, making sure all is well. What many don’t realize is she’s the namesake, an artist pretending to be a hostess. Heidi is one of the finest pastry chefs in the city, but her genuinely sweet-hearted demeanor hides a modest, bohemian, hard-core foodie. It’s like finding out your waitress is Joanna Newsom.

We ate our bodies… full. Vegetarian Bolognese (coming off the menu for the summer), beet ravioli, chicken lollipops, crab spring roll with jalapeno poppers, guinea hen… then the waiter asks if we’d like to meet chef Stewart Woodman… the great and powerful Oz. We enter the tiny kitchen, steam rising, pots banging, guys hustling past us with utensils in hand ready to stir up foam or savage a root into squares… Stewart, at the oven sweating, splattered with God knows what, has a look in his eye that would light a firecracker fuse from 10 feet. He gazes up from the din, breathing a sigh at the pause in the action and says “hello.” Perfect. The guy behind the curtain. I’m thinking, no one out there in the dining room knows the effort or the talent Stewart and Heidi have to employ to create the beautiful food they’re enjoying.

It’s a river of truth that runs through most businesses.

People just do not have an appreciation for the art, the process or the effort that goes into the creation of a product or the running of a business. Those of us in business pull levers and push buttons, hoping that someone will buy. Consumers see that great and powerful Oz up there in the smoke and the hissing, not knowing there’s a frazzled guy in a slightly frayed suit over there, behind that curtain, trying to make magic and a living.