Sure, you could knock elbows with all the other power brokers in town at The Capital Grille or Del Frisco’s Double Eagle. But you’ll score plenty of points if you take your business lunch to one of these friendlier and more affordable, but equally businessworthy spots.
Trinity Grille
This downtown stalwart, across the street from the Brown Palace Hotel, is a low-risk, high-payoff bet for any business lunch. The Trinity is not so expensive that you’ll annoy your accounting department, and it’s not so exclusive that you can’t get a table. But the food will satisfy. Old-timers will feel at ease in the boxing-themed dining room, younger business-lunchers will pick up on the kitsch factor, and everyone will love the crab cake.
The crab cake is exactly what you should order: sophisticated and relatively healthful, but also familiar and honest. Trinity Grille’s version is flavorful, fresh, buttery and easy to eat. Also good: the Caesar salad, which is served chopped at Trinity. This means you won’t launch anchovy debris across the table while slicing through a monstrous leaf of Romaine.
Also tasty: Waylon’s green chile. But skip the French-fried lobster. Really. No one needs a French-fried lobster for lunch. Save this over-the-top dish for a suppertime visit.
Trinity Grille, 1801 Broadway, Denver, 303-293-2288
Yia Yia’s Eurocafe
Nothing on the Mediterranean-inflected menu at the popular Tech Center hangout Yia Yia’s is a stretch. These are all things you’ve seen before: goat cheese bruschetta, Cobb salad, grilled turkey burger with fontina. But clear, non-challenging cuisine is exactly what you want your lunch to be: Easy, comfortable and nourishing. Talking shop for an hour is taxing enough, why burden yourself with unfamiliar food? On a nice day, take a seat on the patio; after all, lunch hour isn’t just about lunch, it’s about fresh air.
Order the four-cheese pizza with roasted garlic and red onion marmalade but use your fork and knife; this is a business lunch, after all. Also good: bacon-wrapped salmon over spinach, and the Greek salad with or without grilled chicken.
Don’t get the Moroccan barbecue skewers. You’ll end up wearing it, and food stains never help you get the contract.
Yia Yia’s Eurocafe, 8310 E. Belleview Ave., Greenwood Village, 303-741-1110
LUNCH DOS
Some local business professionals share some business lunch “do’s” from years spent power-lunching their way to success.
DO pay for the meal if you are the one who has asked the client out to lunch. Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, 51, always has found it tough discerning who should pick up the tab, largely because he feared offending the guest who has graciously offered to pay. The decision vexed him when he worked as an executive cop in New York because he didn’t have an expense account and it was sometimes harder to find the dollars to wine and dine staff and elected officials. “Now that I have a modest spending account in Aurora, I pay and it makes conducting business easier,” Oates says. “But I want you to know I’m having lunch with (Denver Police Chief) Gerry Whitman next week, and I fully intend to have him pay!”
DO be prepared. Before a meal with a new client, most likely a new advertiser for her newspaper, publisher Rosalynd “Bee” Harris, 55, does background research about her client, gathering information about interests and hobbies, their involvement in boards or organizations and a few details about their family. Harris is trying to find common ground with her clients that spark casual conversation and avoid awkward silences during the lunch. “Business is about building relationships,” Harris says. “I have found that a person is more likely to do business with you if they like you. The client will feel more at ease if you take the time to get to know them.”
DO make yourself familiar with the restaurant, its owners and wait staff. Investigating several restaurants, becoming a regular and befriending the owners and staff gave Maria Garcia Berry a sense of control as a female working in the male-dominated industry of lobbying. Berry, 52, CEO of the CRL public affairs lobbying firm, says she knew where she would get the best service and the best tables, and she remembered which would honor her reservations so her clients were never kept waiting. “If I thought a male client had been drinking too much and was about to get funky with me, I could excuse myself and tell the maitre d’ to stick his head in on us every once in a while,” Berry says. “Salvaging the situation with some grace and orchestrating a lot of interruptions at the table works.”
DO pay with a credit card instead of cash. Darius Lee Smith, 38, director of the Denver Anti-Discrimination office, used to follow Suze Orman’s advice about always paying with cash to keep his budget in check. “But I’m transitioning to the (credit) card now because it is less cumbersome and makes it easier for you to report business expenses for deductions,” Smith says. Etiquette expert Robin Jay adds that paying with cash creates a “let’s all chip in attitude” that may make your client feel obligated to help. Provide your credit card to the maitre d’ prior to seating so the handling of the check will be seamless.
– Sheba R. Wheeler
LUNCH DON’TS
Local business executives pinpoint some “don’ts” that could irk clients and prevent them from doing business with you.
DON’T be late. Colorado Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera, 49, used to have a bad habit of being late to his lunch appointments. When morning meetings ran over, he felt obligated to stay until the meeting ended. Now, he and his assistant plan ahead, stick to meeting times and cut some gatherings short so he can be respectful of his lunch clients’ time as well as his own. “People either forgetting about a lunch appointment or showing up 15 or 20 minutes late is really irritating, so I try to be on time or a little early,” Rivera says. “I also let people know that I have to leave early so they aren’t surprised or insulted.”
DON’T talk on your cellphone, and put your CrackBerries – we mean BlackBerries – away. Rock concert promoter Chuck Morris, 60, has learned to disconnect himself from his phone even though he says it’s emotionally trying for him. As president of the Live Nation Denver (formerly Chuck Morris Presents Clear Channel Entertainment), his 24-hour-a- day business revolves around accessibility to pull the hottest acts into the city, including U2, the Rolling Stones and the Dave Matthews Band. “Turning off my cell and Blackberry is like pulling a plug on my lifeline, but I try to do it,” Morris says. “I’m trying to make some business here. It’s disconcerting for clients to have my phone go off, and it’s irritating for me to have them be staying on their own phone half the time too. If I’m expecting an emergency call to come through, I will let clients know that the phone is on, but other than that, the phone is off.”
DON’T ever get drunk in front of a client. Few can bounce back from such a lapse in judgment. You could get too comfortable and say the wrong thing. Robin Jay, author of “The Art of the Business Lunch: Building Relationships between 12 and 2,” advocates for a cocktail or glass of wine, drinking with moderation, making sure to eat something and have coffee. “You aren’t trying to become this person’s best friend,” adds Jacqueline Whitmore, author of “Business Class: Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work.” “You are there for business purposes. As the host, take your drinking cues from your guest. If my guest isn’t going to drink, then you refrain from drinking.”
DON’T get too personal. Whitmore counsels against sharing intimate details about your family, life, work and office gossip. You don’t want to be perceived as the town crier or be seen as someone who can’t be trusted. Revealing too much about yourself could shine a light on your vulnerabilities or faults, and you want to appear confident and competent. “You may have just gotten divorced and are having trouble dealing with your teenagers,” Whitmore says. “People may seem interested, but they really don’t want to hear all that.”
DON’T get right down to business. Avoid the common blunder of pouncing on prospects. Wait until after the order has been placed before you talk shop. Instead, make conversation, focus on developing a relationship, ask questions that will let you learn about each other and swap stories before moving on to business. “You become a human being in the client’s eyes. You start to relate to each other,” Jay says. “Something magical happens when you break bread with someone.”
– Sheba R. Wheeler
